Skinner: Collection of Indian Relics from Watchogue 103 



Mr. Decker had picked up a fragment of a clay pipe stem with 

 the figure of a man wearing an Iroquoian headdress, scratched 

 upon it, and a flint arrowpoint, long triangular, with concave sides 

 and base, quite like some shown in an article in Popular Science 

 Monthly several years ago, from an Iroquoian site in the Mohawk 

 Valley. Was there a Mohawk war camp at Watchogue? The 

 presence of the brass arrowpoints, so abundant on historic Iro- 

 quois sites, the Iroquoian pipe and pottery, with the other relics 

 all at one spot seem to indicate as much. We know that the 

 Mohawks subdued our local Indians, and even claimed title to 

 their lands, by right of conquest. Mr. Davis has recorded in the 

 supplement to his Staten Island Names, Ye Olde Names and 

 Nicknames, a " certain Tract or Parcell of Land Lying and being 

 at Sagoddiochguisatt, which by deed of gift has been granted unto 

 the said John Mangilson by the Maquase [Mohawk] Indians in 

 the year 168 1-2 the said Land Running from the marked tree 

 whereon ye name of the sd John Mangilson Stands and also the 

 mark of the Maquase Indians unto the Creek that Lyeth West- 

 ward the line of the sd Land Running into the woods direct North 

 upon a straig^ht Line, Together with all houses, Barnes, stables, 



orchards, fencings, Feedings " Dated February 10, 1698-9. 



Liber, B, p. 322. 



A curious little obelisk-shaped object of slate covered with a 

 network of scratched lines was possibly an ornament, although, 

 from the writer's experience with woodland Indians of the same 

 stock as our own Delawares, he would judge it to be perhaps a 

 charm or "medicine" object. It is unique from this locality, but 

 we have observed other somewhat similar specimens from New 

 Jersey, especially from near Trenton. 



The broken bannerstone comes from Chelsea, and is a good 

 and unusual specimen, though by no means a novelty. A splendid 

 yellow jasper knife, one of the best made and largest implements 

 of the type in the museum collection, comes from the same place. 



Among the arrowpoints are several uncommon forms. One of 

 the notched variety with a bifurcated base is rare locally, and a 



