Page 590 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

439
NURSING MOTHER EFFIGY BOTTLE

1250-1350
Middle Mississippian culture (Sand Prairie?)
earthenware (Bell Plain)
7
3
14.9 x 9.7 ($ /8X3 /4)
Saint Louis Science Center
In ceramics, female figures were infrequently rep-
resented. The origin of this figure may have been
a craft place in what is now Arkansas or Tennes-
see, and may have been brought by trade to Saint
Clair County, Illinois, where it was found (Blake
and Houser 1978, pi. 7). J.A.B.

440
HUMAN EFFIGY PIPE

11OO-12OO
Cahokian culture (Stirling?)
stone (fireclay?)
3
27.5 x 23 (io /4 x yVs)
University of Arkansas Museum, fayetteville

Because of its large size, this pipe has been dubbed
Big Boy (Brown 1976). Although it was dis-
covered in a deposit at the Spiro site in eastern
Oklahoma dating around A.D. 1400, the piece was
probably crafted in the Cahokia, Illinois, area at
least a century earlier, when shrine figurines of
this style were made (Emerson 1982). The red
fireclay material was probably available nearby in
Missouri. Originally this piece was crafted as a
figurine and was later converted to use as a pipe.
The subject of this pipe, a falcon impersonator
in a trance, can be identified from the figure's
dress. A carved feather cloak, signifying the
falcon, is draped over the figure's back. The head-
dress is a copper plate fitted into a frame held in
place by a strap beneath the bun of hair. A long
braid and a rope of beads complete the outfit.
Another version of this theme can be seen in cat. characteristic Pinocchio noses. Red Horn bears
437. The "eye" in the headdress is probably a ver- the alternative name of "He-who-wears-human-
sion of the eye in cat. 430. The ear ornaments are heads-as-earrings" in historic Iowa and Winne-
long-nosed god maskettes that identify the figure bago mythology of the Oneota culture. An under-
more precisely as the mythic Red Horn (Hall lying theme of the Red Horn myth is the
1991, 30-33). Limitations of the material conferral of ritual kinship upon strangers in a
prevented the sculptor from providing the highly function similar to that of the Calumet ceremony
conventionalized face-mask ornaments with their of historic times (Hall 1991, 3.1). j. A. B.

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