36 
NOTES ON THE BEOTHUK INDIANS OF NEWFOUNDLAND 
By D. Jenness 
The field trip to Newfoundland in 1927 had in view two objects: 
(1) to locate any existing remains of the extinct Beothuk Indians; (2) to 
discover what contacts there had been between the Beothuk Indians and 
the Eskimos to the northward. 
The writer reached Newfoundland early in June, and after a short 
stay in St. Johns, examining the specimens in the local museum, went 
inland to Badger brook and Red Indian lake. A Beothuk Indian camp- 
site that he examined at Badger brook proved to have been excavated by 
an earlier investigator; and the old camping-places of the Indians on Red 
Indian lake were either submerged when the Anglo-Newfoundland Develop- 
ment Company raised the level of the lake a few years ago to secure power 
for its pulp and paper mill, or are concealed beneath the forests that have 
sprung up since the extermination of the Beothuk one hundred years ago. 
From Red Indian lake he moved to bay of Exploits, and searched the 
eastern coast-line as far north as Canada harbour. By utilizing 
both the local steamship line and the small motor boats of the fishermen, 
it was possible to visit all the places in this area where Beothuk remains 
had been found previously, and many bays and islands that had heretofore 
yielded nothing. 
When the Beothuk moved out to the coast during the summer months 
they preferred to camp in small, sheltered bays that had freshwater streams 
at their heads and gravel beaches where the birch-bark canoes could 
ground in safety; in the interior their camp-sites seemed most numerous 
at river and lake crossings formerly frequented by the caribou, or on promon- 
tories that afforded a wide view up and down the lakes. Removal of the 
turf from three camp-sites revealed nothing except a few flint flakes, 
one or two hammerstones, a piece of pyrites for striking fire, and some 
fragments of iron stolen from the early settlers. Inland were no 
signs of graves, but a number were examined on the coast, where 
the Indians seem to have employed two methods of burial. Usually they 
deposited their dead in caves, or under overhanging cliffs in the woods, 
wrapping them in birch-bark and placing some of their property beside 
them; but in bay of Exploits they appear to have buried them also 
in stone cairns on the seashore. It is true that the dozen or more cairns 
investigated had been overturned by the local fishermen, and yielded 
nothing except a little birch-bark; but one of the boatmen, who had lived 
57 years in this bay, stated that he himself had ransacked a number of 
them in his boyhood, and had occasionally found human skulls and other 
bones which he had thrown to one side. If his evidence is reliable, a few 
of these cairns must have been graves such as are known from Labrador 
peninsula; the great majority, however, were probably caches that had 
been emptied of their contents by the original owners. 
In caves, and under cliffs, were several undoubted graves, two of 
which yielded a number of small skeletal bones and a few carved 
bone ornaments. All except one, however, had been rifled many 
years ago. The unrifled grave lay under a high cliff in the woods on the 
