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FISH-HOOKS FROM Southern CALIFORNIA*

Stephen Bowers

In plates xi and xii of Lieut. Wheeler's Report on archaeology
there are several drawings of ornaments found near Santa Barbara,
Cal., and on the adjacent islands, by Mr. Paul Schumacher and myself,
which the editors are pleased to call fish-hooks. A writer in the
Century Magazine for April presents drawings of other specimens of
like character, found by myself in the same locality and now deposited
in the Smithsonian Institution. I have also in my possession. a series
of these ornaments, but it would require a broad stretch of the
imagination to believe that they were intended for fish-hooks. The
point, which in many instances curves downward, comes so near the stem
that it would be next to impossible for them to become hooked in a
fish's mouth.· The point of one of my best specimens, manufactured
from the shell of the Haliotis, comes within the sixteenth of an inch
of the stem or shank; and were a line to be looped on the stem and
cemented with asphaltum, as was practiced by the California Indians,
the space would be completely filled. My specimens range in size from
one-half inch to two and a half inches in diameter, and were manufac-
tured from Haliotis shells (fig. 1, p. 75 herein] and from bone [fig. 2].
The first of these ornaments of which I have any knowledge, I found in a
rancheria at Rincon, on the line between Santa Barbara and Ventura
counties; and during five years' subsequent residence at Santa Barbara,
and the exploration of the mainland and islands, I had an opportunity
to study them in every stage of development. I am convinced that, with
few exceptions; they were designed for ornaments, as their shape pre-
clude-s the idea of their use as fish-hooks. They were probably
suspended from the ears, and possibly worn on other portions of the
body. The true fish-hooks of what may be termed the Santa Barbara
Indians have never, to my knowledge, been figured; yet they are more
commonly met with in the rancherias and cementaries 1 in Santa Barbara
1
and Ventura counties than the curved specimens we have been consider-
ing. I send you drawings of two specimens belonging to my cabinet
[figs. 3 and 4]. These hooks were made of two slightly curved pieces
of bone pointed at each end, and firmly tied together at the lower end
and cemented with asphaltum. They are somewhat similar to those still
in use by the South Sea Islanders. The larger specimen I found with a

* Science, o.s., Vol. 1, No. 20, p. 575. Boston, 1883.