simple as it is and ill fitted for the purpose, they threw the lances 40 or more yards with a swiftness and steadyness truley surprizing; the knob being hookd into a small dent made in the top of the lance they held it over their shoulder and shaking it an instant as balancing threw it with the greatest ease imaginable. The neatest of these throwing sticks that we saw were made of a hard reddish wood polish[d] and shining; their sides were flat and about 2 inches in breadth and the handle or part to keep it from dropping out of the hand coverd with thin layers of polished bone very white; these I beleive to be the things which many of our people were deceivd by imagining them to be wooden swords,