Foot-loose and fancy-free By Angie Debo

Large reserves of bituminous coal are distributed over an area of 10,000 square miles in eastern Oklahoma. The coal ranges from low to high volatile. At present it is burned as an energy source in electric power plants and is converted to coke for use in steel manufacture. More than 200 million tons of coal have been mined from hundreds of Oklahoma mines since mining began in 1872. A recent estimate indicated remaining reserves of more than 3.2 billion tons. Ten Oklahoma companies are not producing coal at the rate of about 2.5 million tons per year.

In the past, mined open pit, or strip pit, coal lands have been left without any serious effort to restore or reclaim the land surface, but restoration is now required by Oklahoma’s Mining Lands Reclamation Acts of 1968 and 1971. Newly mined lands must be graded to a gently rolling surface, revegetated, and have their acid-forming minerals buried. In addition, most Oklahoma coal operators voluntarily set aside the original topsoil and then spread it over the leveled “spoil banks.” These reclamation requirements greatly reduce one of the major environmental problems that have been associated with the recovery of this much needed energy resource.


Body Ritual Among the Nacirema
By Horace Miner⁴
The anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of ways in which different people behave in similar situations that he is not apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs. In fact, if all of the logically possible combinations of behavior have not been found somewhere in the world, he is apt to suspect that they must be present in some yet undescribed tribe. In this light, the magical beliefs and practices of the Nacirema present such unusual aspects that it seems desirable to describe them as an example of the extremes to which human behavior can go.

Professor Linton first brought the ritual of the Nacirema to the attention of anthropologists in 1936, but the culture of this people is still very poorly understood. They are a North American group. Little is known of their origin, although tradition states that they came from the east....

Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy which has evolved in a rich natural habitat. While much of the people's time is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part of the fruits of these labors and a considerable portion of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity is the human body, the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the philosophy of the people. While such a concern is certainly not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated values are unique.

The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to weakness and disease. Incarcerated in such a body, man's only hope is to avert these characteristics through the use of ritual and ceremony. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. The more powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in fact, the lavishness of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual chambers it possesses.

While each family generally has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and secret. The rites are normally only discussed with children, and then only during the period when they are being initiated into these mysteries. I was able, however, to establish sufficient rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me.

The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many charms and magical potions without which no native believes he could live. These preparations are secured from a variety of specialized practitioners. The most powerful of these are the medicine men, whose assistance must be rewarded with substantial gifts. However, the medicine men do not provide the curative potions for their clients, but decide what the ingredients should be and then write them down in an ancient and secret language. This writing is understood only by the medicine men and by the herbalists who, for another gift, provide the required charm.

The charm is not disposed of after it has served its purpose, but is placed in the charmbox of the household shrine. As these magical materials are specific for certain ills, and the real or imagined maladies of the people are many, the charm-box is usually full to overflowing. The magical packets are so numerous that people forget what their purposes were and fear to use them again. While the natives are very vague on this point, we can only assume that the idea in retaining all the old magical materials is that their presence in the charm-box, before which the body rituals are conducted, will in some way protect the worshiper.

Beneath the charm-box is a small font. Each day every member of the family, in succession, enters the shrine room, bows his head before the charm-box, mingles different sorts of holy water in the font, and proceeds with a brief rite of cleansing. The holy waters are secured from the Water Temple of the community, where the priests conduct elaborate ceremonies to make the liquid ritually pure.

In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the medicine men in prestige, are specialists whose designation is best translated as "holy-mouth-men." The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social relationships. Were it not for the rituals of the mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them. They also believe that a strong relationship exists between oral and moral characteristics. For example, there is a ritual cleansing of the mouth for children which is supposed to improve their moral fiber.

The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. Despite the fact that these people are so meticulous about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures.

In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people seek out a holy-mouth-man once or twice a year. These practitioners have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, awls, probes, and prods. The use of these items in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves an almost unbelievable ritual torture of the client. The holy-mouth-man opens the client's mouth and, using the above-mentioned tools, enlarges any holes which decay may have created in the teeth. Magical materials are put into these holes. If there are no naturally occurring holes in the teeth, large sections of one or more teeth are gouged out so that the supernatural substance can be applied. In the client's view, the purpose of these ministrations is to arrest decay and to draw friends. The extremely sacred and traditional character of the rite is evident in the fact that the natives return to the holy-mouth-men year after year, despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay.

It is to be hoped that, when a thorough study of the Nacirema is made, there will be careful inquiry into the personality structure of these people. One has but to watch the gleam in the eye of a holy-mouth-man, as he jabs an awl into an exposed nerve, to suspect that a certain amount of sadism is involved. If this can be established, a very interesting pattern emerges, for most of the population shows definite masochistic tendencies. It was to these that Professor Linton referred in discussing a distinctive part of the daily body ritual which is performed only by men. This part of the rite includes scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument. Special women's rites are performed only four times during each lunar month, but what they lack in frequency is made up in barbarity. As part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour. The theoretically interesting point is that what seems to be a preponderantly masochistic people have developed sadistic specialists.

The medicine men have an imposing temple, or latipsoh, in every community of any size. The more elaborate ceremonies required to treat very sick patients can only be performed at this temple. These ceremonies involve a permanent group of vestal maidens who move sedately about the temple chambers in distinctive costume and headdress.

The latipsoh ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the really sick natives who enter the temple ever recover. Small children whose indoctrination is still incomplete have been known to resist attempts to take them to the temple because "that is where you go to die." Despite this fact, sick adults are not only willing but eager to undergo the protracted ritual purification, if they can afford to do so. No matter how ill the supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many temples will not admit a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the caretaker. Even after one has gained and survived the ceremonies, the guardians will not permit the recruit to leave until he makes still another gift.

Few supplicants in the temple are well enough to do anything but lie on their hard beds. The daily ceremonies, like the rites of the holy-mouth-men, involve discomfort and torture. With ritual precision, the vestals awaken their miserable charges each dawn and roll them about on their beds of pain while performing cleansings, in the formal movements of which the maidens are highly trained. At other times they insert magic wands in the supplicant's mouth or force him to eat substances which are supposed to be healing. From time to time the medicine men come to their clients and jab magically treated needles into their flesh. The fact that these temple ceremonies may not cure, and may even kill the recruit, in no way decreases the people's faith in the medicine men.

In conclusion, mention must be made of certain practices which have their base in native esthetics but which depend upon the pervasive aversion to the natural body and its functions. There are ritual fasts to make fat people thin and ceremonial feasts to make thin people fat. Still other rites are used to make women's breasts larger if they are small, and smaller if they are large. General dissatisfaction with breast shape is symbolized in the fact that the ideal form is virtually outside the range of human variation. A few women afflicted with almost inhuman hyper-mammary development are so idolized that they make a handsome living by simply going from village to village and permitting the natives to stare at them for a fee.

Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has certainly shown them to be a magic-ridden people. It is hard to understand how they have managed to exist so long under the burdens which they have imposed upon themselves.
Stories of Creation
From the Apache⁵
In the beginning nothing existed—no earth, no sky, no sun, no moon, only darkness was everywhere.

Suddenly from the darkness emerged a thin disc, one side yellow and the other side white, appearing suspended in midair. Within the disc sat a small bearded man, Creator, the One Who Lives Above. As if waking from a long nap, he rubbed his eyes and face with both hands.

When he looked into the endless darkness, light appeared above. He looked down and it became a sea of light. To the east, he created yellow streaks of dawn. To the west, tints of many colors appeared everywhere. There were also clouds of different colors.

Creator wiped his sweating face and rubbed his hands together, thrusting them downward. Behold! A shining cloud upon which sat a little girl.

“Stand up and tell me where are you going,” said Creator. But she did not reply. He rubbed his eyes again and offered his right hand to the Girl-Without-Parents.

“Where did you come from?” she asked, grasping his hand.

“From the east where it is now light,” he replied, stepping upon her cloud.

“Where is the earth?” she asked.

“Where is the sky?” he asked, and sang, “I am thinking, thinking, thinking what I shall create next.” He sang four times, which was the magic number.

Creator brushed his face with his hands, rubbed them together, then flung them wide open! Before them stood Sun-God. Again Creator rubbed his sweaty brow and from his hands dropped Small-Boy.

All four gods sat in deep thought upon the small cloud.

“What shall we make next?” asked Creator. “This cloud is much too small for us to live upon.”

Then he created Tarantula, Big Dipper, Wind, Lightning-Rumbler, and some western clouds in which to house Lightning-Rumbler, which he just finished.

Creator sang, “Let us make earth. I am thinking of the earth, earth, earth; I am thinking of the earth,” he sang four times.

All four gods shook hands. In doing so, their sweat mixed together and Creator rubbed his palms, from which fell a small round, brown ball, not much larger than a bean.

Creator kicked it, and it expanded. Girl-Without-Parents kicked the ball, and it enlarged more. Sun-God and Small-Boy took turns giving it hard kicks, and each time the ball expanded. Creator told Wind to go inside the ball and blow it up.

Tarantula spun a black cord and, attaching it to the ball, crawled away fast to the east, pulling on the cord with all his strength. Tarantula repeated with a blue cord to the south, a yellow cord to the west, and a white cord to the north. With mighty pulls in each direction, the brown ball stretched to immeasurable size—it became the earth! No hills, mountains, or rivers were visible; only smooth, treeless, brown plains appeared.

Creator scratched his chest and rubbed his fingers together and there appeared Hummingbird.

“Fly north, south, east, and west and tell us what you see,” said Creator.

“All is well,” reported Hummingbird upon his return. “The earth is most beautiful, with water on the west side.”

But the earth kept rolling and dancing up and down. So Creator made four giant posts—black, blue, yellow, and white—to support the earth. Wind carried the four posts, placing them beneath the four cardinal points of the earth. The earth sat still.

Creator sang, “World is now made and now sits still,” which he repeated four times.

Then he began a song about the sky. None existed, but he thought there should be one. After singing about it four times, twenty-eight people appeared to help make a sky above the earth. Creator chanted about making chiefs for the earth and sky.

He sent Lightning-Rumbler to encircle the world, and he returned with three uncouth creatures, two girls and a boy found in a turquoise shell. They had no eyes, ears, hair, mouths, noses, or teeth. They had arms and legs, but no fingers or toes.

Sun-God sent for Fly to come and build a sweathouse. Girl-Without-Parents covered it with four heavy clouds. In front of the east doorway, she placed a soft, red cloud for a foot-blanket to be used after the sweat.

Four stones were heated by the fire inside the sweathouse. The three uncouth creatures were placed inside. The others sang songs of healing on the outside, until it was time for the sweat to be finished. Out came the three strangers who stood upon the magic red cloud-blanket. Creator then shook his hands toward them, giving each one fingers, toes, mouths, eyes, ears, noses, and hair.

Creator named the boy, Sky-Boy, to be chief of the Sky-People. One girl he named Earth-Daughter, to take charge of the earth and its crops. The other girl he named Pollen-Girl, and gave her charge of health care for all Earth-People.

Since the earth was flat and barren, Creator thought it fun to create animals, birds, trees, and a hill. He sent Pigeon to see how the world looked. Four days later, he returned and reported, “All is beautiful around the world. But four days from now, the water on the other side of the earth will rise and cause a mighty flood.”

Creator made a very tall piñon tree. Girl-Without-Parents covered the tree framework with piñon gum, creating a large, tight ball.

In four days, the flood occurred. Creator went up on a cloud, taking his twenty-eight helpers with him. Girl-Without-Parents put the others into the large, hollow ball, closing it tight at the top.

In twelve days, the water receded, leaving the float-ball high on a hilltop. The rushing floodwater changed the plains into mountains, hills, valleys, and rivers. Girl-Without-Parents led the gods out from the float-ball onto the new earth. She took them upon her cloud, drifting upward until they met Creator with his helpers, who had completed their work making the sky during the flood time on earth.

Together the two clouds descended to a valley below. There, Girl-Without-Parents gathered everyone together to listen to Creator.

“I am planning to leave you,” he said. “I wish each of you to do your best toward making a perfect, happy world.

“You, Lightning-Rumbler, shall have charge of clouds and water.

“You, Sky-Boy, look after all Sky-People.

“You, Earth-Daughter, take charge of all crops and Earth-People.

“You, Pollen-Girl, care for their health and guide them.

“You, Girl-Without-Parents, I leave you in charge over all.”

Creator then turned toward Girl-Without-Parents and together they rubbed their legs with their hands and quickly cast them forcefully downward. Immediately between them arose a great pile of wood, over which Creator waved a hand, creating fire.

Great billowy clouds of smoke at once drifted skyward. Into this cloud, Creator disappeared. The other gods followed him in other clouds of smoke, leaving the twenty-eight workers to people the earth.

Sun-God went east to live and travel with the Sun. Girl-Without-Parents departed westward to live on the far horizon. Small-Boy and Pollen-Girl made cloud homes in the south. Big Dipper can still be seen in the northern sky at night, a reliable guide to all.
From the Cherokee⁶
Earth is floating on the waters like a big island, hanging from four rawhide ropes fastened at the top of the sacred four directions. The ropes are tied to the ceiling of the sky, which is made of hard rock crystal. When the ropes break, this world will come tumbling down, and all living things will fall with it and die. Then everything will be as if the earth had never existed, for water will cover it. Maybe the white man will bring this about.

Well, in the beginning also, water covered everything. Though living creatures existed, their home was up there, above the rainbow, and it was crowded. “We are all jammed together,” the animals said. “We need more room.” Wondering what was under the water, they sent Water Beetle to look around.

Water Beetle skimmed over the surface but couldn’t find any solid footing, so he dived down to the bottom and brought up a little dab of soft mud. Magically the mud spread out in the four directions and became this island we are living on—this earth. Someone Powerful then fastened it to the sky ceiling with cords.

In the beginning the earth was flat, soft, and moist. All the animals were eager to live on it, and they kept sending down birds to see if the mud had dried and hardened enough to take their weight. But the birds all flew back and said that there was still no spot they could perch on.

Then the animals sent Grandfather Buzzard down. He flew very close and saw that the earth was still soft, but when he glided low over what would become Cherokee country, he found that the mud was getting harder. By that time Buzzard was tired and dragging. When he flapped his wings down, they made a valley where they touched the earth; when he swept them up, they made a mountain. The animals watching from above the rainbow said, “If he keeps on, there will be only mountains,” and they made him come back. That’s why we have so many mountains in Cherokee land.

At last the earth was hard and dry enough, and the animals descended. They couldn’t see very well because they had no sun or moon, and some said, “Let’s grab Sun from up there behind the rainbow! Let’s get him down too!” Pulling Sun down, they told him, “Here’s a road for you,” and showed him the way to go—from east to west.

Now they had light, but it was much too hot, because Sun was to close to the earth. The crawfish had his back sticking out of a stream, and Sun burned it red. His meat was spoiled forever, and the people still won’t eat crawfish.

Everyone asked the sorcerers, the shamans, to put Sun higher. They pushed him up as high as a man, but it was still too hot. So they pushed him farther, but it wasn’t far enough. They tried four times, and when they had Sun up to the height of four men, he was just hot enough. Everyone was satisfied, so they left him there.

Among the trees and other plants, only the cedar, pine, holly, and laurel were still awake on the eighth morning. Someone Powerful said to them: “Because you watched and kept awake as you had been told, you will not lose your hair in the winter.” So these plants stay green all the time.

After creating plants and animals, Someone Powerful made a man and his sister. The man poked her with a fish and told her to give birth. After seven days she had a baby, and after seven more days she had another, and every seven days another came. The humans increased so quickly that Someone Powerful, thinking there would soon be no more room on this earth, arranged things so that a woman could have only one child every year. And that’s how it was.

Now, there is still another world under the one we live on. You can reach it by going down a spring, a water hole; but you need underworld people to be your scouts and guide you. The world under our earth is exactly like ours, except that it’s winter down there when it’s summer up here. We can see that easily, because spring water is warmer than the air in winter and cooler than the air in summer.

So he went down to the bottom of the water and began to stir up the mud with his tail and his claws. He brought up some mud to a certain place and piled it up until it made a mound.

The owners of the land at the bottom of the water said, “Who is disturbing our land?” They kept careful watch and discovered it was Crawfish. When they started toward him, Crawfish stirred up the mud so much with his tail that they could not see him.

Lock-chew continued to pile up mud, until it came out on top of the surface of the great water. This is how land first appeared. It was so soft that Wind said, “Who will spread the land to make it dry and hard?”

Hawk and Buzzard appeared. Because Buzzard’s wings were larger, he tried first. He flew, fanning the soft earth and spreading it all about. When he flapped his wings, hills and valleys were formed.

“Who will make the light?” Wind asked. It was very dark.

Yo-hah, the Star, said, “I will make light.” It was agreed. The Star shone forth, but its light only remained close to the Star.

“Who will make more light? Wind asked.

Shar-pah, the Moon, said, “I will make enough light for all my children and I will shine forever.” But the world was still too dark.

T-cho, the Sun, said, “Leave it to me to make enough light for everyone everywhere.”

Sun went to the East and suddenly enough light was everywhere. As Sun traveled over the earth, a drop of blood fell from the sky to the ground. From this spot sprang the first people, the children of the Sun they were called, the Yu-chis.

The Yu-chis wished to find their medicine since a large monster had destroyed some of their people. The Yu-chis cut off its head, but the next day its head and body were together again. They killed the monster a second time. Again, its head grew back on its body.

A third time, they cut off its head. They placed the head on top of a tall tree, so the body could not reach the head. The next morning, the tree was dead and the head had rejoined the monster’s body. They killed it once more, putting its head at the top of a cedar tree. The next morning the cedar tree was still alive, but covered with blood from the head. The monster remained dead.

This is how the Yu-chis found their great medicine, the Cedar Tree. Fire was soon discovered by boring a stick into some hard, dry weeds.

The Yu-chis selected a second medicine, as each one made a picture of the Sun upon their door.

In the beginning, all of the animals could talk with one another. All animals and people were at peace. The deer lived in a cave watched over by a Yu-chis keeper. When the Yu-chis became hungry, the keeper selected a deer and killed it for their food. Finally, all of the deer were set free with the other animals, and a name was give to every animal upon the earth.

This is how it was in the beginning with the first people, the Yu-chis Indian tribe.
From the Hebrew⁸
First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.

God spoke: “Light!”

And light appeared.

God saw that light was good

and separated light from dark.

God named the light Day,

he named the dark Night.

It was evening, it was morning—

Day One.

God spoke: “Sky! In the middle of the waters; separate water from water!”

God made sky.

He separated the water under sky

from the water above sky.

And there it was:

he named sky the Heavens;

It was evening, it was morning—

Day Two.
God spoke: “Separate!

Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one

place;

Land, appear!”

God named the land Earth.

He named the pooled water Ocean.

God saw that it was good.

God spoke: “Earth, green up! Grow all varieties of seed-bearing plants,

Every sort of fruit-bearing tree.”

And there is was.

Earth produced green seed-bearing plants,

all varieties,

And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts.

God saw that it was good.

It was evening, it was morning—

Day Three.
God spoke: “Lights! Come out!

Shine in Heaven’s sky!

Separate Day from Night.

Mark seasons and days and years,

Lights in Heaven’s sky to give light to Earth.” And there it was.

God made two big lights, the larger

to take charge of Day,

The smaller to be in charge of Night;

and he made the stars.

God placed them in the heavenly sky

to light up Earth

And oversee Day and Night,

to separate light and dark.

God saw that it was good.

It was evening, it was morning—

Day Four.

God created the huge whales,

all the swarm of life in the waters,

And every kind and species of flying birds.

God saw that it was good.

God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean! Birds reproduce on Earth!”

It was evening, it was morning—

Day Five.

And there it was:

wild animals of every kind.

Cattle of all kinds, every sort or reptile and bug.

God saw that it was good.

God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature

So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle,

And, yes, Earth itself,

and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”

God created human beings;

he created them godlike,

Reflecting God’s nature.

He created them male and female.

God blessed them:

“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!

Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”

Then God said, “I’ve given you

every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth

And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,

given them to you for food.

To all animals and all birds,

everything that moves and breathes,

I give whatever grows out of the ground for food.” And there it was.
God looked over everything he had made:

it was so good, so very good!

It was evening, it was morning—

Day Six.
Heaven and Earth were finished,

down to the last detail.

By the seventh day

God had finished his work.

On the seventh day

he rested from all his work.

God blessed the seventh day.

He made it a Holy Day

Because on that day he rested from his work,

all the creating God had done.

This is the story of how it all started,

Of Heaven and Earth when they were created.

The Prehistoric Cultures of Oklahoma
By Joseph B. Thoburn⁹
The prehistoric cultures of Oklahoma may be divided into three classes as to time, namely; (1) Ancient, dating back two thousand or more years; (2) Mediaeval, probably dating back from seven to fifteen centuries; and (3)Recent, dating back from the beginning of the historical period to three or four centuries.

As yet, comparatively little has been accomplished in the determination of the scope and extent of the Ancient Period. Traces of very ancient human occupancy and activities have been found in numerous parts of the state, though, as a rule, such discoveries have been so rarely made and so remotely connected, if at all, as to afford small basis of correlation, and it is not possible to draw much if any in the way of definite conclusions as to age or cultural identities. Among the most ancient of these might be mentioned the discovery of certain mortars, or metates, from the lower levels of the extensive gravel pit in Tillman County, together with specimens of chipped chert. This gravel pit is pronounced by geologists to be an extinct river bed, which, resisting the process of erosion, now appears in the form of a ridge, and which extends northward from the site for many miles toward the Wichita range of mountains, which seems to have been partially included within the drainage area of this ancient river. While no skeletal remains have been definitely identified as those of human beings, the presence of the artifacts already mentioned seems to point to the possibility of the presence of man in southwestern Oklahoma, in Pleistocene times.

Numerous other instances of the discovery of artifacts so deeply embedded in the earth as to attest great antiquity, might be cited. A few of these must suffice, however. In the eastern part of Washita County a sand pit was opened on the brow of a prairie hill. From this deposit of sand, several granite mortars, or metates were taken, the granite evidently having been transported at least sixty miles from the nearest spurs of the Wichita Mountains. In Greer County, a metate was excavated from a point five feet beneath the surface of the prairie loam in digging a basement. Near Oklahoma City, a stone arrow point was found beneath five feet of sand which, in turn, was overlaid by three feet of red clay loam. In the northwestern part of Logan County, a very large earthenware jar, or urn, was excavated from beneath several feet of sandy loam soil. This receptacle contained a number of bones, supposedly human. Unfortunately this last find was not called to the attention of any one especially interested in such matters until after all specimens had been lost or carried away.

Of the cultures of the Ancient Period which have been partially differentiated and separated, though not yet fully described, or definitely identified as to classification, there are at least two, namely; (a) a Cave-Dwelling stock of the western portion of the Ozark Uplift which occupied the caves and rock shelters of the Boone chert formation and, (b) the Basket-maker stock which occupied small caves in the Wingate sandstone, in the canyons of the Cimarron River region, in the western part of Cimarron County. Some work has been done in the first mentioned of these two cultures and the caves and rock shelters of northeastern Oklahoma and of Arkansas and southwestern Missouri. I have personally directed some work in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The archaeological material of this culture was secured by excavating the accumulation of ancient kitchen refuse from the floors of the caves. This kitchen refuse, consisting of wood ashes, charcoal, mussel and clam shells and broken bones, was carefully sifted and searched for artifacts and other vestigia. On the first expedition into that field, numerous specimens of bones, teeth and bivalve shells were gathered for examination and identification by competent biologists. These specimens attested the fact that the bill of fare of these ancient Cave people was greatly varied. With twenty species of mammals, including those from the size of a squirrel to those of the bison, or buffalo and the elk, with the bones of several species of game birds and several species of fishes were identified, and, with these, no less than twenty-six species of bivalve mollusks. In addition to these, the presence of stationary mortars, in situ, for the grinding of grain and the finding of charred specimens of maize or Indian corn in the ear, corncobs, beans, and the seeds of pumpkins, melons, and gourds, gave further evidence of their habits and customs.

Cave-Dwellers

The artifacts of this Ozark cave-dwelling stock included the sherds of well-burned pottery (in some instances sufficiently numerous to make possible the restoration of an entire utensil), implements and ornaments of shell, bone and stone. Shells seem to have frequently been used for scrapers. The bone implements included needles, awls, and shuttles. The stone implements included arrow, javelin, and spear points, knife blades, scrapers and ceremonial blades. Pipes, so far as found, were of burned clay though of varying patterns. The most interesting pipe discovered was an almost exact imitation of a modern calabash pipe in size, shape and color. Some of the bone needles were beautifully wrought and highly polished. Many of the flint blades were also beautifully wrought. These included large numbers of bird points (blow-gun points), some of which are very minute, though perfect in outline and finish. Many others are finished with a very accurately flaked saggitate edge on either side.

The work of Mr. Vernon C. Allison, being a determination of the age of a stalagmite which had protruded upward from the floor through the deposit of prehistoric kitchen refuse, in Jacob’s cavern, near Pineville, Missouri, was rather enlightening in this connection, because of the evidence which it seemed to present as to the chronology of such human occupancy in that underground retreat. This stalagmite, which was still in process of formation at the time of its removal, was found in an open-mouthed cave, or rock shelter and, because of the dust accumulation during the windy season, in March and April, it showed a discolored deposit in a series of annual rings, not unlike those of a tree, when a cross section was made. It is hoped that further work may be done in this line, as opportunity is afforded, in the future.

Probably the most ancient culture subject to identification in Oklahoma—older than that of the Ozark Cave-Dwellers—is that of the Basket-Makers, traces of whose occupancy are scattered far and wide over Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. These primitive people were acquainted with the rudiments of the textile arts, as they could weave baskets and spin cordage. They knew nothing of the art of fashioning and burning earthenware pottery. Neither did they make or use bows and arrows, nor were they acquainted with the use of polished stone ornaments or implements. They were growing corn and pumpkins and squashes, however. And some of these ears of corn and pumpkin seed and fragments of their baskets and neatly twisted twine are still to be found beneath the deposit of wood ashes and other ancient kitchen refuse on the floors of certain small caves, caverns and rock-shelters in the Wingate sandstone of the upper Cimarron River country, in Cimarron County.

The Mound-Builder Cultures

The Mediaeval Period would indicate the eras of the Mound-Builders, proper, and those of other people, or peoples, of equal or similar cultural development. They all tilled the soil, their implements of tillage usually being fashioned of stone, either by flaking, pecking, or grinding by means of abrasive sandstone or by a combination of two of these processes. They were also advanced, at least as far as the beginning of the Bronze Age, since they knew something of the art of working in copper.

Mounds of the True

Mound-Builders

The mounds of the true Mound-Builders occur sparingly along the valleys of the principal rivers of Eastern Oklahoma, including those of the larger tributaries of the Red and Arkansas rivers. Whether each of these monuments to the constructive genius of the inhabitants of Eastern Oklahoma and adjacent portions of neighboring states are all representative of a single culture, has not yet been determined. There is at least a possibility that these mounds may represent two or three distinct cultures. This is a matter that can only be settled by very thorough and extensive investigation and at a considerable outlay of expense and labor.

Mounds of this class and age vary greatly in size, form grouping, etc., as they probably also did in the various purposes for which they were severally designed. Possibly most of them are conical in shape. Others are in the form of pyramids, either square or oblong. In one case, near Muskogee, there is a very fine specimen of a mound in the form of a truncated pyramid, approximately sixty feet square at the base and ten feet high, with the lines following the cardinal points very closely. Others apparently were merely heaped up into an elevation without seeming regard to form.

The largest mound which I have inspected, in Oklahoma, was of the last mentioned type. It is located out in the valley of the Grand-Neosho River in the western part of Delaware County. Its extreme height is forty-eight feet and its basic area probably covers a space of more than two acres. Its bulk is composed of material carried from a decomposing bluff of the Boone chert formation situated half a mile from the location of the mound. The mound was completed by covering this material with a foot or more of black river-valley loam soil, which now supports a rather dense growth of forest vegetation. A mound even larger than this is reported to be located near the valley of the Illinois River, in the northern part of Adair County. Of course, large mounds of the true Mound-Builder type are much more numerous in Arkansas than they are in Oklahoma.

I have only been privileged to be connected with the dissection of one mound of the true Mound-Builder type. This mound was located at a point where the flood plain of the Elk River merges with that of the Grand-Neosho River, on the boundary-line between Ottawa and Delaware counties. It was a small mound of the shapeless pattern just described. Its original altitude was about fourteen feet and its basic diameter was approximately thirty-five feet. A party, operating under my direction, dissected only about one-third of the contents of this mound, for the reason that the poachers had broken into it at the instance of a commercial collector, and this had been followed, later, by further work under the supervision of the owner. Consequently, many of the finished implements, ornaments, and utensils were removed several years before I undertook to complete the dissection.

The purpose for which this mound had been erected is believed to have been ceremonial, this inference being drawn from the fact that it contained numerous utensils, artifacts, and ornaments which were evidently deposited, during the course of its construction, as votive offerings. Exactly what the poachers secured is not known. The owner secured some very fine specimens of earthenware pottery, including vases, urns, and water bottles, which are now in two of the large eastern museums. The specimens secured by the expedition of the Oklahoma Historical Society in the spring and summer of 1925, included similar ceramic products. Most of the pottery had been broken by the expansion or constriction of roots of the trees growing on the surface of the mound, but all of the fragments were saved and eventually each of these works of art was restored. Other items secured included ornamental sheet copper, partially decomposed beads of shell or pearl, and pulley-shaped, disk ear ornaments, made of polished stone and partially encased in copper. These came in pairs and are similar to the disk-shaped ear ornaments once commonly used in tropical America.

The bulk of this mound was composed of clay with considerable gravel content, evidently excavated near at hand, but it had been finished with a heavy covering of black river-valley loam soil. This clay content was compact and because of its contour, very dry and hard to excavate. But few traces of human remains were found in the body of the mound and these seemed to indicate at least partial incineration. Surface burials were much more numerous, however. These were all of a shallow nature, so that the process of decay had been very nearly complete. From the number of these shallow, surface burials on the part of the mound dissected by the Oklahoma Historical Society’s field party, it was inferred that there had been no less than fifty such burials on the surface of the whole mound, before the poachers disturbed it. Such shallow burials indicated the presence and mortuary visits of people of the Southern Division of the Siouan stock, presumably Osage or Quapaw, within the past two or three centuries. The finding of stone pipes of the modern Siouan type further evidenced that the intrusive burials thus made were of such origin.

At a point supposed to represent the exact center of the base of the mound, there was found a fragment of a very large clam or mussel shell with concave side uppermost. In the hollow of this shell was found a group of three small stone pipes, one of which was partially decomposed and the other two slightly so, as if it had been deposited with organic matter. These pipes are similar to stone pipes which were found in the valleys of the Ohio River and some of its principal tributaries. I believe that they are of proto-Siouan origin. If this conjecture is warranted, then it means that the people of the whole Siouan stock passed through eastern Oklahoma, before they reached the valleys of the Mississippi River and its eastern tributaries; in the course of their migration to the Piedmont Plateau of Virginia and the Carolinas and several centuries before their retrogressive migration to the West. In this connection, it seems an odd coincidence that the Osage or Quapaw people should have found their way back to bury their dead upon the earthen pile that had been built by their own people, if not indeed, by their own direct ancestors.

What the careful dissection of other mounds in eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas may disclose along similar lines, is still a matter for conjecture. If, as has already been intimated, two or three distinct cultures should be found as representative of as many separate Mound-Building stocks, then the separation and identification of each of these stocks would seem to be in order.

The Cultural Remains of the Caddoan People

One of the most important archaeological fields in the United States, and the most recent of the Mediaeval Period in the lower valleys of the Mississippi and its western tributaries, the Red, Arkansas, and Missouri rivers, is that of the Caddoan peoples, who, while not Mound-Builders themselves, were on a par of culture with the Mound-Building peoples, and who incidentally, but not intentionally, left more mounds to mark the face of the land within limits of their prehistoric habitat, than all the mounds of all of the true Mound-Building peoples combined.

Beginning at a point on the Gulf Coast at the mouth of the Colorado River of Texas, and extending eastwardly along the Coast past Calcasieu Pass, in southwestern Louisiana; then to a crossing of the Mississippi River near Vicksburg; then extending northward, a few miles east of the course of the Mississippi, to a point approximately opposite the mouth of the Missouri River; then recrossing the Mississippi, and extending southwestward, past the corner of Kansas, to a point near the mouth of the Cimarron River; then southward to the mouth of the Washita River; and then back to the point of beginning, roughly marks the bounds of the prehistoric habitat of the Caddoan peoples. Throughout this region a very frequent, and, in many places, an almost constant landscape feature consists of multitudes of low, circular mounds, about the shape or contour of an ordinary saucer turned upside down. These low, circular, mounds vary in diameter from twenty to as much as one hundred and forty feet in extreme cases, and in central height, from a barely perceptible swell of from four or five inches to as much as five feet, in the case of the larger specimens. Most of them, however, are nearly of the average size, which is from forty to forty-five feet in diameter, and from twenty to twenty-four inches in height at the center.

Throughout the years since the first exploration and early settlements of the region in question, approximately two centuries ago, there has been much puzzle and speculation as to the origin of these small circular mounds. The laymen gave it up as an unsolvable problem long ago, but the world of science continued to puzzle over the matter, and not of merely to puzzle over it but to dispute over it as well.

The geologists, who profess to be more informed concerning the Earth’s surface and its peculiar formations than the learned men of any other profession, were almost unanimous in scouting every suggestion of human agency, and in agreeing to call them "natural mounds." Among the theories advanced for the purpose of accounting for such formations by the operation of purely natural causes, were the following; erosion, glaciation, wind action, wave action, spring and gas vents, earthquakes, animal burrows, ant hills and uprooted trees, with a number of others even more fantastic than any of these. The archaeologists, on the other hand, were quite keen to claim these low, circular mounds were the result of the work of human hands, but most of them were utterly at a loss to offer any sort of a valid explanation to account for such a line of construction. About the best theory advanced by any of the archaeologists was that each of these small mounds was a platform or elevated building site to furnish good drainage for a lodge or hut. To this, the geologists rejoined with the question, "but why so many of them and why were they built on hillsides, where natural drainage was good?"

I first became familiar with these small, circular mounds in eastern Oklahoma, in 1889, and my curiosity concerning their origin led me to ask questions of many people, always with negative results, though occasionally someone would answer, "I believe some prehistoric race was responsible for them, but I do not know why they were built." Personally, I never formed any theory as to their origin. It was nearly twenty-three years later that, while riding through a section of eastern Oklahoma, where the whole face of the country was dotted and pimpled with these low, circular mounds, at a rate varying from three to five or six per acre, there suddenly dawned upon my imagination the idea that if the Pawnee Indians had built their timber-framed, dome shaped, earth-covered huts or lodges, without excavating the interior circle to a depth of fifteen or eighteen inches, as they did, and without building a vestibule entrance, also sodded over, as they did, the fall of such a structure, due to the decay of its supporting posts and poles, would make just such a pile of earth or low circular mound, when the last of its posts had disappeared. It was not until some days later that I met Dr. Charles N. Gould, the well-known geologist, and discussed the matter with him. His concluding remark at the close of the interview was that I had advanced the only human agency theory as to the possible origin of, these mounds that could be regarded as being at all plausible, and that he would like to see a thorough investigation made. Within a year and a half, I was privileged to begin such an investigation under the sponsorship of the University of Oklahoma. In the course of this investigation I carefully dissected not one, but a number of these small, circular mounds. In each instance so undertaken, I found abundant proof of human origin. This investigation was undertaken primarily for the purpose of determining whether or not these mounds were due to human activities. At the time there was little thought, and less intention, of attempting to determine the identity of the culture of the people who were responsible for the formation of these peculiar landscape features. The work thus begun has been carried on at intervals with some co-operation at the hands of the University of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Historical Society but more largely by reason of the generous co-operation of private individuals, who furnished means to defray the expense of such a line of investigations, which the public institutions were not in a position to do.

In the dissection of one of these earth-lodge mounds, it was found that the structure had been destroyed as the result of an internal fire, there being from two to three and a half inches of wood ashes over the entire floor, as if wood had been piled into the but or lodge and deliberately set afire, either by an enemy or by the owner or his neighbors possibly for the purpose of destroying some disease or infection. Moreover, excavation beneath the floor of the but revealed the fact that each of the supporting posts had been charred from ten to thirteen inches below the floor level, and that these charred sections were still standing in place. In addition to this, there were found scattered throughout the ashes on the floor, burned brick-hard, fragments of the clay plastering of a partitioned wall, with the parallel imprints of the woven cane or wattle lath very perfectly preserved. Another mute evidence of the life of that time, that was very interesting, was found in the form of several of the clay nests of the mud-dauber wasps, also burned brick-hard.

Another of these mounds that was excavated was much larger than the average, being seventy-five feet in diameter and forty-two inches in height in the center. In walking over this mound, from which the timber had been cleared for cultivation only a few years before, I was surprised to find chipped chert and potsherds. Remarking upon these to Mr. Leonard M. Logan, a student of the University of Oklahoma, who was with me, the latter replied: "Yes, and see what I have found," and he handed over a fragment of what had once been a pulley shaped stone disk. Instantly there flashed through my mind, that here there had been a possible collapse of such a timber-framed, dome-shaped, earth-covered human habitation while it was still occupied, and that this mound should furnish the proof of human origin. Several days later, I slipped back and excavated a small pit at one side of the mound, which resulted in confirming the conjecture this formed. It was not until three years later—in the winter of 1917-18 that I finally dissected the whole mound. This mound was found on what is known as the Fort Coffee Bottoms, about eight miles northeast of Spiro, in the northeastern part of Leflore County, and is located on the flood plain of the Arkansas River.

Description of a

Caddoan Earth Lodge

The ground plan of the timber-frame for a Prehistoric Caddoan earth-lodge was practically identical with that of the people of the Pawnee tribe, since the beginning of the Historical Period, with the exception that the prehistoric Caddoan lodge contained no vestibule or frame for the same. Four large, forked posts were selected to support the center of the dome-shaped frame. In the case of this lodge, which had collapsed while occupied, the postholes were found to be from fourteen to fifteen inches in diameter. These four posts occupied the four cardinal points. This has been found true in all other lodges excavated or dissected by my teams. At a radius of twenty-two and one-half feet from the center, a circle of smaller forked posts had also been erected. The size of the postholes for this circle of smaller posts was found to be from ten and one-half to eleven inches in diameter.

Heavy timbers were laid from fork to fork, on the four sides of the square formed by the large poles surrounding the center. Heavy poles or head-logs were then laid from fork to fork, around the circle of smaller posts. Heavy posts or slabs were then laid at an angle of forty-five degrees or less, the tops resting on the head-logs, of the outer circle, the lower ends probably being embedded in the ground so that they would not slip or slide inward. Heavy poles or light logs, were then laid from the interior square to the head-logs of the outer circle, to serve as rafters. Short length poles, the size of a man’s arm were then laid transversely from rafter to rafter, being tied securely in place with willows or withes. The whole top thus completed was woven full of brush and this was covered with a layer of sedge or coarse grass. The rafters did not quite join at the center of the dome, a small opening being left to admit of light, ventilation, and the escape of smoke, the domestic fire being built immediately under the same. Sod, or turf was cut where there was a natural growth of grass, with an abundance of fibrous roots and these were carried to the frame of the new structure where they were used in building a wall that leaned against the posts or slabs, slanting outwardly from the head-logs of the post circle. This wall was carried up over the head-walls and the frame work for the roof, and was built sufficiently thick to afford good surface drainage, regardless of the sagging of any rafter or rafters which might not have been straight. The only openings to this structure were the aperture at the center of the dome and the door, which was located on the east side. The wall was possibly doubled and made very heavy, as the roof was also.

A structure thus erected was comparatively warm in winter and relatively cool in summer. It was secure against all but the most violent storms, and it afforded fair opportunity for defense, in case of attack. Platforms, which could be used for seats by day and as beds by night, could be constructed of sticks and poles, around the outer wall beneath the sloping slabs, posts, or poles which supported the same. The width of this portion outside of the post circle was proportioned to the size of the building, as was the height of the structure also. The location of these seats and beds, covered with mats, robes, etc., is surmised from the fact that the Pawnee peoples who did not excavate their floors between the post circle, and the foot of the wall, used that space for seats in day-time and as beds at night. Moreover, the modern Wichita and Caddo Indians who dwelt in timber-framed, dome-shaped, grass-thatched huts, or lodges, used such beds and seats made of stakes and poles and covered with robes, skins and mats.

Beneath the floor of the structure, its occupants were wont to dig caches, or storage pits, into which they might place much of their property, temporarily. Later, these pits were emptied of their contents and refilled with a mixture of surface earth, sub-soil, wood ashes and debris from all parts of the camp. Incidentally, it is notable that all the rubbish in the camp was collected—all its loose bones, clam-shells, flaked and broken chert, postherds, and other waste material—and thrown in the bottom of such storage pits before refilling. This fact doubtless accounts for the utter absence of any sort of broken utensils or artifacts in the village site of any average prehistoric Caddoan settlement. That the head men of the village knew how to "police" camp as well as a modern military commander, is quite evident.

The careful dissection of this mound required several weeks of labor, even with an adequate force of assistants. During the course of this work, it was discovered that, subsequent to the collapse of the earth-covered lodge, from the decay and disappearance of its supporting posts, people of another stock had dwelt for a time in the vicinity and that they had used this mound-like lodge ruin as a place of burial for their dead. These burials had been so shallow as to be just below the plow-level. As a result, the process of decay of the skeletal remains had been so complete that but little was left except the enamel of the teeth, with occasional traces of chalky white material that was evidently formed by the decomposition of bone. There had been twenty-two of these intrusive interments on the surface of this mound. Because of the shallowness of these burials it was surmised that the same had been made by people of one of the tribes of the Southern Division of Siouan stock. This conjecture was subsequently verified by the finding of several ceremonial pipes of the modern Siouan type, which had been carved from a stone of a grayish-white color. One of these, eighteen inches long, with a large bowl of perfectly cylindrical bore, is the largest Siouan ceremonial pipe which I have ever seen. The only other artifacts found which were certainly identified with this Southern Siouan culture, were a number of exquisitely flaked blades of chert or flint. Four of these, averaging about five inches in length, were found just as they had been placed at the time of interment, lying with overlapping edges, like shingles on a roof. The presence of such vestigia, so uniformly near the surface and so evidently Siouan of origin, was taken to be a certain indication of the intrusive mortuary activities of more recent occupants of the region immediately surrounding the site and, in point of time, probably not more than half as old as the mound itself.

The collection of artifacts, utensils, tools, implements, and ornaments which were secured in the dissection of this mound was quite extensive and, from a scientific viewpoint, a very valuable one. Only one unbroken piece of ceramic ware was secured—a beautifully decorated shallow bowl of about three-quarts capacity. Much broken earthenware pottery was found, however, and the sherds were preserved for ultimate restoration, if possible. More than thirty-five of the pulley-shaped stone disk ear ornaments were found, many of them with the larger, or outer flange encased in a thin sheet of copper. The diameter of these ear ornaments varied from one and three-fourths to nearly two and one-half inches, the outer flange sometimes having a considerably larger diameter than the inner flange. These occurred commonly in pairs, the two individual specimens being practically identical in pattern, size and decoration. All of these were perforated in the center, the perforation being in the form of a smooth cylindrical bore. With these there were also found and secured, three larger ornaments of the same sort, neither of which was perforated, nor was there a duplicate to either, so it would seem not unlikely that these had been used as labrets rather than ear ornaments.

Beads of several different kinds were found, the larger beads being made of the black Webber Falls argillite, running from three-eighths to five-eighths of an inch in diameter and very highly polished. Several pearl beads were found in a very palpable condition, as were also several unusually large shell beads. In some places, veins or layers of very small shell beads, about the size of the modern glass bead used in beading buckskin, were found.

A great deal of copper was found. Most of this was in thin plates and evidently had been used in the decoration of wearing apparel, headdresses or shields. Some of this copper was beautifully corrugated, with evenly sized small ridges and channels. Evidence is not lacking that these people had the ability to either weld copper or, at least, to solder or braze it. One of the most interesting finds made was that of a copper blow-pipe which had been made by hammering the native copper into a thin sheet and then rolling it into a tube which, when completed, was not as large as an ordinary lead pencil.

Implements and Tools

The people of the prehistoric Caddoan race were largely given to agriculture, as their descendants remain down to the present time. Their implements of tillage are to be found scattered over many fields that were supposed to be still in the virgin sod, when the white man first came, but which had really been broken up and reduced to cultivation some hundred years earlier, by the people of this stock. Their implements of tillage consisted chiefly of spades and hoes made of stone. Throughout the greater part of eastern Oklahoma, such implements were made of the black argillite, mostly secured from the ledge which causes the riffle or rapid in the channel of the Arkansas River, in Muskogee County, that has long been known as Webbers Falls. This material is as black as coal. In composition it is a combination of lime, clay, and silica. It flakes somewhat like chert or flint, only much more coarsely. While it is quite hard, it is not nearly so hard as chert or flint, and it was, therefore, worked also by pecking with a hammerstone and by grinding or polishing with abrasive sandstone. Implements made of this material are better adapted to tilling soil than those made of chert, for the reason that it is tougher and not so brittle. Most Caddoan spades were oblong or almost rectangular blades, from two and one-half to four inches wide and from seven to twelve inches long, and from one-half to three-fourths of an inch thick, thinner at the edges and sharpened at each end. Some of the spades were much narrower and thicker than those just described. These are believed to have been used also in excavating post holes for building purposes and in digging caches, or storage pits, beneath the floors of the lodges.

The Caddoan stone hoe was double bitted and, in that region, almost uniformly made of black argillite. It is quite thin on the cutting edges but averages about an inch thick in the narrow center, between the broader blades. Locally, these hoes are commonly called "battle axes," for which purpose they would doubtless have served effectively. These people also used a very large and somewhat heavy turf cutter, approximately five by twelve inches in size and nearly, if not quite, one inch thick, with carefully ground cutting edges at each end. These were doubtless used in cutting out turf for the covering of earth lodges, as well as for breaking up ground for cultivation.

It is believed that the Caddoan people must have cleared up extensive areas of fertile land on river and creek flood plains, removing all timber, brush, and canebrake growths therefrom; such lands, however, being selected with a view to the fact that they were seldom or never, subject to overflow. They also reduced to cultivation certain areas on the upland prairie, where the surface was sufficiently level to resist erosion, or soil washing. It is comparatively easy to recognize some of these ancient cornfield sites to this day, for the reason that, later when the village site encroached upon the cornfield, there was not to be found, near at hand, any grassy turf, bound together with fibrous roots, which was not only suitable but necessary for the covering of the earth lodges. Consequently, the builders either had to go on higher ground, or along the edges of brakes and ravines, or even to the lowland swales where the soil was of a tough gumbo consistency, in order to find such needed turf for roofing purposes. Therefore, when mounds of light colored clay, or heavy, black gumbo are found superimposed on a field having a black or dark brown surface loam, it seems reasonable to conclude that it had been under cultivation before these sods or turfs containing a different soil, had been transported thither, for building purposes.

The early Caddoan people buried practically all of their dead in the sandy sub-soil of some of their valley land cornfields, usually from three and one-half to four and one-half feet below the surface. An average of one piece of burned earthenware pottery was buried with each interment. From the fact that bones of game animals and birds have been found in some of the pottery vessels thus buried with the dead, it may be inferred that some of these, at least, contained food and drink to sustain the departed on the journey to the spirit realm. Occasionally a skeleton may be found with no pottery-near; on the other hand, instances have been noted wherein interments have been found in which two or more specimens of pottery have been buried, supposedly that of some member of the community of more than ordinary prominence. In rare instances as many as eight or ten specimens of ceramic ware may be found with such burials. The surplus pieces of pottery accompanying such burials are almost always not only better burned, but also artistic in design or decoration, or both. It is believed that burial in the valley lands, where a sandy sub-soil could be readily found beneath a cultivated surface, was generally resorted to for the reason that such an operation could be much more expeditiously carried out than if attempts were made to excavate graves in the heavy clay sub-soil of the uplands, with their crude stone excavating tools. The presence of large clam or mussel shells in some graves leads to the inference that most of these valley-land graves were excavated in a mere fraction of the time that would have been required to excavate a grave of like size and depth in the heavy clay sub-soil of the uplands, by the use of such crude stone tools.

The Origin of the Caddoan People in the United States

When I first dug a small pit near the edge of the large Caddoan mound in the northern part of LeFlore County, in January, 1914, and found pulley-shaped disk ear-ornaments, I immediately recognized in them an indication of a possible kinship with the cultures of the tropical end of the continent. However, since one such instance could not prove a theory any more than "one swallow makes a summer," discretion suggested that I remain silent on the subject. I did this until the summer of 1925, when I was privileged to oversee the dissection of what was left of a mound of the true Mound-Builder type, near the Delaware-Ottawa county boundary line, as previously described. There, with the finding of similar pulley-shaped disk ear-ornaments, though differing somewhat in details of construction, I realized that, at last, I might announce a hypothesis concerning the possibility that the eastern half of the United States and Eastern Canada had been largely peopled as a result of a series of successive waves of mass-movement migration from racial swarming-grounds in the southern part of the North American Continent. That such a hypothesis would have to assume that the Mound-Builder cultures, and that of the Caddoan people as well, were of exotic origin, instead of local development, was equally plain. Down to that time, so far as I was aware, American archaeology had not given much attention to the element of racial swarming-grounds, in population and cultural development, though the native American race was as surely as much entitled to have this element considered in the problem of development as are any of the races of Europe or Asia. Plainly, the natural conditions of Northwestern America did not make for racial swarming-grounds. On the other hand, there were areas in Yucatan, Southern Mexico, and Central America which, though of limited extent were possessed of happy combinations of fertile soil and humid climate, thus offering opportunities for the production of such vast quantities of human food, by agricultural means, and at such low economic cost, as to lead first, to the development of a dense population and that, in turn, to that of a high degree of culture in the arts and crafts. Then, when the capacity or saturation point was reached in population, either a real or prospective shortage of food, imperial colonization, or political discontent, might have led to the removal of considerable elements of such overcrowded population. When such culture was brought into the midst of a new and sparsely settled region which was teeming with game and fish, and where the climate made possible an introduction of the cultivation of maize, pumpkins, squashes, melons and gourds, it would have been but natural that there should be a scattering of such an immigrant population and, with that dispersion, an almost certain and comparatively early deterioration in culture.

That the Caddoan stock was subdivided into well-defined tribe groups in prehistoric times, as it was during the early Historical Period, seems altogether probable. These various Caddoan tribes of the Arkansas River region in northeastern Oklahoma were still there when the first French explorers and traders came among them in the 17^th century. But the rum and the smallpox and other vices and diseases which came in with the French traders, decimated the numbers of the Caddoan people groups. So, sometime during the latter part of the 18^th century, the remnants of these peoples merged and their descendants are now called the Wichita.

The Siouan Culture

As previously stated, traces of the Siouan culture are to be found in numerous places in the northeastern part of Oklahoma, some of them coming down to the beginning of Historic Period. The oldest of these are believed to have been made by the present Osage and Quapaw people. They are easily distinguished from the cultural remains from other stocks by such type artifacts as the tobacco pipe, the stone hoe and the mortar, or metate, with which they ground grain. Their occupancy of Oklahoma probably was but temporary from time to time, during the Prehistoric Period. They were among the first tribes to come under French influence in the Mississippi Valley in the 17^th century. Their cultural remains are interesting for comparative reasons. If, as I have suggested, the Siouan peoples were in the procession of great migrations from the far South, that movement must have taken place at least a thousand years ago, as they are known to have lived in the region east of the Alleghenies and south of the Potomac for several centuries before their retrogressive migration to the West. If such be the case, the highly developed culture which was abundantly and well exemplified in the contents of the mound in northwestern Oklahoma has had a long time in which to deteriorate, and this deterioration is very manifest in the crude pottery and rather coarse work in their other arts, as found existing in the village sites and burials of the Siouan (Osage-Quapaw), which date from just before the beginning of the Historical Period.

The Athapascan Culture

Scattered over western Oklahoma and adjacent portions of the Texas Panhandle, western Kansas, and southeastern Colorado, are to be found traces of the culture of people whose occupancy antedated the later arrival of the Comanche, the Kiowa, the Cheyenne and the Arapahoe. From the early Spanish archives of New Mexico, it is evident that the region of the Great Plains, extending southward from the valley of the Republican River to that of Red River, was included within the range of that great branch of the Athapascan stock, which is known collectively as the Apache people, and which includes quite a number of tribes. Hitherto, these have always been regarded, as have their distant kinsmen of the Navajo tribe also, as having migrated from the far Northwest, and as being a proof of the theory that all of the Indian Tribes of the Eastern United States, had migrated from the same region. As yet, comparatively little has been done in the way of identifying the remains of any prehistoric culture of the region in question as belonging to the Athapascan people.

In the summer of 1920, I spent several weeks with Dr. Warren K. Moorehead, who was then engaged on an archaeological survey of the drainage area along the Arkansas River, accompanied by a small field party, along the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle. Incidentally, in company with Doctor Moorehead, I visited an ancient irrigation canal in Meade and Clark counties, in southwestern Kansas. I have since revisited that section several times and have made considerable further investigation of these remarkable traces of an ancient culture. I have also located traces of similar irrigation works in Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, and several mounds, besides one mound group, all of which are believed to be the ruins of pueblo-like structures with earthen walls and earth-covered roofs. That these people grew corn has been definitely determined; that they still continue to make and use pottery is likewise proven; that they might have learned the art of growing corn or that of making pottery in the far Northwest, or at any point between the far Northwest and the Great Plains south of the Republican River, is highly improbable; that they had once lived much farther east, where they had grown corn under naturally humid conditions, is not unlikely; that they had been driven out upon the High Plains where they still sought to practice agriculture, but where their crops were blasted by the hot winds and destroyed by the big buffalo herds, seems altogether likely; that some of their hunters may have made their way to the Pueblo settlements on the Mora, the Upper Pecos and the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, where they found corn and other field crops being grown by irrigation, is wholly within the bounds of possibility; that they attempted to avail themselves of Pueblo irrigation engineering talent, and that they attempted to adopt and to adapt to their purpose the irrigation husbandry and the architecture of the Pueblo peoples, seems evident.

I believe that by means of type artifacts, it may be possible to trace the Athapascan occupancy much farther east than it was at the time of the first exploration and settlements in New Mexico. I am planning to do some systematic work in this very interesting field which, down to this time has been almost a sealed book.

Unidentified Cultures

Scattered over various portions of Oklahoma are to be found numerous ancient village sites and shop sites which, while plainly distinguished, are as yet unidentified. This is especially true of the central part of the state, where the remains of most of the identified cultures are scarce or lacking altogether. Such vestigia include implements and projectile points of chert and flint, potsherds, mortars, mullers, hoes, spades, hatchets, cells and occasionally, even grooved axes. Careful study will probably be necessary to identify these and find the type artifacts of the same. This is not of more importance locally than it will be in its relationships in the final study of prehistoric migrations and movements.

Plains Indian Women
From the American Indian Culture Research Center¹⁰
American Indian women were revered by their communities as the mothers of the people. They were responsible for raising the children and feeding, clothing, and sheltering their families. They also earned position in other areas such as participants in religious rituals and as medicine women. Generally, they enjoyed a great deal more independence and security than did the white women of that era.

The ultimate achievement for a woman in Native American societies is being a mother and rearing a healthy family. Even though many Indian women attained distinctions as religious practitioners, medicine women, and skilled artisans in craftwork, in no way did these tasks affect their role as bearers and raisers of children.

Although infant mortality was probably very high among early Native American children and many women undoubtedly died during childbirth, prospective mothers used every precaution to ensure safe delivery and healthy children. Early Plains Indian women relied on herbal medicines, myths, and superstitions to guide them during their pregnancies. Older women in the tribe warned first time mothers to avoid certain foods and to be careful of their personal behavior. According to Indian custom, both were believed to be the cause of a difficult delivery or defect in the unborn baby.

The bond between mothers and daughters was very special. However, much of the training of young girls fell to the grandmothers, who taught them to sew and cook, to tan hides, to make their clothing, and to fashion and decorate items. Grandmothers also instilled the tribe’s moral values and traditions in their granddaughters.

Instructions on proper conduct intensified as a girl approached puberty. Her mother and grandmother would increase the amount of tasks assigned to her—tasks that would prepare her for her own lifework as a mother and wife. She no longer enjoyed the freedom to run and play games with the other children. She would be instructed to stay near her lodge and could only venture out in the company of adults.

Her family usually arranged the marriage of a Plains Indian woman. Marriage was viewed as a social contract for sharing responsibilities and child rearing. It was not expected to be a marriage based upon the concept of love. However, Plains Indian women had the right to refuse their chose mate, but very few probably exercised that option. If a man fell in love with a young woman, he did everything in his power to impress her family. The suitor would bring gifts and horses and leave them in front of her lodge. Then he waited for a response from her family. If the proposal was rejected, the gifts, including the horses were returned to the suitor. If the proposal was accepted, the young woman’s family took the gifts and the horses. Both families made the marriage preparations and the newlyweds were received into the community with a wedding ceremony and feast.

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