20 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 70 



pipes ^ with bowls inclined upward at the end of the stem, or lying 

 wholly within it, are not uncommon and these, too, are widely 

 distributed throughout the region of the adobe houses. Stone pipes 

 of this same general type, but much heavier than those of clay have 

 been found in other western Utah mounds, although none were dis- 

 covered by the recent expedition. 



Among the lesser antiquities recovered are certain seeds and pieces 

 of basketry — perishable articles whose charred condition is alone 

 responsible for the their present degree of preservation. The first 

 of these includes grass and squash seeds, corn, beans, and pinon 

 nuts — foodstuffs which indicate that the old house builders knew 

 something of agriculture and did not rely wholly upon the skill of 

 their hunters. The basketry, one fragment of which is illustrated 

 in plate 12, is of the coiled variety so common among the ancient 

 cliff-dwellers and represents a high quality of workmanship. Bas- 

 kets were unquestionably in constant use by the primitive folk of 

 Parowan Valley and far more numerous than. their occasional remains 

 would lead one to believe.^ 



Something has been said above of the use as paint of clay stained 

 with oxide of iron. Pieces of yellow ochre were also found, but 

 these were undoubtedly employed chiefly for bodily adornment. 

 So far as known, potsherds bearing indications of yellow decoration 

 have not yet been discovered in western Utah mounds. Small masses 

 of kaolin are occasionally recovered from these ruins — masses that 

 furnished the whitish coat with which the vessels were surfaced, 

 previous to the application of decorative designs. Some of them, 

 however, are so nicely shaped and of such definite form (pi. 12, a) 

 as to suggest their possible use in certain kiva ceremonies.^ A con- 



*The small effigy pipe, number 301976, plate 15, is the only one of its kind 

 known to have been found in a Utah mound. The original, now in the 

 Universit}' of Utah Museum, is of clay and probably represents a ground 

 squirrel ; its stem had been broken one-half inch from the bowl, but was 

 subsequently ground down for continued use. 



^ Rumor has it that pieces of charred cotton cloth have been found during 

 previous excavations at Paragonah, but no traces of such fabric were dis- 

 covered by the 1917 party. 



" A story often repeated at Paragonah relates that the walls in one of the 

 adobe dwellings previously exposed were painted white and, over this, figures 

 in red, green, and yellow had been drawn. The excavation of many similar 

 ruins, both at Paragonah and elsewhere, has failed to disclose any trace of like 

 ornamentation, although walls are frequently observed whose faces are covered 

 with a thin coat of alkaline salts, deposited by the network of rootlets which 

 follow down the hard wall surface and tend to separate it from the softer 

 accumulations of debris and wind-blown earth. In the opinion of the writer, 



