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 esiirgny 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. I 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 M e 1 a n i a or P a 1 u d i n a." Neither 

 of these ^hells is white unless very much worn. The P a 1 u d i n a 

 or M e 1 a n t h o 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. 



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 islan4 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 psossibk 



