OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 57
used for ornamental purposes, and hundreds of the margi- nella, pierced longitudinally so as to be strung, are sometimes found accompanying a single skeleton. Great numbers of beads, worked from the compact portions of some of the larger shells, are also found. These, generally much altered by long exposure, were originally supposed to be ivory, and their frequent discovery probably gave rise to the notion that ivory is common in the mounds. It has been suggested that many of them were worked from the columella of the strombus gigas, which has been discovered in some of the ancient graves of Tennessee.* Quantities of pearls, more or less burned, have been found, but only upon the altars. They are clearly not from the fresh water molluscas ; their numbers and great size forbid the suppo- sition. They are easily identified by their concentric lamination. They are generally pierced for beads, but some of the smaller ones, as will shortly appear, constituted the eyes of the ancient sculptures of animals and birds. We must refer these to the same locality from whence the shells above named were procured ; where, as we are in- formed by the early writers, the Southern Indians carried on the pearl fishery. It may be mentioned, in this connec- tion, that the teeth of the shark and alligator, bear, panther and wolf, and the talons of rapacious birds, as also the fossil teeth of the shark,—the latter most likely from the tertiary of the lower Mississippi,—have all been found in the mounds. Most of them are perforated, and were probably used as ornaments or amulets, but some seem designed as imple- ments. Many large teeth, probably cetacean, have been
Polynesian Researches, &c. &c. This is but one of many instances in which an erroneous assuinption has been perpetuated by succeeding writers, each quoting from his predecessor without submitting his statements to a critical analysis. The well-known fact that these shells occur in abundance on our Southern shores, relieves them from the necessity to which they have heretofore been subjected, of a transportation of twelve thousand miles,—ten thousand by sea, and two thousand by land!
- Trans. Am. Ethnog. Soc. Vol. i.,p. 360.
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