THEODORE ORCUTT, HALL OF FAME FLINTKNAPPER # 2 BY: RAY HARWOOD Western Lithics TED ORCUTT KNAPPER OF THE GIANT OBSIDIAN BLADES Ted Orcutt, The Karok Master, King of the Flintknappers. at the he turn of the last century there were many flintknappers working at their craft. One of these knappers stands out among the rest as he carried on a sacred tradition, the white deer knapper. The White Deer knapper had the honor of knapping the massive obsidian blades for the world renewal ceremony known as the White Deer Dance. The White Deer Dance was very a huge undertaking and organizers spent years planning for one event. The event was not only time and labor intensive but was also financially very costly. To make things work out, each tribe took a turn hosting the event that often lasted 3 solid days. The actual dance involved dancers carrying stuffed albino dear skins on polls followed by obsidian dancers that carried a set of two- twin, massive obsidian bi-faced blades tied in the middle with a buck skin thong. He who knapped the sacred, giant, ceremonial blades for the Karok, Hupa and Yurok was a man of honor. The man who last held this honor was known as king of the flintknappers, he was Theodore Orcutt. Theodore Orcutt was born February 25, 1862 near the Karok Indian settlement of Weitchpec on the Klamath River. Weitchpec is now at the upper or north edge of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in northern California. His mother was a full blooded Karok Indian, born at the Karok settlement of Orleans, Oleans is only a short distance from Weitchpec on Hwy 96, his father was a Scotsman. Theodore's father, Albert Stumes Orcutt had fair skin, blue eyes and light hair and was about 5.11 inches tall and ran Orcutt Hydraulic on the South fork of the Salmon River at Methodist creek, Albert came to this area from Maine where he was carpenter, although he had been a sailor earlier in life. Later in life Albert had a small farm and Orchard on the Klamath River. Theodore's mother, Panamenik -Wapu Orcutt, was closer to 5 foot 6 inches , with jet black hair, brown eyes and dark skin. His mother had the characteristic traditional female Karok tattoo on her chin, 3 vertical strait lines. At adolescence all traditional Karok girls had their chin tattooed with three vertical lines, or stripes. Using a sharp obsidian tool, soot and grease were stitched into the skin, the same tattoo was on the biceps. The tattooing was for several purposes all relating to gender and Klan affiliation. She was considered a good cook and hard worker, she could make baskets, new the ins and outs of herbalism and acted on occasion as a midwife. She also spoke both the Hokan language and English. Theodore's mother stayed close to him all his life and even in old age she made trips to visit with him. His mother lived to the advance age of 107 years old. In about 1865 young Theodore was given his Indian name, "Mus-su-peta- nac" translated to English means "Up-River-Boy", Karok traditional names were not given for several years after birth so if the child died at a young age they would not be remembered by name and the grieving would be less. The infant mortality rate for Karok in the late 1800s was not good, at the Federal census of 1910 there were only 775 Karoks living in 200 Karok homes. As a child, Theodore road his pony to the local one room school house and was a quite and good student. He was a quit boy and a very good writer, had excellent penmanship and was well read, he was, however largely self taught, because of his many other obligations. He helped around the house and was diligent in his chores. While the country was celebrating its first centennial, 1876, Ted was 14 years old and had begun his flintknapping apprenticeship with his Karok uncle "Mus- sey-pev-ue-fich" , his mother's brother, whom was a master flintknapper and was considered the village specialist. It was a great honor for Ted to be chosen to such a prestigious mentor (mentor- a wise and trusted counselor) and he practiced when ever he could. The raw material of choice for stone workers in northern California at the time was obsidian. Obsidian is a volcanic, colored glass, usually black, which displays curved lustrous surfaces when fractured. According to Carol Howe (1979) "the amount of control that a skilled workman can exercise over obsidian is amazing. Teodore Orcutt, a Karok Indian, one lived at Red Rock near Dorris, California. He learned the arrowhead maker's art from his father, who was the village specialist. The giant blade in figure 1, now in the Nevada Historical Museum at Reno, Nevada, is an example of his work, though not ancient, it represents the almost lost hertage of an ancient art. Orcutt told Alfred Collier of Klamath Falls that it took years of practice for him to became proficient." While still in his teens he began to master the art of flintknapping. First he learned the percussion method of knapping (Percussion method- the act of creating some implements by controlled impact flake detachment) and after several years he could reduce a fairly large mass of obsidian into a flat plate like biface (biface-a large spear head shaped blank with flake scars covering both faces), he was also becoming more adapt to the pressure flaking techniques with a hand held antler tine compressor (Pressure flaking- a process of forming and sharpening stone by removing surplus material with pushing pressure- in the form of flakes using an antler tine). His arrowheads, spear points and other flint work became quite nice and he began to experiment with eccentric forms and often knapped butterfly, dog, eagles and other zoomorphic (zoomorphic-abstract animal shaped art) and anthropomorphic (anthropomorphic-abstract human shaped art) forms out of fine quality, fancy obsidians provided to him by his uncle. He was also in his teens when he learned the art of bead weaver, brain tanning of hides and arrowsmithing. In 1885, Ted was 23 years old and spend nearly all his time after work flintknapping and crafting traditional Karok items. It was at this age that one morning Ted's uncle told him to get his bed roll as he was now ready to participate in the sacred act of collecting lithic material. This was an honor that Ted had looked forward to for many years and he was very excited. Ted ran back to tell his mother but she was already standing outside with Ted's bed role and some food she had prepared. Not only the obsidian collecting was important but the cerimonialism involved in doing so as well. Obsidian mining was something that had been done by hundreds of generations of Karok and it was not to be taken lightly. Before white mining laws came about, Native Americans relied on the concept of "neutral ground", even tribes which were bitter enemies could meet at the obsidian quarries and share knapping and lithic information. As their buckboard wagon arrived at the obsidian outcrop, Ted jumped out of his seat down into the dark damp soil, his boots leaving imprints in the half dried mud, it was early spring and the grass was vibrant green. Black obsidian chips glistened and sparkled all over the land scape. When Mus-su-petafich showed young Ted how to mine and quarry obsidian he first left an offering of tobacco, when he performed lithic reduction (lithic-greek for stone, term most often used in science, reduction-the miners often made preformed artifact blanks to lessen the bulk for transport) Mus-su-petafich drove the obsidian flakes off the core with a soft hammer stone. Large blocks of obsidian were quarried by splitting them off giant boulders with the use of fire. Mus-su-petafich would build a bon fire against the rock. As each flake came off, no matter what the method of extraction, he would set it in a pile and categorized them as his ancestors had and said "this one is for war, this one is for bear, this one is for deer hunting, this one is for trade, this one is for sale". The various piles were kept separate until they were knapped to completion and were all set aside for their original purpose. Mus- su-petafich told Ted why each flake (or spall) had a special purpose based on its form, structure, fracture-ability, texture, hardness and color. There was a different Karok word for each type and variability in the obsidian. Red obsidian was considered ritually poison and these were usually saved for war or revenge, at this time in history many of the customs had changed and Mus-su-petchafich made beautiful points for sale and trade with varieties of obsidian that were once reserved for the kill. There were numerous instances when Mus-su- petchafich had to obtain subsurface, unweathered material, but these were for the most part small pit mines. It took Ted many years of mentoring with his uncle before he began to fully understand the Karok lithic tradition. The two men made thousands of arrowheads, lithic art and traditional Karok costumes and marketed them, not only to traditional Indians but also, to a wealthy eastern clientele. As Ted got older flintknapping became an obsession, nearly all his extra time was spent either collecting extravagant lithic material or flintknapping, in bad whether and at night he would plan his strategy for some lithic challenge he was working on and his quest for every better lithic material began taking him farther and farther from home. Oregon's Glass buttes, Goose Lake, Blue Mt., in Northern California, Battle Mountain Chalcedony in Nevada Opal, agate and jasper from the coastal areas and the inland deserts. On several occasions Ted Orcutt made trips to Wyoming, the Dakotas and many locations in Utah and Idaho where he would find specific lithic materials for special orders. Herb Wynet was Orcutt's traveling partner and "sidekick" on many of these trips and Herb would do all the driving so his friend "Theo" could gaze out the car window at the country-side. Ted could look at the geology and topography of an area if he had been there before or not and give a good prediction, with great accuracy, where the lithic material would be, he was correct nearly every time. On these trips Orcutt kept a list of artifact orders on hand, this way he knew what lithic material to get and what to focus on at his afternoon knapping sessions on the road. In this manor Ted never fell behind on his orders while on his flint hunting adventures. In 1902 Ted moved to Red Rock Valley near Mount Hebron he was now 40 years old and his percussion biface knapping was becoming better than ever. In the earlier years Ted and his uncle had made I name for themselves among the Native Americans in their area by knapping the large White Dear Dance ceremonial blades for the White Deer Dance Rituals, Ted was now challenged by these massive blades and he had a compulsive need to go ever larger and more spectacular using many varieties of flint and obsidian to make ever more elaborate pieces. By 1905, at age 43 Orcutt was knapping hundreds of obsidian blades of massive size, his command over the percussion method of knapping was now unrepressed in the history of the world. In 1911 Ted was 49 years old when he got the job of postmaster of the Tecnor post office in Red Rock. It was August of the same year that Ted sat on the wooden bench outside his house and read about Ishi in the local newspaper, the whole thing with Ishi took place only a few miles from Ted's house, curiously, the Hokan language family encompasses both Yahi (Ishi's language) and Karok (Orcutt's language). It was a local joke to Ted people would say "hey Theo, did you hear Mr. Ishi is the last arrow head maker!" Ted was self-educated, read a good deal and by all accounts wrote a good hand. The job as postmaster was taxing and left little idle time to knap stone so in 1926, at the age of 62, he gave up the postmaster job and began hauling mail from Mt. Hebron, at Technor, in Red Rock Valley, first with horse and buggy and later in a Model T Ford, which Ted bought new. During this time Orcutt was knapping more than ever and was selling items through out the eastern United States, Europe and Museums through out the world. He had well received exhibitions at the California State Fair in Sacramento, a permanent display in the Memorial Flower Shop in Woodland, California and he had shipped his points to many hundreds of museums and collectors. He had a claim where he mined obsidian near Wagontire, Eastern Oregon. It was in this period also that Ted's ceremonial blades went from the 30 inch long giants to the 48 inch long monsters that made gave him the title "king of the flintknappers". This same time period Ted took a half ton block of glass Mountain obsidian and carefully and precisely knapped a 48 1/2 inch long ceremonial knife, which was 9 inches wide and only 1-3/4 inch thick. This massive bifaced blade still hold the world record for size, it rests in the Smithsonian Institute, a similar one is in the Nevada Historical Museum at Reno, Nevada. In the Natural History museum in Sacramento there is a massive collection of large Orcutt blades, 176 in all, they are in an old box marked "source unknown". The Southwest Museum in Los Angeles has many Orcutt blades and also some of the White Deer Dance costumes Ted made. As for the 48 inch blade, one witness to the giant blade manufacture heard Ted speak really softly while working on the giant blade, " I get awful nervous when I'm working on this, I'm afraid I'll break it just before I finish." It was not entirely unheard of for a collector to find a giant piece of a broken Orcutt bi-face. In 1983, I worked with Jerry Gates of the U.S. Forest service in Modoc County, in northern, California. My duties included surveys near the huge obsidian deposits at Lava Beds National Park in Lassen, County, California. I observed many chipping site, several were not ancient. One site had both obsidian flake scatters in context with old condensed milk cans, log cabin syrup cans and Prince Albert Tobacco cans. I still recall that the flakes were large percussion thinning flakes that appeared to be from biface reduction and were of an opaque green material. I was told by a local that he thought old sheep herders tried their hand at knapping in the early 1900s, but I had a different theory, I stood over the site, camp fire ring in the center can dump off to the side and reduction type flake refuse and I knew this is where Ted sat, perhaps with his uncle and reduced his preforms for transport back to the Somesbar area where Ted Lived at the time. At another such site I observed my first look at an Orcutt biface, it was just the base, and was a full 5 inches wide and an inch thick. The broken piece was 10 inches long and it was evident that it was less than half the piece. Jerry Gates, U.S.F.S. archaeologist in Modoc showed me yet another large fragment that was covered with lake moss, it was about a foot wide, less than an inch thick and about a foot and a half long- it was only a small piece of the mid section. The giant biface fragments were broken during flintknapping procedures. The giant bifacially flaked blades broke, most likely, from the effect of end shock, which is a transverse fracture caused by the obsidian exceeding its' elastic limits, when the impact is made. Failure of the material to rebound and recoil before desired fracture occurs, caused the preforms to snap apart in the center sections. End shock is the reason few knappers can make large percussion bifaces. In May, 1946 Ted was 84 years old he moved to the L.D. Parson's Ranch, Ted still did quite a bit of knapping at the ranch and performed his duties including maintaining, grooming and shoeing the horses. Theodore Orcutt passed away later that year ending the rain of the "king of the flintknappers." Even today at the site of the old Parson's Ranch obsidian erodes silently from the earth where Ted left his waste flakes and stash. Unnoticed boulders of the material set as a silent and forgotten testament to the master Deer Dance Knapper. I have been asked several times in the last 25 years weather flintknapping was actually ever a true lost art. Flintknapping is one of the oldest crafts in the world and it is also one of the most enduring and actually was never lost. Many knappers, both in the Brandon gun flint factories and the reservations of the American Indian, it was never lost, it was interest in it that was lost but not the craft itself. Even the master Ted Orcutt did not leave this world without leaving his knowledge and is rumored to have had several devout students over his live time. One known student of Orcutt was Fred Herzog . Fred met Ted Orcutt in the late 1920s while both were working at Lew Parson's ranch and lumber mill in Oal Valley. According to Fred Herzog (1959) "Teds skill was beyond all imagination as he made points from 2/16 of an inch up to large spear points two feet long." Some speculate that Dr. Don Crabtree, whom knapped in the same style as Orcutt, may have met or at least observed Orcutt at work. Crabtree was known to have lived and worked in the northern California area during Orcutt's later years. Crabtree came to be known as the "Dean of American Flintknapping". Crabtree himself had hundreds of students and some of them are prominent knappers and archaeologists today. It is possible that while watching Crabtree's students we are seeing the Orcutt knapping style as it once was. After Theodore Orcutt passed away several have searched for clues to his legacy. Carol Howe, Eugene Heflin and myself. Eugene wrote a book called Up River Boy, but after Eugene passed away the book was never published. The International Flintknappers ‘ Hall of Fame and Museum is encouraging individuals of all ages to “Be A Superior Example,” through a new education program as part of a new curriculum to promote healthy habits, while encouraging everyone to live free of drugs and other such substances or vices. It serves as the central point for the study of the history of flintknapping in the United States and beyond, displays flintknapping-related artifacts and exhibits, and honors those who have excelled in the craft, research/ writing, promoting events, and serving the knapping community in an ethical and wilderness loving manner.
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