Dr. Beauchamp mentions Mr. Douglass’s seventy specimens in the American Museum of Natural History collection, and also refers to the rarity of bar-amulets in Western New York:—
“They were variable in material as well as form, although most commonly made of striped slate. Perhaps full half have projecting ears, when of the bird-form. In the wider forms, usually of harder materials, there are often cross-bars on the under side, in which the perforations are made. Occasionally these are not entirely enclosed, yet are without signs of breakage. This seems to prove that these were not intended as means of attaching them to any larger object, on which they would rest, but rather for fastening articles upon them, as in the Zuñi amulets already mentioned, and which were illustrated by Mr. Frank H. Cushing, in the Second Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. On comparison a general resemblance to these will be seen, and in a few cases it is quite striking. That they were used in this way, rather than in those suggested by others, is a reasonable conclusion which gains strength with fuller study. As a class they belong to the St. Lawrence basin.”
Fig. 411. (S. 1–1.) Side view of Fig. 410.
Mr. Gerard Fowke and Professor David Boyle should be quoted upon this subject. Mr. Fowke says:[[5]]
Fig. 412. (S. 1–1.) Rev. William Beauchamp’s collection. From Michigan.
“Stone relics of bird-form are quite common north of the Ohio River, but are exceedingly rare south of that stream. [He illustrates the same specimen figured by Dr. Wilson.]
“According to Gilman,[[6]] the bird-shape stones were worn on the head by the Indian women, but only after marriage. Abbott quotes Colonel Whittlesey to the effect that they were worn by Indian women to denote pregnancy, and from William Penn that when the squaws were ready to marry they wore something on their heads to indicate the fact.
