HOLMES] 



IMPLEMENTS OF EARTHENWARE 



35 



as a drum; all respond by cries, which they utter in time; some carry L'liichicouas or 

 empty gourds, in which are placed glass beads or little pebbles to make a noise, and 

 they shake them in time w"ith the rest." 



Lawson mentions the use of an earthen porridge pot with deerskin 

 head as a drum by Indians of Carolina. Were it considered necessary, 

 many other references could be made to the use of earthen%yare driuns. 



Whistles and rattles of baked 

 clay are very common in Mexico, 

 and in Central and South America: 

 but few examples, so far as the 

 writer has learned, have been dis- 

 covered in the mound reo'ion. 

 General Thruston, in his valualile 

 work on the "Antiquities of Ten- 

 nessee,'' illustrates an earthenware 

 rattle and the jjellets of clay used in it (see figure 5). A few vases 

 have been found having hollow legs or attached animal features, in 

 which pellets were placed so that when used on festive or ceremonial 

 occasions thej- would serve as rattles as well as receptacles. 



Vakioi's Implements of Earthenware 



Trowel-like objects of baked clay are occasionally found in the cen- 

 tral districts of the Mississippi valley, and illustrations are given in 

 figure 6rt, and also in a subsequent section. The t)ody is discoidal in 

 shape, and an arched loop or a ridge springing from one side serves 

 as a handle. The other side, which is the working surface, is slightly 

 convex, never flat, and generally shows considerable polish. These 

 objects resemble in a general waj' our ordinary smoothing or "fiat" 



Fig. 5 — Earthenware rattle, with clay pellets 

 (Thruston). 



Fig. 6 — Earthenware trowels and modeling tools. 



iron for laundry work. General Thrvt.ston found excellent examples 

 of these implements in graves near Nashville, Tennessee, and he is 

 convinced they were trowels used in plastering and smoothing walls 

 and floors of houses. A similar implement having, instead of a loop 

 handle, an upright stem from 1 to 6 inches in length and 1 inch or 

 more in diameter occurs very generally over the middle Mississippi 

 region (see figure 6 1, c). The uj)per end of the handle is sometimes 

 enlarged a little or simply rounded off, and again it is divided into two 



<' Butel-Dumont, George Marie, M6moires sur la Louisiane, Paris, 1753, vol. r, pp. 192-3. 



