PRIMITIVE AMERICAN ARMOR. 649 



Lafitau, whose famous work "Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains," 

 was published in 1724, gives a more detailed account of the defensive 

 armor of the tribes of the northeastern part of the present United States 

 and of Canada, probably referring chiefly to the Iroquois and Huron, 

 with whom he was most faujiliar. He says (Vol. ii, p. 107) : 



Their cuirasses were a tissue of wood, or of small sticks of reed cut of proportionate 

 lengths, strongly pressed against each other, woven and enlaced very neatly with 

 small cords made of deer skin. They had cuissards and brassards (defensive cover- 

 ings for the thighs and arms) of the same material. These cuirasses were proof 

 against arrows armed with bone or stone, but not against those mounted with iron. 



Charlevoix says of the Iroquois : 



Most had no defensive weapon, but when they attacked any intrenchmeut, they 

 covered their wh(de body with small, light boards. Some have a sort of cuirass or 

 breastplate of small, pliable rings, very neatly worked. They had even formerly a 

 kind of mail for the arms and thighs, made of the same materials. But as this kind 

 of armor was found not to be proof against firearms, they have renounced them 

 without putting anything in their place.* 



Sagard says that the Hurons (Iroquois) had armor made of wood.t 

 Champlain also describes the Iroquois' armor as made of wood and 

 thread.l A plate in the same volume shows a warrior in armor. Wooden 

 breastplates were worn.§ Copper breastplates have been found, like 

 the gold breastplates of Peru.|| One has been described as a plate of 

 rich copper, in length a foot, in width half a foot, for a breastplate. 1] 

 Lucian Carr thinks these breastplates were for ornament, like those 

 found in the Ohio mounds. The size of the New England breastplates, 

 however, would render them a tolerable protection if used as a i^lastron- 



The only reference to eastern skin armor is of the Mohawks, who 

 " wear sea horse skins and barks of trees made by their art as impene- 

 trable, it is thought, as steel, wearing a headpiece of the same."** 



In reference to the Virginia Indians, Hariot says: 



They are a people clothed with loose mantles made of Deere skms, and aprons of 

 the same rounde about their middles; all e^se naked; of such a dift'erence of statures 

 only as wee in England; having no edge tooles or weapons of yron or Steele to ofteud 

 us withall, neither know they how to make any: those weapos that they have are 

 onlie bowes made of Witch hazle, and arrowes of reeds; flat edged truncheons also 

 of wood about a yard long, neither have they any thing to defend themselves but 

 targets made of barcks; and some armours made of stickes wickered together with 

 thread, ft 



* Charlevoix, P. F. X. de. Vol. i, 338. Loud., 1761. 



t Voyage des Hurons, i, p. 144. 



t Champlain, i, p. 201. Paris, 1830. 



$ Hakluyt's Voyages, iii, p. 305. 



II Breastplate of Gold. Peru. J. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. xviii. No. 3. Feb., 1889. 



H Archer account, Griswold's Voyages, p. 75 in Vol. vni, 35 Mass, Historical Col- 

 lection. 



** New England Prospect, p. 65. 



ttA brief and true report of the new-found land of Virginia, Thomas Hariot, 1585, 

 De Bry, p. 24. 



