Miscellaneous Papers Relating to Anthropology/A Supposed Specimen of Aboriginal Art
A SUPPOSED SPECIMEN OF ABORIGINAL ART,
Discovered at Gondola Point, parish of Rothesay, in Kings County, New Brunswick, and exhibited at the Provincial Exhibition held at the Mechanics' Institute, St. John, New Brunswick. (Autumn of A. D. 1851?)
By G. F. Matthew.
Living in the neighborhood of the spot where this object was found, I undertook, at the request of J. Allen Jack, esq., to make inquiry into the circumstances connected with its discovery. It had been found, I was told, on the farm of Andrew Kilpatrick (now owned by David Kilpatrick), about half a mile from the Episcopal church, near Gondola Point. It was turned out from a depth of between three and four feet below the surface of the ground in digging a cellar on the farm referred to; and was intrusted to Mr. Harding to take to St. John and exhibit at the provincial exhibition held at the Mechanics' Institute (in the year 1851?)
In general outline the object, which is a rough-looking stone, is of an oval form, 2 feet 11 ⅝ inches long, 1 foot 3 ½ inches broad, and 1 foot 2 ⅞ inches deep; and as regards most of its surface does not differ from an ordinary bowlder of Lower Carboniferous conglomerate, numbers of which lie scattered around the neighboring fields. This conglomerate consists chiefly of pieces of granite, and protogene in association with less numerous, but characteristic fragments of crystalline limestone of the upper series of the Laurentian area, the border of which lies about a mile to the southward of the point where the bowlder was found. I am satisfied, therefore, that the bowlder was not brought from a distance, but belongs in the neighborhood where it was dug up.
While, as regards most of its surface, this stone does not differ from an ordinary bowlder, there is an exception in the appearance of one end. This has been carved into the form of a human head, looking out, as it were, from the end of the stone. The features are aquiline, rudely carved, and somewhat irregular, as though chiseled by an unskilled hand. They present the appearance of having been worked out upon the surface of the stone by using certain hard protuberances as the basis for the more prominent features and graving the rest to correspond. The artist has apparently seized upon a rude semblance of the human face presented, and worked out the finer lineaments to correspond. On examining the carved head carefully it was found that the surface had been coated with a dark red pigment. This could hardly have been on the stone when it was dug up, if, as I was assured, it came from a depth beneath the surface of three feet or more; and for the following reasons I suppose it to have been painted after it was exhumed.
An examination of the bank or hillside where the relic was found revealed the presence of "Drift," a deposit of the glacial and post-glacial period, immediately below the surface loam, which is a foot thick. The point at which the stone was dug up is not more than about sixty feet above the Kennebecasis River, and it would thus for a long period have been below the sea-level in the time marked by the accumulation of the Ledalelay of which (or of the bowlder clay) the deposit containing the stone lay consisted. If buried by natural causes in this deposit the age of the relic would be carried back to a very distant period—a period so distant that one may question whether it could have had its present appearance at that time. And it seems more reasonable to suppose that if it possessed its present aspect when dug up, it must have been buried later than the Drift period, either by accident or design. The paint with which the face is covered appears to have been a subsequent embellishment, for long-continued exposure to the action of the elements would have removed the oil or other substance which serves to give body to the color, and the paint would have remained as a dry powder liable to be brushed off with the slightest touch.
The mode of burial of this stone cannot now be verified, owing to the crumbling condition of the bank, and its actual age as a work of art must remain to a great extent a matter of conjecture. The naturally rough features have been rechiseled, and (since the stone was dug up) coated with paint; so that in some respects the object is not in its pristine condition, and its value as an object or specimen of aboriginal art has been seriously marred by these changes.