"Notches" from the Yellowstone River

At the nearby Yellowstone River there are places where mud is more prevalant than rocks and vice versa. Where there are more rocks, people go and pick agates. While most are after profits, I look for something different. It started with finding some Indian tools and a pendant.

I also found some objects that looked like animals, and others that appeared to have been oval - shaped stones to begin with and had well defined cuts in them from 2 certain angles. I thought they looked like peoples' heads, and may have been made to honour loved ones who had died. Being I found them right in the river bed when it was at it's lowest I have a theory that they may have thrown them into the river in a belief that it would carry their spirits into the next life or something.

No one local seems to know anything about Indians living in this area, but they had to have been made by someone...I tried to find something like them on the web but couldn't so I gave these objects a name myself: "Notches" Last summer I spent a lot of time there, looking for more clues as to who these people were.

One day, I found something that pretty much confirmed my thought that the Notches represented people. I saw one made from an agate. As it was late in the rock picking season, I guessed that if it had been noticed by anyone, it must have been passed by for the fact that it wouldn't have been thought to have been worth much because of it's size. I didn't care that it was small. It was a Notch. That was good enough to me, so I picked it up and held it toward the sun to assess it.

When I turned it around I discovered there had been a natural grey film on the other side and someone had left some in tact to serve as "hair" and scraped the rest off to form a face! This was definately a representment of a person. What made it even more beautiful was that it had been worn smooth by hundreds of years of river wear. I made it into a pendant and now wear it. I feel that the person it was fashioned in honour of was very much loved and I treasure it very much. I know that whoever made it would be happy to know how much I love it.