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

[Jeff D]

Apparently the earliest travellers to the northern west coast found both copper and iron in use. Copper most likely was mined and Iron and steel was probably salvaged from ship wrecks and drifting debris. (Coe, Swords and Hilt Weapons Pg.218). I have accumulated a number of photo's over the years, unfortunately I can't remember all their origins. 1) copper blade, 2) Iron blade 3) Russian bayonet, 4) Sheffield trade blade, 5) double blade.

Jeff

[Flavio]

The last one, double blade, is simply beautiful!!!!

[ausjulius]

realy very attractive knives,
the blade shapes and handle decoration had a very natural look , i find these far mor eattractive than many other ethnic weaponry,, they have somehow a natural , but brutal look

very nice daggers,

its interesting that they developed their own style different form the blades they obtained,
would you thhink they had been making them for along time , otherwise theyed be much mor einfluenced by the trade blades,

it is also interesting that these seem made fistly for fighting not for hunting or general use,

[Tim Simmons]

I am of the opinion that certain native nations in the Americas clearly had considerable knowledge and practice with metals. Some of the knives may have been influenced by more general flint and bone daggers. The arrival of iron and steel just adding to the material these artists had to explore. I recently saw a documentary about a type of flint blade found all over the Americas that was only supposed to be in Europe and people were getting pretty hot under the collar about it. Some interesting hypothesis were battled over but no one would consider universality of function and maturity of design.

[fearn]

Hi All,

Actually, I think there's one interesting fact that's left out of here:

there were two groups of native Americans who did have iron, although they seldom used it for weapons, other than perhaps harpoon, spear, and arrow tips.

Both the Inuit and the Dorset people who preceeded them used iron that they broke off three large meteorites that were found at Cape York. They cold-hammered the iron pieces into useable shapes. In effect, there was an "Arctic iron age" using stone-age technology.

About a month ago, I finished reading McGhee's Ancient Peoples of the Arctic which is a fun book if you like archeology.

Figured I should throw that in there. A bigger puzzle is why no one in the Andes learned how to use iron, given that it's relatively common in the cordillera.

F

[Yanyeidi]

Here's another dagger from Angoon. This was isn't as old as the Killer Whale Dagger. This one is called Xoots Gwalaa (Brown Bear Dagger). It has abalone inlay in the eyes. It was returned to the Bear Clan by a museum in 1999.

[FenrisWolf]

Originally Posted by Yanyeidi

Here's another dagger from Angoon. This was isn't as old as the Killer Whale Dagger. This one is called Xoots Gwalaa (Brown Bear Dagger). It has abalone inlay in the eyes. It was returned to the Bear Clan by a museum in 1999.

Say, do you suppose if someone had their geneaology mapped out well enough to trace their ancestry back to medeival times, they could start knocking on the doors of some of the European museums with big arms collections and demanding the return of their cultural heritage? "Yeah, I want that billhook, targe, claymore and dirk, they were all looted from my people after Culloden...."