METALLIC IMPLEMENTS OF NEW YORK INDIANS i 



There may bare been misunderstandings on ])otli sides, but 

 the plain statement is that this peoi)le knew copper and had a 

 name for it, tliough they had none themselves. When Bar- 

 tholomew Gosnold was at Cape Cod in 1G02 he saw a young 

 Indian with plates of copper hanging from his ears. These may 

 have come from European contact, but Gosnold did not suggest 

 this. Farther south they were visited by natives, one of whom 

 wore a copper plate, a foot long and half as broad, on his breast. 

 Others had copper pendants in their ears. John Brereton added 

 to this, accounts of their beads, chains, arrows and other things, 

 and said that not one lacked something of the kind. Another 

 described pipes partly of copper, much as Hudson did in New 

 York a few years later. Belknap says of these statements: 



All these Indians had ornaments of copper. When the 

 adventurers asked them, by signs, whence they obtained this 

 metal, one of them made answer by digging a hole in the ground 

 and pointing to the main; from which circumstance it was 

 understood that the adjacent country contained mines of copper. 

 In the course of almost two centuries no copper has been dis- 

 covered; though iron, a much more useful metal, w^holly un- 

 known to the natives, is found in great plenty. The question, 

 whence did they obtain copper? is yet without an answ^er. — 

 Belknap, p. 151 



To this it may be said that the arrows, tubes, belts and pipes 

 of copper, as described by Brereton, are all represented on 

 recent Iroquois sites, and may fairly be considered as European 

 articles, furnished by some unknown early trader. 



When it is said that Henry Hudson saw *' copper tobacco 

 pipes " among the Indians of New York bay, he may have mis- 

 taken those of bright red clay for this metal, or they may have 

 come from the same unknown trader. They were not afterward 

 mentioned by any one, and none of native metal have ever been 

 found. The natives could not have cast them, and it would have 

 been extremely difficult to make them by hammering. The 

 copper ornaments seen in this voyage may have had the same 

 source. The brass pipes which Roger Williams thought the Nar- 

 rasfansetts made mav well be classed with these. Thev are 

 never mentioned inland, and this affects the question of origin, 



