BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAE SCIENCES 469 



the soil; the sutures, however, had not separated. Altogether 

 the burial seemed to me one of considerable antiquity. 



In the absence of cultural clues to the identity of the people 

 who performed this burial, we should compare it with the ossu- 

 aries of the adjacent regions. Some years ago I opened one 

 similar in all respects to the present ossuary, at Sherkston, On- 

 tario, a few hundred yards from the north shore of L,ake Erie. 

 The pit was of about the same size and apparent antiquity and 

 contained a confused mass of tightly packed bones of individuals 

 of all ages. No separate graves were found on the outskirts and 

 no human artifacts of any kind. 



On the other hand, the cemeteries at Point Abino, Ont., at 

 Port Colborne, Ont., and one near Cayuga, Ont., all of which I 

 have personally investigated, agree in the following particulars: 

 all contained bone pits as nuclei, all had separate graves in the 

 vicinity and all contained burial presents, largely of European 

 manufacture. The cemeteries at Stamford, Ont., and at Grand 

 Island, N. Y., contained one or more small pits with a few 

 bundle burials packed in them, surruonded by a large number of 

 separate graves. I infer from these circumstances, that soon after 

 the Jesuits visited these people, they persuaded them to give up 

 the "Feast of the Dead", which was gradually abandoned, and 

 baptized converts w T ere given individual burials. 



The tribes inhabiting this region when first visited by the 

 whites were of Huron-Iroquois stock, either Neuters or one of 

 their offshoots, the Wenros. 



There are traces of an earlier Algonquin people along the 

 Canadian shore of Eake Erie and of the Niagara River, but a 

 cemetery recently found at Fort Erie, Ont. , seems to show that 

 the burials were in separate shallow graves, accompanied by bone 

 and flint weapons and with implements of a northern Algonquin 

 culture. 



There remain the Missisaugas, an Algonquin nomadic tribe, 

 who made their first appearance in this vicinity in historical 

 times about 1686, but who occupied no part of it permanently 

 until 1700 when they were invited by the Senecas to reside near 

 them. Owing to a traditional hatred between them and the 

 eastern Iroquois, however, they made no very permanent settle- 

 ments in this region. An Onondaga Indian told me that many 

 years ago (1870) he attended a council on the Grand River at 



