From the employment of shells in their complete state their modification for convenience is but a slight step, and when once suggested is easily accomplished—holes are bored, handles are carved or added, margins are ground down, useless parts are broken away, and surfaces are polished. The columellæ are removed from the large univalves, and the parts used for a great variety of purposes. The mechanical devices employed have been very simple, such as flint implements for cutting, and rough stones for breaking and grinding. Hand-drills were at first used for perforating; but later mechanically revolving drills were devised.
PL. XXI—SHELL VESSELS.
1. From a plate in De Bry.
2. From a Peruvian grave.
3. Pecten, California grave. (1/1)
4. Haliotis, California grave. (3/4)
VESSELS.
I shall not attempt to take up the various classes of objects in shell in the order of their development, as it would be hard to say whether food utensils, weapons, or ornaments were first used. It is also difficult to distinguish weapons proper from implements employed in the arts, such as celts, knives, hammers, etc., as it is probable they were all variously used according to the needs of their possessors.
Having briefly treated of natural vessels, it seems convenient to go on with vessels shaped by art. Early explorers in many portions of the American continent record, in their writing, the use by the natives of shells of various kinds as vessels. We have in this case historic evidence which bears directly upon prehistoric customs. Indeed, it is not impossible that the very shells used by the natives first encountered by Europeans, are the identical ones exhumed so recently from burial places, as many of the finer specimens of shell objects have associated with them articles of undoubted European manufacture. A notice of the earliest recorded use of these objects naturally introduces the prehistoric use.
With many nations that were bountifully supplied with convenient earthen and stone vessels, as well perhaps as others of the hard shells of fruits, the sea-shell was nevertheless a favorite vessel for drinking. Herrera describes the use of silver, gold, shell, and gourd cups at the banquets of the elegant monarch Montezuma II, who "sometimes drank out of cocoas and natural shells richly set with jewels." Other authors make similar statements. Clavigero says that "beautiful sea-shells or naturally formed vessels, curiously varnished, were used." In many of the periodical feasts of the Florida Indians shells were in high favor, and it is related how at a certain stage of one of the dances two men came in, each bearing very large conch-shells full of black drink, which was an infusion of the young leaves of the cassine (probably Ilex Cassine, L.). After prolonged ceremonies, this drink was offered to the king, to the whites present, and then to the entire assembly.[4] It is a remarkable fact that a similar custom has been noticed among the Moquis of Arizona. Lieutenant Bourke witnessed the snake dance of that tribe a few years ago, and states that in front of the altar containing the snakes was a covered earthen vessel, which contained four large sea-shells and a liquid of some unknown composition, of which the men who handled the snakes freely drank. Vessels thus associated with important ceremonial customs of savages would naturally be of first importance in their sepulchral rites. De Bry, in the remarkable plates of his "Brevis Narratio," furnishes two instances of such use. Plate 19 shows a procession of nude females who scatter locks of their hair upon a row of graves, on each of which has been placed a large univalve shell, probably containing food or drink for the dead, and in Plate 40 we have another illustration of this custom, the shell being placed on the heap of earth raised above the grave of a departed chieftain. In Plate XXI, Fig. 1, an outline of the shell represented is given; it resembles most nearly the pearly nautilus, but, being drawn by the artist from memory or description, we are at liberty to suppose the shell actually used was a large Busycon from the neighboring coast, probably more or less altered by art. Haywood, Hakluyt, Tonti, Bartram, Adair, and others mention the use of shells for drinking vessels, and in much more recent times Indians are known to have put them to a similar use.
On account of the rapidity with which they decay, we can know nothing of surface deposits of shells by prehistoric or even by comparatively recent peoples. It is only through the custom of burying valued articles with the dead that any of these relics are preserved to us. When we consider the quantity of such objects necessarily destroyed by time, exposure, and use, we marvel at the vast numbers that must have been, within a limited period of years, carried inland. In the more recent mounds there may be found specimens obtained by the Indians through the agency of white traders, but the vast majority were derived doubtless from purely aboriginal sources. Many instances could be cited to show that the whites have engaged in the trade in shells. Kohl, in speaking of early trade with the Ojibways of Lake Superior, states that when the traders "exhibited a fine large shell and held it to the ears of the Indians, these latter were astonished, saying they heard the roaring of the ocean in it, and paid for such a marvelous shell furs to the value of $30 or $40, and even more."[5]
Cabeça de Vaca[6] traded in sea-shells and "hearts" of sea-shells among the Charruco Indians of the Gulf coast nearly three hundred and fifty years ago.