The Society has in its possession remains of twenty or thirty pottery
vessels. They are shown to be portions of different pots, by their
variety of marking. The pottery is of a coarse sort, seemingly made by
hand and not upon a wheel, and then baked. The markings were made upon
the soft clay, evidently with a sharp instrument, or sometimes with
the finger nail. Some pieces are found hard and well preserved; others
are rapidly disintegrating. As stated already, in the grand mound, a
vessel some five inches in diameter was dug up by one of the workers,
filled with earth, which though we tried earnestly to save it, yet
went to pieces in our hands. The frequency with which fragments of
pottery are found in the mounds has given rise to the theory that
being used at the time of the funeral rites the vessel was dashed to
pieces as was done by some ancient nations in the burial of the dead.
This theory is made very doubtful indeed by the discovery of the
[Illustration: FIGURE 2.]
(_b_.) _Complete Pottery Cup_. So far as I know this is the only
complete cup now in existence in the region northwest of Lake
Superior, though several others are said to have been discovered and
been sent to distant friends of the finders. This cup, belonging now
to the Historical Society was found in the grand mound, in company
with charred bones, skulls, and other human bones, lumps of red ochre,
and the shells just described.
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