EFFIGIES IN STONE AND WOOD—BIRD-STONES

Aboriginal man traced all sorts of figures on the rocks and occasionally on the surfaces of flat ornaments and ceremonials. Not only did he make pictures on shell gorgets and on birch bark, but he also carved complete figures.

I have not made a special chapter for pictographs and picture writings, but have dismissed them from this work, save with here and there a reference. However, they represent stone-age pictorial art. Dr. Fewkes, Mr. Cushing, Dr. Garrick Mallory and others have given us numerous papers on picture writings, pictographs, painted and sculptured symbols. Garrick Mallory’s report on the sign language among the American Indians was published in the Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology and covers four hundred pages. This treats extensively of picture writings and pictographs. He portrayed the attempts of stone-age man at expressing his thoughts. He had not arrived at a written language save in Mexico and Central America. In North America he was in the advanced stone age. But he was very skillful in his pictographs and in his carvings of human, animal, bird, reptile, and fish figures. It has occurred to me that he first made rude scratches on flat surfaces, on wigwam sides, on trees, on rocks near trails.

Fig. 399. (S. 2–3.) Unfinished bird-stones. Localities: Ohio, Indiana, Michigan. Phillips Academy collection.

Fig. 400. (S. 1–1.) Unfinished bird-stone. Collection of Emily Fletcher, Westford, Massachusetts.

Fig. 401. (S. 2–3.) Unfinished bird-stone. Phillips Academy collection.

It is significant that the Plains tribes and all the natives who did not construct mounds or earthworks, natives that had not reached the stage of barbarism but were still savages, made no effigies of consequence. The effigies carved in catlinite, and observed among tribes west of the Mississippi during the historic period, seem to have been inspired by a knowledge of the superior arts of the white people. We find that while the roving tribes of the Plains painted various battle and hunting scenes on their tents and shields, yet they were inferior in art as compared with the Pueblo, the Cliff-Dweller, or the Mound-Building peoples. It is also significant, and I shall speak of it at greater length in my Conclusions, that the native American was so little influenced in his art by some life-forms. I have never seen an effigy of a mountain, a tree, a plant, or a flower. The modern Ojibwa Indians design flowers in their bead-work. The ancient Ojibwa did not. The native American did not seem to have been impressed by plant-life or inanimate objects. Occasionally, he scratched a trail or a tipi on an ornament, and some of the pictographs in various portions of the United States show wigwams, trails, etc. But while there are numerous examples of carvings in stone, shell, and bone of animals, birds, fish, and reptile life, we search in vain for carvings of the other things I have mentioned. The highest art is found where the largest villages, or the most numerous mounds or cliff-houses, were located. In small mound groups, or areas where the population was not sedentary, the art is very crude. Throughout the areas where the culture is highest, notably Alabama, Georgia, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio, and Illinois, we find these large mound groups referred to, all of which proves that the people lived long enough in one place to develop an art.

Fig. 402. (S. 1–1.) Central Ontario, Canada. Provincial Museum collection.

This art we see in the carved effigies. To study them in detail requires more space than is available in this volume. The Nomenclature Committee placed all effigies under one head—“Resemblances to known forms.” Under that general head I have placed:

I. The bird-stone in its various forms.

(A) Plain bird-stones. (B) With ears or eyes, or with expanding wings.

The classification made is rendered difficult because there are effigies in bone, shell, clay, and stone, not to omit copper. Such effigies as were drilled and used as pipes are described under the chapter devoted to pipes. The bone effigies are included in the chapter devoted to shell and bone, while copper is separately treated. Yet there remains, after treating more or less completely of these various divisions, a large class of stone objects which are not pipes, or tools, or dishes, and which I have thought best to include by themselves. The largest division in effigies is the so-called bird- or saddle-stone which is found between the following lines: Davenport, Iowa, to central Minnesota, east to New Brunswick, south to the Atlantic Coast, and thence south down the coast to Washington, thence west to Davenport. Few bird-stones occur south of Kentucky, west of Davenport, or north of St. Paul. The other effigies are of multitudinous kinds and are widely scattered throughout the United States.

Fig. 403. (S. 1–1 and 1–2.) These three problematical forms are from the Provincial Museum collection, Ontario, Canada. The upper one is from central Ontario. The base view of the lower specimen is also shown.

Fig. 404. (S. 1–2.) Andover collection.

Fig. 405. (S. 1–4.) W. A. Holmes’s collection, Chicago.

Figs. 399, 400, 401, and the central object in Fig. 269 are all unfinished bird-stones. It was difficult for me to procure these, but after some years of correspondence they were obtained.

The specimens clearly show the work of the hand-hammer. Fig. 401 and the upper right-hand specimen in Fig. 399 have been pecked into shape and the grinding-polishing process was well under way when the specimen was set aside, or lost.

Fig. 406. (S. about 1–3.) Collection of Leslie W. Hills, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

In collecting numbers of these unfinished bird-stones, my object was to prove that these slender, delicate objects did not indicate European knowledge or influence, but were wrought after much labor from ordinary stone by prehistoric man. None of them show the marks of steel cutting-tools. Fig. 400 is the roughest one and yet the ears or eyes stand out in relief. Fig. 399 is interesting in that it shows three on which the result of pecking and battering is in evidence. The one to the left, lower row, has been pecked, and ground, and was in process of being polished when the work ceased.

Fig. 407. (S. 1–2.) Collection of Leslie W. Hills, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Fig. 401, Andover collection, found in Ohio, is a large bird-stone about five inches in length. The marks of the flint cutting-tool or of the hard grained rubbing-stone, which cut the softer surface of the slate, are still apparent. Fig. 404 presents various bird-stones, both rare and common forms, with and without ears. These are found long and slender, short and thick, almost as low as the bar-amulet, and also so high that they merge into other effigies. Six bird-stones from the collection of Mr. Leslie W. Hills of Fort Wayne, Indiana, are shown in Fig. 407.

Fig. 408. (S. 3–5.) “This specimen is from western New York. It is made in the form of a bird which from the number of similar specimens have given the name to this class. The eyes are represented by great protuberances, which must have greatly increased the difficulty of manufacture. It is made from a boulder or large piece, and while the material is hard, it is not rough but rather fragile. It could not be chipped like flint nor whittled like soapstone, but must have been hammered or pecked into shape and afterwards ground to its present form, then polished until it is as smooth as glass. A consideration of the conditions demonstrates the difficulty of making this object and the dexterity and the experienced working required.”[[1]] Material: diorite with feldspar crystals. Smithsonian collection. Otis M. Bigelow’s collection, Baldwinsville.

The bird-stones with projection on either side, which by some are called ears, and by others eyes, are quite frequently found in the eastern United States, and Canada. An unusual one is illustrated in Fig. 402, this having one button-shaped knob on the top of the head. Figs. 406 and 409 from the collection of Mr. Hills illustrate bird-stones about one third size, from various portions of Indiana, Ohio, and Canada; an unfinished one in Fig. 409 (number on its side 561) is interesting in that the bill or nose is unusually long, the head high, and the body quite short. One beautiful specimen owned by Mr. George Little of Xenia, Ohio, is illustrated in Fig. 410, and the specimen is turned in Fig. 411 so that the perforations are visible. The neck of this is unusually long. It will be observed that all of these bird-stones have flat bases; none of the bases are round.

In Figs. 404 to 411 are presented bird-stones, Class I, divisions A and B. Naturally, there are more of plain bird-stones (A) than those with large projecting ears, or elaborate heads. It will be observed that the width of the tail varies, being long and narrow in some, short and slightly flaring in others, and in still others broad, or fan-shaped. Sometimes the eye is very small, as in the lower left-hand specimen, Fig. 405. Or it may be sunken, several of which are shown in Fig. 409. But usually it is worked in high relief.

There are presented, all told, in this chapter, sixty bird-stones. It would be possible for me to present ten times this number. There are included in the series numbers of effigy-like objects that might not be classed by other observers as bird-stones. For instance, the central specimen, top row, of Fig. 405.

The bird-stones are very interesting and unique objects and the range in them is considerable. Sometimes they are almost square, as is seen in the central specimen, lower row, Fig. 405. Again, the head is a prominent feature, as is observed in the lower one in Fig. 409, and the body is of secondary consideration. A group of these stones from the Andover collection is shown in Fig. 404. The very small bird-stone in the upper row to the left is half size of the original, as are the others. This is the smallest bird-stone, the genuineness of which is beyond question, brought to my attention. Just below it is a peculiarly straight effigy from Tennessee, which is almost bar-amulet in shape, and marks the merging of the bird-stone into the bar-amulet. Fig. 408 is an expanded-wing type of unusual beauty. Fig. 405, from the collection of W. A. Holmes, Chicago, shows typical bird-stones, with an unusual one, almost like a frog, and shown in the centre at the top. Next to it to the left is a short stone, hardly bird-like in character, of which a few have been found in the United States. Fig. 403, from the collection in the Provincial Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, presents at the top a stone as much bar-amulet as bird in character, and also a stone at the bottom in the centre of which is worked a projection or knob.

Fig. 412, from the Reverend William Beauchamp’s collection, is somewhat different from ordinary bird-stones, although it is included under that class. In 1899 I issued a bulletin, “The Bird-Stone Ceremonial,” which is now out of print. It illustrated fifty-three bird-stones. Since that time Mr. Charles E. Brown has published a study of bird-stones.[[2]] This is an excellent review.

Dr. Thomas Wilson once made a statement[[3]] concerning bird-stones, and I quote one of his paragraphs: “The United States National Museum possesses many of these specimens. While they bear a greater resemblance to birds than anything else, yet scarcely any two of them are alike and they change in form through the whole gamut until it is difficult to determine whether it is a bird, a lizard, or a turtle, and finally the series ends in a straight bar without pretense of presenting any animal.”

Fig. 409. (S. about 1–3.) Collection of Mr. Leslie W. Hills, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The range of material is from Huronian slate or shale to red sandstone, granite, and porphyry. Usually the stone from which they are made is banded or contains spots of color. They are either red, gray, or brown, with variations. Sometimes feldspathic granite, diorite, and porphyritic-feldspar are made use of. Dr. William Beauchamp gives a very good description of some fifteen bird-stones.[[4]] I have reproduced none of the illustrations he gives, but as his text is timely, I quote at length from his paper:—

Fig. 410. (S. 1–1.) Collection of George Little, Xenia, Ohio.

“The theories about their use seem fanciful, as some certainly are. Two writers assert that they were worn by married or pregnant women only, and many have accepted this statement. Others think they were worn by conjurors, or fixed on the prows of canoes. It is enough to say that some of the perforations are not adapted to any of these uses. It seems better to class them with the war and prey or hunting gods of the Zuñis, some of which they resemble. In that case the holes, of whatever kind, would have given a firm hold on the thongs which bound the arrows to the amulet, a matter of importance in an irregular figure.

“These perforations form the most important feature. The amulet may be but a simple bar, but to each end of the base is a sloping hole, bored from the end and base and meeting. To this necessary feature may be added a simple head or tail, and there may also be projecting ears. None of these are essential. They are but appropriate or tasteful accessories.

“Two notable collections contain a large number of amulets. In the Canadian collection at Toronto there are about fifty bird-amulets.”

Dr. Beauchamp mentions Mr. Douglass’s seventy specimens in the American Museum of Natural History collection, and also refers to the rarity of bar-amulets in Western New York:—

“They were variable in material as well as form, although most commonly made of striped slate. Perhaps full half have projecting ears, when of the bird-form. In the wider forms, usually of harder materials, there are often cross-bars on the under side, in which the perforations are made. Occasionally these are not entirely enclosed, yet are without signs of breakage. This seems to prove that these were not intended as means of attaching them to any larger object, on which they would rest, but rather for fastening articles upon them, as in the Zuñi amulets already mentioned, and which were illustrated by Mr. Frank H. Cushing, in the Second Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. On comparison a general resemblance to these will be seen, and in a few cases it is quite striking. That they were used in this way, rather than in those suggested by others, is a reasonable conclusion which gains strength with fuller study. As a class they belong to the St. Lawrence basin.”

Fig. 411. (S. 1–1.) Side view of Fig. 410.

Mr. Gerard Fowke and Professor David Boyle should be quoted upon this subject. Mr. Fowke says:[[5]]

Fig. 412. (S. 1–1.) Rev. William Beauchamp’s collection. From Michigan.

“Stone relics of bird-form are quite common north of the Ohio River, but are exceedingly rare south of that stream. [He illustrates the same specimen figured by Dr. Wilson.]

“According to Gilman,[[6]] the bird-shape stones were worn on the head by the Indian women, but only after marriage. Abbott quotes Colonel Whittlesey to the effect that they were worn by Indian women to denote pregnancy, and from William Penn that when the squaws were ready to marry they wore something on their heads to indicate the fact.

Fig. 413. (S. 1–4.) Peabody Museum, Cambridge.

“Jones[[7]] quotes from De Bry that the conjurors among the Virginia Indians wore a small black bird above one of their ears as a badge of office.”

Professor Boyle[[8]] says: “Although for convenience known as bird-amulets—most of them being apparently highly conventionalized bird-forms—now and again one sees specimens that are not suggestive of birds, whatever else they may have been intended to symbolize. In some instances there has not been any attempt to imitate eyes even by means of a depression, but in the majority of cases the eyes are enormously exaggerated, and stand out like buttons on a short stalk, fully half an inch beyond the side of the head. In every finished specimen the hole is bored diagonally through the middle of each end of the base, upwards and downwards. If merely for suspension when being carried, one hole would be sufficient, but the probability is that these were intended for fastening the ‘amulets’ to some other object, but what, or for what purpose, is not known.

“It has been suggested that these articles ... were employed in playing a game; that they are totems of tribes or clans; and that they were talismans in some way connected with the hunt for waterfowl. They are, at all events, among the most curious and highly finished specimens of Indian handicraft in stone found in this part of America, and the collection of them in the Provincial Archæological Museum is said to be the best that has been made.”

Fig. 414. (S. 3–8.) Effigy of a whale. Andover collection. This stone was found near Fall River, Massachusetts. It appears to be an effigy of a whale. Numbers of rude effigies, more or less whale-like in character, are found along the Atlantic seaboard in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Doubtless the whale would excite wonder in the minds of aborigines—hence the effigies.

Fig. 415. (S. 1–2.) Bear effigy. Found near the corner of Essex and Boston Streets, Salem, Massachusetts, in 1830.

Fig. 416. (S. 1–3.) Group of various objects from ruins near Phœnix, Arizona. Phillips Academy collection.

Professor Boyle speaks of the bar-amulet after treating of bird-stones, but he does not class them as the same kind of ceremonials.

Frank Hamilton Cushing illustrated bird-stones and flat tablets, and he thought the bird-stones were tied on flat tablets and these worn on the head. I inclined to that opinion when I published “The Bird-Stone Ceremonial,” but now I do not believe this, for the reason that most bird-stones could not be conveniently tied to flat tablets.

Fig. 417. (S. 1–1.) Phillips Academy collection.

That they are found in regions where there are many mounds used to be stated, but this is hardly correct. They have never been found in a mound, and I do not know of an instance where they have been found in graves. They occur more in northern Ohio, Canada, and New York State than elsewhere except Michigan and Wisconsin. I firmly believe that they were not made and used by mound-building tribes but antedate the mound-building period. As to the exact purpose of these things I leave others to judge.