nonsense; and, in fact, prejudices appear doubly absurd when we do not possess the key to them. We have ended by believing that there is no intelligence but our own, no morality that does not fit in with our formulas. But who are we that we should take up such a lofty position with regard to the intellectual and moral weakness of those who preceded us? There is a lesson to be learnt, if we take the pains to look for it, in these errors through which the human race has passed, these illusions which it has left behind. They are no mere anomalies or sports of chance launched forth into empty space; they have been produced by natural causes, in natural, and we may say, logical order. The whole series of superstitions is but the search for truth amidst ignorance,' * A common error regarding savages is that they have lived, or still live, in a state of chronic war and bloodshed, either with their neighbours or among themselves; a moment's consideration should suffice to show the fallacy of this view, for besides the very considerable amount of time required to provide food and the material for clothing, many, many days and weeks of patient labour were spent in flaking flints, chipping and polishing celts, boring holes in implements of various kinds, and in fashioning what, to us, are mysterious objects, so far as their use is concerned. Misconception of this kind is likely to arise from the perusal of "penny dreadfuls," and even from books of professedly higher aim, where the savage is never introduced without a diabolical grin on his countenance, a war-club in his blood-stained hand," and "his dishevelled locks matted with the gore of his innocent victims." Prince Kropotkin* on this point remarks, " At no period of man's life were wars the normal state of existence. While warriors exterminated each other and the priests celebrated their massacres, the masses continued to live their daily life, they prosecuted their daily toil. And it is one of the most interesting of studies to follow that life of the masses; to study the means by which they maintained their own social organisation, which was based upon their own conceptions of equity, mutual aid, and mutual support of common law, in a word, even when they were submitted to the most ferocious theocracy or autocracy in the state." The myths and superstitions of primitive folk, their social organization, their germs of constitutional government, their daily occupations, their forms, ceremonies, games and amusements, the mechanical methods and devices they employed, and the examples of their handicraft-all these must ever possess an increasing interest to thoughtful persons generally, but more especially to those whose desire it is to study civilisation "in its wide ethnographic sense as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." "Even when it comes to comparing barbarous hordes with civilised nations, the consideration thrusts itself on our minds, how far item after item of the life of the lower races passes into analogous proceedings of the higher, in forms not too far changed to be recognised, and sometimes hardly changed at all. Look at the modern European peasant using his hatchet and his hoe, see his food boiling or roasting over the log fire, observe the exact place which beer holds in his calcu lation of happiness, hear his tale of the ghost in the nearest haunted house, an d of the farmer's niece who was bewitched with knots in her inside till she fell int fits and died. If we choose out in this way things which have altered little in long course of centuries, we may draw a picture where there shall scarce be hand's breadth difference between an English ploughman and a negro of Centra Africa."+ "Mutual Aid Among Savages," Nineteenth Century, April, 1891, p. 559. Except, perhaps, in the matter of house accommodation, it might not be difficult to prove that the every-day life of the old American savage was superior to that of peasants in some civilised communities to-day. This, not so much to the credit of the Indian, as to show that modern society in at least a few of its phases, has not made all the advance it was capable of making, or that we have a right to suppose it should have done. In the region of the aesthetic, the Indian, even of this northern latitude, occupied an immensely higher plane than the class just mentioned. He understood the effect of colour, and employed it to some purpose, both in personal decoration and on articles of manufacture; his sense of the elegant in form is well illustrated in the graceful outline given to many of his coarse clay vessels, his pipes of stone and clay, and in the great variety of beautifully fashioned objects which are known to us, for the want of a more definite name, as 'ceremonial weapons. In the adornment, too, of his clay pipes and pots he attempted to please the eye by means of depressed lines, dots and circles, to form patterns, some of which are both regular and complicated. Morally, his code may not have been a very high one, but religiously, he may fairly be placed among the first of animists. To him, everything visible and tangible was the abode of a spirit. When he dreamt of anything he must obtain it, lest his spirit should forsake his body to fraternise with the spirit of what appeared to him in his sleep; or his dream was a visit paid to him from the soul of the subject of hisd ream. According to Morgant the Iroquois used to make a hole in the grave to facilitate the passage of the soul from and to the body, and more recently it was customary to bore one or more holes in the coffin for a similar purpose. Sagard informs us that the soul of the dog, went to serve the soul of his owner in the Spirit-land.† Of nothing concerning the Indians are we more certain then of his pan-spiritism-all the early writers referred to this belief. Not only were natural objects thus regarded, for weapons, tools, ornaments, warpaint and all other objects, partly or wholly manufactured, were similarly possessed. Hence the custom of placing those articles in graves. "That the purpose of such offerings is the transmission of the objects' spirit or phantom to the possession of the man's, is explicitly stated as early as 1623 by Father Lallemant : when the Indians buried kettles, furs, etc., with the dead, they said that the bodies of the things remained, but their souls went to the dead who used them. The whole idea is graphically illustrated in the following Ojibwa tradition or myth. "Gitchi Gauzini was a chief who lived on the shores of Lake Superior, and once, after a few days' illness he seemed to die. He had been a skilful hunter, and had drsired that a fine gun which he possessed should be buried with him when he died. But some of his friends not thinking him really dead, his body was not buried; his widow watched him for four days, he came back to life, and told his story. After death, he said, his ghost travelled on the broad road of the dead toward the happy land, passing over great plains of luxuriant herbage, seeing beautiful groves, and hearing the songs of innumerable birds, till at last, from the summit of a hill, he caught sight of the distant city of the dead, far across an intermediate space, partly veiled in mist, and spangled with glittering lakes and streams. He came in view of herds of stately deer, and moose, and other game, which with little fear walked near his path. But he had no gun, and remembering how he had requested his friends to put his gun in his Nouvelle France, Charlevoix, vol. vi., p. 78. + Iroquois-Morgan, p. 176. grave, he turned back to go and feteh it. Then he met face to face the train of men, women, and children who were travelling toward the city of the dead. They were heavily laden with guns, pipes, kettles, meats, and other articles; women were carrying basket-work and painted paddles, and little boys had their ornamented clubs, and their bows and arrows, the presents of their friends. Refusing a gun which an overburdened traveller offered him, the ghost of Gitchi Gauzini travelled back in quest of his own, and at last reached the place where he had died. There he could see only a great fire before him and around him,. and finding the flames barring his passage on every side, he made a desperate leap through, and awoke from his trance. Having concluded his story he gave his auditors counsel that they should no longer deposit so many burdensome things with the dead, delaying them on their journey to the place of repose, so that almost every one he met complained bitterly. It would be wiser, he said, only to put such things in the grave as the deceased was particulary attached to, or made a formal request to have deposited with him.”* Perhaps it is in some degree owing to this belief in universal spirit possession that our northern Indians so seldom ventured to fashion anything immodest, or even suggestive. That it was not for the want of mechanical ability we knowthe multiplicity of designs in clay, stone and bone sufficiently attest this, but whatever the reason may have been the almost entire absence of such objects is a noteworthy fact, when, taken in connection with the early records relating to all the tribes in this part of America. Among North American Indians, perhaps the Cherokees deserved least credit for their good taste in this respect, but even they compare favorably with the peoples of South America. While many specimens, (especially flaked ones) found in different parts of the province, may be classified as palæoliths, they have, up to the present time always been found associated in such a way with neoliths that it is impossible to designate them as paleoliths with any degree of certainty. Leafshaped "flints" have been picked up that are quite as rudely formed as any from the deepest stalagmite deposits of Europe, but never in situations to suggest that they are other than rough-hewn tools or weapons, which, as such, had a purpose in the economy of people who were capable of producing better things. Until we find specimens of this kind, as Dr. Abbott found them in the Trenton gravels, or in some situation isolated from all others, or distinct as to material or coating from specimens of a superior quality in the same neighborhood, we shall not be warranted in making any distinction relative to time of possible production. Those that approach most nearly to satisfying some of those conditions, and now in the museum, were found on the farm of Mr. Seabrook, near Komoka in Delaware township. Nearly seventy were found in a "nest" only a few inches below the surface. In appearance they bear every mark of being much older than other specimens found in the same district, but unfortunately among the lot as forwarded to us was an arrow-head of decidedly more recent type, and Mr. Seabrook asserts that it was found along with the rest. A further reference to these, with two cuts, may be found in the Archæological Report for 1886-7 p. 45. *Primitive Culture, Tylor, vol. 1, pp. 434, 435. SOUTHWOLD EARTHWORK. A former examination of this remarkable earthwork in company with Dr Tweedale having proved unsatisfactory for want of time, the place was visited again last May by Mr. Jas. Bain, Mr. W. H. Jenkins and myself, Mr. Chester Henderson the proprietor, and Mrs. Henderson doing everything possible to facilitate the object we had in view. It was thought that a close scrutiny might lead to the discovery of the remains of palisades, as in the case of the Beverly works [Can. Inst. Ann. Rep. 1886-7, p. 11] but in this we were disappointed. We uncovered the banks at various points, by removing the sod to the depth of several inches, but no trace of palisades was found anywhere. At a place near the south-east point, where the outer bank measured seventeen feet across the base, and was three and a half feet above the adjacent level, we made a cut the whole depth exposing a clean section, which showed very clearly the structure of the work, on account of the admixture of dark and light-coloured mould as it had been thrown up by the builders. A large number of test-holes, made in various parts of the enclosed area, proved the existence of various ash-heaps. Some fragments of pottery and deerhorn were found. MALAHIDE. The people who at one time held the ground now included in the county of Elgin, have left many evidences of their fondness for the throwing up of embankments, of which the most remarkable is that in the township of Southwold, already referred to. But others are reported in various parts of the county. In Malahide township there are several works of this kind, a few of which we examined. On the farm of Mr. Stephen Pound, lot concession 7, is a plateau, some three or four acres in extent, the sides of which facing the northeast and south-east respectively, are unusually steep and from fifteen to twentyfive feet in depth. The sides mentioned converge to a point almost due east, and connecting the opposite ends where the declivities begin is a bank about one hundred yards long, forming the western boundary of a triangular area. Only twelve or thirteen years ago this bank is said to have been quite three feet high; it is now barely one foot above the level, having been already ploughed five or six times. Taking into account the two naturally formed steep sides, there can be little reasonable doubt that the embankment was constructed for the purpose of defending the spot on its weakest or most approachable side. The bank was probably palisaded, but the length of time the ground had been under cultivation rendered it useless to look for any traces of such fortification. On the Dalby farm, lot 26, concession 6, is a bank eighty-six feet long and nearly two feet high. It is not quite straight, but forms a very obtuse angle twenty-two feet from its western extremity. While this elevation has both internally and externally apparent evidences of artificial formation, we could find no traces of posts or palings, nor did it at all resemble the heaps sometimes left to indicate the former existence of a "long-house." On the same farm and but a short distance away, are two mounds each twenty-five feet in diameter, one being about two feet, and the other nearly four feet high. They are old kitchen-middens, consisting mainly of ashes and domestic refuse. Both have been opened at various times with the usual result: clay pipes, broken pottery, splintered bones and unio shells. From an eighty-three-year-old native of the township, we learned that while a good many skeletons have been discovered singly, no óssuaries have been found in that part of the country. CAMDEN. The township of Camden, in the county of Addington, has been in former days a famous Indian fishing and hunting ground. On the invitation of Dr. M. I. Beeman, of Centreville, I spent a few days there during the past summer, and although some of the places examined did not "pan out" as well as could have been wished, a considerable amount of information was gained-information that will probably prove valuable in future. as In Being joined by Dr. T. W. Beeman, of Perth, we proceeded first to examine a number of knolls situated very closely to one another on the farm of Mr. Israel Stewart, lot 37, in the 4th concession of the township. For many years, these had been regarded by the settlers "in all the region round about dian graves, but the first glance tended to throw discredit on this view. A few spadefuls of earth from some of them speedily satisfied us (if we had any doubt) that the knolls were of natural formation, and the wonder is that such a simple test had not been made long before, by those who regarded them as what they were not. On the same farm there is a long bank, some three or four feet above the general level, which has every surface appearance of our western earth-works, and of one I subsequently visited further east, in the township of Williamsburgh. An examination of this bank revealed to us the fact that it was simply an ancient reef, formed by the anticlinal strata of an upheaval which took place long before even the Indians had "discovered” America. In an adjoining field, close to Varty Lake there are still many traces of former Indian occupation, and here, some years ago, Mr. Stewart found a fine copper spear-head, which came into our possession through Dr. T. W. Beeman. Along a low ridge on the farm of Mr. George Milligan, lot 29, con. 6, we found innumerable traces of old-time residence, consisting mainly of pottery fragments, and one bone awl or bodkin (with a hole in it) picked up by Dr. Beeman. On the farm of Mr. Joseph B. Lucas, many interesting specimens have been found from time to time. From this gentlemen we have procured a large, blocked-out, stealite, platform pipe (see figure 28), two gouges and three large stone axes. Mr. George G Wager, of the village of Enterprise, presented us also with a knife-like formed lime-stone specimen, the shape of which is probably due to natural causes. Besides the gentlemen already referred to, our thanks are due to Mr. John W. Bell, ex-M.P., for the courtesy and assistance he rendered during a portion of the time spent in Camden township. From the interest that has been created in that part of the country, profitable returns may yet be expected, and should any discovery be made, the Institute will no doubt hear of it, through Dr. M. I. Beeman. |