Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-05-22
SALT PANS OF INDIANS
PURPOSES FOR WHICH THEY
WERE INTENDED.
Largest Ever Discovered Now in Pos
session Of Peabody Museum
at Harvard.


Cambridge. Correspondence Of the Evening Post.
That the aboriginal Indians of North
America did considerable cooking In their
time has been made evident by the discov-
cry in various parts of the United States
of numbers Of the earthenware vessels
known as salt pans but whose chief use
was apparently the preparation Of food.
These vessels-calied salt pans by the arch
aeologist because their main purpose SEEM
ed at first to have been the evaporation OF
salt from the salt springs near which the
Indians established SO many of their viii
lages-are the largest known specimens of
native North American pottery. The larg-
est one ever found has recently come into
the possession of the Peabody Museum at
Harvard. 1t. measures some thirty-one
inches in diameter by eleven inches deep.
In appearance, therefore, 1T is very much
like big, shallow punch bowl. 1t was
discovered not long ago by an archaeolog-
ical expedition under the joint auspices of
the Peabody Museum and the University OF
California, and is an important part OF the
instructive spoil taken from what is now
farm near the meeting of the little Mara
mac and the big Mississippi rivers in Jeffer-
son county, Mo.-once the site OF small
Indian village.
Heated With Stones.
This big salt pan, In which the Indians
not only evaporated salt from the water of
salt ticks which still exist in the Immediate
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
were all sunk in the clay bottom upon
which the encampment had rested, and
were therefore as permanent as any mod
hot
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 the 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 cooking APP
paratus, still remained portions of the an
cient fireplaces 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 remains are often found among the
relics Of the Indians VINO once roamed the
more western prairies.
Aborigines' Kitchens.
The big salt pan and its smaller compan-
ion 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 ex-
cavation, not yet fully completed has al
ready revealed a cemetery as we'll as a viii
LACE. 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 occa-
sional isolated graves have been discovered,
the experience of previous archaeological
investigations would have led naturally to
the expectation Of finding either very
small group of graves, each containing one
skeleton or several skeletons, or very
large one embracing hundreds of burials
In this case only twenty seven graves were
discovered, although this number repre-
sented the burial of several times as many
Indians. RI
Pottery From Graves.
In the graves, which were probably not
earlier than the seventeenth century were
found many smaller specimens of pottery,
chiefly earthenware bowls in which the
friends and relatives Of the departed war
rtors 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 a single warrior, per-
haps a very hungry one during his lifetime,
had been supplied with several These
bowls, In interesting contrast with a some
what similar custom that existed among
the European nations Of antiquity, in which
the buried food vessels were almost always
broken in pieces before burial, were nearly
all unbroken Like the larger cooking pans,
they were made Of clay-in many cases.
perhaps. the clay taken from the banks Of
the small creek that still connects the site
of the village with the Mississippi river,
about one and a 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 difficult cooking pans, that it
may have been an Inheritance from more
civilized ancestors.