Haynes.] 438 [November 7, 



all their widely separated harboring-places in the whole stretch 

 of our sea-coast, were indebted to the surplus maize, which the 

 Indians had in store, to save them on one or another exigency 

 from starvation." J 



The question, therefore, naturally presents itself to our minds 

 how, in the very low stage of civilization in which the natives are 

 usually stated to have been found here, they were able to secure 

 such large products of the soil, and what was the nature of the 

 agricultural implements used by them ? Dr. Palfrey has an- 

 swered this question in a somewhat dogmatic fashion by stating 

 that " one tool sufficed for their wretched husbandry ; a hoe, made 

 of a clam-shell, or a moose's shoulder-blade, fastened into a 

 wooden handle." 2 He quotes no authorities for his statement, 

 but I suppose he obtained his information about the clam-shells 

 from Wood who praises the industry of the Indian women in cul- 

 tivating maize, " keeping it so clear with their clam-shell hoes as 

 if it were a garden rather ,than a corn-field." 8 Several writers 

 have referred to the use of the shoulder-bones of deer for this 

 purpose. Among them Loskiel, s]3eaking of the Delawares and 

 Iroquois, says they " used formerly the shoulder-blade of a deer, 

 or a tortoise-shell sharpened upon a stone, and fastened to a thick 

 stick instead of a hoe." 4 But, on the other hand, our associate, 

 Mr. Lucien Can*, who has just published a most able and thor- 

 ough study of all the authorities who have anything to tell us 

 about " The Indian as an Agriculturist," quotes quite a number 

 of writers to show that the natives commonly made use of 

 " wooden hoes and spades." 5 



But in this instance, as in so many others, the authorities have 

 not told us the whole story by any means, and archaeology 

 comes in with the most irrefragable proofs that implements of 

 a very different sort were largely employed by them. Who, 

 for example, in reading the narrative of the first hostile en- 



1 The Red Man and the White Man, p. 174. 



2 History of New England, vol. I, p. 27. 



3 New England's Prospect, chap. xx. (p. 106). 



* Mission among the Indians in North America, part i, p. 67. See alsoLe Moyne's 

 " Brevis Narratio " in De Bry, ser. 1, part 2. pi. xxi, expl. 



5 The Mounds of the Mississippi Valley historically considered, p. 9, note 12; and pp. 

 14,20,25. 



