1878.] Anthropology. 255 
ANTHROPOLOGY.' 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL News.—In the Geographical Magazine, for 
February, will be found an interesting autobiography of Hans 
Hendrik, an Eskimo, who served with Kane, Hayes, Hall, and 
Sir George Nares, translated by Dr. Rink. 
Dr. Hoffman, Assistant Surgeon U. S. A., communicates the 
following description of a practice among the Dakotas, of Grand 
river, D. T., for producing abortion: The hair from the tail of the 
black-tailed deer is cut up into short pieces and fried in the fat of 
black bears’ paws. The patient ‘swallows as much of this as is 
thought necessary to produce the effect. There are certain old 
squaws who are recognized as “ general assistants,” and nurses to 
lying-in women, and they are frequently called in to aid young 
and old women in producing abortion. The patient sits upon the 
lap of the nurse, who reaching around the abdomen and inter- 
lacing her fingers to get a secure hold, hugs her victim with all 
her strength repeatedly and for a long time. This frequently 
ends to the satisfaction of the operator and subject. 
Mr. Paul Schumacher, writing from San Francisco, makes the 
following communication with reference to the perforated stone 
discs found so abundantly in Southern California and elsewhere : 
“With reference to the employment of these objects to give 
weight to digging-sticks, I received my information from a half- 
breed Indian who had seen, in his youth, the last aboriginal in- 
habitants of the Island of Santa Cruz, still occupying the rancheria 
at Prisoners’ Harbor, in which I made excavations for the Smith- 
sonian Institution three years ago. I have since followed up the 
subject, and although positive proof is wanting, no contradictory 
evidence was observed during my researches. The aborigines 
cultivated extensively on some of the islands, a species of plant, 
on the bulbs of which they partly subsisted, and they even 
exchanged them with the people of the main land. I did not say 
that the design of the digging-stick was to open graves, as the 
handy Haliotis shell was better adapted to this purpose in the 
sandy ground of the islands.in which the graves are located. 
The fact that some of the rings are of light weight is no argu- 
ment against my position, as digging-sticks are used without 
weight, by the Australians of our day. There is hardly a class of 
relics that is not frequently represented by diminutive specimens, 
rougher and less symmetrical than the full-sized (they may have 
been playthings for children); but these should not deter the stu- 
dent from correctly naming the average sized objects.” Mr. Bowers 
says, “ Those of pyramidal form were doubtless used for spinning, 
while the others [simply a variety in form, but alike in perfora- 
_ tion] were used in games.” How were these used for games, and 
_ those for spinning? I have summed up the evidence for their 
use as weights to digging-sticks in a paper, entitled “ Aboriginal 
1 Edited by Prof, Oris T. Mason, Columbian College, Washington, D. C. 
