52 RELIQULE AQUITANIC^E. 



Extracts from the ' Voyages through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific 



Oceans, 1789 and 1793, by ALEXANDER MACKENZIE' (4to, London, 1801). 

 At page cvi (Account of the Knisteneaux Indians), "A sharp flint serves them as a lancet for 

 letting blood, as well as for scarification in bruises and swellings." 



At pages 37-38 (Account of the Slave and Dog-rib Indians on the Mackenzie River), " They like- 

 wise make lines of the sinews of the Reindeer, and manufacture their hooks from wood, horn, or 

 bone. Their arms and weapons for hunting are bows and arrows, spears, daggers, and ' pogamagans ' 

 or clubs. The bows are about 5 or 6 feet in length, and the strings are of sinews or raw skins. 

 The arrows are 2| feet long, including the barb, which is variously formed of bone, horn, flint, 

 iron, or copper, and are winged with three feathers. The pole of the spears is about 6 feet in 

 length, and pointed with a barbed bone of 10 inches. With this weapon they strike the 

 Reindeer in the water. The daggers are flat and sharp-pointed, about 12 inches long, and made 

 of horn or bone. The ' pogamagan ' is made of the horn of the Reindeer, the branches being all 

 cut off, except that which forms the extremity. This instrument is about 2 feet in length, and 

 is employed to dispatch their enemies in battle, and such animals as they catch in snares placed 



for that purpose Their axes are manufactured of a piece of brown or grey stone, from 



6 to 8 inches long, and 2 inches thick. The inside is flat, and the outside round and tapering 

 to an edge, an inch wide. They are fastened by the middle with the flat side inwards to a handle 

 2 feet long, with a cord of green skin. This is the tool with which they split their wood, and, 

 we believe, the only one of its kind among them. They kindle fire, by striking together a piece 

 of white or yellow pyrites and a flint stone, over a piece of touch-wood. They are universally 

 provided with a small bag containing these materials, so that they are in a state of continual 

 preparation to produce fire. From the adjoining tribes, the Red-Knives and Chepewyans, they 

 procure in barter, for Marten skins and a few Beaver, small pieces of iron, of which they 

 manufacture knives, by fixing them at the end of a short stick ; and with them and the Beaver's 

 teeth they finish all their work. They keep them in a sheath hanging to their neck, which 

 also contains their awls both of iron and bone." 



At page 59 (speaking of some untenanted huts of the Esquimaux near the mouth of the 

 Mackenzie River), "A square stone kettle, with a flat bottom, also occupied our attention, 

 which was capable of containing two gallons; and we were puzzled as to the means these 

 people must have employed to have chiselled it out of a solid rock into its present form. To 

 these articles may be added, small pieces of flint fixed into handles of wood, which, probably, 

 serve as knives." 



2 M. Marcou, so well known by his excellent works on Geology and his travels in North 

 America, has informed me of his having in New Mexico met with hunters, of Spanish origin, 

 who had abandoned the gun of their ancestors and taken the bow and arrows of the Indians. 

 The loud report of fire-arms frightens away all the animals round about; whilst with the 

 bow and arrow the hunter, stealing upon his game, can hit many successively before being 

 seen. E. L. 



3 To me it still appears probable that the particular stroke alluded to by Mr. Anderson in the 

 figure noticed (fig. 5) is merely a copy of an accidental scratch on the original specimen. E. L. 



