Dr. Tache writes to me,--"I have inspected sixteen bone-pits," (in the
Huron country,) "the situation of which is indicated on the little pencil
map I send you. They contain from six hundred to twelve hundred
skeletons each, of both sexes and all ages, all mixed together purposely.
With one exception, these pits also contain pipes of stone or clay,
small earthen pots, shells, and wampum wrought of these shells, copper
ornaments, beads of glass, and other trinkets. Some pits contained
articles of copper of aboriginal Mexican fabric."

This remarkable fact, together with the frequent occurrence in these
graves of large conch-shells, of which wampum was made, and which could
have been procured only from the Gulf of Mexico, or some part of the
southern coast of the United States, proves the extent of the relations
of traffic by which certain articles were passed from tribe to tribe over
a vast region. The transmission of pipes from the famous Red Pipe-Stone
Quarry of the St. Peter's to tribes more than a thousand miles distant is
an analogous modern instance, though much less remarkable.

The Tache Museum, at the Laval University of Quebec, contains a large
collection of remains from these graves. In one instance, the human
bones are of a size that may be called gigantic.

In nearly every case, the Huron graves contain articles of use or
ornament of European workmanship. From this it may be inferred, that the
nation itself, or its practice of inhumation, does not date back to a
period long before the arrival of the French.

The Northern Algonquins had also a solemn Feast of the Dead; but it was
widely different from that of the Hurons.--See the very curious account
of it by Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1642, 94, 95. ]