Section IL, 1884. [ 55 ] Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada. 



V. — The Huron-Iroquois of Canada, a Typical Rare of American Aborigines. 



By Daniel "Wilson, LL.D., F.R.S.E., President of University College, Toronto. 



(Read May 23, 18S4.) 



In a previous communication to the Royal Society of Canada I submitted some general 

 considerations of the ethnical characteristics, and of the condition and relative status, of the 

 aborigines of North America. In that, I aimed at a brief summary of their general aspect 

 as the indigenoiis American stock upon whom, during the last three and a half centuries 

 the same Aryan race has intruded, which in older and prehistoric centuries displaced 

 indigenous races of Europe not without some analogous results. I now propose to glance 

 at one of the most characteristic types of the American aborigines, which appears, according 

 to their own traditions, to be of Canadian origin ; and which, as one important branch of 

 the common stock, claims our special consideration as x^reeminently the historical native 

 race of Canada. 



I have already submitted the reasonings by which I have been led to the conclusion 

 that, throughout the whole North American continent, from the Arctic circle to the Mexican 

 Gulf, no trace has been recovered of the previous existence of anything that properly 

 admits of the term "native civilization." The rvide arts of Europe's stone age belong to a 

 period lying far behind its remotest traditions : unless we appeal to the mythic allusions of 

 Hesiod, or to such poetic imaginings as the " Prometheiis " of Jîschylus. But all avail- 

 able evidence thus far serves to show that the condition of the native tribes throughout 

 the whole area of this northern continent has never advanced beyond the stage which 

 finds its apt illustration in the rude arts of their stone period, including the rudimentary 

 efforts at turning to accoiint their ample resources of native copper without and use 

 of fire. 



But this uniformity in the condition and acquirements of the native tribes, and the 

 consequent resemblance in their arts, habits, and mode of life, have been the fruitful source 

 of misleading assumptions. Everywhere the early European explorers met only rude 

 hunting and warring tribes, exhibiting such slight variations in all that first attracts the 

 eye of the most observant traA'^eller, that an exaggerated idea of their ethnical uniformity 

 was the not unnatural result. So soon as the systematizings of the ethnologist led to 

 the differentiation of races, the American type was placed apart as at once uniform and 

 distinctive ; and, strange as it may now seem, this idea found nowhere such ready favour 

 as among those who had the fullest access to the evidence by which its truth could be 

 tested. It was the most important and com]îrehensive induction of the author of "Crania 

 Americana," as the fruit of his conscientious researches in American craniology. The authors 

 of " Indigenous Races of the Earth " and " Types of Mankind," no less unhesitatingly 

 affirmed that " identical characters pervade all the American races, ancient and modern, over 



