POLISHED STONE ARTICLES USED BY THE NEW YORK ABORIGINES 57 



These perforations form the most important feature. The amulet 

 may be but a simple bar, but at each end of the base is a sloping 

 hole, bored from the end and base and meeting. To this necessary 

 feature may be added a simple head or tail, and there may also be 

 projecting ears. None of these are essential. They are but appro- 

 priate or tasteful accessories. 



Two notable collections contain a large number of amulets. In 

 the Canadian collection at Toronto there are about fifty bird amulets 

 from the province of Ontario, and many of these are much de- 

 pressed. The longest is six and three eighths inches. Besides 

 these there is a score of bar amulets, a very much rarer form. The 

 longest is six and one quarter inches. They are mostly of striped 

 slate. 



The collection of Mr. A. E. Douglass is larger, having 70 bird 

 amulets; 35 of which are from Ohio, and 16 from New York. One 

 of the latter, from near Auburn, has a turtle-shaped head. His col- 

 lection contains the unusually large number of 38 bar amulets, 22 of 

 which are from Ohio, and but one from New York. The latter 

 seem quite rare here, not more than half a dozen having come 

 before us. Bird amulets are much more frequent, upwards of 50 

 having been shown us in various places, besides those mentioned 

 above. 



They were variable in material as well as form, although most 

 commonly made of striped slate. Perhaps full half have projecting 

 ears, when of the bird form. In the wider forms, usually of harder 

 materials, there are often cross bars on the under side, in which the 

 perforations are made. Occasionally these are not entirely en- 

 closed, yet are without signs of breakage. This seems to prove 

 that these were not intended as a means of attaching them to any 

 larger object, on which they would rest, but rather for fastening 

 articles upon them, as in the Zuni amulets already mentioned, and 

 which were illustrated by Mr. Frank H. Gushing, in the second Re- 

 port of the Bureau of Ethnology. On comparison a general resem- 

 blance to these will be seen, and in a few cases it is quite striking. 

 That they were used in this way, rather than in those suggested by 

 others, is a reasonable conclusion which gains strength with fuller 

 study. : 



