406 SOME ETHNOGRAPHIC PHASES OP CONCHOLOGY. 



It is obvious from the large and cumbrous size of the American 

 strombi and pyrulce, that they must have possessed some pecuhar value 

 or sacredness in the estimation of the Indian of the northern regions, 

 to encourage their transport from so great a distance, through regions 

 beset by so many impediments to direct traffic. Their transport to 

 Canadian Lake districts appears to have been practised from a very 

 remote period. Mr. Schoolcraft describes specimens of the pyrula 

 perversa obtained by him in these regions, in an entire state, among 

 traces of Indian arts and customs : " deemed to be relics of the ante- 

 Cabotian period ; " and from the circumstance of their discovery in 

 sepulchral mounds, and laid at the head of the buried chief, with his 

 copper kettle and other peculiarly prized relics, the pyrula of this 

 continent would appear to have been held in no less veneration by the 

 natives of America, than the Asiatic species now are by the Cingal- 

 ese, or the more civilized and cultivated priests of China. Their 

 appearance when found among sepulchral deposits, as already de- 

 scribed, exhibits abundant traces of constant handling in the uses to 

 which they were applied. But whatever these were, we can scarcely 

 doubt, that they were connected with Indian superstitions, and not 

 with any purposes of mere practical utility, such as they sufficed 

 for with the ancient inhabitants of the Antilles, and as are provided 

 for in like manner, by means of other species of similar large shells 

 of the Southern Ocean, among the AustraUan Islanders. It seems 

 not improbable that the gigantic univalves thus brought from the 

 Gulf of Mexico, and introduced among a people familiar only with the 

 miniature shells of the fresh-water mollusks, owed not a little of the 

 veneration in which they appear to have been held, to the natural 

 wonder with which the untutored mind is apt to regard whatever 

 greatly exceeds the scale of its ordinary knowledge. Magnitude, 

 rarity, and difficulty of acquisition, give their chief value to many 

 of the treasures of civilized, as well as of savage life. In all proba- 

 bility the pyrulce thus venerated by the ancient Indians of Canada 

 West, closely corresponded to the Conopas, or rude Penates of the 

 Peruvians, as described by Rivero and Von Tschudi. Any singular 

 or rare object in nature or art seems to have sufficed for one of these 

 Peruvian minor deities, amulets, or charms. " Every small stone or 

 piece of wood of singular form was worshiped as a Conopa. These 

 private deities were buried with their owners, and generally hung to 

 the neck of the dead." 



