Perforated
pearls were found by Dr. Edwin H. Davis* on the hearths of five
distinct groups of mounds in Ohio, and sometimes in such abundance that
they could be gathered by the hundred. They werei generally of
irregular form, mostly pear-shaped, though perfectly round ones were
also found among them. The smaller specimens measured about 1/4 of an
inch in diameter, but the largest had a diameter of 3/4 of an inch.
According
to this same authority, pearl-bearing shells occur in the rivers of the
region whose antiquities are described, but not in such abundance that
they could have furnished the amount discovered in the tumuli, and the
pearls of these fluvia-tile shells, moreover, are said to be far
inferior in size to those recovered from the altars. The latter, it was
erroneously thought, were derived from the Atlantic coast and from that
of the Mexican Gulf.
The
Indians of Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and the other Southern
States, subsisted largely on oysters, clams, and conchs, as shown by
the numerous refuse piles and shell heaps that abound upon the
salt-water creeks. It is not matter of surprise that the Indians, as
they opened these shells, should have carefully watched for pearls, and
from the vast numbers examined, should have accumulated a store. If the
shores of Carolina, Georgia, and Florida did not afford the larger and
more highly-prized pearls, it is not improbable that pearls from the
islands and lower portions of the Gulf of Mexico, and even from the
Pacific Ocean, may have found their way into the heart of Georgia and
Florida and into more northern localities, to be there bartered away
for skins and other articles. The replies of Indians to Father Hennepin
and others, and the presence in remote localities of beads, ornaments,
and drinking-cups made of marine shells and conchs, still peculiar to
the Gulf of Mexico, confirm the truthfulness of this suggestion.5
But
marine shells are not the only source whence the southern Indians
derived their pearls. The fluviatile mussels contributed perhaps more
freely than other shells to the treas-
1 See Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, by Ephraim G. Squier and Edwin H. Davis (Washington, 1848), p. 232.
' Ancient Aboriginal Trade in North America, by Charles Rau. Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1872 (Washington, 1873).
