54 ABORIGINAL MONUMENTS
all the tribes, and not to have varied materially from that day to this. The work devolved almost exclusively upon the women, who kneaded the clay and formed the vessels. Experience seems to have suggested the means of so tem- pering the material as to resist the action of fire; accord- ingly we find pounded shells, quartz, and sometimes simple coarse sand from the streams, mixed with the clay. None of the pottery of the present races, found in the Ohio valley, is destitute of this feature ; and it is not uncommon, in cer- tain localities, where from the abundance of fragments, and from other circumstances, it is supposed the manufacture was specially carried on, to find quantities of the decayed shells of the fresh water molluscs intermixed with the earth, probably brought to the spot to be used in the pro- cess. Amongst the Indians along the Gulf, a greater de- gree of skill was displayed than with those on the upper waters of the Mississippi and on the lakes. Their vessels were generally larger and more symmetrical, and of a su- perior finish. They moulded them over gourds and models, and baked them in ovens. In the construction of those of large size, it was customary to model them in baskets of willow or splints, which, at the proper period, were burned off, leaving the vessel perfect in form, and retaining the somewhat ornamental markings of their moulds. Some of those found on the Ohio, seem to have been modelled in bags or nettings of coarse thread or twisted bark. These practices are still retained by some of the remote western tribes.
Of this description of pottery many specimens are found, with the recent deposits, in the mounds. They are iden- tical in every respect with those taken from the known burial-grounds of the Indians.
Various terra-cottas are extracted from the mounds, though they are far from numerous. They generally repre- sent the heads or figures of animals.
