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320

described in chapter IV. a groove is [?] in the middle of the head and a shallow pit. drilled for the end of the handle. This particular head is made of a piece of the Sacred pipe stone, "Cottinite." hence the smallness of its size. usually they are made of white quartz. and are three inches in diameter and five or six inches long. Lieutenant George F. Cocho has in his collection a specimen made of the horn of the "Big horn sheep." which is we think unique. The head is fastened to the shaft. by a covering of raw hide. The handle or shaft is a piece of [?] [?]. the end of which enters the pit in the head and "[?]" of the [?] is carried round the head fitting in the groove in the stone. the [?] and handle are bound with sinew. and over all is sewed with sinew or pairs of green raw hide. which when it dries binds the whole together as firmly as a rock. The Mandan indians. made a war club by taking a rounded stone of the required size and covering the entire head in raw hide. The end upper end of the raw hide of the handle is [?] and to this is attached the ornaments. This consists of a "rosette" of feathers" . in the center of which is a tassle of white wool as additional ornament is put a loop of raw hide wrapped with read. blue. and yellow. porcupine Quills. To hang it by a buckskin loop is attached to the end of the raw hide. In a contemporary work written by a gentleman who certainly knows whereof he speaks. is a picture of an impliment [sic] of stone covered with raw hide and having a short handle. which is described as a "Sioux War Club," it is in reality a picture of a "pemican pounder". and the only war in which such a short range weapon could be used is the domestic war in a teepee. The author most likely did not [?] the subject or such an inexcusable error had not been put in. ☉

  In the war among themselves and with other indians Natives a war club armed with steel or iron blades was used.   In the Cooks Collection is one with a revolver handle made of tough wood. and armed with two steel knife blades. projecting about six inches. from the body of the club..  such a weapon would make a dangerous thing in the hands of an infuriated inidian and such they in reality were.  Other forms of the war club exist some with a blade projecting from [?] cut on the end of the club.

☉This war club was one that belonged to one of Sitting Bulls. band. and was taken with him when they were captured a few years ago and now at Fort Randall. as "Prisoners of war".