70 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



One of the great medicines of the Iroquois is connected with a 

 traditional scalping incident and a great Huron feast was 

 founded on the same story. The owl and the wolf meet, and the 

 coming of the Ontarraoura is predicted. This animal seems to^ 

 be the panther, or mountain lion, and to him the resuscitation 

 of the good hunter is ascribed. In the New York story the good 

 hunter loses his life and scalp. After many trials a bird brings 

 the scalp back, but it is so dry it will not fit. At last the eagle 

 suggests softening it with the mountain dew which has collected 

 between its shoulders. The scalp becomes pliable, is fitted to its 

 place, and the good hunter lives again, to the great joy of bird 

 and beast. In this the presence or absence of the scalp becomes 

 synonymous with life and death. — Beauchamp 



In general there is nothing to distinguish the scalping from 

 the hunting knife, but nearly all are pointed. Some were 

 supplied ready for use; in other cases the handling seems to have 

 been left to the sons of the forest. They were sold or given as 

 presents by Dutch, English and French, and were of many forms 

 and sizes. Illustrations will be given of a few of these but from 

 their thinness most have perished. 



The Dutch so soon began a spirited Indian trade that the 

 French could do little in New York, except among the Senecas. 

 Knives were among the smaller articles which La Salle wanted 

 at Fort Frontenac in 1684, but in 1708 M. de Longueuil reported 

 that Schuyler had given the Iroquois 800 knives. At the siege 

 of Detroit in 1712 the French Indians were given 190 butcher 

 knives, to be used as bayonets. These may have been the long 

 carving knives here shown. 



Among the presents to the Iroquois at Albany July 3. 1693, 

 were 87 hatchets and four gross of knives; and among those 

 recommended the next year were " 2. Grose of Knives black 

 hafted sharpe points." They were an ordinary article of trade 

 besides. Hence we may conclude that most of those found in 

 New York were of Dutch or English make. During the period 

 of the French missions here, French articles were quite freely 

 used, but before and after the supply w^as small. This is not 



