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Period pocket whetstone.

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Yeah the double N was a typo on my part. Now a days we all have to use "New speak" George Orwell. Funny thing is- I spend a lot of time on Reservations and guess what they call themselves? And BTW I really like most of the NDNs I have had the pleasure to meet. I like the tribal laws as well- better than ours, IMHO.
OK. So what is the current proper thing to call them? Indians, American Indians, native Americans, indigenous peoples, what?
 
How did they drill the holes without carbide tipped drills or a drill press?
alien technology.jpg
 
I thought everyone knew. Stone Carvers used a percussion method. Like the star drills gold miners used out in California.
 
I always appreciate @Howard Pippin 's comments. Keep 'em coming, Squint!

I found this short article and photo in a back issue of The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Fall 1975), p. 11, and thought it might be of interest to readers of this thread:

View attachment 159128

That oblong object second from the bottom on the left side is a whetstone, and the item in the lower right corner is its rawhide sheath. Using the ruler at the top of the image as a reference, I calculated the whetstone's size at roughly 6" long by about 1.4" wide. I don't know the thickness. Also note the comment in the next to last paragraph: "The ordinary Indian household sharpener was often a flat round polished stone of the type that could be found in mountain streams." Pretty much what Loyalist Dave and Appalachian Hunter were talking about in their posts.

The knife is a big one... using the ruler as a reference again, the blade appears to be about 9.6" long, with a total or overall length of about 15.1". The buckle (or more properly, the "belt plate"), with the eagle facing the viewer's left, looks to me like the Model 1874 Officer's Belt Plate. The text indicates these items were found with a number of Indian head pennies dating from the 1860's to 1882, so this outfit may be a little "late" for the pre-1840 era that interests a lot of forum members. However, I wouldn't be surprised if a whetstone and case like this might have existed 30-40 years earlier.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob
Thanks for the kind words Notchy Bob!
Squint
 
For those who are interested, there are some photos of pieces of five different whetstones recovered from the Batoche battlefield in Saskatchewan on the website for the Gabriel Dumont Institute. Here is a link: Historical Artifacts

You have to scroll pretty far down the page. Look for "Batoche, Whetstone Fragments."

This is actually a big, sprawling website, but if you look around, they have photos of a bunch of other Metis artifacts like fire steels, powder horns, and so forth. It's worth browsing if you have some time to fill in.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob
 
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