;Wfl&ROPOLOGY LIBRARX

•FOSSIL MEN

AND

THEIR MODERN REPRESENTATIVES.

AN ATTEMPT TO ILLUSTRATE

THE CHARACTERS AND CONDITION OF PRE-HISTORIC
MEN IN EUROPE, BY THOSE OF TPIE

AMERICAN RACES. '- i >'/> i '. !

BY

J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., F.R.S, F.G.S,

Principal of Me Gill College and University, Montreal;

A utJwr of

" The Story of the Earth and Man" " The
Origin of the World," etc.

HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCLXXX.

Butler & Tanner,

The Selwood Printing Works,

Frome, and London.

TO HIS FRIEND,

PETER EEDPATH, ESQ.,

OF MONTREAL,

2Efjfs foork is ©ebicatetJ

BY THE AUTHOR,
IN COMMEMORATION OF PERSONAL KINDNESS,

AND OF
AID LIBERALLY RENDERED

TO
SCIENCE EDUCATION IN CANADA.

PREFACE.

No subject of Geological investigation is perhaps in a
more unsatisfactory state than that which relates to
the connection of the modern or human period with
preceding epochs. Difficult and complex problems,
yet unsolved, and even imperfectly understood in
their data and conditions, encompass the history of
that remarkable Glacial Age which seems to have
preceded the advent of man and the modern mammalia
in the Northern Hemisphere. Much uncertainty and
liability to error attach to the study of the superficia 1
deposits which alone contain the remains of man and
his works. Further, the Geologist, the ArchaBologist,
and the Historian, the Philologist and the Anthropo-
logist, approaching this obscure region from different
directions, all claim to be heard, and often vie with
each other in dogmatic assertions respecting facts and
inferences of the most uncertain character.

The present work is intended as a popular exposi-
tion of some of the more important topics, from the

IV PREFACE.

point of view of the Geologist and Naturalist, and to
that principle of referring to modern causes for the
explanation of ancient effects, which is the basis of
theoretical geology, the principal modern facts relied
on being those furnished by the aboriginal tribes of
America. It cannot pretend to be exhaustive of a
department of inquiry yet in its infancy ; but may
claim the merit of being suggestive.

The substance of this work appeared in a series of
papers in the Leisure Hour, entitled " The New
World and the Old/' but has been considerably ex-
tended and in some parts re-written.

J. W. D.
McGiLL COLLEGE, MONTREAL.

Jan. 1880.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Explanatory and Introductory 1

CHAPTER II.
Jin Old Story of the New World 18

CHAPTER III.
Glimpses of Pre-historic Times 45

CHAPTER IV.
The Remains of Cities of the Stone Age ' . . . .70

CHAPTER V.
Implements and Weapons of the Stone Age . . .111

CHAPTER VI.
Lost Arts of Primitive Kaces 146

/ CHAPTER VII.
Physical Characteristics of Pre-historic Man . . .177

CHAPTER VIII.
Antiquity of Man 205

VI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX.
Primitive Ideas of Religion, the Idea of God . . . 250

PAGE

CHAPTER X.
Primitive Ideas of Religion, the Instinct of Immortality . 282

CHAPTER XI.
Unity and Continuity 307

APPENDIX . 340

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

LES KOCHES PERCE'ES Frontispiece.

IMPLEMENTS OF CHIPPED STONE, EUROPE . . . .12
IMPLEMENTS OP CHIPPED STONE, NORTH AMERICA . . 13
IMPLEMENTS OF POLISHED STONE, EUROPE . . . 14

IMPLEMENTS OF POLISHED STONE, NORTH AMERICA . . 15
ORNAMENTS, ETC., OF A BED INDIAN OF NEWFOUNDLAND . 21
SECTION OF THE STOCKADE OR WALL OF HOCHELAGA . . 38

PLAN OF HOCHELAGA .39

THE TOWN OF HOCHELAGA 41

SKETCH-MAP SHOWING THE PROBABLE LINES OF MIGRATION

AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE AMERICAN TRIBES . . 48
ALLEGHAN, TOLTECAN, PERUVIAN, AND MODERN CROW HEADS 54
MODERN MANDAN, AND ANCIENT AZTEC HEADS . . .55
COPPER AXES, SPEARS, AND KNIFE OF THE ALLEGHANS . 58
COPPER BRACELET, Disc, BEAD, AND BUTTONS OF ALLEGHANS 59 -
MODE OF SUSPENDING EARTHEN POTS . . . 72, 73

FRAGMENT OF EARTHEN VESSEL, HOCHELAGA ... 75

EARTHEN POT 77

HEAD FROM AN EARTHEN POT 79

HEAD IN POTTERY . . . . . . . .81

PLAN OF HOCHELAGAN HOUSE FOR FIVE FAMILIES . . 83
EARTHEN POT FOUND ON THE UPPER OTTAWA . . .87

FRAGMENTS OF POTTERY 91

EARTHEN PIPES, HOCHELAGA . . . . .94

RED PIPESTONE PIPE 95

STONE ARROW- HEADS, MODERN 123

BONE NEEDLE AND SPEARS, HOCHELAGA . . . . 135

Vlll ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

BONE HARPOONS . . 137

SHELL AND TERRA GOTTA BEADS, HOCIIELAGA . . . 141
GROTESQUE FIGURE, QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS . . 148
PIPE CARVED OUT OF HARD PORPHYRITIC STONE . .150

GROUP OF HURON WOMEN 156

GROOVED HAMMER 171

OUTLINES OF THREE PRE-HISTORIC EUROPEAN SKULLS COM-
PARED WITH ONE PROM HOCIIELAGA .... 194

OUTLINE OF A CRO-MAGNON SKULL AS SEEN IN FRONT, AND

HOCIIELAGAN SKULL ON A SMALLER SCALE . . 195

FRONT VIEW OF ANOTHER HOCHELAGAN SKULL OF A SIMILAR

TYPE 196

PROFILE VIEW OF SAME SKULL 197

CHIPPEWA CHIEFS, FROM PHOTOGRAPHS .... 253
TOTEMS OF CHIEFS OF THE PENOBSCOT INDIANS . . . 265
TOTEMS OF FAMILIES OF THE EEINDEER AGE IN FRANCE . 267
PlCTOGRAPH ON A PlECE OF EEINDEER HORN FROM A CAVE

IN THE DORDOGNE 269

AMERICAN PICTOGRAPH FROM SCHOOLCRAFT . . . 270
TOTEMS SCULPTURED ON THE ROCHES PERCE'ES . . . 272
ADJEDATIG, OR GRAVE-POST OF WABOJEEGSE, THE "WHITE

FISHER" . 289

CHIPPEWA GRAVES AND MOURNERS . . 291

CHAPTER I.

EXPLANATORY AND INTRODUCTORY.

SOMEWHERE in the past, the long ages of the prehuman
geologic record join and merge into the human period.
The day when the first man stood erect upon the earth
and gazed upon a world which had been shaped for
him by the preceding periods of the creative work,
was the definite beginning of the Modern Period in
Geology. If that day could be fixed in the world's
calendar, on reaching it the geologist might lay down
his hammer and yield the field to the antiquarian and
the historian. On that day a world, for long ages the
abode of brute creatures, became for the first time the
habitation of a rational soul. On it the old and un-
varying machinery of nature first became amenable to
the action of a conscious, independent earthly agent.
On it a new and marvellous power — that of human
will — was introduced upon our planet. No wonder,
then, that in our critical and sceptical time, when men
are no longer satisfied with traditions, or even with
sacred history, questions as to this mysterious meet-
ing-place of the past and present should be agitated

B

& FOSSIL MEN.

with an engrossing interest, and that all our varied
stores of scientific and historical knowledge should be
brought to bear on it. Nor need we wonder that
obscurity still rest£ upon the subject when regarded
from the. jst^^poi&t of science and secular history.
It j,sroonneptedj in soifar as geology is concerned, with
(Ufi&uRj^aiid •ixwi'tro verted questions of the Glacial
period and its close, and in the domain of archaeology
with the darkness that antedates the beginning of
literature. It thus forms an appropriate battle-
ground for active spirits eager to reach new truths.
The evolutionist searches in its obscurity for the tran-
sition from apes to men. The geologist painfully
gathers the faint traces of forgotten tribes preserved
in caves and gravels, and the archaeologist joins him
in his quest.

The result has been the accumulation of a great
mass of facts, of which, however, many are doubtful
in their import, the initiation of many controversies,
and the production of a general vague impression
that science has unsettled all our previous views as
to the origin and antiquity of man. While popular
writers have boldly asserted this last conclusion as
established beyond dispute, the more cautious, and
those who have the best opportunities of weighing
the evidence, are well aware of its doubtful and un-
certain character ; and the attempt recently made by
one of the greatest and most judicial minds among
English geologists to sum up the actual results,*
* Lyell, "Antiquity of Man," fourth edition.

EXPLANATORY AND INTRODUCTORY. O

while it startles the reader with the magnitude and
strangeness of the questions suggested, appals him
with their complexity and difficulty.

To those who, like the writer of these pages, have
long been familiar with the manners of the American
aborigines and with the antiquities of America, the
facts detailed in such publications as LyelFs " Anti-
quity of Man," Christie and Lartet's " Keliquise
Aquitanicse," Morlot's Memoirs on the Swiss Lake
Habitations, and Dupont's on the Belgian Caves,
appear like a new edition of a familiar story ; and as
Dr. Wilson has well shown in his " Pre-historic Man,"
existing humanity, as it appears in the native Ameri-
can, is little else than a survival of primeval man in
Europe. In short, the early voyagers who first met
the American tribes really held conference with their
own ancestors, or with men among whom still lived
manners and customs extinct in Europe before the
dawn of history. Why, then, should not that method
of reasoning from existing causes to explain ancient
facts, by which geology has achieved its greatest
triumphs, be applied to the extinct tribes of the old
world ? Why should not the enormous mass of exist-
ing information as to rude man in America be em-
ployed to illustrate and explain conditions long since
passed away in the eastern continent ?

To attain successfully such a result requires some-
thing more than the desultory and imperfect refer-
ences which have been casually made by writers on
European archaeology. It requires that large and

4 FOSSIL MEN.

systematic views of the culture of the American na-
tions should be placed beside the results of European
research, and that such comparisons shall not be over-
loaded with details, but shall be given in a distinct
and pictorial form. It has occurred to me that this
may best be done by taking up our position on the
antiquities of one tribe or locality, connecting the
others with this, so as to show the homogeneous nature
of the American culture, and then applying the whole
to European facts and difficulties.

I shall therefore take as my first starting-point the
primitive town of Hochelaga, the predecessor of the
fair city of Montreal, and shall present to the reader
American and European prehistoric times as they
would appear to an inhabitant of that ancient town.
We shall thus at least obtain a novel insight, remote
from that of the ordinary geologist or archaeologist,
and which may aid us in interpreting some things
which from his point of view are most difficult to
understand. We shall, I hope, find that such change
of base in our attack on prehistoric times may afford
advantages of a peculiar character, and may enable
us to correct some of the fanciful and enthusiastic
impressions of those who look back on prehistoric
times in Europe from the, perhaps, too elevated
standpoint of a mature civilization, to which the rude
hunter, with his weapons of stone and bone, seems a
creature almost too remote to have approached within
thousands of years, and rather to be pushed back
into the mists of an archaic and forgotten anti-

EXPLANATORY AND INTRODUCTORY. 5

quity, to consort with the mythical anthropoid apes
from which the evolutionist proposes to derive our
species.

Since, however, in the following chapters we shall be
occupied almost exclusively with American facts, and
must refer from them to the discoveries made in Europe,
and as the reader may not be familiar with the
aspects of pre-historic time to European geologists
and antiquarians, I may here shortly explain the
usually received views with reference to those times
anterior to history, and the terms by which they are
designated.

We have the misfortune, according to archae-
ologists, to live in the " Iron Age/' a fact of which we
are also reminded by our roads and ships, and by the
too great prevalence of a cold, dead materialism, to
which all that is not iron and steel, or their equivalent
in money, is mere superstition, and which derides the
beliefs of the world's earlier times. This Iron Age
represents, in Europe at least, the period of written
history, for even in Greece the earliest literature goes
back merely to the time when the Iron Age of that
country was beginning. In the East a far earlier
literature exists, but this also does not go beyond the
earlier age of iron in that part of the world — the
Iron Age of the East having apparently antedated
the Iron Age of Europe, much as the latter did that
of America. The date of the beginning of the Iron
Age is a point altogether indefinite. In Asia Tubal-
Cain may have inaugurated it before the Deluge. In

0 FOSSIL MEN.

America it is making its way to-day in direct conflict
with the age of Stone among the more remote tribes.
When we speak, therefore, of the Iron, Bronze, and
Stone Ages, it is useless, if we wish to attach any
definite meaning to our language, to extend its ap-
plication beyond the temperate latitudes of Western
Europe.

Copper, and bronze, the alloy of copper and tin,
were in prevalent use before iron* ; and bronze, with
its ingredients well proportioned, was no bad sub-
stitute for the most useful of metals, having the
advantage besides of not perishing by rust, and of
being easily molten into any required shape. The
Bronze Age precedes the date of written history in
Western Europe, though in the East it is coeval with
the early Bible history, and in Greece it reaches to the
Trojan war. It attained its acme before the Roman
legions had swept over the European plains, when the
civilising element was mainly represented by Phoe-
nician traders visiting the coasts, and when the rude
primeval tribes were shaping themselves into nations,
and acquiring the arts of life from the more cultivated
peoples of the south and east. As in the case of the
Iron Age, we can attach no definite limits to its

* It would seem that in Africa and elsewhere iron may have
been used as early as or earlier than bronze, in consequence
of the occurrence of iron ores easily reduced. For this reason,
Virchow, quoted with approval by Tylor in an address de-
livered at the Sheffield meeting of the British Association,
has proposed to merge the Bronze and Iron Ages in a " Metal
Age."

EXPLANATOEY AND INTRODUCTORY. 7

beginning or to its end. There must have been a
time when the Iron Age was fully established on the
shores of the Mediterranean, while yet in the inland
arid northern nations the Age of Bronze coexisted
with the earlier Age of Stone, and in some places the
Iron Age must have come abruptly into conflict with
that of Stone, without the intervention of the Age of
Bronze, as it has done in America.

This last Age, that of Stone, in the South of Europe,
antedates all written history. In the many-sided
East, however, we find cutting instruments of stone in
use in Egypt and Syria long after the dawn of lite-
rature, and intruding themselves into Europe in some
of the detachments which joined the army of Xerxes ;
while in remote corners of the North of Europe
some uses of stone weapons reached almost into the
Middle Ages. The earlier Stone folk are known to
us only by their graves, and remains of their habi-
tations and implements. The ancient barrows and
cromlechs of Britain and France, and the gallery
tombs of Scandinavia, contain the bones of the name-
less warriors of this Age buried with their flint
arrows and stone hatchets. The curious lake habi-
tations of Switzerland, built by unknown tribes on
piles over the water, also afford their remains, though
some of these strange dwellings reach up to the time
of Bronze and Iron. The shell-heaps of the primitive
fishermen of the coast of Denmark, and the peat-bogs
of various districts of Europe, afford additional re-
mains of the people of this Age.

8 FOSSIL MEN,

Wilson may furnish us with a specimen of a monu-
ment of this period, which is everywhere in Europe
known to us only by monuments, and not by written
history. It is the mount called Knock Maraidhe, or
Hill of the Sailors or Sea-rovers, standing till 1838
in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, in the midst of modern
civilisation. It was of no mean size, being fifteen feet
high, and one hundred and twenty in diameter, but no
history tells its origin or the cause of its name. It
had to be levelled, and then it appeared that it had
been built by human hands. Under the centre was a
massive stone tomb, or cromlech, holding the remains
of two male skeletons in a sitting or crouching
posture, and other bones, possibly of a dog. Shells of
the common Littorina, perforated for stringing, lay
beside the skulls, and a stone arrow-head and a pin
or hair-support of bone. Around the margin of the
tumulus were stone cists, each containing a small vase
and calcined bones, the remains of offerings to the
dead. This, as we shall see in the sequel, is an almost
precise counterpart of some of the oldest American
interments in those remarkable mounds of the river
valleys of the West, which, though some of them
are of great antiquity, undoubtedly represent a mode
of burial pursued up to the time of the European
discovery.

Here is another picture. It is a " Gallery grave "
in Sweden, as described by Nilsson. The walls con-
sist of flat slabs of granite or gneiss, carefully joined
together, forming a chamber from twenty to thirty

EXPLANATORY AND INTRODUCTORY. V

feet long, and five to six feet high, which is roofed
over with flat slabs of gneiss. In the centre of the
long side, fronting the south, is a door leading out-
ward through a gallery, also of stone, sixteen to
twenty feet long, three feet high, and two to three
feet broad. Around the sides of the chamber are
stalls or niches, separated by partitions of wood or
stone, and in these are the skeletons of the old people,
seated with their legs bent under their bodies, or with
the bones fallen together in a heap and the skull on
top, and beside them their stone weapons and orna-
ments of shell and amber. The whole structure is
buried under a mound or tumulus of earth. This,
again, is the style of the family sepulchres of the
modern Esquimaux, and is apparently borrowed from
the plan of their ordinary dwellings, as the existing
plan of a Lapland house is thought to represent that
of the ancient gallery graves of Sweden. These in-
stances represent the absolute Stone period of Europe
before the use of bronze; but they belong to what has
been called the Neolithic or later Stone period, in
which stone implements of the most perfect kind
existed, and in which the physical features and
animal inhabitants of Europe were the same as at
present.

In an earlier part of the Stone Age, animals now
locally or wholly extinct still survived, and there
were climatal and geographical conditions somewhat
different from those of the present time. In France
and Belgium, for example, there are indications that

10 FOSSIL MEN.

the reindeer, now confined to Lapland, and not known
in Germany since the time of Caesar, while there is
no written record of its former existence in Gaul,
afforded a large part of the food of the inhabitants.
There is even evidence that these earlier Stone people
hunted the now extinct mammoth and its contem-
poraries. We may take as an example the cave of
Bruniquel in the south of France. It has apparently
been used both as a house and as a place of sepulture,
and since its occupation a layer of hard stalagmite has
accumulated over the earth and carbonaceous matter
of its floor. Professor Owen, who examined the bones
obtained in it, estimated the number of reindeer re-
presented in his collections at 1000.* There were
also numerous bones of a species of horse. With
these were remains of ten human beings, abundance of
flint flakes, and numerous bone implements, including
harpoons exactly like those now used by the Esqui-
maux. On many of the bones were carved figures of
animals. Portions of four implements made of mam-
moth ivory, and needles and pins of bone, were also
found, and sea-shells both from the Mediterranean and
Atlantic, some at least of which must have been used
as ornaments merely. At the time when these and
similar earlier Flint folk lived, France would seem to
have been in part overgrown with dense forests, and
in part connected with great steppes or prairies ex-
tending over all central Europe; its climate must have
been cool enough for the reindeer, and possibly the
* " Transactions of the Eoyal Society."

EXPLANATORY AND INTRODUCTQ&Y. 11

mammotli or extinct European elephant may not have
disappeared.

But a still earlier Stone period, that more properly
named the Palaeolithic, appears to be indicated by
quantities of roughly-shaped flint implements found in
the valley of the Somme, at Hoxne in Suffolk, and
many other places, imbedded in clays and gravels of
the river-beds, and in the earth and stalagmite of
caverns along with remains of extinct mammals ; * but
as yet without any human bones. If these remains
truly indicate a primitive Stone period of rough imple-
ments only, then man must have inhabited Europe
before some of the later changes in its physical geo-
graphy, at a time when the European land was more
extensive than now, when many large mammals now
extinct still lived, and before the great movements
of subsidence which have brought the European conti-
nent to its present form.

For reasons to be stated in the sequel, however, it
is doubtful if there really was a distinct Palaeolithic
period, properly so called. Many of the so-called im-
plements are probably natural, and the manner in
which they are found renders it possible that those
actually fabricated by man belonged merely to special
stations of tribes who may have had other and better
implements elsewhere. Still there seems to be evi-
dence of the existence of the earlier Flint folk before
the disappearance of the great Post-pliocene mammals
now extinct, and before the last great subsidence or
* " Story of the Earth and Man," 1873.

12

FOSSIL MEN.

diluvian catastrophe of the northern continents. The
men of this early age, if not properly " Palaeolithic,"
were at least possibly antediluvian.

Penetrating beyond the so- called. Palaeolithic period,
we find ourselves in the Post-pliocene or Glacial age of
geology, in the later part of which it seems evident

Fig. 1.— IMPLEMENTS OF CHIPPED STONE, EUEOPE.
(After Nilsson and others.)

that nearly all the European land was under the_sea,
and the islands which remained were subject to a
climate almost arctic in its character. Here we lose
all traces of man ; and if he existed in this period,
it must have been in some of those portions of the

EXPLANATORY AND INTRODUCTORY.

13

world to which the subsidence and cold climate of the
Glacial age did not extend. It is true that the supposed
Palasolithic men are often called Post-pliocene, but
when this term is used in a strict sense, as it is by
Sir C. Lyell, it is with the limitation that human re-
mains occur only at the close of the Post-pliocene ; or
the beginning of the modern period.

Fig. 2. — IMPLEMENTS OF CHIPPED STONE, NOETH AMERICA.
(After Squier.)

Whatever dates we may assign to these several
stages of prehistoric man, and whatever value we may
attach to such classifications, or whatever new light
subsequent research may throw upon them, American
facts enable us to attain to absolute certainty on
some material points. Of these, one is that the oldest
populations known to us in Europe were not inferior

14

FOSSIL MhN.

either in physical character or the arts of life to the
aborigines of America at the time of its discovery.
Another is, that in their rude manufactures, their
habits of life, their social institutions, and their re-
ligious beliefs, they must have resembled the Ame-

Fig. 3.— IMPLEMENTS OF POLISHED STONE, EUROPE.
(After Nilsson.)

ricans in the closest and most precise manner. These
two great leading truths it will be my province to
establish and illustrate in the following pages. In the
meantime I may appeal to the eye by a few woodcut
illustrations of implements and weapons of the Stone

EXPLANATORY AND INTRODUCTORY.

15

Age in Europe and America. In figure 1, are given,
from Nilsson and others, tracings of some common
forms of arrow and spear heads of the best and

Fig. 4. — IMPLEMENTS OF POLISHED STONE, NORTH AMERICA.
(Partly after Squier.)

the rudest styles of chipped flint, one of them being
a weapon of the ancient Amiens type. In figure 2 are
some similar tracings from Squier' s memoir on the

16 FOSSIL MEN.

ancient natives of the Mississippi Valley. I have
selected these as belonging to one of the most culti-
vated of the primitive populations of America, who
were agriculturists, weavers, and skilful potters and
workers in metal, yet used flint implements exactly
similar to those of the ruder tribes. Figure 3 shows
a group of polished stone implements from Nilsson,
all European and of the so-called later Stone Age. In
figure 4 are similar stone implements used in America
by the same peoples who used those in figure 1, and
at the same time. These, let it be observed, are not
obtained by arbitrary selection of a few similar things
out of many dissimilar. On the contrary, it would be
possible to fill pages with such illustrations, showing
that the handiwork of the red man, from Terra del
Fuego to Baffin's Bay, is of similar character to that
of pre-historic man in Europe. I cannot dwell here
on all that is implied in such resemblance. To those
who know the uses of such implements, every one of
them tells, not of a fancied instinct to make things of
one form as birds make their nests, but of a wide
range of similar wants and habits leading to similar
contrivances. Take, for instance, the hollow chisel or
gouge in figure 4, used by the American Indian to tap
the maple-tree, to extract its saccharine juice in
spring, and also to hollow out wooden troughs to hold
it ; and consider all that is implied in the fact that
precisely the same sort of chisel is found abundantly
in Scandinavia, as represented in figure 3. Or, take
the grooved axes in figures 3 and 4, and consider how

EXPLANATORY AND INTRODUCTORY. 17

much, of experience in woodcraft is implied in the con-
struction, handling, and use of such an implement, and
with how many possible industries in wood it connects
itself. Or take the rudely-chipped flint implements of
" Palaeolithic " type from the gravels of the Somme,
in connection with the fact that an implement of
somewhat similar style used by the semi-civilised
mound-builders of the Mississippi Valley is held with
much probability by some American antiquaries to
have been an agricultural hoe, and what strange
revelations may we have of the primitive farmers who
possibly cultivated the alluvial flats of the Somme
Valley with such tools, while they, perhaps, built their
towns on hills beyond the reach of inundations. Such
comparisons will grow and multiply on us as we pro-
ceed, and I must not anticipate them here. In follow-
ing out these comparisons, moreover, I do not wish to
restrict myself to the mere similarity of implements
and other remains, but to present such pictures of the
actual life of the American Indian as may enable us
to place ourselves in his position, and to view things
from his standpoint. By thusv sitting at the feet of
the red man, we may chance to discover some truths
which the learned archaeologists of the old world have
not yet attained ; and in any case may hope to present
some interesting and instructive pictures of primitive
man in the old world and the new.

CHAPTER II.

AN OLD STORY OF THE NEW WORLD.

NOTHING can be more interesting than the narratives
which remain to us of the first contact of Europeans
with the Indian tribes of the West ; and perhaps no
such narrative is more touching than the unvarnished
yet circumstantial story of the old Breton navigator of
St. Malo, who first entered the St. Lawrence and held
intercourse with the tribes of Canada.

In the spring and summer of 1 534, Jacques Cartier,
following on the track of Cabot and of the Breton and
Basque fishermen, who even at this early date visited
the coast and banks of Newfoundland, the " Island
of Baccalaos," — had entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence
by the Strait of Belleisle ; and in search of a way to
the Indies, coasted along the south side of Labrador,
and visited the Magdalen Islands, and the coast of
New Brunswick. He then passed up the deep Baie
des Chaleurs, so named by him because of the hot
summer sun which beat fiercely on its forest- clad
shores, and finally took refuge from the fogs and
storms of autumn in the lovely Bay of Gaspe.

On the coast of Labrador, which, he quaintly says,
from its barren and forbidding aspect, must have been
the land that God gave to Cain, he found a tribe of

AN OLD STORY OF THE NEW WORLD. 19

Americans, the first that he saw. They were large,
well-built people, with their skins painted red, clothed
in furs, their hair tied up in a knot, secured with a
bone pin, and ornamented with feathers. They used
canoes of birch bark, and were hunting seals, in search
of which they gave the French navigator to under-
stand they had come from a country farther to the
south. There can be little doubt that they were the
Eed Indians or Boeotics of Newfoundland, a race now
extinct, mercilessly exterminated by the European
settlers of that island, and by the Micmacs of Nova
Scotia, but who were of old most extensive hunters
of the reindeer, the seal, and the walrus, and skilful
carvers of ivory and fabricators of bone implements,
and who, in respect to their physical character, food,
and mode of life, were very like the men of the so-
called Eeindeer Age in France itself, subsisting like
them very much on the carriboo, or American reindeer,
then abundant in the interior of Newfoundland. There
is reason to believe that the Eed Indians were an
eastern extension of the Tinne or Chipewyan race,
which once extended across the continent between
the Esquimaux on the north and the Algonquins
and other Indian tribes on the south. The old Bre-
ton here stood in the presence of the precise equi-
valent of the Flint folk of his own country, just as
they would have appeared, if raised from their graves
in the French caverns, with their flint arrows, bone
spears, harpoons and shell ornaments. But Cartier
knew as little of these things as the Eed Indians did

20 FOSSIL MEN.

of the ocean telegraph which now ties their island to
Europe. In figure 5 I have given a representation of
the ornaments and one of the weapons of a Red Indian
warrior, found in a cavern, with the bones of their
owner, on an island on the eastern coast of New-
foundland.* The strung shells are those of Purpura
lapillus. The beads are made from the shell of a
large species of Mactra; the pendants are neatly
carved in the ivory of the walrus ; the arrow-head is
quite palaeolithic. These objects were taken from a
grave which also contained the oxidized remains of
an iron hatchet, some red ochre used as paint, and a
portion of a walrus tusk, part of which had been cut
away for use. The date is probably that of the
earliest French visitors of Newfoundland, and presents
a curious association of the ages of iron, of bone, and
of rudely chipped stone.

Crossing to the opposite side of the gulf, he had
some slight intercourse with the Micmacs of wthe coast
of New Brunswick, whom he rightly characterises as
a coast tribe, going from place to place in their bark
canoes, of which he saw as many as forty or fifty
together ; living in summer mainly on fish, and form-
ing extensive shell heaps on the coast, though in

* " Transactions of Nova Scotia Institute," vol. i. These
remains were found in 1847 by Kev. M. Blackmore. Beside
the objects mentioned above, there were glass beads, a bone
spear, and the remains of an iron knife. All the objects were
near the head of the skeleton. This had been wrapped in
birch bark, and near it were fragments of a carved piece of
wood.

Fig 5. — OBNAMENTS, ETC., OP A RED INDIAN OF NEWFOUNDLAND.

(a) Pierced Shells of Purpura lapillus.

(b) Wampum of Shell of Mactra.

(c) Pendants of Ivory of Walrus.

(d) Flint Arrow-head.

22 FOSSIL MEN.

winter they retired into the interior and hunted the
elk and reindeer. They still exist in a semi-civilized
state, and we shall have more to say of them in the
sequel. In the time of Cartier they were a nation of
hunters and fishermen, destitute of agriculture, fabri-
cating very rude pottery, making their wigwams and
canoes of birch bark, and their weapons and imple-
ments of chipped and polished stone, knowing no
metal but native copper, and employing this ap-
parently merely for ornamental purposes, but having
for their chief ornament and currency the strings of
wampum made from the shell of the quahog (Venus
mercenaries). These people were shy and threatening
in their first approaches to the French, but soon
opened an exchange of skins for knives, hatchets, and
trinkets, and manifested great eagerness to become
possessed of these new and precious treasures. Per-
haps these were the least advanced in the arts of life
of any of the peoples that Cartier met with, yet it is
interesting to observe that with these, as all others,
the idea of bartering property already existed, and
that they at once understood the importance to them
of the improved implements of the strangers, whom
they evidently recognised as men like themselves, to
be treated with on terms of equality, and to be re-
ceived in a hostile or friendly manner as their inten-
tions might seem to warrant.

The ancient traditions of the Micmacs, as collected
by Mr. Kand, an able missionary worker among them,
show that they recognised the Baie des Chaleurs, Mowe-

AN OLD STORY OF THE NEW WOKLD. 23

boktabaak, " the Biggest of Bays/' as the northern
boundary of the Micmac country, and Gaspe, the
Great Cape, or cape par excellence, which forms the
south portal of the St. Lawrence/ as the beginning of
Canada, a land inhabited by the hostile tribes of the
Kwedeches, with whom they waged long and bloody
wars, and whom in the struggles that succeeded the
French occupation they replaced in Gaspe. Here
accordingly Cartier found a different nation. They
were engaged in fishing mackerel with nets of their
own manufacture. The voyager here notes for the
first time the shaven head and scalp-lock so character-
istic of many of the American tribes. Here also he
notes in their possession Indian corn or maize, the
aboriginal bread-corn of America, with grains "as
large as peas/' and also beans and dried plums. They
rejoiced with great joy when Cartier gave them knives
and trinkets, and showed their delight by dancing
and songs, the universal language of gladness. The
erection of a cross by the French led to an official
visit from the chief, and a long speech in which this
aboriginal sovereign, clad in a bearskin, was under-
stood to assert his right to the country, and the
impropriety of setting up any such sign or token of
the white man without his permission. Neither party
in the scene understood the other's words, yet the
significant act was the same to both. To the French-
man it was the symbol of taking possession of the
new country for his sovereign. To the American it
was the setting up of the totem or national mark of a

24 FOSSIL MEN.

strange tribe, and the meaning was identical. We
may imagine, therefore, the Canadian potentate as
saying, " If you strangers understand this erection as
we do, namely, as the sign or totem of your tribe, then
we object to it, as indicating a claim on your part to
a territory which is ours of right." Whatever the
words of the chief, the end was that he and his retinue
were induced to go on board the ships, where they
were loaded with presents, and the chiefs two sons
were retained as hostages, and finally taken with
Cartier to France. There can be little doubt that
these people were not the Micmac or Malicete tribe
afterwards known to the French as Gaspesiens, but
that they were an outlying branch, or wandering party
of the Algonquin or Huron tribes of Canada. This
was the ultimatum of Carrier's first voyage ; for after
beating for some days against the west winds in the
strait between Gaspe and Anticosti, he was obliged to
bear away for Belle Isle and to return to France.

Next year he returned, and with little difficulty
reached the entrance of the St. Lawrence, which his
Indian captives had already taught him to call the
Great River of Hochelaga, and the highway of Canada.
He found at the mouth of the Saguenay certain Cana-
dian fishermen in the pursuit of seals ; and farther up,
at Isle aux Coudres, so named by him from the
abundance of hazel-nuts, was another party engaged
in the more formidable sport of hunting the white
whale or Beluga of the St. Lawrence, the Adhotuis
of the natives, a strange and beautiful creature, which

AN OLD STORY OF THE NEW WORLD. 25

excited the astonishment of the French seaman, and
which he correctly characterises as living between the
sea and the fresh water of the St. Lawrence, and as
peculiar to the estuary of that river. He does not
mention how the natives captured this formidable
creature, often twenty feet in length ; but the modern
Indians, like the Esquimaux, use a harpoon with a
cord and float. We may imagine that the means in
Carrier's time were the same, only that the iron of the
modern harpoon would be represented by a triangular
stone point, or a many-barbed head of bone.*

The Canada of Carrier's time began at the bottom
of the Isle of Orleans, not far below Quebec, and
extended thence half-way to Montreal. It was the
native name of a district bounded by Saguenay on
the east and Hochelaga on the west, and of which
Stadacona, on the site of the present Quebec, was the
capital. The name Quebec, meaning a strait, was
then applied to the narrow part of the river, at the
foot of Cape Diamond. Opposite the Island of Orleans,

* The Beluga catodon, white whale or white porpoise of the
St. Lawrence, still exists, though less abundant than formerly.
It is strictly an estuarine animal, found only in the St. Lawrence
and in parts of Davis' Straits. Its bones, found in the post-
pliocene Leda clay of the St. Lawrence, show that it existed
in the glacial period, when it must have had a far wider range
than at present, over portions of North America now land, but
then submerged. Its bones have been found in the vicinity
of Lake Champlain and near Brockville on the St. Lawrence.
Though the species found in the post-pliocene has been named
Beluga Vermontana, a comparison with the recent animal shows
that it is the same species.

26 FOSSIL MEN.

Donnacanna, the reigning Agouhanna, or chief of
Canada, met the voyagers in state with twelve canoes,
and made a long speech, with much gesticulation,
which was interpreted by the two Canadians, who had
returned with Cartier, as expressing welcome and
goodwill. At Stadacona, accordingly, Cartier laid up
his ships, preparatory to his further intended explora-
tion of the Eiver Hochelaga, and had many feasts and
quarrels with his friend Donnacanna, whom at length
he treacherously seized and carried off to France.

Here, first at Sta^acona, and afterwards at Hoche-
laga, Cartier found himself at the head-quarters of
the primitive men of the more advanced Stone Age.
We shall first accompany him to the latter place,
and then inquire in detail as to the actual character
of the Flint folk, and the remains which they have
left.

Donnacanna and his advisers were, when their edu-
cation and opportunities are considered, little inferior
to their successors in American public life in devising
political expedients. They seem at a very early
period of their intercourse with the French to have
discovered that it was not for the public good to
allow their visitors to proceed any farther up the St.
Lawrence. It was clearly the interest of Stadacona
that foreign trade should be limited to it, and that the
precious commodities of the strangers should be dis-
tributed inland only at the price set upon them by the
Quebec dealers. The commercial jealousy of the cities
on the St. Lawrence was already in full force. The

AN OLD STORY OF THE NEW WORLD. 27

first device was to represent that the river was dan-
gerous or not navigable. Finding this not sufficient,
Donnacanna, after a present of fish and a solemn dance
and song, drew a circle in the sand (an action for
which had he known it, there are classical precedents)
around Cartier and his companions, in token that they
were to remain where they were, and then formally
presented him with a girl and two boys, children of
the best families in the town, as pledges of alliance
and friendship. Even this, however, proved of no
avail, and then the sanctions of religion were invoked.
Three medicine-men with blackened faces, dog-skin
or skunk-skin dresses, and huge horns on their heads,
appeared suddenly in a canoe, as messengers from the
Great Spirit, Coudragny, to reveal the news that at
Hochelaga the ice and snow would be so formidable
that the French would all be destroyed. This, how-
ever, the captain refused to believe, alleging that the
Indian god had no power over the followers of Christ :
and the expedients of Donnacanna were exhausted, so
that the adventurous Breton was allowed to proceed
on his way.

On the 17th day of September Cartier began his
long and toilsome ascent of the great river, arriving at
Hochelaga on the 2nd of October, thus occupying
thirteen days in a voyage which the magnificent river-
boats of the St. Lawrence now perform in as many
hours. He was struck with the grandeur of the great
stream, the fertile lands on its banks, and the magni-
ficent forests, now beginning to assume their, splendid

28 FOSSIL MEN.

autumnal hues. He saw many huts on the banks,
occupied by fishermen, who came to his boats with as
great confidence and nonchalance as if the French had
been well-known friends and neighbours, and at the
mouth of the Richelieu he was visited by a great chief,
apparently tributary to him of Stadacona, with many
professions of friendship. There seems little doubt
that the news of the arrival of the French had pre-
ceded them far up the river, and that as allies of
Donnacanna they were everywhere received as friends.

At length, on the evening of the 2nd of October,
amid all the autumnal glories of the Canadian forest,
Cartier moored his boats at the foot of the current of
St. Mary, opposite what is now a suburb of Montreal,
and in sight of the wooded trappean hill which over-
looked the town of Hochelaga as it now overlooks the
chief city of Canada.

The arrival of the voyagers was speedily made
known in the town, for before night more than a
thousand persons had assembled on the bank, and
signified their joy and welcome by dances, in which
the men, women, and children performed separately,
and by throwing fish and corn-bread into the boats.
Not content with this, they lighted fires on the shore,
and kept up their dances all night, with cries of
Aguiaze, which Cartier interpreted as a word of wel-
come.

The place where the boats halted, and to which the
Europeans have now restricted the once more exten-
sive name of Hochelaga, was about three miles from

AN OLD STORY OF THE NEW WORLD. 29

the actual town, on going to which the traveller would
first pass over the low alluvial bank of the river for
some distance, and then ascend to a sandy terrace on
which the town was built, as Cartier describes it, at
the base of the mpuntain, on a level sandy plain, inter-
sected by a few small brooklets. This being premised,
we may give the account of the visit in the words of
the old voyager, as translated by Hakluyt, with a few
verbal emendations : —

" The captaine the next day very earely in the
morning, having attired himselfe, caused all his com-
pany to be set in order to go to see the towne and
habitation of those people, and a certaine mountaine
that is neere the citie; with whom went also five
gentlemen, and twenty mariners, leaving the rest to
keepe and looke to our boates : we tooke with us
three men of Hochelaga to bring us to the place.
All along as we went we found the way as well
beaten and frequented as can be, the fairest and best
country that possibly can be seene, full of as goodly
great okes as are in any wood in France, under which
the ground was all covered over with faire akornes.
After we had gone about foure or five miles, we met
by the way one of the chief est lords of the citie, ac-
companied with many moe, who so soone as he sawe
us beckned and made signes upon us, that we must
rest in that place where they had a great fire, and so
we did. Then the said lord began to make a long dis-
course, even as we have saide above, they are accus-
tomed to doe in signe of mirth and friendship, shewing

80 FOSSIL MEN.

our captaine and all his company a joyfull countenance,
and good will ; who gave him two hatchets, a paire of
knives and a crucifix which he made him to kisse, and
then put it about his necke, for which he gave our
captaine hear tie thank es. This done, we went along,
and about a mile and a halfe farther, we began to
finde goodly and large cultivated fieldes, full of such
corn as the countrie yeeldeth. It is even as the Millet
of Bresil, as great and some what bigger than small
peason, wherewith they live even as we doe with our
wheat. In the midst of those fields is the citie of
Hochelaga, placed neere, and as it were joyned to a
great mountaine,* that is tilled round about, very
fertill, on the top of which you may see very farre, we
named it Mount Koiall. The citie of Hochelaga is
round, compassed about with timber, with three course
of Eampires, one within another framed like a sharp
spire, or pyramid, but laid acrosse above. The middle-
most of them is perpendicular. The Kampires are
framed and fashioned with pieces of timber, layd along
very well and cunningly joyned togither after their
fashion. This inclosure is in height about two rods.*f*
It hath but one gate or entrie thereat, which is shut
with piles, stakes, and barres. Over it, and also in
many places of the wall, there is a kind of gallery to
runne along, and ladders to get up, all full of stones

* Literally — " which surrounds ifc, well cultivated and very
fertile."

f French — " deux lances." The drawing in Kamusio's
translation would give a height of about sixteen feet.

AN OLD STORY OF THE NEW WORLD. 31

and pebbles for the defence of it. There are in the
towne about fiftie houses, at the utmost about fiftie
paces long, and twelve or fifteen broad, built all of
wood, covered over with the barke of the wood, as
broad as any boord, very finely and cunningly joyned
togither according to there fashion. Within the said
houses, there are many roomes. In the midest of
every one there is a great hall, in the middle whereof
they make their fire. They live in common togither :
then doe the husbands, wives and children each one
retire themselves to their chambers. They have also
on the top of their houses certaine granaries,* wherein
they keepe their corne to make their bread withall ;
they call it Caracony, which they make as hereafter
shall follow. They have certaine peeces of wood, like
those whereon we beat our hempe, and with certain
beetles of wood they beat their corne to powder ; then
they make paste of it, and of the paste, cakes or
wreathes, then they lay them on a broad and hote
stone, and then cover it with hote pebbles and so they
bake their bread instead of ovens. They make also
sundry sorts of pottage with the said corne and also
of peas and beanes, whereof they have great store, as
also with other fruits, great cowcumbers and other
fruits. They have also in their houses certaine
vessels as bigge as any But or Tun, wherein they
keepe their fish, causing the same in sommer to be
dried in the smoke, and live therewith in winter,
whereof they make great provision, as we by expe-
* Corn-cribs.

32 FOSSIL MEN.

rience have seene. All their viands and meats are
without any taste or savour of salt at all. They sleepe
upon barkes of trees laide all along upon the ground
being over- spread with the skinnes of certaine wilde
Beastes, wherewith they also clothe and cover them-
selves, namely of the Dormouse,* Beaver, Martin,
Fox, Wild Cat, Deer, Stag, and other wild beasts, but
the greater part of them go almost naked (during
the summer) . The thing most precious that they have
in all the world they call Esurgny ; which is white and
which they take in the said river in Cornibots,f in the
manner following. When any one hath deserved
death, or that they take any of their enemies in
warres, first they kill him, then with certain knives
they give great slashes and strokes upon their but-
tocks, flankes, thighs and shoulders j then they cast
the same bodie so mangled downe to the bottome of
the river, in a place where the said Esurgny is, and

* Query, musk-rat.

f This word seems to have puzzled the translators. It is
probably a vulgar local name for some shell supposed to re-
semble that of which these Indians made their wampum. I
would suggest that it may be derived from cornet, which is used
by old French writers as a name for the shells of the genus
Valuta, and is also a technical term in conchology. In this
case it is likely that the Esurgny was made of the shells of
some of our species of Melania or Paludina, just as the Indians
on the coast used for beads and ornaments the shells of Pur-
pura lapillus and of Dentalium, etc. It is just possible that
Cartier may have misunderstood the mode of procuring these
shells, and that the statement may refer to some practice of
making criminals and prisoners dive for them in the deeper
parts of the river.

AN OLD STOEY OF THE NEW WOKLD. 33

there leave it ten or twelve houres, then they take it
up againe, and in the cats find the said esurgny or
cornibots. Of them they make beads, and use them
even as we doe gold and silver, accounting it the
preciousest thing in the world. They have this vertue
in them, they will stop or stanch bleeding at the nose,
for we proved it. These people are given to no other
exercise, but onely to husbandrie and fishing for their
sustenance : they have no care of any other wealth or
commoditie in this world, for they have no knowledge
of it, and never travell and go out of their country, as
those of Canada and Saguenay doe, albeit the Canad-
ians with eight or nine villages more alongst that river
be subject unto them.

' ' So soone as we were come neare the towne, a great
number of the inhabitants thereof came to present
themselves before us, after their fashion, making very
much of us : we were by our guides brought into the
middest of the towne. They have in the middlemost
part of their towne a large square place, being from
side to side a good stone cast, whither we were
brought, and there with signes were commanded to
stay, and so we did : then suddenly all the women and
maidens of the towne gathered themselves together,
part of which had their armes full of young children,
and as many as could came to kiss our faces, our
armes, and what part of the bodie soever they could
touch, weeping for very joy that they saw us, shewing
us the best countenance that possibly they could, de-
siring us with their signes, that it would please us to

34 FOSSIL MEN.

touch their children. That done, the men caused the

women to withdraw themselves backe, then they every

one sate down on the ground round about us, as if we

would have shewen and rehearsed some cornedie or

other shew : then presently came the women againe,

every one bringing a fouresquare matte in manner of

carpets, and spreading them abroad on the ground in

that place, they caused us to sit upon them. That

done, the Lord and King of the country was brought

upon nine or ten men's shoulders (whom in their

tongue they call Agouhanna, sitting upon a great

stagges skinne, and they laide him downe upon the

foresaid mats neere to the capitaine, every one beck-

ning unto us that hee was their lord. This Agou-

hanna was a man about fiftie yeeres old : he was no

whit better apparelled then any of the rest, onely ex-

cepted that he had a certain thing around his head

made of the skinnes of hedgehogs * like a red wreath.

He was full of the palsie and his members shronke

together. After he had with certain signes saluted

our captaine and all his companie, and by manifest

tokens bid all welcome, he shewed his legges and

armes to our capitaine, and with signes desired him to

touch them, and so he did, rubbing them with his own

hands : then did Agouhanna take the wreath or

crowne he had about his head, and gave it unto our

capitaine, that done they brought before him diverse

diseased men, some blinde, some criple, some lame

and impotent, and some so old that the haire of their

* Porcupines.

AN OLD STORY OF THE NEW WOELD. 35

eyelids came downe and covered their cheekes, and
layd them all along before our capitaine, to the end
they might of him be touched ; for it seemed unto
them that God was descended and come down from
heaven to heale them. Our capitaine seeing the
misery and devotion of this poore people, recited the
Gospel of St. John, that is to say, ' In the beginning
was the Word/ making the sign of the cross upon the
poor sick ones, praying to God that it would please
him to open the hearts of this poore people, and to
make them know our holy faith, and that they might
receive baptisme and christendome, that done, he took
a service-booke in his hand, and with a loud voice
read all the passion of Christ, word by word, and all
the standers by might heare him, all which while this
poore people kept silence, and were marvellously at-
tentive, looking up to heaven, and imitating us in ges-
tures. Then he caused the men all orderly to be set
on one side, the women on another, and likewise the
children on another, and to the chiefest of them he
gave hatchets, to the other knives, and to the women
beads and such other small trifles. Then where y
children were, he cast rings, counters and broaches
made of tin, whereat they seemed to be very glad.
That done, our capitaine commanded trumpets and
other musicall instruments to be sounded, which when
they heard, they were very merie. Then we took our
leave and went away ; the women seeing that, put
themselves before to stay us, and brought us out of
their meates that they had made readie for us, as fish,

36 FOSSIL MEN.

pottage, beanes, and such, other things, thinking tc
make us eate, and dine in that place ; but because
the meats were not to our taste we liked them not,
but thanked them, and with signes gave to understand
that we had no neede to eate. When we were out of
the towne, diverse of the men and women followed us,
and brought us to the toppe of the foresaid moun-
taine, which wee named Mount Koial, it is about a
quarter of a league from the towne. When as we were
on the toppe of it, we might discerne and plainly see
thirtie leagues about. On the north side of it there
are many hilles to be seene running west and east, and
as many more on the south, amongst and betweene the
which the countrey is as faire and as pleasant as pos-
sible can be seene, being levell, smooth, and very
plaine, fit to be husbanded and tilled, and in the mid-
dest of those fieldes we saw the river further up a
great way than where we had left our boates, where
was the greatest and the swiftest fall of water that
any where hath beene seene which we could not pass,
and the said river as great wide and large as our sight
might discerne, going southwest along three fair and
round mountaines that we sawe, as we judged about
fifteen leagues from us. Those which brought us
thither tolde and shewed us, that in the sayd river
there were three such falles of water more, as that
was where we had left our boates ; but we could not
understand how farre they were one from another.
Moreover they showe us with signes, that the said
three fals being past, a man might sayle the space of

AN OLD STOEY OF THE NEW WORLD. 37

three months more alongst that river, and that along
the hills that are on the north side there is a great
river, which (even as the other) cometh from the west,
we thought it to be the river that runneth through
the countrey of Saguenay, and without any signe or
question mooved or asked of them, they tooke the
chayne of our capitaines whistle, which was of silver,
and the dagger-haft of one of our fellow mariners,
hanging on his side being of yellow copper guilt, and
shewed us that such stuffe came from the said river,
and that there be Agojudas, that is as much to say, an
evill people, who goe all armed even to their fingers'
ends. Also they shewed us the manner of their
armour, they are made of cordes and wood, finely and
cunningly wrought together. They gave us also to
understand e that those Agojudas doe continually
warre one against another, but because we did not
understand them well, we could not perceive how farre
it was to that country. Our capitaine shewed them
redde copper, which in their language they call Caque-
daze, and looking towarde that countrey, with signes
asked them if any came from thence, they shaking
their heads answered no ; but they shewed us that it
came from Saguenay, and that lyeth cleane contrary
to the other. After we had heard and seene these
things of them we drewe to our boates accompanied
with a great multitude of those people ; some of them
when as they sawe any of our fellowes weary, would
take them up on their shoulders, and carry them
as on horseback."

38 FOSSIL MEN.

This, let it be observed, is the picture of an abso-
lutely primitive people, previously unvisited by Euro-
peans— " flint -folk " in so far as weapons and im-
plements are concerned. They may serve to us as a
type of those still older aborigines of Europe whose
remains are now exciting so much attention, and we
may consider in the following pages their history and
probable origin, the remains which they have left,
their arts and manufactures, their knowledge, culture,
and religion, their physical characteristics, and other

Fig. 6.— SECTION OF THE STOCKADE OB WALL OF HOCHELAGA. (After Cartier*)

American nations their contemporaries, and may as
we proceed apply the result to the explanation of pre-
historic man elsewhere.

The plan and section of the city and its defences,
given in figures 6 and 7, are reduced from those in
Kamusio's edition of Carrier's Voyages, and are
apparently sketches from memory. The stockade
was probably of round trunks of trees rather than of
planks, but the town was, no doubt, a regular circle,
with the houses on one plan. This plan and the social

AN OLD STOEY OP THE NEW WORLD. 39

relations connected with it we shall have to notice in
the sequel. Our sketch, fig 8, may be taken as pretty
nearly representing the actual appearance of Hoche-
laga. The features of the country are accurately
given, and the oak-tree in the foreground is a sketch

A1
Fig. 7 — PJLAN OP HOCHELAGA (after Cartier).

(A) Gate.

(B) Square.

(C) Chief's House.

(D) Wall or Stockade.

of one now standing on McGrill College grounds, Mon-
treal, near the ancient site.

What was the fate of Hochelaga ? The question
may be prompted by an interest in these primitive
people, and the answer has in it much material for

40 FOSSIL MEN.

thought as to other perished nations. Cartier, finding
that the great Kiver Hochelaga was no highway to
the Indies,, but learning that towards its source was
the land of "Saguenay," celebrated for its metallic
wealth, made it an object in his third voyage to reach
the land of Saguenay,* now known to us as the
copper region of Lake Superior. He failed, however,
to surmount the rapids of the St. Lawrence, and from
the fragments of his journal which remain seems to
have found reason to dread hostilities on the part of
the natives, now better informed as to the ambitious
and selfish designs of the French. No mention is
made of Hochelaga, but the voyager was entertained
by the people of another town or village apparently
near the Lachine rapids, which he names Tutonaguy.

In 1603, when Champlain ascended the St. Law-
rence, either Hochelaga had disappeared, or the
explorer heard nothing of it, and we hear no more of
its site till 1642, more than a century after the voy-
ages of Cartier, when the Sieur de Maisonneuve
selected the locality for the site of the future Montreal
— an instance of the fact which perpetually recurs in
the history both of the old world and the new, that
the exigencies of defence or the convenience of sub-
sistence and communication have dictated to the
primitive peoples of bygone ages the selection of
localities which have approved themselves to their
successors up to our own time. An isolated and de-

* This name, like many others, has been restricted in use
to a locality scarcely that to which it was originally applied.

42 FOSSIL MEN.

f ensible position, with fertile soil, and a hill command-
ing an extensive view of the great Canadian plain,
and this at the foot of the rapids which close the free
navigation of the St. Lawrence, and at the confluence
of the two greatest rivers of Canada, constituted a
combination of advantages equally appreciable to
the aborigines and to the French settlers, and which
still give to Montreal the first position as a Canadian
city.

Sometime in the interval between 1535 and 1642,
Hochelaga had been utterly destroy ed, and the en-
croachments of the warlike Five Nations, or Iroquois,
from the south, had even made the island a sort of
frontier debatable land in which no man lived, and
to which it was dangerous to resort even for hunting.
A tradition current long afterwards among the Algon-
quins, and preserved by Charlevoix, told of a long
and bloody war between them and the Hochelagans,
terminated by a treacherous surprise at the little
Kiver Becancour, between Hochelaga and Stadacona,
in which the Hochelagans were defeated with the
loss of so many warriors that the stream acquired
the name of the putrid river from the number of
dead bodies left in it. This was a serious blow to
Hochelaga, leading afterwards to its fall by the hands
of another enemy. According to certain Indians
who represented themselves as the survivors of the
nation, and who visited the French colonists in 1642,
the town was finally taken and burned by the Hurons,
and its few remaining people had taken refuge with

AN OLD STORY OF THE NEW WORLD. 43

the nomadic tribes of the Ottawa. They represented
themselves as the last remnant of a great people who
had once possessed broad lands and many towns on
both sides of the St. Lawrence. Their tribal name
had been Onontchataranons, but by the French they
were called Iroquet, a name apparently expressing
a supposed affinity with their bitter enemies the
Iroquois. The French invited them to return to
Montreal, and a few families accepted the invitation,
but remained only for a short time, being driven away
by the dread of the Iroquois, from whom they doubted
the ability of the French to protect them. This is
the last historical notice of Hochelaga. Its site was
overgrown with trees, and subsequently cleared and
cultivated. Its name was transferred to Cartier's
landing-place, at the foot of the current of St. Mary.
In 1860 the excavations for foundations of houses in
the western part of Montreal uncovered its old hearths
and kitchen-middens and burial-places. In the next
and following chapters we shall direct attention to its
history and remains, and to the light which these
throw on the primitive relations of the American
tribes.

In the meantime let us think of the instructive fact
that within three hundred years of the time when the
French explorer found at the foot of Mount Eoyal
a populous Indian town, strongly fortified and sur-
rounded by cultivated ground, its very site had been
forgotten, and was occupied with fields showing no
sign above the green sward of the remains beneath.

44 FOSSIL MEN.

The mountain remains as of old, but a new city of
a strange people has grown up, and but for Carrier's
narrative, those who dig up the curiously ornamented
earthen vessels, the stone implements, and the bones
of the old Hochelagans, might suppose that they were
dealing with the relics of a people who may have
perished thousands of years ago. The historical facts
of the existence of the town in 1535, and of its
destruction before the settlement of Montreal, while
they take away the romance which might otherwise
connect itself with the remains, give to them, as we
shall find, a double value as interpreters of the pre-
historic antiquities of old America and Europe.

CHAPTER III.

GLIMPSES OF FEE-HISTORIC TIMES.

WHAT were the ethnic relations of the old Hochelagans,
whose reception of Cartier was noticed in our last
chapter ? The answer furnishes a strange illustration
of the evanescent nature of the history of tribes with-
out written records; but when pursued to the end casts
a flood of light on the pre-Columbian history of North
America. Dr. Wilson has shown that notwithstanding
a general physical resemblance of the primitive North
Americans, they present distinct types of skull cor-
responding to the long and short-headed forms
(Dolichocephalic and Brachycephalic) of European
races. Now the skulls obtained from the cemeteries
of the ancient Hochelaga are of the long-headed form
characteristic of the Iroquois and Huron nations, that
is, of the historical enemies, not of the later political
allies, of this ancient people. We shall find also that
the patterns of their pottery and tobacco-pipes corre-
spond with those prevalent among the other tribes
in the neighbourhood of the St. Lawrence, but more
especially resemble those of the ancient Eries, a tribe
also hostile to the Iroquois, though allied to them by
language. The language of Hochelaga, in so far as
can be judged from the short vocabulary preserved by
Cartier, was not Algonquin, or like that of the tribes

46 FOSSIL MEN.

north of the St. Lawrence, nor was it precisely like
that of the Iroquois or Hurons, but a separate dia-
lect resembling these in many leading words. On
the other hand, the early French explorers regarded
all the St. Lawrence tribes except the Hurons as of
Algonquin race. In Cartier's time and subsequently
the Iroquois and Hurons were hostile to Hochelaga,
while the Algonquins seem to have been allies, and
Hochelaga seems to have enjoyed a political headship
over the St. Lawrence tribes to the eastward and
northward. Lastly, Hochelaga was finally destroyed
by the Hurons, and the survivors, if we are to believe
their tale, had identified themselves with Algonquin
tribes on the Ottawa.

The solution of the difficulty is that the Hoche-
lagans were not precisely either of the Iroquois,
Huron, or Algonquin stock, but a remnant of an
ancient and decaying nation to which the Eries and
some other tribes also belonged, and which had
historical relations originally with the now extinct
Alleghans, or mound-builders of the Ohio and Mis-
sissippi rivers, and latterly with the Iroquois and
Hurons, but which at the epoch of the French dis-
covery was on the point of extinction, hemmed in
between the aggressive Iroquois nations in the south,
and the barbarous Algonquins in the north, and
holding the stronghold of Hochelaga as one of its
last fortresses on the St. Lawrence. Before the
French colonisation of the St. Lawrence valley these
people had disappeared, and the Algonquins had re-

GLIMPSES OP PRE-HISTOEIC TIMES. 47

placed them, and their former residence had become
an unpeopled frontier between the Iroquois and
Algonquins. Had Cartier visited Hochelaga a few
centuries earlier, he would have found it connected
with a great and powerful group of similar nations
extending to the valley of the Ohio. Had he as-
cended the St. Lawrence a century later, he would
have found no trace of such a city.

The evidence and the historical application of this
result will require us to consider the ante- Columbian
distribution of the North American nations, and the
changes and movements in progress among them ;
and it will be the most perspicuous mode to adopt the
historical style for what is in regard to its evidence a
matter of archaeology.

It was a tradition of one of the American tribes
that in old times the Indians were increasing to such
an extent that they were threatened with want, and
the Great Spirit then taught them to make war, and
thus to thin one another's numbers. The tradition,
as we shall find, embodies the historic truth that peace-
ful primitive nations had been overthrown by warlike
invaders. But without absolutely believing in this
mythical period of peace, there is good reason at least
to show that before the European discovery a series of
great movements and conquests had commenced and
was in progress. Before these movements, we learn
from monumental and linguistic evidence the distri-
bution of races marked on the little sketch-map on
the following page.

48

FOSSIL MEN.

Across the Arctic regions of the continent lay as
now the Innuit, Kalalik, or Greenlanders, better known
to us by the Algonquin nickname of Esquimaux (Es-
kumaget, " he eats raw flesh " ) . On the eastern side

Fig. 9. — SKETCH-MAP SHOWING THE PBOBABLE LINES OF MIGEATION AND

DlSTEIBUTION OF THE AMEBICAN TEIBES.

of the continent these poor people have always been
separated by a marked line from their Indian neigh-
bours on the south, and have been regarded by them

GLIMPSES OF FEE-HISTORIC TIMES. 49

with the most bitter hostility. On the west, however,
they pass into the Eastern Siberians on the one hand,
and into the West-coast Indians on the other, both
by language and physical characters. They and the
northern tribes at least of West-coast Indians, belong
in all probability to a wave of population spreading
from Behring Strait. They were the Skraelings, or
dwarfs, of the ancient Icelandic voyagers who early
visited and colonised Greenland ; and as they repre-
sented the inhabitants of Vinland, which seems to
have been on the coast of New England, as Skraelings,
it has been supposed that the Esquimaux formerly
extended farther to the south than at present. It is,
however, not unlikely that the Northmen may have
regarded the Indians also as Skraelings.

South of the Esquimaux there extends, from near
the west coast far into the interior, a series of tribes
whose languages and manners are intermediate be-
tween those of the last mentioned people and the
Indians to the south. These are the Tinne, or Chippe-
wyans. There is reason to believe that at one time they
extended quite to the Atlantic coast, and that some
of the primitive tribes of Labrador, the Ked Indians
of Newfoundland, and the pre-historic peoples who are
said by tradition to have been displaced by the Algon-
quin tribes of Nova Scotia and New England, belonged
to this stock. The Tinne are either a mixed people,
intermediate between the Indians and Esquimaux, or
a more ancient people than either, hemmed in between
the northern and southern streams of migration.

E

50

FOSSIL MEN.

Between the Esquimaux and Tinne on the north
and the St. Lawrence and its lakes on the south, and
stretching down the Atlantic coast as far as Florida,
lay the numerous tribes of Algonquins and their allies,
resembling each other in physical characters and
language, and whom tradition and other indications
concur in tracing to a migration entering America
from the equatorial Atlantic. Many of these tribes
were hunters and fishermen, but in the temperate and
warmer regions they had acquired the rudiments at
least of agriculture. They are the typical American
Indians of the early English colonists.

In Central America, Mexico, and the rich alluvial
plains of the Mississippi and its tributaries, were
the Toltecans, or primitive Mexicans, and the Alle-
ghans, or " mound-builders " of the Mississippi and
Ohio — a people now known by little more than their
bones and the remains of their works. In physio-
gnomy and bodily frame they seem to have presented
some of the softer features of the Polynesians, from
whom perhaps they were in whole or in part derived.
Simple and primitive tillers of the soil, they possessed
a higher degree of the instinct of combination for
great public works and of artistic skill than the other
North American tribes. Their huge communistic
barracks or hotels, the so-called palaces of Central
America, Yucatan, and Mexico, the Pueblos of the
Colorado, and the mound- villages of the Mississippi,
with their sacrificial and burial-mounds, still remain
as gigantic monuments of their skill and industry.

GLIMPSES OP PiiE-HISTORIC TIMES. 51

In some parts of the western territories the manner
in which these are perched on almost inaccessible
cliffs affords a testimony to the skill and enterprise
of these people, and an affecting evidence of their
struggle against the encroachments of the more war-
like and barbarous tribes. They were clever weavers,
potters, and workers in copper and silver, and had
made an amount of progress in the arts of life which
in Mexico astonished their Spanish conquerors. They
held all the great fertile plains and tablelands be-
tween the Eocky Mountains and the Alleghanies, and
had extended themselves to the mineral districts of
Lake Superior, where they worked extensive mines of
copper and silver. They have even left traces of their
presence in the valley of the St. Lawrence. But they
held their wide possessions by a precarious tenure.
Their arms were not superior to those of the ruder
races that surrounded them. Tradition and their
buried skeletons testify that they were of greater
physical strength than the savage tribes, and they
excelled in numbers, military skill, and the art of
fortification. Still they were subject to continual
raids and attacks, and before the discovery of America,
the Aztecs, a people of truly American physiognomy
and of savage instincts, had conquered Mexico, while
the region of the western plains, the meeting-place of
the three great waves of immigration, and the Scy thia
of North America, rearing a numerous and bold popu-
lation of buffalo-hunters, had overwhelmed with its
swarms the northern mound-builders. These, when

52 FOSSIL MEN.

cut off from the copper mines of the north and the
fisheries of the great lakes, probably decayed rapidly,
and the old trees growing on their earthworks when
the first European explorers visited their country,
testify to the lapse of centuries since their destruction
or expatriation.

Originally these Alleghans were bounded on the
north by the Algonquins, but the earlier waves of
conquest from the north and west severed this con-
nection. These earlier migrations, however, in time
became partially absorbed and civilized, and formed
a belt of semi-Alleghan and semi-Algonquin territory
along the great lakes and the St. Lawrence, the
people inhabiting which had borrowed some of the
arts and modes of life of the Alleghans. To this
probably belonged such nations of agricultural and
village-dwelling Indians as the Eries, the Neutrals,
the Hurons, and the Hochelagans, which eventually
cultivated friendly relations with their neighbours on
the south, and with the Algonquins on the north,
and carried on to some extent the copper-mining and
agriculture of their civilized predecessors. But other
waves of migration from the west followed, and at
the time of the early French discoveries the Iroquois
and other fierce and warlike tribes were inserting
themselves like a wedge between the remains of the
Alleghans on the south, and the Eries, the Hurons, and
the Hochelagans on the north.

Such is the history as its general features present
hemselves to my mind, after long study of the frag-

GLIMPSES OP FEE-HISTORIC TIMES. 53

mentary evidence which remains. I could not, with-
out several chapters of discussion, give the details of
this evidence, but shall devote the remainder of this
chapter to some portions of it which especially con-
cern my present purpose.

The features of the old Alleghans, or civilised
mound-builders, are preserved to us only by their
sculptures and terra-cottas, and principally by the
heads represented on the curiously-formed tobacco-
pipes, which they devoted in great numbers on their
" altar hearths " to their gods or manitous ; and the
few skulls which have been secured from the grave-
mounds correspond with these representations. They
were people with rounded, short, and sometimes high
heads ; and features, which while American, were less
marked and softer than those of the more barbarous
tribes. The same cast of countenance appears, ac-
cording to Wilson, on pottery, attributable to the
Toltecans or primitive Mexicans and the Central
Americans, while the features of the intrusive Aztecs
were more of the ordinary Indian type. To illustrate
this I give a few profiles — that of a mound-builder
from a pipe, those of two ancient Central Americans
from Palenque, that of a Peruvian from an earthen
vase, and that of a woman of the mound-builders, also
from an earthen vessel. To contrast with these are
an Aztec chief from a Mexican painting, and a mo-
dern Mandan Indian belonging to a nomadic tribe.
The Toltecan and Alleghan features obviously show
the American type softened and refined either by

54

FOSSIL MEN.

foreign intermixture or by long ages of civilized cul-
ture. A similar but somewhat different style of refine-
ment in the American countenance appears in the
Inca race of Peru. It is remarkable in connection

€

Fig. 10. — ALLEGHAN, TOLTECAN, PERUVIAN, AND MODEBN CEOW HEADS.

(a) Toltecan from Palenque.

(b) Mound-builder on a pipe.

(c) Crow.

(d) Mound-builder on a vase.

(e) Peruvian on a vase.

(After Wilson, Foster, and Catlin.)

with this that the Alleghans and Toltecans are the
oldest North American aborigines of whom we have
any record. Whatever age may be assigned to the

GLIMPSES OP FEE-HISTORIC TIMES.

55

buildings of Central America, Yucatan, and Mexico,
there seems the best reason to believe that some of
the Mississippi mounds are very ancient. Very old
trees were found growing on them, and there were
indications of previous generations of trees. The
f( garden beds " of extinct and forgotten tribes are
found to have extended themselves over the earth-
works of earlier people. Professor Swallow, of Mis-
souri, informs me that he opened two ancient burial

Fig. 11.— MODERN HAND AIT, AITD ANCIENT AZTEC HEADS.
(After Catlin and Wilson.)

mounds in that State, on which vegetable soil two feet
thick had accumulated, and around which six feet of
alluvial silt had been deposited, apparently in con-
sequence of a subsidence of the soil on which the
mound had been built, in some pre-historic earthquake,
similar, perhaps, to those which in modern times pro-
duced the sunk country of New Madrid in the same
region. In the alluvium which had accumulated was

56 FOSSIL MEN.

found the tooth of a mastodon. Perhaps no American
interment can lay claim to greater antiquity, and the
bones of the buried corpses had been resolved almost
entirely into dust. Yet earthen vessels found with
them showed the high Alleghan type of features, and
the only skull secured was of the same type. I have
in my own collection a tooth of the mastodon, and a
human skull, probably of a woman, which were found,
as I am informed, together, in river alluvium, near
Kankakee, Illinois, and the statement is corroborated
by the state of preservation of the remains. The skull,
while of decided American type, is of a short and high
form, more allied to the Toltecan head than to that of
the more barbarous Indian races. In North America,
therefore, a comparatively civilised and well- developed
race would seem to have precedence of all others, a
statement which we shall find may apply to Europe
also, notwithstanding the mythical notions of a palaeo-
lithic age of barbarism.

It is remarkable, however, that two types of head
are represented in these old monuments, one short
and high, with a respectable frontal development;
another low-browed, and retreating in the frontal
aspect. According to Foster both these types appear
in the burial mounds of the Alleghans. This may
indicate different castes or tribes, or conquering and
subject or servile races. It is certain, however, that
similar differences exist among the modern Indians,
and that those with low foreheads, even when not
artificially compressed, are not deficient in intelligence.

GLIMPSES OP PEE-HISTOEIC TIMES. 57

For instance, Catlin has remarked and figured in his
sketches the peculiar Toltecan face in the Upsarokas,
or Crows, a small tribe inhabiting the Upper Missouri.
He notices its resemblance to the Yucatan figures,
and particularly refers to the low and retreating
forehead, which he, however, affirms is not artifi-
cially flattened. He describes the Crows as tall and
athletic men, intelligent and cleanly, and remarkable
for the superior neatness and ingenuity of their arms,
garments, and lodges. They are, however, a migra-
tory people, though the allied Minatarees are more
stationary, and are cultivators. He farther remarks,
however, that the Mandans, who have salient features
like those of the Aztecs, represent the Toltecan
features on their drawings on buffalo skins. May
this not be a conventional style of art handed down
from an earlier period ?

Another people of the west, who maybe regarded
as lineal descendants of the Toltecans or Alleghans,
are the Moquis, or Village Indians of New Mexico,
who still retain the semi-civilized habits and arts of
these ancient peoples. From an excellent series of
photographs of these people, for which I am indebted
to the officers of the United States Geological Survey
of the Territories, I infer that they have the semi-
Polynesian and refined style of features referred to
above. A comparison of these photographs with
others in my possession of natives of Easter Island,
shows a striking resemblance ; and it is interesting
that the latter, in their system of totemic carving

58

FOSSIL MEN.

on wood of family records, and in the character of
the megalithic images with which they adorned their
burial places, also show affinity with the nations of
Western America.

Fig. 12.— COPPEB AXES, SPEAES, AHTJ KNIFE OF THE ALLEGHANS.
(After Squier and Foster.)

The traditions of the Delawares and Iroquois concur
in testifying to their former wars against a great
people, the Allegwi or Alleghans, dwelling to the
south-west, and who were finally expelled from their

GLIMPSES OP FEE-HISTORIC TIMES.

59

territories, and in accordance with this the researches
of Squier and Davies have shown that the earthworks
of the ancient mound-builders extend up the Ohio
valley towards western New York, so that these

Fig. 13. — COPPEB BBACELET, Disc, BEAD, AND BUTTONS or ALLEGHANS.
(After Squier.)

people were once conterminous with the Iroquois and
allied tribes. Still more remarkable evidences exist
that the power of the Alleghans extended as far north
as Lake Superior and the St. Lawrence valley. I may

60

FOSSIL MEN.

take two illustrations from Wilson. One is an ancient
burial-place discovered by Dr. Eeynolds near Brock -
ville. Here were buried, about fourteen feet below
the surface, twenty skeletons, arranged in a circle
with their feet towards the centre. Some of the
skeletons were of gigantic proportions, but their bones
had well-nigh crumbled into dust. With them were
found well-made spears and chisels of native copper,
stone-chisels, gouges, and arrow-heads, and a curious
terra-cotta mask, which Wilson has figured, and which
he remarks is Toltecan rather than Indian in its
features, and which resembles the heads on earthen
vessels of the mound-builders, while he evidently
regards the interment as not corresponding with those
of the Canadian tribes. It does, however, correspond
with old Alleghan interments already mentioned as
discovered by Professor Swallow. In one of the
mounds explored by him, the bodies, whose bones were
in the last stage of decay, lay in the same position as
in the Brockville grave, and each had an earthen
vessel at its head with a representation of a human
face. This mode of burial, the warriors lying in death
as they would lie with their feet to the watch-fire, and
each with his vessel of water or food at his head, like
Saul, King of Israel, of old,* seems to have been
peculiar to the Alleghans, and has been recognised in
several localities. War parties at least of this people,
and possibly also permanent settlements, must have
extended themselves to the St. Lawrence river.
* 1 Samuel xxvi. 11.

GLIMPSES OF PRE-HISTOEIC TIMES. 61

The evidence of copper mining on Lake Superior
in pre-historic times is equally conclusive. In the
Ontanogan district, where extensive mines of native
copper are now worked, ancient excavations long
since deserted and overgrown with the aboriginal
forest are found on the outcrops of the veins. Some
of these are twenty -five to thirty feet deep, and in the
bottom of them are found the stone mauls and picks
and decayed wooden shovels of the ancient miners. *
In one place a mass of native copper, weighing six
tons, had been dislodged from its matrix, and mounted
on a wooden frame, but afterwards abandoned, either
because of its great weight, or because the miners had
been driven away by some hostile invasion. These
ancient works are said to be found over an extent of
nearly 150 miles on the south side of Lake Superior,
and on the north side of the lake they also occur,
though on a smaller scale. I have myself explored
some of them at Maimanse. Here they are confined
to the outcrop of the veins in which the native copper,
associated with quartz and other minerals, projects in
irregular masses and strings above the enclosing trap.
Following these indications, the ancient miners had
traced the veins along the hills, and had not only
broken off the projecting masses with stone mauls
which were found in their trenches, but had, perhaps
with the aid of fire, followed the larger masses down-
ward for several feet, throwing out the broken quartz
in heaps at the sides. That these mines were not
* Wilson, " Prehistoric Man."

62 FOSSIL MEN.

worked by the present Indian tribes of the country
is evident, that some of them are of great antiquity is
proved by the silt and vegetable soil with which they
are filled, the former sometimes containing skeletons
of wild animals, which have fallen into these old
excavations, and the latter being overgrown with
the ancient trees of a primeval forest. Further, depo-
sits of manufactured implements indicate that they
were made on the spot, and their style, especially that
of some knives inlaid and ornamented with native sil-
ver, shows that the artists were the same with those
who made the implements of the Mississippi mounds.
These people had, in short, explored all the rich
localities of native copper only recently re-discovered
by Europeans. To some extent, however, the tribes
that expelled the primitive miners preserved their
arts, for the copper of Lake Superior was known to
the Hochelagans and Stadaconians of the time of
Cartier, though possessed by these people in much
less abundance than by the old Alleghans.

There is also evidence that the original supplanters
of the Alleghans were themselves in process of being
supplanted at the period of the French discovery.
The strange story of the Eries or Neutrals, as it has
been preserved by Schoolcraft, belongs to this cate-
gory. This people, who have given a name to one of
the great American lakes, held a political position at
the time of the French discovery which entitled them
to the name of the neutral nation. Occupying a fertile
territory south of Lake Erie, and inhabiting walled

GLIMPSES OP PRE-HISTOETC TIMES. 63

villages, they were distinct from the Iroquois on the
one hand and the Algonquins on the other, just as
the Wyandots or Hurons were on the north of Lake
Ontario and the Hochelagans in their island on the
St. Lawrence. Further, in language they were allied to
the Iroquois and Hurons, being called by them Atti-
wendaronks, or people differing little in language or
speaking a cognate dialect, as distinguished from the
Algonquins, who were to them barbarians. This was
also the linguistic position of the Hochelagans rela-
tively to the Iroquois. Cartier says that the Hoche-
lagans enjoyed some sort of hegemony over the St.
Lawrence tribes. In like manner these people were
recognised not only as neutrals, but as pacificators.
Their political ruler was a queen, and her council fire
was recognised as a sacred place of refuge and of
arbitration of differences. This female rule was also,
as we shall find, in all probability an institution
borrowed from the Alleghans. The more bitter ani-
mosities consequent on the European invasion led to
events which plunged the Eries into war with the
Iroquois, and after a severe struggle they were driven
from their homes, and obliged to retreat to the south-
ward, where, according to information collected by
Schoolcraft, they became identified with the Katawbas
of Virginia and Carolina, one of the noblest and most
amenable to culture of the native tribes of the South-
ern States of the American Union. The Hurons were
also in like manner dislodged by the Iroquois, and
this extermination of large and populous nations after

64 FOSSIL MEN.

the discovery of America seems but the completion of
a great intrusive movement breaking up the tribes
which had previously replaced and mixed with the
Alleghans, or which had perhaps been allies of theirs
on the north, partially impregnated with their culture
and pursuing their industries long after they were
cut off. It accords with this that there is a very
strong resemblance of detail between the arts and
implements of the Eries, Hurons, and Hochelagans,
indicating a close connection at that traditional time
when their towns and villages occupied the wide
regions afterwards seized by their enemies the Iro-
quois.

" Many hundred years ago/' said an aged Iroquois
chief, in accounting to an American antiquarian * for
the many ancient forts scattered over western New
York, " a long war occurred between the Iroquois and
other powerful nations, during which many fortifica-
tions, often stockaded and enclosing villages, were
built throughout all this region, but their enemies
were finally repulsed, and passed far to the south-
west." Whether this legend refers to the expulsion
of the Eries and their allies, which happened as late as
1655, or to the far earlier expulsion of the Alleghans,
or whether it includes a mixture of both, it would
perhaps be impossible to say. " The traditions of the
Delawares," says Dr. Wilson, " hold that the Alleghans
were a strong and mighty nation, reaching to the
eastern shores of the Mississippi, when in remote
* Cheney, " Eeport on Monuments of New York."

GLIMPSES OP PRE-HISTORIC TIMES. t>5

times they came into the great valley from the west.
But the Iroquois, who had established themselves on
the head waters of the chief rivers which have their
rise to the south of the great lakes, combined with the
Delaware or Lenape nation to crush the power of that
ancient people of the valley, and the surviving rem-
nant of the decimated Alleghans were driven down the
Mississippi, and their name blotted out from the roll
of nations. The very name of the Ohio is of Iroquois
origin, and given to the river of the Alleghans by
their ruthless conquerors. The Susquehannocks, who
are believed to be of the same ancient lineage, excited
the ire of the dominant nation, and were in like
manner extirpated. At a later date the Delawares
fell under their ban, and the remnant of that proud
nation, quitting for ever the shores of the noble river
which perpetuates their name, retraced their steps into
the unknown west/' Three hundred years of European
colonisation and warfare have brought the same fate
on the conquering Iroquois themselves, whose small
remnants exist in a few scattered settlements, fading
away and mingling with the pale faces, and of no
political importance among the strange people who
have usurped that heritage which they had wrested
from others.

Thus we find in America the Europeans displacing
in historic times Indians who had themselves not long
before displaced others, and these last retaining the
clear tradition of those they had displaced at a still
earlier time. The Alleghans are represented only by

66 FOSSIL MEN.

remains of unknown date, and the Eries, Hurons, and
Hochelagans would have been in the same position but
for the arrival of the French in time to witness their
decadence. Let us observe also that such a history
implies primitive civilization fading into barbarism
until it shall be replaced by some new culture. The
Alleghans of the Ohio and Mississippi had their council
fires quenched by barbarians long before Cortez at-
tacked the new Mexican empire of the Aztecs. Our
poor Hochelagans, within less than a century of
Carrier's time, had been destroyed or reduced to the
condition of wandering hunters. The pre-Columbian
America seemed hastening to return to barbarism.

Let us observe also that the aboriginal Americans,
though probably reaching the continent from the old
world by three distinct lines of migration, one from
Southern Asia by the Pacific, one from Northern
Asia by Behring's straits, and one from Western
Europe by the Atlantic and its islands,* had brought
with them essentially the same beliefs and customs,
and not very dissimilar physical characteristics; so
that they naturally and readily blended into a more or
less homogeneous American type, with local modifi-
cations of physical aspect, customs, and arts. At the
time therefore when America was first colonised, there
must have been a remarkable uniformity in the popu-
lations inhabiting Asia and Europe, similar to that
which obtained in prehistoric America. In other

* See the discussion of this subject by Wilson, " Pre-historic
Man."

GLIMPSES OP PRE-HISTORIC TIMES. 67

words, the prevalent or universal type of the people of
the Eastern or Eurasian continent must have been
that which we now call Turanian or American. In
America the local varieties and more or less cultured
members of this great race had again and again re-
placed each other over wide regions, so that the same
varieties of Dolichocephalic and Brachycephalic races,
and the same ages of Stone and Bronze, recognised
in Europe, with the addition of an intermediate age of
native Copper, could have been made up by the anti-
quary, did we not know that they were contemporary,
and that over wide areas, almost equalling the whole
of Europe, the age of Copper and of civilization pre -
ceded that of barbarism.

May this not, then, be an American epitome of
pre-historic Europe ? Simple and industrious colonists
spreading themselves over new lands : barbarous and
migratory tribes and families wandering from the
centres of civilization over the untilled wastes, and
then recoiling in successive waves on the more culti-
vated tribes with rude and desolating violence. So
the struggle of opposing races would go on from
century to century, strewing the land with strange
and unaccountable traces of semi-civilization and
barbarism — the forests growing over them and river
floods sweeping them away and depositing them in
unlikely places, until Eome did for Europe what
Europe has been doing for America ; and then in both
cases the pre-historic ages recede into dim obscurity,
and under the manipulation of the archaeologist may

68 FOSSIL MEN.

be stretched indefinitely into the past, and arranged
according to his fancy in successive periods of bar-
barism and semi-civilization.

It is true that this view seems in direct contradiction
to the theories promulgated with so much confidence
of the primitive barbarism or semi-brutal character of
man. Yet there are facts, in the old world as well as
in the new, which point in this same direction. For
example, it is admitted that the wild Yeddahs of
Ceylon are proved by their Sanscrit tongue and their
physical characters to be a degraded branch of that
great Aryan family to which the civilized Hindoo
belongs. The Hottentots and even the Bushmen of
South Africa can be shown by language and customs
to be merely depauperated descendants of that great
Ethiopian nation which in Upper Egypt founded one
of the oldest known civilized kingdoms. Physiological
considerations point in the same direction; for man,
unarmed and naked, must originally have been fru-
givorous, and then to some degree a horticulturist, be-
fore he could have developed into a savage hunter and
warrior. To suppose that the savage hunters of our
day are the primeval type of man, is one of the most
unfounded assumptions of that materialistic philosophy
which disgraces the intellect as well as the right feel-
ing of our time. At the same time, it has been the
policy of this philosophy to gather up and parade
all that is discreditable and low in the condition and
manners of the modern savage, so as to approximate
him as nearly as possible to brutes ; and having done

GLIMPSES OF PBE-HISTORIC TIMES. 69

this, to exhibit him as the existing representative
of our pre-historic ancestors. Thus there is created
at once a double prejudice, hostile to true views of
human origin and history, and to the brotherhood
of humanity, as well as to its spiritual relations and
higher aspirations.

CHAPTEE 1Y.

THE EEMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE.

THE modern Montreal Las now overgrown the site
of Hochelaga, and it met with no obstacles in doiog
so save the natural inequalities of the ground. Less
than three hundred years have elapsed, and the clear-
ing of the young forest which must have covered the
site, and the ploughing of the fields, had sufficed to
remove all traces except those which might remain
beneath the greensward. Thus, its very place un-
known, the old city reposed until the bones of its
sleeping inhabitants were disturbed by the excava-
tions of streets and foundations of houses. For some
time this work proceeded without any attention being
given to the antiquities uncovered. In levelling the
ground large quantities of sand were removed to be
used in making mortar, and the workmen merely
reburied the bones in the underlying clay, where they
may some day serve to convince enthusiastic believers
in the antiquity of man that our species existed in
Canada at the time of the marine Post-pliocene. At
length attention was directed to the subject, and a
somewhat rich harvest was obtained of relics — which
are now preserved in public and private collections.
It will be interesting here to note what actually

THE REMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE. 71

remained to indicate the site. The wooden walls
described by Cartier, and the bark houses, were no
doubt burned at the time of the final capture of the
town, which was probably taken by a sudden surprise
and assault, and its inhabitants butchered, with the
exception of those who could escape by flight, while all
portable articles of value would be taken away; and this
would especially apply to the implements and trinkets
left by the French, the report of whose vast value and
rarity may perhaps have stimulated the attack.

In a dry sandy soil and in an extreme climate,
wooden structures rapidly decay, and such parts of
the buildings as the fire may have spared would soon
be mingled with the soil. No trace of them was seen
in the modern excavations except a few marks of the
spots where posts or stakes may have been sunk in
the earth. When the sod was removed, the position
of a dwelling was marked merely by its hearth, a
shallow excavation filled with ashes and calcined
stones, and having the soil for somo little distance
around reddened by heat. Around and in these
hearths might be found fragments of earthenware
pots and of tobacco pipes, broken stone implements
and chips of flint, bones of wild animals, charred
grains of corn, stones of the wild plum, with other
remains of vegetable food, and occasional bone bod-
kins and other implements. In depressed places, and
on the borders of the small brooks and creeks which
traversed or bounded the town, were accumulations of
kitchen-midden stuff, in some places two or three feet

72 FOSSIL MEN.

in thickness, and of a black colour. This was full
of fragments of pottery and bones, and occasionally
yielded interesting specimens of stone and bone im-
plements. Around the outskirts of the town, and in
some cases within its limits, were skeletons which
have been buried in shallow graves in a crouching

Fig. 14.— MODE or SUSPENDING EABTHUT POTS. (Outside of angle of mouth of
vessel.)

position and lying on their sides, and over each
skeleton could usually be detected the ashes and
burned soil of the funeral feast. The soil being dry,
all vestiges of hair and of the skins in which the
bodies had probably been wrapped had perished, and
the bones had lost their animal matter, had become

THE REMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE. 73

porous and brittle, and were stained of a rusty colour
like the sand in which they lay.

With regard to the evidence that the site referred
to is actually that of the town described by Cartier, I
may mention the following additional points. A map
or plan of Hochelaga, purporting to have been taken
on the spot or from memory, is given in Ramusio's
Italian version of Carrier's Voyages (1560). It shows

as

Fig. 15. — MODE OP SUSPENDING EABTHEN POTS. (Inside of angle of mouth,
with head for suspension.)

that the village was situated at the base of Mount
Royal, on- a terrace between two small streams. It
enables us to understand the dimensions assigned to
the houses in the narrative, which evidently refer not
to individual dwellings, but to common edifices in-
habited by several families, each having its separate
room. It gives as the diameter of the circular en-

74

FOSSIL MEN.

closure or fort about one hundred and twenty yards,
and for each side of the square in the centre about
thirty yards. This corresponds with the space occu-
pied by the remains above referred to. It is to be
understood, however, that the fort or city, which was
quite similar to those occupied by most of the agricul-
tural American tribes, was intended merely to accom-
modate the whole population in times of danger or
in the severity of winter, and to contain their winter
supplies of provisions ; but that in summer the people
would be much scattered in temporary cabins or wig-
wams in the fields, or along the rivers and streams.

Further, according to the description of the old
navigator, the town was four or five miles distant
from the place where Cartier landed, and nearer the
mountain than the river, and the oak-forest and the
cornfields which surrounded it must have been on
the terrace of Post-pliocene sand now occupied by the
upper streets of the modern city, and about one hun-
dred feet above the river. If the village was destroyed
by fire before 1603, the date of Champlain's visit, no
trace of it might remain in 1642, when the present
city was founded, and the ground it occupied would
probably be overgrown with shrubs and young trees.
I have seen clearings in the American woods covered
with tall young trees in less than thirty years. But
the Indian tradition would preserve the memory of
the place ; and if, as the narrative of the Jesuits in-
forms us, the point of view to which Maisonneuve and
his French colonists of 1642 were conducted by the

76 FOSSIL MEN.

Indians who professed to be survivors of the Hochela-
gans, was the front of the escarpment of Mount Royal,
the same with that occupied by Cartier, their Indian
informants would have at their very feet the old resi-
dence of their fathers, and their remarks as to its soil
and exposure would be naturally called forth by the
view before them. The story of the Jesuit fathers is
that the two aged Indians who accompanied Maison-
neuve to the mountain top after the ceremony of
founding the new town, said that they were descend-
ants of the original inhabitants ; that their tribe had
at one time inhabited all the surrounding country even
to the south of the river, possessing many populous
villages ; that the Hurons, who at that time were hos-
tile to them, had expelled them ; that some of them
had taken refuge among the Abenaquis, others among
the Iroquois, others among the Hurons themselves.
They were now associated with a band of Algonquins
from the Ottawa. Their grandfathers had cultivated
their corn in the very spot at their feet, but they had
been driven to become migratory hunters.

The only other probable explanation of the remains
would be that they belong to the more recent settle-
ment of the Indians above referred to when invited by
the French to return. This, however, was a very
temporary occupation, not sufficient to give so large
an amount of remains. Further, at a time when
the Indians were in constant association with the
French, and when missionaries were labouring among
them, it is probable that their place of residence would

THE REMAINS OP CITIES OF THE STONE AGE.

77

afford some indication of intercourse with Europeans,
and would be nearer to the French fort. With
reference to the extent of the remains, I may state
that my own private collection contains fragments

Fig. 17.— EAETHBIT POT (REDUCED). (Site of Hochelaga.)

belonging to from 150 to 200 distinct earthen vessels,
and these are of course only a very small fraction of
the amount actually present. The interments in a
limited space around the supposed town must have

78 FOSSIL MEN.

amounted to several hundreds, though it is not
improbable that the Hochelagans, like some other,
Canadian tribes, periodically disinterred their dead,
and removed their bones to a common tribal ossuary.
Lastly, making every allowance for the nature of the
soil, the condition of the skeletons would seem to re-
quire an interment of at least three centuries. For all
these reasons, I can entertain little doubt that the
site referred to is actually that of the Hochelaga of
Cartier.

The only objects indicating intercourse with Euro-
peans which I have yet found, are an iron nail
without the head, and with the point rounded so as
to form a sort of bodkin, a piece of iron shaped into
a rude knife or chisel, a small piece of sheet brass
about half an inch long by a quarter wide, and appa-
rently cut roughly from a larger piece. These were,
I think, mixed among the debris from one of the
kitchens.

I quote here from a notice published in 1861, when
the details were fresh in my memory, a few additional
facts bearing upon the above points. " In a limited
area, not exceeding two imperial acres, twenty skele-
tons have been disinterred within twelve months, and
the workmen state that many parts of the ground
excavated in former years were even more rich in such
remains. Hundreds of old fireplaces and indications
of at least ten or twelve huts or lodges, have also been
found, and in a few instances these occur over the
burial-places, as if one generation had built its huts

THE REMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE.

over the graves of another. Where habitations have
stood, the ground is in some places, to the depth of
three feet, a black mass saturated with carbonaceous
matter, and full of bones of wild animals, charcoal,
pottery, and remains of implements of stone or bone.
Further, in such places the black soil is laminated, as
if deposited in successive layers on the more depressed
parts of the surface. The length of time during
which the site was occupied is also indicated by the
very different states of preservation of the bones and
bone implements ; some of those in the deeper parts

Fig. 18. — HEAD FROM AN EARTHEN POT.

of the deposit being apparently much older than those
near the surface. Similar testimony is afforded by the
great quantity and various patterns of the pottery, as
well as by the abundance of the remains of animals
used as food throughout the area above mentioned.
All these indications point to a long residence of the
aborigines on this spot, while the almost entire
absence of articles of European manufacture in the
undisturbed portions of the ground, implies a date
coeval with the discovery of the country. The few

80 FOSSIL MEN.

objects of this kind found in circumstances which
prevented the supposition of mere superficial inter-
mixture, are just sufficient to show that the village
existed until the appearance of Europeans on the
stage/' On the whole, the situation and the remains
found not only establish the strongest probability
that this is the veritable site, but serve to vindicate
Cartier's narration from the doubts cast upon it by
subsequent explorers, who visited the country after
Hochelaga had disappeared.

Since the days when Cain went forth as the first
emigrant and built a city, defence and shelter have
ranked among the primary wants of man. The means
by which they are secured depend partly on the state
of civilization which may have been reached, and
partly on the materials at hand ; but chiefly on the
latter. In rocky regions, caverns and over-hanging
ledges afford the most convenient shelter, and stones
afford the materials of cyclopean walls for defence.
On treeless, alluvial plains the nomad makes his tent
of skin, and when he becomes settled has recourse to
earthen walls or sun-dried brick. In forest countries
wood or bark forms the most convenient material,
whether for savage or civilized nations. The Ameri-
can tribe of the Moquis, in the rocky tablelands of
New Mexico, build stone structures as massive as any
ordinarily constructed by civilized man. The modern
inhabitants of the plain of the Euphrates use brick
and sun-dried clay exactly as the earliest settlers in
the plain of Shinar must have done. The European

THE REMAINS OP CITIES OP THE STONE AGE. 81

settlers in Eastern America have adopted houses of
wood as their usual habitations.

Neither antiquity, therefore, nor culture are marked
by any particular material for building. But the ma-
terial used will make a vast difference with reference to
the remains left. A nation, however rude or ancient,
that has been able to use caverns for habitation or to

build of stone, will leave some permanent, nay, inde-
structible evidences of its presence preserved in cave-
earth, or rising from the surface of the ground. A
nation that has built of clay will leave merely mounds.
The nations that built habitations of clay in the allu-
vial plain of Mesopotamia, or the valley of the Missis-
sippi, were not necessarily less civilized than those
who built with stone in Peru or Egypt. The New
England villager who lives in a neat wooden house

Q

82 FOSSIL MEN.

and worships in a wooden church, is not necessarily
less civilized than the people who built magnificent
stone edifices in Yucatan, though if the New England
village were deserted, no trace of it, except in a little
broken pottery, or a few hearth and chimney stones,
might remain in a century or two. Nations living by
river-sides, and whose only remains are a few inde-
structible flint implements, may have been, and pro-
bably were, more highly civilized than those whose
debris preserved in caves furnishes far more numerous
and curious antiques. Our Hochelagans were wood-
builders. Bark peeled from trees in wide sheets, and
supported on poles, forms the cheapest and most
comfortable abode for dwellers in the forest, and the
people of Hochelaga had houses of this kind with
several rooms, and an upper storey to be used as
a granary. They were, possibly, more comfortable
and suited to the habits of their builders than the
huts of mud and rough stone occupied by thousands
of the peasants of modern Europe. Their habitations
belonged to a type which seems to have been nearly
universal among the more settled populations of Ame-
rica, and which Morgan has shown to be connected with
peculiar customs of patriarchal communism akin to
those of which traces remain in the tribes and gentes
of early Europe and Asia. Cartier's plan of a Hoche-
lagan house, as given on the following page (Fig. 20),
shows a series of rooms surrounding a central hall,
in which was a ^fireplace. Now, we know from the
customs of the Iroquois and Hurons, as described by

THE EEMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE.

83

Champlain and other early French explorers, that each
room was occupied by a family, while all the families
in the house had the cooking-place in common, and
cultivated their cornfields and went on hunting ex-
peditions in common. In such a community, accord-
ing to the ancient American idea of " women's
rights," all the women were related — the husbands
might be, probably of necessity were, of different
tribes. In some of the Indian nations, indeed, com-
munal houses of even greater size and with several

Pig. 20.— PLAN OP HOCHELAGAN HOUSE FOE FIVE FAMILIES. (After Cartier.)
R. Rooms, each for one family. H. Common hall. F. Common fire.

fires were used. The stone " pueblos " of the Moquis
are of this character. The winter houses of the Green-
landers are on the same plan, which Nilsson has shown
is that also of the " gallery graves " and gallery
houses of Sweden. Further, as Morgan has proved,
the so-called palaces of Mexico, Yucatan, and Peru,
were merely large communistic edifices, each occupied
by a whole tribe, whose members lived in common,
and were related by a bond of consanguinity depend-

84

FOSSIL MEN.

ent on descent through the female line.* It seems
not impossible that the tradition of the Tower of
Babel includes the construction of a huge communistic
building on this plan, intended to bind together the
early tribes of men in a communistic league, and in-
vestigations should be made as to the probability of
similar arrangements among the cave-dwellers and
other primitive inhabitants of Europe. At this day
there remain Pueblos of this kind on the table-lands
of New Mexico, where they are inhabited by the
Moqui tribes ; and ruined edifices of the same type,
known to have been occupied by the ancestors of these
people at the time of the Spanish conquest, are from
300 to 400 feet in length, with four to seven storeys
of stone rooms rising in successive terraces, and one
of these is said to have been capable of lodging 600
families. When we come to consider the domestic
institutions of these people, and to compare them with
those of pre-historic Europe, we shall have occasion
to return to this subject.

Instead of a rampart of earth, perhaps with pali-
sades on top like those of the forts of the Iroquois
and the mound-builders, the Hochelagans had a wall

* It seems in every way probable that tribes whose families
combined to erect such structures as the Swiss lake habita-
tions, retained the primitive tribal communism. Their houses
as restored, for example in the papers of Mr. Walker (Leisure
Hour, ISTov. 1873), resemble the " long houses " of the Iroquois,
and Sir John Lubbock has figured in his " Pre-historic Times "
what he regards as a clay model of a lake hamlet, which in the
essential features of its plan is similar to the houses of
Hochelaga.

THE REMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE. 85

framed of wood, a gigantic public work to be executed
by a tribe destitute of metallic tools. If we under-
stand rightly Cartier's description, the rampart of the
town consisted of a central support of vertical pali-
sades, with an outer row inclined inwards and resting
on this, and a similar inclined row supporting it
within. It must have been made, not of planks or
boards, but of unhewed logs, each about twenty feet
in length, cut with stone hatchets and carried on
men's shoulders. By the plan of construction adopted,
the necessity was avoided of digging deep holes for
the palisades, or of building a ramparfc of earth about
them, and the only danger to which such a structure
was exposed, that of fire, was much lessened by the
inclined position of the palisades. Still a wall of this
kind would perish in no very great number of years,
even if it escaped destruction by fire ; and if not
renewed would soon leave no trace behind. The poles
for such a fortification must have been very similar to
the poles of the Swiss lake habitations, and like them
they were probably cut and pointed with the aid of
fire. I have, however, in my collection a portion of a
large tree which has been partially cut across with a
thin chisel, probably of copper, which must have been
driven in by mallets or hammers. In this way thick
trees of the softer kinds of wood could easily be
divided.

Vessels for collecting provisions and cooking food
are primary requirements of man in every stage of
civilization or barbarism. Here again the material is

00 FOSSIL MEN.

not characteristic of particular stages so much as of
opportunities, and may be perishable or the reverse.
In Central America the Spaniards found some nations
not very far advanced in civilization whose ordinary
utensils were of gold. On the other hand, many
tribes had merely earthen vessels, and some were
destitute of these, and used baskets or bark vessels
only. The latter were especially characteristic of
nomadic tribes, and of parties making long expedi-
tions. People without beasts of burden or convey-
ances of any kind other than canoes, could not safely
or conveniently transport with them heavy and fragile
vessels. To them, therefore, the potter's art was
unsuited ; but so soon as such tribes became settled,
they would adopt earthenware as the most cheap
and convenient vessels. A tribe, therefore, of roving
habits, or living in a region where it was necessary
to make periodical migrations, might be destitute of
pottery, though they might have vessels of wood,
basket-work, or bark, more neatly and artificially con-
structed than the clay pots of more settled tribes.
Still, the latter would leave a monument of their art
in the debris of their pottery, which would be wholly
wanting in the case of the former. Further, the
pottery of primitive tribes is of a sort which speedily
becomes disintegrated in a wet soil or ground up by
attrition, so that river-side tribes might leave no sign
of it, when it might be met with abundantly in the
old residences of cavern and upland tribes.

The Hochelagans were potters, and, as we know to

THE REMAINS OF CITIES OP THE STONE AGE. 87

have been the case with other tribes, this art was
probably practised by the women, and the vessels,
formed by hand, without the aid of a wheel, were im-
perfectly baked in a rude oven or fireplace constructed
for the purpose. Their process for preparing the clay
was that which seems to have been practised anciently
all over the world, and is still vindicated by experience
as the best to form vessels intended to stand the fire.

Fig. 21.— EARTHEN POT FOUND ON THE UPPER OTTAWA, AND NOW IN THE
MUSEUM OF THE NATURAL HISTOHY SOCIETY OF MONTREAL (REDUCED).

The clay was first mixed intimately with sand, usually
a coarse granitic sand, different from that near Mon-
treal, as the clay is also different from the ordinary
brick-clay of Montreal, which being calcareous is not
well fitted for the purpose of the potter. The mass
was then kneaded out and doubled in pastrycook style,
so as to give it a tough, laminated texture, and then
was fashioned into the vessel desired. Specimens

88 FOSSIL MEN.

from an ancient British barrow given to me by Pro-
fessor Rolleston have been made of precisely similar
materials, and in the same way ; and as their ornamen-
tation is nearly the same, they show nothing, did we
not know their origin, to prevent the belief that both
might have been made in the same place and by the
same hand.

The usual shape was that of a pot, round in the
bottom and curving upward into a cylindrical neck.
In some, however, the neck was square or octagonal,
and in this case there were sometimes projecting
ornaments or hooks at the corners for suspension.
This primitive Hochelagan pot is of the type of those
used by all ancient nations, from the old " Reindeer
Epoch" of Belgium and France, down through all
antiquity to our own round metal pots. Perhaps the
earliest known example is that found in the palaeolithic
cave of the Trou de Frontal, by Dupont, which closely
resembles the native American pots in form and
material, except that it is not ornamented and that
the projections for suspension are on the sides instead
of at the rim. The Hochelagan women, however, had a
very ingenious contrivance for hanging their pots over
the fire, which deserves notice. They had no doubt
found by experience that when an earthen pot was
hung over the fire by strings or withes tied to the out-
side, the flames would sometimes reach the perishable
means of suspension, and, burning it, allow the pot
to fall, and its contents to be lost. Hence they con-
trived a mode of fastening the cord with,in the throat

THE KEMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE. 89

of the vessel, where the fire could not reach it. This
hook for suspension was made in the shape of a human
head and neck, the hole for the cord being left behind
the neck (Figs. 14, 15, 18, 19). Many of these heads
were found detached, and their use was not known
until the fragment in Fig. 15 was found. Earthen
heads of this kind are often figured on American
vessels, and perhaps indicate guardian "manitous,"
but their peculiar use in the Hochelagan vessels seems
unique.

Some of these earthen vessels were large enough
to hold four gallons. Others would hold a quart or
less, and the smaller are usually thinner and of finer
clay than the others. All are very neatly made, and
uniform in thickness, and wonderfully regular in form
when we consider that they were fashioned without
the potter's wheel. Many are elaborately ornamented
with patterns worked with a pointed instrument, with
rings made with a stamp, and with impressions of
the finger-point and nail around the edge. (Figs. 16,
17, 22). This last kind of marking, still practised by
pastrycooks, is common both to American and early
British and Swiss pottery, in which we can distinctly
see rows of impressions of the small finger- point of
the lady-artificer with the print of the finger-nail.
Fragments of pottery from a long barrow near West
Kennet, in Wiltshire, figured by Lubbock, are re-
markably near to a common Hochelagan pattern, and
finger-prints as an ornament occur on vessels from the
pile-villages of the Lake of Zurich. Examples have

90 FOSSIL MEN.

also been found of a potter's graving implement for
forming these patterns. It was a small, neatly polished
conical bone, sharp at one end and hollowed at the
other, so that it could be used either for drawing lines
or for stamping circles, precisely like those on some of
the specimens of pottery.

The patterns on the pottery are not merely capri-
cious. They are imitations, and of two distinct styles.
One evidently represents the rows of grain in the ear
of Indian corn, and may be called the corn-ear pat-
tern. The same device is seen in specimens of Indian
pottery from New York figured by Schoolcraft, and it
still occasionally re-appears in our common earthen-
ware pitchers. The second may be called the basket-
and-bead pattern, and imitates a woven basket orna-
mented with beads, or, as in modern Indian baskets,
with pendant rings. To this class belong the so-called
chevron and saltier patterns, and it is possible that
they may be originally traced, bofch in the old and
new worlds, to the aboriginal practice of moulding
pottery in woven grass baskets, subsequently removed
by the process of baking. Many and elegant modifi-
cations of this pattern occur, and imply that the
potters were familiar with the modes of basket-making
still in use among the Indians. This basket-pattern
appears, though in a rude form, in some specimens of
early British pottery, and akin to it are the impres-
sions, common both in American and European clay
vessels, of twisted thongs or cords. A third pattern,
which is confined to the round bottom of some of

THE EEMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE.

91

the larger vessels may be styled a net-pattern. It is
formed by square or rhombic indentations, regularly
arranged, so as to form a reticulated design. Similarly
baked and ornamented pottery is found in all old
Indian sites in Eastern America. Among the Mic-

Fig. 22.— FRAGMENTS OP POTTEEY (REDUCED). (Site of Hochelaga.)
(a, b, c, d) Basket patterns. (e) Net pattern. (/) Corn-ear pattern.

macs and New England tribes it is usually ruder than
that of Hochelaga, corresponding to the supposed
oldest types of the European caves and barrows. The
Iroquois, Hurons, and Eries had the same types with
those of Hochelaga. The old Alleghans, or mound-

92 FOSSIL MEN.

builders, made, at the same or possibly a still earlier
period, finer and more gracefully ornamented vessels,
and the art was carried to still greater perfection by
the Mexicans and Peruvians. Many of the smaller
pots are blackened with fire, and are encrusted near
the neck with a black paste, evidently the remains of
the pottage of Indian corn-meal formerly cooked in
them. The large pots are usually clean, and may
have been used as water-pots or for holding dry
articles of food.

The highest skill of the Hochelaga potters was
bestowed on their tobacco-pipes. They possessed
stone pipes of steatite, or soapstone, but none of these
of elaborate form have been found. One somewhat
elaborate example seems to have been formed of the
celebrated red pipes tone, or catlinite, from the far
west. The great number of fragments of clay pipes,
however, and the manner in which some of them
are blackened, testifies to the prevalence of the habit
of smoking. In one Hochelagan pipe the remains of
the tobacco-leaves were recognised when it was dis-
interred. It had been filled, perhaps, on the eve of
the final assault of the town, and the smoker had
thrown it down unused to rush to the last battle of
his tribe. The use of tobacco was found in full force
by Cartier. It was probably cultivated both at Sta-
dacona and Hochelaga, as it still is by the Canadian
" habitants/' I have, indeed, seen a well-grown
patch of tobacco growing beside a noble crop of wheat
on the Laurentian hills, behind Murray Bay, on the

THE EEMAJNS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE. 93

Lower St. Lawrence, in latitude 47° 40", and at a
height of 1000 feet above the sea level, though
physical geographers place the northern limit of wheat
at the sea level far to the south of this. The Indians
could, therefore, easily cultivate this plant on the
warmer soil in southern exposures along the St.
Lawrence ; but they also used wild plants designated
as petun and kinnikinick. The habit was new to the
French. Cartier says : " They have an herb, of which
they store up a large quantity for winter, which they
esteem very much, and the use of which is confined to
the men. They use it in the following way. The
plant having been dried in the sun, they carry sus-
pended to the neck a little bag of skin containing the
dried leaves, along with a little pipe ( ( cornet/
perhaps alluding to the trumpet-like shape usual at
Hochelaga) of stone or wood. Thus prepared, they
place a little of the powder of the herb in one end of
the pipe, and placing a live coal on it, draw their
breath through the other end until they fill themselves
with smoke, so that it issues from their mouth and
nostrils as from a chimney. They say that it keeps
them healthy and warm, and never go without it.3'
Cartier's men tried the weed, but found it too hot and
" PePPer7 " f°r their taste. This practice of smoking
tobacco, as well as lobelia and other narcotic weeds,
was universal in America, and is one of the few habits
which men calling themselves civilized have thought
fit to borrow from these barbarous tribes. It may
have originated in the attempt to repel mosquitoes

94

FOSSIL MEN.

and other noxious insects, or to allay the pangs of
hunger; or perhaps, as Wilson thinks, its narcotic
fames were supposed to aid in divination, and in

Fig. 23.— EABTHKIT PIPES, HOCHELA.GA (REDUCED).

communion with those spiritual beings whom the
American firmly believed in as holding intercourse

THE REMAINS OF CITIES OP THE STONE AGE. 95

with man. Thus it may have become aii appropriate
sacrifice and means of invocation, even with reference
to the Great Spirit. In any case, its use was inter-
woven with all the religious usages of the people, and
as the " calumet of peace " with their most solemn
social and political engagements. From this high
place it has descended among the civilized imitators

Fig. 23a.— RED PIPESTONE PIPE.

of the red man to be merely the solace of their idle
hours.

That the usage of smoking should have prevailed
throughout America, and should have been connected
with the religious and social institutions of all its
tribes, and that it should not have existed in the
old world till introduced from America, seems singular,
yet the belief at one time entertained that the " elfin
pipes" found in Britain indicate ancient usages of
this kind, and that smoking is an old institution in

96 FOSSIL MEN.

Tartary and China, where one species of tobacco is
native, seems now generally discredited. Still it is
not impossible that there may be some foundation in
fact for the conclusion of Pallas, who argues from
the general use of tobacco by the Mongol tribes, the
primitive and original forms of their pipes, and the
similarity of their modes of using the plant to those
of the Americans, that the custom must be indigenous
among them. If so, it would not be surprising that
even the Palaeolithic man of Europe, in his dark
cavern abodes, enjoyed the solace of the fragrant
weed, smoked the calumet of peace with his former
foes, and, like his American brethren, fancied that he
saw spiritual beings —

" In the smoke that rolled around him,
The punkwana* of the peace-pipe."

Archaeologists should keep this in view in searching
for the relics of the Stone period.

Certain clay tubes, suspiciously resembling tobacco
pipes, are figured among the remains obtained by
Schliemann on the site of ancient Troy ; and on the
other hand, a figure of an owl's head, remarkably like
those found in the ruins of Troy, occur on many
Huron pipes. Flinders, in his " Voyages/' refers to a
habit of smoking, or of puffing smoke through tubes,
as existing among a tribe of Papuans. It is to be
observed, however, that tubes of bone, clay, and stone
were used by medicine-men for applying smoke to the

* The fumes or rising smoke.

THE EEMAINS OP CITIES OP THE STONE AGE. 97

bodies of the sick. On the other hand, the Micmac
Indians of Nova Scotia sometimes used tobacco pipes
made of birch-bark rolled in the form of a cone, and
which of course are perishable.

The pipes of old Hochelaga were mostly of clay,
and of many and sometimes elegant patterns. Some
were very plain and small, others of elegant trumpet
or cornucopia form, and some ornamented with rude
attempts to imitate the human face. While the men
were the smokers, the women seem to have exhausted
their plastic skill in furnishing their lords with the
means of indulging their taste for the narcotic.
Schoolcraft has figured pipes used by the Iroquois and
Eries precisely similar to those of the Hochelagans.
Those of the mound-builders were peculiar (Fig. 10,
p. 54), but it is curious, and probably an evidence of
ancient intercourse, that stone pipes of the mound-
builders' type are occasionally, though rarely, found
in Canada. I have seen a broken specimen from
Hopkins Island, near St. Regis, where many Indian
remains are found. In addition to jars and pipes, the
only frequent objects of earthenware are small discs,
perforated in the centre and crenated at the edge.
They may have served as an inferior kind of wampum,
or beads, or perhaps for the playing of some game of
chance. Similar clay beads found in Sweden are
described by Nilsson as belonging to the pre-historic
times of Scandinavia.

It has been said of the oldest Stone age, or Palaeo-
lithic age of Europe, that no remains of earthenware

H

98 FOSSIL MEN.

are found in connection with its deposits; or to put
it more broadly, in the words of a recent writer,
Palaeolithic man was " ignorant of pottery " — a very
bold statement of a negative, when it is considered
how little we know of the said men, and which might
be contradicted at once could we discover the site
of one of their villages instead of mere cave shelters
and drifted implements in river gravels. The theory
might, however, prevent any such discovery, for if the
site of a village of the men who used the Amiens flint
implements should be discovered, and if it contained
fragments of pottery and polished hatchets, we might
be told that it belonged to the Neolithic age, and it
should be separated by countless centuries from the
Palaeolithic period. We shall see in the sequel how
this applies to the remains of a " Palaeolithic " village^
discovered at Soloutre, in France. If, however, it
should appear that neither Palaeolithic man nor his
wife actually did make pottery, this would prove not
so much their barbarism as their nomadic mode of
life, and they may have made and used, like the North
American hunter tribes, the most beautiful baskets
and bark boxes, which would serve their purposes
better than rude pottery.

It must not, however, be lost sight of that Fournal
and Christie have recorded the discovery of fragments
of pottery in caverns in the south of France, in mud
and breccia containing bones of man mingled with
those of extinct animals, among which are mentioned
the hyaena and rhinoceros. As the material had been

THE EEMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE. 99

washed into these caves, we have no absolute certainty
that the association may not have been accidental.
Still the evidence is quite as good as that relied on
for the association of so-called Palaeolithic implements
with bones of extinct mammalia in river gravels and
in other caves filled by water driftage. Fragments
of pottery have also been found by Dr. Fraas in the
cave of Hohlefels, in Swabia, amidst the debris left
by a Palaeolithic people who fed on the cave bear, the
extinct rhinoceros, and the reindeer; and the vase
found in the Trou de Frontal, in Belgium, has already
been mentioned. The fragments of pottery found in
the debris from Kent's cave may perhaps be rejected
as uncertain.

The bill of fare of ancient Hochelaga was -somewhat
varied. Bones are found of nearly all the wild mam-
mals of the country, and of many birds and fishes.
Those of the beaver, however, largely predominate,
and remains of the bear, more especially lower jaws,
are quite numerous. The dog seems to have been
used as food, and the variety kept was that small
breed seen among many Indian tribes, and sometimes
called the fox-dog. The dog was no doubt the only
domesticated animal. Grains of Indian corn are not
infrequent, and fragments of the charred ear are also
found. The variety cultivated was similar to the
smaller kinds of early corn now used in Canada.
More rare are cotyledons of the bean, Phaseolus
vulgaris. The specimens of these preserved are of
course only those which had been accidentally charred

100 FOSSIL MEN.

in the fire. In one spot was found a cache of charred
acorns, probably those of the white oak, which after
being buried in the ground for a time become edible.
Stones of the wild plum are very abundant, and it
has been observed that this tree grows abundantly on
the sites of most old Indian villages. The stones of
wild cherries and the shells of the butternut have also
been observed. All this fully accords with Carrier's
narrative and with those of the other early French
explorers, who inform us that while the semi-civilized
Indian tribes cultivated the ground, they also made
tributary to their use all the wild animals and fruits
of the country. It is instructive, however, to observe
how little remains to indicate the somewhat extensive
agriculture of these people, even in their central town,
while it is obvious that in the remains of their hunt-
ing encampments nothing would be preserved except
bones and weapons belonging to merely savage life.

One fragment obtained from a heap of kitchen
refuse suggests some strange questions. It is a por-
tion of the lower jaw of a human being, evidently
broken before being imbedded. It has belonged to a
very aged person, and from its size and proportions
probably a woman. It is also remarkable for the
narrowness and thickness of the bone, the smallness
of the chin, and the forward projection of the sockets
of the teeth. In these respects it more nearly re-
sembles the celebrated jaw described by Dupont from
the pre-historic cave of Naulette, in Belgium, than any
other I have seen. Is it an indication of cannibalism?

THE REMAINS OF CITIES OP THE STONE AGE. 101

and if so, did it belong to a captive from some distant
and perhaps more barbarous tribe,' 01^ ; «x< J#u. agea: *
woman slain to prevent the death of Her relatives^ by
starvation ? Unhappily, instances , parallel > to; jBo}b "-,
of these are on record among the American tribes.
We read in Champlain's narratives, of the bodies of
slain enemies cut up and carried off for triumphal
feasts, and even in more modern times there have
been instances of parties of roving Indians being
driven by the pangs of hunger to devour each other.
If such things occurred in Hochelaga, they must have
been rare, for this one bone alone raises the question.
Even it may admit of a different explanation. It may
have belonged to a victim of the final capture of the
town ; it may have been accidentally disinterred from
some old grave in digging the fire-hole of a new
lodge; it may be connected with the fact that the
Hochelagans had the custom, like our own heathen
ancestors, of using the skulls of their enemies for
vessels. Two examples have been found of human
parietal bones trimmed round the edges, evidently for
the purpose of being used as cups or bowls. One of
them has a hole pierced, probably for a means of sus-
pension, and may have been carried by some warrior
at once as a trophy of victory and as a drinking-cup.
The old races of the two hemispheres may claim
kinship in their cruelties and barbarisms, as well as in
higher traits. I believe, however, that no certain
instance is yet on record either of cannibalism or of
the use of human bones as implements or vessels

102 FOSSIL MEN.

among the men of the Mammoth age in Europe, so
<that perKepa • t~h<?se are later practices of more de-
graded tribes. '

A •thfcjtosing thi& chapter, let us reflect for a moment
on the picture which it presents. The apparently
flourishing town of Hochelaga, surrounded with its
fields, and probably for long ages the residence of a
settled and semi- civilized people, disappears suddenly
from view. In a century or less its site is covered
with a dense and tall young forest. This is cleared,
and again becomes cultivated fields, showing no trace
of former occupation. In three centuries the remains,
when disinterred, are veritable fossils; everything
perishable, even hair and the animal matter of bones,
has disappeared. Nothing remains but stone and
pottery and charcoal, and the mineral matter of bones,
which underground might remain unchanged for a
hundred centuries as well as for one. Nothing but
Carrier's visit of a few hours' duration prevents us
from being in a position to attach to these remains
the longer date with as much show of reason as the
shorter.

These considerations apply in various ways to the
interpretation of European pre-historic remains. First,
as to their antiquity. Owing to the entire disappear-
ance of Hochelaga, Car tier's narrative has actually
been discredited by some modern writers as a fiction,
and only the recent discovery of the remains of the
town he describes, has established its truth. But
Cartier's narrative alone enables us to fix the date of

THE EEMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE. 103

the remains. Were it not for this, there was actually
nothing to prevent us from referring them to any
antiquity that any hypothesis as to their origin might
demand, even as far back as the emergence of the
bank of Post-pliocene sand, about 100 feet above
the level of the St. Lawrence, in which they are found,
from the sea of the Glacial age. Secondly, as to
their evidence of culture or barbarism. Though the
Hochelagans were an agricultural people, dwelling in
houses in a walled town, the indications of this are
so slight that they might easily have been overlooked,
while the abundant bones of wild animals might lead
us to suppose that we had to do merely with hunters,
and these undoubtedly of a Stone and Bone age, in
which some implements, at least, of the rudest type
were used. Yet these relics are those of a central
town. The indications left by the same people at
their occasional camping-places, when on expeditions
to obtain fish, game, furs, or maple sap, would indicate
a far more primitive condition, and might be referred
to a still older date.

In the old world, the now celebrated lake-towns, or
Pfahlbauten, of Switzerland, present a type of civiliza-
tion near akin to that of Hochelaga, and like it for-
gotten until accidentally disinterred as recently as the
year 1854. They were laboriously and with some
engineering skill built on platforms over the water
supported on piles, originally by men with no better
implements than those of stone. They afforded a
comparatively secure retreat to simple and probably

104 FOSSIL MEN.

peaceful and industrious tribes, driven out of the
plains and lower river valleys by the encroachments
of wild and savage enemies, and obliged for safety
even to forsake the dry land and pitch their abodes
over the waters. When these lake villages were
accidentally burned, quantities of the property of the
inhabitants were lost in the waters, and have in
modern times been recovered by the diligent search
of antiquarians ; * attention having first been called
to these singular abodes by the unusually low state of
the water in the Swiss lakes in the year 1854.

The lake settlements were inhabited from an early
period of the Stone age down to the Roman period,
and it is not impossible that they furnished some part
of the Helvetian tribes with whom the Eoman power
came into conflict in the time of Caesar. The earliest
sites belong to the Stone age, and the successive in-
troduction of bronze and iron can be distinctly traced
in their remains. It is possible, however, that a Stone
period continued in eastern Switzerland after bronze
had been introduced into the west, and there are suf-
ficient traces of bronze in the oldest of the villages to
show that elsewhere there must have been peoples
more advanced. In the Stone period the inhabitants
were already skilful builders, constructors of boats,
cultivators of grain and flax, weavers and potters.
They had domesticated cattle, sheep, goats, and hogs ;
in which respect they were far in advance of the
village Indians of America. But like them they sub-
* More especially Dr. Keller.

THE REMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE. 105

sisted largely on fish and on wild animals, and laid
un-der contribution all the wild fruits of their country.
So far as known, their physical characteristics were
not materially different from those of the more modern
inhabitants of Switzerland.

Unlike the Hochelagans, these lake-dwellers dis-
appeared or changed their mode of life at so early
a period that no mention of them occurs in written
history, nor was it suspected that such remains existed
until they were accidentally discovered. Yet the fact
that their remains, submerged and covered with lake
mud, and in some instances with peat, were removed
from all destroying or disturbing agencies, has led to
their preservation and recovery in a more perfect
state than can be the case with similar villages built
on the land, which may have been contemporary with
them. Thus semi-civilized village- dwellers may have
lived in Europe before the dates of the lake habita-
tions, without our having any knowledge of their
existence.

The mode of life of these people was not without
example in America. Washington Irving has quoted
from the narrative of Amerigo Yespucci an account
of an Indian town named Coquibacoa, in the Bay of
Yenezuela, which consisted of twenty large houses,
like bells in shape, and supported on piles driven into
the bottom of the lake-like bay. From a fancied
resemblance to Ye nice in these structures, the bay is
said to have received the name of Yenezuela. The
debris of such a town would undoubtedly be in the

106 FOSSIL MEN.

main similar to that of the Swiss lake- villages. The
remarkable edifices of stone, no doubt of the nature
of communistic homes, or pueblos, found by the United
States surveyors of the Western Territories,* hung
like swallows' nests on the sides of almost inaccessible
cliffs and ravines, though different in detail, belong to
a condition of society akin to that of the lake-dwellers
of Europe, and dependant on the efforts of a weak or
peaceful people to escape the attacks of enemies, and
possibly also to secure more salubrious abodes. Habi-
tations built on piles existed in the time of Herodotus
on Lake Prasias, in Thrace, and it is believed that
some still exist there. f The same mode of building
was practised in ancient times in Ireland, Scotland,
and Italy, and it still exists in Borneo and elsewhere
in the Austral Islands.

On the one hand, it would scarcely be reasonable to
credit a practice of this kind to an instinct like that
of the beaver. On the other, it can scarcely have been
an invention communicated by one tribe to another.
It is more likely to have been a modification of the
primitive village communism suggested to the ingenuity
of man by special local wants or dangers, and carried
out in the same way by peoples widely separated geo-
graphically.

The facts above detailed may aid in the explanation
of what seems to be a village site in Europe of far

* " Bulletins of United States Geological Survey of the
Western Territories."

f Lubbock, "Prehistoric Times."

THE REMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE. 107

greater antiquity than the Swiss lake- villages, and
which may be a veritable " Palaeolithic " antediluvian
town. It occurs at Soloutre, near Macon, in eastern
France, and has given rise to much discussion and
controversy. As described by Messrs. De Ferry and
Arcelin, the site is a mound or hillock near a steep
rock or precipice. Judging from the great number
of hearths and heaps of refuse, it was obviously a place
of residence, and it was also a place of sepulture ; and
there is some reason to believe, from the distribution
of the materials, that it may have been enclosed, per-
haps by a palisade. The dead, mostly very aged
people and children, are buried in an extended position,
and always apparently in such relation to the hearths
or fire-places as to show that they were interred under
or over them. Either, therefore, these people, like
the Greenlanders, some South American tribes, and
Australians, buried their dead under their domestic
hearths, or like the ancient Canadians they built
funeral fires and held feasts for the dead over their
remains. But the most remarkable thing about this
village site is its relative antiquity, as indicated by
the animal remains found in it, which belong to that
Post-glacial time in which the land animals of Europe
were very different from those at present inhabiting
it. It would seem that these include the wild horse,
of which enormous numbers occur, the mammoth, the
cave-lion, the cave-bear, the saiga,* the cave-hygena,
the wapiti, etc. Bones of some of these animals are
* An antelope still extant in Eastern Europe.

108 FOSSIL MEN.

actually found buried with the dead, and the others
mixed with the debris of cookery. The remains of
the horse are in such abundance, and the whole
skeleton is so often present, that it is inferred that
they were not killed in hunting like the other animals,
but that they mnst have been driven over the face of
the precipice behind the village in battues, or lassoed
and led home as captives,* or that they were actually
kept in herds as domesticated animals, and slaughtered
for food, as amongst the Tartar Khirgis at present.
The great depth of the beds of debris at Soloutre, and
their stratification in layers, indicate a long term of
residence, and it would seem that the remains of the
mammoth and other extinct animals extend through-
out the whole, and that only implements of stone and
bone occur, except in the mere surface soil.

If, as seems most probable, this remarkable deposit
at Soloutre indicates a truly Palaeocosmic t village,
it is probably the only instance of this kind extant ;
and it destroys utterly the pretension that the men of
the Mammoth age were an inferior race or ruder than
their successors in the later Stone age. Further, the
condition of the objects found carries with it no evi-
dence of that extreme antiquity often claimed for the
earlier Stone age, and its relations to neighbouring
river deposits do not indicate, according to some of

* It would seem, however, that this would necessitate that
the captors should be horsemen.

f This term was proposed as a substitute for Paleolithic in
a previous publication of the author.

THE EEMAINS OF CITIES OP THE STONE AGE. 109

its explorers an age exceeding 7,000 or 8,000 years.
We are informed in the Book of Genesis, that in ante-
diluvian times, Jabal initiated the nomadic mode of
life. He was the father of those who dwell in tents.
This would seem to imply the domestication at that
period of some swift-footed beast of burden, probably
the horse or the ass. A tribe of such wandering
Jabalites might be expected to leave just such a
deposit as that of Soloutre. Thus we have here a
curious connection between this deposit and sacred
history. On the other hand, it has been remarked
that the most abundant te totem " engraved by
the (< Palaeolithic " cave-men of France on their bone
implements is the horse ; and this would so far
connect these cave-men with such a station as So-
loutre. Lastly, many of the flint weapons of Soloutre
are of the Palaeolithic type characteristic of the river
gravels, and the bones found with them are the ani-
mals of the gravels; while other implements and
weapons are as well worked as those of the later Stone
age.* Thus this singular deposit connects these two
so-called ages, and fuses them into one. But in doing
this, as explained above, and more fully illustrated in
subsequent chapters, it does precisely what a village

* Eecent discoveries by M. Prunieres in caves at Beaumes
Chaudes, seem to show that the older cave-men were in con-
tact with more advanced tribes, as arrow-heads of the so-called
Neolithic type are found sticking in their bones, or associated
with them. This would form another evidence of the little
value to be attached to the distinction of the two ages of
Stone.

110 FOSSIL MEN.

site might on American analogies be expected to do, as
compared with cave shelters and river gravels, where
only special remains, not showing the whole conditions
of a race, could be supposed likely to occur.

CHAPTER Y.

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OF THE STONE AGE.

So much has recently been written on chipped and
worked flints, and their familiar forms appear in so
many popular works, that readers may well be tired
of the subject. I shall try, however, in the following
pages to avoid as much as possible its trite and hack-
neyed aspects.

As Nilsson well remarks in his excellent work on
the primitive inhabitants of Scandinavia, it is well to
begin the consideration of stone and bone implements
by examining the tools with which they were made.
Stone hammers at Hochelaga, and generally through-
out pre-historic North America, were of three kinds :
(1) discs, (2) hand-hammers of elongated forms, (3)
handled hammers. From the latter the transition is
easy to the pogamaugan, or skull-cracker, and to the
tomahawk, or hatchet ; and it will be the easier to re-
member these uncouth words if we bear in mind the
affinity of the first to the Indo-European ^oke, pugme,
pugnuSj and Semitic paga, and that the latter is
derived from an Algonquin root (tern or turn — to cut) .
The same with the Greek Temno and, perhaps, Hebrew
Taman. These are at once mnemonic aids and exam-
ples of a vast number of widespread verbal analogies

112 FOSSIL MEN.

between the languages of Eastern America and Wes-
tern Asia and Europe, the nature of which may in the
sequel engage our attention.

Disc-hammers are in their rudest form merely flat
pebbles, suitable to be held in the hand, for driving
wedges or chisels, or for breaking stones, bones, or
nuts. In their more finished forms they are carefully
fashioned of quartzite or greenstone, with one side
convex and the other flat, or even slightly hollowed,
and the edge neatly and regularly trimmed. Stones
of this kind are found all over America on old Indian
sites, and are almost equally common in Europe; and
there can be little doubt from the habits of the modern
Indians as to their ordinary uses. They were prob-
ably hammers, pounders, and polishers. Held with
the convex side in the palm of the hand, they could
be used to drive wooden stakes or to split wood with
stone chisels, or to crack nuts or to bruise grain and
fruits, or to grind paint on a flat stone. With sand
or earth they made efficient polishers for dressing
skins, and held edgewise they served to trim flint
weapons or to crack marrow- bones. One of these
hammers must therefore have been an indispensable
utensil in every household, and a well-made one of
durable stone may have been an heirloom handed
down for generations.

These hammers should not be confounded with the
stones having deep hollows in their sides, and which
were mortars for grinding pigments, or sockets for
fire-drills; nor should they be confounded with the

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OF THE STONE AGE. 113

discs hollowed on both sides, and used for playing the
almost universal game of the Indians, which was to
them what croquet has recently been to us, and which
was named chunks } or tshung-he. The game was
played on a flat rectangular space of ground prepared
for the purpose, and often enclosed. It consisted in
one player rolling a disc along the ground, while
others tried to throw spears or poles in such a manner
as to be near to the disc when it came to a state of
rest. The chungke yards figure largely in old Indian
sites, especially in the south, and the stones are often
found. It would seem that both paint- mortars and
chungke- stones occur among pre-historic human re-
mains in Europe, even among those which belong to
the Palaeolithic period. Stones referable to these
uses are figured by Christy and Lartet, and by Nilsson
and by Keller. It is to be observed, however, that
among rude nations stone implements are often in
case of need applied to uses different from those for
which they were intended. Hence it would not be
wonderful if round hammers were sometimes used for
chungke stones, and the reverse. Stones with similar
hollows were also used as drill-stones, to obtain fire
by the rapid revolution of a wooden stake. In the
collection of Mr. Jones, of Brooklyn, I have lately
seen chungke discs of large size and most elaborately
cut in hard quartzite. The work of forming them
must have been that almost of a life-time ; perhaps it
was perfected in successive generations.

The second kind of hammer is of elongated form,

I

114 FOSSIL MEN.

round or oval in cross-section, and suited to be held
in the hand, though, perhaps, in some cases lashed to
a wooden handle. It much resembles the ordinary
stone axe or celt, but differs in having a blunt end,
indented with blows, instead of an edge. This
almond-shaped hammer was employed to chip stones,
to drive wedges, and to break nuts and bones. One
example from Hochelaga has a rough depression on
one side, which may have been produced by hammer-
ing wedges with the side instead of the end, or may
have been intended to give a better hold to the end of
the handle. Hammers precisely of this kind are found
in the caves of Perigord and in Sweden. The savages
of all countries seem to have discovered that dioritic
rocks, from the toughness of the crystals of hornblende
which they contain, are specially suited for the forma-
tion of these hammers, so that wherever greenstone
can be found it is employed.

The third and most artificial kind of stone hammer
is that with a groove around it, by means of which it
could be attached to a handle or slung upon a tough
withe. Such a hammer is sometimes merely an oval
pebble with a groove worked around it, but some ex-
amples, especially those of the old mound-builders, are
elaborately grooved and carefully shaped; and there
are some with two grooves, the working of which must
have cost much labour. Some specimens are so small
as to weigh only a few ounces, and one from the
ancient copper mines of Lake Superior, now in the
museum of the Geological ^Survey of Canada, is 11 J

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OF THE STONE AGE. 115

inches long, and weighs more than 251bs. The larger
end of it has been much bruised and broken, and it
was evidently a miner's sledge-hammer. Grooved
stones of this kind occur on pre-historic sites in
Europe, though they have sometimes been regarded
as plummets or sling-stones. In America similarly-
grooved pebbles are often found in circumstances
which lead to the belief that they have been sinkers
for nets. These are, however, usually of stone too
soft to have been used for hammers, and have no
marks of use on the ends. The ordinary sinker for
lines and nets is, however, on both sides of the Atlantic
a pear-shaped or drop-shaped stone, with a groove for
the line at the sharp end.

Sling-stones, properly so called, we probably have
not in North America ; but there are two kinds of
stones used as weapons, and which resemble what
have been regarded as sling-stones in Europe. The
first is grooved, and fastened to a cord the other end
of which is attached to the right arm. This stone,
Carver tells us, was used as a weapon with deadly
effect by certain tribes west of the Mississippi. The
other was a sort of slung-shot. As described by
Lewis and Clarke, and as appears from specimens in
collections, it is a pear-shaped stone, sheathed in
leather or hide, and attached by a thong two inches
long to a stout handle, with a second thong by which
it can be fastened to the wrist. Champlain found a
similar weapon in use among the nations of Western
Canada, and stones of this kind are used by the South

116 FOSSIL MEN.

Sea Islanders. I have a very fine one of calcareous
spar from the New Hebrides, and very neatly formed
and effective specimens made of heavy iron ore are
found on American Indian sites. They occur also
among the relics of the Stone age in Scandinavia. If
slings properly so-called were used by European pre-
historic men, it is likely that, like David of old, they
contented themselves with smooth stones from the
brook, and did not waste their labour in shaping
round stones to be lost the first time they were
thrown. The American Indians were, however, in
the habit of heaping stones in the inside of their forts
to be thrown at their enemies either by hand or by a
sling, and it has been suggested that some of the
heaps of chipped flints noticed by Foster and by
Squier as found in Ohio and Illinois may have been
collected for this purpose, though, it is perhaps more
likely that they were magazines of unfinished wea-
pons.

One implement of the Flint age which has recently
attracted much attention, and which has been elabo-
rately discussed in the beautiful work of -Messrs.
Lartet and Christy, is the pogamaugan, or striker,
an absolutely universal weapon of the rude hunter
and warrior in all ages and countries. One of its
earliest forms is that of an antler trimmed into the
shape of a sort of pick or hammer, and this, still in
use among the Western Indians, occurs under pre-
cisely the same form in the cave deposits of the
Reindeer period in France. The primitive hunter

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OP THE STONE AGE. 117

well knows the effective use of the antler by the deer
at bay, and nothing is more natural than that he
should adapt this weapon to his own use, so that
perhaps the antler is the oldest of all strikers or war-
clubs. But the implement has other forms. A stick
with a clubbed end was a usual form in America, and
corresponds to the waddy so effectively used by the
natives of Tasmania and other Austral savages. This
was rendered more deadly by a sharp bone or antler,
or a chipped flint, firmly socketed in the wood and
bound with thongs. Sometimes a row of flints was
set along the edge of the handle, as described by
Captain Gray in the case of Australian savages, and
a saw-edged sword of this kind used by the Mexican
tribes, and fitted with very Palaeolithic obsidian or
flint blades, was much dreaded by the early Spanish
adventurers. Schoolcraft and Catlin figure many
strange and grotesque forms of these weapons, and
they abound in museums. Those of a more modern
date have a metal blade instead of a sharp stone. If
the so-called Palaeolithic axes of Western Europe were
used as weapons in the state in which they are now
found, they must have been handled in this way, by
being attached with thongs or cement to pieces of
wood or of bone.

To this class of weapons undoubtedly belong most
of those strangely-shaped stone axes and picks, with
a socket for a small handle, which are found in primi-
tive graves both in the Old and New World (Fig. 24) .
They are generally of so small size and weight, and

118 FOSSIL MEN.

the socket for tlie handle of so small diameter, that
antiquaries are disposed to regard them as ornaments,
or " batons of command/' or sceptres, rather than as
weapons. And this impression is strengthened by the
fact that they are sometimes made of comparatively
soft stone. In most cases, however, they were prob-
ably made for actual use in striking men or animals,
except where they were intended as mere models of
weapons to be buried with the dead or offered in

Fig. 24.

sacrifice. The theory of the implement is that it
enables the blow of the arm to be delivered on a
limited spot, so as to pierce or fracture the skull of an
enemy or a wild animal. For this purpose the wea-
pon does not need to be large or heavy. On the con-
trary, lightness is necessary to portability, and to that
rapidity of stroke which is everything in combat and
in hunting. Hence many of the American pogamau-
gans and tomahawks are so small and light as not to
appear at all formidable ; but, guided by a quick eye

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OF THE STONE AGE. 119

and wielded by a rapid hand, they were really most
deadly weapon s, and they were often thrown with
great precision and effect. Champlain has depicted a
Huron warrior armed for the fight, his small war-
hatchet contrasting strangely with his great shield
and long bow. To the light and agile Indian or his
European prototype, the heavy mace of a mediaeval
warrior would have been as great an incumbrance
as his ponderous coat, of mail. On this subject an
interesting letter from Mr. Anderson, published in
the " Beliquias Aquitanicse," well deserves perusal.
Among other facts, he mentions that a small skull-
cracker is carried by the Western Indians in their
canoes to kill fish when caught. Specimens of them,
recently obtained by Dr. G. M. Dawson in the Queen
Charlotte Islands, are so elaborately and elegantly
carved that they might be regarded as sceptres,
though intended for no more noble use than that of
killing halibut or seals. The European aborigines
who speared or angled for large fish would have
equally needed such weapons ; and it is not unlikely
that some of the elaborately carved objects from the
French caves, dignified with the name of f{ batons of
command," are nothing else than fish-clubs or skull-
crackers.

While on this subject, it may be as well to remark
that it is a mistake to suppose that heavy stone axes
or large spears would be required to slay such large
game as the urus, the woolly rhinoceros, or the mam-
moth. The American hunter for such purposes used

120 FOSSIL MEN.

the arrow and the javelin, and his object was to have
these as sharp and slender as possible, that, urged
with the bow or from the arm, they might pierce the
vital parts of the animal. We read in the narratives
of the early adventurers in America of the rapidity
and accuracy with which the Indian could launch his
arrows or javelins. Slender arrows of cane, with
points hardened in the fire or tipped with small
flints or pointed bones, were thrown with such force
that they have been known to pierce through the
body of a horse or a buffalo from side to side. I
have seen the war-arrows of a Western Indian which
had actually been used in fight with Europeans armed
with firearms, and which were tipped with thin flints
less than an inch long and half an inch wide. If the
aborginal European really derived any considerable
part of his subsistence from very large animals, we
may be assured that he did not kill them with stone
celts or huge hatchets and so-called spears of chipped
flint, but with points as small as those of the smallest
flint flakes or bone javelins ; and he probably pursued
these animals, like the American Indian, during win-
ter, when their action was impeded by the deep snow.
We also learn from American examples that a very
rude chipped flint may be fitted into an elaborately
ornamented handle or shaft, and when the latter has
perished by decay, the flint may afford a very imper-
fect idea of the skill of the artificer.

The most primitive of all cutting instruments of
stones are flakes chipped or pressed from quartzite,

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OF THE STONE AGE. 121

jasper, agate, chert, or flint, any of which stones will
serve the purpose, and used at once without any other
preparation. Such flakes occur in millions in the old
European caves and kitchen-middens, in the vicinity
of the chalk districts, where excellent flint nodules are
so abundant that the old savages could be prodigal
of knives. They are also very abundant on ancient
Indian sites in America, though it is often impossible
to distinguish those intended for use from those
thrown away in the preparation of more elaborate
chipped implements. Nor can they always be dis-
tinguished from the chips broken by frost from
siliceous rocks untouched by human hands. Such
flakes, while the first, are probably also the last, stone
implements used by man. The Mexican barbers at
the time of the conquest shaved their customers with
such flakes, and the old Egyptians and Jews used
them in surgical operations at a time
general civilization had attained to a
of advancement.

But flint is susceptible of much hig
ped by the skilful hand of the prac
it took the form of triangular, tanged, and leaf-shaped
arrows and spears, of saws and knives. The forms of
these are of the same plan throughout America with
very little variation, and these forms are those also of
Europe — so much so that a tray filled with European
arrrow-heads cannot be distinguished from a tray of
American ones. It will be quite unnecessary, there-
fore, to enter into any description of them. I may

122 FOSSIL MEN.

content myself with noticing a few points known as to
America which may help to explain European facts.

One of these is as to the mode of their manufacture.
Some persons seem to think that when a certain stage
of civilization or semi-barbarism had been attained,
any one could make neat flint arrows and spears. This
is a great mistake. Alike in the ruder and more ad-
vanced American tribes, there were professional arrow-
makers, whose skill was acknowledged often over wide
districts. In pre-historic times, also, the tribes inhab-
iting the mountains and rocky districts were especially
arrow-makers, and traded the produce of their skill
with the tribes of the plains and valleys. We are
even told that the travelling merchants of flint
weapons were privileged persons, allowed to go from
tribe to tribe without molestation. No doubt, any one
could in an emergency manage to tip an arrow in some
way, but it required long practice to make well-shaped
arrow-heads, and it was not every district that could
afford the best material for their manufacture. In
some modes of making them, indeed, it required two
skilled persons, one to hold the stone, the other to
strike off small pieces with rapid and dexterous blows
of a hammer and chisel.

It results from this that the rudeness or skill of the
manufacture of flint weapons may be no test of age.
One tribe had often more skilful makers or better
material than others, and a party out on a hunting or
military expedition might be reduced to the necessity
of making arrows under disadvantageous circurn-

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OF THE STONE AGE. 123

stances. Hence in the same sites very different kinds
of arrow-heads may be found. Thus it happens that
on the old Indian sites arrow-heads of the most varied
character are found, and that when we succeed in dis-
covering the places where arrows were made, we find
that various and often distant places had been resorted
to for the material of the manufacture. A conclusive
evidence of the contemporaneous use of so-called

Fig. 25. — STONE ABEOW-HEADS, MODEBN. (From Hopkins Island, Canada.)

Palaeolithic and Neolithic weapons appears to be
afforded by the caverns of Beaumes Chaudes, in France,
where skeletons of the old type of cave-men are found
under circumstances which show that they were slain
with arrows of small size and neatly made, portions of
which are found actually imbedded in their bones.
Thus the " Neolithic " men of Europe must have
fought with the " Palaeolithic," a fact which American
analogies would quite prepare us to expect. In illus-

124 FOSSIL MEN.

tration of this I have before me three Canadian arrow-
heads from the collection of a friend (Fig. 25). They
are of two types, the long and short, and are made of
similar kinds of dark quartzite. They are from Hop-
kins Island, in the St. Lawrence, a place to which the
Indians resorted in pursuit of wild fowl, in killing
which these arrows, larger than thosQ commonly em-
ployed in war, were probably used. These specimens
were selected from a large number, showing all sorts
of gradations from the rudest to the most perfect, and
yet all probably made and used by the same tribes at
the same time and in the same circumstances. The
southern Indians are shown by Jones to have used
large arrow-heads with chisel-shaped ends for striking
off the heads of small birds, and some of their arrow-
heads which at first sight seem rude and misshapen
are found to have been bevelled with opposite slopes
on the sides, so as to give a rotatory motion, consti-
tuting as it were rifled arrows.

In America the rudest of all rude implements,
similar to the Palaeolithic type of the European
archaeologists, were used not by the ruder tribes but
by the more settled and civilized agricultural nations.
They are found most abundantly in the river valleys
occupied by the southern tribes of the United States,
and in the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio. It is
the opinion of most American archaeologists that
they were hoes or spades, and this is probably the
most rational explanation of their use. The more
civilized American tribes, from the gulf of Mexico to

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OF THE STONE AGE. 125

the valley of the St. Lawrence, were agriculturists,,
and their culture of maize, beans, pumpkins, and
tobacco, was all carried on by manual labour, with
hoes made of wood, or headed with bone, shell, or
stone, which were used in great numbers in the
spring, and then cast away or laid by in heaps, or
buried in the ground until again required. Hunting
tribes had no need of such tools. Even the more
highly civilized nations of the Mississippi valley, who
possessed copper implements, and were skilful artists
in many ways, have left behind them vast numbers
of rudely-chipped discs and flat flints, probably used
in their agriculture.* They are found in caches, or
deposits of many together, as if quantities were used
at one time. This would agree with the idea of
their agricultural use. They would be prepared in
large quantities for the planting time, when the whole
tribe mustered, like the South Africans described by
Livingstone, to till their fields ; and when the work
was over they would be gathered and hidden in some
safe place till the next season, or perhaps buried as
an offering to the god of the harvest. Abbott, in his
" Stone Age in New Jersey/' figures one example
found with 149 others in a ploughed field. They
were buried in the ground with the points up, and
he remarks that such implements are not met with

* Bau, " Smithsonian Beport for 1868," describes several
forms of stone hoes ; some having notches for attachment to
a handle, others oval in form. Thin, flat, sharp-edged stones
of various forms, found on old Indian sites, may often have
been agricultural implements.

126 FOSSIL MEN.

singly ; like arrows, hatchets, and other weapons. In
the museum of the Historical Society of Brooklyn I
saw a hoe similar to those described by Abbott, and
which had like them been found with many others
arranged in a circle under the ground ; and Mr. Jones,
of the same city, the author of an excellent work on
the antiquities of the Southern Indians, showed me
some of these hoes with the edges evidently worn by
use, and pointed out to me that Carver refers to the
care and secrecy with which the Indians were in the
habit of hiding their stores of stone implements and
weapons. Squier describes large deposits of these
in Ohio. He also states that at a place called Flint
Ridge, in the same state, where certain concretions of
chert suitable for these implements are found, count-
less pits, dug for these flints, occur for many miles.
These excavations are often ten or fourteen feet deep,
and acres in extent.

In connection with this, it is be observed that in
localities where flint weapons or implements were
fabricated, great quantities of imperfectly made speci-
mens were left behind, as well as of chips. Further,
it was a well-known practice of American tribes to
carry off from the quarries roughly- shaped implements,
to be afterwards more carefully shaped at leisure.
These facts may account for many deposits of so-called
Palaeolithic weapons, as well as for the occurrence of
so-called " transition " deposits, in which imperfectly
and well made flint objects are found mixed together,
as in the celebrated pre-historic flint mines of Cissbury,

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OP THE STONE AGE. 127

in England. In one of the mounds of Ohio, Squier
and Davis discovered an immense number of rudely-
shaped flint discs placed on end. They are on the
average six inches in length, and weigh about two
pounds each. They are evidently unfinished imple-
ments, and Rau regards this as a depot or magazine
from which supplies of flint could be obtained as re-
quired, and where the material could be kept damp,
so that it might be the more easily chipped.

A somewhat similar place is described by Leidy in
a recent report on the geology of the Western Terri-
tories. It is at the base of the Uintah Hills, in "Wyom-
ing, where vast quantities of jasper, agate, and other
stones suitable for implements, have been swept down
upon the plain. Immense numbers of these have
been chipped and broken into angular fragments,
whether by art or nature does not seem evident ; but
from the number of arrow-heads and other definitely-
formed objects, it is evident that the place was for
ages resorted to as a quarry and manufactory. Nor
need we wonder at this when we consider the dense
agricultural population evidenced by the mounds and
earthworks of the old Alleghans in all the alluvial
plains of the West, and that thousands of industrious
flint- chipper s and migratory traders must have been
constantly employed in working the agates and jas-
pers of the hills, and transporting them to the towns
and villages of the plains, where they are still found
in great numbers.

I suggested many years ago, when writing of a visit

128 FOSSIL MEN.

to the celebrated gravel-pits of St. Acheul, that these
may have been worked in pre-historic times like the
American flint-beds, and I find that Mr. Belgrand, in
his recent report on the Paris Basin, which solves
so many difficulties as to the French river gravels,
regards these beds, and also those of Hoxne in Eng-
land, as sites of manufactories of implements, though
he thinks the manufacture was carried on when the
water flowed at the height of these gravels. Eau has
described in the Smithsonian Eeports hoes from
Illinois 7| inches long and 6 inches broad, neatly
chipped, and with two notches in the upper part for
the attachment of a handle. Foster has figured two
specimens from the same State, of rude form and
without notches. One of them is no less than 13
inches long. They show in the lower part an abrasion
attributable to long use in digging. Many of these
American hoes, of the ruder forms first mentioned,
are scarcely distinguishable from the broader styles
of so-called Palaeolithic implements found in Europe,
while there is a sharper and narrower European type
sometimes also found in America, and which may
have been used as a pick rather than a hoe. It is
quite true that in our ignorance, born of too great
civilization, it is often difficult for us to distinguish
hoes from spears, tomahawks, or scrapers ; but this
renders all the more futile any attempt to assign these
to distinct ages from one another, or from more
polished implements. In any case, American ana-
logies would lead us to refer some of the larger forms

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OP TEE STONE AGE. 129

of Palaeolithic chipped implements to agricultural popu-
lations, and we should expect to find such imple-
ments in great numbers in the vicinity of alluvial
grounds or near to river valleys, and unmixed with
the household utensils and weapons of war and hunt-
ing, which might remain in connection with habita-
tions or fortresses. Their abundance in the European
river gravels gives countenance to the supposition that
in Europe, as in America, the earliest pre-historic
peoples were agricultural, though there may, no doubt,
have been contemporary hunting tribes in the districts
less suited for cultivation.

In connection with these facts, it may be pertinent
to inquire whether we have formed any definite con-
ceptions of the habits and implements of the dense
agricultural populations implied in the narrative of
the antediluvian period in Genesis. Had they domes-
ticated the horse or ox to plough their fields, or was
all done by manual labour, as in America? Is it
likely that they possessed metallic tools in sufficient
quantity for agricultural use, even after the date, the
seventh generation from Adam, assigned to the dis-
covery of the metals ? Is it not likely that their agri-
culture was carried on principally with primitive stone
hoes ? If so, we may expect to find in the river
valleys of Western Asia vastly greater quantities o^
Palaeolithic flints than those which the gravels of
Europe have afforded, and it would not be wonderful
if millions of these rude implements should be re-
covered without our meeting with any other evidence

K

130 FOSSIL MEN.

of civilization or of human agency. There must also
have been quarries and excavations of great magni-
tude, out of which the demand for flints among this
primitive population was supplied. It is much to be
desired, in the interest alike of scientific a.nd biblical
archaeology, that thorough explorations should be
made of those lands which are historically the cradle of
our species, to ascertain what traces remain of the pre-
historic people who must have swarmed on the table-
lands and river valleys of Asia, before they were swept
away by the diluvial catastrophe which is recorded
alike in the pages of Moses and the clay tablets of
Assyria, and the dread memory of which survives in
the traditions of nearly every family of mankind. It
is well known that all over Asia and Northern Africa
implements and weapons of chipped flint were used
in historic times along with those of metal ; but it is
doubtful if we know anything of the antediluvian
agricultural populations. American analogies would
lead us to suppose that their only remaining traces
might be the roughly-chipped flints which they
probably used in cultivating the soil. Should these
be found, however, they would be assumed by most
archaeologists to be the implements of a rude and
savage race, scarcely elevated above the brutes.

Chipped-stone scrapers, knives, and borers exist
among the American tribes, of similar patterns to
those of pre-historic Europe; but we must now
pass on to the polished stone implements made of
quartzite, diorite, and other hard rocks. Those in

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OP THE STONE AGE. 131

America do not belong to a different age from those
of chipped flint, nor is it conceivable that they could
have done so. The makers of chipped implements
must have possessed at least stone hammers ; and in
districts where cleavable flints could not be found,
the primitive men must have had recourse to other
stones; and the use of the teeth, antlers, and horns
of animals must from the first have led to imitations
in stone and bone. In the oldest cavern deposits of
Europe there is abundant evidence of the use of teeth
and antlers as cutting implements, and it is absurd
to suppose that the men who made the bone spears
and other implements of Kent's Cave and the French
caves could not, if necessary, have made implements
of polished stone. If they did not do so, it was
because they lived in a region where the abundant
supply of excellent flint rendered unnecessary the
laborious operation of polishing fragments of more
refractory stones. Axes, chisels, and celts of polished
stone run in parallel series to the hammers already
mentioned; corresponding to the grooved hammers
we have grooved axes. The hand hammers have
correspondingly shaped celts and chisels, and the
hammers with handle holes have their correspond-
ing " Amazon axes/' as they have been called in
Europe.

I shall here merely make a few remarks on one or
two of the kinds. The chisels show in their broken
and battered heads the marks of the hammers with
which they were driven in splitting wood. The axes

132 FOSSIL MEN.

for handling, on the other hand, are smooth and some-
times pointed at the top, or have a groove or grooves
worked round them to give a more firm attachment by
thongs or withes. In most cases the stone axe has
not been furnished with a socket, but was fastened
into a hole or cleft in the handle, or was merely tied
to it with thongs. Those with holes or sockets were
usually small, elaborately worked, and often made of
soft kinds of stone. There is no good reason, how-
ever, to believe that they were merely ornamental.
They were, no doubt, unsuited for cleaving wood, but
they could as already explained, be used as toma-
hawks for killing fish and small animals, or even in
war, and the Indian had the art of throwing them
with great force and precision. They were, in short,
to the American what the boomerang is to the
Australian. Sir John Lubbock conjectures that such
axes were not used till after metallic tools were in-
troduced ; but this will not apply to America.

The hollow chisel, or gouge, is a very common im-
plement among the Northern Indians, but less com-
mon apparently in the south. It was always long,
smooth, and often broken by hammering at the upper
end ; but some specimens have the upper end worked
into a sharp edge. Like the hoes already referred
to, these chisels are often found in groups or nests,
indicating that they were used by parties or companies
of people. This accords with the prevalent belief
already mentioned, that they were the implements for
tapping the maple-tree in spring to extract its sap.

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OP THE STONE AGE. 133

This seems to have been universally used among the
Northern Indians, and is highly valued as the first and
most delicious gift of nature in the opening of spring.
In the east the sugar maple and white maple are
tapped, and in the west the allied Negundo, or ash-
leaved maple. The juice was then boiled into syrup,
but Charlevoix states that among the Canadian Indians
at least, it was not crystallized into sugar until after
the arrival of the Europeans.

In Europe these gouges are supposed to have been
used for hollowing canoes, but it is precisely in those
regions in America where bark canoes, and not those
of hollow logs, were used, that these hollow chisels
most abound. In some cases also, the hollow is cut
the whole length of the chisel, so that it forms a
spout which might be used to collect the sap as well
as to make the incision. These gouges were, how-
ever, probably used to hollow wooden troughs to
contain the juice, an operation which ' the modern
backwoodsman performs with an adze or a chisel.
The modern Scandinavians make sugar or syrup from
the birch, and as, according to Nilsson, the hollow
gouges of that country are found in nests or groups,
they may mark the sites of sugar camps. In that
country, however, it is probable that canoes were prin-
cipally made from trunks of trees, and the Polynesians
who used hollow stone chisels, must have employed
them in making such canoes. No hollow chisels ap-
pear as yet to have been found in connection with so-
called Palaeolithic remains, so that we do not know

134 FOSSIL MEN.

whether the oldest European tribes tapped trees or
dug out troughs or canoes. Still, as these hollow
chisels, if they existed, would be found by themselves
and not associated with chipped implements, the in-
veterate prejudice which regards polished and chipped
implements as of different ages would probably dis-
sociate them from the contemporary remains.

Bone was extensively used in America as in Europe,
for a great variety of purposes, but the perishable
nature of bone implements causes them to be difficult
of recovery even from sites so modern comparatively
as that of Hochelaga. Fortunately, however, some of
these implements may still be found in use among
our western tribes. The American bone fish-spear or
harpoon is constructed on the same plan with that
of pre-historic Europe, and the visitor to the British
Museum may see bone harpoons from the caves of the
reindeer folk in France, so like those in the same col-
lection from Greenland and Terra del Fuego that all
might have come from the same workshop. As Rau
has pointed out, they have even the little grooves
cut in the barbs to allow the blood of the wounded
animal more readily to flow, a requirement not found
in some of the American harpoons, or in those of more
modern times, though attended to in the arrow-shafts
of the Plain Indians who hunt the buffalo. The fish-
spear was always an important means of subsistence
with the American savage. In the south large fish
were killed with spears made of canes, with the point
sharpened and hardened in the fire. In the north

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OF THE STONE AGE. 135

barbed bone spears were used, and also little un-
barbed bones with two elastic pieces of wood at the
sides to hold the body of the fish between them when
pierced with the spear. Even in winter the Indian cuts
a hole through the ice, and sitting beside it spears
the fish that are attracted by the light. Pointed bone
implements, explicable as spears, arrow-heads, bod-
kins, piercers, and potters' stamps, are not uncommon
in the kitchen-middens of old Hochelaga, though often

Fig. 26. — BONE NEEDLE ANB SPEAKS, HOCHELAGA.

softened and impaired by decay. Their appearance
may be learned from the figures which I give of a few
of them, and which will recall the pre-historic European
bone implements which the reader may have seen either
in museums, or figured in books, and many of which date
back to the oldest deposits in caves of the Mammoth
age. The simplest form of spear is that with notches
along one side, though even this implies some thought
and skill in the arrangement of its barbs, and the plan
of these seems to have been nearly alike in all times

136

FOSSIL MEN.

and places. I figure in illustration (Fig. 27) four
examples : one modern, from Terra del Fuego ; three
ancient, from Nova Scotia, from Denmark, and from
Kent's Cave in Devonshire. All of them were pro-
bably used for capturing fish.

One very neat little bone implement found at
Hochelaga has on one end a round stamp to make
rings on pottery, while the other end is pointed, and
may have been used for drawing lines. Others are
explained, by the habits of the modern tribes, as needles
for weaving snow-shoes, and others are similar to the
piercers to this day used by the Northern Indians in
making holes for the watep, or cord of spruce or larch
roots, used for stitching together the birch-bark of
their canoes. Instruments very similar to these are
figured by Lartet and Christy from the French caves,
and by Dupont from those of Belgium.

The ancient pre-historic people of France and Bel-
gium made, according to Lartet and Dupont, very
neat and serviceable sewing-needles of bone, and
similar, though coarse, needles were used in Canada.
One of them in my collection from Hochelaga is
flattened and bent like the collar-needles used by
saddlers, and has an eye large enough to receive
pack-thread (fig. 26). It may have been used in
sewing skin garments with sinews of deer. We can
easily imagine the surprise of women accustomed to
such rough handiwork when they were first introduced
to the French fashions of those days, as seen on
the persons of Cartier and his gentleman volunteers.

t

138 , FOSSIL MEN.

They crowded around them, touched their garments,
and wept, as he says, for joy, but perhaps merely
because they were thoroughly overcome by the con-
templation of such rare and inimitable woman's work,
the like of which they had not seen,' nor had they
heard of such things except in the vague and uncertain
rumours of the cotton-clad Mexicans and mound-
builders, which may have reached the valley of the
St. Lawrence. Bone needles much finer than those
above figured were used by the Esquimaux, and
also by the American Indians. They abound in the
caves of the ' ' Reindeer period " in France, and that
they were used in the still earlier " Mammoth age "
seems to be proved by the discovery by Dr. Riviere of
needles in the Mentone Cave, and also by the character
of the ornamental head-dress of the Mentone skeleton.
Pengelly has also described a needle from below the
upper stalagmite of Kent's Cave, belonging therefore
to the period of the cave hygena and mammoth. He
regards it as too delicate to pierce the skins of
animals, but forgets that the skins sewed with it may
have been those of small fur-bearing quadrupeds, or
that it may have been used for embroidering with hair
or with vegetable fibres. We shall find, however, in
the sequel, reason to believe that by the ancient
Europeans, as well as by the Americans, they were
used to sew skin bags made to hold pemmican or
preserved meat, and that this may account for their
association with cracked bones in the caves. Their
use among the Americans was not only to sew to-

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OP THE STONE AGE. 139

gether their skin garments with the sinews of the
deer, but to embroider them with patterns, and to
attach to them the beads and perforated shells with
which they were ornamented. They were also used
in making nets, and in weaving the network of snow-
shoes. There is no_/iWson as yet to believe that
the earlier pre-histqric peoples of Europe could make
textile fabrics. These appear for the first time in the
Swiss lake-habitations, but there are figures of human
arms apparently with embroidered sleeves, in Lartet
and Christy's collections, and which are sufficient to
show the same love of needlework which is observed
among the modern Esquimaux and Indians, and which
was so conspicuous among all early historic nations
of the Old World. If the people of the Mammoth
age already practised the art of embroidery, this fact
would imply the careful tanning of skins, the manu-
facture of needles, the preparation of thread from
animal or vegetable fibres, and probably some know-'
ledge of vegetable dye-stuffs ; and some proficiency in
all these arts is so widely diffused that there seems no
improbability in their being even thus ancient.

According to Cartier, the most valuable of all the
possessions of the people of Canada and Hochelaga
was that which they called " Esurguy," the same
known more familiarly to us by its New England name
of " wampum." The great original wampum of
America was probably that which still stands at the
head of all kinds of beads, the pearl, which seems to
have been collected by the Southern Indians, and is

140 FOSSIL MEN.

mentioned by the early Spanish adventurers as an
abundant and valued possession of the chiefs. Next
to this came polished and perforated pieces of the
shell of the pearl oyster and of other shells. The
solid columella of the great Strombus, and other large
univalves, was used by the Indians of the south. The
New England Indians used the hard shell of the
"Quahog" (Venus mercenaries), the purple spot at the
posterior end of the shell forming the more precious
blue wampum. The more northern coast tribes some-
times used the shells of the great Clam (Mactra
solidissima). The inland nations purchased wampum
from those of the coast, and, like the Coast Indians,
they used small shells perforated with holes. The
wampum of the Iroquois, and also of the Hoche-
lagans, was made of freshwater univalves, probably the
Melania. They also ground into perforated discs for
beads the pearly shells of freshwater Unios. The
Indians of the west coast use the long tubular shells
of the Dentalium. Copper beads and long bugles
were worked out of the native metal, and a cheaper
kind of bead was made of clay, moulded into orna-
meutal discs and baked. (Fig. 28.) Whatever the
form or material, wampum was in universal use for
ornament or dress, and as necklaces, bracelets, and
anklets, both among men and women. It was also a
medium of exchange, and was buried with the dead
as a possession valuable even in the world of spirits.
Champlain informs us that the Huron girls accumu-
lated strings of wampum for their dowry, and lavishly

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OF THE STONE AGE. 141

adorned themselves with it on occasions of festivity.
In another chapter I have reproduced (P. 156), in
illustration of this, his drawing of a Huron belle
dressed for a dance.

That it was carried to great distances is shown
by the discovery of tropical shells far to the north,
in the interior of America. I have seen the remains
of a necklace found in a grave at Brockville, on the
St. Lawrence, composed in part of shells of Purpura
lapillus from the distant coast of New England, and
in part of rude beads of native copper from Lake

Fig. 28.— SHELL AND TERRA GOTTA BEADS, HOCHELAGA.

Superior. When Cartier left Stadacona with Donna-
conna as his prisoner, the people brought twenty-four
strings or necklaces of wampum as a ransom for
their chief, no doubt thinking that even in the distant
country of the stranger so large a quantity of treasure
would be a fortune too tempting to be refused. So
when a great chief died, treasures of wampum were
placed with him to enrich him in the other world ;
and even the infant had strings of it twined around
its little corpse, to secure a welcome in the happy
fields of the west.

142 FOSSIL MEN.

In his universal use of wampum the American was
but kin to all men from the beginning. If we turn
to the pages of Genesis, we find the gold, pearls, and
agate of Havilah as the riches of primitive man. If
we turn to those old graves of the Mammoth age,
which reveal to us the habits of the oldest men known
to geology, wampum appears to be the universal
treasure. Perhaps one of the most curious illustra-
tions of this is the skeleton discovered by Dr. Kiviere,
in a cave at Mentone, on the borders of France and
Italy. This and some companion caves are situated
in a rocky cliff bordering a narrow terrace overlooking
the sea, and which seems to have been a highway, or
pass, from pre-historic times to those of modern rail-
ways. Among the earliest lodgers to whom these
caves afforded a resting-place in their wanderings, and
a place of sepulture, were some of those tribes who
are believed to have used only roughly chipped imple-
ments, and to have been contemporary with the now
extinct mammoth and woolly rhinoceros of the Post-
pliocene period. A man of one of these tribes had
been buried here, having probably died from wounds
while on the march. As we shall find when we
come to consider physical characters, this man was
essentially in face and frame an American, as were
also his contemporaries in other parts of Europe, and
their habits and modes of sepulture were American
as well. His head had been covered with a cap or
chaplet, ornamented with the perforated shells of a
Nassa, thickly plaited into the network of the head-

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OF THE STONE AGE. 143

dress. Around the edge was a fringe of perforated
canines of the deer; two flint arrows — trophies, per-
haps, of war — were fixed on the back, and in front
was a bone pin, which had probably supported his
long hair. Bracelets and anklets of similar shells
adorned his stalwart limbs, and to complete the re-
semblance, a little oxide of iron was placed in front
of his face, the "war paint " wherewith to appear in
presence of his ancestors. Could this old brave of
Mentone, belonging to a tribe whose very name is
unknown to history, spring again into life, he would,
in garb, arms, and appearance, have shown no marked
difference from the tribes that inhabited the St. Law-
rence valley three hundred years ago. This is not an
isolated case, for we find that the same customs with
regard to wampum prevailed throughout Western
Europe in the oldest pre-historic times known to us,
and that shell beads were transported by trade or
migration to great distances, exactly as in America.
There is no good reason to assign to these pre-historic
men of Europe the fabulous antiquity claimed for
them by some ; but they carry back the customs of
America to a time as old as any known to us by human
remains and works of art.

In America the wampum had a still higher use.
Woven into belts of various patterns, into which dates
and histories and national treaties were " talked/' it
formed the records of the American tribes; com-
mitted to the care of " wampum-keepers," it was
handed down from one generation to another, and

144 FOSSIL MEN.

regarded in the same light as that in which we view
our most precious national archives. The treaty of
the Lenni-Lenape with Penn in 1682 is commemorated
by a great belt of white and purple wampum, still
preserved in Philadelphia, and probably made of the
Venus shell. The great charter of the Iroquois
league, according to Morgan, was made of fresh-
water univalves, and in the early records of New
France we constantly read of belts or strings of
wampum as being presented in confirmation of
engagements or claims. Wilson well states the ana-
logy of all this with the quipus, or knotted strings,
which formed the records of the Peruvians, and which,
like the wampum of the north, were sometimes buried
in their graves as records of their lives and deeds.
Of this use of wampum as a substitute for letters we
have, I believe, as yet no trace in Europe ; but may
we not hope yet to find the buried quipu or historic
wampum of some pre-historic man or tribe ?

Among the most mysterious of the objects found
among the ancient relics in European caverns, are
slender bones, marked with notches or scratches in
variable number. They have been held to be tallies,
or aids to memory, and it has even been suggested
that they make a rude approach to the beginning
of historical writing. This may be so ; but of the
American objects which they resemble, the most
striking are the gambling sticks used by the Western
Indians. In the Queen Charlotte Islands, for example,
the Haida carries a leather bag containing, perhaps,

IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OP THE STONE AGE. 145

fifty small rods, a few inches long, and made of
wood, ivory, or the leg-bones of birds. They are
marked with rings or notches, differing in number on
each piece, and giving them different values in the
games played with them. They appear to be dealt like
cards, and each player throws down in turn the pieces
he may have, which are rated according to their marks.
If such games were in use among the old cave-men of
Europe, this would account for the frequency of the
tallies, or gambling sticks, in their former habitations.
The strange and ghastly custom of preserving
portions of the bodies of slaughtered enemies as
trophies of victory, belongs to the American in com-
mon with some of the races of the Old World. In
scalping the slain he agrees with the ancient Scythians
as described by Herodotus, and with the modern
aborigines of Formosa, according to the reports of
missionaries to that country. Our own heathen fore-
fathers made drinking bowls of the skulls of the dead,
and two specimens illustrative of this have been dis-
interred in Hochelaga. They are human parietal
bones, trimmed around the edges so as to form flat
bowls, and one of them has a hole at the edge,
probably for a string to suspend it. That customs of
this nature were prevalent in antiquity we have evi-
dence even in the monuments of civilized nations ; but
as yet, I believe, no traces of them have been found
among human pre-historic remains. Perhaps such prac-
tices were as yet unknown to pre-historic men, and be-
longed to the moral degradation of historic times alone.

L

CHAPTER VI.

LOST AETS OF PRIMITIVE RACES.

NOTHING is more clearly shown by American analogies
than the illusory nature of the popular modes of
reasoning as to the progress of pre-historic races in
the arts, from the remains which they have left in the
soil. Chipped stone as distinguished from polished
stone may depend altogether on the material acces-
sible. The rudest and most savage tribes of hunters
may chip or grind their weapons more elaborately than
tribes far higher in general civilization. When metal
tools begin to come into use, the more elaborate and
costly kinds of stone implements cease to be made,
though some of the ruder ones may still be employed.
As tribes adopt settled habits and become agricultu-
rists, they may have less need for the carefully made
flint implements used in hunting, and less time to
make them. Long-continued peace and prosperity
will enable a tribe to accumulate stores of well-formed
weapons; sudden attacks or military reverses may
oblige them hastily to manufacture the rudest kinds in
order to resist their enemies. Arts long pursued and
carried to much perfection may, by the introduction
of new objects of trade, or from other causes, perish
and become forgotten in a single generation. Thus,

LOST AETS OP PRIMITIVE EACES. 147

as we have already seen, the potter's art, in itself the
germ of many others, has perished from the Indian
tribes of North America, and the art of making gold
jewellery from the Indian tribes of Central America,
while many important arts practised by the old mound-
builders are now wholly extinct among their successors
in the same regions.

Perhaps few illustrations of this are more striking
than those afforded by what is known as to the art of
drilling, perforating, and carving hard stones, as
practised by nations not acquainted with the use of
metals. This art was universal among the primitive
people of the northern hemisphere, as evidenced by
the stone hatchets with sockets for handles found both
in Europe and America, and by the marvellously
carved and bored pipes made of the hardest stones by
the American Indians. Professor Rau, of New York,
who has given much attention to this subject, has
shown that the means employed to bore round holes
was either a hollow cane or a solid round stick, sup-
plied with sand and water, and rotated with a drill
bow, either of the kind called the " pump- drill," and
used by the Iroquois and other tribes, or of the kind
now commonly employed by artisans, and which was
known to the Alleghans and other primitive nations.
This zealous and judicious observer further tried the
experiment of boring in this way, and found it most
tedious work.

" The deeper the drill penetrated into the stone, the
more difficult the work became, which induced me,

Fig 29.— GROTESQUE FIGTTBE SHOWING TOTEMIC EMBLEMS CAEVED IN BLACK
ARGILLACEOUS STONE BY NATIVES OF THE QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS, WEST-
ERN AMERICA. (From a Photograph by J. C. Weston, Geological Survey of Canada.)
(Reduced).

LOST AETS OF PEIMITIVE RACES. 1-49

after having drilled through half the thickness of the
stone, to begin another bore at the opposite side. In
due time it met the first exactly in the middle. It
was originally my intention to drill a hole of about
three-quarters of an inch in diameter ; but I had not
made sufficient allowance for the lateral friction of the
sand, and hence it happened that the two conical
cavities forming the perforation acquired, much against
my wish, greater proportions than I expected, measur-
ing, in fact, an inch and a quarter in their widest
diameters. They would have become narrower, as well
as more cylindrical, if I had used a drill half as thick
as that which served in the operation ; but when I
made this discovery the work was already too far
advanced to be commenced again."

With regard to the process of manufacturing pipes
of hard stone, he writes as follows :—

" The manufactures of stone which evince the great-
est skill of the former inhabitants of North America,
are by no means their pierced axes, but those remark-
able pipes, often made of the hardest stones, that have
been found in the so-called sacrificial mounds of the
Western States, but more especially in Ohio. These
' mound-pipes' usually represent bowl and tube in one
piece, thus differing from the modern Indian pipe,
which consists of a bowl and a long wooden stem, and
bears a distant resemblance to the chibouk of the
Turks. A great number of pipes of the above-
mentioned antique shape were disentombed by Messrs.
Squier and Davis during their survey of the ancient

150

FOSSIL MEN.

earthworks in the Mississippi valley, and are described
and figured in their work, which forms the first volume
of " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge." The
accompanying cut (Fig. 30) presents the outline of
the mound-pipe in its simple or primitive form. The
drawing is about half the size of the original, which
was exhumed with many similar articles from a mound
near Chillicothe, Ohio. It will be seen that the bowl

Fig. 30.— PIPE CABVED OUT OP HARD POEPHTEITIC STONE BY THE ALLEGHANS
op THE OHIO.

a. Bowl drilled down to the base.

b. Hole drilled through the base to the bowl. The bowl and base are covered
with small drilled holes for ornament.

rises from the middle of a flat and somewhat curved
base, one side of which communicates by means of a
narrow perforation (&), one -sixth of an inch (about
four millimetres) in diameter, with the hollow of the
bowl (a), and represents the tube, or rather the mouth-
piece, of the pipe, while the other unperforated end
forms the handle by which the smoker held the imple-
ment and approached it to his mouth. Bowl and
base are ornamented with small cup-shaped holes.

LOST AETS OF PRIMITIVE EACES. 151

This pipe consists of hard, porphyry, and is wrought
from a single piece, like all others of a similar charac-
ter. I have already stated that it may be considered
as the simple or typical form of this class of imple-
ments. In the more elaborate specimens the bowl is
formed in some instances in imitation of the human
head, but generally of the body of an animal, and
in the latter cases the peculiar characteristics of the
species which have served as models, comprising
mammals, birds, and amphibia, are frequently ex-
pressed with surprising fidelity; a modern artist,
indeed, notwithstanding his far superior instruments,
would find no little difficulty in reproducing the more
finished of these objects, especially when carving them
from porphyry, which was the kind of stone chiefly
employed by the manufacturers/'

What wonder is it that time, which "antiquates
antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things,
hath yet spared these minor monuments ; " and how
strangely does it illustrate the religious fervour of the
old mound-builders that they could sacrifice hundreds
of these precious trophies of skill and labour in the
fires of their altar hearths. Whatever the objects of
their worship, or the ends they hoped to attain, they
could give no costlier offerings unless they had offered
their own lives on the altar. Lafitau informs us that
the shaping and perforation of a tomahawk was some-
times the work of a lifetime, and might be left un-
finished by the patient artist whose life-work it had
been. It is said that perforated pieces of rock-crystal,

152 FOSSIL MEN.

worn by the chiefs of some South American tribes,
cost the labour of two men's lives. It is not surprising
that arts like these perish immediately on the intro-
duction of the implements of more civilized races, and
drop out of the memory of the successors of the artists
in a few generations.

It is only under peculiar circumstances that arts
implying so much labour as well as contrivance can
flourish. The man whose whole energies are occupied
in providing for the ordinary wants of life cannot take
time to select particular kinds of stone, to construct
drills, and to work patiently for months or for years
in order that he may possess an unusually perfect or
finished implement. Hence, of two peoples similarly
constituted, and in a similar stage of culture, one may
be quite unable to indulge in such luxuries of art,
while another more favourably situated may abound
in them.

It is interesting also to observe that under certain
conditions of external influence, the arts of a people
may change without any corresponding advance in
general civilization. For example, the 'natives of the
Queen Charlotte Islands, on the west coast of British
America, are remarkable, like other tribes on that
coast, for strange and grotesque carvings in a black
argillaceous stone, and which sometimes remind one
of Chinese carvings in agalmatolite. Yet some of
these tribes, since they have come into contact with
Europeans, and have found their carvings capable of
being made into articles of merchandise, have invented

LOST AETS OF PEIMITIVE KACES. 153

or borrowed new patterns. A little farther progress
of civilization will probably turn the attention of this
people into new channels, and their later works, as
well as their own earlier grotesque figures, will become
obsolete and forgotten; and if exhumed by anti-
quaries, might give very false impressions as to the
history and progress of the tribe, unless some historical
account of the circumstances were preserved.

The case of the Queen Charlotte Islanders might be
made to indicate even a change of religion as well as of
art, for their grotesque carvings are their penates, the
tokens or signs of their guardian manitous (Fig. 29) ,
to which their more modern carvings, often copied
from European models, bear no relation.

The Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands,
when first visited by Europeans, dwelt in villages
composed of large houses, laboriously constructed of
wooden planks, and in front of each house was an
immense obelisk or pillar of wood, often so large that
the doorway was cut through its substance. This
pillar was elaborately carved with great labour, from
top to bottom, with totems or armorial bearings of the
family. They used vessels of wood and of the horns
of the mountain sheep and goat, which were in like
manner adorned with carvings of animal and grotesque
forms. Their masks, rattles, and maces, used in their
dances, were all highly finished pieces of carving,
and often inlaid with pearly plates of the shell of
the Haliotis. Their canoes, constructed out of a single
large tree, were beautifully modelled, carved and

154 FOSSIL MEN.

inlaid with mother-of-pearl. In short, these people
had made great progress in decorative art, or had
brought such art from Asia, or received it through
occasional Japanese junks wrecked on their coasts.
All this primitive art is now rapidly perishing, and
will soon be replaced by European arts and manufac-
tures, though the manner of life and subsistence of the
people remains in the main the same as before. The
Haida is still a fisherman, though tin pails may re-
place the carved wooden dishes of his fathers, and his
house may want altogether the grand carved posts,
replaced perhaps by a flag-staff.

Agriculture may be extensively pursued by primi-
tive tribes, and if these tribes perish, or if they are
driven by reverses to adopt a nomadic life, their culture
of the earth may leave no appreciable remains behind,
and so far as antiquities are concerned, they may
appear to be a ruder people than one that has lived by
hunting or fishing. Tribes living in rock shelters,
or obliged to build with stone or earth, may leave
remains altogether exceptional in amount compared
with those which commemorate the existence of com-
paratively cultivated people living in wooden houses
and tilling the soil. The introduction of new tools
by foreign trade may indicate the very reverse of any
progress in culture or civilization in the rude tribes
who receive such new objects.

Cartier, in 1535, found around the town of Hochelaga
" goodly and large " cultivated fields, and he speaks
of the Mountain of Montreal as tilled round about —

LOST AETS OF PRIMITIVE RACES. 155

implying a large amount of cultivated land. This
culture, too, mast have been of long standing; for
the removal of the " goodly great oaks " that originally
cumbered the ground was a work of time, especially
to people without iron implements, and who must
have destroyed each tree by laboriously girdling it, or
by scorching its bark with fire, and must have carried
on their culture amidst the tall, scathed trunks, until
these were broken down by the winds, aided by decay ;
and then they must have removed them by burning.
All these processes had long ago been complete, else
the French narrative could not have spoken of goodly
and large fields. But what was cultivated in these
fields ? Cartier mentions as the principal crop maize,
or Indian corn, and with this there were beans, dif-
ferent, he says, in appearance from those cultivated
in France, great cucumbers or melons — by which he
probably means pumpkins, — and probably tobacco.
He mentions also several kinds of fruits, but whether
wild or cultivated he does not say. The wild Cana-
dian plum, the choke-cherry, a hawthorn producing
edible fruit, and the wild grape, still abound in the
vicinity of the ancient Hochelaga, and may have been
cultivated or cared for and collected by the Hoche-
lagans. It was shortly after harvest when Cartier
visited the town, and they then had great store of all
the productions of their fields. They had on the tops
of their houses granaries, or possibly corn-cribs, for
preserving the Indian corn, probably to secure dry-
ness and prevent the attacks of vermin. For keeping

LOST ARTS OF PEIMIT1VE EACES. 157

the smoked fish of which they laid in quantities for
winter use, they had large bins or vessels probably
made of wood or bark. Their corn was ground in
wooden mortars, as was usual with the Canadian and
neighbouring tribes (see Fig. 31), and baked in cakes
or made into various kinds of pottage. What a picture
we have here of agricultural plenty ! and this was, no
doubt, repeated in all the villages along the St.
Lawrence, and thence to the southward.

Let us further note that of the plants cultivated as
field crops at Hochelaga, all belonged to species not
found wild north of the Gulf of Mexico, more than a
thousand miles to the southward. Yet these plants
had found their way from tribe to tribe to the banks
of the St. Lawrence, and were at the time of Cartier
cultivated as far north as the climate will allow them
to be cultivated now. These plants are indigenous
to America, and their properties and uses must have
been discovered or recognised by the people living
where they are native, and from them transmitted,
either by migrations or by commercial intercourse, to
the far north. Further, the culture of these plants in
Canada is attended with much greater difficulty than
it is at the south. Early varieties require to be
selected, and I have evidence that the variety of corn
cultivated at Hochelaga three hundred years ago was
similar to one of the early varieties cultivated still in
Canada. More careful tillage and manuring also are
needed, and precautions to avoid the effects of late
frosts in spring. Yet all this was known to the old

158 FOSSIL MEN.

Hochelagans. Similar agricultural towns, some of
them on a larger1 scale, existed among the Hurons and
Iroquois. Gaensera, a town of the Iroquois, destroyed
by the French in 1687, is described as built of wood
and bark, with granaries of bark, in the form of
towers, fifteen feet in diameter. Besides this, there
was a detached and fortified granary on a neighbouring
hill. The French reported that in this town, which,
judging from the number of fighting men, must have
been inhabited by three or four thousand people, they
destroyed 100,000 minots of corn in the granaries,
and 150,000 standing in the fields, or perhaps 750,000
bushels in all. Yet this and other cities destroyed in
the Indian wars were not rebuilt, the Iroquois being
disheartened and reduced in numbers, and they now
exist only as mounds and old earthworks, many of
them with no written history.

Cartier tells us that the women were the principal
agriculturists. The men were hunters, fishermen, and
warriors. The women tilled the ground and carried
on most of the domestic manufactures. This was the
case generally among the semi-civilized Americans,
and, according to- our modern notions, it gives the
women a more advanced place than the men ; and as
women were often taken prisoners in war, it might be
a means of spreading the arts of life among the more
barbarous tribes. On the other hand, it allowed a
very speedy relapse into the condition of barbarous
hunters when a tribe was driven from its ancient
abode.

LOST ARTS OF PRIMITIVE RACES. 159

Let us now ask what trace of this ancient culture
remains ? The cornfields of Hochelaga, not even
ridged with the plough, would be overgrown with tall
trees within fifty years of the abandonment of the
site. The corn-cribs and wooden mortars had been
burned or have mouldered away. The plants culti-
vated were too tender to survive in a wild state. The
wooden hoes which Cartier tells were the ordinary
agricultural implements, have long ago perished, and if,
as was probably sometimes the case, they were tipped
with a flat stone, this was so roughly shaped, if
shaped at all, that when found it would scarcely be
recognised as even a Palaeolithic implement. May
not, then, the whole tale be a myth, its materials
furnished by the narratives of more southern voyagers,
and intended to exalt the new country in the opinion
of the French Government ? For all that could be
proved by any but a few slight indications, the search
for which was prompted by Cartier's narrative, it
might have been so, and Hochelaga might have been
inhabited by a tribe as rude as the Palasolithic people
of Europe are supposed to have been. The micro-
scope shows traces of charred corn-meal encrusting
the necks of some of the earthen pots ; and after
sifting a cartload or two of the kitchen-midden stuff
through wire sieves, I became the possessor of a dozen
or two of charred grains of corn and a cotyledon and
a half of the bean. Another collector found a charred
" corn cob." Besides this, I found evidence that the
wild plum and cherry, and even the acorn, had been

160 FOSSIL MEN.

used as food. Let it be observed, further, that a
grain of corn or a bean could not have escaped decay
unless it had happened to be accidentally charred, and
some accident of this kind, occurring in connection
with cookery, alone provided this slight confirmation
of the story of the agriculture of Hochelaga.

Perhaps in no respect is it usually supposed that
primitive man is more to be contrasted with modern
races in an imperfect state of civilization, than in
his knowledge of distant regions and the intercourse
which he carries on with them. In this respect,
according to Dupont, there is evidence that the
Palaeolithic men had more extensive commerce than
their successors of the Eeindeer age, and perhaps
both of them more than the peasant of medieval
or modern times. Just as we find evidence in the
French caves, and the older dwellings built on piles
over the Swiss lakes, that their inhabitants had com-
munication with the Mediterranean and the Atlantic,
and could procure the sacred and useful jade of the far
east, the coral of the Mediterranean, the amber of the
Baltic and the improved wheat of Egypt,* so was
it in pre-historic America. The Hochelagans who
accompanied Cartier to the summit of Mount Eoyal,
and the ancients of Stadacona with whom he conversed
after his return, concurred in informing him that the
great river of Hochelaga, which he called the St.
Lawrence, extended many days' journey beyond the
point to which he had penetrated, and that it issued

* Keller, "Report on Swiss Lake Habitations."

LOST ARTS OF PRIMITIVE RACES. 161

from great lakes or seas of fresh water so vast that
they knew little of their farther shores. That the
river which we now call the Ottawa, from the name of
an Algonquin tribe inhabiting its banks, ran from a
western land which they called Saguenay, a name
now applied to a river far to the east of Quebec, from
a geographical confusion arising from the fact that
the Saguenay river was one of the outlets in ancient
times of the more western land of that name. It
was from this western land that their copper imple-
ments came, and this not by the St. Lawrence route,
but by that northern line of communication from
Georgian Bay to the Ottawa, which the modern
Canadian Government has, so far unsuccessfully, been
endeavouring to open out, and which enabled the old
Hochelagans to trade with Lake Superior through the
domains of friendly tribes. Further, they knew that
to the south were countries where the people were
clad in woven fabics, where delicious fruits and spices,
unknown to Canada, were produced, and where
there was no frost or snow, even in winter. These
countries could be reached by the Richelieu river,
or from the great western lakes; but unfortunately
there lay between, tribes of people fierce and warlike,
who in recent times had cut off all communication
between the nations of the St. Lawrence and the
sunny lands of the south. Still it was from these
southern lands that their ancestors, in older and
happier times, had procured the seeds of the maize,
beans, pumpkins, and tobacco, which they still culti-

M

162

FOSSIL MEN.

vated, and whose culture they had extended as far to
the north as it yet reaches.

Similar facts occur even among the ruder hunting
tribes. The Micmacs of Nova Scotia seem scarcely if
at all to have cultivated the soil. But as hunters and
fishermen they had explored all the natural riches of
their country and its neighbouring waters. They
knew the haunts and habits of every useful animal of
the land and of the sea, and had devised means for its
capture at the appropriate season ; and their graves,
and the heaps left by their makers of stone weapons,
show that they had discovered all its treasures of
greenstone, jasper, agate, and native copper, and
habitually turned them to account. Shortly after the
first French colony had settled at Port Royal,* some
alarm was caused to them by a visit of 800 Micmac
warriors who encamped near the little settlement.
But it appeared that they were engaged in an expe-
dition against some tribe inhabiting the coast of what
is now New England, and for this purpose they
crossed the Bay of Fundy in their bark canoes. These
same adventurous savages carried on naval and mili-
tary expeditions far up the St. Lawrence, and were
acquainted with the names and distribution of the
tribes on that river, and even farther west. Cartier
heard of them, or of the allied Malicetes, at Quebec,
as dangerous and predatory savages, under the name
of Tudemans. Their traditions told of a primitive
people whom they had driven from Nova Scotia, and
* Now Annapolis.

LOST ARTS OP PRIMITIVE RACES. 163

the remnants of this people, the Red Indians, they
pursued into Newfoundland, crossing the stormy sea
which separates this island from Cape Breton, in their
bark canoes. As the opposite coast could rarely be
seen, they were in the habit of kindling large fires
upon the northern point of Cape Breton which they
called Sakpeediah, the Smoky Cape, and steering from
these in the direction of Newfoundland. Such adven-
tures, though perhaps not comparable with the voyages
of the islanders of the Pacific, show us what primitive
man can do, and how rapidly he may overspread the
earth.* The present condition of the Micmacs, re-
duced to pauperism and destitute of any spirit of pro-
gress or adventure, tells how readily the life and spirit
of rude peoples can be crushed out by oppression.

The learned archaeologist, Eau, has, in a memoir on
Ancient Aboriginal Trade, f collected a great number
of interesting facts showing the remarkable extent to
which in pre-historic times the productions of North
America had been utilized and conveyed from place to
place. He shows that the produce of the copper mines
of Lake Superior had been dispersed over the whole
continent to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic
coast. In like manner, the celebrated red pipestone

* The Micmacs seem also to have a tradition of the North-
men who visited their coasts in the tenth century, in a people
whom they call Chenooks, who are said to have had hearts of
ice, a terrible war-whoop, to be of immense strength, to sail in
canoes of stone, to possess magical powers, and to use weapons
of brass. Eand has preserved this tradition.

t " Report of Smithsonian Institution, 1872."

164 FOSSIL MEN.

of the Coteau des Prairies, on the head waters of the
Missouri, had been distributed as far as the State of
New York, and I believe one of the pipes found at
Hochelaga to be made of it. Plates of mica quarried
in the metamorphic districts of the Appalachians,
have been abundantly diffused over the plains of the
Mississippi and the Ohio, and were used as orna-
ments and perhaps as mirrors. The chert from the
" Flint Kidge " of Ohio is shown to have been trans-
ported at least 400 miles from the quarries ; and
E-au holds, with good reason, that the flint was first
formed into flattish or disc-shaped pieces, and in
this state transported to distant places, where it was
stored up till required to be fashioned into arrow-
heads or other weapons. These stores of partly
formed objects were also buried in the ground in
order that they might not be injured by the drying in-
fluence of the air. It is in this way that we account for
the " caches " or buried deposits of imperfectly formed
flint implements which are often discovered ; and no
doubt many of the deposits of the so-called Palaeolithic
implements in Europe admit of a similar explanation.
Sea shells also, pearls and wampum beads, used as
ornaments, objects of religious veneration, or media
of exchange, were distributed in pre-historic times
throughout the length and breadth of the continent.
All this internal trade is now as much a thing of the
past as that carried on by primitive man in Europe ;
but its evidence remains to show how much can be
done even by men despised as savages.

LOST ARTS OP PRIMITIVE RACES. 165

It is a remarkable fact that our researches on the
site of Hochelaga have disclosed so few relics of this
trade and intercourse which existed between the
nations of distant parts of America, and of which, as
we have seen, we have evidence in the narrative of
Cartier, as well as in the objects found elsewhere.
Of this the relics of Hochelaga show little except a
few copper beads ; and, beside the two small pieces of
metal already referred to, nothing of the numerous
tools and trinkets left by Cartier himself. Yet one of
these fragments — the little piece of brass mentioned
in a previous paper — may have been a part of one of
Cartier's crosses, which it is not unlikely were cut up
into small pieces and distributed to different persons,
or disposed of in trade with less fortunate tribes.
This absence of evidence of commercial intercourse
may be accounted for in one of two ways. At the
time of Cartier' s visit, the people of Hochelaga, owing
to the hostility of the Hurons on the west, and of
the Iroquois on the south, were very much isolated,
and may for a long time have lost the intercourse
with foreign nations which they had once enjoyed.
Changes of this kind tending to isolate tribes, often
reduce them to great scarcity or absolute want of
foreign commodities, and may account for such re-
markable differences as have been observed in this
respect between the people of the older and more
recent Palaeolithic ages in Europe by Dupont and
others, the oldest European race being evidently
better supplied with foreign objects than that which

166 FOSSIL MEN.

succeeded it. Again, at the destruction of Hoche-
laga, its treasures may have been thoroughly plun-
dered by the conquerors, a fate which has no doubt
befallen many of the old haunts of primitive men in
the Old World.

I fear such considerations are too often overlooked
by observers who study such remains, and who may
reach the most opposite results from the investigation
of different localities occupied contemporaneously by
tribes precisely in the same stage of civilization.
Thus of three or four sites occupied by different sec-
tions of a tribe, simultaneously or at times not very
remote from each other, one may have been destroyed
and plundered by an enemy ; another may have wit-
nessed the hurried manufacture of a quantity of rough
weapons for an emergency ; another may have been
only abandoned from slow decay. Each of these
would be so dissimilar from the others that it might
be regarded as having belonged to times remotely
distant.

But a careless or too enthusiastic antiquary might
commit still graver errors of this kind. A village like
Stadacona or Hochelaga had its outlying stations.
Its pottery would be made at some clay-bed, probably
distant from the town. It must have had its mines
or quarries of flint and other useful stones, perhaps
far away within the confines of friendly tribes on the
Ottawa. Its hunting and fishing parties had their
places of resort, where in spring, autumn, or winter,
they may have spent weeks together in the pursuit of

LOST ARTS OF PEIMITIVE EACES. 167

particular animals requiring special kinds of tackle or
weapons. Many tribes on the sea-coasts had their
summer stations near to oyster-beds, on the produce
of which, along with sea-birds and fish, they sub-
sisted during a part of the year, though we know that
in winter the same tribes dwelt inland, and hunted
deer and other large animals. After the extinction
of the tribe these different stations would present the
most diverse appearances. One would yield a great
collection of mis-shapen and half-made implements,
difficult to understand, and rude and primitive in
aspect. Another would apparently be the shelter or
station of a tribe provided only with implements for
hunting, and leaving behind it abundance of the bones
of deer and other large game. Another would show a
people living solely on fish, and with implements of
entirely different form, and mostly of bone. Another
would present gouges for tapping maple-trees, and
kettles of pottery broken in the boiling of sugar.
Another on the coast might show little beyond heaps
of oyster-shells, and a few of the stones used in
opening them for use. The main town would have
the aspect, in its kitchen-middens and stores of
pottery, of the settlement of a far more advanced
people. I do not say that all of our modern archae-
ologists have failed to appreciate the meaning of these
differences, but it is impossible to overlook the fact
that many of their researches have been vitiated to
some extent by neglect of considerations so simple,
that the most ordinary observers of the pre-historic

168 FOSSIL MEN.

monuments of America scarcely think them deserving
of mention.* It must, however, be confessed that
American writers also, taken by the infection wafted
from the Eastern Continent, have sometimes allowed
their fancy in such matters to get the better of their
judgment.

In Scandinavia, Prof . Steenstrup deserves great credit
for the constancy with which he has maintained the
identity of age between the shell-heaps, or Kjokken
moddings, of the coast, and the inland tumuli of the
Stone age, though the one contain scarcely anything
else than rude implements, useful in opening shells,
and the others well-formed implements of polished
stone. He has shown conclusively that even a few
exceptional implements of the latter class found in
the shell-heaps are enough to redeem them from the
imputation of being the deposits of an earlier and
ruder people.

Even among hunting tribes, culture and the arts
are not wholly dormant. In the ancient Acadia f the
immense abundance of deer, water-fowl, and fish,
enabled the Micmac to live in plenty on the produce
of fishery and the chase, each season having its ap-
propriate animal, while the rocky character of many
parts of the country was not favourable to agriculture.

* This has been markedly shown in the attempts which
have been made to assign the deposits of different caves in the
valley of the Vezere, in France, to widely separated ages, and
in the foregone conclusion that the rude implements of the
river gravels indicate a very barbarous people.

f Now Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

LOST ARTS OF PRIMITIVE RACES. 169

Hence the Micmac was almost wholly a hunter, and
the arts of life had reference mainly to the implements
for the chase, and for fishing, or for the preparation of
meat and skins ; and as he must necessarily move
from place to place according to the seasons for differ-
ent kinds of fish and game, he dwelt in tents, or wig-
wams (his oik or wiclt) , made of birch bark, and could
easily pack his family and property in his bark canoe,
or transport his whole house and furniture on the
backs of his party, or on a tobogan drawn over the
snow. Mambertou, a celebrated Micmac Sachem, and
one of the first converts of the French missionaries,
when taught the petition, " give us this day our daily
bread/' which, by the way, was practically a mis-
translation on the part of the missionaries, objected,
' ' Why is no mention made of our fish and venison ? "
and very properly, since these two in his former creed
were gifts of the Great Spirit, and were to him much
more than bread. Yet the Micmacs were not only
adepts in the more delicate and difficult parts of the
art of chipping flints, but as we have seen, were geo-
graphers and travellers of no mean intelligence, and
made their name and power known and felt widely
over the American coast, both to the north and to the
south ; and this, perhaps, just for the reason that they
were hunters rather than farmers.

Another illustration may be taken from the now
extinct Ked Indians of Newfoundland. McCormick,
in his expedition to discover this people, found that
thev had built across the country long fences of wood

170 FOSSIL MEN.

to arrest the migrations of the reindeer, and deter-
mine them to certain points where a deer battue on
an extensive scale might give them a supply of food
for months. One such erection he traced for forty
miles across the country. It appeared to be intended
to force the herds of deer towards a lake, and oblige
them to take to the water, where they could be easily
killed by the natives in their canoes. Similar plans
were used by the Indians on the great Canadian lakes,
though it does not appear that they executed so great
public works to contribute to this end as the Red
Indians. I may add, that in the Hudson's Bay dis-
tricts, immense numbers of cariboo are killed in the
spring when crossing certain rivers, where they are
waylaid by the natives. Such facts serve to explain
some of the deposits of bones of the reindeer found in
France. When, by such means as those above men-
tioned, a tribe had succeeded in killing several hun-
dreds or thousands of deer, there would not only be a
great feast and much cracking of marrowbones, but a
long time would be occupied in drying and preparing
the flesh and skins, and working the antlers up into
implements. In these processes multitudes of flint
knives and scrapers would be used, and when the
tribe left the place, a deposit of remains of the rein-
deer period would be left. This might recur year
after year at the same place, till the tribe might be
driven from the country by some enemy, or till the
deer became exterminated, or were obliged to migrate
in some other direction. At other seasons of the year

LOST ARTS OF PRIMITIVE EACES. 171

the reindeer hunters might be living as fishermen on
the coasts, or even as farmers in particular valleys.
Even if the people in question were merely rude
hunters, they could not have lived on reindeer all the
year, and must have left elsewhere deposits indicating
their mode of life at the seasons when deer could not
be had.

I may connect these illustrations of perished arts
with a reference to a now obsolete implement — the
grooved hammer, noticed in the chapter on imple-

Fig. 32-GfioovED HAMMKH, WITH HANDLE OF WITHE AND THONG, AS USED
BY AEICKABEE INDIANS FOB BBEAKING MABBOW-BONES OF BUFFALO. From a
paper by Morgan, in the Report of the Regents of University of New York.

ments. Such hammers were the common tools of
the ancient copper miners of Lake Superior. Evans
informs us that they are found in ancient copper
mines in Wales, also in Staffordshire and in the
north of Ireland, and in Scandinavia, as well as in
ancient mines in Spain and in Saxony. They also
occur in the old Egyptian turquoise mines of Wady
Meghara, in Arabia. In North America they are
not limited to the mining districts. I figure a speci-
men with its handle of tough wood and raw hide

172 FOSSIL MEN.

(Fig. 32), as now, or lately, used by the Arickarees,
a people of the western prairies. Morgan, from whom
the illustration is taken, states that it is used to
drive stakes, and for cracking buffalo bones to extract
the marrow. I have seen similar hammers brought
by Dr. Bell, of the Canadian Survey, from the
country of the Dakotas or Sioux and other western
tribes, who constantly use them for breaking marrow-
bones of the buffalo. Thus, the grooved hammer
may be equally a relic of the civilized Egyptian or
Alleghan miner, or of the rude hunter of the plains.
But, even in the case of the latter, it may not be a
token of absolute barbarism. The American hunter
does not merely use it to break bones, that he may
at once devour their marrow. On the contrary,
he often breaks up the marrow-bones of his game,
that he may refine and preserve the precious oil
for future use, or may employ it as an ingredient
of his carefully prepared pemmican, which is his
dependence in his long journeys, and one of his
most valuable sources of income. As he says, the
agricultural white man may have plenty of bread,
but he is "hungry for buffalo meat/' while the
Indian, with plenty of pemmican, may be "hungry
for bread," or may be desirous of the goods of the
European trader. What if some of the old cave men
of Europe were not merely savage gorgers on flesh
and marrow, but industrious preparers of pemmican,
for future use or trade, and if the caves were their
temporary workshops at the season of preparing this

LOST AETS OF PRIMITIVE EACES. 173

valuable product, and the implements therein their
knives for cutting up the flesh, their hammers for
breaking the bones, and their bodkins and needles
for sewing up the skin bags in which it was finally
put up for the markets of the Stone age. If we take
this view, so accordant with American analogies, it
will explain why the greater part of the chipped bones
in many cave deposits bear no traces of cooking;
and will relieve the cave men from the suspicion
which has been cast upon their memory, that they
habitually ate raw venison.

In a previous chapter I referred to the old quarries
of flint in the Flint Ridge on the Ohio, and to the
mines of the ancient Alleghans in the copper districts
of Lake Superior. These mining arts, like the agri-
culture of many of the more settled tribes, have
become lost to the modern Indian, and in the case
of his flint mines, even to the white men who have
succeeded him, and who, while they have at a com-
paratively recent time reopened his copper mines,
have found that in all the more important of these
they had been anticipated by the Indians. In like
manner there are obsolete mines of the flint age in
Europe. Evans describes those of ' ' Grimes Graves "
at Brandon, where 250 flint mines have been found.
They are shafts sunk through chalk, in some cases to
the depth of thirty-nine feet, to reach a layer of
specially good flint. Galleries had been run out from
them horizontally in this layer. The miners had
worked with picks and chisels of deer's antlers and

174 FOSSIL MEN.

basalt ; and the traces of their sagacious industry are
now only traditional " graves " to the agricultural
peasants who have succeeded them. Still more
extensive ancient mines of the flint period exist in
Belgium. That the men who made these excavations
were industrious and ingenious we cannot doubt, yet
their flint knives and arrows are to us the indices of
a still ruder stage of humanity than that to which
we would refer their antler-pointed picks and basalt
chisels.

It should perhaps somewhat moderate our pride
of higher civilization when we find that, with the ex-
ception of a few " flint Jacks," we have not only
lost the art of fabricating the beautiful chipped imple-
ments of the flint age, but that throughout the east,
and even among the peasantry of western Europe,
they are, when found, regarded as the work of super-
natural beings ; and as " elfin bolts," and under other
names, have strange talismanic virtues ascribed to
them, at which their ancient makers would have
smiled. Still these fancies have a venerable origin.
Among the flint folk themselves a flint-headed arrow
was a type of efficiency, as compared with one tipped
with bone, horn, or hardened wood. Hence, in the
traditions of the Micmacs, as collected by Mr. Eand,
and in old Norse Sagas referred to by Nilsson, it is
always a flint arrow that is used in slaying the giants
and other monsters of their tales. Such stories would
readily, after flint weapons fell into disuse, lead to the
belief in their magic powers ; nor is a great lapse of

LOST ARTS OP PRIMITIVE RACES. 175

time necessary to effect such, results. Already, in
some districts of America, the Indian has so lost the
tradition of the arts of his ancestors, that when
questioned as to their implements, he says the Great
Spirit alone knows by whom and for what they were
made.*

Thus, even if we confine our attention to the one
subject of lost arts, it can be shown that changes,
many of them tending rather to degradation than to
elevation, have taken place in America since its dis-
covery, which are comparable in amount with those
extending in Europe from the Palaeolithic age to the
present day. That they occurred as rapidly in Europe
I do not affirm, yet there is no good reason to doubt
that many of those diversities to which vast periods
have been assigned, were either not successive, or
required for their production times not much greater
than that which has elapsed since the voyages of
Columbus. It may be asked, If this is so, what
reliance can be placed on archaeological investiga-
tions ? I answer : — Much, if observers will carefully
study facts, and compare them with their modern
analogues, and will avoid hasty generalisations, and
the common error of making the facts conform to
preconceived hypotheses. Geologists require also to
learn that the methods which apply to the succession
of formations, in which we have to do only with

* An interesting discussion of this subject will be found in
Tylor's "Researches into the Early History of Mankind,"
Chapter VIII.

176 FOSSIL MEN.

physical causes, and with, the structures and instincts
of irrational animals, will not suffice when we have
to deal with the results of the many-sided intelligence
of man, which, even in his most primitive and rudest
states, gives him a god-like supremacy over many
external conditions to which mere animals succumb,
and vastly complicates all his relations with nature.

NOTE. — The facts in this chapter, and elsewhere, relating to
the inhabitants of the Queen Charlotte Islands, are from un-
published notes of Dr. A. M. Dawson, F.G.S., who, while
engaged in the geological survey of these islands, in 1878,
made large collections of works of art, photographs of build-
ings, etc., and memoranda as to customs and superstitions.

CHAPTER VII.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FEE-HISTORIC MEN.

THE part of our subject on which we now enter may
well be compared to the prospect presented to the
prophet Ezekiel when he was introduced to a valley
filled with bones, and observed that they were " very
dry." Yet if the reader will bear with a little disqui-
sition on the dry bones of pre-historic humanity, we
may promise him that in the end we shall find that
these bones will come together and be clothed with
flesh, and that their owners will fall into the ranks
of the great army of mankind as known to us in our
more modern times.

The attempts which have been made to draw such
lines of distinction as would serve for race characters
between the different varieties of man have necessarily
been only partially successful, since these race cha-
racters shade into each other, and this in several
directions, depending on the particular lines of
comparison followed. More particularly, when we
have merely bones to rely on, classification becomes
less satisfactory; and though it is easy to divide
any number of skulls into dolichocephalous, or long-
headed, and brachycephalous, or short-headed, and
these again into those that are orthognathous or

N

178 FOSSIL MEN.

prognathous, that is, with more or less prominent
jaws and retreating forehead, yet these pass into each
other by imperceptible gradations, and the differences
are not altogether coincident with those of race as
established on other grounds.

I have long thought that this matter of - comparison
of skulls and skeletons requires to be placed on a
somewhat different basis, which is well indicated in
the note furnished by Professor Huxley to Sir Charles
Lyell in connection with the pre-historic skulls of the
Belgian and Neanderthal caves. He contents him-
self with a broad distinction between skulls of the
low and high types ; that is, of the ruder and the
more civilized nations, and informs us that even in
rude and homogeneous races like the Australians there
is great cranial variety ; while it is well known that
any skull, ancient or modern, except those that have
been artificially flattened, may find its counterpart in
a large collection of European skulls.

The practical point, therefore, is to ascertain what
cranial characters are necessarily or generally con-
nected with those other characters which we perceive
in different races, and so to apply the whole as to
obtain definite information regarding the state of
civilization and general habits of life which they in-
dicate. Frotn this point of view the mere length or
shortness of skulls does not seem a very important
feature, except locally. There are rude and uncivil-
ized races with both forms of cranium. The Laps
are a rude people, somewhat comparable with the

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OP FEE-HISTORIC MEN. 179

Greenlanders, and, like them, of small stature, but
they have short orthognathous heads, while those of
the Greenlanders are dolichocephalic and prognathous.
Of the most ancient skulls taken from caverns, as we-
shall see, some are long-headed, others very short.
Those of the more northern American Indians tend to
a lengthened form, but in the south they become short
and broad. Of modern civilized races, the Germanic
race seems to have shorter and more broadly oval
heads than the English and Swedish, and these than
the purely Celtic peoples. The greater or less pro-
minence of the jaws or recession of the forehead is,,
on the other hand, more an indication of lowness of
culture and civilization than of difference of race. In-
civilized countries the ruder peasantry present most
of this prognathous character, and it belongs to nearly
all the more barbarous nations. A similar statement
may be made respecting breadth and prominence of
the cheek bones and of the angles of the lower jaw,
though these probably have reference rather to the
constant use of coarse and tough food than to want
of mental culture. Small capacity of the brain-case is
also a mark of an inferior race, though some highly
intelligent people have small heads. On the whole,
the smaller development of the anterior and upper
regions of the cranium, and the greater proportionate
development of the face and jaws, are marks of the
lower races. Habits of life may have mechanical
connections with skull forms. Independently of the
attempts made by some tribes to modify the skull

180 FOSSIL MEN.

artificially, modes of carrying infants may have an
effect. Wilson has pointed this out in the case of the
connection of the American cradle-board with a flat
form of occiput. So there is some reason to believe
that severe work on the part of the mother tends to
produce long heads in the children, and that less
constant work, as well as nomadic habits, tends to
shortness of head.

Let us sum up these remarks in a few general state-
ments, and then proceed to inquire how they apply
to the^American Indians and to pre-historic men in
Europe. First, then, forms of skulls are often merely
individual, and much variety thus exists in the skulls
of one and the same race. Secondly, when a suf-
ficient number of skulls are compared, certain general
characters for a race, at any given time of its history,
can be obtained. Thirdly, the cranial characters of
races being dependent on external circumstances and
on culture, may vary in the lapse of ages. Fourthly,
cranial characters are thus of even more importance
in determining the low or elevated condition of a
people than the race from which they have been
derived. Fifthly, the small development of the frontal
and superior regions of the skull, and the large size of
the jaws and facial bones, are marks of low type.
Sixthly, long heads with low frontal region generally
belong to the lowest race; short and broad heads
often to an intermediate stage of culture ; and regu-
larly oval heads to the highest type.

If we connect these different forms of skull

PHYSICAL CHARACTEEISTICS OF PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 181

with what is known of the functions of the brain,
we should infer that a large brain would be cor-
related with great muscular energy ; and since
experiment shows that the lateral portions of the
cerebral hemispheres are those connected with motor
nerves influencing the limbs, we might infer that
heads relatively broad would indicate active and
powerful limbs. Again, since it is probable that the
frontal part of the cerebrum is more especially em-
ployed in correlating the impressions of the senses
with the actions, heads long and prominent in front
should be connected with general intelligence. Lastly,
as the posterior part of the brain seems to minister
more largely to the emotional nature, length posteriorly
would indicate active passions and emotions. These
criteria, if applied to pre-historic skulls, would indi-
cate great cerebral powers of all kinds in the earliest
European race, inferior powers, but relatively greater
bodily, activity, in the second race. The artificial
flattening of the head, if it had any effect on the
functions of the brain, would tend to subdue specu-
lative and emotional energy, and to develop activity
of limb. The distortion of the skull is said not to
diminish the intelligence; but Paul Kane* remarks
that the infants whose heads are subjected to pres-
sure never cry or moan, and seem to be more dull and
torpid than usual, which would agree with what is
known of the functions of the front and back regions
of the head, as above stated. Possibly the accidental
* Quoted by Wilson in " Pre-historic Man."

182 FOSSIL MEN.

discovery of facts of this kind may have led to the
practice.

Dr. Wilson, of Toronto., has devoted much study to
American skulls, and the American race is to form our
term of comparison in this chapter. We may begin
therefore with his description of the typical head of
Eastern America. It is short and broad, or somewhat
elongated, with largely developed maxillaries and
zygomata, prominent superciliary ridges, a compari-
tively narrow and poorly developed frontal region, and
flattened or truncated occiput, great facial breadth,
both at the cheek-bones and in the square massive
lower law, and prominence in the nasal bones. To
this we may add as a consequence of the widening of
the face, a somewhat elongated or less round form of
the orbits, and that in many tribes the occiput is by
no means flattened. According to the same careful
observer, the Esquimaux of North America have long
heads, resembling in form those of the Tschuktchi of
North Asia, and also those of the northern tribes of
Indians, differing, however, from the proper Indian
type in smaller nasal bones and more projecting jaws.
In regard to mere length of head, the American
Indians proper divide themselves into two groups:
the Algonquin, Iroquois, and Lenape races, extending
across the northern and eastern regions, being long-
headed; and the southern and south-western races,
including the mound-builders, being short-headed.
The two types graduate into each other, and among
long-headed tribes occasional short heads occur; while

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OP PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 183

on the other hand, short-headed races present occa-
sional long-headed specimens. These varieties some-
times depend on the presence of captives, or on
conquests and intermixture of tribes, but they show at
least a primitive identity with modifications. Further,
some of the short heads and flat occiputs seem to have
been at least aggravated by the use of the cradle-
board to which the " papoose " is strapped in infancy
among all the migratory tribes. Among some western
tribes, as well as among some now extinct peoples
of the south, the forehead was flattened by pressure
in infancy, a practice which obtained also among
some Turanian tribes of the Old World. It would
also seem that a remarkably short form of head was
characteristic of the ancient Alleghan race, and that
some of their heads were high in front, while others
had remarkably retreating foreheads.* It is curious
to notice this indication of low intellectual capacity
in this old semi-civilized race; but if it really indi-
cates the position of these people, it may readily be
accounted for. Living undisturbed for ages in a rich
alluvial region, with stationary and fixed institutions,
and with the energies of the individual cramped by a
system of tribal communism, their intellectual powers
may well have been reduced to a lower point than that

* On the monuments of Central America we find represen-
tations of men with high, almost conical, heads. These resemble
in outline the form at present produced among some tribes on
the coast of British Columbia by artificial pressure, and were
probably of this character ; as were also the elongated Peru-
vian skulls, and perhaps also those of the old Alleghans.

184 FOSSIL MEN.

of the rude hunter tribes, except in the case of those
men of higher caste who had to manage public affairs.
Men may become degraded by too great peace and
prosperity, along with unvarying routine, quite as
much as by the exigencies and hardships of savage
life. These mound-builders, with their peculiar, yet
American heads, are perhaps the oldest men of the
Western Continent known to us, if we except some
stray bones found under circumstances which have
been supposed to indicate a still greater antiquity.
One of the most remarkable of these, the " Calaveras"
skull from California, is stated by Professor Wyman
to be of somewhat larger capacity than those of
modern Indians of that country, but of the same
type. We thus find in America a characteristic type
of head, but under this a great many varieties of long
and short, straight and prognathous, natural and dis-
torted forms ; and this American type of skull on the
whole resembles that known as Turanian in the Old
World. Further, the possessors of these American
heads were found in the most varied stages of civil-
ization and barbarism ; though, as stated in a previous
chapter, the more ancient and civilized peoples had
more delicate and refined forms of face and head than
the ruder tribes.

Nothing is more distinct in the intimations, both

of tradition and of monuments, than the existence

in the Old World in pre-historic times of two types of

men representing respectively the American Indian

and the Esquimaux — the one of large stature and

PHYSICAL CHARACTEKISTICS OP PEE-HISTORIC MEN. 185

powerful frame, the other comparatively small and ,
feeble. Nilsson well argues that all the northern
tales of giants, dwarfs, and elves, arise from this
source, and he refers, as parallel cases, to the terror
of the Israelites at the gigantic size of the Anakim,
and of the Romans when informed of the bulk and
strength of the Germans. In the oldest historic
time.s of Scandinavia and of Britain of which we
have any certain information, there seem to have
been contemporary races of small and large men,
and the latter seem to have been encroaching on the
former. In the various mixtures and movements which
have taken place, races of these different types some-
times remain distinct and sometimes have been blended.
In Scandinavia, the Laps are still a very distinct people
from the Swedes, just as the Esquimaux are distinct
from the eastern American Indians; but in Scotland
the little men of the north and the gigantic men of the
west speak one language, and are regarded as equally
Celts, and in western America the Esquimaux and
Indians graduate into each other.

There is nothing to prevent our believing that races
thus distinct in stature, and to some extent in form of
head, may be of common origin. Unfavourable cir-
cumstances and deficient food may depauperate races
of men, and there is no reason to think that the stunted
Fuegian is of different race from the gigantic Pata-
gonian, or the feeble Hare Indian of the north from
his better-developed brethren who feed not on hares
but on deer. Still, such differences mark at least long

186 FOSSIL MEN.

continuance of the different modes of life, and they
necessarily lead to hostility of races, one of which
prides itself on strength and power, the other on finesse
and cunning.

It was at one time difficult to say whether in America
and Europe the large or the small races were the earlier,
or whether there is any difference in this. It used to
be maintained that in Europe generally, as the Scandi-
navian antiquaries still believe with reference to that
country, the smaller short-headed race was the earlier ;
but recent discoveries in the French caves and rock
shelters seem to negative this, and to show that a race
of great stature and large cranial development had the
precedence. So while in historic periods the Indians
of eastern America have been destructive to the Esqui-
maux, and have been at least restricting their range,
there seems no certain evidence that, on the western
coast, where the two races graduate into each other,
they may not have been contemporaries from the first,
and some have regarded the Esquimaux as the later of
the two. In any case, the graduation of the one race
into the other in the west, while they are markedly
distinct on their confines in the east, is an important
fact. Just as, even in antediluvian times, there were
Nephelim, or men of strength and of violence as dis-
tinguished from the rest of the world, and as in ancient
Palestine there were certain races noted for their
stature, and as the same differences obtain at the
present day, so they may have always existed both in
Europe and America, and may have fluctuated in their

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 187

boundaries and extent. Changes in physical character
may also have occurred, — as feeble races driven to the
more bleak and unproductive districts became for that
reason more feeble, or as the less muscular races suc-
ceeded by superior energy and sagacity in overcoming
and reducing to subjection the stronger, as the Hebrews
did in Syria, the Eomans in Germany, and the Nor-
mans in England. Further, all such movements and
conquests lead to intermixtures of these divers races.

In any case we have these parallel facts, that while
the Esquimaux are a small race corresponding to the
Laps, and to the extinct elves and dwarfs of other
parts of Europe, the American Indians are men of
large stature and of great muscular development,
corresponding in this to the pre-historic men of Men-
tone and of the Perigord caves in Europe. This sta-rf
ture, and the great development of muscular processes |
in the bones of the limbs, are consequences of abundant
food and a temperate climate, and of roving habits in
a wild country, and without beasts of burden. Cartier
mentions on several occasions the stature of the Indians
as compared with his Breton sailors ; and in his visit
to Hochelaga, when his men were tired with a long
walk, the savages took them up like children and
carried them on their shoulders. This accords per-
fectly with the great power of limb of the American
Indian, and with his known capability of carrying
immense burdens over portages. The strongly carinate
thigh-bone, the flattened tibia, and large fibula, ob-
served in the oldest pre-historic skeletons of Europe,

188 FOSSIL MEN.

show that they belonged to men possessing similar
power.

The beautiful work of Lartet and Christy has vividly
portrayed to us the antiquities of the limestone plateau
of the Dordogne — the ancient Aquitania — remains
which recall to us a population of Horites, or cave-
dwellers, of a time anterior to the dawn of history in
France, living much like the modern hunter-tribes of
America, and, as already stated, possibly contemporary,
in their early history at least, with the mammoth and
its extinct companions of the later Post-pliocene plains
and forests. We have already noticed the arts and
implements of these people ; but what manner of people
were they in themselves ? The answer is given by the
skeletons found in the cave of Cro-magnon. This is a
shelter or hollow under an overhanging ledge of lime-
stone, and excavated originally by the action of the
weather on a softer bed. It fronts the south-west and
the little river Yezere; and having originally been
about eight feet high and nearly twenty deep, must
have formed a cosey shelter from rain, or cold, or
summer sun, and with a pleasant outlook from its
front. All rude races have much sagacity in making
selections of this sort. Being nearly fifty feet wide,
it was capacious enough to accommodate several
families, and when in use it no doubt had trees or
shrubs in front, and may have been further completed
by stones, poles, or bark placed across the opening.
It seems, however, in the first instance to have been
used only at intervals, and to have been left vacant for

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OP PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 189

considerable portions of time. Perhaps it was visited
only by hunting or war parties. Bat subsequently it
was permanently occupied, and this for so long a time
that in some places a foot and a half of ashes and car-
bonaceous matter with bones, implements, etc., was
accumulated. By this time the height of the cavern
had been much diminished, and instead of clearing it
out for future use, it was made a place of burial in
which four or five individuals were interred. Of these,
two were men, one of great age, the other probably
in the prime of life. A third was a woman of about
thirty or forty years of age. The other remains were
too fragmentary to give very certain results.

These bones, with others to be mentioned in con-
nection with them, unquestionably belong to the
oldest human inhabitants known in western Europe.
They have been most carefully examined by several
competent anatomists and archaeologists, and the
results have been published with excellent figures in
the " Reliquiae Aquitanicaa." They are, therefore, of
the utmost interest for our present purpose, and I
shall try so to divest the descriptions of anatomical
details, as to give a clear notion of their character.
The " Old Man of Cro-magnon " was of great stature,
being nearly six feet high. More than this, his bones
show that he was of the strongest and most athletic
muscular development — a Samson in strength; and
the bones of the limbs have the peculiar form which
is characteristic of athletic men habituated to rough
walking, climbing, and running : for this is, I believe,

190 FOSSIL MEN.

the real meaning of the enormous strength of the
thigh-bone, and the flattened condition of the leg in
this and other old skeletons. It occurs to some
extent, though much less than in this old man, in
American skeletons. His skull presents all the cha-
racters of advanced age, though the teeth had been
worn down to the sockets without being lost, which
again is the character of some, though not of all,
aged Indian skulls. The skull proper, or brain-case,
is very long, more so than in ordinary modern skulls,
and this length is accompanied with a great breadth,
so that the brain was of greater size than in average
modern men, and the frontal region was largely and
well developed. In this respect this most ancient
skull fails utterly to vindicate the expectations of
those who would regard pre-historic men as approach-
ing to the apes. It is at the opposite extreme. The
face, however, presented very peculiar characters.
It was extremely broad, with projecting cheek-bones
and heavy jaw, in this resembling the coarse types of
the American face ; and the eye-orbits were square,
and elongated laterally. The nose was large and pro-
minent, and the jaws projected somewhat forward.
This man, therefore, had, as to his features, some
resemblance to the harsher type of American physiog-
nomy, with overhanging brows, small and transverse
eyes, high cheek-bones, and coarse mouth. He had
not lived to so great an age without some rubs, for
his thigh-bone showed a depression which must have
resulted from a severe wound, perhaps from the horn
of some wild animal, or the spear of an enemy.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 191

The woman presented similar characters of stature
and cranial form, modified by her sex, and must in
form and visage have been a veritable squaw, who,
if her hair and complexion were suitable, would have
passed at once for an Indian woman, but one of un-
usual size and development. Her head bears sad
testimony to the violence of her age and people. She
died from the effects of a blow from a stone-headed
pogamogon or spear, which has penetrated the right
side of the forehead with so clean a fracture as to indi-
cate the extreme rapidity and force of its blow. It is
inferred from the condition of the edges of this wound
that she may have survived its infliction for two weeks
or more. If, as is most likely, the wound was received
in some sudden attack by a hostile tribe, they must
have been driven off or have retired, leaving the
wounded woman in the hands of her friends to be
tended for a time, and then buried, either with other
members of her family or with others who had per-
ished in the same skirmish. Unless the wound was
inflicted in sleep, during a night attack, she must have
fallen, not in flight, but with her face to the foe, per-
haps aiding the resistance of her friends, or shielding
her little ones from destruction. With the people of
Cro-magnon, as with the American Indians, the care
of the wounded was probably a sacred duty, not to be
neglected without incurring the greatest disgrace, and
the vengeance of the guardian spirits of the sufferers.*

* Prof. Boyd Dawkins, in "Cave Hunting," has thrown some
doubts on the antiquity of the skeletons of this type. A

192 FOSSIL MEN.

The skulls of these people have been compared to
those of the modern Esthonians or Lithuanians, but
on the authority of M. Quatrefages, it is stated that
while this applies to the probably later race of small
men found in some of the Belgian caves, it does not
apply so well to the people of Cro-magnon. Are,
then, these people the types of any ancient, or of the
most ancient, European race? We have already
noticed the remarkable skeleton of Mentone, in the
south of France, found under circumstances equally
suggestive of great antiquity. Dr. Riviere, in a
memoir on this skeleton, illustrated by two beautiful
photographs, shows that the characters of the skull
and of the bones of the limbs are precisely similar
to those of the Cro-magnon skeleton, indicating a
perfect identity of race, while the objects found with
the skeleton are identical in character.

The ornaments of Cro-magnon were perforated
shells from the Atlantic, and pieces of ivory. Those
at Mentone were perforated Neritinse from the Medi-
terranean, and canine teeth of the deer. In both cases
there was evidence that these ancient people painted
themselves with red oxide of iron ; and as if to corn-
comparison, however, of all the cases of their discovery in
France and Belgium fully vindicates the opinions entertained
on this point by Continental geologists ; and some of the more
recent discoveries in the French caves, and especially in that
of Laugerie Basse, where traces of the mammoth also occur,
place this beyond doubt. The comparison by Dawkins of these
people with the Esquimaux applies to some of their imple-
ments and weapons, but not to their physical characteristics.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 193

plete the similarity, the Mentone man had an old
healed-up fracture of the radius of the left arm, the
effect of a violent blow or of a fall. Skulls found at
Clichy and Grenelle in 1868 and 1869 are described
by Professor Broca and Mr. Fleurens as of the same
general type, and the remains found at Gibraltar and
in the cave of Paviland, in England, seem also to have
belonged to the same race. The celebrated Engis
skull, believed to have belonged to a contemporary of
the mammoth, is also of the same type, though less
massive than that of Cro-magnon ; and, lastly, even
the somewhat degraded Neanderthal skull, found in a
cave near Dusseldorf, though, like that of Clichy, in-
ferior in frontal development, is referable to the same
peculiar long-headed style of man, in so far as can be
judged from the portion that remains. (See Fig. 33.)

Let it be observed, then, that these skulls are pro-
bably the oldest known in the world, and they are all
referable to one race of men; and let us ask what
they tell as to the position and character of Paleo-
lithic man. The testimony is here fortunately well-
nigh unanimous. Huxley, who well compares some
of the peculiar features of these ancient skulls and
skeletons to those of Australians and other rude tribes,
and of the ancient Danes of Borreby, a people not
improbably allied to the Esthonians and Fins, re-
marks that the manner in which the individual heads
of the most homogeneous rude races differ from each
other ' ' in the same characters, though perhaps not
to the same extent with the Engis and Neanderthal

o

194

FOSSIL MEN.

skulls, seem to me to prohibit any cautious reasoner
from affirming the latter to have necessarily been of
distinct races." My own experience in American
skulls, and the still larger experience of Dr. Wilson,
fully confirm the wisdom of this caution. The figures
given in this chapter will show this in the case of two

Fig. 33. — OUTLINES OF THEEE PBE-HISTOBIC EUROPEAN SKULLS COMPARED
WITH OWE FROM HocHELAGA. Outer outline, Cro-magnon skull; second out-
line, Engis skull; third outline (dotted), Neanderthal skull; inner figure,
Hochelagan skull on a smaller scale.

skulls, both from the ancient cemetery of Hochelaga.
He adds : — " Finally, the comparatively large cranial
capacity of the Neanderthal skull, overlaid though it
may be by pithecoid bony walls, and the completely

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 195

human proportions of the accompanying limb-bones,
together with the very fair development of the Engis
skull, clearly indicate that the first traces of the pri-
mordial stock, whence man has been derived, need no

Fig. 34. — OTTTLIINJ OF A CBO-MAGrroN1 SKTJLL AS SEEN IN FBOXT, AND HOCHE-
LAGAN SKULL OK SMALLEE SCALE. The resemblance of the two skulls would
appear greater but that their attitude is not precisely the same.

longer be sought by those who entertain any form of
the doctrine of progressive development, in the newest
tertiaries, but that they may be looked for in an epoch

196 FOSSIL MEff.

more distant from that of the Elephas primigenius,
than that is from us." If he had possessed the Cro-
magnon and Mentone skulls at the time when this was
written, he might well have said immeasurably dis-
tant from the time of the Elephas primigenius. Pro-
fessor Broca, who seems by no means disinclined to
favour a simian origin for men, has the following

Fig. 35. — FRONT VIEW OF ANOTHER HOCHELAGAN SKULL OF A SIMILAR TYP~E
BUT OF HIGHER CRANIAL DEVELOPMENT, CLOSELY EESEMBLING THE MENTONE
SKULL AS PHOTOGRAPHED BY DB. RIVIERE.

general conclusions which refer to the Cro-magnon
skulls : — " The great volume of the brain, the develop-
ment of the frontal region, the fine elliptical profile
of the anterior portion of the skull, and the ortho-
gnathous form of the upper facial region, are incon-
testably evidences of superiority which are met with
usually only in the civilized races. On the other hand,

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OP PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 197

the great breadth of face, the alveolar prognathism,
the enormous development of the ascending ramus of
the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the muscu-
lar insertions, especially of the masticatory muscles,
give rise to the idea of a violent and brutal race."

He adds that this apparent antithesis, seen also
in the limbs, as well as the skull, accords with the
evidence furnished by the associated weapons and

PROFILE VIEW OF SAME SKULL.
Both the Hochelagan skulls are from photographs by Henderson, of Montreal.

implements of a rude hunter life, and at the same
time of no mean degree of taste and skill in carving
and other arts. He might have added that this is
precisely the antithesis seen in the American tribes,
among whom art and taste of various kinds, and much
that is high and spiritual even in thought, co- existed
with barbarous modes of life and intense ferocity and

198 FOSSIL MEN.

cruelty. The god and the demon were combined in
these races, but there was nothing of the mere brute.

Riviere remarks, with expression of surprise, the
same contradictory points in the Mentone skeleton.
Its grand development of brain-case, and high facial
angle, even higher apparently than in most of these
ancient skulls, combined with other characters which
indicate a low type and barbarous modes of life.

Another point which strikes us in reading the
descriptions, and which deserves the attention of
those who have access to the skeletons, is 'the indica-
tion which they seem to present of an extreme lon-
gevity. The massive proportions of the body, the
great development of the muscular processes, the
extreme wearing of the teeth, among a people who
predominantly lived on flesh, and not on grain, the
obliteration of the sutures of the skull, along with
indications of slow ossification of the ends of the long
bones, point in this direction, and seem to indicate a
slow maturity and great length of life in this most
primitive race.

The picture would be incomplete did we not add
that in France and Belgium, in the immediately suc-
ceeding or Eeindeer age, these gigantic and magni-
ficent men seem to have been superseded by a feebler
race of smaller stature and with shorter heads ; so that
we have, even in these oldest days, the same contrasts,
already so often referred to as occurring in the races
of the north of Europe and the north of America in
historical times

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 199

It is further significant that there are some indica-
tions to show that the larger and nobler race was
that which inhabited Europe at the time of its greatest
elevation above the sea and greatest horizontal extent,
and when its fauna included many large quadrupeds
now extinct. This race of giants was thus in the
possession of a greater continental area than that now
existing, and had to contend with gigantic brute
rivals for the possession of the world. It is also not
improbable that this early race became extinct in
Europe in consequence of the physical changes which
occurred in connection with the subsidence which
reduced the land to its present limits, and that the
dwarfish race which succeeded came in as the appro-
priate accompaniment of a diminished land surface
and a less genial climate in the early Modern period.
Both of these races are properly Palaeolithic, and are
supposed to antedate the period of polished stone;
but this may, to a great extent, be a prejudice of
collectors, who have arrived at a foregone conclusion
as to the distinctness of these periods : its validity
will be discussed in our next chapter. Judging from
the great cranial capacity of the older race, and the
small number of their skeletons found, it would be
fair to suppose that they represent rude outlying tribes
belonging to races which elsewhere had attained to
greater numbers and culture.

Lastly, both of these old European races were
Turanian, Mongolian, or American, in their head-forms
and features, as well as in their habits, implements,

200 FOSSIL MEN.

and arts. To illustrate this, in so far as the older of
the two races is concerned, I have figured from photo-
graphs two Hochelagan skulls of the extreme types
found there, and have placed in connection with one
of them tracings in outline of the forms of some of
the oldest European crania above referred to (Figs.
33-35). One may be fairly compared in its characters
with the Mentone skull, and the other with those of
Cro-magnon, Engis, and Neanderthal; and so like
are these and Huron, Iroquois, and other northern
American skulls to these ancient European relics and
others of their type, that it would be difficult to affirm
that they might not have belonged to near relatives.
On the other hand, the smaller and shorter heads of
the race of the Reindeer age in Europe may be com-
pared with the Laps, and with some of the more
delicately formed Algonquin and Chippewyan skulls
in America. If, therefore, the reader desires to realize
the probable aspect of the men of Cro-magnon, of
Mentone, or of Engis, I may refer him to modern
American heads. So permanent is this great Tu-
ranian race, out of which all the other races now
extant seem to have been developed in the milder and
more hospitable regions of the Old World, while in
northern Asia and in America it has retained to this
day its primitive characters.

The reader, reflecting on what he has learned from
history, may be disposed here to ask : Must we
suppose Adam to have been one of these Turanian
men, like the old man of Cro-magnon ? In answer

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 201

I would say that there is no good reason to regard
the first man as having resembled a Greek Apollo or
an Adonis. He was probably of sterner and more
muscular mould. But the gigantic Palaeolithic men of
the European caves are more probably representatives
of that fearful and powerful race who filled the ante-
diluvian world with violence, and who re-appear in
post-diluvian times as the Anakim and traditional
giants, who constitute a feature in the early history
of so many countries. Perhaps nothing is more
curious in the revelations as to the most ancient
cave-men, than that they confirm the old belief that
there were (e giants in those days."

And now let us pause for a moment to picture these
so-called Palaeolithic men. What could the old man
of Cro-magnon have told us, had we been able to sit
by his hearth, and listen understandingly to his
speech, which, if we may judge from the form of his
palate bones, must have resembled more that of the
Americans or Mongolians than of any modern Euro-
pean people ? He had, no doubt, travelled far, for to
his stalwart limbs a long journey through forests and
over plains and mountains would be a mere pastime.
He may have bestridden the wild horse which seems
to have abounded at the time in France, and he may
have launched his canoe on the waters of the Atlantic.
His experience and memory might ^extend back a
century or more, and his traditional lore might even
reach to the times of the first mother of our race. Did
he live in that wide Post-pliocene continent which

202 FOSSIL MEN.

extended westward through Ireland? Did he know
and had he visited the nations that lived in the valley
of the great Gihon, which ran down the Mediterranean
valley, or that nameless river which flowed where the
German Ocean now lies. Had he visited or seen from
afar the great island Atlantis, whose inhabitants could
almost see in the sunset sky the islands of the blest ?
Or did he live at a later time, after the Post-pliocene
subsidence, and when the land had assumed its
present form ? In that case he could have told us of
the great deluge, of the huge animals of the ante-
diluvian world, known to him only by tradition, and
of the diminished strength and longevity of men in his
comparatively modern days. We can but conjecture
all this. But mute though they may be as to the
details of their lives, the man of Cro-magnon and his
contemporaries are eloquent of one great truth, in
which they coincide with the Americans and with the
primitive men of all the early ages. They tell us that
primitive man had the same high cerebral organization
which he possesses now, and we may infer the same
intellectual and moral nature, fitting him for com-
munion with God and headship over the lower world.
They indicate also, like the mound-builders who pre-
ceded the North American Indian, that man's earlier
state was the best, that he had been a good and
noble creature before he became a savage. It is not
conceivable that their high development of brain and
mind could have spontaneously engrafted itself on a
mere brutal and savage life. These gifts^ must be

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OP PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 203

remnants of a noble organisation degraded by moral
evil. They thus justify the tradition of a golden and
Edenic age, and mutely protest against the philosophy
of progressive development as applied to man, while
they bear witness to the identity in all important
characters of the oldest pre-historic men, with that
variety of our species which is at the present day at
once the most widely extended, and the most primi-
tive in its manner and usages, the great Turanian or
Tartar race of Northern Asia and America.

We have seen, or shall see in subsequent chapters,
that this race underlies in Europe and Asia, and
probably in Africa as well as in America, the older
historic peoples, and that it presents throughout an
animistic religion, a great and marked devotion to the
doctrine of immortality in connection with certain
forms of sepulture, the classificatory system of relation-
ships, a permanent and unchanging temperament, and
great constructive and artistic tendencies. In this
division of the human family also, we find — as in the
Peruvians, the Natchez, and the Flatheads in America,
and in the ancient Macrocephali and more modern
tribes in Asia — the singular practice of artificially
distorting the head. In other words, we find in that
post-diluvian, or historic race, which most nearly
coincides with the ante-diluvian or palaeocosmic type
of man, and which is the most widely diffused of all,
characteristics which indicate its place as the main
stem of humanity in historic times, from which the
Semitic and Aryan civilizations budded out, and to

204 FOSSIL MEN.

which can be traced back the rudiments of their arts,
their science, their literature, and not a little of
their religion. Here, again, America has preserved
the oldest and most unchanged type of humanity,
even if in many cases much degraded.

NOTE. — As confirmatory of some of the views stated in this
chapter, I have much pleasure in quoting the following, from
the address of Dr. Tylor, F.E.S., at the Meeting of the British
Association in 1879 : — " There appears no particular reason to
think that the relics from the drif b-beds or bone-caves repre-
sent man as he first appeared on the earth. The contents of
the caves especially bear witness to a state of savage art, in
some respects fairly high, and which may possibly have some-
what fallen off from an ancestral state in a more favourable
climate. Indeed, the savage condition generally, though rude
and more or less representing early stages of culture, never
looks absolutely primitive, just as no savage language ever
has the appearance of being a primitive language. What the
appearance and state of our really primaeval ancestors may
have been seems too speculative a question, until there shall
be more signs of agreement between the anthropologists, who
work by comparison of actual races of man toward a hypo-
thetical common stock, and the zoologists, who approach the
problem through the species adjoining the human." Other
points in this address, and in recent papers by Dawkins and
others, received when these pages were in type, may be no-
ticed in an appendix.

CHAPTER VIII.

ANTIQUITY OF MAN.

IT is difficult to arrive at any conclusion as to the
duration of the human period in America. If we
were to accept without question the statements which
have been made as to the finding of flint implements
and a human skull in the ancient gold gravels of
California, we might carry back the human occupancy
of America even into the Pliocene age, or further than
any authentic remains have yet carried it in Europe.
But these reports so require confirmation that we
cannot rest on them. The same remark may be made
with regard to the discovery of implements and
human bones in those more modern .estuarine and
lacustrine deposits in which the bones of the mastodon
are entombed, though a sufficient number of probable
indications appear to make it not unlikely that man
had reached America before the disappearance of the
mastodon. If so, there was an ancient American
population little known to us, and coeval with the
oldest cave-men of Europe, and who possibly, like
these old cave-men, may have been swept away before
the advent of the more modern races. It is remark-
able, however, that some of the indications relied on

206 FOSSIL MEN.

as evidence of this early race, would go to show a
degree of culture equal to that of the more civilized
modern tribes. Of this kind are the beautiful polished
plummet or ornament, and polished spear heads, found
in the California auriferous gravel at great depths, and
the baskets and pottery described by Hilgard and
Fontaine from the salt-beds of Petite Anse. To the
same effect is the fact stated by Professor Wyman,
that the Calaveras skull from the gravels of California
is of the ordinary American type, and rather larger in
cranial capacity than those of the modern Indians of
the same region. Still, the probability is that all
these remains are of somewhat modern date.* This
applies, for example, to the discovery in California of
polished implements and stone mortars in the auriferous
gravels, which also contain bones of the mastodon.
Some of these objects are stated to have been found
at depths exceeding 300 feet in gravel, capped by
beds of lava and tufa, and attributed to the Pliocene
age. They would go to prove that the " polished
stone age " had been established in California at that
somewhat early Tertiary period. Unfortunately, how-
ever, they occur in deposits known to have been
worked by the Mexicans for gold, and in which deep
shafts of ancient date have been found, and as the
mortars and other objects are those likely to have been
used in the search for gold, this would seem to afford
the most probable explanation of their presence. In
the more northern part of America no remains what-
* Whitney's Memoir (1879) must be noticed in an appendix.

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 207

ever have been found to connect man with any of
those terraces and raised beaches which mark the
elevation of the land out of the glacial seas.

The actual American race can make no monumental
pretensions to a great antiquity, for its oldest remains,
those of the ancient Alleghan nations, situated as they
are on the modern alluvium of the western rivers, claim
no greater antiquity than the similar mounds on the
banks of the Tigris, and possibly are much less
ancient. The only actual evidence of great age known
in connection with them — that afforded by the growth
of forest trees — would not carry them back farther
than the earlier centuries of our era, and the decayed
condition of the bones in the burial mounds is well
known to be a criterion of very uncertain value. The
languages, customs, and religions of the Americans,
as well as their physical characters, are allied to those
of Post-diluvian nations of the Old World, and though
they indicate migrations belonging to an early part
of the historical period, while the Turanian race was
still dominant, go no farther back than this. The
American traditions of the Atlantis, of the Deluge,
and of the huge extinct quadrupeds, can scarcely be
held as proving anything more than a common inherit-
ance. Thus our primitive American men seem to fall
short in interest of those pre-historic races in Europe
with which we have been comparing them, and which
are by many believed to reach backward to a time
enormously exceeding that to which any history,
sacred or secular, extends. The real interest of the

208 FOSSIL MEN.

American peoples depends, as we have already seen,
on their reproducing to us the conditions of these
ancient men, and showing us that under the eyes of
Europeans the same people, with the same usages,
have been living in America, and are still living in
some remote parts up to our own time. The American
tribes thus bring near to us the living picture of the
almost forgotten men of the pre-historic time of the
Old World, while their rapid disappearance in the
presence of European colonisation shows how those
rude peoples of the Old World may also have perished.
But may they not aid also in settling some of the still
disputed questions respecting the antiquity of pre-
historic man in Europe ? This will be best ascertained
by summing up the evidence for that antiquity, and, as
we proceed, noting the points where American facts
may aid us.

We have already, in the introductory chapter, in-
quired as to the import and validity of the ages of
Iron, Bronze, and Stone, now so strenuously insisted
on by European archseologists. At the time of the
discovery of America it was the age of Bronze and
Gold in Peru, of Copper in Mexico and the valley of
the Mississippi, and of Stone and Bone everywhere
else. Possibly even then the Greenlanders may have
had some weapons of native iron, and some few iron
and steel implements may have found their way to the
west coast by means of wrecked Japanese junks. In
less than four centuries the Iron age had established
itself in all except a few remote localities.

ANTIQUITY OP MAN. 209

The progress in the Old World was slower, and has
been already noticed. If we rely on the narrative in
Genesis, it was but the seventh generation from Adam
when the greatest of all discoveries in the mechanical
arts was made, and an artificer arose in copper and
iron. At the date of the Exodus iron was widely
used ; and though bronze was still more abundant and
cheaper, the Phoenicians, and the tribes of Canaanites
trading with them, had enough of the metal to enable
them to arm their war-chariots with it. Yet we also
find that stone implements were used in Assyria and
Egypt up to a late date, along with those of metal. In
Europe, in the Homeric poems, we can trace the age
of Bronze, then beginning to decay among the Greeks,
though there were soldiers in the army of Xerxes, long
after, who used stone weapons ; and the discoveries of
Schliemann show that on the site of Troy a people
using stone implements succeeded one using bronze,
while in Santorin we find the indications of an early
Greek people using stone implements. In the ancient
Greek tombs at Mycenge stone arrow-heads are found
along with the richest and most artistic objects of
gold, and throughout Europe there is in ancient tombs
and battlefields a most inextricable mixture of bronze,
and even iron, with stone. The Roman age was one
of iron everywhere, so that even the Britons who
fought with Caesar used iron weapons; still stone
lingered much later in remote places, in Britain and
in Scandinavia, for there seem to have been stalwart
Saxons at Hastings who smote Norman skulls with

p

210 FOSSIL MEN.

lignis imposita saxa, probably stone-headed clubs, or
stone battle-axes.* Such facts, of which any number
are furnished to us by history, show that in any abso-
lutely general sense we cannot rationally divide the
pre-historic time into ages of Stone and Metal. The
only sense in which such classification can be accepted is
locally, and even then with some reserve. Admitting,
then, a certain local value of the Iron, Bronze, and
Stone ages in western Europe, with such modifications
as the American and other facts already discussed
require, it remains to satisfy ourselves as to the possi-
bility of distinguishing separate ages of chipped and
polished stone, or Palaeolithic and Neolithic ages, and
as to the nature of the line of separation between these
supposed periods and the times to which they belong.
In America the age of polished and chipped stone,
used together, and with some intermixture of copper
and bronze, existed unchanged up to the discovery
by Columbus. In Europe the Stone age is usually
supposed to have given place to that of Bronze almost
before the dawn of history, except in certain remote
places. If we inquire what were the causes which
at so early a date caused the introduction of bronze
and iron in northern Europe, the answer is not diffi-
cult. It was foreign trade with the more civilized
nations inhabiting the Mediterranean — nations which
had possessed these metals from a still earlier period,

* " William of Poictiers." A different meaning has been
attached to this by some ; but stone weapons were used in
Ireland and Scandinavia to quite as late a date.

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 211

and were to the people of northern and western
Europe what the latter in modern times have been to
America. It is evident, however, that in the dawn of
history, in Egypt, Syria, and Greece, the quantity of
iron and bronze was scarcely sufficient for purposes
of extensive foreign supply ; and tin, an essential in-
gredient of bronze, was especially expensive. If we
ask for an explanation of the spread of bronze into
northern Europe, the most probable is that it dates
from the time when the Phoenicians discovered the
rich tin mines of Cornwall, yielding for the first time
a large and cheap supply of the metal. We have no
certain date for this, but cannot be far wrong in fixing
it between 800 and 500 years before Christ. From
this time the Phoenicians and Carthaginians were able
to supply their customers in all parts of Europe with
this beautiful and useful alloy of copper and tin at
low prices ; and as this alloy could easily be recast,
even by rude peoples, and was not liable, like iron, to
decay by rust, the implements and weapons obtained
by the natives were retained, and when worn out re-
cast into new forms ; and the metal thus accumulated
in sufficient quantity to replace to a great extent the
old stone implements. At a later date, when the
Carthaginian power was broken down, iron, supplied
by the Roman traders, took the place of bronze. Any
other view than this is negatived by the fact that tin
could be obtained abundantly only in Cornwall, that
this source of supply was in the hands of the Phoeni-
cians, that the antique bronze of all parts of Europe is

212

FOSSIL MEN.

similar in composition, and the implements of similar
patterns, and that there is no evidence that any of
the pre-historic races of northern Europe could either
smelt copper or tin.

"We may therefore reasonably conclude that, except
in the regions on the jMediterranean coasts, the Stone
period extended unbroken up to the sixth century before
Christ — in other words, to the time of the early kings
of Rome and the decay of the Hebrew monarchy, and
we know from history that it lasted in some places much
longer. Thus in graves in Russia and Scandinavia, and
even in Germany, France, and England, stone weapons
are found associated with remains of the tenth and
even of the twelfth century. It is also to be observed
that in every country some objects of stone — as arrow-
heads, hammers, sling stones, and sharp flakes — were
in current use long after the introduction of daggers,
swords, and spears of bronze or of iron.

The question, How far back in time did the Stone
age extend ? is less easily answered, and we may con-
sider it under three heads : 1st. The validity of a
Palaeolithic as distinguished from a Neolithic age.
2nd. The question of the contemporaneousness of the
men of the earlier Stone age with mammals of the
Post-pliocene period now extinct. 3rd. The physical
revolutions which are proved to have occurred since
the origin of man. Having considered these points,
we shall be in a position to decide whether there is
any reality in the idea of an extreme antiquity of man
in the old continent, and more especially in Europe.

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 213

First, with regard to the reality of the two ages of
Stone. The current doctrine is that there was an
earlier age in which men were possessed only of rude
implements of chipped flints, and in which they are
supposed to have been ignorant of pottery and of the
metals. This was succeeded by a later Stone age, in
which polished stone implements were used, and
which later age passed into that of Bronze. These
statements are of course to be taken only locally, as
referring to western Europe. They must also be
taken with some limitations, as pottery has been found
in at least one cave in France referred to this age ;
and the book of Genesis and all early history would
lead us to infer that the metals gold and copper at
least were known from the earliest times, though
there must have been then as in more modern days
extensive regions in which they were unknown.

There appears further, as we have stated in the last (
chapter, to be a twofold division of the earlier Stone ;
age, into that of the Mammoth with the men of large
stature, and that of the Keindeer with the men of small
stature ; and these ages were probably separated by
considerable physical changes. Further, the latter of
these periods evidently graduates into that of polished
stone; while the carvings in ivory and the highly
artificial bone implements which are traced back into
the older age, and the probability that the people who
chipped stones possessed stone or bone hammers for
the purpose, renders the distinction of Palaeolithic and
Neolithic ages far less clear than it appears to be at

214

FOSSIL MEN.

first sight. In the Dordogne caves, for example, some
supposed to be older than the others show roughly-
made implements along with bones of extinct animals;
but there are associated with them others, both of
stone and bone, which could be referred to the Neo-
lithic age; and the same is the case with the Aurignac
cave, if of the great age originally attributed to it.
Even Kent's Cavern, in England, has produced highly
artificial bone implements from the bed of clay holding
remains of extinct mammalia, and no reason can be
shown why men capable of carving bone and ivory
could not have polished stone. If they did not do so,
it may have been merely because the plentiful supply
of flints in their vicinity rendered it unnecessary.
Further, our American investigations show us that
people who used the best stone implements used also
the rudest, and even naturally- shaped stones, for some
purposes ; so that out of any American village site we
could pick out a collection of Palaeolithic and of Neo-
lithic implements. Besides this, in any place where
the raw material abounded and where stone imple-
ments were made, we should necessarily find a very
large preponderance of the ruder types. Again, a
people living where the material was plentiful and
easily chipped, would probably be in the habit of
making rude implements and throwing them away
carelessly, as they could be so easily replaced by
others. After carefully going over the several de-
posits of remains ascribed to the Palaeolithic time, as
summed up by Lyell and Lubbock, I think we must

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 215

exclude from the true Palaeolithic period, as defined
above, all the known cases, except those of the river-
gravels and shore-gravels of the cretaceous districts of
western Europe, because all the other repositories,
even those containing bones of the mammoth, show
implements of more advanced construction. It is
further obvious that with regard to these gravels the
exceptional conditions above referred to come into full
force. First, the implements occur principally in
those cretaceous regions in which flints well suited for
chipped implements abound. Hence it is likely that
rude tribes migrating from place to place might not
care to take with them ordinary implements, but
might make a new supply wherever they happened to
be, and then abandon them. A very few such imple-
ments as those found at Amiens would be burdensome
to a savage in his journey, and when he knew that at
any place in the district he could procure flints and
make a new supply in an hour or two, he would not
fatigue himself with their weight. He would be more
likely to carry a light hammer of stone or antler or
tooth, with which he could chip flints as he required
them. Secondly, independent of this, a region so
abundantly supplied with flint might be visited by
remote tribes who might spend weeks in the chipping
of flints, and then leave the locality, taking with them
those which were most suitable for use, or for further
working into finer weapons. Resident tribes also, if
sufficiently powerful to prevent others from visiting
the gravel-beds, might manufacture or roughly block

216 FOSSIL MEN.

out weapons, and supply neighbouring tribes in the
way of trade. A remarkable illustration of this is
afforded by the fact that the numerous flint flakes
found by Dupont in some caves of the Reindeer age in
Belgium, are believed to have been imported from
Pressigny, in France, where a variety of flint, known
from the most ancient times for its excellence, exists,
and where vast numbers of cores, or " nuclei," from
which flakes have been struck off are found. We may
imagine in the Reindeer age makers of nuclei and
flakes at Pressigny, and itinerant traders carrying
their productions into Belgium, or distant tribes mak-
ing long journeys to reach the locality of such precious
stone. We know from American examples that in
this way the produce of the flint-beds might be con-
veyed for hundreds of miles into districts not naturally
provided with so good material. Thirdly, another
consideration comes in here, which has been strangely
overlooked by some writers on the subject. The
objects known as flakes, knives, scrapers, and cores,
are unquestionably of natural or accidental origin far
more frequently than artificial in the proper sense.
My own limited experience in the chalk districts con-
vinced me of this many years ago. I picked up in
the flint-heaps by the roadside near Amiens and at
Dover many broken flints of this kind, and some that
even approached in perfection the implements of the
gravel-beds, and Mr. Whitley fully establishes this
view for large districts in England and France.*
* " Transactions of Victoria Institute."

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 217

Savages no doubt were in the habit of picking up and
using such flakes, and even of carrying them to dis-
tricts where they were less abundant, and of chipping
them for themselves when natural ones could not be
found ; but no one can distinguish those which man
has used from the vastly greater number which nature
has produced and man has not touched, except when
they are found in association with unquestionable
human remains. Taking these considerations into
account, it appears to me that the Palaeolithic period,
as a distinct age, fades away from view, and is rather
a local phenomenon than one relating to time. It is,
perhaps, rather a product of the imagination of over-
zealous antiquaries, whose fancies have too readily
been accepted as facts by geologists. There is, in-
deed, no good evidence that the people of the earliest
Stone age in Europe were materially different in grade
of civilization from the aborigines of America at the
period of its discovery, a conclusion confirmed by the
fact that their skeletons were so remarkably similar in
type, and that their brains were in no respect inferior.
If, therefore, we are to make any twofold division of
the people of the Stone age, it should be on some
other ground than the quality of their implements.
They may be divided into the men of the Mammoth
age and of the Reindeer age, after the French and
Belgian archaeologists; or, as this is merely a local
distinction, — the reindeer not being found in Italy, for
instance, — we might regard them as men living before
and after the last subsidence of the land, or as Ante-

218 FOSSIL MEN.

diluvians and Post-diluvians ; or, to avoid committing
ourselves to historical connections, I have elsewhere
proposed the names Palceocosmic and Neocosmic. *

In any case, I think that American archaeologists
and geologists must refuse to accept the distinction of
a Palaeolithic from a Neolithic period until further
evidence can be obtained. If, therefore, man in
Europe was contemporary with the extinct Mammalia
of the Post-pliocene, and existed there before the
latest great physical revolutions of climate and sur-
face, he did not belong to an imaginary rude and
semi- simian race. He not only displayed a good
physical organization, but had some knowledge of the
arts of life, and by virtue of this was able to shelter
himself from the severities of climate and to cope
with the wild animals which surrounded him.

Of course we should not maintain that in the earlier
Stone age there may not have been progress in civili-
zation, as well as differences between the peoples
of different localities. In the Cresswell caves, de-
scribed by Dawkins,f we are informed that " in the
lowest stratum implements of the rudest and roughest
form, made of quartzite pebbles from the neighbour-
ing Permian conglomerate, were the only tools left
behind by the hunter. In the middle stratum, com-
posed of red earth, he used better implements, of flint
brought from a distance; while in the upper portion of

* " Story of the Earth and Man."

f " Journal Geological Society, 1877 : Manchester Proceed-
ings, 1877." See also Appendix.

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 219

the cave earth, and in the breccia, all his cutting imple-
ments were made of flint, and are of a higher order."
Here also are implements of bone and antler, and
even specimens of artistic carving. This sequence
may represent either a gradual elevation of one race,
or a succession of races, or the first rude efforts of a
small company of new settlers, as compared with their
condition when more fully established and with a
wider circle of intercourse, or the makeshifts of men
cut off by war or accident from their usual supplies.
The Micmacs resident in or visiting Prince Edward
Island, often had to use rude arrow-heads made from
the quartzite pebbles of the Triassic conglomerate,
though in Nova Scotia they employed beautiful
weapons of agate and jasper.

"We can imagine even stragglers from civilization,
destitute of metals and obliged to begin a rude manu-
facture of flints. Eemarkable illustrations of this
occur at a later time in the remains of those extra-
ordinary villages built on platforms supported on
piles in the Swiss lakes, and which have afforded so
many curious relics. If the oldest of these villages,
as described by the Swiss antiquaries, belong to an
early part of the Stone age, they point unmistakably,
by the presence of several kinds of grain, of woven
cloth, and of a few objects of metal found in them, to
a greater civilization existing to the south ; and if the
Danish shell heaps, which exactly correspond to our
Indian shell heaps on the American coast, are contem-
porary, then they also point to a ruder people living

220 FOSSIL MEN.

in the north. Had a civilized traveller visited one of
these Swiss villages in the Stone age, he would have
been told of highly civilized agricultural countries to
the south, and of rude tribes to the north, just as the
Hochelagans could give similar information to Cartier.
This much being settled, we may enter on the con-
sideration of the absolute antiquity of the age of Stone
in Europe. The evidence of the high antiquity claimed
for the early Stone age, extending even to 100,000
years, or as an enthusiastic advocate of human anti-
quity has recently inferred, possibly to 500,000 years,
resolves itself into two theses which were held by Sir
C. Lyell to be proved, or at least rendered somewhat
probable, by the evidence obtained : —

1. Man existed in western Europe at the same time
with the mammoth and its contemporaries, or in the
later Post-pliocene period of geology.

2. Man existed in western Europe before certain
great physical changes of denudation and elevation
and subsidence, which must have required a vast lapse
of time.

We may take these up in succession, premising that
neither gives any positive date in years.

Long before the present inquiries into the antiquity
of man began, it was known that certain animals con-
temporary with our ancestors in early historic times
were now extinct, at least locally. In the British
Islands, for instance, and over large portions of Europe,
the beaver and the wolf, once plentiful, have disap-
peared. The urus, or great wild bull, and the rein-

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 221

deer, were found by Cassar in the forests of Germany.
The one is extinct, the other is now confined to ,
Lapland. The aurochs, or European bison, existed in
central Europe up to the twelfth century, but is now
limited to a single herd artificially preserved in Lithu-
ania. There is also reason to believe that the Irish
deer (Megaceros), whose bones are found under bogs
in Ireland, was contemporary with man. These facts
are, however, precisely parallel to some known as quite
recent in America; as, for instance, the entire dis-
appearance of the wapiti, the noblest of American
deer, and of the American bison, or ft buffalo," from
the regions east of the Mississippi, with the limitation
of the latter to one narrow district at the foot of the
Kocky Mountains,* and the rapidly approaching ex- '
tinction of the reindeer or caribou in Nova Scotia and
the neighbouring parts of Eastern America. These
American facts relate to the comparatively short period
since the discovery of America, and are connected with
the introduction of fire-arms and the progressive
settlement of the country. In Europe such changes
were slower ; but there can be no doubt that the in-
troduction of bronze and iron, the migrations and
conquests which have occurred, and the increase of
population, have been instrumental in producing them.
More significant facts, as bearing on the antiquity
of man, are those which seem to indicate his having

* It is estimated by Dr. G. M. Dawson, that the buffalo, at
the existing rate of destruction, will be extinct in about
fourteen years.

222 FOSSIL MEN.

entered Europe before the extinction of the mammoth
and other animals not known in history, and believed
to have survived only to the close of the Post-pliocene
period. These facts are now somewhat numerous, and
give good ground for the inference that some of these
creatures lived up to the human period, though they
give no absolute date for the disappearance of the
latest of them. They have been obtained chiefly from
caverns, and these may be classed as caverns of drift-
age, of interment, and of residence.

To the first class belong the remarkable caves on
the banks of the Meuse and its tributaries near Liege,
explored by Schmerling. These caves contain scat-
tered skulls and bones of men, and occasional imple-
ments of bone and stone, mixed with bones of the
mammoth and other extinct quadrupeds, and also of
many modern quadrupeds, the whole imbedded in a
confused manner in mud, and covered with stalagmite
produced subsequently by the drippings of the cave.
Such deposits cannot give absolute evidence of con-
temporaneity, because bones of very different ages
may be huddled together in such places, and in a few
centuries may all assume much the same coloration and
chemical composition. To this extent, therefore; the
geological evidence in the case of these and all similar
caves is defective. Still, the coating of stalagmite, *
and other circumstances, establish an antiquity at least

* Eecent facts show that under favourable circumstances
stalagmite may be deposited in a much shorter time than
hitherto supposed.

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 223

pre-historic, and even the modern animals present are
believed to indicate a somewhat colder climate than at
present. Passing over this doubt, and regarding the
bones as those of the contemporaries of man, three
hypotheses may be suggested in explanation of their
mode of occurrence. (1.) They may be the bones of
dead men and animals lying unburied on the surface,
or imbedded in alluvial banks cut away by streams.
(2.) Sepulchral caves similar to some of those which
Dupont has described in the same region, may have
been scoured out by water, and their contents mingled
promiscuously together. (3.) Men and animals may
have been engulfed in open fissures and their bones
scattered by subsequent floods of water passing through
these caves. Either of these suppositions, and also
the present position of the caves, would seem to imply,
not merely time, but a large and irregular amount of
diluvial force, the precise extent of which it is difficult
to ascertain, and in reference to which Sir C. Lyell
suggests changes of level and possible eruptions of the
Eifel volcanoes, which are only sixty miles distant.
In any case, a cutting or clearing out of the valleys
into which these caves open, to the extent of 300
feet in some places, seems to be required, and the
objects found in the caves show that this must, at least
in part, have been effected by inundations.

With regard to the relative probability of the three
suppositions above mentioned, the discoveries of M.
Dupont in the neighbouring caves of the Lesse would
attach some probability to the second. In some of

224 FOSSIL MEN.

these caves he found alluvial clay, with bones of the
mammoth and what are supposed to be rude flint im-
plements, and implements of reindeer-horn ; a single
jawbone being the only remains of man. Newer than
this was the sepulchre of Frontal, referred by Dupont
to the Eeindeer period of the Palaeolithic age, in which
were skeletons, well-made flint weapons, wampum of
fossil shells, a flint spear, and fragments of pottery.
It is remarkable that the objects found imply art and
extensive commerce, of which the supposed Neolithic
or more modern graves of Belgium show much less evi-
dence. Now, if one of M. Dupont's caves, containing
drifted material below and sepulchral material above,
were by a new inundation or cataclysm to be again tra-
versed by water, so as to mix up its contents, and were
then left undisturbed, it would present precisely the
appearances described by Schmerling in the Engis cave.
Similar remarks apply to other caverns of driftage,
except that in caves like Kent's Hole and Brixham,
where only implements and not human bones are
found, the facts have probably not been complicated
with sepulchral arrangements. In any case, to apply
to the explanation of such caves the continued opera-
tions of merely modern causes, without taking into
account floods and other cataclysmic agents, is a stretch
of uniformitarianism which the deposits in the caves
themselves plainly contradict. Thus the calculations
which we can make as to age, rather serve to bring
the age of the mammoth up toward us than to throw
man back in geological time, while the association

ANTIQUITY OP MAN. 225

itself in the Belgian caves and similar receptacles is
encompassed with grave doubt as to its causes.

Caves of residence and caves of sepulchre are often
associated with each other. It is so in those of the
Dordogne and in the Mentone cave, and probably also
in that of Aurignac. The latter, however, has been
lately subjected to so many doubts with reference to
its antiquity, that we may for the present leave it out
of the account. The caves of the Dordogne and that
of Bruniquel, all in the limestone districts of the
south of France, indicate very clearly the fact that
the ancient tribes which inhabited them hunted the
reindeer in a region not inhabited by that animal in
historic times, and also in all probability the extinct
mammoth; and the testimony of these caves is not
complicated with water driftage, except in the case of
small deposits of sand due to land floods. The people
who inhabited these caves were not abject savages, but
well-developed men of what we may call the American
type. They were well provided with implements of
stone and bone, and were not inferior to some of the
American tribes in the art of carving in bone and
ivory. They must have inhabited their caves for a
long time, and attempts have been made to subdivide
the Dordogne cave-dwellers and their relics into dis-
tinct ages of great duration.

I agree with Sir C. Lyell, however, in believing
that there is but slender and insufficient ground for
this. The facts detailed by Lartet and Christy, and
more recently by Mortillet, only imply such differences

Q

226 FOSSIL MEN.

as might obtain among a huntiag and migratory
people, and the animals on which they relied for sup-
port, at different seasons or in the lapse of a few
generations — differences much less than those which
we know were occurring in almost every generation
among the Indian tribes of America before the advent
of Europeans. Such conditions would vary among
the primitive people of the Yezere valley according to
the " success of the hunters or the sojourn of migratory
animals in the neighbourhood/' and even more accord-
ing to the relations of peace or war, victory or defeat,
which they might sustain with neighbouring tribes.

To one of these caves of habitation and sepulchre,
that of Cro-magnon, I have fully referred in the last
chapter, and may now add a few remarks as to the
lapse of time during which it may have been occupied.
Such shelters, though now open in front, were prob-
ably, when inhabited, walled up on the outer side with
logs, wattle, or boughs of trees ; and it is most likely
that they were the winter houses of the people.

The accumulation of ashes, bones, and other remains
is in exact accordance with the - want of cleanliness of
the ruder American tribes, and also with the habits
of a people who in summer live in the open air, or in
temporary cabins or wigwams, and only in the colder
months or in bad weather resort to more secure and
permanent abodes. The accumulation of rubbish in
such places, and especially at their mouths, is also a
much more rapid process than would at first sight be
supposed, more particularly as the remains of fir

ANTIQUITY OP MAN. 227

boughs, heather, rushes, and similar substances, taken
in as bedding, and also the husks and other debris of
vegetable food, may be added to the mass. Further
than the accumulation of such debris, which may indi-
cate several centuries of continued habitation, and the
accumulation of fallen stones which may have been
detached by frosts and earthquakes, there is nothing
to indicate the great antiquity of these caves and
shelters, except the want of metals, the presence of the
bones of extinct mammalia, and the coating of stalag-
mite covering the remains.

A remarkable confirmation of this is the fact that,
while the physical characteristics of the people of the
Dordogne caverns, as well as of the man of Mentone,
are essentially those which would indicate American
or Turanian habits of life : they are also, according to
the elaborate comparisons of Pruner Bey, as given by
Christy and Lartet, similar in important points to those
of the modern Lithuanians — that is, to an existing
European race, and one inhabiting the only country
where the otherwise extinct bison survives. These
Palaeolithic men are, therefore, not of an extinct
species, nor even of an extinct variety of man, but
identical with races still existing.

If, then, we have to deal, in the case of these
ancient remains, with no extinct species of man,
but with a variety allied to modern races ; if [ he was
contemporary in the main with modern mammals j
and if some of those that are locally extinct existed
in Europe up to historic times, while the others

228 FOSSIL MEN.

present in the condition of their bones and mode of
occurrence no evidence of greater antiquity, what geo-
logical evidence have we that the residence of man in
Europe has been longer than 6000 years? The answer
must be — Absolutely none, as far as the association
of man with extinct animals is concerned. Further,
when we consider the mode of occurrence and state
of preservation of the remains, and their identity with
the remains of modern American races, the very long
periods assigned by some authors to the residence of
man in Europe become ridiculous in their absurdity.

We may now proceed to consider the second chain
of evidence for the antiquity of man — that derived
from the physical changes which have occurred since
his entrance upon the scene. Keference has already
been made incidentally to the depth to which certain
river valleys seem to have been cut since the caverns
on their sides were filled. In the case of those near
Liege, the depth is estimated at 200 feet in some
cases, and it is stated as possible that the caves on
opposite sides of certain deep gorges may correspond.
If this could be proved, it would show that this great
depth had been cut out of the solid limestone of the
country. It may well be, however, that old valleys
have only been emptied of debris ; and in any case, if
an elevation of the land had occurred, and there were
floods or volcanic debacles, or a permanently swollen
condition of the rivers owing to a more humid climate
or a dense covering of forest, the time required for
such cutting would be much shortened.

ANTIQUITY OP MAN. 229

We shall be better able to judge of these proba-
bilities when we shall have considered the next case
presented to us, that of the river gravels containing
implements believed to have been made by man. If
we stand on one of the beds of gravel quarried at St.
Acheul, near Amiens, we may see before us the broad
flat valley of the Somme, with the little stream flowing
between banks of alluvium 100 feet below us. But
the ground on which we stand is a loess or river mud
with fresh- water shells, and below this are many feet
of river-gravel made up mainly of the flints which fill
the underlying chalk, and in this gravel, at great
depths from the surface, have been found numerous
flint implements which it seems difficult to explain
unless they have been wrought by man. Ancient
miners, it is true, may have worked galleries, since
fallen in, through these gravels ; and in visiting this
place in 1865, I believe I could perceive some indi-
cations of this ; but the general impression conveyed
is, that they were mixed with the gravel by the floods
of a stream representing the River Somme, but strag-
gling over the country at a height of 100 feet above
its present bed. This implies that at the time in
question the valley was either not cut out, or filled
with some material since swept away, and that the
water-flow of the river was going on in a manner not
favourable to erosion of its bed. Such conditions
evidently bring before us considerable changes of level,
which we must, I think, be prepared to face more
boldly than has been customary with writers on this

230 FOSSIL MEN.

subject. To give such a state of things as that im-
plied in these high-level gravels, we must suppose
that the Somme valley was flat and filled up with
detritus, presenting an alluvial plain over which the
river, at times of flood, could spread itself with great
ease, while the climate must have been sufficiently
severe to allow ice to float in spring freshets large
blocks of stone. This implies a lower level of the
country than at present, and probably a very recent
elevation out of the sea, followed by a condition of
much greater rainfall and more severe floods. Now, at
the mouth of the Somme there are beds of peat, the
bottom of which is below the level of the sea ; conse-
quently this modern peat began to be formed at a
time when the land was higher than it is at present ;
and the submerged forests with remains of man and
modern animals, at several points along the coasts of
France and England, give us the same indication.
First, then, we learn from the peat that immediately
before the historical period the Somme valley was
higher than now, and the circumstances more favour-
able than at present to its rapid cutting. But the
gravels must have been deposited before this in a
previous time of lower level. Now, that man existed
at this time of lower level, we have evidence elsewhere.
Nilsson has described certain skulls found in beds
holding marine shells on the coast of Sweden at an
elevation of 100 feet above the sea, and infers that the
men to whom they belonged were drowned when the
sea was at that height on the land. It has long been

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 231

well known to geologists that the coast of Scotland
shows evidence that it was twenty-five feet, possibly
forty feet, lower in the early human period than it is
at present. Mr. Milne Home has very recently given
some interesting illustrations of this in the valley of
the Forth, where skeletons of whales occur in the
carse of Stirling, at an elevation of twenty or thirty
feet above the sea, and with them were found pointed
instruments of deer's horn. In the West of Scotland,
also, numerous canoes, cut out of solid logs of wood,
have been disinterred from marine beds now twenty
feet or more above the level of the sea. Human bones
have also been found in Cornwall in elevated beds
covered with marine shells ; and in Sardinia there are
said to be old beaches no less than from 230 to 234
feet above the level of the Mediterranean, with frag-
ments of pottery associated with sea shells. *

We do not certainly know that these depressions
were contemporaneous, but they all belonged to the
early human period, and if this depression extended
from Sweden to the Mediterranean, and amounted to
from fifty to one hundred feet in the valley of the
Somine, it would give precisely the state of things in
which the lower part of that valley might be a sort of
delta, with banks of gravel to which aborigines of the
country might resort for materials for their imple-
ments, or into which their rejected or lost implements
might be drifted, and these aborigines would be con-
temporaries of the drowned men of Stangeness, in
* Lyell, " Antiquity of Man," p. 115.

932 FOSSIL MEN.

Sweden, and of the ancient Caledonians whose canoes
and implements we find in the estuaries of the Clyde
and Forth. Before their time there had been a con-
tinental period, in which the bed of the German Ocean
and Irish Sea had been dry land, and men had been
able to walk dryshod to Britain ; their ancestors had
witnessed a great, and probably sudden depression of
the land, and in their day it was again slowly rising.
In subsequent generations it rose still further, and
what had been in their day under the sea at Abbeville,
became a bog, while the Somme valley, raised to a
higher level, became reduced to its present form, and
the river shrunk into a deeper channel, its volume be-
coming greatly diminished by the increasing dryness
of the climate and removal of the forests, changes
which also extirpated the last survivors of those species
of quadrupeds which had been suited for a wilder and
more wooded country.

These changes are well summed up by Sir C. Lyell,

his " Antiquity of Man/' pages 331 et seq., and by

tabulating his succession we may clearly understand

the position of the supposed Amiens flint-chippers.

(See Table on opposite page.)

All this leaves us, however, still in uncertainty as
to the absolute time involved. Our estimate of this
must depend on the rapidity or slowness of the os-
cillations in the Modern period (No. 4) . If we adopt
with Lyell a strictly uniformitarian method, and esti-
mate the elevations and depressions of which there
is geological evidence at thirty inches per century,

ANTIQUITY OP MAN.

233

Post-pliocene drift.

Passage of German flora into
England. Mammoth and
Megaceros and Cave Bear
etc., living in Europe.
Advent of man ? *

Table of Physical Changes in Western Europe in the

Later Tertiary and Modern Periods.

(See Lyell, "Antiquity of Man," p. 323).

POST-PLIOCENE.

1st. Continental Period. Land ) r, •,-. , , ,

, ni. „, [ Cromer Forest bed.

elevated. Climate mild . J

2nd. Period of Glaciation and^

Submergence. Land de- Boulder deposits and marine

pressed 1,000 feet or more.

Climate cold and much

floating ice . . . .
3rd. Second Continental Period.. ")

Land again elevated until

much higher than at pre-
sent, and British Islands

united to mainland. Climate

continental and surface

densely wooded . ....

MODERN.

"Age of Amiens gravels and
raised beaches, and close
of Palaeocosmic and be-
ginning of Neocosmic
age. Men subjected to
great diminution of
numbers by floods and
subsidences. Several
species of mammals be-
come extinct. Stone age
of antiquaries.

5th. Modern or historic age. ) Bronze and Iron ages of anti-
Land slowly subsiding . . J quaries.

* Pengelly, in a recent paper on the Flint Implements from
Kent's Cavern, holds that man may have existed in Devon-
shire in or shortly after the first continental period. This
conclusion, however, requires us to believe that the oldest de-
posit of Kent's Cavern is of this age, and that the flints
found in it are really of human workmanship. Neither of these
data can as yet be considered as established.

4th. Period of depression and
oscillation, ending in re-
elevation, and present geo- -<
graphical condition of
Europe - .

234 FOSSIL MEN.

being the rate in modern subsidences now observed,
we shall require periods in comparison with which
the received chronology of historians shrinks into in-
significance. This rate is, however, confessedly " purely /
conjectural/' and there are many considerations which
seem to show that it is based on insufficient data.
Such modern elevations as are on record, as for ex-
ample those in Italy, the Greek Islands, and South
America, have been rapid and paroxysmal ; and the
raised beaches of western Europe and of North
America show that this must have been its character
in former times. Slow and gradual movement, even if
interrupted, could not have produced these sharply
defined terraces. Modern depressions have, with few
exceptions, been gradual ; but their rate is so unequal
that we cannot reason with any certainty as to the past.
While, therefore, it must be admitted that the physical
changes of elevation and subsidence which have taken
place since man's arrival may have occupied long
periods, it cannot be said that they must have done so.
It is much the same with the arguments derived
from aqueous erosion. This must have gone on simul-
taneously with the elevations and depressions, and
must have been greatly modified by these. When we
stand by the grassy and tree-clad slopes of a river
valley, and consider that they have been just as they
are during all the centuries of history, it is difficult
to resist the prejudice that they must always have been
so, and that vast periods have been required for their
excavation at the slow rate now observed ; but if we

ANTIQUITY OP MAN. 235

carry ourselves in imagination to the time when a
plain was raised out of the sea, bare and bald, and
a river began to run in it, we at once see our
error. The river so running and beginning to cut a
channel, and cutting back the falls which would occur
in its course, must in a few years execute a stupen-
dous work o£ erosion almost diluvial in its character ;
but in the course of centuries its work becomes com-
pleted, a state of equilibrium succeeds, and its banks,
protected by vegetation, scarcely experience any modi-
fication. An elevation to a higher level, or a new
depression succeeded by re-elevation, or forest fires or
other causes laying bare the isurface, would at once
initiate a new series of erosions ; but until this occurs
all things continue as they were.

It must also be observed that in the period No. 4
(p. 233), there were not only oscillations of level, but
apparently a somewhat extreme climate, in which
alternate frosts and thaws and violent river floods must
have greatly aided the work of denudation ; and also
that in a wooded condition of the country, its streams,
as we know from sad experience of the effects of clear-
ings in America, are large in volume but equable in
flow, and that the removal of the forest leads to great
floods alternating with periods of desiccation, remark-
ably increasing and modifying the denuding power of
the streams. Sir Charles Lyell gives some striking
illustrations of this in his " Principles of Geology."

It is, perhaps, necessary here to refer to the conclu-
sion recently developed at great length by Dr. James

2S6 FOSSIL MEN.

Geikie, in his work, " The Ice Age/' that the re-
mains of Palaeolithic men are not Post-glacial, but
belong to a Pre-glacial or Inter-glacial period. This
is, no doubt, a view forced upon him by his belief in a
great continenbal " ice-sheet/' which itself, as I have
shown in former works, in all probability without
good foundation.* He supports it principally on the/
geographical distribution of the animals supposed to !
have been contemporary with Palaeolithic man, and
which he tries to divide into two successive groups ;
and on the probability that the last period of continen-
tal elevation referred to in the table above was not of
a character to change the insular climate of western
Europe. With reference to the first of these reasons,
Dawkins has shown, on the evidence of Cresswell
Cave and other bone caves, that no such division of
Post-glacial mammals can be made. The hyasna, the '
reindeer, and the hippopotamus occur together in
the same deposits. Again, this Post-glacial fauna has
been shown to be of the nature of a continental and
prairie fauna, belonging to a state of Europe when
it must have presented that condition of steppe-like
plains and wooded hills and river courses which is, of
all others, the most suited to a varied and abundant
group of land animals. I may add that it is most un-
safe to reason as to the climate required by extinct
mammalia, especially in contravention of the evidence
of contemporaneous existence afforded by the occur-
rence of their remains. Even the hippopotamus of the
* " Story of the Earth and Man," " Acadian Geology."

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 237

English caves and gravels may have been protected by
a coating of fat like the walrus, or of hair like that
of the seals. The elevated land of Post-glacial Europe,
if it were partly clothed with forests, and partly grassy
plains, would have precisely the climatal properties
which we know in America and Asia favour the inter-
mixture of the animals of different latitudes. Again,
that so-called Palaeolithic implements are not found
over the boulder deposits of North Britain is merely
a consequence of the fact that they are in the main
limited to the chalk and flint districts, a circumstance
which, as already hinted, throws grave doubts on
their being even so ancient as usually supposed, and
gives them a local rather than a chronological charac-
ter. Further, in Eastern America we know that the
higher condition of the land immediately preceding
the Modern period was accompanied by a milder
climate than that which now prevails, and that this
occurred after the close of the Glacial period.* I
must, therefore, reject this supposed later Glacial age
intervening between Paleolithic and Modern man,
and maintain that there is no proof of the existence of
man earlier than the close of the proper Glacial age.

Some remarkable evidence has lately been found,
bearing on the climate of Europe when occupied by
the Post-glacial men, and showing that some measure
of the rigours of the cold period still continued after
their appearance. The presence of the reindeer, musk-

* "Notes on Post-Pliocene of Canada," by the Author,
Montreal.

238 FOSSIL MEN.

ox, glutton, and other northern animals is an indication
of this, and we have reason to believe that the mam-
moth and the woolly rhinoceros were animals suited
to extreme cold. On the other hand, the contempo-
raneous existence of the cave hyaena, the cave lion,
and the hippopotamus tells a different story, and im-
plies at least warm summers and facilities for migra-
tion over extensive plains. Possibly, however, these
conditions were to some extent changeable, and at the
height of the continental period the climate may have
been warm in summer and somewhat cold in winter,
while in preceding and subsequent periods of depres-
sion, it may have been cool and moist. One of the
most convincing evidences of refrigeration in the later
part of the Palaeocosmic age, or older part of the Neo-
cosmic, is that afforded by the deposit at Schussenried
in Wurtemburg, described by Dr. Fraas, of Stuttgart.
The place had been a camping-ground near a stream,
and used apparently in the Reindeer age, possibly
after the disappearance of the mammoth, and it had
been overgrown with moss, in which Professor
Schimper recognises the species now characteristic
of Alpine and sub- arctic regions. It affords perhaps
the best proof of a cold climate in Germany in the
Reindeer age. This, let it be remembered, was the
age of a population allied to the Laplanders, and prob-
ably after the disappearance of the stalwart Turanian
race, characteristic of the continental mammoth period.
In other words, this age of cold was the early Post-
diluvial time.

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 239

It has been remarked that Palasocosinic man does
not seem to have penetrated into Scandinavia, and I
believe the same may be affirmed of the north of Scot-
land, Ireland, and other regions of northern Europe.
Whether this has arisen from the continuance of gla-
cial cold in these regions, or from other causes, we
can only conjecture. The point has been discussed
by Dr. Torell in a very interesting paper, in which he
investigates the various discoveries of pre-historic
remains in Sweden, with their probable ages.*

Torell arranges the later formations of Sweden in
three great groups. The first includes the Glacial and
Post-glacial formations, the second the Transition be-
tween the Glacial and the Modern periods, and the
third the Eecent deposits. The first contains the
boulder clay, and the overlying clays and sands, with
marine shells and a few plants of arctic types. The
second consists of gravel terraces and superficial clay,
and gravel of the plains. The third consists of elevated
sea beaches, with modern shells, freshwater alluvia,
and peat bogs. The latter contain remains of some
quadrupeds now extinct in Sweden, as the aurochs,
the bison, and the wild boar.

After a careful resume of all the alleged discoveries
of remains and works of man in these beds, he con-
cludes that human remains are confined to the recent
deposits, and that there is no evidence of anything
older than the age of polished stone. In other words,
in Sweden, as in America, man is contemporaneous

* "Compte-rendu du Congres Archseologique de Stockholm."

240 FOSSIL MEN.

with the modern fauna, and objects of chipped and
polished stone are contemporaneous.

Further, the physical changes which have occurred
in Sweden within the Modern period are most instruc-
tive. For example, in enlarging the harbour of Ystad,
in 1869, there was found at the depth of eleven feet
below the sea level, a forest rooted in situ, and covered
with a bed of peat, with freshwater shells, and this
with about seven feet of marine sand. The peat con-
tained weapons of stone and bronze, and a knife-handle
referable to the 12th century, and the marine sand
many objects, the oldest of which are referred to the
middle ages. This evidence of great subsidence,
growth of peat, and deposition of marine beds within
modern times, shows how cautious we should be in
referring superficial deposits to remote ages, or in
supposing that changes of level necessarily require
vast periods. This caution is more especially necessary
with respect to the growth of peat, the period required
for which, as tested by actual observation in Ireland,
Scotland, and even in France, has been absurdly ex-
aggerated in the case of the peats of Denmark and of
the Somme valley.* It is to be observed, in connection
with this, that the land of northern Sweden is now
rising, and that there seems evidence in raised beaches
that in the earlier part of the Recent period there was
still greater depression than that evidenced by the
peat and submerged forest of Ystad. Thus we have,

* See an able summary of the facts in Southall's " Epoch
of the Mammoth."

ANTIQUITY OP MAN. 241

within the Recent period, several oscillations of land
in Sweden; and similar evidence exists in regard to
many other parts of western Europe.

The facts above presented are suggestive rather
than exhaustive ; but they tend to show the necessity
of suspending our judgment on the antiquity of man
until larger inductions have been made, and until the
facts known are better understood. Such caution is
rendered the more necessary by the numerous instances,,
in the progress of this investigation, of errors current
for a time, and then exploded. The archasological lite-
rature of the last ten years is strewn with the wrecks
of supposed facts establishing the antiquity of man,
but which more careful examination has shown to
have been wrongly observed or misunderstood.*

If we attempt to reduce to terms of years such
changes as those above discussed, which appear to
have happened since the advent of man in Europe,
there are two considerations often neglected, to which
we must give their due weight. These are, (1) That

* It may be instructive to mention as instances, the calcu-
lations of time based on the Cone of the Tiniere, the peats of
Abbeville and of Denmark, the excavation of valleys in north-
ern France out of solid chalk, the growth of stalagmite in
caverns, and the Sodertelje Hut in Sweden. These have been
well exposed by Torell, Andrews, Southall, and others. Or
we may refer to the evidences of Pre-glacial man supposed
to be furnished by the Victoria Cave, the flint implements
of Brandon, the bone cave of Diirnten, the Pliocene man of
Denise, the cut bones of Tuscany, the Miocene chipped flints
of Thenay and of the Dardanelles. All of these are now re-
jected, even by the most advanced advocates of the great
antiquity of man.

R

242 FOSSIL MAN.

in the north of Europe and Asia very important
physical changes have occurred in what are properly
historic times, and which may serve to give us some
measure for the time necessary, at the same rate, for
those which preceded them ; and (2) That the rate of
change in historic times is not a certain measure of
that in pre-historic periods ; but on the contrary, that
there are indications of more rapid changes before the
dawn of history, and in the early human period.

1. With reference to the great physical changes
known to have occurred in historic times, I may
refer to the fact that it is proved by the occurrence of
marine shells and sea beaches at great elevations, that
much of the land of the northern hemisphere was
depressed under the sea to the amount of from 2,000
to 4,000 feet in the later Glacial period, f Evidence of
this is accumulating from Great Britain, Scandinavia,
eastern and western America. Now, the close of the
Glacial age has been estimated on various data at
from 7,000 * to 200,000 J years ago. If we take even
the longest of these periods, and suppose that during
some considerable part of it the land has remained in
a state of repose, or the sea at the same level, the rate
of depression and elevation required for this enormous

* Andrew's calculations, based on the lake terraces of North
America, give from 7,000 to 20,000 years. WincheH's, on the
Falls of St. Anthony, in connection with the occurrence of our
winter in aphelion 11,300 years ago, give 8,859 years.

f No. 2 of Table.

J droll's calculations, based on precession of the equinoxes
and eccentricity of the earth's orbit, and accepted by Lyell and
others.

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 243

change becomes very great, since during some por-
tions of the supposed period of 200,000 years the levels
of sea and land must have been changing at the rate
of four or five feet per century, even if the process was
uniform, and not by successive abrupt movements, as
the terraces on the margins of our continents would
seem to indicate. But man did not, so far as known,
appear till the continental period, which succeeded this
great depression, and the changes which have occurred
since his advent are comparatively small, and must
have required a very small fraction of the time inter-
vening between the glacial subsidence and the present
time. This consideration alone, in my judgment,
altogether negatives the claim for such high antiqui-
ties, as say 100,000 years, for man. Further, the state
of preservation of animal remains, and the amount of
atmospheric erosion observed on the raised terraces,
at least of America, where alone I have studied them,
forbid so great estimates as to time.

Again, there is reason to believe that in historical
times, or since the foundation of the great historic
empires of western Asia and northern Africa, say from
2,000 to 3,000 years before Christ, great areas in north-
ern Asia, formerly sea, have become land, and large
islands in the Atlantic have disappeared. The Hyr-
canian ocean of the ancients has been dried up, and
the continent of Atlantis has gone down. We have
already seen that the Danish shell heaps belong to the
later Stone age, and yet the shells found in them show
that they antedate the present brackish water fauna

244 FOSSIL MEN.

of the Baltic, indicating a considerable rise of land,
of which there are also indications in raised beaches
in Scandivania, and in the canoes found in Scotland
from seven to twenty feet above the present sea level.
One of these canoes found near Glasgow, had a plug
of cork, which must have come from the south of
Europe ; and with others implements of iron, as well as
finely polished stone implements, have been found. On
the other hand, the case already quoted from Professor
Torell, and multitudes of submerged forests on the
coasts of Europe, point to very considerable subsidence
even within the Christian era. In volcanic regions,
such as the south of Italy and the west coast of South
America, such changes are much more rapid ; but
even in countries remote from volcanic centres, the
oscillations of the earth's crust during the historic
period have been so great that we do not require to
allow very much longer time for the date of Palseocos-
mic man.

2. We are also liable to very grave error when we
assume that the rate of change in particular cases has
been no greater than we observe in modern times.
Even the changes in the rate and character of erosion
and deposit arising from the clearing of the forests,
so familiar to all observers in America, and which so
strongly impressed the mind of Sir Charles Lyell,
seem often to be left out of the account. In Kent's
Cavern the thin film of carbonate of lime which has
formed over dates scratched on the rock more than two
centuries ago, would lead to the belief that the thick

ANTIQUITY OJF MAN. 245

beds of stalagmite in that cave would require even
half a million of years for their formation ; but obser-
vations in other caverns show that, under favourable
circumstances, beds of this thickness might be formed
in a thousand years. In point of fact, the solution of
limestone by carbon dioxide, and its deposition again,
is a process depending on the amount of organic
matter going to decay and furnishing acidulated water,
and on the exposure of this water to the air; and the
activity of this process must, in any particular case,
have varied very much in the lapse of time. The cal-
culation of Boucher de Perthes as to the growth of
the peat at Abbeville was supposed to give a period
of 20,000 years for its accumulation, and yet it all be-
longed to the time since the newer or Neocosmic age.
But his own observations show that it is a forest peat,
the growth of which must necessarily have ceased
since the original forest covering of the country was
removed; and the observations of D'Archiac show
that at present, in this same district, peat, where cir-
cumstances favour its growth, may accumulate at the
rate of more than two feet in a century. This Abbe-
ville peat was formed subsequently to the erosion of
the Somme valley, and the deposition of its " palaeo-
lithic " gravels ; and if the time required for the
growth of the peat has been exaggerated, so has that
for the older excavation and deposition. When one
considers the little river Somme flowing quietly in its
broad green valley, and asks how long time it would
require to cut this valley out of the chalk, and to

246 FOSSIL MEN.

deposit the flint, gravel, and stones found in the terraces
of its sides, not only may the time required be counted
by tens or hundreds of thousands of years, but it may
be said to be practically infinite ; for no geologist,
acquainted with the facts, and with the nature of river
erosion, could affirm that the present river would ever
produce such results. They require, in short, the ope-
ration of much more powerful forces, and whatever
we assume these to have been, whether fluviatile, dilu-
vial, or partly marine, they must have operated in a
comparatively short time.

Such illustrations might be indefinitely extended.
In short, the great difficulty of dealing with this sub-
ject consists in the immensity of the mass of imper-
fectly observed facts and crude reasonings that have
accumulated with reference to it, and which become
positively wearisome in their discussion. The above
examples are sufficient to show their nature.

I conclude, then, that there is no adequate geological
reason for attributing the so-called " Neolithic " men
to any time older than that of the early Eastern em-
pires, or say 2,000 or 3,000 years before Christ, and
that the time required for the Palaeolithic men need
not be more than twenty or thirty centuries additional.
What evidence the future may bring forth I do not
know, but that available at present points to the ap-
pearance of man, with all his powers and properties, in
the Post-glacial age of geology, and not more than
from 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. This abrupt appear-
ance of man in his full perfection, his association with

ANTIQUITY OP MAN. 247

animals the greater part of which still survive, and
his introduction at the close of that great and as yet
very mysterious revolution of the earth which we call
the Glacial period, accords, as I have elsewhere en-
deavoured to show,* with the analogy of geological
science, in the information which it gives as to the
first appearance of other types of organic being in the
several stages of development of our earth.

The reader may perhaps ask, If these conclusions
are so plain, why has there appeared to be so general
an admission of the great antiquity of man on the
part of geologists and archaeologists ? The reasons of
this are not difficult to discover. They are such as
the following: the great intricacy and difficulty of
the geological questions connected with the close of
the Glacial age and the beginning of the Modern
period ; the difficulty of verifying alleged facts as to-
the occurrence of remains in superficial deposits, and
of ascertaining the age of these deposits and their free-
dom from modern admixtures ; the small number of
geologists and archaeologists qualified by knowledge
and experience to deal with questions of this kind;
the enthusiasm with which novel and startling dis-
coveries, and especially those appearing to contradict
old and received opinions, are welcomed at present ;
the exigencies of the new philosophy of evolution, one

* See the more full discussion of this subject in the "Story
of the Earth," and the " Origin of the World," and in my
Address as President of the Geological Section of the Ameri-
can Association, in 1876.

•248 FOSSIL MEN.

of the stumbling-blocks of which is the recent appear-
ance of man, along with an exaggerated and unreason-
able application of the doctrine of uniformitarianism
in geology. Such reasons are, I think, quite sufficient
to account for the swing of opinion in this direction.
But there are already indications of a reaction.

It is a curious conclusion of this part of our inquiry
that the history of man, as indicated by Lyell in the
above table, presents, after all, such a striking paral-
lelism with the sacred and traditional histories with
which we have long been familiar. The second period
of continental elevation is the equivalent of the early
antediluvian times — a period, however, of which we
have seen we really know little from archaeology or
geology, for they cannot, with absolute certainty,
affirm that the oldest skeletons known are of this age,
though this may be regarded as probable. If they are,
their extreme rarity, and the paucity of works of art,
with the exception of flint implements in the chalk
districts, where this material abounds, give the im-
pression not of a long, but of a very limited period of
residence of antediluvian man in Europe. The period
of continental oscillation is the correlative of the later
antediluvian period, and the last of these oscillations
may have been the traditional deluge. The last
period is unquestionably that of the Post-diluvian
world. A leading school of modern archaeologists no
doubt demands much more time than that of our
ordinary chronology, but the succession is the same.
Further, this succession, when critically examined,

ANTIQUITY OP MAN. 249

gives no ground for the belief in the existence, even
in the most ancient times, of any race of men more
rude than the modern semi-civilized races, or less
developed physically. The most ancient man whose
bones are known to us may be referred to a race still
extant, and perhaps the most widely distributed of all
— a fact which tells strongly in favour both of the
unity and moderate antiquity of the species, while it
is directly opposed to all theories of evolution from
brute ancestors.

CHAPTER IX.

PRIMITIVE IDEAS OP RELIGION : THE IDEA OF GOD.

MAX MULLER, in his lectures on the Science of Reli-
gion, rejects the ordinary division into natural and
revealed religions, and adopts a threefold grouping,
corresponding to the division of languages into Tura-
nian, Aryan, and Semitic. Though not quite satisfac-
tory, more especially in its treatment of revelation,
this method is suggestive of some important thoughts
and questions. While we regard, for example, our
own religion as revealed, we must bear in mind that it
necessarily includes also the elements of natural reli-
gion. Further, while it may be classed as Semitic, as
coming to us through a Semitic people, yet, according
to its own history, in its earlier stages it was much
more general than this, and in its earliest stage uni-
versal. Still further, we must not forget that it was
not all revealed at once — that Adam, for example,
could have known very little of it, Noah a little more,
Abraham a little more, and so on. Again, the natural
religion to which St. Paul refers in the first chapter of
the Epistle to the Romans, as sufficient to teach men
the power and divinity of God, was never absolutely
pure at any time subsequent to the fall of man, and
must have always contained some mixture, and this

THE PEIMITIVE IDEA OF GOD. 251

usually more or less corrupted, of what those who
believe in divine revelation would regard as revealed
religion. These considerations, from the point of
view of the Christian, greatly modify Miiller's classifi-
cation. They further lead us to suppose that the
Semitic religions will be found to be those most im-
pregnated with revealed truth as we hold it, for our
God is the " Lord God of Shem/" The Aryan reli-
gions will be those bearing most evidence of the
exuberance of human fancy, for Japhet's destiny is
" expansion," if not "delusion;-" while the wild old
Turanian races, which I have endeavoured to show in
previous chapters are the most primitive of all, may
be expected to have religions the least mixed with the
later ideas of revelation, and most stamped with the
impress of its earliest truths, as well as with the
general features of natural religion.

We have seen that the aboriginal races of America
are Turanian in features and in language and customs,
and they existed unmixed with other peoples, and un-
visited by missionaries of the " book-religions," up to
a very recent period. We can learn with much cer-
tainty the tenets of their religious belief, as it existed
in tribes and nations both in a state of barbarism and
in various stages of civilization. We can scarcely
propose to ourselves a more interesting question in
the present state of religious controversy, than that
which relates to the beliefs of these people. How
much did they know of what we regard as truth,
whether in the domain of natural or revealed religion ?

252 FOSSIL MEN.

and what relations have their religions to those of the
ancient and pre-historic peoples of the Old World ?
What do primitive, untutored men like those whose
stern, grave faces are presented in the two photo-
graphs of Chippewa chiefs reproduced here, believe as
to the great questions relating to God and a future
state ? There is the more reason to ask these ques-
tions, since it has been too much the habit of modern
writers to deny to such rude tribes the possession of
any religious ideas, because they do not present the
forms of religion best known to us. It would seem as
if a people not possessing churches, or temples, or
images, or pictures, or a caste of priests, must neces-
sarily have no religion, just as for similar reasons the
early Christians were stigmatised as atheists, and as
Laud is said, on returning from a tour in Scotland, to
have reported that he could perceive no indications
of religion among the Presbyterian people of that
country. *

Our first answer shall be from the narrative of the
old Breton seaman, Cartier, who discovered the St.
Lawrence three hundred years ago, and who can teach
us all the better that he is no missionary, but merely
a rough sailor, not recognising any similarity between
the traditions of the Indians and those he himself
believed. The creed of Stadacona, the ancient Que-
bec, according to him might be stated thus : " There

* For remarkable and curious illustrations of this prejudice,
I may refer to the discussion of this subject in Lubbock's
" Pre-historic Times."

THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OP GOD.

253

is one god, known by -the name Cudragny. * He
speaks often to men, and gives them warning of
the changes of the weather ; but when offended, he
throws dust in their eyes, or makes them blind. When
men die, their souls rise to the stars, and, descending
with these to the west, are received into the happy
plains where there are beautiful forests and delicious

Fig. 36.— CHIPPEWA CHIEFS, FKOM PHOTOGEAPHS.
Showing the characteristic Turanian type of the American Aborigines.

fruits ." This creed was that held in one modification
or another by all the American tribes, and expressed
the fundamental ideas of their religion. The Great
Spirit might be the Great Manitou, or Oghee-ma of

* The word is allied to Mandan OJcee, Sioux Oghee, Iroquois
Oke, Esquimaux AgJiatt, Algonquin Oghee-ma. It seems to
mean the chief or highest one. It resembles the name of
the ancient Hindoo god Agni, and is perhaps allied to the Og
and Agag of the pre- historic peoples of Palestine.

254 FOSSIL MEN.

the Algonquins ; Okee, or Omaha of tlie Mandans ;
or approaching more nearly to the familiar Aryan
Theos and Deus, he might be the Teo of the Mexi-
cans; but in every case there was a Great Spirit,
though there might be multitudes of inferior deities.
So in all these religions there was a distinct recogni-
tion of immortality and a future life beyond the
grave. Let us consider these two doctrines sepa-
rately ; and first, that of the existence of a supreme
God interesting Himself in human affairs.

The American deity was not a Hindoo Brahma,
isolating himself from all inferior beings. That is a
later conception of a degenerate faith. He revealed
Himself to men, and it was the general American
belief that this took place in dreams, in " thoughts
from visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth
upon men/' and such revelations were usually made
to gifted and chosen men, prophets who had, like
Balaam, "their eyes open, and heard the words of
God, and saw the vision of the Almighty." The
absurdly sounding name, " Medicine men," by which
these prophets or Shamans are usually known, seems
to be a corruption of the Algonquin word Meda or
Medawin, by which their art was designated ; a word
which, like many others used by these tribes, has its
allies in the Greek and other Indo-European tongues,
and may be radically the same with our " medicine."

That these revelations should relate in great part to
the weather, is precisely the same fact which we find in
the Pelasgic mythology of Zeus, or the Scandinavian

THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OF GOD. 255

worship of Thor. In either case, the Great Spirit is
not the god of the ether, merely, as some closet
mythologists suppose, because of a fanciful deification
of the elements, but because to a rude people the
changes of the weather are the principal natural facts
which concern and impress them, and which, being
apparently capricious and irregular, they refer to the
most direct kind of divine action. Hence it may be
affirmed that among all primitive peoples the chief
god is more or less a weather-god. In the Old Tes-
tament, Baal, the Phoenician sun-god, was eminently
a deity of this kind, as was also the Great Amen-Ra,
' ' prince of the dew," and " lord of beams/'' among the
Egyptians ; * and even the Elohim of the Hebrews
does not disdain to be the Being whose voice is the
thunder, who holds the lightning in his hands, who
makes the clouds his chariot, and whom the winds
and the waves obey. So in the old sacred book of
the Quiches of Central America, one of the most re-
markable monuments of ancient American religion,
the Creator is the Heart of Heaven, the lightning-
flash, the thunderbolt, and his name is Hurakan, the
storm-god — a name introduced into our own language
in the word " hurricane."

But like many other ancient nations, the Americans
were not content with the simplicity of pure mono-
theism; they added many subordinate gods. First
among these stands a deification of the sun, arising

* See the remarkable Hymn in his honour recently published
in Bagster's " Eecords of the Past," vol. ii.

256 FOSSIL MEN.

perhaps from a natural confounding of the glorious and
world- enlivening orb of day with the Great Spirit
his maker, but in many nations taking the form of a
separate worship. Among the ancient Peruvians, and
possibly also among the Toltecans, this identification
of the sun-god with the Supreme Being seems to have
been complete. The Mexicans, however, had a separate
sun-god, Tezcatlipoca, and in this they agreed with
the Iroquois and Algonquins, whose sun-god was a
deified hero, the child of the great first mother. With
sun-worship was naturally connected fire-worship, and
it is interesting to observe that this, which seems to
have been the principal cultus of the Alleghans, or
extinct mound- builders of the west, and of the Natchez
and other southern tribes, had extended from them
to the Algonquin peoples of the north. A Chippewa
tribe, for example, inhabiting Kewenaw Point, one of
the former mining districts of the Alleghans, kept
up, according to Schoolcraft, a perpetual sacred fire in
a sort of hearth or open furnace. Its chief attendant
was the " Great Sun," or " Chief Sun," and one of its
priestesses was called the " Woman ever standing in
presence of the God," or as it has been quaintly
rendered, the " Everlasting standing woman," the
Pythoness of this western fire-god. This worship was
said to have been derived from the south, and it seems
to explain the altar-hearths of the mound-builders.
Among the Iroquois and Hurons the sun was in some
sense an emblem of their Ares or Mars, Areskoui or
Agreskoui, while the Mexicans had a separate war-

THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OF GOD. 257

god, regarded by some as the "brother of him of
the sun.

In most cases among the Americans the sun was a
beneficent god, associated with light, fertility, and hap-
piness, as was also the case among the Indo-European
and Semitic races of the Old World ; and he connects
himself in some respects with the ideas of a mediator
or redeemer. This last thought centres around the
great fundamental tradition of the first mother, which
figures in all the American mythologies. We may take
the Iroquois version of it as given by the early Jesuits
and by Schoolcraft. Neo,* equivalent to Anu of the
older eastern theologies, is the Great Spirit ; Atahocan
is the Master of Heaven ; Tarenyawogan, or the Great
Hare (of whom more hereafter), is the Keeper of
Heaven. From this trinity originates Atahensic, the
first woman, and the American equivalent of Alytta
and Astarte of the East, Persephone and Artemis of
the Greeks, and the mother-goddess of so many other
ancient nations. f Married to one of the six first
created men, who seem to represent the six creative
days, and expelled from heaven, she produces twins,

* Supposed by some to be a corruption of the French Dieu,
bub more likely allied to Mexican Teo.

f In Smith's translation of the Assyrian account of the
Deluge, as given on the clay tablets in the British Museum,
Ishtar (Astarte) is introduced as appealing to the gods on
behalf of men, as the children she has brought forth, and as
weeping over their calamities (lines 110 to 120). This fact,
which I noticed after the above was written, affords an abso-
lute confirmation of the idea that the original Astarte is iden-
tical with the biblical Eve and the American Atahensic.

S

258 FOSSIL MEN.

who are Darkness and Light, or " Good mind " and
"Evil mind," and who introduce the knowledge of
good and evil on the earth. She afterwards bears a
daughter who has two sons,, the elder of whom, Yos-
keka, kills his brother, and afterwards becomes the
parent of mankind. Finally, Atahensic is deified as
the " Queen of Heaven/' with the moon as her em-
blem ; while Yoskeka also becomes a demi-god in the
other world, and the sun is his totem or emblematic
mark. In Hades, Atahensic, like the ancient Artemis,
in one at least of her functions, and like the Scandi-
navian Hela, becomes a guardian, and also a judge
and castigator of her children after death, while on
Yoskeka devolves the more beneficent function of
being their advocate and intercessor. This story,
which is but a specimen of this part of American
theology, as held in various forms by different tribes,
bears no remote resemblance to our own familiar nar-
rative of Eve and the Fall. But its significance is far
greater than this. It shows the connection of the
biblical Eve, the introducer of evil, and at the same
time the mother of the Kedeemer, who is the " seed
of the woman," with all those primitive idolatries in
which the first woman becomes the object of worship
as the Queen of Heaven and mother goddess ; and it
shows how natural is that superstition which in like
manner, in more modern times, transfers the adora-
tion of the Saviour to his mother. Alike in the Ata-
hensic of America, the two-horned Astarte of primeval
Syria, and the virgin queen of modern Borne, we have

THE PRIMITIVE IDEA. OF GOD. 259

precisely the same modification of a religious idea, that
of the promised seed of the woman, which underlies
all the biblical development of the doctrine of the
Saviour, and in corrupt forms figures in a host of
superstitions, both ancient and modern.

Perhaps even the old Phoenicians, in the worship of
their Moloch, or Melkart, scarcely carried the idea of
mediatorial atonement to so tragic a pitch of grandeur
as did the Mexicans in their annual sacrifices to Tez-
catlipoca. Their priests selected one of the most beau-
tiful young men, at once a representative of the god
and a sacrifice, and after feasting and honouring him
as the impersonation of deity, slew him upon the high
altar in the presence of adoring thousands, and held
up his dripping heart as a sign that the sins of the
people were atoned for.

The Messianic idea has, however, engrafted itself on
the American religions in quite another way. All the
Indian nations have traditions of a great benefactor, a
teacher of arts, and introducer of humanity and civili-
zation. Among the Peruvians he is Manco Capac ;
among the Mexicans, Quetzalcoatl ; among the Crees,
Gepuchican ; among the Micmacs, Glooscap ; and
the Iroquois form of the tradition forms the basis of
Longfellow's "Hiawatha." He is represented as a
benevolent hero, or demi-god of the olden time, who
has left the world or been spirited away, and is to re-
turn. We may compare him with Vishnu, Odin, and
Balder, with Horus, with Hercules, and a hundred
other heroes and demi-gods of the eastern continent,

260 FOSSIL MEN.

all of them outgrowths of the yearnings of the human
mind for a great deliverer from all the evils which
beset humanity, yearnings which belong to the higher
spiritual instincts of our nature, and which for the
Christian are satisfied in the person and work of Jesus
the Christ.

I have mentioned above the Iroquois legend of the
Great Hare, which forms another, if less intelligible,
connection of the religions and superstitions of the
East and of the West. This idea prevailed through-
out North America, from Mexico to the shores of the
Arctic Sea. As held by some Algonquin tribes it
represented Manibozoo, the Great Hare, as moving on
the waters, and making the earth out of a grain of
sand from the bottom of the sea, and man out of the
dead bodies of animals which had preceded him. The
Great Hare is thus the creator, and also embraces some
attributes of the Divine Spirit as introduced in the
Scriptures. We can only conjecture the origin of this
use of the hare as an emblem of God. It may have
arisen from the harmless, simple, noiseless, and spectre-
like habits of the creature, or from its expressive face
and eyes, or from its habit of erecting itself on its
feet, and its antics at certain seasons, or, as some
think, from its whiteness in winter. But whatever its
origin, it goes back into remote antiquity, and is of
very wide distribution. One effect of it is the aversion
to eat the flesh of the animal, which still lingers as a
sort of superstition in some parts of Europe, and which
I have noticed even in European settlers in America.

THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OP GOD. 261

The Lapps, Greenlanders, and Hottentots, are said to
refuse to eat hares, and so do the Samal Arabs, while
even the Chinese are said to object to it.* The
ancient Britons had the same superstition, and their
conquerors, the Saxons, held the hare as sacred to the
goddess Freya. The bones of the hare are not found
in the Danish shell-heaps or the Swiss lake-habita-
tions, whence it is inferred that the ancient peoples
who have left these remains did not eat the hare.
They do, however, occur in the debris in the cave of
Mentone and in the Belgian caves ; showing that the
hare was not everywhere regarded with the same
veneration among the earliest races of Europe, or per-
haps that, as in America, where the Hare Indians and
many other tribes feed much on this animal, while
still regarding it with a certain traditional veneration,
the regard for it as a religious emblem did not hinder
its use as food. A recent writer, who mentions many
of these facts, seems to think that they have some con-
nection with the rejection of the hare as food by the
Jews, which he wrongly states was owing to <e a false
impression about its chewing its cud," whereas this
would have been a reason for regarding it as clean, the
reason of rejecting it being that it had paws instead
of hoofs. But the Jewish Scriptures have no trace of
the superstitious regard for the animal, and the Algon-
quin and Iroquois traditions give us the most probable
explanation of the religious veneration of the hare in
regarding it as the emblem of the Divine Spirit.
* Lubbock, " Pre-historic Times."

262 FOSSIL MEN.

One part of the Iroquois tradition above referred
to relates to a deluge by which the descendants of
Atahensic were all destroyed, and the earth was re-
plenished with inhabitants by the conversion of beasts
into men. The traditions of the Mexicans on this sub-
ject are well known, and they are but a type of those
prevailing throughout all the American tribes, and
pointing to a division of the human period into two
portions by a great diluvial catastrophe. One Mexican
tradition conects this, as did the Egyptians, with the
disappearance of the great continent Atlantis, which
in antediluvian times connected America with Europe,
and whose name has perhaps as good a claim to be
derived from the Mexican Ail (water), as from the
somewhat conjectural root adopted by Greek linguists.
Another Mexican tradition, preserved by Humboldt,
relates that Tezpi, or Noah, embarked in a great acalli,
or house, with his wife, children, and animals, and
stores of grain. Tezcatlipoca, the second person of
the Mexican Trinity, equivalent to Atahocan of the
Iroquois, caused the deluge to abate. Tezpi sends
out a vulture and other birds, and finally a humming-
bird,* which returned to him with green leaves, and
then Tezpi joyfully disembarks on the mountain of
Colhuacan. This story bears very nearly the same
resemblance to the Noachic account of the Deluge
with that which we find in the Chaldean tablets trans-
lated by Mr. Smith, and with much the same amount

* This bird, like the dove among us, was also the emblem of
the third person of the Mexican Trinity.

THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OP GOD. 263

of local colouring, but with less of complication with,
a developed system of idolatry, and, therefore, with a
more truly primitive aspect* We may well suppose
that similar traditions with similar local variations>
were repeated round the camp-fires of those hardy
wanderers who first penetrated into Europe after the
Post-glacial submergence, and served to explain the
bones of the gigantic men and still more gigantic
beasts that lay in the caves they inhabited*

In some sort of connection with the belief in a
deluge was the belief of many American tribes that the
souls of drowned persons could not attain to paradise
until their bodies were recovered and buried with
certain sacrificial rites, consisting of the burning of
parts of the viscera before interment. This may also
be connected with the belief in malignant spirits of
the water — the kelpies of our own ancestors; and
with the superstition in China and elsewhere, that it
is unlucky to rescue a drowning person.

It may be said that the preservation of such a tra*
dition as that of the Deluge is impossible, since it is
held by some historical critics that an oral tradition
cannot survive with any degree of accuracy even for
a century. But the geologist knows that a footprint
in the sand, which in some circumstances must perish
in an hour, may in others survive for untold ages. So
with traditions. Among a rude people, with few ideas,
when fixed in a form of words, traditions may be
handed down indefinitely. If once reduced to picto-
graphs, like those of the Mexicans, or even recorded

264 FOSSIL MEN.

on quipus or wampum-belts, they become still more
unchangeable. But even an oral tradition among
such people as the Americans is more enduring than
a temple or a pyramid.

The American in still another point conformed to
the most primitive and also most modern religious
tendencies of his eastern brethren. He believed in
an infinity of inferior spirits, good and evil, haunting
particular places, attached as guardian angels or genii
4to certain persons, families, and tribes, of various
powers and properties, and of which any object, ani-
mate or inanimate, might be the emblem or material
representative. Throughout the whole of the vast
Algonquin family, these spirits were designated by
the word " Manitou," which reminds us of the ancient
Pelasgic or Etruscan " Manes " of the Eomans, and
the " Menim," fates or destinies, of the Chaldaeans and
primitive Arabians. Under other names they were
worshipped by the western and northern tribes, and the
belief in them seems to have been universal through-
out America. Evil manitous were to be deprecated
by offerings, and good manitous were special tutelary
spirits to whom was committed the care of human
interests. Every man or woman might possess such
a spirit guardian, who was revealed in the course of a
protracted fast, undertaken for the purpose at the time
of entering into manhood or womanhood. The guard-
ian genius usually revealed himself in the guise of
some material object, and this became at once the
emblem of the manitou, and the totem or armorial

P aoT>.

THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OF GOD. 265

bearing of the person. It was pictured on his shield
and other weapons ; it was tattooed on his body ; it
became his designation; to it he made vows in cir-
cumstances of doubt and difficulty,, and offered sac-
rifices of such things as he valued. (Fig. 37.) It
is scarcely necessary to add that the idea of certain
animals and plants being sacred to or emblematic of
particular gods is not confined to America. It exists
and has existed alike among the most rude and refined
of the nations of the Old World. / OF THB

^ #-

Fig. 37. — TOTEMS OF CHIEFS OF THE PENOBSCOT INDIANS, appended to a treaty
made with the English at Caeco Bay, 1727. (From ihe Archives of Nova Scotia.)

This subordinate worship of the manitous necessarily
formed a large part of the practical religion of the in-
dividual, and obscured the perception of the Supreme
God. Its resemblance to the beliefs in seraphim,
genii, and guardian spirits, saints and angels, must
occur to every one, and need not be followed in detail.
Nor need we doubt that the same faith existed among
the primitive men whose bones are found in the caves
of Europe. The fishes, reindeer, and mammoths

266 FOSSIL MEN.

carved on their bone implements were not merely
works of arts, undertaken to amuse idle hours. As
interpreted by American analogies, they were the
sacred totems of primeval hunters and warriors, and
some of the rows of dots and scratches, which have
been called " tallies," may be the records of offer-
ings made to these guardian spirits, or of successes
achieved under their influence. Some of the strangely
formed bone sceptres of these ancient caves may have
had the further significance of being the batons or
rattles of medicine men or prophets, who were sup-
posed to be specially inspired by manitous, and hence
to be themselves veritable " Manties," or men identi-
fied with the manitous, and uttering their commands.
(Fig. 38.)

Like the American nations, the pre-historic peoples
of Europe had also pictographs representing import-
ant events. In the first part of the " Reliquice
Aquitanicce " such a representation, on a piece of
deer's antler, has been figured. It is from the Dor-
dogne caves, and the learned editors avow themselves
unable to attach any meaning to it. An American
Indian would, however, readily decipher it, and his
reading, if I am not much mistaken, would be this :
It represents a man walking with a burden or weapon
upon his shoulder. Behind him is the sea (indicated
by marks representing the waves), and in it swims a
large eel. Meeting the man on the other side are two
horses (indicated by their heads). The intention is to
show the annual migration of the owner of the object

THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OF GOD.

267

from the sea, where he subsisted on fish, to the inland
regions, where he hunted wild horses. The number
of bars representing the waves has perhaps the ad-
ditional meaning of indicating how many times he had
performed this migration ; and on the opposite side of
the piece of bone are two heads of the aurochs, which

\\

Fig. 38.— TOTEMS OF FAMILIES OP THE REIBTDEEB AGE iir FBANGE.
(from Christie and Lartet.)

was perhaps his totem, or distinctive mark. Such a
pictograph might, however, admit of a more precise
interpretation. The aggressive attitude of the eel,
with open mouth near the heel of the man, and the
helpless and tame aspect of the horses, with the hasty

268 FOSSIL MEN.

movement of the man bending under his burden, may
indicate an escape from an inundation rather than an
ordinary migration. That even this may not be a
strained interpretation may be seen from the Chippewa
pictograph reduced from Schoolcraft (Fig. 40), which
indicates the wishes of certain tribes with reference
to certain territorial claims, and is also curious as an
illustration of the use of totems. Fig. 39 is an outline
of the French pictograph, which the editor of the
Reliquiae will excuse me for copying in consideration
of the explanation above given.

In connection with the worship of manitous is the
veneration of sacred places, of remarkable groves and
trees, of strangely formed rocks, and of waterfalls,
each of which is supposed to have its resident spirit,
to whom offerings are made by the passing traveller.
Eocks, more especially, have impressed the minds of
primitive men in this way ; and hence we have vast
numbers of traditional sacred stones and sculptured
stones, carved with the totems of their resident
manitous, or with those of visitors desirous of pro-
pitiating them. Meteoric stones are known to have
been held sacred by some tribes of Americans, pro-
bably because of their having been known to fall
from heaven, just as similar facts are believed to
have given origin to some of the most celebrated
worships of Asiatic antiquity ; as for example, to that
of Diana at Ephesus. A more inexplicable supersti-
tion is the veneration paid to green stones, such as
malachite, turquoise, and jade. Stones of this hue

r

\

/\

»

270 FOSSIL MEN.

seem to have been highly valued by all old races,
both of the Old World and the New. The more
civilized inhabitants of Central America and Mexico
venerated blue or green stones, and mined for turquoise,
as did the Egyptians, in their celebrated turquoise
mines of the Sinai peninsula.

A remarkable example of a natural temple is that

Pig. 40.— AMERICAN PICTOGBAPH FEOM SCHOOLCRAFT, taken from a petition
presented to the President of the United States, and showing that the chiefs
represented by the totems of the crane, the marten, the bear, and the cat-fish,
are of one mind and one heart with reference to the possession of certain lakes
indicated in the rude map below them.

of the Koches Percees, on the plains of Western
Manitoba, a province which derives its name from
the manitou supposed to haunt a wave-beaten rock
in one of its lakes.* These rocks are the fantastically

* See Frontispiece.

THE PEIMITIVE IDEA OF GOD. 271

worn and eroded outcrop of certain sandstones of
the Lignite Tertiary series, rising alone in the midst
of a boundless prairie country, and striking the ima-
gination of the traveller by a resemblance to ruined
buildings. One of them forms a natural archway,
resembling a fragment of an Egyptian temple, and is
a veritable cathedral to all the wandering tribes of the
West. Standing awe-stricken before this strange piece
of nature's architecture, the Indian makes some simple
offering, invokes the guardian spirit of the shrine, and
perhaps engraves on the sandstone the mark of his
own totem. The figures below (Fig. 41) show some
of the marks thus made; and their resemblance in
style to those on pre-historic implements of Europe
must strike every one. Some of them are of course
quite modern, but no one knows how far back in past
ages these rocks have been venerated by the red man,
who places on them his totem, or that of his tribe,
with the same feeling with which an Englishman
regards a monument in Westminster Abbey. The
Indian, however, with an older and truer faith than
that of many who despise or malign his simple wor-
ship, knows that the Most High " dwelleth not in
temples made with hands/' nor even in shrines of
nature's workmanship, and regards these as merely
the dwellings of the subordinate agents, who must
obey the commands of the Great Spirit.

We can see in such a natural temple as the Roches
Percees the original of the megalithic monuments which
strike the imagination of the European antiquary,

THE PEIMITIVB IDEA OF GOD. 273

and also of the cave-like temples of ancient Egypt, of
the massive teocallis of Mexico and Central America,
and even of our own huge cathedral piles. All are
but the attempts of more civilized man to rival or
surpass the grottoes and sculptured rocks which were
revered by his remote ancestors as making more
apparent to their untaught fancies the reality of the
spiritual world with which fallen man seeks communion
by so many quaint and strange devices, ever seeking
to know God, yet ever confounding the creature with
the Creator.

The fasts for manitous are connected with some of
the most poetical tales of the American Indians — tales
which rival in felicity of conception those of the ancient
Greeks, however rude in expression. One of these,
belonging to the Chippewas, and given in detail by
Schoolcraft, may be summarised as follows : — A young
man had reached the age proper for the manitou fast.
His mother built him a lodge in a retired place, and he
took up his abode therein and began his fast. At first
his mind occupied itself with the shrubs and flowers
around his shelter; and thinking of the goodness of
the Great Spirit in giving so many varied gifts to man,
he prayed that he might dream of something likely to
be of use to his people. On the third day, while lying
weak and faint in his bed, he saw a young stranger
approach, dressed in green robes and with a green
plume. He announced himself as a messenger from
the Great Spirit, sent to grant his request, and in-
vited the youth to a wrestling match. Weak though

T

274 FOSSIL MEN.

he was, lie endeavoured to obey, and after long trial
his visitor said, " It is enough," and vanished. He
returned a second and a third day, and the wrestling
match was renewed, but the young man seemed to
grow stronger with each contest, notwithstanding his
abstinence. At length, on the seventh day of the fast,
the youth, with a supernatural access of strength,
overcame his visitor, threw him on the ground, and,
obeying his directions, stripped him of his vest and
plumes, and buried him in the earth. He visited the
place again and again, carefully removing every weed,
and at length he saw green blades spring up, and as
the season advanced, strong stems shot forth, bear-
ing ears of grain, and then in triumph the youth led
his father to the spot, and showed him the ripened
crop of maize. " It is monda-min ! " — the spirit's grain
— exclaimed the father ; and thus the Indians first
became acquainted with the culture of bread-corn. It
is curious to note in this story the expectation of a
heavenly revelation in the fast, the wrestling with the
angel and prevailing, and the devout belief of the
special provision of food for man — all features of a
very primitive faith ; while there is a touch of allegory
in the green vesture and plume of the heavenly
stranger stripped off, and his body buried, as em-
blematic of the seed-corn denuded of its green husk
and feathery tassel and sown in the ground. Many
other Indian tales, often very poetical and touching,
are connected with the fasts for manitous. Still more
protracted fasts were undergone by those who aspired

THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OP GOD. 275

to be medicine-men, in order that they might fully
enter into communion with the manitous which were
supposed to animate them; and there seems little
doubt that these men, though often impostors, were
sometimes possessed with a real religious frenzy.

A darker feature of the belief in manitous was
the dread of those imagined to be evil- disposed,
and which often filled the poor savage with extreme
terror, and embittered his life with the apprehension
of the ills that might be inflicted on him by those
mysterious powers. In some cases, more especially,
these superstitious terrors were excessive, and took
possession of whole tribes, impelling to actions of
folly and cruelty equal to those of our own ancestors
in darker days, when they became afflicted with a
witch-panic or with dread of the " evil eye."

I have already stated that the carvings on ivory
and bone found in the caves of the Dordogne, in
France, might be regarded as the totems of their
possessors, the emblems of their guardian manitous.
This has a bearing on the significance which we are
to attach to the carving supposed to represent the
mammoth, found in one of these caves, and which
has so often been figured and described as an evi-
dence that man existed before the disappearance of
this animal. That some great warrior or chief of
the PalaBolithic age had the mammoth for his armorial
bearing and for the emblem of his guardian genius
is no doubt significant of a time when the creature
was known, at least by tradition. Anything beyond

276 FOSSIL MEN.

that it does not certainly prove, any more than the
figure of St. George and the dragon on an English
coin would show that the saint and the dragon sur-
vived to the times of the Georges. Such a totem
might, like the manatee carved on the pipes of the
Ohio mound-builders, refer to an animal of a distant
country, from which the owner or his ancestors had
migrated, or with which they had intercourse. It
might also be handed down as an heirloom for a
vast number of generations, and might pass from
tribe to tribe. Its actual last possessors might thus
never have seen the mammoth, though they must
have known it by tradition. Some of the Algonquin
tribes had a tradition of the mammoth or mastodon
as a great elk, with an arm projecting from its
shoulder, and the Micmacs represent the bones of
the mastodon as belonging to gigantic beavers which
their great hero, Glooscap, destroyed. The mammoth
was in any case the symbol of some pre-historic man
or tribe of France : and in the cave of Bruniquel we
find, along with beautiful fish-harpoons, figures carved
on implements, and representing the horse, ibex, snake,
reindeer, and salmon ; so that if we knew the language
of these people, we could decipher their names on their
implements. An American Indian could in any case
read them in his own tongue as pictographs, and
might also conjecture the facts indicated by some of
the significant marks and dots attached to them.

Lyell well remarks that these carvings teach us that
the ancient tribes who hunted in the Dordogne, per-

THE PKIMiTIVE IDEA OF GOD. 277

haps before the historical deluge, " did not belong to
a less developed stage of humanity than some hunter
tribes of the present day." He might have added
that in their arts and superstitions, as well as in
their physical characters, they approached very near
to the somewhat noble type of semi-barbarous man
still extant in America.

In summing up this subject, it may be well to refer
to the probability that the race of men known by the
general name Turanian is the oldest now extant. This
race, occupying the northern parts of Asia, and iden-
tical in physical characters on the one hand with the
American tribes, and on the other with the oldest races
whose skulls are found in the European caves, seems
also to have been that which preceded the Aryan races in
India and in the south of Europe, and the Semitic races
in western Asia. On the one hand, its religious ideas
are identical with those still surviving in America and
northern Asia, as well as to some extent in China, and
with the oldest religions shadowed forth to us in the
ancient records and traditions of Palestine, Aryan
India, and Greece, and crystallised for us in the child-
like narratives of the book of Genesis.* From these
primitive ideas were developed on the one hand the
Hebrew prophecy which culminates in the glorious
truths of Christianity, and on the other all the wonder-
ful myths of the Aryan polytheism.

* And also represented in the Chaldean legends of the
Creation and Deluge, recently translated by the late Mr.
George Smith.

278 FOSSIL MEN.

If these general statements be conceded — and I
think a vast mass of fact lying beyond the range of
our present inquiry might be adduced to prove them,
— then the following general truths may be accepted
as to the primitive religious connections of the New
World and the Old. (1) All the religions of America,
and all the primitive faiths of the Old World, alike
embrace the elements of a Supreme Creator, subor-
dinate spirits of good and evil, a fallen human race, a
first mother, who is the mother of a Saviour, and a
division of human history into two periods by a dilu-
vial catastrophe. (2) There is no trace of the origin of
these ideas in any other source than historical fact and
primitive monotheism. It is impossible to trace them
back to mere worship of the elements and to fetich-
ism. They are remnants of a higher and purer faith.
(3) The American races must have diverged from the
general mass of humanity at a period so early that the
peculiar features of the Hebrew and Aryan religions
had not yet developed themselves out of the primitive
patriarchal faith, so that the origin of the American
religions lies in the antediluvian and early post-diluvian
time. (4) This accounts for the fact that some have
seen in these American religions Egyptian, Indian,
Hebrew, or Aryan influences, because the primitive
ideas of all these exist in America, though undevel-
oped, or developed after a peculiar manner. (5) Both
in language and religion such special affinities as exist
connect the Algonquin tribes with the Aryan races,
or rather, with the so-called Pelasgic elements which

THE PEIMITIVE IDEA OF GOD. 279

formed the front of the Aryan wave, and were perhaps
as much Turanian as Aryan. In like manner, the
same indications connect the Toltecans, Peruvians,
and Alleghans with the south of Asia and Polynesia ;
and the Esquimaux, the Chippewyans, and the West
Coast tribes with the Mongolian race of northern
Asia. Still, all these elements must have been nearer
to each other than they have been in historic times,
when the early migrations to America took place.
Lastly, all these elements of primitive faith point back
to a golden age of simplicity and piety, corrupted and
decaying under the influence of rudeness and barbar-
ism on the one hand, or of a sensual and ungodly
civilization on the other.

We thus learn how the aboriginal American, and
probably, also, the primeval European, solved the great
question of the origin of the earth and man, and of
his own relation to the Supreme Being. With such
dim light of nature as he had, he could at least con-
ceive of higher spiritual beings and of a Creator, and
could feel that God was nigh to him. He had, it is
true, mixed up these primitive tenets with many cor-
ruptions and imaginings, but the substratum of his
faith was identical with that of the patriarchal age, as
revealed to us in Scripture, and whose truth is vouched
for, not only by the connection with it of the subse-
quent superstructure of revelation, but by the natural
and invincible persuasion of the existence of God,
which is ineradicable from the human mind in all
ages and places.

280 FOSSIL MEN.

It is further instructive to observe that, except in
the more civilized nations, he had not corrupted his
faith with the apparatus of complex rituals and idols
made with hands. These things in the New World,
and no doubt also in the Old, were growths of im-
moral and hypocritical civilization. Again, the Ameri-
can religion was not materialistic or of the nature of
fetichism. Even the rudest tribes were not, like some
modern scientists, and perhaps some of the lower
Papuan races, " Monists," who cannot conceive any
primary existence except material forces — brute and
inorganic — of which man is at once the product and
the sport and victim. To arrive at this position
requires either the utmost extreme of brutal degrada-
tion or of one-sided mental culture. Primitive man
was evidently neither in one position nor the other.
Neither was he properly pantheistic. He knew that
man cannot be God, however much he might believe
that there is a likeness between God and man ; and
though he might imagine a multitude of spirits con-
nected with particular objects and places, yet they
were all either ministering spirits of the Great Spirit,
or manifestations of that Spirit himself in the things
that his power had evolved from old chaos and night ;
and all essentially distinct from the objects which
were their abodes, or their emblems, or the objects of
their care. I by no means desire unduly to exalt pre-
historic religions, but I wish distinctly to affirm that
they, and what we call the heathenism or animism of
untaught tribes, were nearer to God and truth than are

THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OP GOD. 281

either the ritualisms and idolatries or the material-
istic scepticisms of more civilized times, when men,
" professing themselves to be wise, become fools."

These primitive beliefs thus serve to confirm our
faith in the inspired and historical records of human-
ity, in opposition to the crude theories which have
been put forth in the misused name of science. In a
practical point of view, the fact that all religions con-
tain traces of primitive truth akin to that which was
the original creed of the race, should encourage mis-
sionary effort even amongst the most degraded peoples,
should warn us against despising either the simple
theology of Genesis or the equally simple beliefs of
untutored men, guided only by the light of nature;
and should deter us from giving way to these aesthetic
and merely outward corruptions of spiritual truth,
which are equally absurd in their most antique and
most modern forms, and are less excusable in the
latter. " The past times of this ignorance God has
overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to
repent."

CHAPTER X.

PRIMITIVE IDEAS OP RELIGION : THE INSTINCT OP
IMMORTALITY.

As we prefaced the discussion of the Idea of God with
an extract from Cartier, giving the creed of the an-
cient Stadaconians, we may in like manner introduce
that of the doctrine of a future state with an extract
from Carver, who visited the tribes of the great plains
at the head of the Missouri in 1766 to 1768. He thus
states the creed of one of the tribes of Dakotas or
Sioux, a people then altogether unacquainted with any
foreign religion. " They acknowledge one Supreme
Being or giver of life, who presides over all things.
The Chippewas call this being Manitou or Kitchi
Manitai ; the Nundowessies Wakon or Tongo-wakon,*
that is, the Great Spirit ; and they look upon him as
the source of good, from whom no evil can proceed.
They also believe in a bad spirit, to whom they ascribe
great power, and suppose that through his means all
the evils which befall mankind are inflicted. They
hold also that there are good spirits of a lesser degree,
who have their particular departments, in which they
are constantly contributing to the happiness of mortals.

* Wakon or Augha is the same with the Canadian Oki or
Agni ; and the prefix Tongo may be compared with Mongolian
Tong and Tang, and Chinese Tien, the name of the Sky-God.

THE INSTINCT OP IMMORTALITY. 233

To all of these they pay some kind of adoration.
They doubt not but they shall exist in some future
state; they however fancy that their employments
there will be similar to those they are engaged in here,
without the labour and difficulty attached to them in
this period of their existence."

I give this extract more especially because it is the
fashion at present with a certain school of archaeolo-
gists to eliminate from the American religions the
ideas of a Supreme Being, of good and evil, and
even of immortality. Cartier and Carver, and a host
of other unexceptionable evidences, could be quoted
against this stupid sacrifice of facts to a prevalent
but transient theory.

Among rude peoples the belief in immortality ex-
hibits itself chiefly in their treatment of the bodies
of the dead, and in the rites connected with burial,
and it is information of this kind alone that we can
have regarding pre-historic men ; thus funeral rites
must occupy a prominent place in this chapter. We
must expect to find many of them crude and childish
in the extreme ; but we need not wonder at this when
we think for a moment of the mixture of forms, hea-
then, mediaeval, and scriptural, and the strange com-
pound of grief, hope, and pageantry which attend
burial among ourselves, with all our greater know-
ledge and more rational belief of immortality.

The Americans universally held the posthumous life
and separate existence of the soul. When questioned
as to the nature and properties of the disembodied

284 FOSSIL MEN.

spirit, they were, like ourselves, unable to give any
definite answer, and compared it to a shade or ghost
of the body, to a breath, air, or mist, or to the appear-
ance of a bird — all, however, ancient and familiar
representations among the nations of the Old World.
They also most naturally believed that the tastes and
desires of the dead were the same with those which
had actuated them in life. Hence it was proper to
bring offerings of food to the grave, and to bury with
the corpse what the person had valued 'during life, or
some model or miniature representation of it. In the
case of eminent persons, costly gifts might be given
by friends or dependents, or even by tribes and
nations, for this purpose. They also believed that for
a time after death the soul hovered over or remained
with the body, before taking its final departure for the
world of spirits, and it was supposed by some that
the funeral feast held in honour of the dead was that
which gave it its passport for the long journey.

The soul having thus departed was believed to make
its way to the happy land, and the path thither was
provided with accessories similar to those with which
ancient mythologies have rendered us familiar. Some
believed in the simple pathway of the stars, to which
I have already referred.* Others believed in a long
and dangerous journey, or in a river of death, whose
Charon used a stone canoe, or which was crossed by a
narrow and slippery bridge. There was a Cerberus,
also, to be contended with, and the souls of the
wicked might either perish altogether in the attempt
* P.

THE INSTINCT OP IMMORTALITY. 285

to surmount these difficulties, or might be punished
for their sins before entering the Elysian fields.

The happy land was usually in the far west, because
thither the orbs of heaven went for their rest, and
because the sunset sky daily opened up the glories
of heaven's portal, to delight the eyes of men and to
beckon them to immortality. Among the Americans,
as among the Greeks, there were stories of adventu-
rous men who had voluntarily descended into Hades
to rescue the souls of their friends. Charlevoix found
one of these stories, which he compares to that of
Orpheus and Eurydice, and Schoolcraft has preserved
two of them, which, as products of imagination, are
not unworthy of a place beside classical stories of
this type, themselves probably older than the times
of Greek civilization.

The belief in future happiness beyond the grave
was not a shadowy imagination, but a firm and practi-
cal conviction. The early Jesuit missionaries record
with wonder the stoicism and stern joy with which
the savage met death, and his certain assurance of a
blessed hereafter. If the dying man was the head of
a family, he chanted in advance his funeral song or
oration, giving parting advice to his children and
sorrowing friends, as in that wonderful death-song
of Jacob preserved to us in Genesis. It may be well
to remark here that the gifts of oratory and song were
not rare among the Americans, nor are they rare
among other rude tribes. Though without a written
language, they had already entered on the path of

286 FOSSIL MEN.

literary composition, and such orations and songs as
have been preserved to us are sometimes by no means
despicable efforts. The dying speech having been
finished, presents were given to the sick man by
members of his family, and the relatives took their
last farewell, wishing him a happy journey, and con-
soling him with the hope of the joys at its termination,
and with the assurance that his children would sustain
the reputation of his name. Among one northern
tribe, according to Charlevoix, it was believed that
when old persons survived until their dotage, they
would have to begin their new life in the other world
as mere infants. To avoid this, so strong was the
conviction of eternal life, old persons verging on
decrepitude were in the habit of beseeching their
relatives to strangle them, that they might enter the
future life in the full possession of their powers. *

The faith of the survivors in the immortality of
their deceased friends was exhibited in the care of the
body, and in the simple rites and offerings by which
they hoped to promote the welfare of the disembodied
spirit. First among these may be mentioned the
securing of companions and assistants to the departed
shade. The terrible expedient of immolating prison-
ers, slaves, and wives, on the tomb, so prevalent in
the Old World, was not unknown in the New. Among
the northern tribes, their only domestic animal, the
dog, was obliged to accompany his master into the

* The same belief and practice are recorded by Hunt as
existing among the Fijians.

THE INSTINCT OF IMMORTALITY. 287

land of death, just as among the ancient Scythians
and some modern Americans, the warrior's horse was
slain to bear him on his long journey. The dogs,
killed immediately after death, usually formed a part
of the funeral feast, but this did not conflict with the
idea that the spirits of these sagacious animals might
guide the shade to its final abode. Cranz, a Green-
land missionary, relates that it is a practice with the
people of that forlorn region to place the head of a
dog in the tomb of a child, " in order that the soul
of the dog, which can always find its way home, may
show the helpless infant the way to the country of
souls." Some of the arctic navigators who have
opened Esquimaux graves confirm the statement of
the missionary. Nilsson quotes this touching instance
of care for the soul of the deceased child in illustration
of the fact that skulls of dogs occur in ancient burial-
mounds of the Stone age in Sweden, which in many
other respects resemble the burial-places of the Green-
landers. A similar association of remains of the dog
with those of man has been found in a pre-historic
Irish tumulus,* and in Peru the skeleton of the same
faithful friend of man is sometimes found in the family
sepulchre.

It has been remarked with reference to some
European interments, that flint implements and wea-
pons appear to have been buried with the dead, even
after the close of the Stone age. This may be ex-
plained by the superstitious reverence which came to
* Knock Maraidhe, Dublin.

288 FOSSIL MEN.

be entertained for the ancient weapons. It was fit
that the Modern should appear in presence of his
ancestors with their ancient and time-honoured ap-
pliances. But American analogy affords another
explanation. The medicine-man provided himself
with all ancient and curious things, as old weapons,
curiously formed stones, or fossil shells. These para-
phernalia of his trade might be placed with him in
his grave, and thus afford a ' strange association of
objects. Even the ordinary Indian might have a
medicine bag, in which were old arrows or flint flakes,
carried as talismans, which would also be buried with
him, even in cases where no other objects might be
so interred. To take a modern instance. When the
late Prince Imperial of France was slain by the Zulus,
his body was stripped, but a reliquary worn suspended
to his neck was left, because to have taken this would
have been a sacrilege according to the primitive belief
of the African. Had the body been buried where it
fell, this "medicine bag" and its contents would
have been the only objects to indicate its date or
nation.

To return to the funeral ceremonies. Among the
Canadian tribes, the corpse, immediately after death,
was placed in a sitting posture at the door of the hut,
its face painted, dressed in the best robe of the
deceased, and with his weapons beside it. Thus
seated in state, it was visited by friends. It was then
taken to the place of burial, and laid in a grave care-
fully lined with the richest furs, as if the last resting-

THE INSTINCT OP IMMORTALITY.

28$'

place were to be a bed of peaceful sleep. Tlie grave
was covered with, a rough roof of split wood or bark ;
a post was set up on which were carved the emblems
of the dead, and some rude marks to indicate his
actions. (Fig. 42.) And on this, or on the grave,

Fig. 42.— ADJEDATIG, OB GKAVE-POST OF WABOJEEGSE, THE "WHITE FISHES," a
Chippewa chief, who died in 1793 (from Schooler aft). The reindeer at the top
is the totem of his family ; it is inverted to indicate death. The horizontal
marks denote the number of his war parties and other military achievements.
The three perpendicular lines indicate three wounds received in battle. The
head of a moose commemorates a combat with one of these animals. The
other emblems are supposed to indicate his influence as a ruler, and the animal
below is perhaps his dog, represented as dying with his master.

were placed offerings to the spirit, as weapons or
useful utensils; while for the time when the spirit
was supposed to haunt the grave, daily offerings of
food were supplied. In the case of infants, mothers

u.

290 FOSSIL MEN.

have been seen to shed the milk from their breasts on
their little graves; and I have been informed that
among some tribes there is more mourning for the
death of a child than for an adult, on the ground of
its greater helplessness in the lone land of spirits.
The woodcut (Fig. 43) of Chippewa mourners is from a
photograph, and shows the roofed grave with objects
suspended on it as offerings, and an opening to in-
troduce supplies of food, and the grave-post whereon
to hang other offerings or emblems. After the funeral,
presents were given to the relatives of the dead by
their friends or by the tribe collectively, and a funeral
feast was held by the family. This was accompanied
by games, ending, says Charlevoix, who records these
rites, with songs and cries of victory.

In some cases the offerings to the dead took the
form, not of valuable articles, but of mere models oE
these, like the tissue-paper garments burned by the
Chinese as sacrifices to their ancestors. This may be
regarded as the creeping in of hypocrisy or ritualism,
properly so called, into a practice once high and
noble. Different from this, however, was the practice
of defacing and rendering useless, either by mechani-
cal injury or by fire, the objects offered to the dead,
an act which implies the final renunciation of them
on the part of the living, and may have also been
understood as a species of death ushering them into
the other world for the benefit of the dead. All this
has its analogues in the Eastern continent, even in
historic times.

292 FOSSIL MEN.

Last of all came the great octennial or decennial
feast of the dead, most important of all the national
ceremonies of the St. Lawrence tribes. Arrangements
were made as to the time and place, and a master
of the ceremonies was appointed, and friends were
invited from neighbouring villages. When all was
ready, they proceeded in procession to the cemetery,
disinterred and cleansed the bones, amidst the lamen-
tations of the women, wrapped them in new furs, and
then, with many ceremonies, feasts, dances, and games.,
conveyed them to the great national pit or ossuary,
where they were finally interred with the richest
funeral gifts, and covered with the heaped-up soil.

" Here bring the last gifts, and with them

The last lament be said,
Let all that pleased and yet may please
Be buried with the dead."

The arrangements of burial differed among differ-
ent tribes. In ancient Micmac graves, in Prince
, Edward Island, the bones have been found wrapped
in birch bark, and with a little parcel of arrow or
spear-heads interred with them. Some of the western
tribes leave the corpse and its property in its lodge,
which thus becomes its tomb. Some raise the bodies
of the dead aloft on stages, a custom which prevails
as far off as Papua, where the people have also long,
communistic houses, inhabited by many families, like
the Iroquois and Hurons. Some tribes buried their
dead in caverns; and the old Alleghans, and other
agricultural tribes of the west and south, erected great

THE INSTINCT OF IMMORTALITY. 293

mounds over the dead, some of which, as the Grave-
Creek Mound, in Virginia, seventy feet in height and
a thousand feet in circumference — are among the
greatest burial tumuli in the world. The elaborate
subterranean sepulchral chambers of the old Peruvians
are well known, and are, like the graves of the Green-
landers and the ' ' gallery graves " of the ancient
Scandinavians, miniature houses furnished with the
utensils or weapons of the dead.

Such differences in manner of burial might depend
merely on difference of circumstances, and various
modes might prevail among the same race. It is
probable that the extinct Bceotics, or Red Indians
of Newfoundland, were not an Algonquin people, but
an eastern extension of the great Chippewyan or
Tinne race, intermediate between the Algonquins and
the Esquimaux, and entering America from the north-
west. These people were destroyed partly by Euro-
pean settlers, and partly by their hereditary enemies,
the Micmacs of Nova Scotia. In 1827 an expedition
was fitted out, under the auspices of the Newfound-
land Government, by the explorer, McCormick, with
the view of ascertaining if any remnant of them
existed. He penetrated to the Red Indian Lake,
their former head- quarters, but there found nothing
but the ruins of their huts and their graves. The
interments had been of various kinds ; some were in
carefully-built huts of bark, others on stages or poles,
others under heaps of stones. The body of an un-
fortunate young woman, taken prisoner by the whites,

294 FOSSIL MEN.

among whom she died, and after death was left to be
recovered by her tribe, was recognised by the remains
of European clothing which these poor savages had
scrupulously buried with her. If we ask the reason
of this variety, the climate affords a ready answer. In
Lower Canada at this day, the bodies of those who
die in winter are preserved in vaults until spring, when
they can be properly buried ; so among the Red
Indians, any one dying in winter could not be in-
terred in the frozen ground or buried under stones,
but must be placed in a bark cabin or on a stage. In
like manner it is quite conceivable that under different
circumstances the same tribe might bury their dead,
or dispose of them by cremation, as the Kutchin of
north and west America, a branch of the same stock
with the Bceotics, now do.

But however different in details, all these modes of
burial rested on the belief in immortality, and on the
idea that the care of the body and the provision of
suitable offerings had a connection with the soul's
welfare in a future life, and perhaps the meanest and
basest thing in modern literature is the attempt made
by some writers on this subject to explain away these
beliefs as held by pre-historic men. A further illus-
tration of these beliefs, and also probably of some
dim notion of a resurrection of the body, is afforded
by the desire of the American Indian to be in death
"gathered to his fathers." A touching instance of
this feeling is afforded by the story of the aged Micmac
Sachem^ or Sagamo, Mambertou, a man of high cha-

THE INSTINCT OP IMMORTALITY. 295

racter and influence among his people, and evidently
of great personal qualities. He became an early
convert of the missionaries, and when attacked with
his last illness was carried to Port Royal for medical
assistance ; but finding this of no avail, and his end
approaching, he asked the Governor, Beincourt, to
promise that his body should be taken to his native
village and buried with those of his ancestors. The
promise was given, but no sooner was it known to the
Jesuit missionaries, than they were filled with horror ;
their noble convert could not be buried with infidels,-
his bones must lie in consecrated ground. Beincourt
suggested that they might consecrate his grave in the
Micmac burial-place, but this was out of the question,,
unless all the old infidels in the cemetery could first
be disinterred and removed. The quarrel threatened-
to be serious, and the angry monks withdrew, and de-
clared that if Mambertou persisted in his unreasonable
wish, they would have nothing to do with his death or
burial, and would withhold the rites of the Church.
No modern Ultramontanes could display more faithful
ritualism or more genuine antagonism to all that is
holy and spiritual in religion and in man; and the
Jesuit narrative records with satisfaction that their
firmness triumphed; for the dying chief, unable to
struggle against their fanaticism, quietly gave way,
and his bones lie in the old French cemetery of
Port Eoyal.

America, we have seen, is rich in examples of the
belief in a future state. We may now turn for a little

-296 FOSSIL MEN.

to pre-historic Europe, and note the parallelism. We
may here at once affirm that the oldest "Neolithic "
mounds and cave interments of Europe bespeak beliefs
similar in every respect to those of America. I have
already referred to this in the case of the "gallery
graves " of Scandinavia, and it is equally apparent in
the sepulchral tumuli. But how was it with those
oldest tribes of men supposed to have been contem-
porary with the now extinct Post-glacial mammals ?
Unfortunately, most of the remains of this period are
not of a character to give much information as to rites
of sepulture or religious beliefs. There are, however,
some which partially make up for this defect, and I
shall refer here to a few instances.

Among the caves on the banks of the Eiver Lesse,
described by Dupont in his book on the Pre-historic
Ages, one of the most curious, the Trou de Frontal, in
Belgium, is a sepulchre of the so-called Eeindeer Age,
which intervenes between the earliest Palaeolithic or
" Mammoth " Age, and that of Polished Stone. It is
rather an overhanging ledge or shelter than a cave,
except at its inner side, where there is a chamber
about two yards in length by one in breadth. This
inner chamber had been used as a sepulchre, in which
were found bones referable to sixteen persons of dif-
ferent ages. The mouth of the cave had been closed
with a slab of dolomite, and on the terrace in front,
and under the overhanging ledge, was a hearth of
stones which had been used for funeral feasts, and
around which were the bones of many animals, all

THE INSTINCT OF IMMORTALITY. 297

recent, but some now locally extinct, as, for example,
the reindeer. With regard to the age of this sepul-
chre, it is later than the earliest human age of Europe,
when we know from other evidence that the country
was inhabited by a race of gigantic stature and physi-
cally similar to the best developed of the American
races. But it is older than the historic age, and be-
longs to a time when the earlier race had been replaced
by another of smaller stature, but still Mongolian or
Turanian in features, and corresponding to the Lapps in
Europe and the Esquimaux in America. These, again,
at some unknown period, were replaced by the historic
Celtic and Germanic races. Let us now consider the
manner in which these people buried their dead.

The mixed and disjointed condition of the bones
shows that either the burials took place at long inter-
vals of time, or that the place was a sort of ossuary,
into which bones taken up from a first burial were put,
in the manner we have already described. With the
dead were buried their ornaments and implements.
Among these were pierced pieces of fluor spar and
perforated shells, used no doubt as beads or wampum,
and chipped flint weapons. A plain earthen jar, not
unlike some of those found in ancient American burial-
places, but less ornamented, was found in fragments,
and had probably held provisions for the dead. The
survivors had attempted to perpetuate the memory or
achievements of their deceased friends ; for two slabs
of sandstone were found, one with unknown markings,
the other with the figure of an animal, probably the

298 FOSSIL MEN.

totem of the family or tribe to whom the vault be-
longed. Feasts for the dead must have been a recog-
nised institution, as evidenced by the hearth built for
them, and by the quantity of charcoal, ashes, and bones
upon and around it. Dupont enumerates more than
forty species of quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and fishes,
which had been used in these repasts, and which show
that these people were as omnivorous in their tastes
for animal food, and as skilful in gratifying them, as
are the American Indians. This cave, which in many
respects resembles that of Aurignac, so well described
by Lartet and Lyell, and other tombs of this age, tells
in a manner too plain to admit of contradiction, of the
same hopes with reference to the dead which we have
seen in the funeral rites of pre-historic America.

But there was in Europe a still earlier race. Were
they cognisant of this sublime hope ? We have, it is
true, few indications of their beliefs ; but what we have
show that, while physically a superior race to that
which succeeded them, they were equally, in their own
judgment, heirs of a future life.* I have already re-
ferred to the carvings in the cave of Bruniquel, in
France, probably belonging to this most ancient human
age, as evidence of their belief in God. Of the sepul-
chral caves of this period I may take that of Mentone,
already noticed, as evidence of their identity with the
Americans in the belief in immortality.

* It should be noted however, that the Bible gives reason to
believe that the chief sin of antediluvian times was a disregard
of God and a future life.

THE INSTINCT OF IMMORTALITY. 299

The first human skeleton found in this cave has
been beautifully illustrated in the photographs pub-
lished by Dr. Riviere. It was discovered under about
twenty feet of material, which is characterized as chiefly
ashes and cinders of fires, mixed with the bones of
recent and extinct mammalia, flint flakes, and shells.
The locality, as described by Dr. Riviere, is not likely,
unless great changes of level have occurred, to have
been inhabited by a settled tribe, but is rather a
maritime pass between France and Italy, where large
bodies of men may have resided for a time in the
course of migrations, or of hunting and military ex-
peditions. The skeleton is that of a man of great
stature, who must have been a hunter or warrior, of
physical type decidedly Turanian, and akin to that of
the aborigines of North America ; while his limb-bones
have the development of muscular processes charac-
teristic of men who walk much through rough forests,
and his arm-bones are those of a hunter rather than of
a man familiar with steady manual labour. This body
lay extended in an easy position, as if, says its dis-
coverer, he had died in his sleep. There is no evidence
of violent death, though he may have died from the
effects of a flesh or internal wound, not leaving traces
on the skeleton. He had evidently been buried by his
friends in a cave previously used as a habitation, and
afterwards occupied for a long time in the same way.

As interpreted by American usages, the interment
may be explained thus. A war-party returning from
an unsuccessful expedition into France or Italy, halted

300 FOSSIL MEN.

at the caves of Mentone; and here a wounded man,
whom they had been carrying with them, expired, and
was hastily buried in the cave, perhaps in the hope
that they might be able to return at some future time
and convey the bones to the tomb of his fathers. They
laid a few stones around the body of the dead, as a
substitute for the cromlech, or funeral cyst, and buried
him with an ornamented helmet of shell on his head,
shell armlets and anklets, and his robes of fur wrapped
around him. His arms had probably been left on the
field of battle, and there were no spoils to bury with
him. The only thing they possessed, or which the
neighbourhood afforded, to promote his welfare in the
land of spirits, was a little iron oxide, carried with them
to be ground into war paint. With this they, no doubt,
painted his face ; but they appear to have sprinkled it
over him, and to have placed a little additional supply
in a hollow in front of his head, that he might appear
in his proper character in the spirit land. All this was
precisely what American Indians would do in a similar
case ; and perhaps his companions, before they sorrow-
fully departed, sang his death-song, and kindled over
his grave the fire of a funeral feast, as well to honour
his memory as to prevent pursuing foes from disturbing
his remains. The next occupants of the cave probably
knew nothing of the burial, and the' friends of the dead
did not return to reclaim his remains ; so he lay un-
disturbed till disinterred by Dr. Riviere, and removed
to the Parisian Museum.

If, as there is every reason to believe, this is an

THE INSTINCT OF IMMORTALITY. 301

interment of the oldest Palaeolithic or " Mammoth "
Age, the antediluvian age of history, we learn from it
that the people of that age were of very high physical
organization, and very closely resembled the American
type j and their manner of interment shows that they
shared with the Americans and with their successors
of the Eeindeer Age a belief in a hereafter, along with
its accompanying regard for the proper interment of
the dead.

Before leaving this part of the subject, it may be
well to refer to the very small number of human re-
mains of the Palaeolithic Age found in Europe. Not
only have few burial-places been found, but those
discovered contain very few skeletons compared with
those found in American cemeteries and ossuaries.
This cannot be accounted for by supposing that the
dead were left unburied, since it is clear that in the case
of both the men of the Mammoth and Keindeer Ages
burial was practised, and this in the case of women
and children as well as men. It is, however, quite
possible that, like the Americans and Papuans, they
may have ordinarily placed their dead on wooden stages
or in shallow graves covered with wood and bark, and
that the cave interments may be exceptional. If not,
then it is evident either that these primaeval tribes, were
sparsely scattered over the country and very small, or
that the period of their occupancy was very limited.

It is also worthy of remark that the different kinds
of burial, as in the earth or on stages, in the sitting
posture or extended, in caves, in ossuaries, or under

302 FOSSIL MEN.

tumuli, and also cremation, have their representatives
on both sides of the Atlantic. What may be called
the house-tomb, representing the habitation of the
deceased person when in life, is world- wide in its ex-
tension. It is seen in the lodge of the western Indian
or the winter-house of the Esquimaux closed up and
converted into a sepulchre, in the gallery graves,
dolmens and chambered barrows of Europe, and in the
rock-cut tombs of Etruria, Egypt, and the East, and
the chamber-tombs of Peru. In all cases it points to
the idea of a house of the dead corresponding to that
of the living, and has no obscure connection with the
belief in a resurrection of the body. The tumulus, in
every style, from the little grave-mound of a country
churchyard, or of an ordinary Indian burial-place, to
the ossuaries of the Hurons, the huge mounds of the
Ohio, the barrows of Europe and Asia, and the pyra-
mids of Egypt, which are merely great stone tumuli,
is common to the most varied tribes, and in its grander
forms is a regal tomb, equally in America and the
Old World. The descriptions of such burials in Homer,
probably refer to customs of extreme antiquity even
in his days, and they are obviously identical with
those of the more civilized tribes of America. The
body laid on the pyre and buried with precious offer-
ings and with animal sacrifices, and the whole covered
with a lofty mound of heaped-up earth, not forgetting
the war-dance around the pyre and the funeral feast,
are all equally applicable to the Alleghans and other
tribes of America, to whom the Homeric song of the

THE INSTINCT OP IMMORTALITY. 303

burial of Hector or Patroclus would be as intelligible
as the death- song of one of their own warriors.

What shall we say, then, of this instinct of immor-
tality, handed down through all the generations of
pre-historic and savage men, and prompting to costly
funeral rites ? Is it a mere fancy, a baseless super-
stition? Is it not rather a god-given feature of a
spiritual nature yearning after a lost earthly immor-
tality, and clinging to the hope of a better being in a
future life ? And is it not, after all, inseparable from
the belief in a God, whose children we are, and who
can transfer us from this lower sphere to better man-
sions in His own heavenly home ? Is the " Monist "
or Materialist who looks with indifference on death as
the close of certain physical changes and nothing more,
or who shrinks from it as a hopeless annihilation, on
any higher mental or moral platform than the savage
who departs chanting his death- song and looking
forward to meeting with the shades of his fathers in
the happy hunting-grounds ? Is he not rather on a
level with those more degraded savage tribes, if there
are such, who have lost the pre-historic faith without
receiving anything better, and who regard the future
either as a mere blank or as an unknown and terrible
mystery ? How much happier than either are those
on whose last days shines the brighter hope of the
light and immortality revealed by the Grospel !

In the present state of religious opinion among our-
selves, and in view of the strange and absurd logo-
machies which have raged as to the doctrine of a

304 FOSSIL MEN.

future life in the Old Testament, it may be necessary
to refer to the actual connection between the doctrines
of the Holy Scriptures and the instinct of immortality
referred to in the preceding pages. In Genesis man
appears at first as endowed with an immortality both
physical and spiritual. This tradition of primitive
immortality, and the instinctive longing for an im-
mortal life implied in it, the Christian should hold as
not a possession of the Hebrews only, but of the whole
human race ; and it should be, as it is, next to the
belief in God, the second great doctrine of universal
religion. The promise of a Redeemer to restore the
immortality lost by the fall, is the next doctrine of the
revealed religion, and, as we have seen, this also is
embodied in all the creeds of the nations, though in
strangely distorted forms. The translation of Enoch
in antediluvian times is another primitive testimony
of the Old Testament, which, if we regard it as an
historical fact, must have served to deepen the belief
in the future life both of body and soul. It is to be
observed that all these primitive testimonies go to
establish not only the immortality of the soul, but also
of the body; that is, the doctrine of the resurrection.
It is clear, therefore, that these doctrines lie at the
base of the religion of the Old Testament, and that
without them it would be nothing. If they are not
often dwelt upon in the Hebrew Scriptures, this is
because they were not doubted or disbelieved even by
the heathen, and because there was more need to in-
sist on the immediate beliefs and duties of life.

THE INSTINCT OF IMMORTALITY. 305

At the same time, in the ancient Hebrew Church,
and still more among the heathen, much obscurity
hung over the immediate future of the human soul.
Death was ever a patent fact, and what the state of
the disembodied soul in " Sheol," and how or when it
would be reunited to a body, were not known to man.
Job might believe, notwithstanding the decay of his
body, that with his own eyes he would see God, but
this would be in the latter days. Martha might know
that her brother would rise again at the last day. This
was the common-sense faith of readers of the Old
Testament before the Christian era ; but it remained
for Jesus to raise the veil from the intermediate state,
and to bring "life and immortality to light/' This
He does by His own teaching that the believer in Him
can ' ' never die ; " that is, that to him death is not
really death, but the entrance at once into a higher
and broader life in and with Christ, who is Himself
the "resurrection and the life;" by His declaration to
the thief on the cross, " To-day shalt thou be with Me
in Paradise;" and by His own personal resurrection
as the " first fruits of them that sleep." Thus to the
Christian, not only are the future life and the resurrec-
tion more sure and plain than they could be to the
Jew, but all the terrors of the intermediate state are
taken away — the soul unclothed by death is at once
" clothed upon," to be absent from the body is to be
" present with the Lord," to leave the earthly taber-
nacle'is to enter a "mansion in the Father's house"
prepared by the risen Saviour. True it is that these

x

306 FOSSIL MEN.

doctrines are yet only partially received by many
calling themselves Christians; but surely happy are
they who believe, and whose lives are heightened and
ennobled by such belief. Yet it is well for them to
remember that, to some small extent, these beliefs
have been shared by the pious souls of all ages and
peoples, and that the existence of the belief in God
and immortality, even among the lowest races, is an
element of hope, as presenting some opening and
implying some capacity for higher truths.

CHAPTER XI.

UNITY AND CONTINUITY.

IF any definite impression has been left on the mind
of the reader of the preceding chapters, it must have
been akin to that which fixed itself upon the wisest
of the Hebrews when he exclaimed, "The thing that
hath been is that which shall be, and that which
is done is that which shall be done, and there is
nothing new under the sun." This is in some re-
spects an unsatisfactory result, falling far short in its
sensational effect of the discovery of a new and extinct
species of man, or even of a very essential difference
in manners and habits of thought between the men
of hoar antiquity and those of to-day. Yet this con-
clusion, tame and prosaic though it may appear, opens
most important questions both as to the past and
future of our race, some of which we may profitably
discuss.

What is the ultimate meaning of that marvellous
resemblance which obtains between pre-historic and
modern men ? Does it point to a common origin
and historical affiliation of all races ? Is it the result
of some process of necessary evolution through which
every race must pass, as the individual man passes
through successive stages from infancy to maturity ?

308 FOSSIL MEN.

Is it a consequence of a fixed instinct, like that of the
bee and beaver ? Is it merely the effect of the action
of similar powers and wants on similar resources ; or,
to put it in the other way, of similar surroundings on
tendencies and powers in the main similar ?

Views of one or other of these kinds have floated
before the minds of writers on the subject, either
singly or in combination of two or more of them.
Nor are they inconsistent with one another. Primi-
tive instincts and tendencies implanted in man at the
first may have tended to develop themselves along
certain lines among all peoples, and the influence of
surrounding circumstances and means may have been
in the main similar, though with subordinate differ-
ences of detail. These have been the material or
terrestrial causes of the unity with diversity which
characterises our species, and to these we have only
to add such spiritual influences from without as may
have acted directly on man's soul either for good
or evil, and such new thoughts and purposes as may
have been struck out from the interaction of human
minds, or by the appearance of men of rare and ex-
ceptional powers.

Looking thus upon the current of human affairs,
two great truths are apparent. First, unity of result
from the influence of all these complicated causes
upon human nature implies to the naturalist unity of
origin and genetic affiliation, just as surely as if the
perfect genealogical tree of the human race from its
origin were in our hands. Second, the earliest arts,

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 309

inventions, and beliefs of the race are those which
must determine its course in all time. In ever-
widening circles they may decay in power, or may be
crossed and affected by other ripples on the surface,
but they must proceed to its circumference in time
and space. With unity of origin and continuity of
descent, it is certain that modern men must be the
product of the original nature of man, with the effects
of all the causes acting on it from the first, and that
the earliest of these influences must be the most potent
and the most widespread.

Any true science of man must therefore go back
to his origin, and trace out his primitive conditions
and their results, and our best means for doing this
are the remains of primitive men, and those less
modified races which still exist. It may depend on
our previous tendencies and the methods we pursue,
whether we find ourselves, with many modern inquirers,
brought back to the presence of a simian ancestor of
our race, destitute of nearly all that now characterizes
it, or to a perfect primeval man endowed by his Maker
with all those qualities which essentially distinguish
humanity. I propose in this concluding chapter to
show by American facts that the latter is the true
conclusion of archaeology, as it is of sacred history,
and in doing this I shall refer to some additional
points not previously mentioned, so as to give greater
interest to the discussion, and to notice shortly some
important facts relating to primitive man, which space
has not permitted us to consider in detail.

310 FOSSIL MEN".

It is a common popular statement, that the lan-
guages of the American continent are innumerable
and mutually unintelligible. In a very superficial
sense this is true ; but more profound investigation
shows that the languages of America are essentially
one. Their grammatical structure, while very com-
plex, is on the same general principles throughout.
But grammar is after all only the clothing of language.
Its essence consists in its root words, which bear a
definite relation to the mental habits and vocal organs
of the speaker, and very often equally definite relations
to the things spoken of. Now, multitudes of root
words are identical in the American languages over
vast areas, some of them with precisely the same
senses, and others with various shades of analogical
meaning. If we leave out of the account purely
imitative words, as those derived from the voices of
animals and from natural sounds, which necessarily
resemble each other everywhere, it will be found that
the most persistent words are those like "God,"
" house," " man," which express objects or ideas of
constant recurrence in the speech of everyday life,
and which, in consequence, become most perfectly
stereotyped in the usage of rude peoples. Further,
a very slight acquaintance with these languages is
sufficient to show that they are connected with the
older languages of the Eastern continent by a great
variety of the more permanent root words, and with
some even in grammatical structure. So persistent
is this connection in time, that pages might be filled

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 311

with modern English, French, or German words which
are allied to those of the Algonquin tribes, as well as
to the oldest tongues of Europe and the East. The
time is probably approaching when it will be admitted
that all languages are radically the same, and that
they all have their roots in those archaic forms of
speech to which we apply the term Turanian. Whence
this unity of language ? Can it have sprung from the
independent growth of thought and language in many
centres, or from the slow development of speech
through countless generations of semi-brutal and
semi-articulate men ? Does it not rather point to
the formation of language at no very distant date
chronologically, and among rational and thoughtful
beings, and also to a time when the earth was of
" one tongue and of one speech " ?

We have had frequent occasion to mention the
identity of implements and weapons in the Old World
and the New in pre -historic and modern times. This
may arise from the fact that in all countries the same
substances are in the main offered as the raw material
of human industry. Stone, clay, wood, bone, and
native metals have similar properties everywhere.
The sharp edges of flint chips, the toughness of green-
stone, the ductility of native gold and native copper,
commend themselves alike to the aboriginal artisan
in all countries. Eising a step beyond this, the
different specific gravities of different substances,
the leverage gained by handles, the use of elasticity
in urging projectiles, and other properties of bodies,

312 FOSSIL MEN.

might readily attract the attention of men everywhere.
Still further, the use and preparation of pigments and
dyes, of various kinds of medicinal herbs, of narcotics
and stimulants, of pyrite and flint and drills as means
of securing fire, are less obvious, but still not difficult
to be reached. The natural cave or leafy bower may
suggest a house or hut, and the means of constructing
it. The rudest savage may cross a river on a floating
log. Thought and invention lead him to hollow the
log into a canoe, or to construct a lighter and more
portable vessel of bark or hide, and in doing this he
has already mastered all the elements of the ship.
Clay may be moulded by a child into any form it
pleases; accident, observed and reasoned on, may
teach that it can be baked, and the art of the potter
arises. That such things have been done among all
races and in all times bespeaks not merely similar
resources, but the action on these of the same human
thought 5 and also that this must have been active at
a time so early that similar arts have branched into
all races of men, yet so modern that the time is
historically recent when many aboriginal arts were
universally practised in their most primitive forms.

Indeed, when we consider the identity of the arts
of implement-making, fire-kindling, basket-making,
spinning and weaving, pottery, carving, and many
others; with special peculiarities, — as in the boomerang,
the ornamentation of vessels, the special patterns of
harpoons, — we can scarcely avoid the conclusion that
not only are all men of one origin, but that in early

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 313

antediluvian times there must have been a special
mental activity in the way of invention and discovery,
not surpassed in subsequent ages, and perhaps not
equalled until our modern days. With all this ac-
cumulated knowledge, man must have made his debut
in the early seats of post-diluvian population.

The tally as a means of recording numbers is found
on pre-historic human sites in Europe, though, as
already suggested, some supposed tallies may in reality
have been used in playing games. It is universal
among rude tribes, and occurs, to some extent, among
civilized nations. Man must have begun his existence
as an enumerator, and counting is a difficult matter,
especially where large numbers are concerned.* Fur-
ther, so soon as we begin to add and subtract, we
have launched ourselves on the boundless sea of
mathematics. So the tally, with its outgrowth of the
quipa, the wampum string, and the abacus or reckon-
ing frame, came into use to economize thought and
memory, and to preserve records of numbers. But
thought and memory must have already existed before
even the rudest tally could be of use. Catlin records,
in his notes on the American Indians, a curious illus-
tration of the failure of this primitive method, in the
case of two Indians from the western prairies, who,
being about to travel in the United States, undertook
to reckon up the lodges of the white man as they

° Custom makes us unfamiliar with the primary difficulty
of abstract numeration, which we perceive, however, in chil-
dren and in some low savage tribes, in whom disuse has im-
paired this faculty or prevented it from being developed.

314 FOSSIL MEN.

would have done those of the encampment of a neigh-
bouring tribe. They provided themselves with long
wands, and as they dropped down the Missouri, made
a notch for every house. The rods were soon filled,
and then they provided others ; but still the numbers
grew, and at length, when the steamer reached the
city of St. Louis, they threw their tallies into the river,
and gave up the hopeless attempt. The tally and its
analogues mark man as a reckoning animal with
mathematical possibilities, and while they take us
very near to the beginning of all things in this direc-
tion, they introduce us to a being so like ourselves,
that when we are required to reckon up any large
number, we are fain to have recourse to his primitive
expedient. Pre-historic and antediluvian genealogies
must have been kept on tallies akin in principle to
the knotted cords of the Peruvians; and it is not im-
possible that some of these may yet be recovered for
comparison with the numbers in Genesis which have
excited so much scepticism and controversy. We are
told that the Peruvians thus kept the reckoning of the
events of their lives, and their" personal quipas were
buried with them ; and this even in the case of young
children, the events of whose lives might be repre-
sented by a very few knots. Careful search should
be made in all repositories of the remains of pre-
historic men for records of this kind; and judging
from American analogies, it may be found that some
of the unintelligible marks on old stone monuments
are intended to denote dates and numbers.

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 315

One of the most remarkable of the links which bind
together all nations of men as of one blood, is the
method in which they reckon consanguinity and
descent. The truth is, that some of the rudest peoples
have more systematic methods of this kind than those
known to ourselves, and that these primitive products
of human thought and experience have been handed
down through the channels of descent from the most
remote times. Morgan,* in his elaborate work on the
" Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human
Family," has shown that two distinct systems now
exist — the Descriptive, in which a few terms express-
ing primary relationships are combined so as to
express the more divergent and distant connections
till they disappear in nameless divergences ; and the
Classificatory, in which the divergent relationships
are brought back to the main line by classifying them
with the relationships most resembling them, as when
my brothers' sons, are called my sons instead of being,
as in the other mode, my nephews.

Between these two methods men have from a very
early age been divided. The Indo-European or Aryan
nations, the Semitic nations, and that portion of the
Turanian stock known as the Uralian, use the descrip-
tive mode. The whole of the peoples of Eastern Asia,
Polynesia, and America, use the classificatory mode ;
and as this is the mode of the most stationary and
unprogressive peoples, it is probable that it is the
primitive method, from which the more advanced
* " Smithsonian Contributions," vol. xvii.

316 FOSSIL MEN.

nations diverged into the descriptive system. In
illustration of this, I may state that while the reckon-
ing of consanguinity among the Greeks,, Romans, and
Celts is the same with our own, that of the Tamil
races of India, the Chinese, and the Mongolians of
North Asia, is identical with that of the American
races.

Nothing can more distinctly mark a unity of origin
and descent than such facts as these j but their sig-
nificance is far more profound than at first appears.
Morgan holds, as do also Lubbock and McLennan in
treating of this subject, that the classificatory mode
points back to a time when there was no institution
of marriage or family relationship. In this, however,
they go beyond the limits of fair deduction. The
reckoning of consanguinity in any form presupposes
the family relation, without which man would be in
this matter on a level with the lower animals, and it
can give no information as to any previous state in
which no family relation existed. Further, the help-
less condition and slow growth of the human infant,
physiologically imply that man is eminently a pairing
animal ; and thus even animal analogies preclude the
supposition that there ever was a time when marriage
did not exist. Where promiscuous intercourse, poly-
gamy, or polyandry occur, we have evidence of vicious
social inventions unsuited to the healthy continuance
of the race.

It is clear, however, that the classificatory system
points back to a time when there were no prohibited

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 317

degrees of relationship, and this accords with its high
antiquity > for the origin of men from a single pair
implies in the earlier generations of mankind the
intermarriage of the nearest relatives. The Book of
Genesis, it is true, passes this over in silence, but we
can detect evidence in the marriages of Abraham and
the patriarchs, that even in their days the union of
near blood relations was considered proper ; and even
the Mosaic prohibitions were only written for the great
brotherhood of Israel, into which all Israelites were
supposed to marry. It is further undoubtedly implied
in the Old Testament history, that the classificatory
system of consanguinity was that of antediluvian times,
and perhaps continued in full force till the divergence
which is indicated in the story of the dispersion from
Babel.

As a special illustration of the primitive laws of con-
sanguinity in force among the Americans, we may take
those of the Iroquois as detailed by Morgan, and this
will introduce us to a new and curious parallelism with
the Old Testament. Among these people each nation
was divided into eight tribes, designated respectively
by the totems of the Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Deer,
Snipe, Heron, and Hawk. No member of any of
these tribes could marry within his or her tribe. The
husband or wife must in every case be from a tribe of
different name. Further, the tribal descent was in the
female line, the husband joining the tribe of his wife,
and the children being reckoned as of her tribe. All
the women of a tribe or family were thus nearly re-

318 FOSSIL MEN.

lated, while the men might be derived from different
tribes. It was consequently easy for large numbers of
families to live together in " long houses/' or in com-
munistic edifices, and to have all things in common,
for the women, on whom the domestic arrange-
ments devolved, were all relations, and had been
brought up together from infancy. The union of the
women in this way also gave them great power and
influence. These arrangements were widely spread,
probably almost universal, in primitive America, and
constitute the key to the social institutions of the
people as well as to their - reckoning of consanguinity.
It will be found in detail in Morgan's book already
referred to; and Lahontan enters into a curious defence
of it in an imaginary dialogue with a Huron chief, who
contrasts most unfavourably the selfishness and avarice
which arose from the European arrangements, with
the morality of his own people. Had the Huron chief
been instructed in the Old Testament, he might have
strengthened his argument by a reference to the
saying there attributed to the first man: "Therefore
shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall
cleave unto his wife/' which implies that the husband
goes with the wife rather than the wife with the
husband. If I am not mistaken, this also appears
in the negotiation of Eleazar for a wife for Isaac, and
in the claim of Laban that Jacob should remain in
his tribe as having married his daughters. It is pro-
bable that this primitive relation of the sexes was
before our Lord's mind when He quoted this passage

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 319

in opposition to the Jewish practice of divorce, with
the comment, f( From the beginning it was not so."
This is not the only instance in which we have seen
archaic customs recorded in the Book of Genesis crop-
ping up in our investigations of pre-historic men, and
vindicating the statement that from the beginning
man was the same thinking and organizing being that
he still is. Perhaps some social reformers of our
own day might be more successful if, instead of look-
ing back to dreary ages of barbarism, out of which
we are supposed to have emerged, they could refer to
a " beginning " in which, if simpler, men were wiser
than they are now. If they will not go back as far
as Adam and paradise, it might even be profitable to
study the classificatory relationships of the old Turan-
ians and the tribal communism of the American
Indians, as the only possible kinds of community of
goods in the present imperfect condition of human
nature, and as having been successful even in the
great communistic tribes of the Pueblo Indians and
ancient Toltecans and Mexicans, to which I referred in
a previous chapter.

In his recently published ff Etruscan Kesearches,"
Isaac Taylor has arrived by other routes at many of
the conclusions sketched in this chapter. He regards
with much reason the ancient Etruscans as a Turanian
people, either aborigines of Italy or migrants into it
in pre-historic times, or partly of both origins. He
shows that among them descent was in the female
line, as among the Americans and Old World Tura-

320 FOSSIL MEN.

nians, and that it is probable that " exogamy/3 or the
marriage of women with husbands of other tribes,
prevailed among them. Following other writers
above referred to, however, he falls into the error of
tracing these customs to a supposed primitive period
of promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. He further
shows that the Etruscans, as tomb-builders, as be-
lievers in the immortality of the soul, and in manitous
or spirits, and in having medicine-men, or shamans,
rather than priests, were essentially Turanian and
American. Much that he says of the tombs of the
Etruscans is perfectly applicable to those of the Peru-
vians and of the Alleghans, and the relations which
he traces between the funeral rites and sepulchres of
these more civilized nations and the ruder Ugrian
tribes of Europe and Asia are precisely parallel to the
similar relations of the more cultivated and ruder
nations in America. The words in which he sums up
his conclusions on these points deserve quotation here,
as most significant with reference to our present pur-
pose. " The vast and numerous monuments which
constitute the tombs of this (the Turanian) race can
always be recognised ; they exhibit a most remarkable
and most significant unity of design and purpose.
These tombs are all developments of one hereditary
type ; they are all the expressions of one hereditary
belief, and they all serve the purposes of one great
hereditary cultus. The type on which they are
modelled is the house. The belief which they express
is the fundamental truth which has been the great

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 321

contribution of the Turanian race to the religious
thought of the world — the belief in the deathlessness
of souls. The cultus which they serve is the worship
of the spirits of ancestors, which is the Turanian
religion. The creed of the Turanians was Animism.
They believed that everything animate or inanimate
had its soul or spirit ; that the spirits of the dead
could still make use of the spirits of the weapons, orna-
ments, and utensils they had used in life., and could be
served by the spirits of their slaves, their horses, and
their dogs, and needed for their support the spirits of
those articles of food on which they had been used to
feed." Hence, he goes on to say, we find in their
tombs the warrior with his weapons, the woman with
her domestic utensils, the child with the faithful dog
to guide it to the better land, and the tomb in all
respects the counterpart of the house, only more
durable and costly. Nor can we fail to see in the
Animism of the Turanians and Americans the rem-
nants of a rooted belief in a spiritual intelligence
above man. In the Hebrew Scriptures the Spirit of
God moving upon the face of the waters is the initial
step in evolving order out of chaos, light out of
darkness, life out of the inanimate. Hence the
Hebrew not only recognised the Divine Spirit as a
light of his own soul and the origin of the inspira-
tion of prophets, but as shining in the sun, glowing
in the flowers, singing in the birds, rustling in the
wind. To him all nature, the whole cosmos, was the
product of the one Spirit. So it should be to us also

Y

322 FOSSIL MEN.

in the Christian dispensation; and in so holding,
though we rise above the primeval Animism, we justify
it as at least a low and childlike way of recognising
the one God, just as the funeral gifts buried with the
dead constitute a simple testimony to the belief in the
immortality of the soul.

We have passed from the tribal communism and
the descent in the female line to the doctrine of
immortality, but not unintentionally. Just as we
find these things united in that old primitive race,
whose fragments exist everywhere over the world, so
do we find them in our oldest written history. The
God-given woman, the man leaving father and mother
and cleaving to his wife, the lost immortality by the
woman's means, and its destined recovery by her
seed, are no less familiar doctrines to every Sunday-
school child among us than they are ingredients in
the creeds of all primitive peoples, from the days of
the pre-historic cave-dwellers until now. Are they
not landmarks of some importance in connection with
all inquiries as to the origin and unity of our species ?

Pre-historic and other ancient men, both in the Old
and New World, must have had poetical tendencies,
leading them to attribute their own views and feelings
to natural objects. We read this even in their carved
implements and ornaments ; and the same mythical
and poetical representation of nature which we see in
the most ancient poetry is still extant among the
ruder races. Multitudes of poetical tales and legends
have been written down from the lips of old Indian

„.

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 323

men and women. As a specimen, I may mention an
unpublished myth collected "by Mr. Rand among the
Micmacs. It is a story of the adventures of the
" Rushing Wind and Rolling Wave/' personified as-
young men who set out on their travels, and who pass
through many adventures, all more or less related to
their proper characters. They combine to overthrow
the cabins of a village that they may enjoy the con-
fusion of the inmates. They go on a hunting expedi-
tion, and drive before them multitudes of birds and
fish, and they throw down trees to kill the deer and
other wild animals of the forest . Finally, after roving
around the world and working much mischief and
some good on land and sea, they are married to two
lovely girls, named respectively the Calm and the
Sea- foam, and by these their rude energies are sub-
dued, so that always the storm and the calm alternate
with each other, and waves rage only for a time, and
then subside in stillness and creamy foam. Such
plays of fancy are obviously the rudiments of true
poetic myths, and would require only the knowledge
of letters to be developed into poetry like that which
comes down to us from ancient India and Greece.

As a specimen of a lighter style, I may give from
Schoolcraft the Song of the Frog in Spring, when it
awakes from its winter torpor and complains in its shrill
and monotonous evening songs of the long oppres-
sion of the frost and snow. Every one who has listened
to the batrachian chorus which in a spring evening
in America issues from every swamp and pond, can

324 FOSSIL MEN.

appreciate the natural fact to which it relates. The ver-
bal parallelism in this little piece is as characteristic
of American song as of that of the early East.

SONG OF THE OKOGIS.

See how the white spirit presses us,
Presses us, — presses us, heavy and long,
Presses us down to the frost-bitten earth.
Alas ! ye are heavy, ye spirits so white ;
Alas ! ye are cold — ye are cold — ye are cold.
Ah! cease, shining spirits that fall from the skies,
Ah ! cease so to crush us and keep us in dread ;
Ah ! when will you vanish and spring-time return ?

The names of the constellations come down to us
from the most remote antiquity, modified by Greek
myths, but not of Greek origin ; and they testify both
to that tendency to transfer our own thoughts to the
universe around us to which I have already referred,
and to the application of the totemic system of
emblems to the heavenly bodies. It is, therefore, not
wonderful that the Americans should, like the men
of the East in the days of Job, have names and sym-
bols for those most important in their relations to
man, but it is a more striking and significant fact that
these apparently arbitrary names should be the same
with those of the Old World. It is still more curious
that they should in some cases serve to supplement
and illustrate the application of these names. The
Great Bear, from its prominence in the northern sky
and its connection with the pole-star — " the star that
does not move " — of the Americans, is as likely as
any other to have had its name handed down from age

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 325

to age. Accordingly, ifc is named the Bear among the
Algonquin tribes. The Greek fable explains the name
by the story of Callisto, one of the attendants of
Artemis, who is the equivalent of Atahensic, the first
mother. Through the jealousy of Juno, Callisto is
changed into a she-bear, and Zeus, fearful that the
hunters would destroy her, transferred her to the
heavens as the magnificent constellation still named
the Great Bear. Whatever the origin of the story, it
has a very archaic aspect. The Greek Bear, however-,
comes down to us without the hunters, and conse-
quently, in our maps of the stars, it is furnished with
a preternaturally long tail, which has apparently led
to other names being given to it. The Micmacs,
however, who call it the bear (Mouin), name the stars
of the tail the three hunters, and these have as their
totemic names, Pules (the pigeon), Chigogeck (the tit--
mouse), and Chipchawitch (the robin) ; all of which,,
by the way, are onom atop oe tic, and recall similar
names in more familiar tongues. A small star near
one of the hunters is the Kettle which he carries, and
Berenice's Hair is the Bear's Den. We can scarcely
doubt that this myth and its astronomical application
belong to a time when the root-stocks of the Hellenic
or Pelasgic populations were still one with those of
the Algonquins, that the importance of the Great Bear
as a mark in the sky has caused its name to be per-
petuated, and that among the Americans the tradition
survives in a more complete and less corrupt form
than among ourselves.

326 FOSSIL MEN.

It seems a general fact that primitive men have
traditions of giants and dwarfs of the olden time.
•Our own ancestors believed in lotuns, huge and ter-
rible, and in elves and fairies ; and we still have in
our sacred writings the Nephilim of antediluvian times,
.and in our literature the Titans of classical mythology.
So the old Micmacs of Nova Scotia and their relatives
of the Algonquin race had Kukwes, or gig antes — men
in form but immense in stature, gifted with magical
power, cannibals, and associated in their minds with
the power of the frost and ice — veritable lotuns or
Titans, and with stories connected with them in every
way comparable with those in our own folk-lore. They
had also little people, or fairies, with the same attri-
butes with those of our nursery tales ; and Kitpoos, or
Gepuchican, was their Puck, or Gobelin, of whom the
most strange and romantic stories are told. He is
,a giant-killer, and represents the victory of intellect
and cunning over brute force without intelligence, as
embodied in the giants, I have before me many
genuine Indian tales relating to these beings, but it
would be tedious to reproduce them here. The main
questions are as to the origin of such stories and the
reason of their general diffusion. The only satisfactory
explanation is, that they are based in some way on
historical facts. Nilsson has conclusively shown that
the giants and skrelings of the northern sagas repre-
sent respectively the Scandinavian and Finnish races,
as contesting in early times the possession of Scan-
dinavia, though the names may refer to still older facts

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 327

than these. It is no longer possible to smile at the
antediluvian giants of Genesis, since we now know
from actual remains that the earliest race disinterred
from caves in the Old World was of gigantic physical
power, and that this was succeeded by a feebler race,
who must, locally at least, have been contemporary
with the other. Here we have undoubtedly the primi-
tive historical truth that includes all these traditions,
which, though coloured by the fancies of different
races of men, are essentially the same all over the
world.

The traditions of our race point back to golden
days of simplicity and innocence. They tell of retro-
gression rather than of improvement, and attribute
the advance in the arts and the elevation of the race
to great heroes of the times of old. Is there a basis
of archaeological and historical truth for this ?

The first answer to the question is an obvious one.
Man must have originated in a mild climate, and must
primarily have been a gatherer of the fruits of the
earth. Even though the oldest remains of men ever
found should be those of rude hunters living in cold
climates, it will still remain an irrefragable physio-
logical deduction from the structure of the human
frame, that this could not have been the earliest con-
dition of man. This accords with the American facts,
which show that, leaving out the irruptions of rude
races from Northern Asia, the primitive peoples existed
in the fertile plains of the south, and lived on the
produce of the soil. Let it be observed, also, that this

328 FOSSIL MEN.

is in the main the Condition of the Australasian and
Polynesian peoples, and of the primitive men of South-
eastern Asia, the most isolated and least modified of
men next to the Americans. It follows that the first
industry must have been agriculture, or more probably
horticulture; for, as in America and Polynesia, the
tillage of the soil by man probably began ages before
he had any domestic animals to aid him. Without
realizing this, and picturing to ourselves the condition
of the primitive populations, tilling the ground with
rude implements and human toil alone, and with little
agricultural skill, we cannot fully sympathize with that
wail of the patriarch Lamech, which comes to us over
the ages, when he named his son Noah — rest — saying :
"This same shall comfort us concerning our work
and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the
Lord hath cursed." Even in his time the earth was
yielding her riches in too niggard a manner for the
increasing multitudes of men, and the violence born
of selfishness was making life still more hard and
dangerous. He could look back to an Edenic age,
when the land was not cursed ; he could look forward
to a reformer and improver to come, and his lamenta-
tion and his hope recorded in these archaic stories of
Genesis have their parallel in the difficulties and hopes
of every generation of men.

The invention of fire and the use of clothing, both
of the most remote antiquity in the history of our
race, enabled men to subsist in the less genial cli-
mates ; and tradition concurs with sacred history

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 329

in affirming that lawlessness and violence, arising
perhaps in the first instance from struggles for fertile
portions of land, broke up the original unity of man-
kind and produced migrations and the separation of
rude and more polished races, which have ever since
continued. On the one hand, these movements and
contests have been fertile sources of degradation and
retrogression. On the other, they have stimulated the
energies of men, and have tended to bring to the
surface the more vigorous races.

Here arises an inquiry of the highest importance.
How has it happened that the majority of men have
continued for ages in a stationary condition ? How,
on the other hand, has the higher culture, and
especially -that which we call Aryan and Semitic,
grown out of the archaic dead level of the old Turanian
stock, whether agricultural or merely in the hunter
and fisher condition ? On the one hand, we have a
picture of stagnation and fixity ; on the other, of
marvellous advance.

It cannot be denied that pre-historic men were, in
bodily vigour, in volume of brain, in skill of manipu-
lation, on a level with their modern successors ; and
even in their ruder tribes they must have had their
senses and perceptive powers sharpened to a high
degree of perfection by the constant struggle for food,
or against enemies and wild animals ; while their
implements and ornaments show patient industry and
much taste and skill. Thus gifted, we would naturally
suppose that primitive man would speedily rise to a

330 FOSSIL MEN.

higher state. Yet the opposite of this is so notoriously
the case, that it has been a matter of keen controversy
whether the inferior races can raise themselves to
any higher condition, or tend to do so in even a very
slight degree. The Bashkirs of the Ural are said to
be at this day in precisely the condition in which their
ancestors were found by Herodotus, 2,300 years ago.
The negro and Arab tribes are as nearly as possible in
the same state in which they were in the times of the
Pharaohs. There is no reason to believe that the Aus-
tralians, Polynesians, or Americans, if undiscovered by
Europeans, would have been in a more civilized con-
dition a thousand years hence than they were when first
made known to the rest of the world. Why is this ?

One reason is, that it is so much more easy to
imitate than to invent. Only the more rare and ex-
ceptional minds can strike out new paths. Another
is, that the- rude man has few wants, and these few
can be supplied by the means he already has. A
third is, that after he has developed to their full extent
a certain number of industries, he can get no further
without some large and difficult step, as, for example,
the reduction and working of metals, or the intro-
duction of materials from distant parts of the world.
Again, such large steps may be made by accident, as
we say, or, in other words, the active mind may meet
only at rare intervals with those combinations of
causes which lead to invention or discovery. Native
gold and copper found in river gravels were, no doubt,
the first metals known. Gold is the earliest men-

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 331

tioned in Genesis. Meteoric iron, a literally heaven-
descended gift, first made man acquainted with that
metal ; but the step from the native iron to the richer
ores resembling it somewhat in aspect, was so long
and difficult, that it is likely a vast lapse of time inter-
vened before it was made. Some old metallurgist
working in a region like Cornwall, where the ores of
copper and tin occur together, mixed them and pro-
duced bronze, just as the Chinese are said to have
originated nickel silver by smelting mixed ores con-
taining copper, zinc, and nickel. It follows, from
these considerations, that after the invention of a few
arts, indefinite periods of stagnation might ensue, and
the same arts and customs might be stereotyped for
many generations. It follows also that these arts
and customs might be propagated among numerous
nations and tribes without material modification ;
everywhere, as we have seen, bearing evidence at once
of the unity of man and of his comparatively short
residence on the earth.

If we ask how an impetus is to be given to human-
ity, so that change and movement shall occur, history
gives us two answers only, and these closely allied to
each other. One of these we obtain in a very definite
form in sacred history, which we are sometimes apt to
forget represents primitive man, while innocent and
happy, as destitute of even the rudiments of material
civilization. Its story is, that certain gifted men, in
a very primitive age, made the great discoveries on
which material progress has ever since been based.

332 FOSSIL MEN.

Tubal-cain, the first metallurgist, Jubal, the first
musician, and Jabal, who first exchanged the cavern
or the wooden hut for the skin tent of the nomad, and
tamed the larger beasts of burden, these were heroes
of old, men to be deified by succeeding ages. Under
various names, and with various attributes, these and
other great inventors are to be found in all the myth-
ologies of the Old World, and to this America adds
its testimony. Every American nation has its great
demi-god or hero, to whom it ascribes the origin of the
arts of life. Manco Capac of Peru, and Qetzalcoatl
of Mexico, are familiar to all readers of American
history, and Hiawatha, of the Iroquois, is but the same
personage known under different names among all
the American tribes. Among the Micmacs of Nova
Scotia he is Glooscap, a benevolent giant and wonder-
worker, who dwelt apart, but was always near and
accessible to those who sought his aid. He taught
them the arts they knew, had marvellous influence
over all living things, used the wild animals as mes-
sengers, and rode over the sea on whales. Great
rocks and hills represent his kettles and his wigwams,
and the bones which geologists call those of the mas-
todon, belong to the gigantic beaver which he hunted.
He has been driven from the earth in disgust by the
wholesale destruction of wild animals, and the mar-
ring of the face of nature by the settlements of the
whites, but one day he will return to his people and
redeem them from their sins and evils, and restore
them to welfare and happiness.

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 333

The second answer is that which we receive from
the later ages. It relates the advent of more civilized
strangers, who taught the rude nations what they
themselves knew. Perhaps this is implied in the
story of the Peruvian Manco Capac, child of the sun.
The savage aborigines of Greece were visited by
Phoenician traders, and soon themselves learned to
voyage to the East and bring home its stores of know-
ledge. Our own Celtic aborigines were indebted first
to the Phoenician traders visiting the tin islands, next
to the intercourse with Gaul, and then to the Komans,
for their early lessons in civilization. The missionary
of new things may come as an invading soldier, or in
the guise of a trader, of a shipwrecked mariner, or
of a self-denying and laborious teacher ; but he must
come in order that humanity may awake from the
stagnation of semi-barbarism. These two answers are
mutually related. The primary stimulus must arise
from a God-given genius, or a heavenly baptism of the
life-giving Spirit, and when this is given it may pro-
pagate itself from nation to nation by human agency ;
but thus far the stagnant water of humanity has far
exceeded its living and fertilizing streams.

More especially we see these principles in the
divergence of the two great Aryan or Japetic and
Semitic branches from the old Turanian stock. The
motto of the Japetic race has been enlargement and
dispersion, with the eager quest of things new and
strange. The Semitic motto has been to retain the
old landmarks and cultivate the old ground up to its

334 FOSSIL MEN.

highest point of productiveness. The first impulse in
these directions must have been given by great minds
in pre-historic times — probably by minds which, if
contemporary, were violently antagonistic to each
other, and may have rent asunder the old primitive
patriarchal communism by their struggles. Out of
this Babel God has worked His own plans, giving to
the Semitic culture the higher revelations of His
spiritual nature, and to the Japetic culture the higher
control of physical forces and the greater power of
expansion and of propagandism ; while among the
Turanians, the old primitive instincts and habits of
pre-historic men have crystallized themselves into
fossils, or have been weathered away and disintegrated
into barbarism. tf God shall enlarge Japhet, and he
shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan " (the
representative here of unprogressive humanity) " shall
be his servant."

We are now prepared to give, by the help of our
American analogies, a common-sense answer to the
much-agitated question of the primitive barbarism of
man and the origin of civilization. Sacred history
and the materialistic archaeology of the day concur in
the belief that man at first was destitute of the arts.
But from this point they diverge. The former teaches
that man without arts was pure and holy, and in
unison with his Maker, and that, falling from this
condition, one part of mankind simply sunk into bar-
barism, the other grasped at arts and civilization,
introduced by great inventors, as a substitute for or in

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 335

connection with a higher spiritual life. These several
portions have been acting and re-acting on each
other ever since, and also have been acted on by the
remnants of primitive religion and by new influences
emanating from God. The latter, knowing no God
and no spiritual nature in man, supposes him at first a
mere animal in whom the life of intellect and of higher
tastes and feelings has been struck out by physical
causes acting on his organism. There can, I think,
be no hesitation in affirming that our old Biblical
doctrine is the more complete and scientific of the
two, and also that which is most in accord with the
evidence of history and archaeology; while even the
" Animism " of pre-historic peoples may claim kinship
with some of the higher doctrines of spiritual religion,
and so also may the " Shamanism " of the ancient
Turanians and Americans, and of which we find traces
even in Palaeocosmic men.

Among the American tribes, except perhaps some
of the more civilized and advanced communities, no
distinct system of priesthood had been developed.
In this they resembled the men of those patriarchal
times in which the kingly and priestly functions were
conjoined, and were exercised by persons of great age
or of high and recognised gifts. The " ancients"
were the authorities in all religious and ceremonial
matters. The professed medicine-men, or jugglers, or
prophets, rested their claims on a totally different
basis from that of priestly caste or appointment. By
long fasts and urgent invocations, they had acquired

336

FOSSIL MEN.

such intercouse with a beneficent genius or demon,
that through his means they could give information
as to what was passing at a distance or would happen
in the future, discover the sources and cure of diseases,
advise in all difficulties, interpret dreams, and secure
the Divine favour for all enterprises. They were in
the habit of steaming themselves in a vapour bath and
working themselves up into a frenzy^ before deliver-
ing their predictions, which were sometimes given in
song. So correct, occasionally, were their anticipa-
tions, that the French missionaries believed that they
were actually inspired by the Evil One. They had,
however, no political status or authority, and practi-
cally their chief function was that of physicians and
diviners. The better to aid in these functions, they
were not only collectors of herbs and simples, but of
any object of a strange, abnormal, or curious character
that came into the possession of the tribe, so that
the cabin of the " medicine-man " might be a sort of
museum of things rare and curious, or believed to
have some mystic powers. It is very probable that
the Silurian fossils and grotesquely shaped or sculp-
tured stones found on aboriginal Canadian sites have
been part of the apparatus or collections of these
jugglers ; and there is reason to suspect that a similar
explanation may be given of some anomalous objects
found in pre-historic repositories in Europe, as well as
of some of the fossils found in such places. To this
origin should probably be referred some at least of
the carved bones and antlers called by the French

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 337

antiquaries, " Batons of command." Such objects
might have been the horns which conjurors wore on
the head or attached to their rods or staffs, or which
formed part of the rattles or drums which were used in
ceremonies. All these functions constitute what has
been termed " shamanism " among the Mongol tribes ;
and it has been recently shown by Taylor that the
same system prevailed in Etruria, and was the origin
of the Eoman augury. It was in full force among
the Canaanites and other ancient peoples mentioned in
the Pentateuch ; and Balaam, as presented to us there,
is evidently only a superior sort of medicine-man.

Here, again, we have an ancient and universal
instinct of humanity; and, however corrupted, we
may recognise under it a great and Divine truth — that
of the possibility of revelation of the will of God to
man — an instinct capable of the noblest elevation and
also of being the subject of the vilest corruptions and
impostures. It marks out man as a being from the
first not content to be the sport of mere inanimate
forces, and so rising to the conception of a divinity.
It shows him also as feeling in danger, sickness,
bereavement, and approaching death, the need of aid
from above, the presence of a God who could succour
him, the yearning that God would abide with him and
bless him. Let me add, that as an original and God-
given gift, this universal religious instinct, and its sur-
vival among even the most depraved peoples, explains
the universal adaptation of the Christian religion to
the wants of man. Paul perceived that the Athenians

z

338 FOSSIL MEN.

were ' ' very religious " because they had an altar to
the unknown God; and so in every human heart
there is an altar to God as known or unknown, as
a father and a friend, or as an equitable ruler. So
the missionary can find everywhere some response to
the proclamation of Christ, the substitute of sinful
man, the Revealer of the will of God, and to the doc-
trine of the Divine Spirit, the Comforter, dwelling in
and renovating the human soul. Let us not despise
this precious testimony to God written by Himself in
the heart of man, and let us endeavour to cultivate it
to its highest point of Christian spirituality, and to
rescue it from the scathing hand of superstition and
the frosty breath of materialism.

My object, as stated in the first chapter of this
work, has been to bring the testimony of facts relating
to the existing or recently extinct tribes of America,
to aid in correction and counteraction of the crude
views prevalent among European archgeologists as to
the origin and antiquity of the pre-historic men of the
caves, gravels, and peats of the Eastern continent.
The treatment of the subject has necessarily been
meagre and imperfect ; but it will have served its
purpose if it has been suggestive of lines of thought
in harmony with higher views as to the origin and
destinies of men than those which spring from monistic
and materialistic hypotheses of the spontaneous evo-
lution of consciousness, reason, and morality from
merely animal instincts. Perhaps they may also serve
to widen our sympathies with the men of all times

UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 339

and of all grades of practice and belief, and to show
more clearly the underlying unity which subsists in
all the higher hopes and aspirations of humanity.

These considerations must constitute my justifica-
tion for entering into the subjects discussed in this and
the two preceding chapters. {Toj^amine the relics of
fossil men, without regard to the evidence which they
afford of the higher aims and sentiments of human
nature, would- suroly be as •Bfteeiffntifig an& unprofit-
able as it would be to study the structures of fossil
shells and corals without considering their probable
conditions of existence and habits of life.'

APPE NT) IX.

THE subjects treated of in this work are so much discussed
and so rapidly changing in their scientific aspects, that while
the sheets were passing through the press many new points
have presented themselves. A few only of special interest,
more particularly with reference to American facts, will be
here noticed.

ADDRESS or DR. TYLOR.

Some of the latest aspects of the subject are presented in
Dr. Tylor's able address before the Department of Anthropo-
logy of the British Association (August, 1879). He is struck,
in looking back, with the fact that many of the most important
causes of change in language, physical features and other
properties of man, must have done their chief work " in times
before history began." But history, as he understands it,
extends back only to the rise of the old Oriental monarchies,,
say 2000 to 2500 B.C. He takes no note of antediluvian
history, though this is vouched for not only by the record of
Genesis, but now by the lately disinterred records of other
Eastern nations, as well as by almost universal tradition.
This antediluvian age, covering at least twenty centuries,
must on every account have been more fertile of change than
any following period of the same duration, and judging from
the state of the arts at the dawn of post-diluvian history, must
have been more fertile of invention and discovery than the
whole time that has since elapsed. The neglect of these facts,
as well as inattention to the geological evidence of abrupt
changes of the earth's surface, before and since the introduc-
tion of man, greatly influences much of the reasoning of
anthropologists. Tylor also directs attention to the fact, that
the swarthy Turanian races are the founders of civilization;

APPENDIX. 341

that while in most countries an age of stone preceded an age
of metal, this is by no means universal ; and that doctrines as
to nature-myths supposed to have given origin to religious
beliefs, have been pushed to a ridiculous extreme.

MEASUREMENTS OF SKULLS.

From an interesting paper read before the French Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science, in 1878, I take the
following average measurements of skulls, given in cubic
centimetres : —

Historic.

French (city of Paris) . . T558

German T521

Croats 1-499

Russians ]"47I

Pre-historic.

L'Homme Mort .... T606

Solutr6 ....... 1-560

Cro-magnon 1'550

Grenelle . , T530

Tchuchtchs T468

This high development of the brain in palaeocosmic men
justifies the remark of Tylor, that they may have fallen off
from a " higher ancestral state."

PflE-GLACIAL AND POST-GLACIAL MEN.

In a paper read before the Victoria Institute, Professor
Hughes disposes of all the alleged cases of Pre-glacial men in
Europe; though, on grounds similar to those held by Sir C.
Lyell, he is still disposed to assign a higher antiquity to even
Post-glacial man. He seems not to have been aware that
the supposed "wattle" found in the iuterglacial brown coal
of Durnten, in Switzerland, has been shown by Steenstrup to
be probably the work of beavers ; nor does he notice the odd
theory of Gaudry, that the supposed Miocene flint implements
found in France may have been made by the extinct apes of
the genus Dryopitliecus. In the proceedings of the same
society Mr. Southali has ably summed up the arguments
bearing against the great antiquity of even Post-glacial men.
The whole question of the glacial age in connection with
man, is involved in grave difficulties at present, owing to the
extreme doctrines as to continental glaciation now prevalent,
and against which the writer, as well as other geologists,

342 FOSSIL MEN.

have long contended. A short paper, by Feilden, in the Pro-
ceedings of the Royal Dublin Society, reduces the solution f
of these questions, and also the theory of interglacial periods, I
into a nutshell, by directing attention to the comparatively ;
temperate climate of Grinnel Land in N. latitude 81° 40' to
83° 6' with the glaciation of Greenland " in the same parallel s
of latitude, and on the opposite shore of a channel only twenty ^
miles across." In a paper in the Quarterly Journal of the
Geological Society, November, 1879, Professor Boyd Dawkins
details some interesting new explorations in Creswell caves.
Two deposits by water seem to have taken place in the caves
explored before the appearance of man, and two others subse-
quently. First, a bed of white calcareous sand without fossils.
Second, beds of red clay and ferruginous sand containing bones
of extinct Pleistocene mammalia, but no remains of man.
Third, a bed of red sand with bones of the mammoth, woolly
rhinoceros, horse and reindeer, and rude quartzite imple-
ments, with a hatchet of ironstone and " pot-boilers." Fourth,
breccia and upper cave-earth, with human bones and better
formed implements of flint and carved bone objects. The
animal remains were a mixture of recent and extinct species ;
but the bed had been much disturbed. The two beds, num-
bers 3 and 4, must have been formed under different circum-
stances, and probably at some distance of time apart. Both
are Post-glacial, but there seems every reason to believe that
the one represents the Palaeocosmic, and the other the earlier Id
Neocosmic age. There is no reason to suppose that the imple-
ments in either represent the best work of their time ; but if
the pot-boilers of the oldest deposit are genuine they must
represent savages of somewhat advanced type, and with
vessels for cooking,

Skertchley, in a recent paper, calculates the age of the allu-
vial deposits of the "Wash," and the bordering peats, and,
measuring by the deposits of the Roman period, assigns to
peats holding " Neolithic " implements an age of 7000 years.
But there is no real distinction between Neolithic and Palaao-
lithic, and there is no reason to believe that the deposit of
either silt or peat has been as rapid since Roman times as

APPENDIX. 343

before. On the contrary, it is in every way likely that it was
much more rapid previously.

JADE IMPLEMENTS.

There has been some discussion respecting the alleged jade
found in Swiss lake habitations. It seems that there is a
probability that it is not the Oriental jade, but the Saussurite
which is found in Switzerland itself. In fact, the so-called
jades are not all of one composition, and are found in various
countries. A recent writer informs us that while jade imple-
ments occur in America, the rock itself is not known ; but
Dr. G. M. Dawson informs me that it occurs in British
Columbia, and therefore not unlikely in various parts of the
metamorphic districts of the Pacific border. Perhaps the
most interesting fact respecting it is that it has been utilised
in so many parts of the world, from New Zealand to Tartary,
and that like other green stones, it has been an object of
superstitious veneration.

MAKING OF FLINT ARROWS.

Mr. Eedding, of San Francisco, has contributed to the
American Naturalist an interesting paper on the manner of
making flint implements in Alaska. It seems that obsidian
is used, that a flake is struck off with a stone hammer, and
chips are then pressed off the edges with a pointed bone, till
it is worked into shape. The notch is made by similar pres-
sure with a more finely pointed bone. An arrow-head of
perfect workmanship can be made in forty minutes. It is
evident that this method has been nearly universal, as almost
all well-made implements of so-called chipped flint bear
evidence of being worked by pressure on the edges. Chipping,
properly so-called, would suffice only for ruder implements,
or for the first blocking out. The art of making flint imple-
ments by pressure must have originated at a very early period,
and in the cradle of the human race.

PALAEOLITHIC IMPLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

In the Eeports of the Peabody Museum of American
Archaeology, Abbott has published two papers on the imple-

344 FOSSIL MEN.

ments found in the gravels of New Jersey. These may be
older than any other human remains known in Eastern
America, but they are obviously Post-glacial, and not dissimilar
in their general mode of occurrence, from the European river
gravels discussed in the body of this work. They require
additional examination, from a geological point of view, before
their precise relation to the modern period can be determined.
In the same Eeports, Schumacher describes the manufacture
of stone pots and mortars by the ancient Indians of California,
and shows that they used in this manufacture tools of purely
Palaeolithic type, though the pots were beautifully formed out
of material detached with great labour from the solid rock.
Mr. Putnam gives an interesting account of a similar manu-
facture in New England. One manufactory of soapstone pots
seems to have existed at Christiania, Lancaster Co., Pennsyl-
vania, while numerous fragments of pots and rude stone
implements have been found. Another ancient quarry has
been found near Providence, E.I. At this place a bed or
vein of steatite had been so extensively quarried that in re-
opening it over three hundred cartloads of debris of the manu-
factory, mixed with rude stone implements and fragments
of pots, had to be removed. The chisels were/ of hard
stone rudely chipped, from 5 to 8^ inches in length, rounded
roughly at one end, and pointed at the other. The method
used in working out the round or oval masses of steatite
to be cut into pots, was precisely that employed in California
on the opposite side of the continent. Another ancient
quarry of this kind has recently been discovered in Virginia.
Had any of these quarries been situated on the bank of a
river subject to floods, and especially those ice-floods which in
early spring sometimes devastate the valleys of our American
rivers, gravel beds full of palaeolithic implements must have
resulted.

" PLIOCENE " MAN IN CALIFOKNIA.— THE CALAVEKAS SKULL.

The mention of stone pots and mortars leads to a considera-
tion of the circumstances under which these have been found
at great depths in the auriferous gravels of California. Since

APPENDIX. 345

the remarks on these in the text were written, I have seen a
memoir by Professor Whitney, in which he re-states the evi-
dence which he believes exists for the occurrence of man in
California in Pliocene times. After carefully weighing it, I
must say that it appears to me altogether inconclusive, for the
following among other reasons : —

1. None of the specimens, either of bones or implements,
appear to have been seen in situ by any competent scientific
observer, and most of them are open to the gravest doubts as
to the undisturbed character of the material. Even the
Calaveras skull' was found in a shaft now full of water, and
the facts respecting it were collected some time after its
discovery.

2. The age of the deposits is not certainly known ; but from
the remains of plants and animals found in them they would
seem to date from the period of the Pliocene Tertiary, when
the fauna and flora of the' American land were quite different
from the present, before the glacial period, and before the
main valleys of the Pacific slope were cut out. It is very
unlikely that man can be the sole survivor of the fauna of this
distant period.

3. This improbability is increased by the fact that the skull
discovered, while American in form, is of large size and of better
development than those of the modern rude tribes of Califor-
nia, and that the implements found are similar to those of the
semi-civilized agriculturists and miners formerly inhabiting
some parts of the West. Further, it is well known that many
shafts and mines have been excavated in these gravels both
before and after the European conquest.

4. The manner in which Whitney accounts for the occurrence
of the Calaveras skull is so fanciful and improbable, that it
throws doubt on the whole of his conclusions. To show this, I
shall quote, at some length, his own words, premising that this
skull is believed to have been taken from a shaft, at Paid
Mountain, sunk through beds of gravel and lava, amounting
in thickness to 130 feet : —

"The skull was unquestionably dug up somewhere, and had
unquestionably been subjected to quite a series of peculiar con-

346 FOSSIL MEN.

ditions.* In the first place it had been broken, and broken in
such a manner as to indicate great violence, as the fractures go
through the thickest and heaviest parts of the skull ; again, the
evidence of violent and protracted motion, as seen in the manner
in which the various bones were wedged into the hollow and in-
ternal parts of the skull, as for instance, the bones of the foot
under the malar bone. The appearance of the skull was some-
thing such as would be expected to result from its having been
swept, with many other bones, from the place where it was ori-
ginally deposited, down the shallow but violent current of a
stream, where it would be exposed to violent blows from the
boulders lying in its bed. During this passage, it was smashed,
and fragments of the bones occurring with it were thrust into
all the cavities where they could lodge. f It then came to rest
somewhere, in a position where water charged with lime salts
had access to it, and on a bed of auriferous gravel. While ifc
lay there, the mass in which it rested was cemented to it by the
calcareous matter deposited round the skull, and thus the base
of hard mineral tufas and pebbles which was attached to it
when placed in the writer's hands was formed. At this time,
too, the snail crept in under the malar bone, and there died.£
Subsequently to this the whole was enveloped in a deposit of
gravel, which did not afterwards become thoroughly consoli-
dated, and which therefore was easily removed by the gentle-
men who first cleaned up the specimen in question, they only
removing the looser gravel which surrounded it."

To any one acquainted with the usual modes of occurrence
of fossil bones, the conditions above stated may well seem
" peculiar." That the skull and other bones of the skeleton,
and even a bead used for ornament, or perhaps put into the
mouth as an obolus to pay the Stygian ferryman, in whom
some American Indians as well as the Greeks believed, should
keep together while rolled down the bed of the torrent, and be

* The italics are ours.

f From another statement, it would seem that a shell bead was also
attached to the roof of the mouth, and pieces of charcoal introduced into
the skull during its rough transit down the stream ! !

J A modern snail, Helix Mormomun, still living in the country.

APPENDIX. 347

deposited in one place along with pieces of charcoal and a snail
shell, seems quite incredible.* If the supposition had been
that the whole body, with its dress and ornaments, was drifted
down, or that it was a fossil from some older deposit already
sealed up in a hard nodule, the theory would be more cohe-
rent, though still not quite in accordance with the facts. As
it is, supposing the shell to have been found as alleged, the
whole appearances are those of an interment, or of loss of life
In some old shaft or tunnel, and this is rendered the more
likely by the fact insisted on by Whitney, that the surrounding
beds belong to a time when the " animal and vegetable crea-
tions differed entirely from what they are now": that is,
always excepting the modern Indian and modern snail.

5. The so-called "fossilised" condition of the skull proves
nothing. That it contains, as shown by analysis, 62 per cent,
of calcium carbonate, implies merely that the pores and can-
cellated structure of the bone have been infiltrated with that
substance after decay of the animal matter, and this under
favourable conditions would not require a long time.

The above reasons are, I think, quite sufficient to warrant
any geologist in declining to accept the human remains of the
California gravels as other than those of American Indians
of the modern periods.

MEN OF THE GRAVELS AND CAVERNS.

It will be observed that I do not regard the distinction
recently insisted on by Dawkins between the men of the river
gravels and those of the caverns as valid in a general sense.
Tribes dwelling on river banks or coasts during summer,
would naturally resort to caverns in winter, if such shelters
were accessible. Cave-dwellers would resort to river banks
and shores to chip flints, which they might more carefully
work up at home. Rude invaders might occupy river valleys

* It would seem that the name of the locality, Calaveras, means a place
of skulls, and that loose skulls and bones are found in the Calaveras Biver.
It would be interesting to know the age and source of these, and their con-
nection, if any, with the Calaveras skull.

348 APPENDIX.

4

and more cultivated people might be driven to the hills.
Both kinds of deposits belong to one great period* and this
the oldest human age known to us ; and there are some reasons
to believe that portions of the cave deposits date as far back
as Lyell's Second Continental period, while some of the gravel
beds must have been deposited in the following times of
subsidence. Thus the difference in the contents of these
deposits must often be merely local rather than due to lapse of
time, and their contemporaneity or order of succession must
be worked out for each separate region independently.

Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome. and London.

mi 20 1974 7DAYUSE

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