ANCIENT ABORIGINAL TRADE IN NORTH AMERICA. 6 i 7 



works of various descriptions, and sometimes of stupendous extent, these 

 large shells of marine mollusks are of frequent occurrence. Atwater 

 already mentions them in the first volume of the Archseologia Ameri- 

 cana, published in 1820. What Squier and Davis observed in regard 

 to sea-shells generally during their investigations in Ohio, I will reca- 

 pitulate here in a few words. They found in the moiwids the smaller 

 shells already specified, namely, MargineUa, OUva, and Natica, as well 

 as entire specimens or fragments of Cassis and Pyrula perversa, and also 

 the unwrought columellte of a large species of conch, probably IStrombus 

 gigas. Entire specimens of the Pyrula perversa, they state, frequently 

 have been discovered outside of the mounds, in excavating at diflerent 

 points in the Scioto valley. They found in one of the mounds a large 

 Cassis, from which the inner whorls and columella had been removed, 

 to adapt it for use as a vessel. This specimen, eleven inches and a half 

 in length by twenty-four in circumference at the largest part, is now in 

 the Blackmore Museum.* 



The above-mentioned marine shells, all pertaining to tropical or semi- 

 tropical regions, occur in the United States only on the eastern shore of 

 the peninsula of Florida (perhaps a little higher northward) and on the 

 coast of the Gulf of Mexico. From these localities, therefore, they must 

 have found their way into the interior. Adopting, for example, Cape 

 St. Bias, in the Mexican Gulf, and the centre of Ohio as the limits of 

 shell-trade from south to north (an estimate probably much below 

 reality), we find an intervening distance of nearly eight hundred Eng- 

 lish miles. 



Having repeatedly alluded to large sea-shells prepared by the abo- 

 rigines to serve as vessels, I will also mention that the Florida Indians, 

 when first seen by Europeans, used such shells as drinking-cups. This 

 we learn from the plates and descriptions contained in the "Brevis Nar- 

 ratio," of Jacques leMoyne de Morgues, in the second volume of DeBry's 

 " Peregrinationes " (Francoforti ad Moenum, 1591). Plate 19 represents 

 Indian widows who have cut off their hair in token of mourning, and 

 scatter it over the graves of their husbands. On the graves are de- 

 l)osited bows and arrows, spears, and the large shells " out of which ■ 

 they drank."t The same shells may be seen on Plate 29, where warriors 

 use them as drinking-cups. Plate 40, finally, illustrates the ceremonies 

 which were performed at the death of a chieftain. The tumulus is 

 already heaped up, and around its base arrows are stuck perpendicu- 

 larly in the ground. The drinking-vessel of the deceased, a large shell, 

 is placed on the top of the mound.| Though the shells are figured quite 

 large in these plates, it is impossible to perceive to what species they 



*Ancient Monuments, p. 283. 



t The accompanying text runs thus : "Ad maritorum sepulcra pervenie7ites, capillos sui 

 aiiribiis prcEsccant, illisque per sepulcra sparsis, maritorum arma 4" conchas ex qidbus iile- 

 baui ibidem adjiciunt, in atrenuorum virornm memoriam." 



tin the text: " Defancto aliqtio liege ejus ProvincicB, magna solennitafc sepelilur, ^ ejus 

 tumulo crater, e quo bibere solebat, imponitur, dcfixis circa ipsum tumulum multis sagittis." 



