Evening star., 1936-03-01
BY GRACE HALLER.

today Is Tennessee. there was
trouble. The green corn
dance was only seven risings
of the sun away, and the town house
was slithering into the river. Seven
risings of the sun, indeed! For 10
days the sun had neither risen nor
set on the men of Clinch River. Only
a grayness, little less dark than
night, had pierced the constant veil
of rain. And now the carefully packed
clay on the roof of the town house was
oozing off in ever-faster streams; the
hickory sapling frame was leaning to
the westward.
The chiefs wrapped their buffalo
robes around themselves and sent the
young men into the forest. A cedar
must be secured to brace it. A large
cedar! But it would be no easy task.
even for young men, to fell a cedar 2
feet thick with stone axes in the rain.
How could the ring of fire be burned
around the trunk with the whole sky
weeping like a woman-child? And
without the fire, the axes would not
bite the hard cedar nor, indeed, any
other wood.
But the young men carried their
brands into the forest, a mile away,
where they knew of cedar. They
prayed the sacred cedar's mercy and
set to work.
Fires Must Burn.
Three days before the green corn
dance, painting and struggling. 10 of
them dragged the giant timber into
the -thatched village. The cedar
had been willing. they told the war
riors and the beloved men-the eld-
ers-to prop the town house back to
the eastward. The fires of thankSgiv-
ing must burn on the holy hearth for
the green corn ceremonies. Other
wise, the corn might not yield next
season-or, worse, perhaps, never
again. BY the grace of the cedar's
spirit, the sun broke up the clouds,
and while the men worked within to
set the timber in the floor, the women
scooped up dripping clay from the
river banks to repair the damage.
The fires burned in the four basins
of the white clay, and in the great
central one. The chief rose from his
white clay seat opposite the door, and
all the people followed. One by one
they wriggled between the saplings of
the door into the brilliant sun of the
Summer solstice. And on the bank
of the Clinch River they made dance
unrecorded by any man. In the Clinch
River they washed away sins no liter
ature recalls and returned through the
sapling door to give thanks for un-
recorded blessings.
During the Summer violent rain
storm fiattened the town house, cedar
prop and all. There was nothing left
to do but burn the sacred remains
and erect a new building on the dedi-
Gated soil. The village of sapling
houses thatched with cane had grown
a good deal since the town house was
built-so the new one was larger.
Such a scene, perhaps, was typical
of the strange town house" culture
unearthed by Maj. w. S. Webb, retired
United States Army officer and head
of the departments of physics and
archaeology at the University of Ken
lucky. Maj. Webb conducted T. v. A.
archaeological excavations in the val
leys of the Clinch and Tennessee
Rivers before completion of the Norris
and Wheeler Dams. The territory
was to be inundated forever. If any
thing was to be found out about the
pre-histofy Of the country, it had to
be done at once. The resulting exca-
vations comprised one of the most
comprehensive and wide-flung arch
Biological studies ever conducted in
this country.
Most Primitive People.
But the town house" people were
only one of two extraordinary cultures
brought to light. The other was found
in the Wheeler Basin, 300 miles away,
in Alabama. It is the most primitive
yet discovered east of the Mississippi
River. The earliest people here were
so unskilled that they did not even
know theAuse of the bow and arrow;
they lived on shell heaps and shell
Islands in the rivers. that furnished
their food. And in this locality Maj.
Webb encountered one of the most
singular situations ever known to
archeology-bur.al mounds contain-
ing impressions Of skeletons, but no
skeletons!
Archaeology without skeletons! It
is almost like printing without ink
And yet the T. v. A. diggings at the
outset were peculiarly lacking in this
respect. Whereas the primitive peo-
pie Of the Wheeler Basin left burial
mounds but no skeletons, the town
house" folk left no traces of burial
whatsoever. What did they do with
their dead? It Is an ancient and un-
soivable mystery.