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An Inquiry into the Status of the Santa Barbara Spear-Thrower

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Robert F. Heizer
Robert F. Heizer*
Affiliation:
Museum of Anthropology University of California, Berkeley, California
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Extract

When, in November 1793, Vancouver's Discovery, in company with the Chatham and Daedalus, lay off Santa Barbara for eight days, George Goodman Hewett, Surgeon's First Mate, had an opportunity to augment his private ethnographical collections formed during the voyage through the South Seas and along the American west coast. This collection was in private hands until 1891, when it became the property of the British Museum. At this time C. H. Read delivered to the Royal Anthropological Institute (1) a brief historical sketch of the collection and a short description of the more significant items. It is from this paper that we hear first of the Chumash spear-thrower, foreshafted dart with bone barb and flint point, sinew-backed bow, and doublebladed paddle.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , October 1938 , pp. 137 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1938

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Footnotes

I am indebted to Gordon W. Hewes for the drawings.

References

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