The Mississippi valley, according to Holmes, may be divided into three districts as far as the pottery is concerned: the upper, the middle, and the lower districts. This would seem to indicate as many different tribes or stocks, or even different periods of occupancy by either the same stock or by different stocks. The most northerly examples are the rudest and most different from the others. Some of the pottery that is advanced as showing a skill in sculpture not possessed by Amerinds of the North can be explained in another way than by assuming that the makers were different from other Amerinds of the Mississippi valley as we have known them. As I pointed out elsewhere,[87] these head-shaped vases are death-masks.[88] It does not require a second look at the illustration below to see that the features are those of death reproduced in a manner that no aboriginal potter could possibly accomplish by free-hand method. “Here we look on a face perfect in its proportions, accurately modelled, and, above all, depicting death with a master-hand; yes, more, presenting to the spectator death itself as it seized this personage in the long-forgotten past. Here is death present with us as plainly as it is in the well-preserved features of an Egyptian mummy.... Soft clay was pressed upon the dead features, and when sufficiently dry it was removed and other soft clay thinly pressed into the mould obtained. The mask thus made was built upon till the jar before us was completed.... The interior of the wall follows the exterior closely except in projecting features. The potter, finding it difficult as well as unnecessary, to work the clay evenly into the projections of the mould, filled them up more or less solidly.” This vase is five inches in height and five inches wide from ear to ear. It is open at the top, and has a perforated knob over the middle of the forehead, perhaps for attaching a head-dress, and the ears are perforated. These holes also would permit cords to be attached, by which the jar could be hung, probably in a dead-house where the body of the deceased original was laid. It has been stated that the features exhibited in this vase are not “Indian,” but there seems to be no ground for such a statement. The features are apparently those of an Amerind boy fourteen or sixteen years of age. [Illustration: DEATH-MASK VASE, TENNESSEE.]