Digging Stick Handle

Item number E2631-0 from the National Museum of Natural History.

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Notes

FROM CARD: "PERFORATED FOR A HANDLE."Peale catalogue entry on artifact identifies it as: "Part of a deers horn [antler], used as a cross head to a stick for digging roots, by the Indian women in Oregon." Such digging stick handles are often made from elk antler. The handle would have been fitted with a sharpened wood stake and typically used by women to dig roots, clams, and other items. Note that this object is mentioned as being used in an exhibit in Berlin in 1880 on p. 148 of USNM Bulletin No. 18.Speculatively, this may have been acquired by the expedition when it was in the Willamette valley of Oregon. Camas root digging sticks are mentioned on p. 234 of "Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition," Charles Wilkes, 1845, Vol. V. If it is from that area, again speculatively, it may be from the Kalapuya.Listed on page 47 in "The Exhibits of the Smithsonian Institution at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, California, 1915", in section "Arts of the Northwest Coast Tribes (Tools)".