916 



REPORT — 1884. 



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sepulture, the nutlior trusts to bt^ able to show clearly that the burial of articles 

 with the dead was not so much a religious act as a mark of rpapect to the dead. 



The archicolofrical relics of (Canada have never been 1 y descrited, and ant 

 deserving of a higlicr rank, in a scientific sense, than has as yet be(>n awarded 

 them. Wo have a grand field to work in, and the articles we find well repay us 

 for the trouble taken. The Aborigines of America are undoubtedly the fathers of 

 smoking, and the elaborate workmanship which was bestowed upon their piptw 

 shows the important place it took iu their everyday life. There are no articles 

 found which so well portray the aboriginal ingenuity as th-.i pipes. Animals, bird?, 

 reptiles, and the human physiognomy are all carved upon the bowls and .stems wit li 

 lif()like accuratenes.s. Many specimens found would trouble a clever artisan of tiu> 



E resent day to copy exactly, allowing him nil the modern tools to work with, 

 ecause .stones, tools, ornaments of various kinds, See., were also manufactured with 

 a precision simply perfect ; and, strange to say, it seem,^ to have been a matter of 

 little moment whether they worked the hardest or softest materials. 



Pottery, shell, and bone were extensively used in the manufacture of article.s 

 for their everyday life, whether for ornaments or necessary uten.-iils ; copper wiis 

 also utilised to some extent, principally for tools, ornaments, and sword-blades ; the 

 ore was merely pounded into thi- reijuired sha])e. 



Shells which must have been Ijrought a distance of nearly two thousand miles 

 are sometimes found in graves, evidencing the extraordinary fact that a trade must 

 have been carried on between the Alx-ngines of the North and those of the South, 

 which, extending over such a ^ a -t distance, and with their primitive mode of 

 travelling, must have made the articles exchanged of great value. 



Tlie wampum was probably nearly altogether carved from these foreign shell.s. 



5. Observations on. the Mexican Zoih'ac avd Astrolngy. 



By Hyde Clarke. 



The author connnuuicated some detailed observations on the Mexican signs, 

 and on the figure of a man to the limb.s and organs of which these signs are applied. 

 These he treated in comparison witli the Chinese Zodiac, that adopted in Europe, 

 the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabet, and the linguistic relations of the several 

 •words. Taurus was correlated with Alepli, N (1) ; Virgo the Girl with the Chine.-o 

 Snake ; Scorpion (0) with the IMexican l']ar ; Sagittarius (8) = Tiger, Ocelot, Navel, 

 and 8; Aquarius (10) with the Hat, Water, and the Hair. For the right eye, 

 the Mexican sign is the house. In gesture language and also in speech language 

 the eye = 2. This is also tlie numerical value of the House 3 in the Semitic 

 alphabets. Of purely Mexican signs were illustrated Goat = Foot ; Sun = Tongue ; 

 and Lizard = Thigh. 



Mr. Clarke's conclusion was that at one time there was in the world a common 

 symbolic, linguistic, and numeral connection of the objects, and that Chinese, 

 Egyptian, Mexican, or Aztec and Phoenician are not original types, but simply 

 derivative. Tlie numeral relations are not to be regarded as arithmetical, but 

 serial ; and as the order of a series could be changed, the variations in existing 

 types are thus to be accounted for. The originals must have been of most remote 

 antiquity. 



0. Facts suggestive of Prehistoric Intercourse hetwccn East and West. 

 By Miss A. W. Buckland. 



The object of this paper is to point out a few facts which have been somewhat 

 overlooked, but which all tend to show that at some very early period an inter- 

 course must Lave subsisted between the two hemispheres, by means of which ideas 

 were interchanged, to be worked out diS'erently, although bearing traces of a 

 common origin. 



Miss Buckland first points out the similarities between the canoes and raft.«! of 

 Asia and America, and then proceeds to show the relation between a few peculiar 

 American weapons, which seem to have had a veiy wide range and also some 

 mystic signification. The first of these is an axe-head of metal, which was used as 

 a symbol on the heads of gods, both in Peru and Mexico, and appears to have 



