Ancient Mississippi

When I had finally concluded that I had found the optimum size, shape, color and material, and we were producing the first wooden prototypes, I found myself in the bookstore at the University of Oregon, browsing. I usually cruise right by the archeology shelf in that particular store because they only have books such as professor so-and-so’s journal of a dig at such-and-such site, which catalogs endlessly every little shard and chunk found. It’s the most boring material you can imagine. But for some reason, on that day, I stopped and looked at this shelf and took down a journal about an extensive dig in southern coastal Alabama and Georgia. There were many ruins of small villages there from what archeologists call the Southern Mississippi Culture of approximately 800AD through 1500 AD.

In the remains of their houses, and in their sacred gathering places, the archeologists found these artifacts which they called “basins.” They didn’t know what they were or what to make of them but they had meticulously recorded every one including every shard. They were made of adobe – clay with straw. They had not been fired in a kiln. They did not contain anything. They had not been used to hold items or food. They had not been used as smudge or incense burners. They were not water holding vessels. They had never been through any kind of a fire. The archeologists hadn’t a clue what they could have been used for.

The basins were perfect cylinders, meticulously shaped. The inside walls appeared almost machined, they were so perfect: perfect cylinders, perfect right angle with the bottom, perfect flat bottom, thick stable adobe walls. Most of the basins were the exact same size as our Red Door Bowl – the exact ratios, the exact shape. Some were a little larger or smaller. They were left all over these simple villages. When I saw the measurements of these basins, the ratios, I thought, “Oh my gosh! It’s a radionics device!” They had them all throughout this culture.

Such things surface and submerge throughout our history. They die out, we forget them, they are lost for a while, and then they pop up again. I was utterly delighted to see this book. I didn’t have much money – not even a nickel in my pocket – and I couldn’t buy this tiny paperback book. But I thought, “I’ll come back. This is important for me to have. I’ll come back and get it.” But when I came back with money it was gone without a trace. The store couldn’t find it in its catalog, didn’t know what it was or how to get another one. Yet here is the Bowl, from ancient history to now.