78 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



The brooch proper has a central opening, across which a tongue 

 ■extends, like that of a buckle. The cloth is pinched up and passed 

 through this opening, the tongue penetrating it twice, when it is 

 drawn back, and the brooch is firmly in place. When they were 

 plentiful, the smaller ones were usually arranged in two lines down 

 the center of the overskirt in front, and across the front of the lower 

 edge. The larger ones were reserved for the upper part of the 

 ■dress. Sometimes small ones were arranged on ribbons. Most of 

 the smaller forms were very abundant. In those of similar outline 

 quite a variety was obtained by varying the perforations and the 

 surface ornamentation. The latter was mostly made with punches, 

 but the graver was occasionally used. Those formed of brass are 

 extremely rare, the writer having obtained but two among the 

 hundreds of silver ones which he has seen. There are early ex- 

 amples in graves. Of these the writer has seen several from graves 

 in Wisconsin. They were mostly circular, but one stellar brooch 

 had broad and short rays. 



Preliminary to further descriptions it may be said that Mrs Harriet 

 Maxwell Converse furnished an illustrated paper on " The Iroquois 

 Silver Brooches " for the State Museum report for 1900. Many of 

 the illustrations will be recognized here, nearly half coming from 

 the writer's collection and the remainder, also found in the paper 

 mentioned, from that of Mrs Converse, there being a mutual inter- 

 change of figures. 



Fig. 31 is a fine brass brooch which the writer obtained at Onon- 

 daga. It is a circular ornament of good size, with crenulated and 

 t mbossed edge. To show the rarity of this material employed in 

 such a use, it may be said that an Indian friend was surprised at it, 

 never having seen one of the kind before. The writer afterward 

 secured another circular brooch of brass which was plain and much 

 smaller. 



The simplest and perhaps earliest form of the brooch seems to 

 have been that called the round buckle, allusions to which have 

 been quoted from several authors. It is frequent yet, either plain 

 or ornamented. With the three double-barred silver crosses, de- 

 scribed by Mr Boyle in Canada, was a piece of cloth decorated with 

 20 of these. Dr Evarts, of Silver Creek N. Y., showed the writer 



