Miscellaneous Papers Relating to Anthropology/Antiquities of Nova Scotia
ANTIQUITIES OF NOVA SCOTIA.
By Rev. George Patterson, D. D., of New Glasgow, N. S.
No earthworks, properly speaking, exist in this region, but shell heaps are to be found in various places. The shores of this county at various places give evidence of the former occupation of the country by the aborigines, particularly the shells, which are found in the soil as it is turned up by the plow, and the stone implements which were formerly picked up in abundance, and are still sometimes found, though more rarely. The principal places are, Middle River Point, Fraser's Point, both sides of the East River at its entrance into the harbor, Fisher's Grant, and the Beaches, all in Pictou Harbor, and almost every island and headland in Miegomish Harbor. In the neighboring counties on the northern shore of the province, the same thing is to be found, particularly at Antigomish Harbor to the east, and at Tatamagouche to the west.
There is scarcely anything in this province that can be called a mound or earthwork, at all events like those found in the Western States. There was found some years ago, at Tatamagouche, a small heap. It was situated on the farm of the late Rev. Hugh Boss, next to A. Campbell's, which forms Campbell's Point, at the entrance of the harbor. It was opened and examined some fifty years ago by the late Dr. Thomas McCulloch, of Pictou, who found in it a large number of human bones, and various stone implements. He published no account of them, but I have learned that he came to the conclusion that it was a place where a large a number had been buried, probably after a battle. The spot has long been plowed over, and the ground leveled.
There was another found at Kempt, Yarmouth County, in the western part of the province. The spot where it was found was some fifteen miles in the interior, and some distance from the river. It was opened by Dr. Joseph Bond, of Bear River, Digby County, N S., and from him I learned that it was about ten feet in length, five feet in width, and four feet in height. It has been represented to me as resembling a large cradle hill. In this were found forty very beautifully executed stone-arrow or spear-heads, which are now in the county museum at Yarmouth, established by L. E. Baker, esq., who has had them photographed. Dr. Bond supposed that it was an ancient burying place, though he found no bones, for which he accounted by supposing that they had become so entirely decayed as to be no longer recognizable. But Dr. John W. Webster, of Yarmouth, informed me that from the material around he believed it had been the site of an old workshop. This might be the case, and the mound might have been a cache of such implements.
I have seen some thin layers of shell at points on the shores of our harbors, but I am told that there are some of considerable thickness at points in Miegomish Harbor. They are generally close by the shore, and the sea, wearing away the soil, exposes them on the banks. But none in this part of the country have undergone a proper examination.
There are in the museum of the Mechanics' Institute, St. John, N.B., two sculptures. The one is very rude, and will be found figured in Dawson's Acadian Geology. The other is a medallion of about fifteen inches in diameter, containing a rather well-executed profile of a human head. But I am not certain that this was found in the province.
The rocks on the north shore of the province are soft, and are being worn away so rapidly that if there had been any carving upon them it would long ere now have disappeared. In Yarmouth a stone has been found on the shore with what looks like letters engraved on it, but they have never been deciphered. The stone is in the possession of John K. Ryerson, of Yarmouth. Dr. Gilpin, of Halifax, has discovered a rock in Annapolis County with some engraving on it. In the history of the county of Pictou, published by me, on pages 29-31, will be found an account of the only genuine prehistoric cemetery with which I have met. I could see no plan of arrangement in the graves. They would be found at distances of from three to five feet apart, and over a space of about fifty feet square, lying to the west of a pit. I was not able to find any to the eastward, that is, farther away from the shore. The graves formed a layer of brown, velvety mold, two or three inches deep, and containing fragments of bones. The ground is gently sloping and facing southwestwardly. In only one instance could I detect the posture of the body. This one was lying on its side, and doubled up. In other instances there were plainly a number together, and the bones were so decayed and seemingly so mixed, that I could not trace any order. I did not particularly observe, but I think the body lay north and south with the face to the west. The graves were shallow, not more than from nine to twelve inches deep.
There was no evidence of desiccation. But there is in the possession of Dr. Wm. Doherty, of Kingston, Kent County, N. B., a perfect mummy of an Indian head. The face retains its features, and the hair adheres as completely as in life. It was found on a part of a bank of the river Richibenclo. Along with it was found a copper kettle, showing that the burial took place after the arrival of Europeans, and while they still retained the practice of burying the valuables of the deceased with him. The skin has a bluish discoloration, probably from the copper. I am informed that up the St. John's River a large copper kettle was found with the remains of a body, which had been squeezed into it.
There are no quarries. There is an island known in the Micmac language as Pipestone Island, to which they may have resorted for materials for their pipes, but I have not been able to find the place.
The only workshops that I have heard of in these maritime provinces is what is known as Bockman's Beach, Lunenburg County, N.S. It is a beach of sand and gravel, running east and west, perhaps 300 yards in length and connecting an island, known as Bookman's Island, with the main-land. On the north side the sea has heaped up the sand and gravel, but in the rear of this it is lower, and here, about midway between the shores, have been found large quantities of flakes and splinters of stone and arrow-heads in various states of preparation. Many of these have been carried away by collectors, but the sea washes over the spot, and after every storm more are exposed.
A small circular heap, about 6 feet in diameter, and from 15 to 18 inches high at the time of my visit, has been supposed by some to have been the seat of the ancient arrow-maker. But on close examination of the spot and from information received from those living in the neighborhood, as to the changes effected upon the shore by the action of winds and the sea in storms, I could easily see that the sand around it had been swept away, leaving this spot a little above the head of the surrounding beach. In fact changes have been going on which render it impossible to ascertain how the ground lay in those old days. But the amount of splinters, hammered stones, &c., plainly shows what had been going on. These principally consist of agates and jaspers, which are not to be found in any rocks near, but are similar to those found at the present day in the trap rocks bordering on the Bay of Fundy, forming the northern mountains of King and Annapolis Counties, distant, in a direct line across the country, nearly sixty miles. A few are of the dioritic rocks, which are found intrusive in the southern mountains of the same counties, and some are of quartz, such as is found in the metamorphic rocks in the immediate neighborhood. An examination of these rocks shows the process which had been going on. Here is a stone at which the old arrow-maker had been hammering, with the view of splitting it longitudinally, but the result was several cracks crosswise, and it was thrown away. Here is a disk-like stone, around the edge of which he had been hammering, but, instead of splitting through the center, it broke away in fragments to the side. And then there are flakes of all sizes and thickness. A few complete arrow-heads have been found, and a much larger number of imperfect ones. These are all small, from 1⅜ to 2 inches in length, but are very finely executed. Stones are also picked up which bear on their edges the evidence of having been used as hammers. A few stone chisels or axes have also been found, but it is evident that the work carried on was mainly of forming arrow-heads, for which they^brought from the Bay of Fundy the finer stones mentioned. Small pieces of copper are also found. They consist sometimes of small nuggets seemingly in their natural state, sometimes they are flattened out by hammering, and they are also formed into small knives or piercers.
There were portages, where they carried their canoes from one lake or stream to another, or across a headland. These were mere paths through the forests, and are now either grown up with wood or have been plowed up.
I have some small copper knives and small specimens of copper, the latter from Lunenburg County. It has commonly been supposed that the Micmacs were entirely ignorant of the use of metals till the arrival of Europeans. These show that they had at least got to the length of making use of the small specimens of native copper found in the trap rocks of the Bay of Fundy. I have also some bone spear-heads, a good deal decayed, from some cemetery; also, a pipe from the same place. It is made out of a very hard granitic rock, and Dr. Dawson, of McGill College, Montreal, our highest authority on the geology of these regions, says that he knows no rock of the same kind nearer than Bay Chaleur, and, furthermore, he has since received a number of pipe-heads, resembling it in shape, from the Upper Ottawa.
There is, in the Provincial Museum at Halifax, a collection of various aboriginal antiquities. It contains, besides the usual stone axes and arrow-heads, some small pieces of copper, similar to those from Bockman's Beach, and a flat pipe found in the interior of the province, remarkable from the circumstance of its having been found so far east, it being held that this is characteristic of the mound-builders or tribes of the tar West. There are also a few articles in the museum of the Mechanics' Institute of St. John, N. B. The most remarkable are the sculptured figure and medallion already referred to, and a small hammer with a short stick for a handle, remarkable for the manner in which it is fastened to the helve, being merely held by a band of burnt clay. Professor Jack, of the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, N. B., is said to be the best authority in that province on this subject. In the collection of Judge Desbusay, of Lunenburg County, N. S., are also small pieces of copper from Bockman's Beach. Dr. Gray, of Mahone Bay; in the same county, also has a collection.