252 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



The Iroquois had no regard for bones as sacred, but Canadian 

 Indians venerated many, or at least were careful of them. Some 

 would not eat the marrow of the backbone, this being bad for the 

 back. The Jesuits said the Hurons considered " fish intelligent, and 

 aho the deer and elks." It is added : " This is why they do not 

 throw the bones of the latter to the dogs, when they are hunting, or 

 the fish bones of the former when they are fishing. Otherwise, upon 

 the warning that the others would have of it, they would hide and 

 not allow themselves to be taken." Some Algonquins gave their 

 dogs no bones of beavers, female porcupines, or birds taken in 

 snares, for the same reason, but burned them. It was best to throw 

 the bones of a snared beaver into the river. All were collected 

 with care. Bears bones were burned or buried under the hearth. 

 Some Algonquins burned dry beaver bones to learn the source of 

 pestilence. 



The Iroquois were not fond of working in stone, though they did 

 this well, but long maintained their liking for bone and horn. 

 Occasionally they neatly carve such material yet. Some of their 

 early articles have preserved that wonderful polish, which some- 

 times creates doubts in those who have not dug up such articles, as 

 the writer himself has done. They are usually plain, but early 

 decoration sometimes occurs. The smoothness of the work is often 

 surprising, and the luster may have come from the absorption of fat. 

 The relative abundance of bone articles on early Iroquois sites is 

 another subject worthy of remark, but this appears only through 

 excavation. On many of those over 300 years old more tools or 

 ornaments of bone than of stone will be found ; nor is this propor- 

 tion confined to those of established age and origin. The writer and 

 four others did a successful day's digging at an early fishing village 

 in Jefferson county, and he found the only flint arrowhead which 

 was secured. [Nearly all the other relics were fragments of pottery 

 and pipes, and various forms of polished bone. Another prolific 

 village site in Onondaga county has a similar character, chipped 

 stone iniplements being exceptional, and those of bone the rule. 

 Yet fine triangular arrowheads and small basalt celts have recently 

 been found there, but bone is more frequent. 



"While occasional examples in Europe might pass for those of 



