Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans / Second annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, pages 179-306

by William Henry Holmes

The Human Face,

The Human Figure: and to these I append The Frog, which is found in Arizona only, and although carved in shell does not appear to have been used as a pendant, as no perforations are visible.

Within the United States ancient tablets containing engraved designs are apparently confined to the Atlantic slope, and are not found to any extent beyond the limits of the district occupied by the stone-grave peoples. Early explorers along the Atlantic coast mention the use of engraved gorgets by a number of tribes. Modern examples may be found occasionally among the Indians of the northwest coast as well as upon the islands of the central Pacific.

THE CROSS.

The discoverers and early explorers of the New World were filled with surprise when they beheld their own sacred emblem, the cross, mingling with the pagan devices of the western barbarian. Writers have speculated in vain—the mystery yet remains unsolved. Attempts to connect the use of the cross by prehistoric Americans with its use in the East have signally failed, and we are compelled to look on its occurrence here as one of those strange coincidences so often found in the practices of peoples totally foreign to each other.

If written history does not establish beyond a doubt the fact that the cross had a place in our aboriginal symbolism, we have but to turn to the pages of the great archæologic record, where we find that it occupies a place in ancient American art so intimately interwoven with conceptions peculiar to the continent that it cannot be separated from them. It is found associated with other prehistoric remains throughout nearly the entire length and breadth of America.

I have the pleasure of presenting a few new examples of this emblem, obtained from the district at one time occupied by the mound-builders. The examples are carved in shell or engraved upon disks of shell which have been employed as pendant gorgets. In the study of these particular relics, one important fact in recent history must be kept constantly in mind. The first explorers were accompanied by Christian zealots, who spared no effort to root out the native superstitions and introduce a foreign religion, of which the cross was the all-important symbol. This emblem was generally accepted by the savages as the only tangible feature of a new system of belief that was filled with subtleties too profound for their comprehension. As a result, the cross was at once introduced into the regalia of the natives; at first probably in a European form and material attached to a string of beads in precisely the manner that they had been accustomed to suspend their own trinkets and gorgets; but soon, no doubt, delineated or carved by their own hands upon tablets of stone and copper and shell, in the place of their own peculiar conceptions. From the time of La Salle down to the extinction of the savage in the middle Mississippi province, the cross was kept constantly before him, and its presence may thus be accounted for in such remains as post-date the advent of the whites. Year after year articles of European manufacture are being discovered in the most unexpected places, and we shall find it impossible to assign any single example of these crosses to a prehistoric period, with the assurance that our statements will not some day be challenged. It is certainly unfortunate that the American origin of any work of art resembling European forms must rest forever under a cloud of suspicion. As long as a doubt exists in regard to the origin of a relic, it is useless to employ it in a discussion where important deductions are to be made. At the same time it should not be forgotten that the cross was undoubtedly used as a symbol by the prehistoric nations of the South, and consequently that it was probably also known in the North. A great majority of the relics associated with it in ancient mounds and burial places are undoubtedly aboriginal. In the case of the shell gorgets, the tablets themselves belong to an American type, and are highly characteristic of the art of the Mississippi Valley. A majority of the designs engraved upon them are also characteristic of the same district.

We find at rare intervals designs that are characteristically foreign; these, whether Mexican or European, are objects of special interest and merit the closest possible examination. That the design under consideration, as well as every other engraved upon these tablets, is symbolic or otherwise significant, I do not for a moment doubt; but the probabilities as to the European or American origin of the symbol of the cross found in this region are pretty evenly balanced. In its delineation there is certainly nothing to indicate its origin. By reference to Plate LIII it will be seen that in all the examples given it is a simple and symmetrical cross, which might be duplicated a thousand times in the religious art of any country. A study of the designs associated with the cross in these gorgets is instructive, but does not lead to any definite result. In one case the cross is inscribed upon the back of a great spider; in another it is surrounded by a rectangular framework of lines, looped at the corners, and guarded by four mysterious birds, while in others it is without attendant characters; but the workmanship is purely aboriginal. I have not seen a single example of engraving upon shell that suggested a foreign hand, or a design, with the exception of this one, that could claim a European derivation.

Some very ingenious theories have been elaborated in attempting to account for the presence of the cross among American symbols. Brinton believes that the great importance attached to the points of the compass—the four quarters of the heavens—by savage peoples has given rise to the sign of the cross. With others the cross is a phallic symbol, derived, by some obscure process of evolution, from the veneration accorded to the reciprocal principle in nature. It is also frequently associated with sun-worship, and is recognized as a symbol of the sun—the four arms being remaining rays left after a gradual process of elimination. Whatever is finally determined in reference to the origin of the cross as a religious symbol in America will probably result from the exhaustive study of the history, language, and art of the ancient peoples, combined with a thorough knowledge of the religious conceptions of modern tribes, and when these sources of information are all exhausted it is probable that the writer who asserts more than a probability will overreach his proofs.

Such delineations of the cross as we find embodied in ancient aboriginal art represent only the final stages of its evolution, and it is not to be expected that its origin can be traced through them. In one instance, however, a direct derivation from nature is suggested. The ancient Mexican pictographic manuscripts abound in representations of trees, conventionalized in such a manner as to resemble crosses; these apparently take an important part in the scenes depicted. By a comparison of these curious trees with the remarkable cross in the Palenque tablet, I have been led to the belief that they must have a common significance and origin. The analogies are indeed remarkable. The tree-cross in the paintings is often the central figure of a group in which priests offer sacrifice, or engage in some similar religious rite. The cross holds the same relation in the Palenque group. The branches of these cross-shaped trees terminate in clusters of symbolic fruit, and the arms of the cross are loaded down with symbols which, although highly conventionalized, have not yet entirely lost their vegetable character. The most remarkable feature, however, is not that the crosses resemble each other in these respects, but that they perform like functions in giving support to a symbolic bird which is perched upon the summit. This bird appears to be the important feature of the group, and to it, or the deity which it represents, the homage or sacrifice is offered. These analogies go still farther; the bases of the cross in the tablet and of the crosses in the paintings are made to rest upon a highly conventionalized figure of some mythical creature. A consideration of these facts seems to me to lead to the conclusion that the myths represented in all of these groups are identical, and that the cross and cross-like trees have a common origin. Whether that origin is in the tree on the one hand or in a cross otherwise evolved on the other I shall not attempt to say.