igoo] SowTER — Archeology of Lake DESCHftNEs. 235 



The bone harpoon is six inches in leng-th and a little more 

 than half an inch in width. It has four barbs and an eye at the 

 shank end, by which it was doubtless attached to the shaft. 



The bone netting needle is about three and a-half inches in 

 length by less than half an inch in width, with an eve in the 

 middle. 



The copper kettle, which is ot European manufacture, is in a 

 g-ood state of preservation and still bears the marks of fire upon 

 the bottom. The bottom has not been knocked in by the stroke 

 of a tomahawk, so as to render it useless, as is the case with 

 many specimens from western Ontario. It is about six inches 

 across the top, and four inches in depth. The handle, however, is 

 badly rusted and might be broken by careless handling. 



The bone gouge and the skin dresser are made, the former 

 from a human thigh bone and the latter from a human jawbone, 

 from which we are constrained to form a very low estimate of the 

 moral status of their owner, who thus appropriated portions of a 

 fellow-creature's anatomy from which to fabricate his domestic 

 implements. 



The hair fringe is a specimen of intricate and beautiful work- 

 manship, and a tangible example of the delicate manipulation of 

 the aboriginal hair-dresser. In his archaeological report, 1897-98, 

 to the iVIinister of Education for Ontario, Mr. David Boyle, in 

 reference to native textile work, has written : "Before very long 

 we shall be unable to become possessed of such specimens, and an 

 effort should be made at once to collect every available type- 

 sample of woven work from the hands of our Indians." As this is 

 a timely and valuable suggestion, I have been particularly careful 

 in ascertaining the exact texture of this piece of hair work. The 

 warp, into which the hair is woven, consists of three threads 

 about the thickness of and somewhat resembling ordinary stout 

 sewing cotton. Examined through a common magnifying glass, 

 these threads appear to have been spun from the inner fur of some 

 animal, such as the beaver, the otter, or the muskrat, or from 

 fine human hair from the head of a child. As the loom in which 

 the fringe was fabricated was not buried with him, and a descrip- 

 tion of it, therefor, being out of the question, let us suppose that 

 the ancient weaver adopted for the purpose some contrivance of 



