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]