A New Hochelagan Burying-ground Discovered at Westmount on the Western Spur of Mount Royal, Montreal, July-September, 1898 — Edition Insights

Voice of the Amateur Scientist

Lighthall writes as a gentleman-scholar addressing a small circle of fellow antiquarians. His tone is measured, almost clinical, yet personal details slip through. He records that one skull had been used as a football by boys before being secured by a Mr. Earle, and that another skeleton, over six feet long, was re-interred in a flower-bed by its owner. These anecdotes ground the report in the everyday life of Westmount's residents. Lighthall's language is precise but not technical to the point of obscurity: he describes skulls as “massive,” jaws as “heavy and strong,” and notes that teeth are “much ground down at the crown.” He avoids grand claims, instead offering provisional terms like “probably” and “seems to have had.” This cautious voice gives the report the character of a working notebook rather than a finished monograph.

Osteological Detail and Its Limits

The core of the report is a set of skeletal descriptions, each numbered and treated as an individual case. Lighthall measures cranial breadth (102 cm for one skull), notes the prominence of superciliary ridges, and calculates stature from femur length. He estimates that one man stood at least six feet tall, another perhaps under five feet. He also records associated animal bones: a small mammal humerus with one skeleton, two bird rib bones with another. These details are presented without interpretation, leaving the reader to wonder whether they represent grave goods or accidental inclusions. Lighthall's willingness to note what he cannot explain—such as the difficulty of estimating height from a decayed femur—adds to the report's credibility. He concludes that the skeletons belong to the Mongoloid type and are distinctive of North American Indians, a statement that reflects the racial science of his era.

Structure and Pace of the Excavation

The report's structure mirrors the slow, opportunistic pace of the dig. Lighthall describes graves found over several months, scattered across a large area, with no systematic grid. He notes that one skeleton was discovered during the cutting of Argyle Avenue, another while digging a flower-bed. The graves were “lightly buried,” with grass roots interlaced in one skull. This piecemeal discovery shapes the narrative: each new find prompts a return to the site and a revision of earlier conclusions. Lighthall's prose shifts between past events (“a number of years ago”) and the present dig, creating a layered chronology. The final section, which compares the three skulls for intelligence based on “general conformation,” is the most speculative part of the report, and Lighthall presents it as a tentative ranking rather than a firm finding.

Readers should approach this report as a primary source in the history of Canadian archaeology, not as a definitive study of Hochelagan burial practices. Lighthall's observations are valuable for their specificity, but his inferences are shaped by the racial assumptions of 1898. The report rewards attention to its small details—the football skull, the flower-bed skeleton, the bird bones—which hint at the lives and deaths of the people buried on Mount Royal's western spur.

Lighthall’s careful fingers, measuring those old bones, make me think how much we guess about the dead. There’s a tenderness in his caution, a respect for what remains unspoken. Something similar pulses through the quieter pages of Reports on the Maya Indians of Yucatan — Reading Companion, that same gentle pause before a conclusion. I remember reading both under grey light, feeling time fold oddly.