ABORIGINAL CHIPPED STONE IMPLEMENTS OF NEW YORK 1 



ABORIGINAL CHIPPED STONE IMPLEMENTS OF 

 NEW YORK 



\ K< in I I < \ I WORK IN NEW YORK 



While much has been done by the state of New York in the pres- 

 ervation and dissemination of documents relating to early days, little 

 until now has been accomplished in collecting and arranging those 

 still earlier records, found so largely in stone, which reveal much 

 unwritten history. All early writers describe a condition of things 

 evidently not representative of periods which were then already days 

 of old. Implements and ornaments had changed, arts and history 

 had been forgotten, a new race had displaced the old, as we have 

 taken its place in turn. We can only know what that history and 

 those arts were, by seeking their surviving memorials in the soil. 



The state, however, has done valuable service in embodying so 

 much relating to what is called indian history, in many of its publica- 

 tions. Crude as was Mr Schoolcraft's Report on the Iroquois, made 

 in 1845, it was a boon to the public, and preserved or suggested much 

 valuable matter. This was notably the case with the several Iroquois 

 dialects, afterwards much enlarged by him. The Documentary history 

 and the New York colonial documents made other interesting matter 

 accessible. The Report on the indian problem, in 1889, wisely placed 

 the Iroquois treaties before the public, although it was great mis- 

 fortune that the signatures to these were not submitted to an expert 

 in indian names. It would have saved a host of needless errors. 



The work of the regents in the same direction has been good as 

 far as it has gone. The annual reports which contain the papers of 

 L. H. Morgan on recent Iroquois implements and ornaments, are 

 yet among the most popular and best preserved. Part of these were 

 afterwards embodied in his valuable League of the Iroquois, and were 

 first produced nearly half a century since. The publication of Father 

 Bruyas' Mohawk lexicon, written two centuries ago, was one of the 

 earliest attempts to bring a New York indian language before the 

 public, when systematically arranged. It has since been fully trans- 

 lated. The publication of the explorations and plans of Messrs 

 Hough and Cheney, in the northern and western parts of New York 

 gave prominence to the interesting earthworks in both sections, 

 with occasional notes from others. 



