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  • Table of Contents

    • Part 1: First Nations of the Peace River Region
    • Part 2: The Fur Trade Era
    • Part 3: Transportation and Communication
    • Part 4: Old Timers and the Price of Land
    • Part 5: Dawson Creek: The Story of the Community
    • Part 6: Mysteries, Adventures and Indian Legends
    • Part 7: Arts, Crafts and Recreation
    • Part 8: Agriculture
    • Part 9: Church Histories
    • Part 10: Schools
    • Part 11: Health Care
    • Part 12: Industries and Enterprises
    • Part 13: Policing the Peace
    • Part 14: Pouce Coupe, Rolla, and Other South Peace Communities
    • Part 15: Chetwynd and the Fort St. John Area
    • Part 16: The Alberta Peace
    • Part 17: Natural History of the Peace River Region
    • Part 18: Interviews with Old Timers
    • Part 19: Remembering Our Veterans

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01-081: Two Curious Peace River Indian Artifacts

 
By Dorthea Calverley
 
Two artifacts observed in the extensive Indian collection of Mr. Hackworth in 1973 in Dawson Creek prompted the question: “Were the local Indians congenitally or functionally left handled.”

Both objects showed simple adaptation of a natural pebble by working “dints” in the surface to fit the fingers of an adult, but of only the one hand. The darker stone veined with white seams, fitted only the left hand. The light-colored, rounded pebble fitted only the right hand. Only when these artifacts were identified by a knowledgeable Indian did this contradiction become challenging. The dark stone was identified as a pounding stone. The other was a paint-pot. Usually a person would pound dry-meat for pemmican with the right hand. When the fingers of the left hand were fitted to the dintsor pockets, the four fingers fitted naturally into four places that were obviously carefully located so that the little finger was somewhat up on the side of the stone, as was the thumb. When grasped by the right hand, the thumb would lie on the underside of the stone, and render the implement useless as a pounder. These observations led to the surmise that the artifact had been purposely adapted for a left-handed worker.

This article was found near Lesser Slave Lake in the early 1900’s.

The most conspicuous work on the porous light-colored stone was a deep pit angling into the body of the stone. Five other shallow dints had been clearly worked into the surfaces. An Indian identified the article as a paint-pot.

On the assumption that a normal person would use the right forefinger to apply designs, we held the pot in the left hand. The thumb and three fingers fell naturally into four of the dints, but the little finger had to be awkwardly spread to find the fifth dint and the pebble was insecurely supported. The paint reservoir was shallow.

Transferred to the right hand, its five depressions were in position to receive the four fingers well spread out, and the thumb where it held the stone securely and naturally. The paint chamber was now deeper and slanted to fit the left fore-finger for scooping up the pigment, as we discovered when we mixed some red clay from a seam (found near Hudson’s Hope in the river bank) with some rendered suet fat. Clearly, the owner applied his body paint with his left hand.

A left-handed pemmican maker and a left-handed artist? Common, or coincidental?

« 01-079: Languages of the Native People of the Peace River Area

01-082: The Cree Calendar »

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