the numerous class of carved ornaments and
amulets, or their skill in symbolical or representative
drawing, evinced in theif picture writing.
Amulets, and neck, ear and head ornaments,
constituted a very ancient and very important
department in the arcanum of the Indian wardrobe.
They were not only a part of the personal
gear and decorations which our old British
writers sometimes denote braveries, but they
were connected with his superstitions, and were a
part of the external system of his religion. The
aboriginal man, who had never laid aside; his
oriental notions of necromancy, and believed
firmly in witchcraft, wore them as charms1.9 They
were among the most cherished'afid valued articles
he could possibly possess™ They were sought
with great avidity, at high prices,v and, after
having served their office of warding Off evil,
while he lived, they were deposited in his grave
at death. Bones, shells; carved stones, ?gcrns(:
claws and hoofs of animals, feathers of‘carnivorous
birds, and above all the skin of the serpent,
were cherished with the utm ost care, and regarded
with the most superstitious veneration.
To be decked with suitable amulets was to him
to be invested with a charmed life. They added
to his feeling of security and satisfaction in his
daily avocations, and gave him new courage in
war.
But if such were the influence of pendants,
shells, beads, and other amulets or ornaments,
inspired by. children who saw and heard, what
their parents prized, this influence took a deeper
hold of their minds at and after the period of the
virile fast, when the power of dreams and visions
was added , tp the sum of their experimental
knowledge of divine things, so to call them. To
fix it still stronger, the Indian system of medicine,
which admits the power of necromancy,
dent its aid,,' Andxthus, long before the period
which, the civilized code has fixed on, to deter-
: ipine Uian’ s legal nets, the aboriginal man was
fixed, grounded and educated in the doctrine of
charms-, talismans, and amulets. -
Ta supply the native fabric in this particular
branch, was more difficult. . Christianity, in a
large part, of Europe, .certainly all protestafit
Europe, had, in 16Of), religiously discarded all
such, and kindred reliances on amulets;, from its
ritual, and popular observances* \yhere they had
taken deep root during the dark ages; and hence
the first English and Dutch voyagers and settlers
who landed north
ed the use of .them a$or§ of 4%,strong evidences
of the heathenjshness of the tribes, and made
fight of their love of “ beads and trinkets.” It
was necessafy, however, to the success of their
traffic and commerce-r/the great object of early
voyages—-that this class of articles, should be
noticed; and they brought from the potteries and
glass houses of Europe various substitutes, in the
; shape of twhite, opaque, transparent, blue, black,
and other variously colored beads, and of as #
many diverse forms as the genius of geometry