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Stories By Dennis J."IF they could only talk"

Was searching a couple of years back on my place. There is a seasonal creek that runs through one end of my pasture. It used to be a live water creek years back before the water table lowered due to farming. Had heard from the guy I bought it from that one of the local tribes back in the 1800 used to hunt and camp in the area near this creek as well as white hunters and settlers. My place is the original homestead and I bought it from the family whose ancestor homesteaded it.

So I went out there one day to see what I could find with my detector at the time, an MXT. Which I dont have any more and I regret it...but thats another story. Anyway,
I was searching this one spot in all metal mode and had been getting nothing but some farm trash.

Went over a few feet away just to try a different spot and almost right away got a loud signal at about 8 inches. Centered and started digging. About 9 or 10 inches down I finally found this rifle ball. While checking it over and cleaning off some of the dirt I happened to glance down in the hole and found the item to the left of the ball in the photo sticking point first out of the side. It was interesting enough for me to pull it out to discover it was an arrowhead.. This interested me enough to look around some more and on top of the dirt from the hole, lo and behold another arrowhead.

Two arrowheads found in the same spot, along with a rifle ball. Now what is interesting about this, and why I wish these could talk. The rifle ball has teeth marks in it, and is a bit out of round but It doesnt look like its been fired. And it has a small chunk missing in one spot. The other thing, I havent measured it, but actually it looks more like a pistol ball than a rifle ball in size. Not sure what caliber it would be. Maybe a 44 cal size.

So, why were these all right within inches of each other, why the teeth marks on the ball, why the arrowheads.

So lets hear some theories.......I have my own thoughts on it. Like I said...if they could only talk.

Here are the arrowheads and the ball.

[attachment 152164 arrowheads.jpg]

The arrowhead to the left was the one I found down in the hole, the one on the right was on top of the dirt I took out of the hole.

[attachment 152167 IMG_2866.JPG]

This is the now dry creekbed and I the hole I dug was to the left in the foreground up out of the bed. Its seasonal now but used to be a live creek back in the 20's and before.
 
I think i would have to assume that they were dropped by an Indian or........the pistol ball was used to bite on whilst the victim removed the arrowheads?

Well done story!:thumbup:
 
I'm taking a wild guess at it. The guy got shot with the arrows and wanted it out. So he bit down on the bullet and got them out. Dropped them on the ground and headed for help. Its a wild guess and mostly from reading old cowboy stories and them saying that they let the guy bite down on the bullet. Not sure if dieing of lead poison is any better but who knows....

Nice place there. How many sheep do you have? Ever find any other arrow heads in that creek bed?

Welcome aboard the forum.

George-CT
 
Hi all, I found one other aarowhead, a broken one about a 100 feet up towards the house. It was split almost lengthways...I still have it, will see about throwing a photo of it on tomorrow. Found it by accident, like the others. Was looking for guinea nests...my guineas were laying all over that pasture...Weeds and grass were alot taller at the time. So I was watching the ground. Looks alot like the one on the right...similar looking anyway, which is what caught my eye. It was laying right on top in the middle of the creekbed. I figure it got washed out of the ground by the water run in a previous rain.

This area had several tribes in it way back, it was contested ground...One was the Lakota, and I misremeber the other tribe at the moment but they were nasties for sure. They were slaughtered by white soldiers and civilian volunteers in a battle about 40 miles to the west of my place. I will look up the details later and post them here. My brain is fried at the moment. Been a long, long day.

George, I have right now only 4 sheep left of that flock in the photo. Sold most of them off last fall. I had went from 23 ewes to around 50 lambs plus the ewes last spring. That was enough for me. Thats the number I had started with. Almost half of the ewes had triplets. Anyway, decided to only keep enough to replace the older ewes this spring and for the meat. Figure to go to a different breed of sheep. Right now anyway, just the 4, 3 ewes and my ram, Homer. He is a pet...mostly...long as he isnt trying to knock me into next year. <sigh> He weighs almost 300 pounds...is huge...and likes to bushwack you if you dont keep an eye on him. He loves being petted and scratched. Just dont turn your back on him. He is all ram.

You both thought of pretty much the same thing as I did about the bal and the arrowheads. The stone heads combined with the ball, date it I think to the 1820's to 1840's before much settlement in this area other than hunters. Prob off on the date range. After much exposure to white men, most of the tribes were using arrowheads made from scrap metal thrown out by the hunters, settlers, etc. Even tin cans though like any society, there were the purists who prefered the old ways. But the ball shows that settlers or hunters...whatever had been here in some way. My property was homesteaded in the late 1890's close to 1900.

There was a town for a time about a mile to the south east of my place..and a church was all that was left of it until it closed in 1964, I think it was. There was a one room school house about 1/2 a mile away to the north until the 1950's. Nothing left of either any more.
 
you might be in the South Dakota area or Wyoming. Only reason I guess that is while we were out west, we stopped at a lot of different Indian points of interest and the Lakota were there selling their items or doing the dances. I was really impressed with all of it. I found once we got out into the back country, with the big open areas, and n o people ones imagination could run wild. I really enjoyed the quiet of that area. Sheep are still a being raised a lot back east here. Seems most that want to be gentle men farmers raise them here. big thing at the fairs in the fall. Not far from me is and place called the Golden Lamb. Its not just whats left of the big sheep farm and them turned it into a high end country restaurant. They still have lambs and donkeys but its more for the patrons to look at.

George-CT
 
I am in the NE part of Colorado. About 40 miles south of where Fort Sedgwick was. The location made famous in that movie...oh, what was the name of it. Bout the soldier who went native. Criminy...my mind is going I think anymore. Anyway, the Lakota's range used to extend down into northern Colorado. This area was disputed territory. The Pawanee and other tribes used to fight over the area too.

The battleground to the west of me was the Summit Springs Battle. Supposedly the last major battle against the indians in the state. That was in 1865, and the same year there was another one about 50 miles to the SE of us...called the Beecher Island Battleground now. The Summit Springs battleground is on private land. They used to allow people to go on there and metal detect but they have stopped it in recent years because of people digging and leaving holes. They have cattle on there and holes left are like gopher holes and can break legs, etc.
The last time I talked to the lady that owned the place was adamant about not letting anyone on there any more. That was 5 years ago. Dont know how they feel now.

The Beecher Island site I am not familiar with so dont know if the state owns it or if its on private property.

Another battle site is called the Natural Fort and is just off I-25 in the northern part of the state. Its about 35 miles south of Cheyenne. Actually, its on both sides of the highway. They used to have a rest stop there and you were allowed to climb on and explore the rocks. But they stopped that due to vandalisim. Now its all fenced off, or was, the last time I was by there and is posted no treaspasing. I dont know if the state owns it or if its private. I think though the state owns the part on the east side of the highway. Its the largest part. Its a huge natural rock formation that makes a perfect fort....hence the name. The battle that took place there though was between two tribes of Indians. I found an arrowhead there back when I was a youngster. It was broken, but that was a rare find for that spot.

Hope yall injoyed a little bit of our local history.
 
Great story.... and I would have to go with Wayne and Georges hypotheses..... Nothing else makes as much sense.

That one to the right almost has an obsidian look to it.. Is it?

nice story

welcome to the forum

Calms seas

Micheal
 
Thanks for the welcome.

Yea, I have to agree. Their version of the possible circumstances likely come close to what happened. Too logical.

I think that one on the could be obsidian, but the color is different. The photo makes it darker than it really is. Its more brown. Could be a type of flint. The working on it was pretty good. The tip is broken off. Could it have happened when it struck whoever it was stuck into. <shrug> Or it could have broken later. I might even have broken it since I wasnt digging for arrowheads at the time.

But the scenerio painted is logical. A wounded indian, maybe even a soldier or settler. Logical location. Water to clean and wash the wound, water for drinking. Water to cool any fever. It did use to be a live stream. And there were likely trees all along it in that area for shade and protection as well, wood for a fire. Further up the creek bed there are still trees though many have died. Trees that are/were a 100 years old or more.

I have another couple of items I will post about sometime soon. See if they are as interesting.
 
That was it....Dances with Wolves. I could not remember that for the life of me at the time. Yep, that was the one. Although it was mostly fiction, it was based on a small amount of fact. One, the so called fort that the guy went to was the Fort at Sedgwich. And he ran into some Lakota, And the dates were close...sorta, and the dates that they mention in the ending about when the indians would lose their lands and many their freedom. . So.....about 3 minutes of non fiction....the rest total fiction. But thats about par for much stuff from Hollywood.
 
Ok, I refreshed my memory on the battles that took place around here..at least the more famous ones. The Summit Springs and Beecher Island battles were both fought with the Cheyenne tribes. The Summitt Springs was the battle that broke their power and finally brought an end to most of the raids on settlers in the area. Buffalo Bill Cody was a scout for the army and took part in the battle at Summit Springs.

I enjoyed reading up on them. It had been a long time and I had forgotten a lot of information. Guess that comes with age. Hadn't realized how much I had forgotten.

Anyway, I hope to get back out and do some digging in a new spot I have picked out, as soon as the ground thaws that is. We just had another cold snap and looked at the thermometer and it hit zero this morning. So no detecting for looks like at least a week. Oh well.

Going to go through my small collection and post a couple of them later. Some interesting finds. Not as interesting as this one, but what the heck.
 
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