40 EELIQUI^E 



combat, where this mode of spearing an animal is illustrated. It is figured in 

 Kitto's ' Pictorial Bible,' among the notes to " 1 Corinthians " ; and if you can 

 conveniently refer to it you will find the animal, as there figured*, transfixed 

 almost similarly to that in fig. 5. Most of the other fragments in the same 

 Plate seem to have had reference to scenes of hunting or fishing ; but in their 

 incomplete state it would be hard to assign to them any special use. I am 

 disposed to regard them merely as fragments of implements similar to the large 

 ones figured in the double Plate B. III. & IV. 



In this Plate, fig. 1 is analogous to the sabres (or clubs) of horn which are, or 

 were, in common use among the North-American Indians. These are called by 

 the French-Canadian voyageurs Puck-d-maugan (literally " Strikers "), a name 

 originating with Cree Indians of the Saskatchewan and elsewhere. These pucka- 

 maugans are really blunt swords of horn, which can hack and bruise severely, and 

 inflict even fatal blows 5 . There is usually a perforation near the lower end of 

 the hilt, for the facility of passing a cord through, so that the implement may be 

 suspended from the wrist when not directly in use a sword-knot, in fact. The 

 perforations in figs. 1 and 4 (admitting my assumption of the uses of the weapon 

 to be correct) I consider to have been made for the same purpose. But I am at a 

 loss to assign a reason for the series of holes that appear in figs. 5 and 6 a. The 

 engraved lines I regard as ornamental tracings, though possibly the figures on 

 fig. 1 may have had an object and a significance which it would be fruitless to 

 attempt to explain. I might possibly suggest that, admitting the use of these 

 implements as weapons (or in some cases their application to other purposes, 

 as in the case of the "British-Columbian" horn), the special ornamentation may 

 have been designed to distinguish them as trophies of the chase. A custom 

 analogous to this existed, we know, among the Germans in regard to the horns of 

 the Urust. Taken in pitfalls, the horns of these animals conferred celebrity on 

 their captors ; and, highly ornamented, were carefully preserved. I believe that 

 some of these relics of the past still exist among the old German and Swiss 

 families. The carved horns which you allude to as being found among the 

 natives of Queen Charlotte's Island (and elsewhere, I may add, along the north- 

 west coast) are grotesque and highly elaborated works of native art. These are 

 usually the horns of the common white Goat, found in all precipitous ranges 



* In this case the spear appears to have been held in position by the gladiator, who is seen escaping 

 adroitly aside. Probably the figure represents a German captive doomed, as of wont, to the sports 

 of the arena. 



t See Cses. de Bel. Gal. vi. 28. 



