Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1876 — Curious Indian Relics. [ARTICLE]

Curious Indian Relics.

Those interested in antiquarian researches will find matter for speculation in some curious relics' deposited on Monday in the Centennial case in the rotunda of the Southern Hotel. The relics consist of numerous specimens of aboriginal pottery, arrow-heads, implements of stones for dressing skins, etc. The pottery is particularly worthy of note, as it belongs to a period dating anterior to the modern Indians—supposed by some to belong to that mythical period known to ethnologists as the stone period, while the arro% -heads and stone axes arc common to a quite re - cent period, and are found strewn all over the continent. The pltetery was found in the ancient tumuli about two and a half miles from Farmington, in St. Francois County. They consist principally of drinking vessels made of baked clay, and are in general gourd-shaped, with the "neck extending out straight from the center of the globular vessel. The head of the upright neck is frequently capped With the rude head of the iox or other wild animal, forming a very correct likeness. One of the vessels represents a bird standing on its legs, the body forming a capacious vessel for the holding of water, with the tail on a level With the claws, and assisting in keeping the vessel upright. The vessels are of various sizes, from eight inches in diameter across the swell of the globe down to a miniature pot the size of a modern salt-cellar. In one ol these vessels was found a specimen of calc-spar, and in another a fragment of a quartz crystal. The larger vessel, which is a very perfect oblate spheroid, is surrounded with colored zigzag bands, tinted with blue, vermilion and white, but whether the colors are imbedded in life material or put on with a brush is uncertain, though on casual inspection the

former conjecture seems to lie the true one. Besides the drinking dishes there are some shallow vessels resembling the chemist’s evaporating dish, and also a small spoon, siliciiied, wtfh the bowl adapted to a capacious mouth, and with a very short handle. There are also numerous fragments of pottery. Among others a flattened stone, roughened on one side with geometrical lines, and said to be a piece of a coffin found in the tumuli. Tbe person who . was digging in that locality struck two inclined stones, and keeping on with his work at length came to a stone slab, and on removing the slab found underneath a stone coffin. The coffin was tilled with sand, but, having nothing bu: a grubbing-hoe, as fast as he hauled out the sand the overlying dirt tumbled down, interrupting' his work, and he became discouraged and, replacing the slab and shoveling on the dirt, allowed the old mummy, w hose sands of life were running too fast Ibr him, to sleep away until some future explorer resurrects him. It is to be regretted that these exhumations are not made by persons qualified to make a note of the associated relics, their exact position and other data, with a view of determining and settling the question of their origin' Otherwise they are comparatively worthless except as objects of curiosity. Is is said that many pf these remains are found very plentifully throughout Southeast Missouri, particularly near St. Genevieve. and in Scott County. In fact, these vestiges of a once numerous and powerful race are traceable from the rude fortification of Canada and Northern New York to the extensive rivers of Central America. But, according to Prof. Gage, who examined the specimens at the Southern yesterday, all the Peruvian type of pottery found on the continent of North America are confined to the Mississippi Valley. The specimens referred to were brought up by L'apt. A. L. Whitley, of St Louis, who is acting as a volunteer agent for the Centennial.— St. Louis Republican.