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ABORIGINAL SITES IN LOUISIANA AND IN ARKANSAS. 73 
tions which were dug up singly in midden material, those from the surface being 
also with the débris of fireplaces locally known as “gravel,” above referred бо, 
ог, at all events, on ground somewhat higher than the surrounding level and 
darker than the other ground, which evidently had been places of abode. 
By consulting this report it will be noted that other objects of this class, 
found elsewhere by us this season, lay on the surface or in midden débris, with 
one exception (the Schwing place) where a deposit of them was found near a 
burial. As the deposit of the objects in this way was so exceptional, it is hardly 
likely they were ceremonially connected with burials, but presumably were em- 
ployed in the general life of the people. А single deposit proves little. In the 
great Rose Mound on St. Francis river, Arkansas, we found with a burial a con- 
siderable deposit of cylindrical, earthenware objects such as were used by the 
aborigines in some regions as supports for vessels while cooking was in progress; 
yet nowhere else was such a deposit found by us, though numbers of the supports 
were discovered in other sites among midden débris. 
We are greatly indebted to Mr. Charles C. Willoughby, of Peabody Museum, 
Cambridge, Mass., who has taken much interest in the probable use made of these 
clay objects, for his suggestions on the subject, which follow, and for a photograph 
of the clay objects used by the Paiute Indians, which is reproduced here. Mr. 
Willoughby writes: 
“Regarding the three types of burnt clay objects of which you sent me 
drawings, the first form, that of the double cone, is the only one the use of which 
is at all clear to me. There are in our museum two similar specimens (Fig. 32) 
Fro. 32.—Clay cones. Paiute Indians, southern Utah. Collected by Edward Palmer, 1875. (Full size.) 
of clay, obtained from the Paiute Indians by Dr. Edward Palmer in 1875 and 
called by him gambling cones. These, of course, were used in the well known 
and widely distributed ‘hand game’ which is commonly played with two bones, 
one of them being marked. One of the double cones is plain, the other has a 
series of dots arranged in a spiral on one of its sides. The game, as you know, 
consists in telling in which of the opponent’s hands the unmarked cone is con- 
cealed. It has occurred to me that the double cones found by you might have 
been used in this game. One of your specimens [see Fig. 15] has a groove which 
may have served to distinguish it from its fellow, or one of a pair may have been 
marked with paint, all traces of which have disappeared. 
