1896.] OiJ [Cushmg. 



mandibles of the logger-head turtle, and some shell chisels and cutters 

 of various other sorts. 



For the rest, however, this curious assemblage of things both nat- 

 ixral and artificial, were, judged by their unquestionable relationship 

 to one another, certainly sacred, or fetishistic. No other purpose could 

 be assigned to several natural but extremely irregular pearls; pecu- 

 liarlv shaped, minute pebbles and concretions ; water-worn fragments of 

 coral exhibiting singular markings, such as regular lines of star-like or 

 radiate dots ; more than twenty distinct species of small, univalvular 

 «liells, and half as many of small bivalves — all quite as fresh as thougli 

 but recently gathered. These were mingled with oliva-shell buttons 

 and pendants, and pairs of sun-shells (solenidse), two of which had been 

 •externally coated with a bright yellow pigment, and others of which 

 had once been painted, inside, with symbolic figures or devices in black, 

 although the lines of these figures could now no longer be distinctly 

 traced. There were a number of interesting remains of terrestrial ani- 

 mals. One was the skull of an opossum. It had been carefully cleaned, 

 and cut ofl' at the occiput, and to the base thus formed, the under jaw had 

 been attached frontwardly at right angles, in such manner that the 

 object could be set upright. The whole had been covered with thick, 

 white pigment, and on this background lines in black, representative of 

 the face marks or features of the living animal, as conventionally 

 <;onceived, had been painted, doubtless to make it fetishistically "alive 

 and potent " again. Another skull, that of the marten or weasel, 

 occurred in this little museum of a primitive scientist ; and since we 

 know that both the opossum and the weasel were favorite "mystery 

 animals" of Indian Shamans elsewhere, little doubt remains as to the 

 character of the collection they belonged to. But there were other more 

 artificial objects, yet of a kindred kind. There were kilt-rattles, made 

 from peculiarly mottled claw shells of both the small sea-crab and the 

 great king-crab ; and a set of brilliant colored scallop shells, and 

 another set of larger pecten shells, all in each set perforated, obviouslj' 

 for mounting together on a hoop, to serve as castanets, precisely as are 

 similar shells among the Shamans of the far-away Northwest coast. 

 There was still another kind of rattle — duplicated elsewhere — made 

 from the entire shell or carapace of a "gopher," or land-tortoise, the 

 •dorsal portion of which was very regularlj^ and neatly drilled, to aid 

 the emission of sound. As though to show us that the original owner 

 of this collection was not only a sacred song-man and soothsayer or 

 prophet, but also a doctor, there were, in addition, a beautiful little 

 sucking tube made from the wing-bone of a pelican or crane, and near 

 at hand a sharp scarifying lancet of fish bone set in a little wooden 

 liandle, of precisely the kind described by old writers as used by the 

 Southern Indians in blood letting and ceremonial skin-scratching. 



In addition to these and other objects largely of natural, or of only 

 partially artificial origin, there were a number of highly artificial things. 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXXV. 153. 2 V. PRINTED JULY 7, 1897. 



