93 
In this northern area, especially among the Micmacs, agriculture 
was absent even in the parts of the country adapted for it, whereas it was 
found among the tribes in the adjacent area to the south; the long house 
was either not used or infrequent, whereas it was frequently used by the 
other tribes; feather cloaks were made by the southern tribes; copper orna- 
ments were very rarely used, but were more frequent among the southern 
tribes; the governmental system was less well developed among the Mic- 
macs and Abnaki than among the Indians to the south who had semi- 
hereditary chiefs; and the religious ceremonial among the northern tribes 
was characterized by greater simplicity than the more complex ceremonial 
and series of dances of the tribes of the adjacent area . 1 
Archaeology, fortified by language, mythology, and culture of known 
tribes, points to the general conclusions 2 that the northern area was appar- 
ently inhabited by the Micmac with the Abnaki, before the two divisions 
of the southern area reached there, and that they apparently came from 
a different place and by a different route. 
The Micmacs, when in the St. Lawrence region, would have come in 
contact with Iroquoian Indians and with Algonkian tribes preceding the 
Iroquoian tribes in Ontario, and may thus have acquired the knowledge 
and use of stone tubes and of copper, although copper, being found in the 
region of the bay of Fundy, might have been treated like a stone suitable 
for pecking, without Algonkian teachers. However, the use of copper is 
more typical of the Algonkian s north of the Great Lakes than of those 
living to the south, probably because they were nearer a large source. 
Small copper knives and awls, apparentlj'' of a similar type to those found 
in the Micmac area, have been reported from graves and other sites in 
Ontario attributable to pre-Iroquoian people. The gouge, although not 
found on Merigomish harbour and rare in the shell-heaps or graves of the 
historic tribes of southern New England, is abundant in that area, increases 
in abundance towards the north and east until it is about half as abundant 
as the celt in Nova Scotia, is abundant in certain apparently very old 
graves in the northern Champlain valley, and disappears rapidly to the 
south and west. 
The Micmacs were apparently later driven from this early habitat 
down the St. John valley to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia by the 
Iroquoian tribes from the Great Lakes. The limit of Iroquoian advance 
coincides exactly with the limits of agricultural lands in the St. Lawrence 
valley, where such lands are suddenly barred by the rocky country reaching 
the river 3 . 
The Merigomish Harbour culture, as has been seen, has typical charac- 
teristics, which are distinct from those of Nova Scotia as a whole. The 
area to which it belongs has typical characteristics that are distinct 
from those of the adjacent area in New England, which in turn has charac- 
teristic features, all of which find their similarities toward the southwest 
and south. Its characteristics find their analogies 4 in the region of the 
1 Cf. Dixon, p. 11. 
s Idem, pp. 11-14. 
*Cf. Dixon, pp. 11-14. 
4 Cf. Dixon, p. 8. 
62185—71 
