ETHNOLOGY. 433 



I. 



DEPOSITS OF FLINT IMPLEMENTS. 



By J. F. Snyder, M. D., of Virginia, Cass Couniy, Illinois. 



The custom of concealing in the ground surplus articles of food, ap- 

 parel, weapons, «S:c., for temporary safe-keeping, is common to all no- 

 madic tribes. On this continent it was practiced by the pre-historic 

 races, was in vogue among the Indians first observed by Europeans, 

 and is still the method by which the liunter-tribes of our western ter- 

 ritories preserve such property or stores as cannot be readily transported 

 in their hunting expeditions or are not wanted for immediate use. The 

 anonymous Portuguese chronicler of De Soto's expedition to the Missis- 

 sippi makes mention of this custom prevailing among the Indians of 

 that day ; and we read in Strachey,* " Their corue, and (indeed) thire 

 copper, hatchetts, howses, beades, perle, and most -things with them of 

 value, according to their owne estymacion, they hide, one from the 

 knowledge of another, in the grownd within the woods, and so keepe 

 them all the yeare, or untill they have fitt use for them, astheEomains 

 did their monais and treasure in certain cellars, called, therefore, as 

 Plinye remembers, /ai^moe; and when they take them forth they scarce 

 make their women privie to the storehouse." 



The early French "voyageurs" and traders among the Indians soon 

 learned from them the advantages and security of this sort of store- 

 house, and frequently had recourse to it, and cached provisions, am- 

 munition, or other stores too cumbersome to carry along with them, or 

 which they intended to secure from beasts and Indians, as reserves for 

 future use. Many of their deposits were never recovered. In some in- 

 stances they were forgotten ; in others, the persons making the cache 

 returned by some other and remote route; and in some cases they so ef- 

 fectually obliterated all external signs of their subterranean storehouse 

 that they were unable to find it again. 



The same ideas and the same mishaps occurred to the ancient occu- 

 pants of oQr country. The same necessities in life are apt to suggest 

 to the human mind in all localities, in similar circumstances, identical 

 or analogous modes of relief. The motive of the aborigines for hiding 

 in the ground stores of weapons, implements, and utensils is plainly 

 discernible in a large majority of their ancient deposits. It was sim- 

 ply the safe-keeping of the property for future use. The ground was 

 their only liable repository. The builders of the mounds frequently 

 stored in the earth many perishable articles of which we now find but 

 slight traces or none at all, there remaining, in these primitive store- 

 houses, such objects alone as were wrought from more durable mate- 

 rials. Of this class of deposits — the ordinary ancient cache — I will give 



* The Historie of Travaile into Virginia, Britannia ; by William Strachey, printed 

 for the Hakluyt SocietJ^ 

 s 28 



