Javelin, or Indian Shemagon or Spear

Spear-heads - Plate 26
Spear-heads – Plate 26

This antique implement was one of the most efficacious, in close encounters, before the introduction of iron weapons.

A fine specimen of it was brought to me, at Michillimackinac, in (August) 1837, by a noted chief, called MUKONS E-WYON, or the Little Bear Skin, of the Manistee river of the northern peninsula. The following is a facsimile of it. (Plate 26, Figure 2.) The material is of a yellowish chert. It is seven inches long, and one and a half wide at the lower end, which is chipped thin to admit the splints by which it was fastened to the staff.

The length of the pole or staff could only be conjectured, and was probably five feet. The chief said, on presenting it, that it was one of the old implements of his ancestors.

Figures 1, 3, 4, Plate 26, are foe-similes of several fine specimens of spearheads, now in possession of the National Institute, Washington, D. C.


Topics:
Weapons,

Collection:
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe. Archives of aboriginal knowledge. Containing all the original paper laid before Congress respecting the history, antiquities, language, ethnology, pictography, rites, superstitions, and mythology, of the Indian tribes of the United States. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1860.

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