The stone age in North America, vol. 1 of 2Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
History
The stone age in North America, vol. 1 of 2
Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
Indians of North America -- Antiquities; Stone age -- North America
“In addition to the articles noted above and worn as ornaments, honors,
etc., there were others that were used as bracelets, necklaces, gorgets,
etc. As a rule they were of bone, pearl, shell, and copper, though the
claws and talons of beasts and birds of prey[34] were also used. Except
occasionally in size, they did not differ materially from the beads,
pendants, etc., that were worn on the head and in the ears. Taking up
these articles in their order, we find that in the Gulf States the
Indians made bracelets of bone. For this purpose they chose the rib of a
deer, which was soaked in boiling water and thus rendered soft and
pliable. It was then worked into the desired shape, and is said to have
been as white and smooth as polished ivory.[35] In Virginia ‘polished,’
or as they are sometimes called ‘smooth bones,’ were used in connection
with ‘pearles and little beedes of copper,’ as necklaces and
ear-rings;[36] and in New England, as we have seen, bones carved in the
shape of birds, beasts and fishes were worn as pendants in the ears; and
in Waymouth’s voyage we are told that they were also used as bracelets.
[Illustration:
FIG. 320. (S. 1–2.) The first stage in the making of the problematical
form. These are of slate and are from Ohio, Indiana, and
Pennsylvania. The upper specimen is a block of slate which has been
worked into shape by means of a heavy hand-hammer. The first stage
is not unlike that observed in the manufacture of flint implements.
The central and lower ones represent the second stage in the process
of pecking, while the one to the right is still further reduced, and
the elevation, strengthening the perforation, is worked into relief.
Andover collection.
]
“Of pearls, there seems to have been an abundance,[37] though they were
unequally distributed. Owing perhaps to this fact, and to the
extravagant accounts of some of the old writers, it has been thought
that they were, not unfrequently, confounded with shell beads; and, yet,
the statements as to their use are too frequent and too detailed in
character, to leave any doubt about the matter, even without the
confirmatory evidence of the mounds. Upon this point the chroniclers of
De Soto’s expedition are in full accord; and whilst we may well doubt
whether the Spaniards took ‘three hundred and ninety-two pounds of
pearls, and little babies and birds made of them’ from the graves near
Cutifachiqui,[38] yet when we are told that pearls ‘of the bigness of
good pease’ were found in Virginia, and that one man ‘gathered together
from among the savage people about five thousand’ of them,[39] we cannot
but admit that there is a foundation of fact in the story of the old
writer, extravagant as it seems to be.”
Professor Carr, in the same paper I have quoted, speaks regarding both
copper and shell in use in early historic times as ornaments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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