Distribution of Pearls and Peart-shell. Tes 
of the Illinois River. Near by were also the remains of 
a necklace composed of alternate pearls and bone beads. 
The McEvers Mound in Montezuma, Pike Co., Illinois, 
also yielded, according to D. I. Bushnell, the excavator, a 
group of forty-five pearls, including one of beautiful lustre 
weighing fifty-two grains.” 
The use of pearls as ornaments, and for depositing with 
the remains of persons of distinction, was also customary 
among the Indian tribes of Virginia. The accounts of early 
explorers and colonists furnish us with many details as 
regards the burial of pearls with the dead and _ their 
use in religious rites. The first English colonists found 
the Indians of Virginia esteeming pearls among their 
favourite treasures and ornaments. An excellent account 
of these Indians is given by Charles C. Willoughby in the 
“American Anthropologist” (vol. ix., 1907). This article 
is of great interest as dealing with the habits and customs 
of the tribes occupying tidewater Virginia at the time 
of the first colonization. The Indians, a branch of the 
Algonquian stock, formed a powerful confederacy under 
Powhatan comprising some thirty tribes. To the greater 
chiefs tribute was paid in pearls, copper, beads, skins, ete. 
Pearls were also used to adorn the native clothing, as 
well as for necklaces and ear-pendants. Strachey, an 
early explorer, reports having seen “manie chaynes and 
braceletts (of pearls) worne by the people, and wee have 
found plentie of them in the sepulchers of their kings, 
though discoloured by burning the oysters in the fier, and 
deformed by grosse boring.” The writings of this and 
other explorers give curious accounts and descriptions of 
the “temples” within which, in a sort of sanctuary or 
“chancel,” were kept the dried bodies of deceased chiefs, 
and an image of the god, called Okee, made in the shape 
121 \unz and Stevenson, of. cz¢., p. 509. 
