ANIMAL AND HUMAN EFFIGIES
There are many crude effigies, many grotesque sculptures found in this country. There are also stones that are in the border-lands between highly developed problematical forms and effigies. Fig. 413 presents a group of these from the Peabody Museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The upper row appears to be whale effigies. In the lower row are small stone bowls or paint-cups.
Fig. 418. (S. 1–2.) shows four peculiar stones from the Salt River Valley, Arizona. The one in the lower left-hand corner illustrates an armadillo; in the upper right-hand corner, an owl. The others are unknown effigies. These Arizona specimens are all of volcanic tufa, and are typical of the region. Large numbers were found by Mr. Cushing during his explorations of the ruins of the Salt River Valley, and something like a hundred were dug up by me for Mr. Peabody when I visited the region. The purpose of these is unknown.
Fig. 419. (S. 1–1.) Front view of the “Owl Ornament,” found in a grave at Fort Ancient, Ohio, 1882. Collection of the Ohio State University. One of the first specimens collected by W. K. Moorehead at Fort Ancient. Material, graphite slate.
Few finer problematical forms have been found. There are two grooves on the face and back of this object. One runs from the top down about an inch and one half, intersecting the other. In the angles formed by these two grooves are two perforations extending through the stone and drilled from each side. At the bottom is an oval-shaped hole on the face extending through. This latter perforation does not exhibit an oval shape from the rear, but presents a round appearance. Around this oval-shaped depression are fourteen holes, each drilled about one eighth of an inch deep. They present the form of an arrow-head, or a heart. On the reverse side are two holes above the oval perforations which are not drilled through the stone, and which lie just under the horizontal groove. The remarkable part of this stone is that the symbol, three, occurs on it in three places—on the face twice and on the reverse once.
Quite a number of these whale and other effigies have been found in New England; but effigy-work in stone, the making of art-forms from life, was more general in the South and Southwest than in New England, where, indeed, effigy animals are exceedingly rare.
Fig. 415 illustrates an effigy of a bear. This was found in Salem during excavations for a cellar and is in the Peabody Museum of that city.
Mr. L. C. Deming, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, owns a peculiar effigy in stone about six inches in height. Just what it represents I am unable to state, as the ancient workman’s sculpture is crude.
Fig. 420. (S. 1–1.) The “Owl Ornament,” rear view.
Fig. 421. (S. 1–1.) Salem collection. This shows a grooved bar-like object at the bottom, and a curious effigy pendant above.
Fig. 422. (S. 1–3.) W. E. Bryan’s collection, Elmira, New York.
Fig. 416 shows a number of spindle-whorls to which reference has been made elsewhere. These are made of clay, hard baked. In the lower centre is a stone idol found in a large ruin at Mesa, Arizona. It is made of hard redstone. There is a little depression in the top of the head half an inch in depth. Near the top is a curious animal effigy with eight legs. This is made of fine-grained lava and has a depression in the centre about one and one half inches in diameter.
Fig. 423. (S. 1–1.) From a mound near South Carrollton, Kentucky. Presented to the Phillips Academy Museum, by F. G. Hilman, New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Fig. 417 illustrates two effigies, full size, of black onyx, each typifying a bird. These are very finely carved and were found in southern Arizona in a ruin, by the expedition sent there by Mr. R. S. Peabody, 1897–98.
The human form was frequently indicated in stone by the Indians. These sculptures range from very crude delineations, which I have not shown, to the first steps in more ambitious work, such as is exhibited in Fig. 422. This stone head was found near Elmira, New York, by Mr. Ward E. Bryan. The original was seven or eight inches in length. It is cut out of fine-grained sandstone. On the back are curious lines and dots as shown in the figure. The face shown is much cruder than that in Fig. 423. That face is of the peculiar type known as “Mound-Builder.” I have referred to this resemblance elsewhere. Inspection of Fig. 499 in the pipe series, found by Professor Mills at Adena, in the Scioto Valley, Ohio, and of the idol, Fig. 426, and some of the effigy pottery, will acquaint readers with this curious, strongly marked, Mound-Builder type of feature. Other examples are to be seen in books treating of American archæology.
Fig. 424. (S. 1–4.) An idol and three flutes. B. H. Young’s collection.
The long flute at the top is made of slate. The head is an imitation of a serpent’s head. It has five holes regularly spaced. It is evident that a small block of wood was placed in the mouth to lessen the wind space.
The central one is of stone, open at both ends, with four holes.
The smallest one, of bone, is open at both ends.
On each of these instruments from seven to nine different sounds can be made.
The idol was found in Tennessee, near the Kentucky line. It is made of dark steatite, and is unique in representing the full human form.
The idol presented in Fig. 426 is a remarkable effigy. Not a few of these have been found near the Etowah Group of mounds in Georgia. All such idols have either been found in graves or on the sites of Southern villages, where population was considerable. I never knew of them being found in a mound, although there may have been such discoveries.
Fig. 425. (S. 1–3.) B. H. Young’s collection. Wooden image found many years ago in Bell County, Kentucky, near Middlesboro, in a cave by a turkey-hunter. It is made of yellow pine, and is of form similar to the stone effigies found in Kentucky. The ears are pierced for ear-rings, and the wrists grooved for bracelets.
Fig. 426. (S. about 1–6.) Found in 1886 near the Etowah Group of mounds, Cartersville, Georgia. Material, steatite. Height, 21 inches. Weight, 56½ pounds.