4 2 KELIQTJIJE AQUITANKLE. 



been worn as talismans and amulets, and that he also found teeth of Bear and 

 Wolf drilled for the same purpose. He adds moreover that even now-a-days the 

 same kind of teeth are hung on the necks of children to help them in cutting 

 their teeth. Thus we see that in certain cases the employment of these pierced 

 teeth may have had a double object. M. de Mortillet has quite lately shown 

 me a lower Canine of Sus (Boar or Pig), which he had himself obtained in 

 a province of Central Italy, where such teeth are still commonly used among 

 the people, being mounted in silver, with a little ring for suspension. Usually 

 one of them is first placed on the swaddling-clothes of new-born infants, to avert 

 the malevolence and all other influences of the bad spirits ; afterwards it is hung 

 at the neck of the same children, and, when suffering the pain of cutting their 

 teeth, they instinctively put it in the mouth and bite it between the gums, just 

 supplying the place of the toys (" corals ") specially prepared among us for the 

 same purpose. 



In other cases, however, the teeth of the Boar and large Carnivores may have 

 been kept and worn as memorials of the Chase. It is known also that, among the 

 people of some islands in the Pacific Ocean, travellers have seen necklaces made 

 of a series of many human incisors worn as ornaments. There we see real trophies 

 of war, mostly accompanied by cannibalism, of which, however, we have as yet 

 found not the least trace in our ancient Stations of the Dordogne or Pyrenees. 



At the same time we must recollect that in the greater number of instances 

 these teeth, perforated at the root, might be only articles of ornament and dress. 

 Thus used they are still found in various regions of the globe, and particularly 

 among the Esquimaux, whose women make for themselves girdles, on which are 

 threaded by hundreds teeth of Wolf, Fox, Musk-ox, and other animals ; and the 

 men themselves sometimes have recourse to this kind of ornament. Captain Parry * 

 describes a kind of diadem or head-dress worn by the men on certain occasions, 

 thus : he says, " the handsomest thing of this kind, however, was to be worn on the 

 head by men, though we did not learn on what occasion ; it consisted of a band, 

 two inches in breadth, composed of several strips of skin sewn together, alternately 

 black and yellow ; near the upper edge hair was artfully interwoven, forming with 

 the skin a very pretty chequer-work ; along the lower edge were suspended more 

 than a hundred teeth, principally of the Deer, neatly fastened by small double 

 tags of sinew, and forming a very appropriate fringe." 



Examining attentively figure 7 of the plate of Esquimaux Implements, Wea- 



* Journal of a Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

 4to. London, 1824, pp. 498, 548, plate of Esquimaux Implements, Weapons, &c. 





