9 4 Description of some Sepulchral Pits of Indian Origin. 



sand, with a hard gravelly bottom, and about three feet in diameter. 

 Nothing was found in it but pieces of bark ; these, however, were 

 carefully packed over the bottom of the pit, evidently to form an 

 artificial flooring. 



In the neighbourhood of pit No. 4, are several of the smaller ones, 

 two or three of which have been opened, but the winter season pre- 

 vented their accurate examination. Pieces of pottery, and one or 

 two human bones were found in them, mixed with stones, and very 

 black mould, which seems to strengthen the supposition previously 

 formed, that they are Indian graves from which the bodies have been 

 removed for interment in the larger pits. 



For the origin of these sepulchral pits (for that appears the most 

 appropriate name to give them) we must refer to the time when the 

 Pluron tribe of Indians inhabited this part of the country. That 

 they are connected with a form of sepulture in use among these ori- 

 ginal occupants of the soil, there can be little doubt, although the 

 exact explanation of each does not seem to be quite so satisfactory, 

 owing to some apparent inconsistency, which will be presently noticed, 

 in the character of the deposits found in them. 



As relics of a nearly extinct race of Indians, these remains are 

 highly interesting ; for although a remnant of the original Hurons 

 still remains in the neighbourhood of Quebec, they have long since 

 entirely disappeared from the shores of their own lake. It is now 

 nearly 200 years since they were driven from their country by the 

 Troquois, and these again have been expelled by the Ojibbeway or 

 Chippeway Indians, who came down from Lake Superior, and whose 

 claim to the land must have been of distant date, as it was by them 

 ceded to the Crown ; and though they so lately owned the country, 

 and still occupy that in the immediate neighbourhood, they hold no 

 traditions concerning these pits, and have no customs that shew any 

 connection with them. 



The Chippeways have ever formed a wandering nation, without 

 any settled residences. Their habits have little to interest ; but the 

 Hurons were far different. One of the most powerful and numerous 

 of the Indian tribes of " New France," the French were glad of 

 their alliance. They found them, Charlevoix says, spirited, enter- 

 prising, industrious, and brave, with considerable ingenuity and elo- 

 quence. They dwelt in well-fortified villages, and made war in large 

 bodies; but from nxismanagement of their confederation of branch 

 tribes, and a peculiar failing of simplicity, and want of precaution, 

 they fell victims to the fierce and more warlike Mohawks, and the 

 powerful alliance of the five nations, whose love of war and plunder 

 was fostered and encouraged by the newly-settled English and Dutch. 

 There can be little doubt, it is to a form of burial in use among them 

 that the remains under notice may be attributed. Of the ceremony 

 attending it, an interesting account may be found in Charlevoix's 

 letters, a journal of a tour through this and other parts of Canada 



