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Cath Nichols

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Cross-section

Harlem River: smell of salt-fish, stench of garbage. A new
road is being built, and workers have cut through a knoll
to level in 9th Avenue.William L. Carver is looking at the raw side
of earth when he sees bones. Using his cane he pokes away

at the shell-like surround; deduces the bones belong to a dog.
Later he finds other dog skeletons. He thinks they’ve been buried
like rotten meat; that the natives used to eat their dogs then
throw out the bones. William and his friend Reginald Pelham Bolton

are trained engineers, part-time archeologists. It is 1895.
These gentlemen dig (weather permitting) in white shirt, coat and tie.
They are dedicated, but cannot imagine the past with empathy.
All told, eleven dogs are uncovered. The men never think that these

are proper burials, yet the dogs were not thrown aside like rubbish;
they were laid to sleep like the deceased people of the same
Late Woodland era. Each dog is curled nose to tail in its grave,
then blanketed in oyster shells mixed with fragments of fired clay.

 

NB the Late Woodland period is between 1000 and 500 years BCE

Cath Nichols’ publications are Tales of Boy Nancy, a pamphlet (Driftwood Publications 2005) and My Glamorous Assistant (Headland Press, 2007).

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