75 
oblong hexagon and about 4 inches long and If inches wide when whole, is 
probably part of a specimen with two holes (Cat. No. VIII-F-13066). The 
broken edge at the largest end has been ground smooth. It is about J inch 
thick. One of the specimens is a rectangular, imperforate piece of grey 
slate, inches wide, inches long, and ^ 6 - inch thick, smoothed on all 
sides, and may be in process of manufacture into a gorget (Cat. No. VIII- 
F-12841). A piece of rough, slightly worked, reddish slate, with a broken- 
out perforation, probably also was in process of manufacture into one of 
these objects when it became broken. 
Slate gorgets occur at Neutral sites in southwestern Ontario {See the 
author, 6:37), but none has been reported from Iroquois sites in New York 
(Skinner, 4:19, 171, and Parker, 6:401). 
MASKS 
The appearance of some of the human and animal faces modelled on 
the bowls of earthenware pipes suggests that they were intended to repre- 
sent wooden masks, like some of those used by the modern Iroquois in 
their ceremonies. 
The Hurons seem to have used masks, 1 but according to Beauchamp, 
there does not appear to be any evidence of their use by the early Iroquois 
of what is now New York state. 2 
RATTLES 
A fragment of the bridge portion of a plastron of the painted turtle 
(Cat. No. VIII-F-12351) with the remains of a perforation on one of the 
broken edges, may be part of a hand rattle like some of those used by 
Iroquois in religious ceremonials. 3 
No complete shells of the painted turtle have been found at an 
Iroquoian site, but a few rattles made from whole shells of the southern box 
turtle have been discovered in post-European graves in southwestern 
Ontario {See Boyle, 1, Figure 108), which were probably left behind by the 
Iroquois conquerors of the Neutrals. 
WHISTLES 
The shape of a few bone objects suggests that they were used as 
whistles. It is possible, for instance, to produce a faint sound by blowing 
into the hole broken or cut into the front of a few middle phalanges of the 
deer. Boyle, referring to flattened objects derived from deer phalanges, 
like those described under “ Games,” says: “ They are popularly known as 
whistles, and I have heard of persons who are able to produce a loud and 
»Le Jeune (Jesuit Relations, 1637, XIII, p. 176), says: “They donned their masks and danced to drive away the 
disease.’ ’ Again, on pp. 263 and 265, he states: "All the dancers were disguised as hunchbacks with wooden masks. 
*“To the fact that the early missionaries found no public use of masks here, and for a long time knew of none in 
New York made of wood, we may add that Bruyas records no Mohawk word meaning a mask, or referring to its 
We may therefore conclude that it came into New York late in the 17th century, and that the Seneca used it 
use. 
first of all” (Beauchamp 6:185). , VT 7 tt leni 
•Turtle shell rattles seem to have been used by the Hurons, for Le Jeune, in the Relation of 1639 (XVII, p. 157), 
says: “This Tortoise is not a real Tortoise, but only the shell and skin so arranged as to make a sort of drum; having 
thrown certain pebbles into this, they make from it an instrument like that which children in France use to play 
with." 
