THE DELAWARE INDIAN AS AN ARTIST. 



587 



widely different had the European been forced to deal, not with 

 the Lenni Lenapd as they then were, but as they had been. True, 

 there were statesmen still among them ; intellects equal to any 

 with which they had to cope ; but the spirit that once seems to 

 have animated the whole nation was broken. The Indians of the 

 seventeenth century were living - 011 the memory of departed glory. 

 Not one of the many writers that have given us an account of 

 what he saw in use among these people, when the Indian still pos- 



Fig. 2. Stone Ceremonial Object. 



sessed the land, refers to many a curious form of stone or bone 

 object, that now for want of knowledge on the subject we call an 

 " ornament/' or take refuge behind so convenient a term as " im- 

 plement." That such objects are full of meaning, could we but 

 decipher it, there is not a doubt. 



It is true that, until the products of their handicraft were 

 replaced by similar objects of European manufacture, the Indians 

 were adepts in flint-chipping ; made from pebbles shapely axes ; 

 carved wooden mortars and even large canoes, and fashioned well- 

 designed pipes both of stone and clay. But what of the far more 

 artistic bird-shaped stones, the so-called ceremonial objects, elabo- 

 rate gorgets, and even idols ? These are found to-day in sufficient 

 numbers to indicate that they were once a prominent if not com- 

 mon feature of every village ; but how could they have been over- 

 looked by the Europeans who described their axes and arrow- 

 points, if still in use ? They had, it is logical to assume, disap- 

 peared from the scene ; or, retained, were " relics " in the eyes of 

 their possessors. It is not unwarranted to say, as concerning the 

 Delaware Valley, that when Cornelius Mey discovered the Dela- 

 ware River, there were Indian " relics " then to be had ; and had it 



