288 FOSSIL MEN. 



be entertained for the ancient weapons. It was fit 

 that the Modern should appear in presence of his 

 ancestors with their ancient and time-honoured ap- 

 pliances. But American analogy affords another 

 explanation. The medicine-man provided himself 

 with all ancient and curious things, as old weapons, 

 curiously formed stones, or fossil shells. These para- 

 phernalia of his trade might be placed with him in 

 his grave, and thus afford a ' strange association of 

 objects. Even the ordinary Indian might have a 

 medicine bag, in which were old arrows or flint flakes, 

 carried as talismans, which would also be buried with 

 him, even in cases where no other objects might be 

 so interred. To take a modern instance. When the 

 late Prince Imperial of France was slain by the Zulus, 

 his body was stripped, but a reliquary worn suspended 

 to his neck was left, because to have taken this would 

 have been a sacrilege according to the primitive belief 

 of the African. Had the body been buried where it 

 fell, this "medicine bag" and its contents would 

 have been the only objects to indicate its date or 

 nation. 



To return to the funeral ceremonies. Among the 

 Canadian tribes, the corpse, immediately after death, 

 was placed in a sitting posture at the door of the hut, 

 its face painted, dressed in the best robe of the 

 deceased, and with his weapons beside it. Thus 

 seated in state, it was visited by friends. It was then 

 taken to the place of burial, and laid in a grave care- 

 fully lined with the richest furs, as if the last resting- 



