I am sure that the plains Indian never made nor used the stone arrow-head.I have heard white men say that they had seen In-dians use them;but I have never found an In-dian that ever used them himself,or knew of their having been used by his people.Thirty years ago I knew Indians,intimately,who were nearly a hundred years old,who told me that the stone arrow-head had never been in use in their day,nor had their fathers used them in their own time.Indians find these arrow-points just as they find the stone mauls and hammers,which I have seen them use thou-sands of times,but they do not make them any more than they make the stone mauls and hammers.In the old days,both the head of the lance and the point of the arrow were of bone;even knives were of bone,but some other people surely made the arrow-points that are scattered throughout the United States and Europe,I am told.
One night I asked War Eagle if he had ever known the use,by Indians,of the stone arrow-head,and he said he had not.He told me that just across the Canadian line there was a small lake,surrounded by trees,wherein there was an island covered with long reeds and grass.All about the edge of this island were willows that grew nearly to the water,but intervening there was a narrow beach of stones.Here,he said,the stone arrow-heads had been made by little ghost-people who lived there,and he assured me that he had often seen these strange little beings when he was a small boy.Whenever his people were camped by this lake the old folks waked the children at daybreak to see the inhabitants of this strange island;and always when a noise was made,or the sun came up,the little people hid away.Often he had seen their heads above the grass and tiny willows,and his grandfather had told him that all the stone arrow-heads had been made on that island,and in war had been shot all over the world,by magic bows.
"No,"he said,"I shall not lie to you,my friend.I never saw those little people shoot an arrow,but there are so many arrows there,and so many pieces of broken ones,that it proves that my grandfather was right in what he told me.Besides,nobody could ever sleep on that island."I have heard a legend wherein OLD-man,in the beginning,killed an animal for the people to eat,and then instructed them to use the ribs of the dead brute to make knives and arrow-points.I have seen lance-heads,made from shank bones,that were so highly polished that they resembled pearl,and I have in my posses-sion bone arrow-points such as were used long ago.Indians do not readily forget their tribal history,and I have photographed a war-bonnet,made of twisted buffalo hair,that was manu-factured before the present owner's people had,or ever saw,the horse.The owner of this bonnet has told me that the stone arrow-head was never used by Indians,and that he knew that ghost-people made and used them when the world was young.
The bow of the plains Indian was from thirty-six to forty-four inches long,and made from the wood of the choke-cherry tree.Sometimes bows were made from the service （or sarvice）berry bush,and this bush furnished the best material for arrows.I have seen hickory bows among the plains Indians,too,and these were longer and always straight,instead of being fashioned like Cupid's weapon.These hickory bows came from the East,of course,and through trading,reached the plains country.I have also seen bows covered with the skins of the bull-snake,or wound with sinew,and bows have been made from the horns of the elk,in the early days,after a long course of preparation.
Before Lewis and Clark crossed this vast country,the Blackfeet had traded with the Hudson Bay Company,and steel knives and lance-heads,bearing the names of English makers,still remain to testify to the relations existing,in those days,between those famous traders and men of the Piegan,Blood,and Blackfoot tribes,although it took many years for traders on our own side of the line to gain their friendship.Indeed,trappers and traders blamed the Hudson Bay Company for the feel-ing of hatred held by the three tribes of Black-feet for the "Americans";and there is no doubt that they were right to some extent,although the killing of the Blackfoot warrior by Captain Lewis in 1805may have been largely to blame for the trouble.Certain it is that for many years after the killing,the Blackfeet kept traders and trappers on the dodge unless they were Hudson Bay men,and in 1810drove the "American"trappers and traders from their fort at Three-Forks.
