442 Notes on Aboriginal Antiquities. 



When any one hath deserved death, or that they take any of their 

 enemies in warres, first they kill him, then with certain knives 

 they give great slashes and strokes upon their buttocks, flankes, 

 thighs and shoulders ; then they cast the same bodie so mangled 

 downe to the bottom e of the river, in a place where the said 

 Esurgny is, and there leave it ten or twelve houres, then they take 

 it up againe, and in the cuts find the said Esurgny or Cornibots. 

 Of them they make beads, and use them even as we doe gold 

 and silver, accounting it the preciousest thing in the world. They 

 have this vertue in them, they will stop or stanch bleeding at the 

 nose, for we prooved it. These people are given to no other 

 exercise, but onely to husbandrie and fishing for their sustenance : 

 they have no care of any other wealth or commoditie in this 

 world, for they have no knowledge of it, and never travell and go 

 out of their country, as those of Canada and Saguenay doe, albeit 

 the Canadians with eight or nine Villages more alongst that river 

 be subjects unto them. 



So soone as we were come neere the towne, a great number of 

 the inhabitants thereof came to present themselves before us, 

 after their fashion, making very much of us: we were by our 

 guides brought into the middest of the towne. They have in the 

 middlemost part of their town a large square place, being from 

 side to side a good stone cast, whither we were brought, and 

 there with signes were commanded to stay and so we did : then 

 suddenly all the women and maidens of the towne gathered them- 

 selves together, part of which had their armes full of young 

 children, and as many as could came to kiss our faces, our armes, 

 and what part of the bodie soever they could touch, weeping for 

 very joy that they saw us, shewing us the best countenance that 

 possibly they could, desiring us with their signes, that it would 

 please us to touch their children. That done, the men caused 

 the women to withdraw themselves backe, then they every one 



from cornet, which is used by old French writers as a name for the 

 shells of the genus Valuta, and is also a technical term in conchology 

 In this case it is likely that the Esurgny was made of the shells of some 

 of our species of Melania or Paludina, just as the Indians on the coast used 

 for beads and ornaments the shells of Purpura lapillus and of Denta- 

 lium, &c. It is just possible that Cartier may have misunderstood the 

 mode of procuring these shells, and that the statement may refer to 

 some practice of making criminals and prisoners dive for them in the 

 deeper parts of the river. 



