PRE-HISTORIC JASPER ORNAMENTS IN MISSISSIPPI
R. B. FULTON, M. A., LL. D.
In the annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute for 1877, Dr. Chas. Rau, under the title of "The Stock-in-Trade of an Aboriginal Lapidary," emphasizes his conjecture "that among the aborigines certain individuals who were by inclination or practice particularly qualified for a distinct kind of manual labor, devoted themselves principally or entirely to that labor." He referred to several instances where, in certain localities, finds of a large number of similarly wrought specimens of work in stone seemed to indicate that each set of specimens came from the hands of a special lapidary.
One of the most remarkable of these deposits was found in Lawrence County, Mississippi, in 1875, and was carefully described by Dr. Rau. It consisted of 469 imperfectly finished objects made by chipping, cutting and grinding out of reddish or orange-colored or brown jasper pebbles, and was found accidentally about two and one-half feet below the surface of the ground in the northern part of Lawrence County,[67] The objects were evidently intended for ornaments, and when finished all would have been polished and probably perforated. The majority were cylindrical in shape, and varied from one-fourth to one inch in diameter and from one-fourth to three inches in length. Others were roughly fashioned into ornamental shapes. Several showed an attempt at perforation, and one, not received at the National Museum, was said to be completely perforated.
When the hardness of the material used—jasper—is considered, the patience and skill needed to give their form and polish to these objects command admiration. From the fact that only one specimen was perforated completely, one might readily suppose that the workman found the difficulties of this part of his undertaking too great, and buried his unfinished work in despair.
Some time ago there came into my hands a set of similar articles found in the county of Lincoln, Mississippi, about twenty-five miles west of the spot where the above-mentioned find was made.
These last found objects were exhibited at the Cleveland meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in the hope of learning whether similar specimens had been found, as they appeared to me at that time to be entirely unique.
Following out suggestions made at that meeting by several gentlemen, and afterward by two of the best informed Southern archaeologists, I found that the above-mentioned region in Mississippi has yielded a number of carved, polished and perforated objects of this hard red or brown quartzite (or jasper), and nearly all such specimens of this material which I have been able to learn about came from this region.
The collection of specimens of this style of workmanship described by Dr. Rau probably contains the majority of pieces extant. A few specimens of polished jasper ornaments from other States than Mississippi are shown in the National Museum. There are two or three specimens from Indiana, one from California, and one from Louisiana (Claiborne Parish), which seem to be similarly made and from the same material.
The late Dr. Joseph Jones of New Orleans had in his collection some jasper ornaments, mostly from Mississippi, including a beautiful ceremonial ax of reddish translucent jasper.
Besides those mentioned I have not been able to learn of other similar objects. Probably there are a few scattered ones in other hands.
The collection of these objects in my possession includes thirty pieces. They were found on a farm four miles west of Wesson, in Lincoln County. And were plowed up on the summit of a hill where no earthworks were noticed. A few other relics were found at the same time and were not preserved. With them were two other beads, one of a gray stone and the other of bone very truly shaped, as if in a lathe.
Among the jasper ornaments (all of which are perforated longitudinally with holes from one-tenth to one-eighth of an inch in diameter) are three cylinders between two and a half and three inches long and about one-fourth of an inch in diameter; ten cylinders ranging from a quarter to an inch and a quarter in length and less than one-quarter in diameter; five nearly spherical beads; one accurately shaped short cylinder three-quarters of an inch long and five-eighths in diameter, with a well-drilled perforation three-eights of an inch in diameter; and ten carved ornaments of various shapes. One of these, an inch long, is a strikingly sculptured deer. Four are evidently intended for birds, and four others resemble each other and in form are indistinctly bird-like. A separate ring of the same material is firmly fixed on one of the long beads.
All of the specimens have evidently seen service as personal ornaments. They have a fine polish externally, and the interior of the borings is worn smooth as by a string. An artistic color-perception is shown in the beautiful variety of tints brought out in various pieces of jasper used.
As to all these ornaments in red jasper mentioned in this paper, comparison of the specimens forcibly suggests that they may be the work of one skilled artist. In the western pebble belt of Mississippi, which extends along the border of the Mississippi and Yazoo river bottoms southward from near Memphis to Natchez, and thence eastward through the counties in which these relics have been found, quartzite of almost every variety occurs, and chipped implements of almost every variety and color are common. The maker of these ornaments has passed by all other tints save red and brown. In the cylindrical and other carved forms that have been found there is a striking similarity both in design and workmanship.
One will readily believe the perforation of these ornaments with small and accurately made drillings to have been the most difficult part of their manufacture. And yet in all the specimens seen the perforations have been in the longest direction through the ornament. The total length of the borings in the set of thirty beads I have is twenty-eight inches. A lapidary not remarkably expert in the art of drilling these holes would probably have simplified his work by shorter borings, arranging the ornaments as pendants.
Again, the rarity of any objects of carved or polished or perforated quartzite suggests a very limited manufacture even in the region under consideration.
As to the means used in making these perforations, drills of stone are excluded from consideration on account of the smallness and length of the borings.
There is one specimen in the collection of Dr. Joseph Jones of New Orleans, in which a boring has been began, evidently with a hollow tube as a drill, probably a joint of a reed fed with sand, as there is a core in the centre of the boring; but hollow drills as small as one-twelfth of an inch in diameter could scarcely have been used. Some of the specimens described by Dr. Rau show the beginning of the drilling process, apparently with a solid drill, fed with sand.
We are forced to the conclusion that the drilling implement used must have been a needle of copper, or more probably of the hard outer wood of the Southern cane tipped with quartz, or fed with sand. The borings are about as true in direction and form as the best modern appliances could make them.
It is worthy of note that these highly wrought jasper ornaments have been found in that portion of Mississippi once occupied by the Natchez, that these aboriginal people were more or less familiar with Mexican or Aztec art and customs, and that carved and polished workmanship in hard stones was not uncommon among the aborigines of Mexico and Central America.[68]