360 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
This “ they take in the said river in cornibots, in the manner follow- 
ing. ‘When any one hath deserved death, or that they take any 
of their enemies in warres, first they kill him, then with certain 
knives they give great slashes and strokes upon their buttocks, 
flankes, thighs and shoulders; then they cast the same bodie so 
mangled downe to the bottome of the river, in a place where the 
said esurgny is, and there they leave it ten or twelve hours, then 
they take it up againe, and in the cuts they find the said esurgny, 
or cornibots. Of them they make beads, and use them even as we 
doe gold and silver, accounting it the preciousest thing in the world. 
They have this vertue in them, they will stop or stanch bleeding at 
the nose, for we proved it.” 
All writers have considered these shell beads. Sir J. W. Dawson 
said, in Fossil men, p. 32: “It is probably a vulgar local name for 
some shell supposed to resemble that of which these Indians made 
their wampum. [ would suggest that it may be derived from cornet, 
which is used by old French writers as a name for the shells of 
the genus Voluta, and is also a technical term in conchology. 
In this case it is likely that the esurgny was made of the shells of 
some of our species of Melania or Paludina,Y > Netther 
of these shells is white unless very much worn. The Paludina 
or Melantho is green, burrows in mud along the shore, and 
is thus easily procured. The Melania or Goniobasis is 
of a dark yellow, or brown, does not burrow as a rule, but adheres 
to stones in shallow or deep water, and can be as readily gathered. 
Both seem vegetable feeders. at) 
Charlevoix refers to this story. ‘“ James Cartier in his memoirs 
makes mention of a shell of an uncommon shape, which he found, 
as he says, in the island of Montreal; he calls it esurgni, and affirms 
it had the virtue of stopping a bleeding at the nose. Perhaps it 
is the same we are now speaking of, but they are no longer to be 
found in the island of Montreal, and I never heard of any but the 
shells of Virginia which had the property Cartier speaks of.” 
Hardly any shell beads have been found at Montreal or on the ear- 
liest Mohawk sites, and the story has an extravagant appearance. 
If it is to be received, the writer has already suggested a possible 
