74 ABORIGINAL SITES IN LOUISIANA AND IN ARKANSAS. 
“It is also possible that they may have been used in slings, as the form is 
similar to the well-wrought sling stone of Polynesia. You will recall that 
Professor Holmes obtained from the Stockton mounds of southern California, 
clay pellets of various forms some of which he thought might have been used in 
slings. Опе of these, which resembles somewhat your second form, is illustrated 
on plate 27 of the Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1900. 
““ As to the second form, the lump of clay with six or more depressions, it 
remotely suggests the worked astragalus of the deer, such as was probably used 
for gaming. 
“As to the third form, the grooved cylinder, I have no suggestions to offer 
as to Its possible use." 
In a later communication Mr. Willoughby writes: “I have come across a 
picture and notice of clay balls from Missouri; see Louis Houck’s ‘History of 
Missouri,’ pp. 45, 46. 
“I also find that there are two or three clay double cones like yours in the 
Museum of Peabody Academy of Science, Salem, Mass. They are from the 
bed of Lake Pontchartrain, La., if I am not mistaken." 
The deposit of clay objects found by us in a mound near the Schwing Place, 
and described in this report, was made up of two varieties, namely, double cones 
and similar forms having longitudinal furrows in addition (see Fig. 2). 
It has occurred to us that these objects, if used in the hand-game, were em- 
ploved by making a double cone and one with furrows constitute a pair, the 
required difference between the two being attained in this way. 
Mr. Stewart Culin, author of “Games of the North American Indians,” 
in reply to a request for his views as to the clay objects in question, kindly has 
sent the following statement: “I am unable to form an opinion as to the probable 
use of the clay objects. They may have been used in games, but from any 
knowledge of existing games I have no assurance that they were thus employed." 
Persistent digging was done at Poverty Point into the various dwelling sites 
in the fields, to which we have referred, but though soil indicating deposit through 
long habitation was gone through to considerable depths, and various relies 
were found, including a number of the small, earthenware objects described and 
the “plummet” of hematite referred to, no skeletal remains were encountered. 
Presumably, burials had been made apart from the places of abode or had been 
destroyed during the long-continued cultivation of the place, especially if buried 
more or less superficially. It was, of course, impossible to make a thorough ex- 
amination of so great a site as the one under description, but it is very unlikely, 
had burials been in the places investigated, we could have failed to find some in 
the great amount of digging that was done. It is significant, too, that no history 
of the discovery of human bones is to be had from persons living on the place 
or connected with it. The bones seen by Professor Lockett at the time of his 
visit more than forty years ago, may have been on the other sites referred to by 
124th An. Rep. Bur. Am. Ethn. 
