70 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
One of the great medicines of the Iroquois is connected with a | 
traditional scalping incident and a great Huron feast wa 
founded on the same story. The owl] and the wolf meet, and the 
coming of the Ontarraoura is predicted. This animal seems . 
be the panther, or mountain lion, and to him the resusciatas 
of the good hunter is ascribed. In the New York story the good 
hunter loses his life and scalp. After many trials a bird brings) | 
the scalp back, but it is so dry it will not fit. At last the eagle: | 
suggests softening it with the mountain dew which has collected 
between its shoulders. The scalp becomes pliable, is fitted to i S | 
place, and the good hunter lives again, to the great joy of bird | 
and beast. In this the presence or absence of the scalp becom og | 
synonymous with life and death—Beauchamp 4 
In general there is nothing to distinguish the scalping frou 
‘the hunting knife, but nearly all are pointed. Some were? | 
supplied ready for use; in other cases the handling seems to hay > | 
been left to the sons of the forest. They were sold or given as 
presents by Dutch, English and French, and were of many forms ! 
and sizes. Illustrations will be given of a few of these but fro m | 
their thinness most have perished. | 
The Dutch so soon began a spirited Indian trade that the | 
French could do little in New York, except among the Senecas.) | 
Knives were among the smaller articles which La Salle wanted) | 
at Fort Frontenac in 1684, but in 1708 M. de Longueuil. reported | 
that Schuyler had given the Jroquois 800 knives. At the siege | 
of Detroit in 1712 the French Indians were given 190 butcher 
knives, to be used as bayonets. These may have been the long | 
carving knives here shown. 
Among the presents to the Iroquois at Albany July 3, 168 3 
were 87 hatchets and four gross of knives; and among those 
recommended the next year were “2. Grose of Knives bla x | 
hafted sharpe points.” They were an ordinary article of trade 
besides. Hence we may conclude that most of those found i | 
New York were of Dutch or English make. During the period 
of the French missions here, French articles were quite freel; y 
used, but before and after the supply was small. This is not 
