THROUGHOUT THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 425 



physically and intellectually the Chippeways were inferior to the 

 Iroquois and Hurous. The latter displayed a manifest aptitude for 

 civilization. In war they repeatedly effected and maintained exten- 

 sive and powerful combinations. Their agricultural operations gave 

 proof of a systematic and coutinuous cultivation of the soil. Corn 

 especially was grown to a great extent. Tobacco also was so exten- 

 tensively cultivated by one of the tribes of Upper Canada as to lead 

 to its designation by the French Jesuit Missionaries of the seven- 

 teenth century as the Petunians, or Tobacco Growers. Moreover, 

 their knowledge and practice of agriculture appears to have originated 

 independently of all European influence ; and but for their fatal in- 

 volvement in the struggle between the Colonists and the representa- 

 tives of the mother country, there seemed a reasonable prospect of 

 such an Iroquois civilization being developed in the western dis- 

 tricts of the State of New York, as might have enabled these repre- 

 sentatives of the ancient owners of the soil to share in the gradual 

 advancement of European arts and progress instead of being trodden 

 under heel in the march of civilization.* 



Of Indian skulls dug up within the district once pertaining to the 

 Huron or Wyandot branch of the Iroquois stock, I had observed and 

 cursorily examined a considerable number before my attention was 

 especially drawn to the peculiar characteristics now under considera- 

 tion, owing to my repeated rejection of those which turned up, as 

 failing to furnish specimens of the assigned typical American head. 

 Since then I have carefully examined and measured twenty-nine 

 Indian skulls, with the following results : 



1. Only three exhibit such an agreement with the American type, 

 as judged by the eye, to justify their classification as true brachy- 

 cephalic crania. One of these (No. 1 1,) a very remarkable and massive 

 skull, was turned up at Barrie, on Lake Simcoe, with, it is said, up- 

 wards of two hundred others. It differs from all the other Indian 

 crania in exhibiting the vertical occiput so very strikingly, that, when 

 laid resting on it, it stands more firmly than in any other position. 

 Of the Scioto Valley cranium, Dr. Morton remarks, in reference to 

 the occiput, " Similar forms are common in the Peruvian tombs, and 

 have the occiput, as in this instance, so flattened and vertical, as to 



* La Hontan estimated the Iroquois, when first known to Europeans, at 70,000. At the 

 present time they number about 7,000, including those in Canada; and they still exhibit 

 traces of the superiority which once pertained to them in comparison with other Indian 

 tribes. The very name of a Mohawk still fills with dread the lodges of the Chippeways ; and 

 the Algonquin Indians settled on the Canadian reserves on Lake Couchiching and Rice Lake, 

 have been known repeatedly to desert their villages and camp out in the woods, or on an 

 island, from the mere rumor of a Mohawk having been seen in the vicinity. 

 VOL. II. — D* 



