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Originally Posted by colin henshaw
Thanks Chris - so its an arrow-straightener !
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Yessir...
And thank you as well, Tim...
It is in fact a Chumash arrow straightener, unusual in being figural in form. The Chumash were the Native American people who inhabited the Channel Islands and the mainland area around present-day Santa Barbara. They were seafaring, semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who routinely navigated the deep waters covering the 50+km distances in their tomols to the Channel Islands and to Catalina Island further south. They were known not just for their accomplished maritime travel but for their steatite/soapstone implements and carvings as well as their basketry. Chumash steatite was traded all over Southern and Central California.
Chumash man ca. 1878
I would presume the Chumash straightener depicts a seal or sea lion, as the general form as well as the renderings of the eyes and mouth resemble several other Chumash lithics I have that unmistakingly portray seal lions and/or seals.
Most arrow straighteners used by the indigenous peoples of Southern California were simple utilitarian objects, or more stylized abstractions based on simple geometric forms. I've attached a photo below of two more arrow straighteners from Southern California; the left-most one was recovered near the home in which I grew up in inland San Diego. The circular one was recovered in Costa Mesa, in the very southern part of coastal Orange County.
The arrow in the photo(s) is Yokut; Yokut territory bordered the Chumash to the NE.