steel and iron weaponry of the american natives.........

[mross]

Originally Posted by Andrew

I am unaware of any Native American steel or iron weapons predating the arrival of Europeans (16th century). By that time, the majority of Native American technology was stone-age, with the noteable exception of Tlingit copper-working in the Pacific Northwest.

A nice book is Colin F. Taylor's, Native American Weapons, Salamander Books, Ltd., United Kingdom (2001) ISBN 0-8061-3346-5.

I agree with Andrew. Most of what people think of Native American weapons, in particuliar the tomahawk where in fact trade items. Ditto for their knives. Most auctions that deal with Native American artifacts never mention steel weapons. A case inpoint that was in a thread here recently was a knife and sheath from ebay, the knife was not even mentioned. What was for sale was the beadwork decorated sheath. My main intrests are in ancient metallurgy, so it would be nice if the US had a history of it, but so far I have not found any.

[Battara]

Many steel bladed NW Coast knives were made of the traded Russian steel or even made of work out files. Again, as mentioned earlier, these were of the 19th century period. You can also look at older Sotheby's and Butterfield's auctions for these examples.

[David]

Perhaps this is more of what you are looking for. It is one of two daggers made of meteoric ore and is said to go back 10 generations. I believe it is currently in the hands of Harold Jacobs, a Tlingit cultural specialist whose family had been the caretakers of this piece for some time. It was recently returned to his tribe by a museum.The dagger, called Keet Gwalaa (Killer whale dagger) is 27" in length. The copper binding the hilt is on very tight. It appears to be made in two pieces joined at the hilt.