BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCES 455 



is always in their platter to the thickness of a silver crown. 

 Another of their greatest dishes is Indian meal cooked in water 

 and then served in a wooden bowl with two fingers of bears' 

 grease or oil of sunflowers or of butternuts upon it." 



European knives were in common use. Many, found in the 

 graves of various sites, have carved bone handles and seem to 

 have been the usual knives of the period in households in England 

 and Flanders, and to have been staple articles of trade with 

 the Indians. 



Several short pieces of iron rod an eighth of an inch thick 

 seem to have been spits for roasting. In one village, while tor- 

 turing a native, an old woman heated one of these iron spits 

 red-hot and thrust it into him. 



To cut wood the Seneca women used iron axes bought from 

 the traders. Many of these are to be found in graves. An 

 immense number has been taken from the surface of some of the 

 sites, if reports are to be credited. A few are still found in the 

 refuse heaps. These axes are much smaller than those usually 

 seen on sites along the Niagara Frontier. They have no marks 

 by which we may be enabled to tell whence they came. Dented 

 and flattened heads give evidence that they have been used 

 as hammers. 



We have no description of the clothing of the Senecas of the 

 period. For occasions of state, fur robes seem to have been used. 

 European cloth was in use, possibly in quite common use, for 

 the stock of traders included a great deal of cloth. French 

 presents to the Senecas usually included coats or cloaks. In a 

 few graves at Gandagora, and in others at the Dann farm, pieces 

 of blanket have been found, preserved by reason of articles of 

 brass lying in contact with them. Denonville's men, after the 

 battle near Gandagora, found many blankets where the Senecas 

 had abandoned them in their flight. Belmont in his description 

 of the ambuscade of Denonville's force says: "We found two or 



three hundred wretched blankets, several miserable guns " 



In the great bone pit at Gandagora was found a black button, 

 similar to those worn by priests on their cassocks. At the Dann 

 farm another was found. 



Before the coming of the traders the Senecas used bone awls 

 for sewing, and sinew for thread, for at the Stone Age sites at 

 Richmond Mills and at the Cleary farm at East Avon bone awls 



