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ProvenanceRalph Olson, Deerfield, Illinois
BibliographyVincent, Gilbert et al. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2000, p.34.
Fognell, Eva and Alexander Brier Marr, eds. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, 2nd ed. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2016, p. 13.
Culture
Tunican
Mask Gorget
Date1575-1625
MediumBusycon whelk shell
DimensionsOverall: 5 × 4 1/2 in. (12.7 × 11.4 cm)
Object numberT0707
Credit LineLoan from the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust
Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor, NYC
Label TextBy the end of the early contact period, this type of mask-like shell gorget was widespread. The range probably relates to the growth of new ritual practices associated with ritual sodalities (medicine lodges) that reinterpreted older charter narratives and symbolism in order to bolster the power of newly emerging elites. The distribution of more than 400 of these "weeping eye" gorgets indicates that they, and their ritual use, originated in eastern Tennessee and West Virgina, spreading throughout much of the Eastern Woodlands and the Missouri River region as far north as Manitoba and Montana. This particular example was found in northeastern Arkansas. The symbolism of these gorgets, their ritual use that survived among some nations following contact, and the evidence of increasing warfare in the 16th century, suggest that the masks played a role in war-related rituals, as well as renewal rituals involving reincarnation and resurrection.ProvenanceRalph Olson, Deerfield, Illinois
BibliographyVincent, Gilbert et al. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2000, p.34.
Fognell, Eva and Alexander Brier Marr, eds. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, 2nd ed. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2016, p. 13.
On View
Not on viewc. 1850
