Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans: Second annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, pages 179-306Holmes, William Henry
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Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans: Second annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, pages 179-306
Holmes, William Henry
Indian art; Indians -- Antiquities
First, I present, in Plate LXXI, a shell gorget on which is engraved a
rather rude delineation of a human figure. The design occupies the
concave side of a large shell disk cut from a _Busycon perversum_. Near
the upper margin are the usual holes for suspension. The engraved design
fills the central portion of the plate and is inclosed by two
approximately parallel lines, between which and the edge of the shell
there is a plain belt three-fourths of an inch wide. A casual observer
would probably not recognize any design whatever in the jumble of half
obliterated lines that occupies the inclosed space. It will first be
noticed that a column about three-fourths of an inch in width stands
erect in the center of the picture; from this spring a number of lines,
forming serpentine arms, which give the figure as much the appearance of
an octopus crowded into a collector's alcohol jar as of a human
creature. A little study will convince one, however, that the central
column represents the human body, and the tangle of lines surrounding it
will be found to represent the arms, legs, hands, feet, and their
appendages--no line within the border being without its office. The
upper extremity of the body is occupied by a circle one-eighth of an
inch in diameter, which represents the eye. The head is not
distinguished from the body by any sort of constriction for the neck,
but has evidently been crowned by a rude aurora-like crest similar to
that found in so many aboriginal designs. This does not appear in the
engraving given, as it, as well as other features, was so nearly
obliterated as to escape observation until the idea was suggested by the
study of other similar designs. The mouth is barely suggested, being
represented by three shallow lines placed so low on the trunk that they
occupy what should be the chest. From the side of the head a number of
lines, probably meant for plumes, extend across the bordering lines
almost to the edge of the shell; below this are two perforated loops,
which seem to take the place of ears; the one on the right is doubly
perforated and has a peculiar extension, in a bent or elbowed line,
across the border. The arms are attached to the sides of the body near
the middle in a haphazard sort of way and are curiously double jointed;
they terminate, however, in well-defined hands against the right and
left borders, the thumb and fingers being, in each case, distinctly
represented. The legs and feet are at first exceedingly hard to make
out, but when once traced are as clear as need be. The body terminates
abruptly below within an inch of the base of the inclosed space. One leg
extends directly downward, the foot resting upon the border line; the
other extends backward from the base of the trunk and rests against the
border line at the right; the legs have identical markings, which
probably represent the costume. Each foot terminates in a single
well-defined talon or claw, which folds upward against the knee. This is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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