CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE N. W. FLORIDA COAST. 439 



These often came from many vessels, being a few parts of each so that it seemed as 

 though fragments, usually decorated, had been saved for burial in the mound. 

 These heaps were not found immediately with human remains and were probably 

 buried in a general way. We shall have occasion again to speak of this custom in 

 describing the cemetery near Point Washington. 



All through the mound were single fragments of vessels which had got in dur- 

 ing the period of occupation or with sand from neighboring fields during construc- 

 tion. These sherds bore, as a rule, the check-stamp as decoration and also various 

 combinations of the complicated stamp. We found no stamped earthenware in 

 conjunction with burials, though there was abundance of it in fragments on the sur- 

 face of surrounding fields where the aborigines had lived. It would seem, then, 

 that the stamped decoration was in use on vessels intended for domestic purposes 

 and not on mortuary ware. 



There is a wide range in the quality of the ware from the mound at Walton's 

 Camp. Some is excellent, much is inferior. As in the ware in the Bear Point 

 mound, small quantities of finely pounded shell are present in places, that is to say 

 locally and not in even mixture throughout the vessel. There is one exception, 

 however, a small vessel where shell coarsely pounded shows on the surface even, as 

 is often the case on vessels of the middle Mississippi district and from the Alabama 

 river. The loop-shaped handle, so often found in the districts we have just named, 

 was present in the mound at Walton's Camp. 



A number of heads of earthenware, which had served as handles on vessels, 

 were loose in the sand. 



The predominating forms of ware in this mound were the bowl and the dish, 

 and it is interesting to note that a form of dish entirely new, we believe, was dis- 

 covered by us, namely, a six-pointed, or star-shaped style. 



Perforation of the base of vessels was almost universal in this mound, not only 

 in the case of those buried directly with dead, but fragments which included the 

 base had also the perforation, though the remainder of the vessels was not present. 

 We are unable to decide whether parts of vessels were "killed" before interment in 

 the heaps of ware we have described, or whether vessels, having undergone perfor- 

 ation, were broken and then scattered here and there in the mound. 



In peninsular Florida we noted, and were first to describe, a curious custom, 

 an account of which we take from one of our preceding publications. " This was 

 the only occurrence in the mound of ready-made mortuary ware. For the benefit 

 of those not familiar with our previous Reports on the Florida mounds, we may say 

 that it was the custom in that State often to knock out the bottom, or to make a 

 hole through the bottom, of earthenware vessels, previous to inhumation with the 

 dead, and that this custom is believed to have been practised with the idea that the 

 mutilation ' killed ' the vessel, freeing its soul to accompany that of its owner into 

 the next world. Apparently, however, it entered the minds of the more thrifty 

 among the aborigines that vessels of value might serve a better purpose, and hence 

 there arose a class of ceremonial ware, usually small in size, often of fantastic 



