352 CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE NW. FLORIDA COAST. 



We have two hjqiotheses to otter to account for this: 



1. — That the aborigines of the peninsuh^ possessed fine ware, but did not. as a 

 rule, inter it with the dead. 



It must be borne in mind that the natives of the peninsula did not make great 

 mortuary deposits of earthenware as did those of the Florida mainland, the vessel of 

 earthenware being simply one of a great number of objects from which selection was 

 made. Fewer vessels were put into the mounds, and as earthenware was not so 

 exclusively a mortuary selection, perhaps less attention was paid to the quality of 

 that taken for burial. Besides, the interment of "freak," or ceremonial, ware, 

 which is always inferior to the other ware of the district where it was used, was 

 more largely practised in the peninsula than it was on the northwest coast and, 

 therefore, the pottery of the peninsular mounds may not be representative. 

 2. — That the finest vessels of the peninsula were importations. 

 From the island of Marco, southwest Florida, we got two large bird head han- 

 dles, of excellent design, found alone, one representing the head of a turkey, the 

 other that of a predatory bird. Around one of these heads a groove had been made 

 to permit use as a pendant. The other head had doubtless served a similar purpose, 

 as circular spaces, through which a cord could pass, had been left, at the time of 

 manufacture, through the neck and through the bill. Not only was the workman- 

 ship of the heads markedly that of the middle Mississippi district or of the Gulf, 

 but the ware was what is known as shell-tempered, which Avare was in use in 

 the districts we have named, but not in peninsular Florida. These heads were 

 doubtless importations, and other fine specimens of ware may have been importa- 

 tions also. 



On the whole we are inclined to believe that the best ware found in the penin- 

 sula was exceptional and perliaps got there through barter. The lower average of 

 excellence of sherds in the peninsula argues a supply of inferior vessels, and the fact 

 that the "freak," or ceremonial, ware is so much below the standard of that of tlie 

 northwest coast might indicate a lower quality for vessels of other classes also. 

 Had the natives of the peninsula possessed vessels of the highest grade in great 

 numbers, we believe, in one way or another, more indication of it would have come 



to light. 



In the first part of this report we spoke of a mortuary custom prevailing in 

 peninsular Florida ^ to knock a hole through the base of a vessel, presumably to 

 "kill" the pot, that its soul might accompany that of tlie dead man. We spoke of 

 a refinement of this custom, and described vessels of fantastic form and flimsy 

 material made expressly for interment with the dead, in the bases of which holes 



1 In the " American Antiquarian," Sept.-Oct., 1902, is a paper by Mr. Francis U. Duff, on the 

 antiquities of the Mimbres valley. New Mexico, describing, among other things, the finding of "large 

 bowls inverted over the crania of the departed. Each of these bowls, before being deposited in the grave, 

 had a small hole broken in its bottom." It is interesting to note the occurrence of the mortuary perfora- 

 tion of the base of vessels in this remote region so far removed from where this mortuary custom flour- 

 ished at its fullest. In the Mimbres valley, however, bowls were not inverted over lone skulls or skulls 

 with a few scattered bones, as they were iii the graves of the Florida northwest coast, but were placed 

 over skulls interred with their skeletons. 



