Stone Age in New Brunswick.

27

America were not so far advanced in civilization as many of the neighbouring tribes, to whom the use of copper and iron was known long before the advent of Columbus. This, however, may have had something to do with the climate and physical condition of the locality, and more particularly the abundance of means of subsistence which did not necessitate excursions beyond their own native forests and rivers. The aborigines of New Brunswick then comprehended, as now, a seaboard and an inland tribe, speaking dialects for the most part similar, and related by blood to the great Algonquin race of the St. Lawrence and westward.* According to the French missionaries, the seaboard tribe, Micmacs or Souriquois, alone were estimated, in 1611, at from 3,000 to 3,500, not to speak of the St. John and other Indians of the inland race called the Etchemins, Eteminquois, better known at the present day as the Melicites, who were then probably more numerous. Now, I believe, the two tribes do not number over a thousand souls. The stone implements met with throughout the Canadian Dominion and Northern United States present similarities in form and workmanship. But what appears remarkable as compared with the Old World, is the finding of very rudely chipped tools along with the highly polished,—a circumstance suggestive of their contemporaneity. It appears, as I shall observe presently, that when we come to examine the Canadian celts, and take into account the exact purposes for which they were fabricated, and consider carefully the conditions under which a primitive people would have existed as regards climate, food, and so forth, these discrepancies in regard to the sequence of the stone ages in the two continents admit of

*Moreover, the similarities of many words to Old World roots have been considered by American philologists as eminently suggestive of a European migration westward, and this is considerably strengthened by comparison of the languages of the Old World with the various dialects of the great Algonquin language, as pointed out by Mr. Rhand, missionary to the Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia, in an appendix to "Dawson's Geology."

explanation, at all events as regards Canada. At the same time, it is not improbable that either partially or wholly the same may apply to certain regions of the Old World, where the two are found together.

In New Brunswick, as elsewhere in North America, there does not appear to be any evidence of a Bronze Period. Although copper is met with in small quantities in the Devonian strata, and was known to the aborigines, they seem only to have used it as an ornament to adorn their persons. The Iron Age, as before stated, came in rapidly, indeed so quickly that the present generation is ignorant of stone implements having been used by their forefathers, just as much apparently as we are of the owners of the flint tools of Europe. The iron toma

hawk, therefore, soon took the place of the greenstone celt, and was their chief object of barter with the early French voyagers and traders. Thus the long, narrow, adze-shaped iron hatchet, stamped with a "Fleur-de-lis,”* is occasionally picked up along the great river valleys.

Referring to what may be called types of the weapons and implements of stone used by the Indians of New Brunswick, the arrow heads, figs. 1, 2, and 3, represent the usual pattern. No. 2 seems to have been used extensively, and is always the best finished, with an acute point and sharp cutting edges. The smaller point, fig. 3, made of white quartz, chipped or polished, is also not uncommon, and occasionally all may be collected in the same situation.

Fig. 5 represents a very rudely shaped spear head, nearly nine inches in length, from an old encampment on the Tobique river, where the natives, and their foes the Mohawks, were wont to engage in desperate fights.

Stone hatchets of divers size, some very finely polished, such as fig. 6; others are so rudely fabricated that, unless used for wedges or ice axes, it would be difficult to imagine the pur

* I have seen specimens of this adze from the banks of the Miramichi River.

pose for which they were applied. These are sometimes met with in numbers huddled together, and, in consequence, it has often occurred to me that they were merely implements in the first stage of manufacture. Now when we consider that the country is covered with snow for nearly half of the year, and take the rigours of the climate into account, together with the necessities of a sparsely distributed population subsisting entirely by the chase and fishing, we might well believe that they would lay in a supply of weapons for winter use, and nothing is more likely than that the unfinished tools were merely chipped into shape, their polishing and finishing being left to such time as necessity demanded.*

Fig. 8 is the common form of knife. I believe flakes of flint were used for the same purposes. The b-shaped implement (No. 7) of greenstone is a foot in length, and highly polished; it was discovered, with several stone arrow heads, including fig. 3, and some hatchets, in a spruce-bark coffin containing the remains of a warrior. Unfortunately, the above is the only one of such-like relics that I had an opportunity of examining; its larger extremity is bevelled off to a blunt edge, with several rude transverse lines at the further end. It would be difficult to guess the precise use to which this celt was applied. I showed it to several old Indians, but one only ventured an opinion to the effect that it might have been used for separating the bark from birch and other trees. Scoops and smaller stone tools, besides hooks and needles of bone, are met with on the sites of old encampments and under the foundations of the log huts occupied by the remains of the tribes, who, like remnants of other primitive races, still display a preference for their ancient haunts, lingering on in small

* Dr. Dawson, referring to the stone implements of this region, remarks ("Acadian Geology," p. 41) that both the chipped and polished were used at the same time for different purposes. This is probable, no doubt, to some extent; but several spear heads and stone hatchets appear to me so imperfectly fabricated as to be at best inoperative as war implements, and certainly next to useless for the chase, wood-cutting, or ice digging.

Stone Weapons used by the Indians.

31 colonies on the sides of certain bays, rivers, or lakes which had been favourite hunting and fishing grounds from time immemorial. For example, there is a small detachment living in huts on the left bank of the St. John, opposite Fredericton. Here, among the débris of the middens, I have picked up skulls of the sturgeon, or bones of moose, mink, beaver, and other animals which they continue to hunt, just as will be noted presently, obtains in the case of the ancient refuse heaps of their forefathers; indeed, in a perpendicular section of the river alluvium on which the above encampment stands you may mark successive deposits of these remains to the depth of several feet. I failed to discern stone implements in undisturbed strata, but on the beach by the river's margin, and probably washed out of the bank, several stone celts and arrow points were found by the natives. Thus, from the conical shaped birch bark wigwam of the Stone Age, down to the wooden hut of the Iron Age, the same people have sojourned on the old hunting-grounds where, to all appearance, the Melicite and Micmac will end his days, like the last of the Mohicans.

Fig. 10 represents a stone pot, deeply blackened by smoke, found in the Province, and, as far as the local implements are concerned, may be considered unique. It has been deposited in the Museum of St. John, where I noticed also the curious hammer, fig. 9, which is a stone celt perforated for the handle, with a belt of ferruginous cement (a) welded round the middle, no doubt with the design of adding to the weight: b is the cutting edge, and c the heel. The celt is about four inches long by two inches in breadth.

Reverting to the finely polished specimens. Many are so exquisitely fashioned, particularly the arrow edges, that the present race often express wonder how their forefathers fabricated such tools without employing metal; indeed, Noel Mitchell, and other Melicite Indians, who deigned to take any interest in my endeavours to glean this amount of knowledge of their progenitors' habits, were fairly at a loss to realize the