Page 588 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

435

HUMAN HEAD EFFIGY JAR
1400-1650
Middle Mississippian culture (Nodena)
earthenware (Carson red on buff)
15.6 x 18.5 (61/2 x 7/14)
National Museum of the American Indian,
Smithsonian Institution

Undoubtedly made in Arkansas, this Nodena-style
head pot is reported to have been found near
Paducah, Kentucky. These vessels were a specialty
of the native Americans living in the Memphis
area during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies. The products of different cultural groups
can be recognized by distinctive treatments of the
head, the style of facial tattooing, and the manner
in which this facial decoration is implemented.
These vessels are depictions of the dead, in which
closed eyes and curled-back lips mimic dried skin.
They belong to a category of mortuary shrine
heads and figures that could be produced locally
without difficulty.
The rise of earthenware mortuary figures is
434 presumably of some social and historical signifi-
cance. Earlier mortuary figures were made of
MALE HUMAN EFFIGY BOTTLE stone and wood and were carefully controlled in
their number and disposition. The rise of these
1400-1550 alternative pottery forms suggests a loosening of 436
Middle Mississippian culture (Walls) the elite's monopoly on the number of mortuary WATER BOTTLE
pottery (Bell Plain) representations and access to them by a broader
approx. 24 x 18 x 18 (0^/2 x /Vs x jVs)
spectrum of the society. Hence, these vessels 1400-1700
National Museum of the American Indian, may have been used in inclusive, clan-based ritual Middle Mississippian culture (Quapaw)
Smithsonian Institution contexts rather than in ceremonies confined to painted earthenware (Avenue polychrome)
(
24.1 y )
the elite. J.A.B. 9 2
The hunchback is a subject frequently incorpo- National Museum of the American Indian,
rated into this type of bottle. This vessel was Smithsonian Institution
found in Crittendon County, Arkansas, across the
river from Memphis (Moore 1911). Black polished This bottle was found at the mouth of the Arkan-
effigy vessels are a well-developed artform in the sas River in the eastern part of the state (Moore
culture of this archaeological phase. j. A. B. 1908, pi. 13). The vessel's color was applied with
the assistance of dye-resist technique; a trace of
the black, probably vegetable dye is visible (Ford
1961,179). This vessel dates to the late seven-
teenth century, but the design is a scalp-lock
motif that was developed at Moundville, Alabama,
in the fifteenth century. The five-pointed star
represents the solar disk painted on elite scalps.
The star form and the V-shaped lock of hair fall-
ing from the disk can be found on painted vessels.
They are also the subject of pendants made of
stone and of beaten copper at Moundville between
1400 and 1550 (Moore 1905). J.A.B.

THE AMERICAS 587