IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OP THE STONE AGE. 139 



gether their skin garments with the sinews of the 

 deer, but to embroider them with patterns, and to 

 attach to them the beads and perforated shells with 

 which they were ornamented. They were also used 

 in making nets, and in weaving the network of snow- 

 shoes. There is no_/iWson as yet to believe that 

 the earlier pre-histqric peoples of Europe could make 

 textile fabrics. These appear for the first time in the 

 Swiss lake-habitations, but there are figures of human 

 arms apparently with embroidered sleeves, in Lartet 

 and Christy's collections, and which are sufficient to 

 show the same love of needlework which is observed 

 among the modern Esquimaux and Indians, and which 

 was so conspicuous among all early historic nations 

 of the Old World. If the people of the Mammoth 

 age already practised the art of embroidery, this fact 

 would imply the careful tanning of skins, the manu- 

 facture of needles, the preparation of thread from 

 animal or vegetable fibres, and probably some know-' 

 ledge of vegetable dye-stuffs ; and some proficiency in 

 all these arts is so widely diffused that there seems no 

 improbability in their being even thus ancient. 



According to Cartier, the most valuable of all the 

 possessions of the people of Canada and Hochelaga 

 was that which they called " Esurguy," the same 

 known more familiarly to us by its New England name 

 of " wampum." The great original wampum of 

 America was probably that which still stands at the 

 head of all kinds of beads, the pearl, which seems to 

 have been collected by the Southern Indians, and is 



