The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-12
Forum Of The People
Manfs Cotton Reports standafdIzed.
the Edifnr nf The Herald

W8ntS COtt0u ttSpUfto OeHfi~a&uASoa- r To the Editor of The Age-Herald: desire to commend the editorial appearing in Mondays issue under the heading, "As t' cotton crop forecasts" I twas timely an' to the point The violent changes in the mar ket immediately following publication of sucl reports shows that there is something radt cally wrong in the system. { is my oplniol there should be better system in vogue il the selection of persons in the cotton grow ing counties in the South who are to act as reporters on the condition, etc., of the cottoi crop. Under the authority of the UnItet States government, one or more responsibis men ought to be appointed who should DC selected for their good ,judgment9 experienced and reliability to report the condition of tht cotton crop in their respective counties. These men should take the oath of office and prob ably give bond This would give dignity to the position .and make these reporters care fully investigate crop conditions from every angle
 The reports should be made under oath The reporters should be appointed by proper government authorities, and probably given a small salary. I believe if senators and con gressmen of the cotton-growing states make determined fight to give cotton growers re- lief through legislation much good could be accomplished. I hope your paper will not let IHlS uIVp.
 W. W. LAVENDER.
 Centerville, Ala, Oct. 8, 1924.
 Points In American Aboriginal History. To the Editor of The Age-Herald:
 i. Anent the information you are furnishing your readers from time to time, touching the relics found in the mounds, now being opened near Muscle Shoals, the following may be of interest to the students of history:
 We speak of these mounds as Indian Mounds, and yet our histories teach us that they were not built by the Indians, but by people who preceded them-a people we call ",rhe Mound Builders" Indeed history, or at least modern history is "a bundle of tricks we play with the dead" The Indians of this section, came from the Southwest, refugees from the ravages and cruelties of the armies of Cortez, 1518 to about l54O. These were nearly all of the same stock and spoke dialects of the same parent language, The Uchees and one tribe in Florida, one in the western part of South Carolina, and small tribe located for short while above Muscle Shoals and maybe few others, spoke a harsh gutteral language which the Greeks and their allied tribes never learned, though the Uchees at least learned the Creek, lan- guage that contained but few words that did not end in a vowel sound. i
  method of burial is copied from Bartram, the great botanist, known as Puc Puggie (flower hunter) among the Indians, 1776, nearly q half century before Alabama was organized as state:
 As soon as a person is dead, they erect
 scaffoid eighteen or twenty feet high
 in grove adjacent to the town, where
 they lay the corpse, lightly covered with
 A mantle. Here it is suffered to remain,
 visited and protected by the friends and
 relatives, until the flesh becomes putrid
 so as to easily part from the bones. Then
 the undertakers, who make it their busi-
 ness, carefully strip the flesh from the
 bones, wash and cleanse them, and when
 dry and purified by the air, having pro
 vided curiously wrought chest or cof-
 fin fabricated of bones and splints, they
 place all of the bones therein. 1t Is then
 deposited in the bone house, a building
 erected for that purpose in every town;
 and when this house is full, general,
 solemn funeral takes place. The nearest
 kindred or friend of the deceased, on a
 day appointed, repair to the bone house,
 take up the respective coffins, and follow
 ing one another in order of seniority, the
 nearest relations and connections attend
 ing their respective corpse, and the null
 titude following after them, all as one
 family, with united voice of alternate
 Allelujah and lamentations, slowly pro-
 ceed to the place of general interment,
 where they place the collins in order,
 forming a pyramid and lastly cover over
 with earth, which raises a C0nical hill or
 mound Then they return to town in
 order and solemn procession, concluding
 the day with festival, which is called
 the feast of the dead.
 The Matches Indians had large mound at
 N.-s-. 1asw hNT hn French, they re-established themselves at Nstchedoches. where they built another mound of the same kind, and the same way; and the old records are replete with infor+ nation that the burial mound was common to all the Indians before they came in con tact with the white people They were all socialistic, each tribe being socialism, though each Indian was permitted to own few small articles of personal property. These facts are verified by Adair, Hawkins, Woodland, Romans, Milfort and other old writers too numerous to mention. Bartram says the men among the Choctaws were flat heads" (had their heads artificially flattened in infancyl French records say that some Of the Chickasaws were "flat-heads" Other rec ords say that the original Indians near what is now Columbus, Ga, were 'flat-heads"; and the Antiquities of Peru, written by an h. dian in Spanish shortly after the Conquest of Peru by Pizaro, gives the name of the Indian chief who started the custom. About 1 ,91S skulls. of ''flat-headed" Indians were 'ound while excavating near Muscle Shoals, all of which shows that seeking for race of Mound Builders in this country antedat- ing the Indians found here by the early white settlers is likely to prove of IT no avail.
 Attalla, Ala, Oct: 6, 1924. < !
 
 Appreciates Editorial On Appointment. To the Editor of The Age-Herald: