6 NEW YORK ST.^TE MUSErM 



METALLIC IMPLEMENTS OF THE NEW YORK INDLINS^ 



The stone and bronze ages of Europe have little reference to 

 America except in a very broad sense. Using stone implements 

 here from the earliest times to the present day, men may have 

 used copper also in New York when the whites came, as some 

 others had done centuries before. There had been a time when 

 durable or massive implements were made of this. Customs 

 changed. The later New York aborigines knew little or nothing 

 of these implements, and others employed the material only in 

 an ornamental or reverential wa^'. The earlier nations did not 

 despise this use, and well wrought articles for personal adorn- 

 ment are found in many parts of the United States and Canada. 

 South of our national limits beautiful earlv articles Of silver 

 and gold occur. Recent metallic ornaments are frequent in 

 New York, but none have been reported of native copper except 



at 



beads. 



Most of the early discoverers had something to say of copper 

 ornaments, but these mav not have been of native metal in all 

 cases. When the Cabots landed at Newfoundland or Nova 

 Scotia in June 1497, they observed that *' the inhabitants had 

 plenty of copper," jjrobably the native metal. When Verrazano 

 visited the coast of New England in 1524, he saw many articles 

 of wrought copper, highly esteemed for their color and beauty. 

 The source of these may be doubtful. Cartier found no copper 

 among the Iroquois of Montreal on his visit there in 1535, but 

 heard of it. '' They took the chayne of our capitaines whistle,, 

 which was of silver, and the dagger-haft of one our fellow mar- 

 iners, hanging on his side being of yellow copper guilt, and 

 showed us that such stuffe came from the said river. . . 

 Our capitaine shewed them redde copper, which in their lan- 

 guage they call Caquedaze, and looking towarde that countrey, 

 with signes asked him 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." — 

 Dawson, p. 37 



