able circumstance that as to Yahgan a definite classification can be obtained, for this is very rare. How such conformity can exist between Tierra del Fuego and West and South Africa others may explain. For my own part my conclusions have often been made public. The identification rests upon not less than eighty words, and further examination will produce more.] APRIL 28TH, 1885. FRANCIS GALTON, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. The Minutes of the last meeting were read and signed. The following presents were announced, and thanks voted to the respective donors: FOR THE LIBRARY. From the AUTHORS.-Les Australiens du Musée du Nord. By Dr. É. Houzé and Dr. Victor Jacques. From the BERliner GesellSCHAFT FÜR ANthropologie.-Zeitschrift für Ethnologie. 1884, Heft. 6; 1885, Heft. 1. From the SOCIETY.-Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Vol. LIII, Part I, Bulletins de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris. Tom. VIII, Journal of the Society of Arts. Nos. 1691, 1692. From the EDITOR.-The American Antiquarian. Vol. VII, No. 2. "Nature." No. 808. Matériaux pour l'Histoire de l'Homme. April, 1885. The following paper was read by the Director: THE KEKIP-SESOATORS, OR ANCIENT SACRIFICIAL STONE, OF THE NORTH-WEST TRIBES. A relic of the Mound-builders, found at Red-Deer River, Alberta District, Excellency the MARQUIS OF LORNE, and Her Royal Highness PRINCESS LOUISE. The KEKIP-SESOATORS, or ANCIENT SACRIFICIAL STONE, of the NORTH-WEST TRIBES of CANADA. By JEAN L'HEUREUX, M.A., Government Interpreter, Blackfeet Indians. [WITH PLATE VIL] ETHNOLOGICAL studies, tradition, language, and architectural remains furnish data by which to trace the migration of ancient peoples. It is now an established fact, admitted by the most eminent ethnologists of America, that the Hue-hue Tlapalan, or the primitive habitation of the ancient Toltecs, was situated in the Far West, and that the whole of the Nahua tribes were one of the primitive races that peopled the north-west at a remote period. It is not improbable that the Nahuas of old, while few in number, arrived at our north-western coast, where they found a home until they became a tribe of considerable proportion. Thousands of their newly explored tumuli in Oregon and British Columbia speak more of permanent sojourn than of a migratory residence. Crossing the watershed between the sources of the Columbia and Missouri rivers, a large portion of the tribe found its way to the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, where, under the name of Mound-building people, they laid the foundation of a widespread empire. The remainder of the Nahuas, instead of crossing the mountains, migrated southward into Utah, establishing a civilisation, the remains of which are seen all over the San Juan valley in the cliff-dwellers which abound in that region. An ancient site of the western branch of the Mound-builders appears to have been the head-waters of Missouri river, whence they spread themselves north as far as the South Saskatchewan and its tributaries, establishing numerous colonies all along the eastern base of the mountains and away south to the headwaters of Rio Grande, by the south pass of the Rockies. The scattered remains of Mound-builders' works in the northwest territory are connected by a similar chain of works at James river, in Northern Dakota, with the great artery of the Missouri mounds, and show more of a migratory movement than of a fixed residence. The most important of these ancient relics of the past are principally found in the Alberta district, close to the international boundaries, amongst which the more northern works are the defence works of Blackfoot Crossing, the ruins at the Canantzi village, the Omecina pictured rocks, the graded mound of the third Napa on Bow river, the tumuli of Red-Deer river, the walled city of the dead in the inland Lake of Big Sandy Hill on the South Saskatchewan, and the Sesoators or sacrificial stones of the country, to describe one of which is the object of the present paper. The recorded traditions of the ancient civilised nations of the Pacific States corroborated to some extent the tradition of the Indian tribes of the north-west. The Kamuco of the Quiché mourn over a portion of their people whom they left in Northern Tullan. The Papol-Vuh, speaking of the cultus of the morning star amongst the ancient Toltecs or Nahuas, states that they were drawing blood from their own bodies and offering it to their stone god Tohil, whose worship they first receive when inhabiting the north. The Napas tradition says that, “In the third sun (Natose) of the age of the earth, in the days of the Bull of the Nile, the third Napa of the Chokitapia, or the plain people, when returning from the great river of the south, caused to be erected in the sacred land of the Napas (Alberta district), upon certain high hills of the country, seven sesoators or sacrificial stones for religious services amongst his people." The religious idea in man, whether observed in the darkest heathenism or partially enlightened civilisation, has always associated a place of worship with condition of elevation and isolation. These high places of worship of the Napa's tradition were the ever-open sanctuaries of a migratory people, at whose shrines the worshipper was himself first victim and sacrifice in the rites, and point to the belief of an early age, not entirely forgotten by the remnant of the race whose remains of ancient works seem to sustain the claim of our Indian traditional lore. A constant tradition of the Chokitapia or Blackfeet Indians, a powerful tribe of remote Nahua parentage, inhabiting at the present day the southern part of the north-west territory of the Dominion of Canada, has always pointed to a high hill situated on the south side of Red-Deer river, opposite to Hand Hill, two miles east of the Broken-knife ridge, as the site of one of those ancient cities of the bygone days of the primitive race. Elevated 200 feet above the level of the surrounding plain, Kekip-kip Sesoators, "the hill of the Blood Sacrifice," stands like a huge pyramidal mound commanding an extensive view of both Red-Deer and Bow river valleys. A natural platform of about 100 feet crowns its lofty conical summit. At the north end of this platform, resting upon the soil, is the Sesoators, a rough boulder of fine grained quartzose rock, hemispherical in form, and hewn horizontally at the bottom, measuring 15 inches high and about 14 in diameter. Upon its surface is sculptured, half-an-inch deep, the crescent figure of the moon, with a shining |