Tikchik village: a nineteenth century riverine community in ... - Cluster

300 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 56A most unusual implement is a hammer with a claw at one endand a flat but extremely narrow hammering surface at the other.The haft opening, in which a section of cottonwood handle is still inplace, is so located that the claw end extends well above the handlebut the hammering surface is only a few centimeters below it (PL 9,11) .Such an implement must have been rather awkward to use. A rattailedfile, triangular in cross-section, was also recovered (PL 9,6).An end hladed knife has a commercially made, two-piece woodenhandle which is held to the proximal end of the blade by a series ofrivets (PL 9,9).Five end hladed knife blades are difficult to distinguishfrom those that were described under the heading of locallymanufactured goods. However, these are constructed from heaviermetal and are generally so well made as to suggest that they wereimported to the site as finished knives with wooden handles similarto the specimen just described. Four are long thin blades that areflat along the upper surface and then taper toward the sharp cuttingedge (PL 9,io). The fifth is spatulate in shape and may have beenmade in the village by hammering out one end of a short, rectangularfragment (PL 9,3). A handle fragment of a folding or jack knife wasalso recovered (PL 9,2).The badly corroded, fragmentary remains of two large tea kettlesrepresent specimens which were round and tapered toward the rim.The spouts were separate pieces held in place by rivets. These havedisappeared and only a triangular pattern of small holes remains toindicate their position. The collection of household equipment alsoincludes a single kettle lid which was at one time fitted with a smallwooden knob, a complete teaspoon (PL 10,9), and fragments of sixothers, a battered enameled pie tin, a scissors handle fragment(PL 10,4), two badly corroded scissors blade fragments, a small brassthimble (PL 10,6), and a,ferrule (PL 10,io) which possibly fitted oversome kind of wooden handle, perhaps that of a broom.Gun parts in the Tikchik collection are confined almost entirelyto the metal fittings from what appear to be a single weapon. Theseconsist of a nearly complete flintlock assemblage including the lock(PL 10,1) itself, trigger mechanism, decorative sideplate (PL 10,12),trigger guard (PL 10,13), and butt plate (PL 10,2). The lock has arounded, gooseneck type hammer with reinforced pan. Stamped onthe lock plate directly in front of the hammer and below the pan isa two-line marking, the top line of which is illegible. The second linecontains the single word "ARTICULA." All the gun parts describedabove were found in a position which suggests that the wooden parts