In addition to tasks identified in Table 2, chert flake tools were also used in a variety of other ways, both among the Wola and elsewhere in the highlands (Blackwood 1950; Hampton 1999; Pospisil 1963; Sillitoe 1988; Strathern 1969). Tasks included the following:
Cutting and smoothing edges of shells; scraping encrustations from the surface of shells
Loosening powder from hard lumps of clay for making pigment
Trimming pig tusk scrapers; cutting out bone needles and bone points; preparation of bone spatulae; cutting, and scraping bone points for scarification; making eyes in needles; perforating teeth
Peeling raw bananas and tubers, and the charred outer surface of roasted tubers
Cleaning wooden bowls encrusted with food; boring holes through wooden shields; carving bark belts and making holes in them; making decorative barbs on arrow foreshafts; shredding & thinning bark fibres to make string; smoothing the surfaces of palmwood sword clubs; cutting and sharpening wooden arrowheads
Sawing bamboo
Slicing fish
Cutting stone axe heads into two; scratching grooves into the heads of barkcloth pebble beaters and pecking stone pebbles to make a hole through the centre for stone-headed clubs
Extracting arrows and splinters and for making deep incisions into human bodies to bleed them to free infection
Scraping the dry surface of gourd penis sheaths
Tongue piercing, penis subincision, bloodletting
The list above shows how fundamentally important and integral flaked chert tools were to the Wola, even after the introduction of modern alternatives such as razor blades and steel knives. It is notable that the contribution chert tools make and their vital role in Wola life are not reflected in their perception of it.
Examining the wider use of raw materials, and the variety used in many of the items, illustrates how complex and elaborate their manufacture was. In fact, there is nothing, to our knowledge, that occurs naturally in the Wola region that was not employed by the Wola, either as food or as raw material.