28 NEWFOUNDLAND 



March'^ occurred to one of the party, and the whole mystery 

 was at once explained." 



In the cemetery were deposited alongside the bodies two 

 small wooden images of a man and a woman, doubtless meant 

 to represent husband and wife, also a small doll, a pathetic 

 emblem of Mary March's child which died two days* after 

 the capture of its mother ; several small models of canoes, 

 two small models of boats, an iron axe, a bow and quiver 

 of arrows, birch-rind cooking utensils, and two fire-stones 

 (radiated iron pyrites), from which the Beothicks produced 

 fire by striking them together. 



Another mode of sepulture described by Cormack was 

 for the body of the deceased to be wrapped in birch rind, 

 with his property placed on a sort of scaffold about 4J 

 feet from the ground, in a manner still employed by 

 some of the Western American tribes. A third method 

 was to bend the body together and enclose it in a kind 

 of box laid on the ground, and a fourth to simply wrap 



> Mary March, so called from the name of the month in which she was taken, 

 was a Red Indian woman who was captured at Mary March's Broolc, near Red 

 Indian Lake, by an armed party of Newfoundlanders in March 1809. This was the 

 immediate result of the Government's offer of a reward to any persons who would 

 bring a Red Indian to them. Her husband was cruelly shot, "after nobly making 

 several attempts, single-handed, to rescue her from the captors, in defiance of their 

 fire-arms and fixed bayonets." The body of this red hero was found by Cormack 

 resting beside his wife in one of the cemeteries at Red Indian Lake. The following 

 winter, Captain Buchan was sent to the River Exploits, by order of the local govern- 

 ment of Newfoundland, to take back this woman to the lake where she was 

 captured, and if possible at the same time, to open friendly intercourse with her 

 tribe. But she died on board Captain Buchan's vessel at the mouth of the river. 

 Captain Buchan, however, took her body to the lake, and not meeting with any of 

 her people, left it where they were afterwards most likely to meet with it. It appears 

 the Indians were this winter encamped on the banks of the River Exploits, and 

 observed Captain Buchan's party passing up the river on the ice. They retired from 

 their encampment in consequence, and some weeks afterwards went by a circuitous 

 route to the lake to ascertain what the party had been doing there. They found 

 Mary March's body, and removed it from where Captain Buchan had left it to where 

 it now lies, by the side of her husband. 



