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Actually, I saw those pictures posted on this forum. I just did a search. They are in the old postings in the material section. I also found a couple of URLs myself: http://www.usaplaza.com/scripts/wcom_producttree.asp?StoreID=1008&ProductID=30775 and http://www.artifactsetc.com/special2.htm However, I plead ignorance about whose artifacts these are and what significance a rattlesnake might have, so maybe someone else knows.
Techteach
Hell All , the rattles snake is a good choice.
The use of a rattle snake motif in southeatern tribal affairs was a very powerful element, it shows up on all types of items , baskets, blow guns, darts, pottery etc, aswell there is a Cherokee booger dance mask with a rattle snake on the head…… it was used as a protective device.
There are many versions of this type of pattern on shell gorgets and so many variations over a wide spread area on a simular theme, including gaurdian of the house, one book mentioned a particular type buried only with high status women.
The use of diamond patterns in bead work is also related to the rattle snake, especially amongst the Seminole groups.
There is a rattle snake motif amongst the Louisiana tribes (and the western southeast) that is a dotted curvuliear pattern used on baskets, from the caddos and Chetimachas probably others aswell.
I hope this helps, all the best Tom
And there’s the famous Snake Mound (identified as Adena Culture) in Southern Ohio in an area inhabited by the Siouan speaking Mosopelea about 1670 per Swanton’s map in “Indian Tribes of North America”.
On p.230 of that source… “Mosopelea. This tribe may have lived within the boundaries of Kentucky for a brief time, perhaps at the mouth of the Cumberland River, when they were on their way from Ohio to the lower Mississippi.”
Here’s another URL with 4 different snakes:
http://www.mississippian-artifacts.com/html/shellorn.html
My daughter, a freshman in college, who took Native American studies this year, thinks that its meaning is protection, that the snake is dangerous and protects the wearer. If this is true, I like it better than what this page says – it says it has a meaning of age. As one about to hit one of those age milestones in a couple of weeks, I prefer her description. Freaked me out when I found this page – one gorget was found at Lick Creek in Tennessee, I believe. My people were in PA and Ohio. The PA location has a Lick Creek and the Ohio county was Licking.
Techteach
This is the Cheraw rattlesnake, found in children’s burials:
We used it to make a logo for T-shirts we had made for a homecoming in Brunswick County. I still have a lot of them. Anybody interested? We were selling them for $15 each. Here’s the back of the shirt.
I think this rattlesnake motif is way too busy to combine with any other elements like arrows. Also, I’ve been talking lately to someone prominent in a Cheraw community that’s still in their original haunts, south of the Roanoke, west of Raleigh. Anyway, it’s making me wonder if it’s right to adopt those motifs. There’s also this whirlwind motif, which was found at Gaston, NC, presumably Occoneechi, though I’m not sure why that identification could be so positive.
Here’s some beadwork I did taking off on the whirlwind:
And here’s my ex modeling the T-shirt I made.
Linda,
I can see and agree with you about whether it’s proper to adopt this motif for us. I think the simpler we keep the initial design the easier it would be to develope
a S.E. Blackfoot tribal signia.
In Blood
Nicole
P.S. The tee shirt looks great….
You wanted ideas so I ask my granddaughter who is an graduated art student and has been making her own jewerly since she was 16 to give me a couple ideas.
1) A copper arrow pin with the name on the side of the arrow
(could also be done in sterling silver or gold)
2) Indians used rocks for signs to mark paths; a pin with a message.
3) A combination of three arrows to represent the tri-racial which the majority of us are.
Amanda also makes beaded jewerly, key chains, and belts. She doesn’t have the native american patterns but if she did I am sure she could put a lot of small things together.
BTW: The snake idea might be native american but the white part of me gets the willies just thinking of rattlesnakes….:rolleyes:
Hello All, well to try and answer some questions and comments; Bill the Mesopelea became the Ofo or Ofogoula , the last lady to ID as Ofo was Alice Picote (peecotee) means tattooed and make refernce to the great Tattooed Serpent last Great Chief of the Natchez..
She was an expert cane basket ma ker and the friend and teacher of several friends of mine, in a way she was the last gaurdian of Ofo traditions and Ofo is a language related to tutelo.
The age attribution also falls into place here since gaurdians are considered to be grandfather/ grandmother types, also there is one part of the milky way that is refered to a a snake pattern and shows up at certain times of the year rather “agie”..
The whirl wind pattern is very neat, but to try and say it just came from one group may be hard , but safe to say from the southern division of the southern Souians.
Whirl winds are related to the the male forces of life, and references to the ancient “wind man” is very common in Cherokee “mythology”.
Snakes are always “IFY” but interesting to say many of our tribal nieghbours in the southeast called the the rattle snake “King of the Woods”, I was surprized since we do not have the same interpretation up here as other folks.
Linda the tee shirt is really a very cool idea, I like the rosette with the pattern aswell.
Brenda you have some good points and I really enjoy your input.
anyway, All makes for a great discussion here , thanks to All, Tom
Tom,
How right you are in all regards.
The Cherokee reference to snake stories is revealing, in that before they landed where DeSoto met them and history first recorded them, they were in the area of E. Ohio & W. Penn. according to their own origin stories (my dead reckoning puts that prior to abt.1340 AD when the first identifiable “Cherokee” artifacts turn up in the mountains on the Va/Ky border of today, just north of their historic territory).
Being in the “vicinity” of the S. Ohio Snake Mound, it remains circumstancial that they may be the ones who terminated the Adena Culture in that same area.
I digress, and at the risk of getting the cart before the horse…
Whatever final design is selected, I would suggest we give some thought to the material from which it would be made, which does weigh on the ease of producing the final design.
How about “hammered copper”? More prevalent in pre-contact America than silver & gold. Easier to work – less expensive, but more labor intensive?,,,, Tom?
My impresion is that silver and gold, while not unknown, were less frequently imployed in pre-contact time than hammered copper, and avoids the silver/gold stigma – of course, this line of arguement becomes circuitous when one considers that this “stigma” may only exist in my own mind 🙂
– sorry for injecting levity into a serious discussion.
I’ve reacted to some metals worn on my skin before, so I’d be leary of copper, unless it wasn’t going to contact skin.
Brenda,et.al: I suggested the snake with the idea that it was seen in artifacts and could wrap around the arrows, but thinking that our own interpretation of a snake would be used, not necessarily the exact one that was found. In fact, it is so fierce-looking, I was hoping that our interpretation would include the swirl motif of a snake with a minimal rattlesnake emphasis. One of the gorgets on http://www.mississippian-artifacts….l/shellorn.html does this.
Again,whatever is selected is fine with me.
Anyone notice that this theme of connected arrows, which is also an Iroquois theme, is on the dollar bill? The eagle holds a cluster of arrows.
Techteach
Linda,
Gold does the same thing to me….Most women would kill for gold but it puts raised blisters on me. Years ago when I went to the skin doctor he told me that I shouldn’t wear anything but sterling silver. He said that most people who have reactions can tolerate sterling. Even my wedding rings had to be sterling.
With a pin tho it would probably be worn on something which would not touch the skin. Just a thought.
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