Little has been preserved
of the habits with language of the Long Island Indians. They lived
by hunting game and using the fish, claims and oysters from the
waters, to which they added some products of a crude agriculture.
Their knives hatchets and other primitive implements were made from
sharp stones shells etc. which were abandoned when the white men
brought them metal instruments. These were eagerly sought by the
Indians in exchange for skins wampum and even for their land.
These early hatchets made of stone were
not of much use in felling trees and this was done by piling
branches around the trunk of the tree and setting them on fire. This
was kept up until the trunk was burned off water being applied
during the process to prevent burning more of the tree trunk than
was necessary.
In forming their canoes dry branches
were laid along the surface of a log and set on fire which burned
and charred the wood beneath it. The sides were kept wet to preserve
them and the charred surface was frequently scraped out and this
slow process the log was sufficiently hollowed out to form the
inside, and the outside received the same treatment to make the
desired form. Scrapers made of pieces of flint or shells were used
to polish off the work and give it the final finish.
These canoes were usually from 30 to 60
feet long. Hatchets were used to girdle tress which would then soon
die in order to clear the ground for planting corn. Large trees were
left as their stumps drew no fertility from the ground and their
cultivation was done with sharp sticks. For knives they used sharp
pieces odd flint or pieces of bone. Narrow pieces of stone were
fastened to the end of their arrows to form sharpened points these
arrows heads have been found by the thousands through the years.
For pounding maize or corn which was a
common article of food the Indians used stone pestles which were
about a foot long and thick as a man's arm their mortars were made
of the stumps or butts of tress which were astonished when they
first saw the mills used by the white men and when the first wind
mills were set up they came in numbers from long distances to
observe the mills at work. For a long time they believed the mills
was driven by the spirits who lived with in it.
The old kettles of the Indians were
made of a clay composition consisting of dark clay mixed with white
sand or quartz and burnt in fire many of these crude kettles had two
holes near the upper edge on opposite sides through which a stick
could be passed and the kettle was hung over the fire in this way.
The old tobacco pipes were also made of
clay or pot stone the first were shaped like our common pipes and
the stem was thick and short often not more than an inch long
another kind of pipe was made of a very fine red pot stone in a very
skilled manner and were very scarce. These were only used by
the sachems or chiefs and were valued by the Indians higher than
silver. The celebrated "pipe of peace" was made of this material.