Page 586 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

crown of snakes sometimes referred to as a head-
dress of the cult-bringers, or emissaries of the
solar deity. These serpents, which combine the
rattlesnake with the horned cougar, have mythic
roots in common with the piasa, but without the
wings that are ever-present in later underworld
monsters. The eye in the hand is conceivably part
of the same theme. Since the eye is substituted for
a rayed solar disc in many instances, it is reason-
able to conclude that the eye here is an affiliated
symbol with a meaning similar to the belief held
by historic Choctaw that the solar deity watched
them with a blazing eye (Hudson 1976,126).
The hand in this connection is presumably the
medium through which gifts are conferred on
humankind. J.A.B.

43*
MONSTER EFFIGY BOWL
1440-1550
Middle Mississippian culture (Moundville m)
diorite
3
3
approx. 29 x 40 (n /8 x i$ /4)
National Museum of the American Indian,
Smithsonian Institution

This bowl was discovered, deliberately broken,
among the grave goods of an elite burial from a
cemetery at Moundville in central Alabama
(Moore 1905, 237-240, figs. 167-170). It was
interred with a piece of copper sheeting probably
belonging to a headdress, marine shell beads, a
cougar pipe of the late style, and a bottle in the
Moundville engraved, var. Wiggens type. This
burial can be dated between A.D. 1400-1550.
Although its discoverer identified the animal as a
male wood duck, certain details reveal that it is
actually a representation of the monstrous bird-
headed serpent. Body cross-hatching, trilobate
body markings, and tear-drop eye markings are
properties of the double-ended knotted snake
monster found on engraved shell cups of the
Braden School style, complete with a similar crest
(Phillips and Brown 1978,156, pis. 24, 69, 70).
Since this monstrous form is more typical of
the period before A.D. 1300, the handsome bowl
may have been an heirloom at the time of its
interment. J.A.B.

THE AMERICAS 585