OBJECTS OF SHELL
[Illustration:
FIG. 520. (S. 1–1.) Shell hoe from the village-site at Fort Ancient,
Ohio.
]
Aboriginal man used shell and bone for a variety of purposes. He
frequently made of these substances the same forms that he did in flint
or stone, and if one were classifying under use, one would include,
under arrow-points, not only those of flint, but of bone and shell as
well. The same is true of the beads and of flat ornaments, which may be
of shell, or bone, quite as often as of stone. But since we have begun
to classify these objects according to material, it is necessary to
place under the above head many artifacts that would naturally fall into
another subdivision, were we to ignore materials.
[Illustration:
FIG. 521. (S. 1–4.) Collection of B. Beasley, Montgomery, Alabama.
]
Generally throughout North America shells were made use of for
ornamentation. Shell beads are as widely distributed as chipped
implements and more generally found throughout the United States than
pottery. In fact, in most cemeteries, mounds, and cliff-houses where
human burials occur, are strings of beads of various kinds and sizes. I
might enumerate all the shells found in both fresh water and salt, and
made use of by the natives in America, but this is hardly required.
However, were I writing more extendedly upon shell objects, it would be
necessary to give all the names. These are purposely omitted.
The classification of shell objects is as follows:—
1. For domestic service.
2. For ornamentation.
Under No. 1 there are the following subdivisions:—
a. Shells used as hoes. (Fig. 520.)
b. As club-heads. (None shown.)
c. As cups and bowls. (Fig. 522.)
Under No. 2:
a. As small beads, round or cylindrical. (Figs. 521, 521 _A_.)
b. Ear and nose ornaments, circular or oval. (Fig. 523.)
c. Hairpins. (Fig. 525.)
d. Bracelets and finger-rings. (None shown.)
e. Engraved shell gorgets. (Figs. 530 to 535.)
f. Pendants and unknown forms. (Figs. 524, 529.)
g. Effigies. (Fig. 537.)
[Illustration:
FIG. 521 _A_. (S. 1–2.) Beads from Trigg County, at mouth of Little
River, where it enters the Cumberland River, Kentucky. Bennett H.
Young’s collection.
]
The larger shells of the Atlantic Coast between the mouth of the Potomac
and the Mississippi were employed by the Florida, South Carolina, and
Louisiana Indians as digging-tools, heads to clubs, etc.
Mr. Clarence B. Moore, during the course of his extensive explorations
in Florida and Alabama, found great quantities of large shells which had
been used as domestic tools. It is well known that the shell mounds of
Florida equal in size many mounds of earth or stone, farther north.
[Illustration:
FIG. 522. (S. 1–4.) Large shells, Hopewell Mounds, Ohio.
]
In the North, the fresh-water unio shells were made general use of as
hoes, such as is shown in Fig. 520, which was found at Fort Ancient,
Ohio, on the village-site along the banks of the Miami River. It was
much easier to perforate these shells and use them as hoes than to work
out flint or wooden hoes. Persons who explore ancient sites find them in
the ash-pits. The edges are always battered, or worn smooth, proving
that they were of importance as agricultural implements.
Short, heavy shells were perforated and fastened to clubs for weapons
and digging-tools. Moore describes and illustrates many of these.[19]
[Illustration:
FIG. 523. (S. 1–1.) The typical shell nose and ear ornaments are shown
in this illustration. These six were found by W. C. Mills on the
Baum Village-Site, Ross County, Ohio.
]
Bits of shell may have been set in handles, for use as “swords,” after
the manner of South Sea natives.
However, while shells were useful for other purposes, yet it was for
ornamentation that most of them were used.
Fig. 521, from the collection of Mr. B. Beasley, Montgomery, Alabama, is
an illustration of small disc beads in the centre, larger beads about
the margin and the string of rude and irregular shell beads enclosing
the rectangular exhibit referred to. This is about one fourth size.
Shell beads range in size from minute ones as small as those on the
black background in the centre of the picture, to others three inches in
diameter. Mr. Clarence B. Moore found shell beads as large as walnuts in
his Florida and Alabama explorations.
Fig. 521 _A_ shows a number of various shell beads, together with a few
stone beads from mounds and graves at the mouth of Little River,
Kentucky.
Large numbers of pearl beads, have been found in the altar mounds of the
Scioto Valley, Ohio, and in the South. De Soto’s narrative states that
the Indians, in 1540–42, possessed many bushels of these pearls. Some
were of beautiful form and high lustre. All of these would have been
very valuable, but for the fact that the natives drilled a hole through
each one, thus, from our point of view, ruining them.
It has been estimated that the pearl beads found in the altars of the
Hopewell Group, when new and undrilled, were worth upwards of a million
dollars.
Practically all shell ornaments were made from the larger unio shells
and also from the busycon and pyrula shells of Florida and the
Carolinas. Fig. 522 presents one of these shells as yet uncut which was
found in a mound at the Hopewell Group and another which has been cut
down into the form of a large dipper or drinking-vessel.
[Illustration:
FIG. 524. (S. varying.) Shell ornaments from California. Peabody
Museum collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 525. (S. 3–7.) This figure illustrates some of the shell
hairpins, rather rare in Ohio, but frequently found in the South.
These are from the collection of Mr. John T. Reeder, Houghton,
Michigan, and were found in Alabama and Tennessee. It would be
impossible to drill with these, and by common consent they are
called hairpins.
]
The ornamentation on large shell gorgets is complicated and
characteristic. I am not sufficiently familiar with California shell
gorgets to state whether they are ever engraved. Fig. 529, from
Professor Barr’s collection, presents as highly developed gorgets as I
have seen from the Pacific Coast. It is in the mounds and stone graves
of the Cumberland and Tennessee valleys that the art in engraving or
decorating gorgets seems to have reached its height. In Figs. 530, 531,
532, 533. 534, and 535 are presented beautiful specimens from the
collections of Mr. John T. Reeder, Colonel Young, and the Smithsonian
Institution.
[Illustration:
FIG. 526. (S. 1–2.) An engraved shell gorget found in the glacial kame
burials in northern Ohio. This is shown half size and is a
remarkable specimen. The material is from a large fresh-water unio.
]
Professor William H. Holmes of the Smithsonian Institution has studied
shell objects more than any one else in this country. I quote from his
description of Fig. 534:[20]
[Illustration:
FIG. 527. (1–2.) Two small shell ornaments from the collection of John
T. Reeder, Houghton, Michigan. These were found in a mound on Long
Island, Tennessee. The one to the right is especially interesting in
that the body of the shell is cut out, forming the bars of the
cross. Such gorgets are exceedingly rare.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 528. (S. 1–2.) Four flat pendants found in Pilot Mound, Manitoba,
by Henry Montgomery. Two copper beads and one shell bead, Pilot
Mound, Manitoba. Two bone whistles, respectively nine and ten inches
long, from mound near Sourisford, Manitoba.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 529. (S. 1–3.) James A. Barr collection, Stockton, California.
]
“Among the many interesting relics obtained from mounds and
burial-places in the Mississippi Valley are the engraved shell gorgets,
a number of which are now preserved in our museums. The most recent
addition to this class of objects was obtained by the National Museum
from Mr. C. A. Nelson of Eddyville, Lyon County, Kentucky, and comes
from a burial-place encountered in opening a stone-quarry near
Eddyville. It is a symmetric saucer-shaped gorget, Fig. 534, five inches
in diameter and made apparently from the expanded lip of a conch shell
(_Busycon perversum_). It is unusually well preserved, both faces
retaining something of the original high polish of the ornament. Two
perforations placed near the margin served as a means of suspension. The
back or convex side is quite plain, while the face is occupied by the
engraving of a human figure which extends entirely across the disc. It
will be seen by reference to the illustration that this figure is
practically identical in many respects with others already
published.[21] It is executed in firmly incised lines and is partially
inclosed by a border of nine concentric lines. The position of the
figure is that of a discus-thrower. The right hand holds a discoidal
object, the arm being thrown back as if in the act of casting the disc.
The left hand extends outward to the margin of the shell and firmly
grasps a wand-like object having plumes attached at the upper end, the
lower end being peculiarly marked, and bent inward across the border
lines. The face is turned to the left; the right knee is bent and rests
on the ground, while the left foot is set forward as it would be in the
act of casting the disc. The features are boldly outlined; the eye is
diamond-shaped, as is usual in the delineations of this character in the
mound region. A crest or crown representing the hair surmounts the head;
the lower lobe of the ear contains a disc from which falls a long
pendant ornament, and three lines representing paint or tattoo marks
extend across the cheek from the ear to the mouth. A bead necklace hangs
down over the chest and the legs and arms have encircling ornaments. The
lower part of the body is covered with an apron-like garment attached to
the waistband, and over this hangs what appears to be a pouch with
pendant ornaments. The moccasins are of the usual Indian type and are
well delineated. A study of this figure strongly suggests the idea that
it must represent a disc-thrower engaged, possibly, in playing the
well-known game of chunky.”
[Illustration:
FIG. 530. (S. 2–3.) Collection of J. T. Reeder, Houghton, Michigan.
]
Regarding Fig. 535 of Colonel Young’s collection, Professor Holmes
writes me, under date of March 28, 1910, as follows:—
“The shell gorget from Lincoln County, Kentucky, is exceptionally large,
being six inches in diameter. The design is engraved on the concave
surface and represents a double-headed eagle treated in a very
conventional manner. The heads are well drawn, but the bodies are
simplified so that two legs only with characteristic talons are shown.
The tail is single. The work corresponds in style to similar
delineations on clay and other materials throughout a large part of the
Gulf States, as shown fully in the works of Mr. Clarence B. Moore. It is
not possible to say whether or not the duplication of the heads had any
significance, or whether it is the result simply of the common practice
in primitive art of employing modified natural forms to accommodate the
spaces to be embellished. That the eagle, however, had some special
significance with the peoples concerned, may be taken for granted.”
[Illustration:
FIG. 531. (S. 2–3.)
Collection of J. T. Reeder, Houghton, Michigan. The upper figure is
from a mound on Long Island, Tennessee River, Jackson County,
Alabama. The lower figure is from a mound at the mouth of
Chickamauga Creek, Hamilton County, Tennessee.
FIG. 532. (S. 2–3.)
Collection of J. T. Reeder, Houghton, Michigan. The upper figure is
from a mound at Citico Furnace, Chattanooga, Tennessee. The lower
figure is from a mound at Long Island, near Bridgeport, Jackson
County, Alabama.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 533. (S. 1–3.) Shell gorgets from Kentucky. Bennett H. Young’s
collection.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 534. (S. 2–3.) Shell gorget from Lyon County, Kentucky. United
States National Museum collection.
]
Fig. 533 presents six beautiful engraved gorgets from Colonel Young’s
collection, who has in his exhibit as many engraved shells as any other
collector in this country. For many years he has interested himself in
the archæology of Kentucky and has preserved thousands of specimens. No.
3 in this plate is shown in a larger form in Fig. 535. No. 4 is one of
the rare gorgets with the design of the cross worked out by cutting
entirely through the shell. No. 6 is practically the same as the
right-hand specimen in Fig. 530, only that it is worked in higher
relief. The exact meaning of these carvings is unknown at the present
time.
[Illustration:
FIG. 535. (S. 2–3.) Collection of Bennett H. Young, Louisville,
Kentucky.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 536. (S. 1–1.) Shell frog, two shell effigies, onyx bead, and
effigy fish (jade?). From the large ruin near Mesa, Arizona.
]
The natives living in the great pueblos of the Salado Valley, southern
Arizona, and in fact throughout that entire region, made use of a great
many shells found along the shores of the Gulf of California. Not only
did they make ordinary beads, after the manner of the Northern Indians,
but they also made finger-rings and bracelets. These have been so
frequently illustrated, I have purposely left them out. They worked all
manner of effigies out of shell, as is shown in Figs. 536–37, from the
collection at Andover. These specimens were obtained by me while
exploring in 1897 and 1898 for Mr. R. S. Peabody, founder of the
Department at Andover.
There are also shell frogs inlaid with turquoise—real mosaic work. Dr.
Fewkes has illustrated some effigies of this nature, in his reports, and
Dr. Pepper found numbers of them at the great Chaco Group of ruins,
northern New Mexico. When the first shell frogs were discovered by the
late Frank Hamilton Cushing, some of the archæologists went so far as to
say that Cushing had made these, but now so many of them have been found
that Cushing’s original contentions are verified.
[Illustration:
FIG. 537. (S. 1–2 to 1–3.) Shell objects from Arizona.
]
It is surprising, the skill of prehistoric man in carving. When Squier
and Davis made their exploration of the mounds of the Mississippi
Valley, they found many highly carved and ornamented pipes. Years
afterwards, observers who were unjustly skeptical endeavored to prove
that these were made with rat-tail files or were the work of white
traders. Since the time of Squier and Davis, even more remarkable
carvings, work in copper, intricate designs on shell, and various
tablets have been unearthed, in numbers, and by men against whom no
charge could be made.
It will be seen by an inspection of the few shell objects that I have
illustrated that, notwithstanding the lack of iron tools, aboriginal man
in America was no mean artist.