200 ABORIGINAL POTTERY OF EASTERN UNITED STATES [f.th. ann'.20 



The following paragraph.s arc quoted from Dr Ha\-clcii's account: 



All along the Missouri, in the valleys of the Little Blue, Big Blue, Platte, and Loup 

 Fork rivers, I have observed the remains of these old dirt villages, and pieces of pot- 

 tery are almost invariably found with them. 



But on a recent visit to the Pawnee reservation on Loup Fork I discovered the 

 remains of an old Pawnee village, apparently of greater antiquity than the others, 

 and the only one about which any stone implements have as yet been found. On and 

 around the site of every cabin of this village I found an abundance of broken 

 arrowheads, chipped flints, some of which must have been brought from a great dis- 

 tance, and a variety of small stones, which had been used as hammers, chisels, etc. 

 I have gathered about half a bushel of the fragments of pottery, arrowheads, and 

 chipped flints, some of which I hope to place in the museum of the Smithsonian next 

 winter. No Pawnee Indian now living knows of the time when this village was 

 inhabited. Thirty years ago an old chief t(.)ld a missionary that his tribe dwelt here 

 before his birth." 



Other Northwestern Potteky 



From a mound near Fort Wadsworth, North Dakota, Mr A. J. 

 Comfort obtained much fragmentar}' pottery, and his descriptions, 

 being detailed and intei'esting, are quoted: 



The sherds were evidently from some vessels no larger than a small jar or goblet 

 and from others whose capacity must have been 4 or 5 gallons. * * * The thick- 

 ness of these sherds varies from one-eighth to three-eighths of an inch, according to 

 the-size of the vessel, though few exceed one-fourth. Sand has been the only sub- 

 stance used to give stiffness to the mass during process of molding and prevent the 

 ware from cracking while burning, and has probably been obtained from disinte- 

 grated stones, some of which were found on the hearths elsewhere spoken of. I 

 have been able to find no whole vessels, liut from the fragments of the rims, sides, 

 and bottoms it is not ditficult to form a fair conception of their shajie, which, for 

 aboriginal art, was wonderfully symmetrical, gradually widening from the neck or 

 more constricted portion of the vessel until it attains its greatest diameter at a dis- 

 tance of one-third of the height from the bottom, which is analogous, in curvature, 

 to the crystal of a watch. To the neck is attached the rim, about 1 inch in width, 

 though sometimes 2; this slopes outward at an angle of about 20 degrees from a per- 

 pendicular. * * * I have found no pieces containing ears or handles, though an 

 Indian informant tells me that small vessels were supplied with ears. 



That the aboriginal potters of the lacustrine village of Cega lyeyapi were fund of 

 decoration, and practiced it in the ceramic art, is shown by the tracings confined to 

 the rims. Rim ornaments consist of very smooth lines about one-twentieth of an 

 inch in width, and as deep, drawn quite around the vessels, parallel to the margin. 

 These are sometimes crossed by zigzag lines terminating at the neck of the vessel 

 and the margin of the rim. Lines drawn obliquely across the rim of the vessel, and 

 returning so as to form the letter V, with others parallel to the margin of the rim, 

 joining its sides, the same repeatetl as often as space admits, constitute the only 

 tracings on some vessels. The inside of the vessels is invariably plain. . . . 



The outside of the vessels proper, exclusive of the rim, which is traced, bears the 

 impression of very evenly twisted cords running in a parallel direction and closely 

 crowded together, the alternate swelling and depression of whose strands have left 

 equidistant indentations in every line thus impressed. These lines run, on the sides 

 of the vessels, in a direction perpendicular to the rim, and disappear within a half 



"Dr F. V. Hayden, Smithsonian Report, 1867, p. 411. 



