For those who did not know it, here is what makes Catlin's flintknapping account distinct from others:
"Travelling to the American West five times during the 1830s, Catlin was the first white man to depict Plains Indians in their native territory."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_CatlinCatlin would have witnessed the two man flaking technique, with indirect percussion, practically a full century before the flintknapping baton was invented in an English laboratory, in the 1930's.
Also, Catlin would have witnessed the two man flaking technique around thirty years before Flint Jack made is steel hammer forgeries, in England.
He saw the two man flaking technique, forty years before it was proposed that the English gunflint knappers offered a viable model of flintknapping, in the 1870's.
Catlin learned of the two man flaking operation before a theory about flintknapping had even been developed.
And, while Catlin's primary description of reduction covers stone maul use (direct percussion), the secondary flaking aspects of the flaking process involved punch flaker use (indirect percussion).
"Like most of the tribes west of and in the Rocky Mountains, they manufacture the blades of their spears and points for their arrows of flints, and also of obsidian, which is scattered over those volcanic regions west of the mountains; and, like the other tribes, they guard as a profound secret the mode by which the flints and obsidian are broken into the shapes they require.
"Their mode is very simple, and evidently the only mode by which those delicate fractures and peculiar shapes can possibly be produced; for civilized artisans have tried in various parts of the world, and with the best of tools, without success in copying them."
"Every tribe has its factory, in which these arrow-heads are made, and in those, only certain adepts are able or allowed to make them, for the use of the tribe."
Erratic boulders of flint are collected (and sometimes brought an immense distance), and broken with a sort of sledge-hammer, made of a rounded pebble of horn-stone, set in a twisted withe, holding the stone, and forming a handle."
"The flint, at the indiscriminate blows of the sledge, is broken into a hundred pieces, and such flakes selected as, from the angles of their fracture and thickness, will answer as the basis of an arrow-head."
"The master workman, seated on the ground, lays one of these flakes on the palm of his left hand, holding it firmly down with two or more fingers of the same hand, and with his right hand, between the thumb and two fore-fingers, places his chisel (or punch) on the point that is to be broken off; and a cooperator (a striker) sitting in front of him, with a mallet of very hard wood, strikes the chisel (or punch) on the upper end, flaking the flint off on the under side, below each projecting point that is struck. The flint is then turned and chipped in the same manner from the opposite side, and so turned and chipped until the required shape and dimensions are obtained, all the fractures being made on the palm of the hand."
"In selecting a flake for the arrowhead, a nice judgment must be used, or the attempt will fail: a flake with two opposite parallel, or nearly parallel, planes is found, and of the thickness required for the centre of the arrow-point. The first chipping reaches near to the centre of these planes, but without quite breaking it away, and each chipping is shorter and shorter, until the shape and the edge of the arrow-head are formed."
"The yielding elasticity of the palm of the hand enables the chip to come off without breaking the body of the flint, which would be the case if they were broken on a hard substance. These people have no metallic instruments to work with, and the instrument (punch) which they use, I was told, was a piece of bone ; but on examining it, I found it to be a substance much harder, made of the tooth (incisor) of the sperm-whale, which cetaceans are often stranded on the coast of the Pacific. This punch is about six or seven inches in length, and one inch in diameter, with one rounded side and two plane sides ; therefore presenting one acute and two obtuse angles, to suit the points to be broken.
This operation is very curious, both the holder and the striker singing, and the strokes of the mallet given exactly in time with the music, and with a sharp and rebounding blow, in which, the Indians tell us, is the great medicine (or mystery) of the operation." (Last Rambles among the Indians, Catlin).
By the way, in Catlin's account that was published, his thoughts appear a bit "scattered". And, it makes it hard to follow his train of thought. For example, he covers creating the spalls, via the use of a stone maul, as a sledge. But, he then jumps forward to the process of manufacture. And, later, reverts back to selecting a flake to be used.
Also, he speaks of the fractures being made on the palm of the hand, as a detail of manufacture. But, then he reverts to selecting a flake to be used.
My *guess* is that his writings/notes may have originally been on separate sheets of paper, that were later collated. And, what appears to be a "scattered train of thought", might actually be a sign of mis-collation. The original text may have read like this:
"Like most of the tribes west of and in the Rocky Mountains, they manufacture the blades of their spears and points for their arrows of flints, and also of obsidian, which is scattered over those volcanic regions west of the mountains; and, like the other tribes, they guard as a profound secret the mode by which the flints and obsidian are broken into the shapes they require.
"Their mode is very simple, and evidently the only mode by which those delicate fractures and peculiar shapes can possibly be produced; for civilized artisans have tried in various parts of the world, and with the best of tools, without success in copying them."
"Every tribe has its factory, in which these arrow-heads are made, and in those, only certain adepts are able or allowed to make them, for the use of the tribe.
Erratic boulders of flint are collected (and sometimes brought an immense distance), and broken with a sort of sledge-hammer, made of a rounded pebble of horn-stone, set in a twisted withe, holding the stone, and forming a handle."
"The flint, at the indiscriminate blows of the sledge, is broken into a hundred pieces, and such flakes selected as, from the angles of their fracture and thickness, will answer as the basis of an arrow-head."
"In selecting a flake for the arrowhead, a nice judgment must be used, or the attempt will fail: a flake with two opposite parallel, or nearly parallel, planes is found, and of the thickness required for the centre of the arrow-point.
"The master workman, seated on the ground, lays one of these flakes on the palm of his left hand, holding it firmly down with two or more fingers of the same hand, and with his right hand, between the thumb and two fore-fingers, places his chisel (or punch) on the point that is to be broken off; and a cooperator (a striker) sitting in front of him, with a mallet of very hard wood, strikes the chisel (or punch) on the upper end, flaking the flint off on the under side, below each projecting point that is struck.
The first chipping reaches near to the centre of these planes, but without quite breaking it away, and each chipping is shorter and shorter, until the shape and the edge of the arrow-head are formed."
The flint is then turned and chipped in the same manner from the opposite side, and so turned and chipped until the required shape and dimensions are obtained, all the fractures being made on the palm of the hand."
"The yielding elasticity of the palm of the hand enables the chip to come off without breaking the body of the flint, which would be the case if they were broken on a hard substance.
These people have no metallic instruments to work with, and the instrument (punch) which they use, I was told, was a piece of bone ; but on examining it, I found it to be a substance much harder, made of the tooth (incisor) of the sperm-whale, which cetaceans are often stranded on the coast of the Pacific. This punch is about six or seven inches in length, and one inch in diameter, with one rounded side and two plane sides ; therefore presenting one acute and two obtuse angles, to suit the points to be broken.
This operation is very curious, both the holder and the striker singing, and the strokes of the mallet given exactly in time with the music, and with a sharp and rebounding blow, in which, the Indians tell us, is the great medicine (or mystery) of the operation." (Last Rambles among the Indians, Catlin).
The way that I re-constructed the sentences leads to greater cohesion, as opposed to bouncing back and forth between ideas that are not in sequential order. I guess one would need to see the original manuscript, to know for sure.
