336 



FOSSIL MEN. 



such intercouse with a beneficent genius or demon, 

 that through his means they could give information 

 as to what was passing at a distance or would happen 

 in the future, discover the sources and cure of diseases, 

 advise in all difficulties, interpret dreams, and secure 

 the Divine favour for all enterprises. They were in 

 the habit of steaming themselves in a vapour bath and 

 working themselves up into a frenzy^ before deliver- 

 ing their predictions, which were sometimes given in 

 song. So correct, occasionally, were their anticipa- 

 tions, that the French missionaries believed that they 

 were actually inspired by the Evil One. They had, 

 however, no political status or authority, and practi- 

 cally their chief function was that of physicians and 

 diviners. The better to aid in these functions, they 

 were not only collectors of herbs and simples, but of 

 any object of a strange, abnormal, or curious character 

 that came into the possession of the tribe, so that 

 the cabin of the " medicine-man " might be a sort of 

 museum of things rare and curious, or believed to 

 have some mystic powers. It is very probable that 

 the Silurian fossils and grotesquely shaped or sculp- 

 tured stones found on aboriginal Canadian sites have 

 been part of the apparatus or collections of these 

 jugglers ; and there is reason to suspect that a similar 

 explanation may be given of some anomalous objects 

 found in pre-historic repositories in Europe, as well as 

 of some of the fossils found in such places. To this 

 origin should probably be referred some at least of 

 the carved bones and antlers called by the French 



