[NATIVE AMERICAN] Three Eastern Woodlands Crooked Knives with Carved Wood Handles

Three Eastern Woodlands Crooked Knives. Wood and metal.

A group of three crooked knives, each with a narrow metal blade secured to a shaped wooden handle by closely wound metal wire. The handles vary considerably in profile: one turns into a pronounced hook, another extends into a long, flattened, angled grip, and the third combines a rounded shaft with a broad, faceted terminal. 

The strongly hooked handle carries chip-carved geometric ornament, including adjoining diamond-shaped compartments enclosing radiating, star-like devices. These small decorative passages enliven the otherwise practical surface. The other handles rely principally on their contours and wood grain, while the blades display differing lengths, angles, and terminal shapes.

The crooked knife was among the characteristic woodworking tools of the Eastern Woodlands. Used as a one-handed drawknife, it allowed the maker to shape wood through controlled cuts drawn toward the body. Its applications extended from canoe frames and paddles to snowshoe frames, bowls, and other household objects. The Hudson Museum at the University of Maine documents both the range of these uses and the varied means by which blades were secured, including wire wrapping of the kind represented here.

The circulation of imported blades through the fur trade allowed makers to fit metal cutting edges to handles of their own manufacture. Those handles could be adjusted to individual working preferences and embellished with carved ornament, making a widely distributed tool highly personal in its execution. The three examples offered here preserve that individuality particularly well, ranging from the compact, decorated hook to the extended, angular grips of its companions.