ANCIENT POTTERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 1 27 



cups of paint by the hands, but with another all may have been 

 placed at the side or by the feet. Uniformity cannot be expected 

 in this more than in other features of burial. In other sections of 

 the country the pieces of pottery were often broken before final 

 inhumation took place, but such was certainly not the practice in 

 this province. 



Age. — There can be no reasonable doubt that the manufacture of 

 this ware began many centuries before the advent of the white race, 

 but it is equally certain that the art was extensively practiced until 

 quite recent times. Pottery was seen in use by the early explorers 

 of Louisiana and the processes of manufacture are described by 

 Dumont and others. 



Possibly Du Pratz had in mind some of the identical vessels now 

 upon our museum shelves when he said that " the women make pots 

 of an extraordinary size, jars with a medium sized opening, bowls, 

 two-pint bottles with long necks, pots or jugs for containing bear's 

 oil, which hold as much as forty pints, and finally plates and dishes 

 in the French fashion."* 



Vessels were certainly made in great numbers within our period 

 and it is reasonable to suppose that they belonged to the great group 

 under discussion. If not, it will be necessary to seek the cause of 

 their total disappearance, since, as I have already said, the pottery 

 of this district, as shown by the relics, is practically a unit. 



The introduction of metal utensils was a death blow to the native 

 industry, although some of the southern tribes seem to have prac- 

 ticed the art continuously, but in a very limited way, down to the 

 present time. There is but little evidence of the influence of the 

 art of the whites upon the ceramic products of this province, al- 

 though the forms are sometimes suggestive of European models. 

 It is certain, however, that the art had reached its highest stage 

 without the aid of civilized hands, and in the study of its many in- 

 teresting features we can feel assured that we are dealing with purely 

 aboriginal ideas. 



The pottery of this province is of a character so homogeneous that 

 we are warranted in assigning it to a single period of culture, and, 

 in concluding, that the races who developed and practiced the art 

 belonged to a group of closely allied tribes. We can also state with- 

 out fear of precipitating a controversy that the people who made 



*Du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane, vol. IT, p. 179. 



