99 



A Pkobable Oeigin of the Small Mounds of the Lower 

 Mississippi and Texas Coast. 



Albert B. Reagan. 



Noting several articles "On the Origin of tlie Small Mounds of the 

 Lower Mississippi and Texas," in Science Vol. XXIII (Mr. I'. J. Farns- 

 worth, pp. 583-4; A. C. Veatcli, p. 35; Irving H. Wentworth. p. 819), leads 

 me to make a few suggestions on the subject. In the region mentioned 

 these mounds are very numerous, too numerous, it seems, to be Indian 

 mounds, except the class of mounds mentioned by Mr. Irving IL Went- 

 worth. 



The movmds mentioned by Mr. Wentworth are. no doubt, of Indian 

 origin. While with the Apache Indians some years ago, the writer saw 

 several mounds of this type constructed. All these were erected not as 

 places for sacrifice or any ceremonies of that sort, but as places lor cook- 

 ing tlie tuber-root of the Af/are amerivaiiti. In this cooking process, a 

 shallow pit is first dug and lined with cobble-stones. A fire is then built 

 in it and kept burning till the rocks, are at white heat. Wet twigs (or 

 grass) are then placed in a thick layer over the live coals and rocks. On 

 these the Agave tubers, a wagon load or more, are (piickly piled, and over 

 these, after they have been covered with twigs or grass, a thick layer 

 of cobble-stones are piled. All then is covered with wood, which is ig- 

 nited and kept burning for about twelve hours, while the Indians dance 

 around it. When the rocks are sufticientl.y cool, after the fire has been 

 let die down, the top is removed and the cooked tubers taken out of this 

 peculiar oven, packed in baskets, and taken to the distant "tepees," leav- 

 ing the rockpile with an ellii)tic;il. practically flat top. Probably the 

 mounds mentioned above wor(> constructed for the same or for similar 

 purposes. 



Concerning the other mounds of tlic region, may they not be due to 

 mudluui]! formjition in a former geological ejiochV 



In an article on "The Exceptional Nature and Genesis of the Missis- 

 sippi Delta." R. W. Hilgard states (Science, Vol. XXIV, pp. 861-866) that 

 "mudiumps are now lielng upheaved in the channel of the lower Missis- 



