ABSTRACT
The processes of flint tool production had basic cognitive parallels with both life processes and astronomical phenomena. This chapter shows that the cognitive relationship between flint and ice, reflected, for instance, in the character of Iroquois Tawiskaron. This spirit power had an identity both with flint and with ice, is usually referred to as Flint, and was the Iroquois counterpart of Tlahuizcalpan tecuhtli, the Aztec god of frost and the dawn. From the evidence of North America and Mesosamerica, the chapter also shows that a flint core can have a uterine symbolism, that flint has many of the same cognitive associations as a bull-roarer, and that flint and ice can belong to the same semantic set. The cognitive parallel between removing chips from a block of ice, removing flakes from a core, and circumcision is obvious.
