Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley / Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. I.

by E. G. Squier; E. H. Davis

[♠] XLVI.

• PLATE XLVI. EARTHEN VESSELS FROM THE MOUNDS.
  • NUMBER 1 is a beautiful vase, moulded from pure clay, with a slight silicious intermixture. Its thickness is uniform throughout, not exceeding one sixth of an inch. Its outer as well as interior surface is smooth, except where it is dotted by way of ornament. Its finish resembles in all respects that of the finer Peruvian pottery, and, when held in certain positions towards the light, exhibits the same peculiarities of surface, as if it had been carefully shaved and smoothed with a sharp knife. It is highly polished, and has an unctuous feel. The exterior is ornamented as represented in the drawing. The lines are carved in, and appear to have been cut by some sharp gouge-shaped instrument, which entirely removed the detached material, leaving no ragged or raised edges. Nothing can exceed the uniformity and precision with which they are executed; and it seems almost impossible that the artist could have preserved so much regularity, with no other guide than the eye. There are four groups or festoons of lines, each of which occupies an equal division of the surface. A line is carried around the top of the vase near the edge, in which, at equal distances from each other, are pierced four small holes, a fifth of an inch in diameter. Between this line and the edge is a row of dots, formed with the same instrument used in carving the lines, held in an oblique direction to the surface. The spaces between some of the lines are p190 roughened in a similar manner. The color of this vase is a dark brown or umber. Its height is five and a half, its diameter six and a half inches. The fragment, Fig. 5, exhibits the thickness of the ware, the size of the engraved lines, etc.
  • NUMBER 2 is a vase of coarser material but more elaborate outline than the one just described. It is square, with slightly rounded angles, and has a singular offset or shoulder at the top. Its exterior is divided into four compartments, within each of which is an ornamental figure, somewhat resembling a bird with extended wings. This ornament is thrown in relief by the roughening of the remaining portions of the surface. One or two other vases have been found, possessing the same shape and having identical ornaments, but lacking the offset or shoulder above mentioned. The ornamental work, in all of these specimens, is executed in a free, bold style; and the figures differ just enough to show that they were not cut after a pattern. This vase is burned hard; its thickness is but one eighth of an inch; its dimensions are, height five inches, greatest diameter the same.
  • From the delicacy of these specimens, and the amount of labor expended upon them, it is concluded that they were not used for ordinary purposes. They were perhaps designed to contain articles valued by the possessor, or to be used only on certain important occasions. It has been suggested that they were possibly the censers of the ancient priesthood, or, from the fact of their being found only in the altar mounds, appropriated to sacred purposes. This supposition might be made with equal propriety in respect to the coarser varieties also found on the altars, and which, it is evident, were designed to be used for purposes requiring strength and the capability of withstanding fire.
  • NUMBERS 3 and 4 are drawn upon the same scale with the two above described; they contain between one and two quarts. As before remarked, they may be regarded as in all respects very good specimens of the skill of the modern northern tribes in this description of manufacture.
  • In the mounds of the South, pottery exists in great abundance; but it differs very much in form and quality from the specimens found on the Ohio. It is coarser in material, and seems to have been manufactured with less care. The ornaments, although not without grace, are roughly executed. Some of the vessels seem to have been burned to considerable hardness, and exhibit the consequent redness of color; but most are of a dark brown, and appear to have been hardened over fires, rather than burned in kilns.
  • NUMBERS 6, 7, 8, and 9, as already observed, are examples of this Southern ware. Number 6 is from South Carolina; Nos. 7, 8, and 9, from Florida: they are all deposited in the cabinet of the Historical Society of New York. No. 6 is about twelve inches in height, of rather elegant model, and ornamented with scrolls. It contains upwards of a gallon. Nos. 7 and 9 hold about a quart each; No. 8 perhaps three quarts.
  • Some of those found in the mounds of Carolina are of great size, and capable p191 of holding from three to thirty gallons. These are seldom ornamented, but are extremely well formed. It may be remarked that the handles of the Southern vases are often neatly moulded into scrolls, or representations of the heads of animals and birds.
  • Fig. 71.
  • Fig. 71, Number 1, is a very good specimen of an ancient Peruvian vessel, now deposited in the museum of the Historical Society of Connecticut, at Hartford. The peculiar spout, answering the double purpose of use and ornament, has been observed in some of the vases of the Southern United States. Number 2 illustrates one variety of earthen ware, which is common from the mouth of the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. This specimen was taken from a mound at Ellis’s Bluff, near Natchez. It contained burnt remains, though we are uninformed of what description. It is unbaked and composed of a singular kind of clay, which exhibits the appearance and has the feel of the softer varieties of “soap stone.” The material is accurately described by Mr. Flint, in his account of certain articles of pottery found in Missouri. “The composition when fractured shows many white floccules in the clay, that resemble fine snow; and these I judge to be pulverized shells. The basis of the composition seems to be the alluvial clay, carried along in the waters of the Mississippi, and called by the French ‘terre grasse,’ from its greasy feel.” This specimen is seven inches high by eight inches in its greatest diameter. The neck is two and a half inches long, and a cover fits neatly over it, completely closing the vessel. It is very symmetrical, exhibiting but slight irregularities. Its thickness is not far from three eighths of an inch, but it is evidently not uniform throughout. It has no markings, except some irregular notches in the rim of the base.[125]
  • Many vessels of similar shape are found in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, of which number 3 of the cut furnishes a very good example. They are of a great variety of sizes, and sometimes have the form of the human head, or of p192 animals. The celebrated “Triune vessel,” which has been made the basis of so much unprofitable speculation, was of the latter character, and represented three human heads joined at the back. They are variously ornamented, and sometimes painted with red and brown colors. Their form seems generally to have been suggested by that of the gourd.
  • Fig. 72.
  • Fig. 72, Number 1. This vessel, clearly of modern workmanship, was found a few feet below the surface, near the town of Hamilton, Butler county, Ohio. It was placed beside a human skeleton, and contained a single muscle-shell. The material is a compound of clay and pounded shells; its height is seven inches, diameter five and a half. Number 2 was found in the same vicinity, and under similar circumstances with that last described. It is of like composition, thick, and of a dark black color.
  • Number 3 was found in Perry county, Indiana, at a locality known as the “Big Bone Bank.” It is composed of finer material than those just described. The aperture at the mouth is two inches in diameter; the vase itself is five inches in height, and measures thirteen in circumference. The “Big Bone Bank,” to which we have alluded, occurs on the Wabash river, ten miles above its mouth, and is supposed by many to have been a cemetery of the mound-builders. Human remains are very abundant here, and are said to occur as deep as ten feet below the surface. With these are deposited various relics, consisting for the most part of vessels of pottery, which are exposed from time to time by the wasting away of the bank. The following specimens, obtained from this locality, together with those just described, are in the cabinet of JAMES MCBRIDE, Esq., Hamilton, Ohio.
  • Fig. 73.
  • Fig. 74.
  • Fig. 73 measures three inches in height by seventeen in circumference. It is p193 of fine clay, burned, and in model somewhat resembles the ancient pipkin. Before it was fractured, it probably terminated in a representation of the head of some animal.
  • Fig. 74 is of precisely the same material with that last described. Besides the two handles, it has four strong knobs at right angles to each other, by which it was probably designed the vessel might be suspended.
  • All the vessels from this locality are composed of clay, compounded as already described, and baked; they are of small size, the largest containing but little more than one quart. They fall far short of those from the mounds in fineness and elegance of finish, though superior to the general manufacture of the Indians. They resemble more closely the coarse but very well moulded pottery of Florida and the South-west.
  • A few terra cottas have been found in the mounds; they are said to be abundant at the South, where they are represented to possess a great variety of forms. In material they are identical with the finer specimens of pottery already described, and like them seem generally to have been baked.
  • Fig. 75 Half size.
  • Fig. 75. This unique relic was ploughed up, on the banks of the Yazoo river, in the State of Mississippi. It is composed of clay, smoothly moulded and burned, and represents some animal, couchant, lips corrugated and exhibiting its teeth as if in anger or defiance. It seems to have been used as a pipe. The attitude is alike natural and spirited.[126] p194
  • Fig. 76 Half size.
  • Fig. 77. Half size.
  • Fig. 78. Half size.
  • Figures 76 and 77 are both pipes of baked clay. They were ploughed up in Virginia at a point nearly opposite the mouth of the Hocking river, where there are abundant traces of an ancient people, in the form of mounds, embankments, etc. One represents a human head, with a singular head-dress, closely resembling some of those observed on the idols and sculptures of Mexico. The other represents some animal coiled together, and is executed with a good deal of spirit.
  • Fig. 78 is a reduced outline representation of an article of baked clay, found a number of years ago, in a mound near Nashville, Tennessee. It has the form of a human head, with a portentous nose and unprecedented phrenological developments. It is smooth and well polished, and contains six small balls of clay, which were discovered upon perforating the neck. They must necessarily have been introduced before the burning of the toy. Similar conceits were common in Mexico and Peru, and were observed by Kotzebue upon the North-west Coast. The Mexicans had also rude flutes of clay, upon which, with a little practice, not unmusical sounds may be produced.
  • Fig. 79.
  • Fig. 80.
  • Fig. 79 was taken from a mound in Butler county, Ohio. It represents the head of a bird, somewhat resembling the toucan, and is executed with much spirit. It seems originally to have been attached to some vessel, from which it was broken before being deposited in the mound.[127] p195
  • Fig. 80 presents greatly reduced sketches of a couple of clay pipes. The one indicated by the figure 1 was found in a mound in Florida, and is now in the museum of the Historical Society of New York; the other is from a mound in South Carolina, and is in the cabinet of Dr. S. G. Morton, of Philadelphia. Most of the ancient clay pipes that have been discovered have this form, which is not widely different from that adopted by the later Indians.
  • Notwithstanding the regularity of figure and uniformity of thickness which many of the specimens of aboriginal pottery exhibit, it is clear that they were all moulded by hand. There is no evidence that the potter’s wheel was known, nor that the art of glazing, as now practised, was understood. It is not impossible, but on the contrary appears extremely probable, from a close inspection of the mound pottery, that the ancient people possessed the simple approximation towards the potter’s wheel, consisting of a stick of wood grasped in the hand by the middle and turned round inside a wall of clay, formed by the other hand or by another workman. The polish, which some of the finer vessels possess, is due to other causes, and is not the result of vitrification. That a portion of the ancient pottery was not baked is very certain; but that another portion, including all vessels which were designed for common use, for cooking and similar purposes, was burned, is equally certain. In some of the Southern States, it is said, the kilns, in which the ancient pottery was baked, are now occasionally to be met with. Some are represented still to contain the ware, partially burned, and retaining the rinds of the gourds, etc., over which they were modelled, and which had not been entirely removed by the fire. “In Panola county,” says Mr. R. Morris, in a private letter, “are found great numbers of what are termed ‘pottery kilns;’ in which are masses of vitrified matter, frequently in the form of rude bricks, measuring twelve inches in length by ten in breadth.” It seems most likely that these “kilns” are the remains of the manufactories of the later tribes, the Choctaws and Natchez, who, says Adair, “made a prodigious number of vessels of pottery, of such variety of forms as would be tedious to describe, and impossible to name.”
• This Plate exhibits drawings of eight vessels of pottery; of which Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, were taken from the mounds of Ohio, and Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, from the mounds of South Carolina and Florida. Nos. 3 and 4, although taken from the mounds, will readily be recognised as of comparatively modern manufacture. They were found with the recent deposits, and may be considered as fair specimens of Indian skill in this department. Unlike the older vessels with which they are placed in contrast, they are heavy and coarse, both in material and workmanship.

• FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER X.
  • [124] “The present Chilenoes are good potters for common ware; they introduce a considerable quantity of earth and sand, containing abundance of yellow mica, and their vessels sometimes contain as much as seventy gallons or more. They are of great thinness, lightness, and strength.”—Schmidtmeyer’s Chile, p. 117.
  • [125] In the cabinet of Dr. S. P. HILDRETH, Marietta, Ohio.
  • [126] In the cabinet of JAMES MCBRIDE, Esq.
  • [127] In the cabinet of JAMES MCBRIDE, Esq.

p196

CHAPTER XI. IMPLEMENTS OF METAL.

The first inquiry suggested by an inspection of the mounds and other earthworks of the West, relates to the means at the command of the builders in constructing them. However numerous we may suppose the ancient people to have been, we must regard these works as entirely beyond their capabilities, unless they had some artificial aids. As an agricultural people, they must have possessed some means of clearing the land of forests and of tilling the soil. We can hardly conceive, at this day, how these operations could be performed without the aid of iron; yet we know that the Peruvians and Mexicans, whose monuments emulate the proudest of the old world, were wholly unacquainted with the uses of that metal, and constructed their edifices and carried on their agricultural operations with implements of wood, stone, and copper. They possessed the secret of hardening the metal last named, so as to make it subserve most of the uses to which iron is applied. Of it they made axes, chisels, and knives.

The mound-builders were acquainted with several of the metals, although they do not seem to have possessed the art of reducing them from the ores. Implements and ornaments of copper are found in considerable abundance among their remains; silver is occasionally found in the form of ornaments, but only to a trifling amount; the ore of lead, galena, has been discovered in considerable quantities, but none of the metal has been found under such circumstances as to establish conclusively that they were acquainted with the art of smelting it. No iron or traces of iron, except with the recent deposits, have been discovered; nor is it believed that the race of the mounds had any knowledge of that metal. The copper and silver found in the mounds were doubtless obtained in their native state, and afterwards worked without the intervention of fire. The locality from which they were derived seems pretty clearly indicated by the peculiar mechanico-chemical combination existing, in some specimens, between the silver and copper, which combination characterizes only the native masses of Lake Superior. In none of the articles found is there evidence of welding, nor do any of them appear to have been cast in moulds. On the contrary, they seem to have been hammered out of rude masses, and gradually and with great labor brought into the required shape. The lamination, resulting from hammering the baser metals while cold, is to be observed in nearly all the articles. But, notwithstanding the disadvantages which they labored under, the mound-builders contrived to produce some very creditable specimens of workmanship, displaying both taste and skill.

No articles composed entirely of silver have been discovered: the extreme scarcity of that metal seems to have led to the utmost economy in its use. It is p197 only found reduced to great thinness, and plated upon copper. By plated, it should not be understood that any chemical combination, or a union produced by heat, exists between the two metals, but simply that thin slips of silver were wrapped closely around the copper, their edges overlapping, so as to leave no portion exposed. This was done so neatly as, in many cases, almost to escape detection.

Fig. 81. AXES.—Among the implements recovered from the mounds, are several copper axes, the general form of which is well exhibited in the engravings herewith presented. They are well wrought, and each appears to have been made from a single piece,—showing that the metal was obtained in considerable masses. The largest of these, Fig. 81, weighs two pounds five ounces. It measures seven inches in length, by four in breadth at the cutting edge, and has an average thickness of about four tenths of an inch. Its edge is slightly curved, somewhat after the manner of the axes of the present day, and is bevelled from both surfaces.