120 THE HURON RACE AND ITS HEAD-FORM. 



of missionary fathers, some of whom divided their self-denying labours 

 between them and their Iroquois foes, and several suffered martyrdom 

 at the hands of the savage nations whose conversion they aimed at. 

 Minutely detailed maps and narratives of exploration and missionary 

 labours, record the progress of discovery in the region around the 

 Georgian Bay ; and illustrate the topography of the Huron villages so 

 accurately, that most of their sites have been identified in recent years. 

 Dr. J. C. Tache devoted such leisure as he could command during a 

 period of five years, prior to 1865, to a minute exploration of the 

 Huron country. Following in the steps of early writers whose accounts 

 are preserved in the Relations of the Jesuit Fathers, communicated to 

 the Provincial of the Order at Paris, from 1611 to 1672, he was able 

 to determine the sites of their principal villages, and to explore their 

 cemeteries, abounding with implements, weapons, and numerous other 

 arcbseological records of native arts and habits. 



The sepulchral rites of the Hurons were of a peculiar character. 

 Their dead were primarily exposed on raised biers, as is still done by 

 the Cowlitz, Columbia River, and other tribes ; and around them were 

 hung implements and personal ornaments of the deceased, with the 

 tributes of affection of the survivors. In the case of death on a journey, 

 or on the war-path, the body was temporarily interred. But the place 

 of sepulture was carefully noted for future transfer of the bones to the 

 general cemetery of the tribe. At intervals of ten or twelve years the 

 great " Feast of the Dead" was celebrated by each nation of the Huron 

 confederacy. One of these grand ceremonies, performed at Ossossane, 

 the chief town of the Bear Nation, on Nottawasaga Bay, was witnessed 

 by the Jesuit Missionaries, in 1636. Skeletons were gathered from old 

 scaffoldings or disinterred from distant graves, by the relations of the 

 deceased. The bones of those more recently dead were cleansed of the 

 remaining flesh ; and then wrapped carefully in skins, and adorned 

 with prized decorations. The old wampum-belts, pipes, kettles, bows, 

 arrows, axes, beads, and shells, which had been hung around the bier, 

 or deposited in the grave, were anew gathered together; and the whole 

 were brought to the appointed cemetery. There a great trench was 

 dug, and carefully lined with beaver skins and other furs ; and after a 

 funeral-feast, with lamentations by the women, and orations by some 

 of the chiefs in praise of the dead : the relics of mortality were cast 

 into the trench, along with the funeral offerings. Only in cases of 

 recent death were the corpses wrapped in furs and deposited entire ; 



