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250
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GEMS AND PRECIOUS STONES IN THE
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some
deep in the ground, we may also suppose that the Indians in De Soto's
time, everywhere in Alabama, obtained pearls from them. There can be no
doubt about the quantity of pearls found in this State and Georgia in
1540, but they were of a coarser and more valueless kind than the
Spaniards supposed. The Indians used to perforate them with a heated
copper spindle and string them around their necks and arms like beads."'
Sufficient
historical evidence has been given to show that pearls were in general
use among the southern Indians; that the choicest of them were the
prized ornaments of the prominent personages of the tribes ; that the
fluviatile mussels were collected and opened for the purpose of
procuring them; that the marine shells of the Atlantic, the Gulf of
Mexico, and the Pacific, yielded generous and beautiful tribute to the
labor, skill, and taste of numerous and well-trained pearl divers; and
that these pearls were found, not only in the possession of the living,
but also in large quantities in the graves of chieftains and the
sepulchers of the undistinguished dead. A present of pearls from the
caciques to the conquerors was an earnest token of consideration and
the most acceptable pledge of friendship that he could offer.
Doubtless,
however, the accounts that have reached us from the pens of the
historians of these expeditions and voyages are somewhat extravagant
with regard to the quality and quantity and size of the pearls seen in
the possession of the natives. From these interviews between the
Europeans and the natives, it appears that the Indians obtained their
supplies of pearls both from marine shells and from fresh-water
mussels. Some of the oysters in Georgia and Florida are margaritiferous
and many of them contain seed-pearls. Specimens symmetrical in shape,
as large as pepper-corns, and not wanting in beauty, have been observed
by Charles C. Jones, who says: "Some were quite big enough to have been
perforated in the rude fashion practised by the Indians. They were,
however, of a milky color and opaque. Neither in size nor quality did
they answer the description spoken of in the Spanish narratives."*
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1 History of Alabama (Charlestown, 1851), Vol. I, p. 12.
8 Antiquities of the Southern Indians (New York, 1873), p. 481.
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