MYER] GORDON TOWN SITE 537 
over this ceremonial fire. Upon this layer of clay these stones were 
placed with a single mussel shell (unio) under each. This unio shell 
doubtless had a mystical connection with food and life. 
CHILDREN’S GRAVE 
At E, Figure 150, 8 feet west of the center of the building, was 
found the top cover of a stone-slab coffin, protruding slightly above 
the level of the clay subsoil floor. This proved to be the grave of 
two children. 
The coffin was 32 inches in length, 914 inches in width at the south 
end, and 614 inches at the north end, inside measurement. It ran 
N. 10° E. It had been covered with a single stone slab, 33 inches in 
length and 24 inches in width, on top of which, completely covering 
the coffin, other stones were placed. ‘Several fragments of pottery 
had been used to level these added stone slabs. This grave, shown 
in Plate 114, 6, had a floor covered with a mosaic of pottery frag- 
ments. It contained the bones of two children, one between 2 and 3 
years of age, the other a little less than 1 year old, buried after the 
decay of the flesh. The bones were intermingled, the skull of one 
at the northern end, the skull of the other at the southern end of 
the coffin. With the bones were found a little prayer bowl " (pl. 
115, a), probably filled with food at the time of burial. This bowl, 
decorated with four human heads, was found so placed that each 
head faced approximately one of the four quarters of the earth and sky. 
This little grave sheds light on some of the most sacred beliefs of 
these ancient people. It shows they had certain concepts pertaining 
to the present and future life which continued down to the time of 
contact with the white missionaries and later. The ancient inhabi- 
tants of the Gordon site probably held the fundamental ideas of the 
sun as the giver of life and of the four world quarters and the powerful 
spirits which dwell in them. This is borne out by numbers of frag- 
ments of ware found on this site, which were decorated with the 
cross representing the four world quarters, and one or more inclosing 
concentric circles representing the sun or the horizon. Several of 
these are illustrated in this volume. The four-headed prayer bowl 
found in this grave is connected with this same religious concept. 
Many later Indians held similar concepts at the time of the coming 
of the whites. For example, four is one of the sacred numbers of 
the Cherokees. The placement of many objects in ceremonial per- 
formances and the construction of many of their prayer formulas 
have reference to the four cardinal points—the four quarters of the 
world and sky. 
18 Many similar bowls and vases, which I have designated as prayer bowls and prayer vases, have been 
found on related sites in middle Tennessee and Arkansas. Typical Tennessee examples of such four- 
headed prayer bowls and water-bottle-shaped mortuary vases are shown in Thruston’s ‘“‘Antiquities of 
Tennessee,” pl. vm, and also in Holmes’ “Aboriginal Pottery of the Eastern United States,’’ Twentieth 
Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer. Ethn., pl. xtrx. Plate x1v of the latter paper shows a similar four-headed prayer 
vase from a related site in Arkansas. 
