dern potters
of the East Mesa never glaze their pottery, and no fragment of glazed
ware was obtained from the necropolis of Sikyatki.

PERISHABLE CONTENTS OF MORTUARY FOOD BOWLS

It is the habit of the modern Tusayan Indians to deposit food of
various kinds on the graves of their dead. The basins used for that
purpose are heaped up with paper-bread, stews, and various delicacies
for the breath-body of the deceased. Naturally from its exposed
position much of this food is devoured by animals or disappears in
other ways. There appears excellent evidence, however, that the
mortuary food offerings of the ancient Sikyatkians were deposited with
the body and covered with soil and sometimes stones.

The lapse of time since these burials took place has of course caused
the destruction of the perishable food substances, which are found to
be simple where any sign of their former presence remains. Thin films
of interlacing rootlets often formed a delicate network over the whole
inner surface of the bowl. Certain of the contents of these basins in
the shape of seeds still remain; but these seeds have not germinated,
possibly on account of previous high temperatures to which they have
been submitted. A considerable quantity of these contents of mortuary
bowls were collected and submitted to an expert, the result of whose
examination is set forth in the accompanying letter:

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, DIVISION OF BOTONY,
_Washington, D. C., March 25, 1896._

DEAR DR FEWKES: Having made a cursory examination of the
samples of supposed vegetable material sent by you day
before yesterday, collected at Sikyatki, Arizona, in
supposed prehistoric burial places, I have the following
preliminary report to make:

No. 156247. A green resinous substance. I am unable to say
whether or not this is of vegetable origin.

No. 156248. A mass of fibrous material intermixed with sand,
the fibers consisting in part of slender roots, in part of
the hair of some animal.

No. 156249. This consists of a mixture of seed with a small
amount of sand present. The seeds are, in about the relative
order of their abundance, (_a_) a leguminous shiny seed of a
dirty olive color, possibly of the genus _Parosela_ (usually
known as _Dalea_); (_b_) the black seed shells, flat on one
side and almost invariably broken, of a plant apparently
belonging to the family _Mal