Among our eighteen or twenty witnesses, who were chiefs and persons ranging from seventy to eighty-five years of age, and who were familiar with the history of the Ojibwa, with the parents and grandparents of those whom we established to be full bloods, were several members of the grand medicine society, the Midiwewin. These persons were frequently examined by me through our interpreters—all of whom were the most competent we were able to procure and the best on the reservation—as to the past history of the Ojibwa tribe. The old record-keeper, commonly called Daydodge, but whose real name is Bay-bah-dwung-gay-aush, aged eighty-two, had a remarkable memory. To him had been related all the Hiawatha traditions by the Indians, and he was able to carry back history about one hundred and twenty years. This man told me that there were few, if any, stone implements in use among his people when he was a boy, and he did not think that stone objects were in use to any extent when his grandparents were children. He said that occasionally a woman hafted a stone celt and used it in scraping or cutting, that some stone mallets were to be found when his grandparents were young, but he thought that the French and English traders’ goods had displaced all stone articles in use among the Ojibwa. CHAPTER XXXVII CONCLUSIONS THE ANCIENT CULTURE-GROUPS As Major Powell found many linguistic stocks in North America in recent times, so we find quite as many cultures in ancient times. But the language of these people being unknown to us, we must study them through their implements. Some of these are widespread, while others are local. Consider, for instance, the saddle-shaped or bird-shaped stones, of which numbers are illustrated in chapter XXV. These, after great study, one must conclude originated in a certain tribe long ago. It is not proper to call them Iroquois, or Delaware; if they existed in historic times one might be more correct in stating that the Eries, or the Snake People, referred to by the Delawares in their Lenni-Lenape tradition, made and used them. Certainly they are not Iroquoian in character. Their very distribution would indicate that they are a product of Northern people of stone-age culture. As against this the bicave and discoidal stone is of central South culture and not of New England, the North, or West. Under other chapters I have presented some conclusions, and these will not be repeated here. Axes, flint implements, copper (by Mr. Brown), and several other divisions of artifacts have been already separated into their culture-groups. At the present writing there are so many new types on exhibition in public and private collections which formerly were considered products of individual fancy, that it is quite difficult for one to determine the number and extent of the prehistoric cultures in the United States.