[mugwump]

I'm getting an Ojibwe whetstone for Christmas if they can lay their hands on one by then. I'll post a pic. They use a kind of beach stone from the shores of Lake Superior. It's jet black, silky smooth, very fine-grained basalt. They're round to oval in cross section, about an inch in diameter and 6-8 inches long. Kinda hard to find in the right length because the same wave action that rounds them tends to break them up. A good whetstone is treasured and it gets passed down from generation to generation. Breaking a whetstone is a personal tragedy and a very bad omen.