VIII.
Remains of Animals. Human remains have not been found in the shell-heaps of Denmark, except in the case of casual burials, as of a shipwrecked sailor, or of burials from some other unusual occurrence, and these are of a modern date. The same absence of human remains marks the shell-heaps we are describing, with a single exception. At Cotuit Port an unequivocal metatarsal bone from the great toe of the human foot was discovered. No other bones were found with it, except those of animals. It was so deeply buried, and its appearance was such, that no doubt exists that it was of the same age as the heap itself; we have therefore assigned it a place in the following table, which gives a list of the species of animals uncovered and identified by their bones, or shells, in the different heaps, and shows their relative distribution through them.
| Kinds of Animals found in the Shell-heaps. | Mount Desert. | Crouch’s Cove. | Eagle Hill. | Cotuit Port. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Man, | * | |||
| 2 | Elk (Cervus Canadensis), | * | |||
| 3 | Moose (Alce Americanus), | * | * | ||
| 4 | Caribou (Rangifer Caribou) | * | ? | ||
| 5 | Deer (Cervus Virginianus), | * | * | * | * |
| 6 | Bear (Ursus Americanus), | * | * | ||
| 7 | Wolf (Canis occidentalis) | * | |||
| 8 | Dog (Canis), | * | * | * | |
| 9 | Fox (Vulpes fulvus), | * | |||
| 10 | Cat (Felis), | * | |||
| 11 | Otter (Lutra Canadensis), | * | |||
| 12 | Mink (Putorius vison), | * | * | ||
| 13 | Sable (Mustella Americana), | * | |||
| 14 | Skunk (Mephitis mephitica), | * | |||
| 15 | Seal (Phoca vitulina), | * | * | * | |
| 16 | Beaver (Castor Canadensis), | * | * | * | |
| 17 | Woodchuck (Arctomys monax), | * | |||
| 18 | 18| Great Auk (Alca impennis, | * | * | ||
| 19 | Razor-bill (Alca torda), | * | |||
| 20 | Ducks (three species), | * | * | ||
| 21 | Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), | * | * | ||
| 22 | Heron (Ardea herodias), | * | |||
| 23 | Tortoise (two species), | * | |||
| 24 | Shark, | * | |||
| 25 | Cod (Morrhua Americana), | * | * | * | |
| 26 | Goose-fish (Lophius Americanus), | * | |||
| 27 | Whelk (Buccinum undatum), | * | * | ||
| 28 | Pyrula carica, | * | |||
| 29 | Pyrula canaliculata, | * | |||
| 30 | Oyster (Ostrea edulis), | * | * | * | * |
| 31 | Clam (Mya arenaria), | * | * | * | * |
| 32 | Quahog (Venus mercenaria), | * | * | * | |
| 33 | Mussel (Mytilus edulis), | * | * | * | * |
| 34 | Scallop (Pecten tenuicostatus and P. Islandicus), | * | * | ||
| 35 | Hen-clam (Mactra), | * |
Besides the species of shells mentioned above, and which may be regarded as having been used for food, there were also found species from the following genera, probably accidentally introduced, viz.: Tritonium, Littorina, Nassa Zua and Purpura; seven species of Helix; three species of Natica.
A glance at the above table shows what a great variety of animals was brought to these places by the Indians. Some were hunted as articles of food, others for their skin, and still others for both. Precisely where the line is to be drawn between those which are and are not edible, or what animal an Indian would absolutely refuse to eat, it is impossible to say. Although the kinds of meat used were in the main palatable, the natives certainly did not hesitate to make use of some which do not commend themselves to the taste of civilized people. Josselyn, who, of all the earlier writers, has given the most complete account of the animals found on the coast of New England, states that “the Indians, when weary with travelling, will take them (the rattlesnakes) up with their bare hands, laying hold with one hand behind their head, with the other taking hold of their tail, and with their teeth tear off the skin of their backs, and feed upon them alive, which, they say, refresheth them.”[8]
The bones of the deer and birds outnumber those of all the other kinds. The condition in which they are found bears a striking resemblance to that of the bones from the shell-heaps of Scotland, the Orkneys, and Denmark. Nearly all the fragments from the deer were those of the long bones, which in the living animal are either covered by the largest amount of flesh, or contain the most marrow. Not one of them was whole, all having been broken up for the double purpose of extracting the marrow, a custom almost world wide among savages, and often practised by hunters, and of accommodating them to the size of the vessel in which they were cooked. Even the phalanges of the toes were treated in the same way.
The bones of the bear, though much less numerous, were similarly broken up, and in two instances had been carbonized by contact with the fire. Among the specimens collected by Mr. Morse in his first visit to Crouch’s Cove, was the last molar from the lower jaw. The crown was somewhat worn, but the ridges were not all effaced; it was of small size, measuring 0.55 inch in length, and 0.46 in breadth. The average size of eight specimens of the same molar in the black bear was, length 0.60 inch, breadth 0.47, while that of two specimens from the polar bear was, length 0.54 inch, breadth 0.45. The tooth from the shell-heaps, therefore, as regards size, more closely resembles the last-mentioned species, as it does also in the shape of the crown,—but it would be unsafe, from a single specimen of the molar in question, to attempt to identify them. The former existence of the polar bear, on the coast of Maine, is rendered quite probable by the fact that the tusk of a walrus has actually been found at Gardiner.[9] Sir Charles Lyell obtained a portion of the cranium of another at Gay Head, Martha’s Vineyard.[10] It was found by a fisherman who supposed that it had fallen from a cretaceous bed in the cliff above. Perhaps it may have been of a more recent date, and a contemporary of the Great Auk.
The presence of the bones of the dog might be accounted for on the score of its being a domesticated animal, but the fact that they were not only found mingled with those of the edible kinds, but like them were broken up, suggests the probability of their having been used as food. We have not seen it mentioned, however, by any of the earlier writers, that such was the case along the coast, though it appears to have been otherwise with regard to some of the interior tribes as the Hurons. With them, game being scarce, “venison was a luxury found only at feasts, and dog flesh was in high esteem.”[11] We have not found any marks of cutting instruments, as was the case with the bones found by Steenstrup in the shell-heaps of Denmark, and from which circumstance he inferred that dogs were eaten. In fact, they have served as food in so many parts of the world, that the use of their flesh anywhere ought not to be considered an improbability.
A whole left half of the lower jaw of a wolf was found at Mount Desert, measuring 7.5 inches in length, making a strong contrast in size, with a similar half from a dog found at Crouch’s Cove. This was more curved, and had a length of a little less than five inches.
The bones of birds, like those of the deer, were almost without exception broken, but in quite a different manner. In the latter it was the shaft that was shattered, the ends often remaining uninjured; while in the birds the shaft was whole, and the ends not only broken off, but nowhere to be found. It is not to be supposed that they were so broken off for the extraction of the marrow, since those containing only air were treated in the same way. Steenstrup having observed the same fact in the remains from the Danish shell-heaps, suspected that they were mutilated by dogs, and accordingly by way of experiment, having kept some of these animals on short diet, gave them various bird bones to eat. He found, as he had anticipated, that they ate the ends, rejecting the shaft. He explains their choice by the greater sponginess, and easier digestibility of the former as compared with the dense middle portion of the latter. No doubt an additional inducement was found in the remains of flesh, tendon, and ligament, which would usually remain adherent to the ends, after the portions ordinarily eaten had been removed. On looking over the specimens of our collections, marks of teeth of animals were frequently noticed, some of them of such size as might be made by dogs, but others by a much smaller animal, as a cat or mink.
Of the remains of birds, by far the most interesting are those of the Great Auk (Alca impennis), which formerly had a much wider geographical distribution than now, for having followed the glaciers in their retreat, at present it is confined to the arctic and subarctic regions. In Europe it formerly existed, as appears from the evidence of the shell-heaps, on the shores of Scotland, the Orkneys, and it has recently died out in Iceland. In the United States we have the authority of Steenstrup and Prof. Baird for its former existence as far south as Cape Cod. There can be but little doubt that the last survivors lingered till after the arrival of the Europeans. The description of the “Wobble,” by Josslyn, as far as it goes, applies to the Great Auk, “an ill-shaped bird, having no long feathers in their pinions which is the reason they cannot fly; not much unlike a penguin.”[12]
There are various traditions along the sea-coast of its having been seen at a much later date. Audubon, however, in his voyage to Labrador saw none in the Straits of Belle Isle, but was told that they still bred on an island north of Newfoundland.
The remains of the Great Auk in the shell-heaps of Maine, were in sufficient numbers to show that it must have been common, since seven specimens of the humerus alone were found, besides fragments of the cranium, jaws, and sternum. The specimens of humerus differed remarkably in condition from the same bone of other birds found with them, in not being mutilated; for of the seven specimens, four were whole, and the fifth had lost but one end, while of the humeri of the other kinds, scarce one was whole enough to enable one to identify the species. They seem not to have been attractive to the dogs. They are characterized by their much flattened shape, thick walls, narrow cavity, and the absence of an opening for the entrance of air. Well-preserved specimens of the coracoid bone were also found entire.
The catalogue we have given of the animals found in the shell-heaps shows that the elements of variety in food certainly existed, especially if we add to these the maize, beans, squashes, and various kinds of roots Indians are known to have used. From the testimony of eyewitnesses, soon after the settlement of the country, it appears that while sometimes the Indian contented himself with maize roasted, or with this and beans made into a pottage, he often, when the necessary materials were at hand, made what might well be called a hodge-podge. Gookin gives a full account of the manner in which this was concocted. In a word, it consisted of a mixture of fish and flesh of all sorts. “Shad, eels, alewives,” “venison, beaver, bear’s flesh, moose, otters, raccoons, or any kind that they take in hunting,” are cut into pieces, bones and all, and stewed together. “Also they mix with said pottage several sorts of roots, as Jerusalem artichokes, and ground nuts, and other roots, and pompions, and squashes, and also several sorts of nuts or masts, as oak-acorns, chestnuts, walnuts. These, husked and dried and powdered, they thicken their pottage therewith.”[13]
Father Rasles[14] expresses his disgust at their style of cooking and eating, and Wood evidently had a poor stomach for “their unoat-mealed broth, made thick with fishes, fowles, and beasts, boyled all together, some remaining raw, the rest converted by overmuch seething to a loathed mash, not half so good as Irish boniclapper.”[15] When visiting the English, if offered food, Wood informs us they ate but little, “but at home they will eat till their bellies stand forth ready to split with fullness.”[15]
Works of Art. Pottery is poorly represented, only small fragments having been found. Like those from other parts of the United States, the pots were made of clay, with or without the admixture of pounded shells, and were imperfectly burned so that the walls are both friable and porous. The ornamentation, when it exists, is of the rudest kind ([Pl. 14], fig. 18), consisting of indentations or tracings with a single point, or, as in some cases, with a series of points on one and the same instrument. Both at Crouch’s Cove and Cotuit Port, specimens were found in which the lines in the surface had been formed by impressing an evenly twisted cord into the soft clay ([Pl. 14], fig. 19), the cord being laid on in various positions. This kind of ornamentation has a special interest, since there is evidence of its having been made use of in widely distant places. We have found similar specimens on the banks of the St. John’s in Florida; there are others from Illinois, presented to the Peabody Museum by J. P. Pearson, Esq., of Newburyport, and others have been noticed in the ancient barrows of England.[16] This kind of ornament has given rise to the belief that the pots were moulded in nets, which were removed after the vessel was finished. All the specimens we have seen are wanting in any indication of a regular mesh, or of the existence of knots where the cords crossed, which, if they existed, as they must have in a net, could not have failed to be represented.
Implements. It is somewhat remarkable that with the exception of the shell-heaps at Salisbury, all of those here described yielded so few articles made of stone. At Mount Desert only two arrow-heads were found, at Crouch’s Cove Mr. Swann found a pestle, and Mr. Morse a rude chisel, both picked up on the shore, but probably washed out from among the shells. At Eagle Hill, Mr. Putnam found a spherical stone with a groove around it, but at Cotuit Port not a single piece of worked stone was discovered. In regions adjoining the different shell deposits, especially at Cotuit Port, an abundance of stone implements have been found, and those who have preceded us have occasionally obtained some from the heaps. In the Danish heaps, they seem to have been quite common, and Mr. Rau found them so at Keyport.
Implements of bone, on the other hand, are quite abundant, as were also fragments of bone showing the marks of the instruments by which pieces had been detached, and of such there was a considerable variety. Some of the bones were cut across by making a groove around the circumference, as one would cut a notch in a stick, and breaking the rest; and others, as the metatarsal bones of the elk and deer, were split lengthwise, by making a groove on each side nearly to the marrow cavity, and completing the division by fracture. The roughly striated surface of the groove, and its undulating course, indicate a piece of stone, and not a saw, as the instrument with which the work was done. We have found by experiment that this mode of working bone does not prove so great a labor as it might at first sight seem to be, and with care have succeeded in splitting in two, lengthwise, in the course of an hour, a piece of human ulna seven inches long, by means of a flint “chip” held in the hand. This, of course, involves a large expenditure of time, but it must be remembered that an Indian’s time was not valued. The work is rendered very much easier by keeping both the instrument and bone wet. It has been objected to the opinion, that certain implements from the European heaps were used as saws, that having wedge-shaped edges they would soon become “choked” or “jammed.” Practically this does not happen, for we have uniformly found that the roughness of the sides of the flint is sufficient to widen the groove as fast as the edge deepens it.
Implements of bone made by the Indians dwelling in New England have rarely been mentioned, and are seldom seen in collections, but if one may judge from the number of specimens we have obtained, must have been in quite common use. The inhabitants of the North-west Coast, and the Esquimaux, are largely dependent upon this material, and Messrs. Squier and Davis found a few bone instruments in the mounds of Ohio. The accompanying figures, drawn by Mr. Morse, represent the forms of the more important ones discovered in the different heaps, which form the subject of this paper. Except the first, which is reduced one-half, linear measurement, all are represented of the natural size. We are unable to assign any uses for the larger part of them, and of the others can only offer a conjecture.
Pl. 14.
WYMAN ON THE SHELL-HEAPS OF NEW ENGLAND.
Pl. 15.
WYMAN ON THE SHELL-HEAPS OF NEW ENGLAND.