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Ojibway "O.sa.wa.bi.ko.mo.ko.mon" "Copper knife" Haupt Coll. & del.

length 4 15/16 inches width 1 " thickness 1/8 "

    The copper knife, or "O.sa.wa.bi.ko.mo.ko.mon" in the Ojibway language of which we give an illustration is one that was exhumed while digging a grave on the shore of Sand Lake in Wisconsin.   It is stated that it was buried with an indian who was interred in the same ground and from the concern about circumstances it would seem reasonable to suppose that this knife had been carried by an Ojibway whose last resting place was disturbed to make room for a second the statement is that it was "three feet beneath the deep surface."   that is exactly the depth of a grave opened at Twin Lake, Michigan and there seems to be little doubt but that the former owner of the specimen was an Ojibway the important question then arises if so, did he make it?  This is not of easy solution;  In 1664 at Pierre Boucher published an account of the manner in which he says the Ojibway indians in Wisconsin procured copper in a certain place is a huge nugget of copper and he says "(as they pan it, they make fires on top of it and then hew pieces out of it with their axes."  Another writer, "Allouez." says that the indian on the South shore of Lake Superior frequently found and carried nuggets of copper he adds "they look upon these as so many divinities or as presents made to them by the gods who are at the bottom of the lake to be the cause of their good fortune."  apropos to this the writer in opening a mound on the shore of one of the northern Wisconsin lakes discovered the crumbling skeleton of an indian dweller and of the"Adujanues"  "Foxes" who had perished in the [?] of  which the mound was the remains and with the loner was a nugget of copper wrapped in buckskin and birch bark.  It would seem however that in this instance the good fortune failed this indian.  In 1730 A.D. LaRonde, an officer at "Chagouanigon Bay" reported that the indians had nuggets of copper but would not reveal the places where it was mined.  L. Simonin "Underground Life"  1869 gives  pictures of the stone hammers used by the "Kayoway" Indians of "North America" in their copper mines.  The fact seems to be that the Ojibway and the indians of the region of Northern Wisconsin did use copper. at the same time it is not clear whether or not they made weapons of that material