A New Hochelagan Burying-ground Discovered at Westmount on the Western Spur of Mount Royal, Montrea | Page 3

lived, were made chiefly at the cemeteries of
Montreal and were very few. These Indians had originally been
assembled around Ville Marie but were removed to the Fort des
Messieurs where Montreal College stands in 1662, and thence, towards
the beginning of the 18th century, to Sault-au-Recollet and in 1717 to
Oka. The method of burial, also, is not Christian, but pagan, and similar
in every respect to early Mohawk burials.
On Saturday the 10th September, 1898, I went with two laborers
granted by the Town of Westmount to the excavation on the club house
grounds, and choosing a spot on its edge cut a short trench some two
feet deep. About ten feet southward of the three skeletons previously
found, this trench revealed two large stones placed in the form of a
reversed V, clearly in order, as it afterwards appeared, to partly cover a
body. On raising these, a skeleton was found of a tall young man laid
on the hard-pan, on his right side, with face down, head towards the
west, knees drawn up, and covered with the mealy dry whitish earth of
the locality, to a depth of about two and a half feet. Mr. Earl assisted in
carefully uncovering the remains, of which Mr. Charles J. Brown then
took two excellent protographs in situ. The form of skull was similar to
the others, the teeth fine and perfect except a grinder which had been
lost years before. One armbone showed that it had once been broken
and healed again. No objects were found, though the search was very
careful. On the 17th, the excavations were continued in the hope of
finding objects of value to science. On this occasion there was present,
besides the writer Mr. Earl, Mr. C.J. Brown, Mr. Wheeler and others
and Mr. R.W. McLachlan, one of the excavators of old Hochelaga.

About four or five feet north of the grave last-mentioned, large stones
were again struck and on being lifted, the skeleton of a young girl was
unearthed whose wisdom teeth had just begun to appear in the jaw. The
large bone of her upper left arm had at one time been broken near the
shoulder. Her slender skeleton was in the same crouching position as
the others but much more closely bunched together; the top of the head
was laid towards the north and looking partly downwards. Above her
were found several flat stones which may have been used as scoops for
the excavation. Under her neck was discovered the first manufactured
object found, a single rude bead of white wampum of the prehistoric
form, and which is now deposited in the Chateau de Ramezay. As
white wampum was the gift of a lover, this sole ornament tells the
pathetic story of early love and death. Mr. Chas. J. Brown again
protographed the remains in situ. The work will still proceed and no
doubt more important discoveries are yet to be made.
Montreal, September 20th, 1898.
REPORT OF Dr. HIBBERT ON THE WESTMOUNT SKELETONS
No. I.--A Young Woman
The bones of this skeleton, are fragile, broken and considerably
decayed.
The skull is in fair condition, though the lower jaw is broken in half.
The skull is round and arched above the breadth index being 77.7, of
brachycephalic or Mongoloid type. The superciliary ridges are not very
prominent, but the frontal, parietal and occipital eminences are very
distinct. The forehead is non receding and the breath measures 9 c.m.
The cheekbones are not unduly prominent, the official measurement
being 119 m.m. The gnathic index is 93, or orthognathous. The teeth
are well preserved and not much worn, the 3d. molars not having
erupted in either jaw. The face is short and broad, the height being 108
m.m. in and breadth 119 m.m., the orbit is inclined to be square with
rounded angles and the type megaseme, the nasal index is mesorhine.
A very striking feature of this skull is the well marked central vertical
frontal ridge and some tendency to angularity of the vertex. In the
whole this skull is of a more refined type than the others and suggestive
of some fair intellectual development of the individual. There are two
wormian bones on the left side of the skull, one at the pterion and one
below the asterion each being 9 m.m. long.

The bones generally are fragile and the long bones slender, with no
marked impression for muscular attachment. A curious fact is that the
ends of all the long bones are absent, presumably from decay, and as
these ends are united to the shafts between the age of puberty (14-15)
and adult life it is suggestive that the individual may have been of
about the age of 18 or 20 and this is somewhat confirmed by the
noneruption of the