86 
fragments. Cords varying in thickness from coarse to quite fine were 
evidently used. Somewhat different impressions, apparently made with 
a twig wound with some such material as squarely cut strips of bark or skin 
(Plate XI, figure 15), may be seen on a few fragments. 
A wide band of parallel, oblique rows of cord-wound twig impres- 
sions, with another band below it of these impressions arranged parallel 
and horizontal, may be seen on fragments of the upper part of a pot (Plate 
XI, figure 1). Diagonal lines made up of similar impressions may be 
seen on the edge of the lip of some of the ware (Plate VIII, figure 11, and 
Plate XI, figures 2, 3). Long, vertical, parallel rows of impressions of 
twdsted cord, and long, horizontal rows made up of short, nearly vertical, 
parallel impressions, also of twisted cord, apparently applied by impressing 
horizontally a cord-wound twig, may be seen on one specimen of pottery 
(Plate XI, figure 7). 
Radiating or fan-like designs, composed of concentrically arranged, 
curved rows made up of nearly transverse impressions of twisted cord, 
apparently laid on with a curved twig wound with cord (Plate IX, figure 13), 
may be seen on some of the fragments of pottery (Plate XI, figures 5, 6). 
Parallel and diagonal lines, some of them apparently parts of diamond- 
shaped figures and all forming a pattern like woven technique, occur on 
three fragments of pottery apparently belonging to one pot, and seemingly 
impressed in the soft clay, before it was fired, by woven porcupine quills 
or moose hair (Plate IX, figure 6, Plate X, figure 24, and Plate XI, 
figure 13). 
Pictographic art is absent, unless the scratches making an animal- 
like figure on the pebble on Plate XIX, figure 15, which may represent the 
manitou of the maker or owner, are part of a pictograph, or some of the 
faint incisions, the plainest of which form two parallel V- or wigwam-shaped 
figures, in figure 20, are pictographic. The nearest petroglyphs are at 
Fairy lake, where a large number are incised on slate, at George lake, 
and on Port Medway river, all in Queens county, Nova Scotia, to the 
southwest of Merigomish. 1 
The technique of some of the incised geometric designs on bone and 
antler is good. Some of the geometric designs impressed on pottery are 
of excellent patterns, but the execution is crude; that of the possible picto- 
graphic sketches is inferior to the geometric designs. 
METHOD OF BURIAL 
No graves, mounds, or other evidence of the method of burial by the 
prehistoric people of Merigomish harbour are known except burials in 
the prehistoric cemetery described by Patterson (a, page 231; b, page 29), 
and a tooth and one stray bone found in heap A. A skull, No. 233 in 
the Patterson collection, is catalogued as from the Dunbar farm, south 
Pictou. No burial mounds have been found anywhere in Nova Scotia, 
and graves are rare 2 . In prehistoric times, perhaps only in certain circum- 
stances, the Micmacs wrapped the body and placed it in a tree or on a 
scaffold. 3 
1 Cf. Piers (a), p. 117, and (d), p. 13. 
s Cf. Gilpin, p. 227; Piers (a), p. 117. 
* Cf. Piers (a), p. 109; Denys, p. 438; Gilpin, p. 227. 
