Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-06-19
ABORIGINAL KITCHEN.
The Purposes for Which Salt Pans
Were Intended.


That the aboriginal Indians of North
America did considerable cooking in their
time has been made evident by the dis
covery In various parts of the United States
OF numbers Of earthenware vessels known
as salt pans" but whose chief use was
apparently the preparation of food. These
Vessels-called salt pans by the archaeolo-
gist because their main purpose seemed at
hrst to have been the evaporation of salt
from the salt springs near which the In
olans established so many of their villages
are the largest known specimens of ma
1--WE North American pottery. The large :.
one ever found has recently come into the
possession Of the Peabody Museum at
Harvard. 1t measures some 81 inches in
diameter by IL inches deep. In appearance
therefore, it is very much like big, shall
low punch bowl. 1t was discovered not long
ago by an archaeological expedition under
the Joint auspices of the Peabody Museum
ana the University of California, and is an
important part of the instructive spoil
taken from what is now a farm near the
meeting of the little Maramac and the big
Mississippi rivers in jefferson county, Mis-
souri,, once the site of small Indian vii
lage.
This big salt pan, in which the Indians
not only evaporated salt from the water of
salt ticks which still exist in the imme-
date vicinity, but doubtless cooked their
elk meat or venison is only one of a goodly
number of similar but smaller utensils
found in the same locality. The larger
pans We're all sunk in the clay bottom upon
upon which the encampment had rested
and were therefore as permanent as any
modern stove or oven. The difference was
that fire. instead of being built under or
against the oven, was brought to it in the
shape of heated stones. some of which.
sun showing evidence Of the many heat
ings to which the Indians had subjected
them, still remained in the salt pans re-
covered by the Harvard and California
archaeologists.
Near the salt pans, or native cooking
apparatus, still remained portions of the
ancient freplaces in which the stones had
been heated, together with the bones of
several kinds of animals which formed part
of the Indian bill of fare of about 200 years
ago. These remains included elk beaver,
deer, fox and turkey; but there were no
traces of the buffalo although buffalo re-
mains are often found among the relics of
the Indians who once roamed the more
western prairies.
The big salt pan and its smaller COM
panion pieces of aboriginal kitchen and
dining room economy were, naturally, not
the only evidence of early Indian life found
In the old village SO long hidden under the
plowed burrows of modern agriculture The
excavation, not yet fully completely, has
already revealed a cemetery as well as a
village, the cemetery differing from most
of the Indian burial places already found
and opened in various parts of the United
States, in that it was very much smaller
than was usually the case Although oc-
casional isolated graves have been dis
covered, the experience of previous archae-
illogical Investigations would have led.
naturally, to the expectation of finding
either a very small group of graves, each
containing one skeleton or several skele-
tons, or a very large one embra cling hun
dreds of burals In this case only twenty
seven graves were discovered, although this
number represented the burial of several
times as many Indians