Miscellaneous Papers Relating to Anthropology/A Sculptured Stone Found in St. George, New Brunswick

by J. Allen Jack

A SCULPTURED STONE FOUND IN ST. GEORGE, NEW BRUNSWICK.

By J. Allen Jack, of St. John, N. B.

In the autumn of 1863 or winter of 1864, a remarkable sculptured stone, representing a human face and head in profile, was discovered in the neighborhood of St. George, a village in Charlotte County, in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. This curiosity was found by a man who was searching for stone for building purposes, and was lying about 100 feet from the shore of Lake Utopia, under a bluff of the same formation as the material on which the head is sculptured, which abounds in the neighborhood. This bluff is situated three miles or more from St. George, and Lake Utopia empties into the Magaguadavic River, or, as it may be translated from Indian into English, the River of Hills, which flows towards and pours through the village in the form of a beautiful waterfall. The stone, irrespective of the cutting, which is in relief, has a flat surface, and is of the uniform thickness of 2 inches. Its form is rounded elliptical, and it measures 21½ inches longitudinally and 18½ inches across the shorter diameter. The stone is granulite, being distinguished from granite proper by the absence of mica. The sculpture, shortly after it was discovered, attracted a good deal of attention,

 

 

and was examined by a number of persons possessing respectable scientific attainments. As far as I am aware, however, neither its visible characteristics, nor its history, or its historical associations have ever been carefully studied by any conversant with American archæology. This carved stone was found at the point marked a in the accompanying map. For myself, while undertaking to comment upon this interesting memento of a past age, I must at the outset acknowledge my want of qualifications for the purpose, and explain that my object is rather to suggest than to dogmatize, and to give such small assistance to the learned as is comprised in scraps of information which I have been able to obtain from various sources.

 

 

A tolerable knowledge of the history of Charlotte County and of the province, and an imperfect memory and record of the contents of several letters received from various persons upon the principal subject, are all of some service in furthering my purpose. The letters which were written to assisting in preparing a paper upon the stone, subsequently read before the Natural History Society of New Brunswick, an association not now in existence, were unfortunately destroyed in the great fire of St. John. The paper itself was preserved, and embodies at least a portion of the contents of the letter. Opinion, at the time of discovery, was somewhat divided, both in regard to the nationality of the workman by whom the stone was carved and also in respect to the object of the work. Three suggestions, one of which is probably correct, were offered by different parties with reference to the workmen: First, that he was a British colonist; secondly, that he was a Frenchman, and, thirdly, that he was an Indian. The discussion of these several propositions naturally suggests, if it does not necessarily involve, in each case a consideration of the motives of the workman, I have little hesitation in dismissing, as highly improbable, the hypothesis that the artist was a British colonist. The appearance and position of the stone when discovered; to which I shall presently more particularly refer, convince me that it was not carved for the purpose of deceiving scientific investigators, as might be, and I believe has been, charged. For the same reasons I am led to form a strong opinion that the carving was executed long before the date of British occupation. Irrespective of these reasons, however, I would point to the carving itself as an answer to the theory; and the argument here makes as strongly against the suggestion of French origin as it does against that of British. The features and expression of the face are not in any respect European, neither is the shape of the head. Again the elliptical eye, appearing on a profile as it should only properly appear to the spectator in the full face, is a characteristic of Eastern, especially of Egyptian, art. I have not the means at hand to verify the opinion, but, if my memory serves me rightly, this same peculiarity appears in delineations of human faces among the ancient Mexican Indians, if not among other American tribes. The theory for which I contend is, that a European workman, either skilled or unskilled, would have produced something having a semblance to a European subject or work of art. The suggestion of French origin for the sculpture leads me to speak of the connection of the French with the history of this part of the province.

The earliest record of the French occupation of Acadia is that of De Monts, who with a party of fellow-countrymen passed the winter of 1604 on the island of St. Croix, situated on the river of the same name, forming the boundary between the province and the State of Maine, and distant about twenty-one miles from the village of St. George. I have never heard of there being any considerable number of French settlers in the neighborhood of St. George, and cannot even say with certainty that there were any French families permanently settled there. L'Etang approaches to within 300 feet or so of Utopia, and La Tête Passage is distant about eight miles from the village, and the occurrence of these names may lead to the inference that there was a partial French occupation of the adjacent country. I have indeed heard of inscriptions on the rock at Black's Harbor, or its vicinity, on Bliss's Island, which are supposed to be in French, but have never met any one who had actually seen these inscriptions. This island is nearly half way between Campobello or Deer Island and Utopia, from which it is about ten miles distant, and opposite the mouth of La Tête Passage. By no hypothesis, however, am I able to connect this curiosity with any European custom or idea, and consequently the remainder of my investigation will be devoted to the argument in favor of its Indian origin.

If it is possible to derive approximately accurate information as to the age of the stone from its situation and condition when found, it would of course assist materially in discovering the nationality of the workman. I believe that the finder, who, as I have stated, was searching for stone for building purposes, was attracted by the shape of the stone in question; that it was lying on the surface and covered with moss, and that it was not until the removal of the moss that the true character of the object appeared. An examination of its surface must, I think, convince the observer that the stone has been subjected to the long-continued action of water, and from its situation it seems fairly certain that the water which has produced the wasted appearance was rain, and rain only. An expert might perhaps form a tolerably accurate opinion as to the period which would be required for ordinary rainfalls to effect such results as are here plainly visible. For myself, I hesitate to speak of the precise period where the stone showed no marks of rain. I feel, however, that I am safe in expressing the belief that it would require a length of time commencing at a date before a Frenchman is known to have set foot in the country to produce from the action of rain so worn a surface as this stone exhibits. If this proposition is correct, there can be no reasonable ground to doubt that the carving is the work of an Indian. I may refer, but solely for the purpose of expressing my disbelief in any such hypothesis, to the suggestion that art, employed for the purpose of deceiving, and not any force of nature, has produced the worn appearance to which reference has been made. The mossy deposit, and the unfrequented locality in which the curiosity was found, both aid in dispelling this idea; but even had it been found in an often visited part, and without its mossy covering, I should have no hesitation in affirming that its worn appearance was not due to the hand of man. I may further urge that, had the object of the workman been solely to deceive, he would have scarcely selected a stone whereon to carve of a granite character, and especially a piece of granulite, one of the hardest of rocks to work, being not only hard in quality but of crystalline structure, and ill-adapted for receiving a polish, at least under rough tools. Granting, however, that for the reason stated we are justified in assigning the origin of the carving to the Indian period, there still remain many difficulties in the way of determining its object or meaning. There are at the present time several Indians in the neighborhood of St. George, but half a century ago there were many more in that locality, and previous to the commencement of that period the vicinity of the canal, about one and one-half miles from the bluff mentioned before, was continuously a favorite camping ground for these people. The Magaguadavic Lakes abound in fish, even at the present day, and the surrounding woods, formerly well stocked with all kinds of game, would prove a great attraction to the savage hunters, and the proximity of the sea would also add to the attractions. The Magaguadavic Indians speak the Milicete language, and are, I believe, members of that tribe, and are, of course, descended from the Algonquins. I speak with some hesitation of their being Milicetes, because I understand that the Passamaquods claim to be distinct from the Milicetes, and there may be some question whether Magaguadavic Indians were not a portion of the former tribe. A very obvious question presents itself to the mind of the investigator, which may here very properly be considered. What purpose would an Indian have in view in producing this curious work of art? In the paper which I read before the New Brunswick Society I was unable to give any tolerably satisfactory reply to this. At the present time I think that I can suggest an answer which may be correct, and which, at least, deserves some consideration. The members of that society were, if I mistake not, generally impressed with the force of the arguments brought forward to support the suggestion that the sculptor was an Indian, and were inclined to guess that the carving was, in some indefinite way, connected with the funeral rites, or was in commemoration of a departed brave. No work published at that time afforded any solution of the difficulty. No relics of a similar character to this had been dug up at any Indian burial ground in New Brunswick, and although our Indians produce very well executed full relief figures of the beaver, the muskrat, and the otter, upon soapstone pipes, their skill apparently goes no further in this direction. I have indeed seen rude sketches of human figures executed by these people, but have never seen or been informed of any likeness to a man being carved by them in stone. It was only by bringing pieces of information together, and after the lapse of some years, that I was enabled to suggest an answer to an apparently almost unanswerable question. Upon one occasion, while in conversation with an old resident of St. George, he gave me an account of a somewhat singular monument which, many years before this period, stood on the summit of a high hill near the canal, and about one-half mile distant from the place where the carved stone was found. It consisted of a large oval or rounded stone, weighing, as my informant roughly estimates, seventy five hundred weight, lying on three vertical stone columns, from ten inches to one foot in height, and firmly sunk in the ground thus . • . (The above weight, I should imagine, is an over-estimate, but I give it as stated to me.) The site of this monument is marked b on the preceding map. My informant stated that the boys and other visitors were in the habit of throwing stones at the columns, and that eventually the monument was tumbled over, by the combined effort of a number of ship carpenters, and fell crashing into the valley. Some years afterwards I read, for the first time, Francis Parkman's "Pioneers of France in the New World," when my attention was at once arrested, and the conversation with the gentleman from St. George brought to my mind, by a passage which occurs on page 349, of that highly interesting work.

Champlain, the writer states, had journeyed up the Ottawa River beyond Lake Ooulange, and had reached an island in the neighborhood of the village of a chief named Tessonat, which, Mr. Parkman is of opinion, was on the Lower Lake des Allumettes. I quote what the historian writes of what the French explorer sees: "Here, too, was a cemetery, which excited the wonder of Champlain, for the dead were better cared for than the living. Over each grave a flat tablet of wood was supported on posts, and at one end stood an upright tablet, carved with an intended representation of the features of the deceased."

Now, it may be that there is no connection whatever between the Indian custom described by Chainplain, as existing at the place described, and the finding of the sculpture and the appearance of a large stone, supported on stone columns, at a place in New Brunswick. The points are certainly far apart, and while in the one case there is clear evidence of the common custom, there is in the other barely sufficient evidence to justify the supposition that there may be a single instance of the adoption of the custom. The Magaguadavic Indians indeed have a tradition that they were driven from some distant part of Canada to the seaboard, but if this were established as a fact, it would scarcely aid in the elucidation of this matter. Two conjectures may be made, however, either of which if correct might account for the supposed existence of an Ottawa custom in New Brunswick. An Indian might have been captured, or might have been expelled by his brethren on the Lower Lake des Allumettes, and been carried, or have found his way, to the maritime province. Or, a young Milicetes might have been carried away by the Ottawas, and have escaped to his old home. In the one case the prisoner would naturally wish to secure for his burial place the monuments which had ornamented the graves of his fathers, and might have succeeded in securing the aid of his captors in the accomplishment of his object. In the other the escaped captive might well desire to adopt the arts of his former masters, and wish to take his last rest beneath a monument with his effigy at its head. The use of a large stone instead of a wooden tablet scarcely deserves comment, for the change of material would in no sense interfere with the object in view, but on the contrary would render the monument more deserving of the name.

I think that a careful or even superficial examination of the carving must impress the observer with the idea that it is intended to represent the face of an Indian, and the head, although viewed only laterally, certainly presents many of the peculiarities of the North American type. Of course the examiner is placed at a great disadvantage in having only a profile, and not a completely developed head, as for ethnological purposes craniology is chiefly available when an opportunity is given to measure the comparative breadth from the petrous portion of the right, to the petrous portion of the left temporal bone, or to measure from and to the parts of a carved head representing these portions. There is a portrait of a Magaguadavic Indian by Mr. O. Ward, of St. George, which is considered to present some points of resemblance to the head in discussion, which may be found in the Illustrated London News of the 5th of September, 1863, No. 1220. The fashion of wearing the hair as represented by the carving is perhaps somewhat calculated to puzzle the investigator, but there is scarcely anything sufficiently definite in the delineation to enable one to trace an analogy to either Indian or European fashions. It may be noticed that some have expressed an opinion that a wig was intended to be represented.