In Volume VI of Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, a pin, probably of shell, is shown in a plate illustrating relics from South Carolina.
A few localities have furnished bone, stone, and clay pins similar to these in shape. Specimens of the latter may be found both in the National and Peabody museums. They were probably intended as stoppers for bottle-shaped earthen vessels. Bone pins are generally headless, and have in most cases been intended as implements for perforating and for sewing. Mr. Schumacher found a pin-like object of bone on the island of San Clemente, Cal. It resembles the shell pins pretty closely, having a somewhat spherical head. It is figured by Professor Putnam in a recent work.[57]
As already stated, the exact uses to which these pins were applied by the mound-building tribes are unknown; various uses have been suggested by archæologists. The favorite idea seems to be that they were hair-pins, used by the savages to dress and ornament the hair. It would seem that many of them are too clumsy for such use, although when new they must have been very pretty objects. The shorter and headless varieties would certainly be quite useless. Similar objects of bone or ivory, often tastefully carved, are used by the natives of Alaska for scratching the head, although it seems improbable that this should have been their most important function.
Professor Dall suggests that some of the shell pins may have been used as were the "blood-pins" of the Indians of the northwest coast. When game is killed by an arrow or bullet, the pin is inserted in the wound, and the skin drawn and stitched over the flat head, so that the much valued blood may be prevented from escaping. A small, very tastefully carved specimen of these pins is given in Plate XXXI, Fig. 4. It was obtained from the Indians of Oregon. A similar specimen comes from San Miguel Island, Cal.
It is possible that they may have served some purpose in the arts or games of the ancient peoples; yet when we come to consider the very great importance given to ornaments by all barbarians, we return naturally to the view that they were probably designed for personal decoration.
From the Pacific coast we have shell pins of a very different type. They also are made from the columellæ of large marine univalves, and were probably used as ornaments, doubtless to a great extent as pendants. These objects have been obtained in great numbers from the ancient graves of the California coast, at Santa Barbara, at Dos Pueblos, and on the neighboring islands of Santa Clara, Santa Catalina, San Clemente, and Santa Rosa. Professor Dall is of the opinion that the shell mostly used is the Purpura crispata, the smaller specimens probably being derived from the Mitra maura.
Such a very concise description of these objects is given by Prof. F. W. Putnam in a recent paper that I beg leave to quote it here, omitting his references to figures: "A columella was ground down to the required size and shape, and made into a pendant by boring a hole through the larger end. In order to make this pendant still more attractive, the spiral groove is filled with asphaltum, or a mixture of that material and a red pigment. Sometimes the spiral groove was so nearly, or even wholly, obliterated in the process of grinding the columella into shape as to make it necessary to enlarge or even recut the groove in order to make a place for the much-loved asphaltum." Another form, made from another shell, is described, the whorls of which are "loose and open, so that a natural tube exists throughout the length of the spire; at the same time the spiral groove in the central portion is very narrow; consequently it has to be artificially enlarged for the insertion of the asphaltum, which thus winds spirally about the shell. As the natural orifice at the large end of the shell seems to have been too large for properly adjusting and confining the ornament as desired, this difficulty was overcome by inserting a small shell of Dentalium, or by making a little plug of shell, which is carefully fitted and bored."[58]
The national collection contains upward of fifty of these pins, which come from ancient graves at Santa Barbara and Dos Pueblos, Cal., and from the islands of Santa Cruz and San Miguel. These vary in length from one to five inches, the well-finished specimens seldom reaching one half an inch in diameter. At the upper end they round off somewhat abruptly to an obtuse point, but taper to a sharp point at the lower end, something like a cigar. Two fine examples are shown in Figs. 1 and 2, Plate XXXI. All show the spiral groove, and nearly all have portions of the asphaltum remaining. The columellæ from which they are made may be to some extent naturally perforated, but are certainly not sufficiently so to permit the ready passage of a cord. The points are seldom sharp, and are often broken off. A bit of Dentalium inserted into the perforation and set with asphaltum helps to enforce the point and to guard against further breakage. The larger specimens are seldom perforated transversely at either end, while the smaller ones are almost always perforated at the larger end, which is slightly flattened. A good example is shown in Fig. 5, Plate XXXI.
A peculiar bulb-pointed specimen is illustrated in Fig. 6, Plate XXXI. The bulb is made from the upper end of the columella. There are six of these pins in the collection.