Note 29 — Chapter VI · Industry, Commerce, and Social Organization; Fights, Wounds and Trepanation.

A number of crania and parts of crania on which trepanation had been performed have also been taken from several mounds on Chamber’s Island, from beneath the mound in the neighborhood of the Sable River, near Lake Huron, and near the Red River29 Gillman thinks that the Michigan trepanations, which bad been made with clumsy tools, were simply holes for hanging up skulls as trophies, as is still customary amongst the Dyaks of Borneo; but this seems scarcely a tenable hypothesis, for as a rule the skeletons lying in their last home are complete. Quite recently were discovered, beneath a tumulus near Rock River, eight skeletons, the skull of one of which bore a circular perforation made during life, which rather upsets Gillman’s theory.