Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1903-07-07


their time has been made evident by
the discovery in various parts of the
United States of numbers of the earth
enware vessels known as salt pans"
but whose chief use was apparently the
preparation of food. These vessels
called salt pans by the archaelogist be-
cause their main purpose seemed at
first to have been the evaporation of
salt from the salt springs near which
the Indians established so many of
their villages-are the largest known
specimens of native North American
pottery. The largest 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
shallow punch bowl 1t was discov-
cred not long ago by an archaeological
expedition under the joint auspices OF
the Peabody museum and the uniyer-
sity of California, and is an important
part of the instructive spoil taken from
what is now farm near the meeting
of the little Meramee and the big Mis-
sissippi rivers in Jefferson county, Mis-
souri-once the site of small Indian
village.
This big salt pan, in which the In
dams not only evaporated salt from
the water Of salt ticks which still exist
in the immediate vicinity, but doubt
less cooked their elk meat or venison,
is the only one Of goodly number of
similar but smaller utensils found in
the same locality. The larger pans
were all sunk in the clay bottom 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, still showing evidence
of many heatings to which the Indians
had subjected them, still remained in
the salt pans recovered by the Harvard
and California archaeologists.
Near the salt pans" or native cook
ing apparatus still remained portions
of the ancient flreplaces 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,
turkey and fox; but there were no
traces of the buffalo. although buffalo
remains are otter, found among the
relics of the Indians who once roamed
the more western prairies.
| The big salt pan and its smaller
companion pieces Of aboriginal kitch-
en- and dining room economy were nat
urally not the only evidence of early
Indian life found in the old village, so
long hidden under the ploughed fur
rows of modern agriculture. The eX-
cavation, not yet fully completed, has
already revealed a cemetery as well
as village, the cemetery differing
from most Indian burial places already
found and opened in various parts of
the United States, in that 1T was very
much smaller than is usually the case.
Although occasional isolated graves
have been discovered, the experience
of previous archaeological investigations
would have led naturally to the ex-
pectation of finding either very
small group of graves each containing
one skeleton or several skeletons, or
a very large one embracing hundreds
of buria1s. In this case only twenty
seven graves were discovered, although
| this number represented the burial of
| several times as many Indians. In the
| graves, which were probably not ear
| lier, than the seventeenth century
were found many smaller specimens
of pottery, chiefly earthenware bowls
in which the friends and relatives of
the departed warriors had placed what
they considered would be food enough
| to last them during their journey to
the happy hunting grounds--one bowl
! in some cases having evidently been
| considered sufficient for two warriors
while in other cases single warrior,
perhaps very hungry one during his
lifetime had been supplied with sew
eral. These bowls in interesting con-
trast with a somewhat similar Gus
tom that existed among the European
nations of antiquity, in which the buri-
ed food vessels weres almost always
broken in pieces before burial We're
nearly all unbroken. Like the larger
cooking pans they were made of clay
in many cases, perhaps the clay TAX
en- from the banks of the small creek
that still connects thessite of, the vii
lage with the Mississippi river, about
one and half miles distant-mixed
with finely broken shells and modelled
by hand But whether the Indians
actually made their pottery is one of
the debated questions of archaeology
and it has been argued, especially in
the cases of the larger and more diff
cult cooking pans, that it may have
been an inheritance from more ciyiliz-
ed ancestors.
The bowls, whether inherited or