Shell gorget
Encyclopedia
A shell gorget is a Native American
art form of polished, carved shell
pendant
s worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated (pierced with openings).
Shell gorgets were most common in Eastern Woodlands of the United States
, during in the Hopewell tradition (200 BCE–500 CE) and Mississippian cultural period
(ca. 800–1500 CE); however, tribes from other regions and time periods, also carved shell gorgets. The earliest shell gorgets date back to 3000 years BP
. They are believed to have been insignia of status or rank, either civic, military, or religious, or amulets of protective medicine. Due to the placement of the holes in the gorgets, they are also thought to be spinners
that could produce whistling sounds.
Lightning whelk
(Busycon contrarium) is the most common shell used for gorgets. Other shells, such as the true conch or Strombus
, as well as freshwater mussels, are also carved into gorgets. Today, due to environmental causes, harvested lightning whelks are significantly smaller than in precontact times. These earlier shells typically ranged from 6 to 12 inches in length.
Harvested off the coasts of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico
, the shells were traded through the Eastern Woodlands. This native trade continued into the 16th century.
Gorgets are carved from the penultimate whorl
of the shell. A blank is cut or broken out, then ground smooth. Holes for suspension and decoration are drilled, sometimes with a bow drills or chert
drills. The gorget forms a concave shape and, when engraved, the interior is polished and decorated.
While most gorgets are circular, some are shaped as rectangles with rounded corners, maskettes, or other novel shapes. An extremely elaborate pendant from Spiro Mounds
is shaped as two hands connected by a common beaded bracelet.
cultures created gorgets from slate and copper, but the Hopewell Exchange System brought exotic shells from the Gulf northward. Initially, Hopewellian peoples carved plain shell gorgets around 1000 BCE. Engraved gorgets appeared in the late Hopewell. A Glacial Kame Culture
marine-shell gorget from the Great Lakes
dates from 1000 BCE and features an engraved bear or opossum with an umbilical cord.
Mississippian shell gorgets were traded widely, common designs have a widespread geographical distribution. Calusa
people of southern Florida harvested and carved gorgets. Coiled rattlesnakes gorgets were found among the Guale
Indians of Georgia
.
Mask gorgets, although rare, are found throughout the southeast, including Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia. The masks have bas-relief noses, drilled eyes, engraved or drill mouths, and sometimes forked-eye motifs or zigzags under the eyes. Small shell cameos, under two inches wide, were found at Spiro Mounds.
. Extremely common designs include the triskele, coiled rattlesnake, water spider, chunkey
player, and birdman, sometimes called a Falcon Inpersonater.
Native Americans, art historians, and anthropologists all have a wide range of often conflicting interpretations of the SECC iconography. Coiled rattlesnake gorgets were worn by young people and are believed to relate to age as opposed to status. The forked-eye motif, commonly identified as markings from a peregrine falcon
, references excellent vision and hunting skill among Muscogee Creek people. "Strength of Life" design is interpreted by Kvokovtee Scott and Phillip Deer (Muscogee medicine man) as referencing a whirlwind and dancing movement
.
There are over 30 pre-contact examples of the Cox Mound gorget style, found in Tennessee
and northern Alabama
and dating from 1250-1450 CE. The Cox Mound gorget style features four woodpecker heads facing counter-clockwise, a four-lopped square motif, and a cross within a rayed circle. The four-looped square, or guilloche
, is considered by some to be a "whirling sun" motif, or a priestly or chiefly litter
; by some, the earth held up by cords to the Sky Vault at the four cardinal points; and by others, the path of life with four stages of maturity. Woodpeckers are considered warrior birds among Cherokee
and medicine birds that can extract illnesses among Muscogee Creeks. The birds are also sometimes interpreted as the four winds. The rayed circle or sun is interpreted literally, a deity or ancestors, council, and/or sacred fire. The entire design could also illustrate the Yuchi
myth of the winds.
A gorget from the Castalian Springs Mound Site
in Tennessee features a man holding a mace and severed head. This has been interpreted by some anthropologists as a "flying shaman."
Some agreement can be found in interpreting the cross-in-circle design, which references the sun and the ceremonial fire, fed by four logs aligned to cardinal directions. Another design widely agreed upon is the water spider with a cross-in-circle design on its cephalothorax
. The spider gorgets illustrate a traditional story, common to many southeastern tribes from the Atlantic Coast
to Missouri
, about the water spider bringing fire to humanity.
, such as the Quechan
wore defenestrated gorgets made from bivalve shells and strung on vegetal cordage.
) of Florida is the most widely recognized contemporary gorget carver. He is a self-taught carver but studied oral history under Seminole
medicine woman, Mary Frances Johns. He uses dental tools to carve shells with both traditional Muscogee Creek iconography and as well own representational artwork. Muscogee Creek-Cherokee carver, Knokovtee Scott studied under tribal historians, traditionalists, and medicine men. Scott carved gorgets with purple freshwater mussel shell harvested from near Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Grady Smith (Muscogee Creek) from Florida draws on numerous sources for his shell gorgets, including designs from Calusa wood carvings.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
art form of polished, carved shell
Mollusc shell
The mollusc shell is typically a calcareous exoskeleton which encloses, supports and protects the soft parts of an animal in the phylum Mollusca, which includes snails, clams, tusk shells, and several other classes...
pendant
Pendant
A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, when the ensemble may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. In modern French "pendant" is the gerund form of “hanging”...
s worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated (pierced with openings).
Shell gorgets were most common in Eastern Woodlands of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, during in the Hopewell tradition (200 BCE–500 CE) and Mississippian cultural period
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
(ca. 800–1500 CE); however, tribes from other regions and time periods, also carved shell gorgets. The earliest shell gorgets date back to 3000 years BP
Before Present
Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...
. They are believed to have been insignia of status or rank, either civic, military, or religious, or amulets of protective medicine. Due to the placement of the holes in the gorgets, they are also thought to be spinners
Bullroarer (music)
The bullroarer, rhombus, or turndun, is an ancient ritual musical instrument and a device historically used for communicating over greatly-extended distances. It dates to the Paleolithic period, being found in Ukraine dating from 17,000 BC...
that could produce whistling sounds.
Materials and techniques
Lightning whelk
The lightning whelk, scientific name Busycon contrarium, is an edible species of very large predatory sea snail or whelk, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Buccinidae, the busycon whelks. This species has a left-handed or sinistral shell...
(Busycon contrarium) is the most common shell used for gorgets. Other shells, such as the true conch or Strombus
Strombus
Strombus, common name the true conchs, is a genus of medium to large sea snails with an operculum, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Strombidae, the true conchs and their immediate relatives....
, as well as freshwater mussels, are also carved into gorgets. Today, due to environmental causes, harvested lightning whelks are significantly smaller than in precontact times. These earlier shells typically ranged from 6 to 12 inches in length.
Harvested off the coasts of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
, the shells were traded through the Eastern Woodlands. This native trade continued into the 16th century.
Gorgets are carved from the penultimate whorl
Whorl (mollusc)
A whorl is a single, complete 360° revolution or turn in the spiral growth of a mollusc shell. A spiral configuration of the shell is found in of numerous gastropods, but it is also found in shelled cephalopods including Nautilus, Spirula and the large extinct subclass of cephalopods known as the...
of the shell. A blank is cut or broken out, then ground smooth. Holes for suspension and decoration are drilled, sometimes with a bow drills or chert
Chert
Chert is a fine-grained silica-rich microcrystalline, cryptocrystalline or microfibrous sedimentary rock that may contain small fossils. It varies greatly in color , but most often manifests as gray, brown, grayish brown and light green to rusty red; its color is an expression of trace elements...
drills. The gorget forms a concave shape and, when engraved, the interior is polished and decorated.
While most gorgets are circular, some are shaped as rectangles with rounded corners, maskettes, or other novel shapes. An extremely elaborate pendant from Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds is an important pre-Columbian Caddoan Mississippian culture archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma in the United States. The site is located seven miles north of Spiro, and is the only prehistoric Native American archaeological site in Oklahoma open to the public...
is shaped as two hands connected by a common beaded bracelet.
Archaic and Hopewell
AdenaAdena
Adena can mean:*Adena, Ohio, USA*Adena, Colorado, USA*The Adena culture, a Mound-building Native American culture.*The Adena Mansion, Thomas Worthington's home and estate in Chillicothe, Ohio...
cultures created gorgets from slate and copper, but the Hopewell Exchange System brought exotic shells from the Gulf northward. Initially, Hopewellian peoples carved plain shell gorgets around 1000 BCE. Engraved gorgets appeared in the late Hopewell. A Glacial Kame Culture
Glacial Kame Culture
The Glacial Kame Culture was a culture of Archaic people that occupied southern Ontario, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana from around 8000 BC to 1000 BC. The name of this culture derives from its members' practice of burying their dead atop glacier-deposited gravel hills...
marine-shell gorget from the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
dates from 1000 BCE and features an engraved bear or opossum with an umbilical cord.
Mississippian
Calusa
The Calusa were a Native American people who lived on the coast and along the inner waterways of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region; at the time of European contact, the Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture...
people of southern Florida harvested and carved gorgets. Coiled rattlesnakes gorgets were found among the Guale
Guale
Guale was an historic Native American chiefdom along the coast of present-day Georgia and the Sea Islands. Spanish Florida established its Roman Catholic missionary system in the chiefdom in the late 16th century. During the late 17th century and early 18th century, Guale society was shattered...
Indians of Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
.
Mask gorgets, although rare, are found throughout the southeast, including Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia. The masks have bas-relief noses, drilled eyes, engraved or drill mouths, and sometimes forked-eye motifs or zigzags under the eyes. Small shell cameos, under two inches wide, were found at Spiro Mounds.
Iconography
Iconography on the shell gorgets comes from the Southeastern Ceremonial ComplexSoutheastern Ceremonial Complex
The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is the name given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian culture that coincided with their adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization from...
. Extremely common designs include the triskele, coiled rattlesnake, water spider, chunkey
Chunkey
Chunkey is a game of Native American origin. It was played by rolling disc shaped stones across the ground and throwing spears at them in an attempt to place the spear as close to the stopped stone as possible...
player, and birdman, sometimes called a Falcon Inpersonater.
Native Americans, art historians, and anthropologists all have a wide range of often conflicting interpretations of the SECC iconography. Coiled rattlesnake gorgets were worn by young people and are believed to relate to age as opposed to status. The forked-eye motif, commonly identified as markings from a peregrine falcon
Peregrine Falcon
The Peregrine Falcon , also known as the Peregrine, and historically as the Duck Hawk in North America, is a widespread bird of prey in the family Falconidae. A large, crow-sized falcon, it has a blue-gray back, barred white underparts, and a black head and "moustache"...
, references excellent vision and hunting skill among Muscogee Creek people. "Strength of Life" design is interpreted by Kvokovtee Scott and Phillip Deer (Muscogee medicine man) as referencing a whirlwind and dancing movement
Stomp dance
The Stomp Dance is performed by various Eastern Woodland tribes and Native American communities, including the Muscogee, Yuchi, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Delaware, Miami, Caddo, Ottawa, Peoria, Shawnee, Seminole, Natchez, and Seneca-Cayuga tribes...
.
There are over 30 pre-contact examples of the Cox Mound gorget style, found in Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
and northern Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
and dating from 1250-1450 CE. The Cox Mound gorget style features four woodpecker heads facing counter-clockwise, a four-lopped square motif, and a cross within a rayed circle. The four-looped square, or guilloche
Guilloché
Guilloché is a decorative engraving technique in which a very precise intricate repetitive pattern or design is mechanically engraved into an underlying material with fine detail...
, is considered by some to be a "whirling sun" motif, or a priestly or chiefly litter
Litter (vehicle)
The litter is a class of wheelless vehicles, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of persons. Examples of litter vehicles include lectica , jiao [较] , sedan chairs , palanquin , Woh , gama...
; by some, the earth held up by cords to the Sky Vault at the four cardinal points; and by others, the path of life with four stages of maturity. Woodpeckers are considered warrior birds among Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
and medicine birds that can extract illnesses among Muscogee Creeks. The birds are also sometimes interpreted as the four winds. The rayed circle or sun is interpreted literally, a deity or ancestors, council, and/or sacred fire. The entire design could also illustrate the Yuchi
Yuchi
For the Chinese surname 尉迟, see Yuchi.The Yuchi, also spelled Euchee and Uchee, are a Native American Indian tribe who traditionally lived in the eastern Tennessee River valley in Tennessee in the 16th century. During the 17th century, they moved south to Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina...
myth of the winds.
A gorget from the Castalian Springs Mound Site
Castalian Springs Mound Site
The Castalian Springs Mound Site is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located near the small unincorporated community of Castalian Springs in Sumner County, Tennessee. The site was first excavated in the 1890s and again as recently as the 2005 to 2011 archaeological field school led by...
in Tennessee features a man holding a mace and severed head. This has been interpreted by some anthropologists as a "flying shaman."
Some agreement can be found in interpreting the cross-in-circle design, which references the sun and the ceremonial fire, fed by four logs aligned to cardinal directions. Another design widely agreed upon is the water spider with a cross-in-circle design on its cephalothorax
Cephalothorax
The cephalothorax is a tagma of various arthropods, comprising the head and the thorax fused together, as distinct from the abdomen behind. The word cephalothorax is derived from the Greek words for head and thorax...
. The spider gorgets illustrate a traditional story, common to many southeastern tribes from the Atlantic Coast
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
to Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, about the water spider bringing fire to humanity.
Historic gorgets
Turtle shells and stones have also infrequently been carved into gorgets. In the 18th century, metal medallions replaced shell gorgets among Eastern tribes. In the late 19th century, women from tribes along the Colorado RiverColorado River
The Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...
, such as the Quechan
Quechan
The Quechan are a Native American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the border with Mexico...
wore defenestrated gorgets made from bivalve shells and strung on vegetal cordage.
Contemporary
Dan Townsend (Muscogee Creek-CherokeeCherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
) of Florida is the most widely recognized contemporary gorget carver. He is a self-taught carver but studied oral history under Seminole
Seminole
The Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily in that state and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in...
medicine woman, Mary Frances Johns. He uses dental tools to carve shells with both traditional Muscogee Creek iconography and as well own representational artwork. Muscogee Creek-Cherokee carver, Knokovtee Scott studied under tribal historians, traditionalists, and medicine men. Scott carved gorgets with purple freshwater mussel shell harvested from near Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Grady Smith (Muscogee Creek) from Florida draws on numerous sources for his shell gorgets, including designs from Calusa wood carvings.
Further reading
- Phillips, Phillip and James A. Brown. Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma, Parts 1 and 2. Cambridge: Peabody Museum Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0873657952 and ISBN 978-0873658027.
External links
- Archaic shell gorgets, Virtual First Ohioans
- Archaeology & the Native Peoples of Tennessee, Frank H. McClung Museum