On the beach, right in front of our Harstine property, I heard JDub gasp under his breath: “Oh, wow!” We’d just returned from an agate-hunting walk and I figured he’d found himself a gem.
“Find a good one?” I asked. I had it pictured in my mind as very round and pure. It’s always fun to find a “gem”. However, I’ve never thought they made good jewelry because they need the sunlight to shine through them, and that can’t happen up against your skin.
He peered at me wide-eyed and handed it over to me.
At first I saw it as one of those somewhat unique beach agates that look to have been sliced. Instead of rounding like the typical beach pea gravel of the locale, they’re flat and “chiseled” appearing. They’re not especially uncommon, but they’re different from what you typically find. Some aspect of glacier flow or something that causes it. And then my eyes widened. This wasn’t that.
It was an agate arrowhead.
“Is it….?”
He nodded. We studied it and it was apparent that the “chiseled” appearance was hand-carved. The worn but pointed end, the notched bottom to strap to a spear or “knife”, the whorls created from a sharp tool instead of nature which tends to be more symmetrical. An agate! Normally arrowheads are crafted from flint, and JDub had found one shortly after we’d bought the place. The Squaxin tribe is local, and their uninhabited island is located directly across from us. Aside from the beauty of such a thing, what is striking is the wonder at how old it might be. Naturally agates themselves are geologically ancient, but how long ago did a primitive hand sculpt it into such a pristine tool? (Did it kill anything?) [JDub said we should test it with Luminol]. Tee hee.
I think it should be hung from his rear-view mirror so it sparkles in the sun. (On those days when there is sun…)
