244 



ETHNOLOGY. 



less, (about ^' to 3',) in diameter, apparently rudely bored, invariably in 

 the top of tbe head of adults, and made after death ; while those cases 

 described in France, though only so recently brought to notice, are quite 

 numerous, and appear to be what may be more correctly termed trepan- 

 ning ; that is, the part of the skull operated on was removed entire, and 

 all ages are represented. 



It has suggested itself to me that the superstition of the modern 

 North American Indian in regard to there being two souls, one of which 

 visits the body after death, may be of illuminative tendency in this di- 

 rection. We know that the roof-like coverings of their graves, made of 

 wood or bark, always have a perforation at one extremity for the sup- 

 posed entrance and egress of the soul. But the question arises, Why, 

 then, is not the perforation of the skull constant, or at least more fre- 

 quent, in our mounds"? 



The accompanying table gives the dimensions of the perforated skulls 

 which have come before me, and to which special reference has been 

 made in this paper: 



Table (jiving dimensions, tjc, of perforated crania from mounds in Micliifjan. 



* Only comparative. Time did not permit to obtain the exact (absolute) capacity. 



In this connection, and in concluding, I have considered worthy of 

 being mentioned the fragment of carved bone represented in Fig. 11, 

 a side-view of which is seen in Fig. 12. This was lately taken by me 

 from the Great Mound at the Eouge River, and it is the only relic of the 

 kind which I have seen exhumed from the mounds in Michigan. Though 

 but a small fragment remains, it is sufficient to prove the workmanship 

 to have been of no mean order and of remarkably neat finish, surpris- 



