Tag: prehistoric slate effigies

Cameron W. Parks, Garrett, Indiana

Volume 22, Number 3, July 1975 Central States Archaeological Journal

Figure 105

Top. Delaware County, Ohio. A nodular-eyed banded slate birdstone with very little elevation of the eyes. This bird has the rear bridge broken out, a part of the left rear tail off, and a scar on the right front base. It was in the former Wherle collection as #380 and in the Cameron W. Parks collection as #134 after a 1958 purchase from Lynn Munger.

Middle. County unknown, Ohio. Dark black slate. This birdstone of a natural shape and size had a small chip off of the right side of the nose tip long ago and has been used until the break is smooth. Jim Johnston used it in trade for fine flint when it joined the Cameron W. Parks collection as #296 in May 1966.

Bottom. Erie County, Ohio. Banded slate. This birdstone is of medium size, curved under the neck with a short neck and a long pointed head and beak. The body tapers upwards from the base in a triangular style to the back ridge, and right rear of the tail is missing and has been cleverly restored. The right side of the head has circular bands to make a natural eye. Formerly in the Dr. T. Hugh Young collection as #502 and in the Cameron W. Parks collection as #130 after Oct. 1960.

In the Central States Archaeological Journal of October, 1970, Volume 17, Number 4, I wrote a theory backed up by circumstantial evidence where the Indians, or the peoples of the Lower Great Lakes and the upper Ohio river drainage area, may have used a birdstone effigy tied onto the body, or onto the head, of a deceased person in an above-ground burial, to fly the person’s spirit to the happy hunting ground, or a heaven. The birdstone was not left with the body forever but was a village possession and was used over and over again, for a period of one hundred or more years, on others, at a burial, to fly that person’s spirit to the heaven. I had discounted the dozen or more other theories as being impractical. This is an explanation and a listing of the other theories and a discussion of how, and why, they could not have been practical.

First some basic facts to rely on: Most birdstones are made of slate which is not a durable stone for hard usage. When a head or a tail had been broken off, or a side split off, the birdstone still shows it had been used after the break. While some birdstones look like a duck sitting on the water, others are shaped as pre-historic animals, dogs, beavers, gophers, otters, turtles, and snakes. The base of each has a bridge at each end where two intersecting drillings made a hole, one being drilled from the end and the other drilled from the base. A tie by cord or gut was obviously made from each of the two bridges for the purpose of tying the birdstone to an object in a special manner.

The bust type of a birdstone, having the Adena type of drilling, should not be included in the same study as used by the “Birdstone People.” Most of the otter and the turtle effigies should also be omitted as they have the Adena type of drilling. Most birdstones found in graves should be discounted, (other than those found in Gravel Kame graves) because many of them are found out of the area of the “Birdstone People” and may have been found by a later Indian and used as a trinket.

With a few exceptions, not more than one birdstone has ever been found on a village site. Thirty-three (33) have been found in DeKalb County, Indiana. I’ve visited the finder, or his son or daughter, and have been shown where it was found and all of those were found on the surface. That meant the object must have been the only one used over a period of one hundred to a thousand years for the people of that one village. Surely the birdstone was used in a religious and mystical manner rather than a practical one. All theories which I’m about to debunk are based on a practical use. Pre-historic peoples were practical in more ingenious ways.

Figure 106

Top Right. This blue-green slate birdstone with black bands shows up best from the left side having a chip out at the right rear of the head and a damaged tail also on the right side. It was found in 1910 by Charles Smetz on a small ridge about fifty feet from Mash Creek on the Wilhelm farm, one mile south and three miles east of Attica. It was formerly in the LaDow Johnston collection and after March 1961, in the Cameron W. Parks collection as #148. Illustrated in Early Townsend’s Birdstone book, page 642-643, Figure C.

Top Left. Greene County, Ohio. This banded slate birdstone has a short body with the base of the head very wide and the head pointing forward so its base is parallel and slightly upwards on a slant. The tail at the rear slanting or tilted forward and upward. It was in the Dr. T. Hugh Young collection as #479, and after August 1960 in the Cameron W. Parks collection as #122.

Lower Right. This slate birdstone has some black streaks showing thru the plain material to show faint bands. It has a little restoration on the top and on the side of the tail. Formerly in the E.K. Petrie collection and joined the Cameron W. Parks Collection as #289 in Sept. 1964.

Lower Left. Dublin County, Ohio. This brownish slate birdstone looks like the top of the head had been re-worked. It joined the Cameron W. Parks collection as #279 in Oct. 1964 from an auction purchase at Garth’s in Delaware, Ohio.

My list of old, impractical uses of the Birdstone follows:

1. Early farmers on finding a birdstone called it, and showed it around as, an Indian husking peg. Some stones will work like a hand wooden, or metal, husking peg by holding the body of the bird in the hand and using the head as the peg. Many with the head broken off show continued use and could not have been so used, and many have too short a body to be held in the hand. Abbott, an early archaeologist writer, discarded the husking peg theory in 1881.
2. Many early writers and archaeologists reported that the birdstone was a knife handle. They had seen Eskimos in the Newfoundland area use a steel blade and/or a flint disk with a cutting edge on one side and a protecting hand hold on the other edge. To hold a cutting tool, the base would have had to have been grooved for the cutter blade to be inserted. The birdstones are not so grooved. Abbott rejected the knife-handle theory.
3. Used on the prow of a canoe to bring success in the hunt or trip as was used on the old Viking ships as a headpiece. If so used, it could have better been fastened by tying around the birdstone rather than ties from the bridges at each end. I’ll just state that the method of attachment is not practical with the presently drilled holes. The idea of placement on the prow of a canoe was just somebody’s fancy.
4. Worn by an Indian maiden over one ear to denote they want a boy friend, (the girls in Hawaii wear a hibiscus flower, over the ear, to denote they have a boy friend). Why should a girl wait to use the only birdstone in the village? Why should she not have worked out a flower arrangement or some other simple “come on.”?
5. Worn by a pregnant woman to denote pregnancy. Why would any object be needed to denote pregnancy? This theory arose from the idea that some of the birdstones look like a brooding or a nesting bird and obviously were so worn for the purpose.
6. Worn by a Chief or a Priest, as part of his headdress. In old Hawaii, the bird feathers of rare colorful birds were used in a headdress. Why should our Indians have used a heavy stone object on his head which might not show up well amid all of the other decorations. Early writers had stated that a Chief wore a stuffed bird on his head. None ever made reference to stone. Old time writers had reported that the Iroquois Indians wore a tuft of feathers or the skin of some rare bird above the ear on gala days, or on solemn occasions. Writers reported that the southern Indians did the same. One writer wrote that part of a Virginia Indian headdress was a small stuffed black bird fastened above one ear as a badge of office.
7. Worn by a Chief or a Priest as a pendant, hanging down from around the neck and over the chest. This was used and worn by a chief as a sacred fetish. If the ties was at the holes, the attachment would be wrong in that the birdstone would be hanging in an upside down position, very unnatural. I don’t believe it could have been thought to carry out its designs when not in an upright position. The many gorgets and pendants found on these same village sites were no doubt the badges of office of the officials of the village, and so worn over the chest, or about the neck.
8. Cushing reported a birdstone being found with a pendant and that the pendant was perhaps used as a base for the bird. It is very obvious that those two were items placed in a grave as we would place two objects together and not necessarily used together.
9. Willoughby reported Eskimos using a wooden object as a slide on a musical flute and suggested that the stone bird perhaps was so used. In no way could the bridge on the base be used for a string tie to make the bird slide in a drawing motion, as on a slide trombone. Why even think a stone should be used when a cut piece of wood would do the same thing.
10. The handle on an atlatl throwing stick. A throwing stick to give distance or added power to a spear is called an atlatl. It provides an extension of the throwing arm. Some archaeologists have shown how a birdstone placed near one end of the throwing stick acts as a pressure point for the back of the hand and permits a better cast of the spear. They show a tricky tie because of the two end holes of a birdstone and not a wrap around tie which would be very simple. The wrap around tie is used on the stone and bone objects so used by the Indians of Peru and the Eskimos of our own Northwest.
11. A weight on the atlatl throwing stick to give the spear more power, or more distance. A true atlatl weight is shown in Who’s Who in Indian Relics, Volume 3, by Parks and Thompson, pages 95, 163, and 244. They are owned and were collected by Ernest Cowles, Charles Hall, and Charles S. Mitchell of Washington and Oregon. Writers as Earl Townsend, Jr. in the excellent book “Birdstones of the North American Indian” and Robert Ritzenthaler writing in “The Wisconsin Archaeologist” of March, 1970, Volume 51, No. 1 on page 31, I believe, were led astray by visiting a museum in Peru and in seeing pictures of atlatls used thousands of years ago by the South American Indians of Peru. These show bone and stone weights tied onto an atlatl. They all are tied around the object and none have a hole at the ends for attachment as the birdstone, and none of them look like our slate or porphyry birdstones. The Northwest Eskimos used a humped shaped small stone for the weight and it was tied by wrapping a cord or a thong around the humped stone and the throwing stick, both objects being parallel.
12. A gaming device. All of the stone birds were placed in a basket which was covered, then it was shaken and set down. The winner was the man who had the most birdstones upright when uncovered. Why then were holes drilled at each end? And, if used as a game, why don’t we find more at a single place?
13. Worn partly as an article of adornment and partly as an amulet or good luck stone. It would not tie well in an upright position. With only one found in a village site, surely more than one person would have made and worn a stone bird. Because they were so few, all pretense of the birdstone should be given up as a charm, amulet, tokens of good luck, or good fortune, or as an ornamental item or a piece for decoration. It should be considered of a holy or of a sacred character. It is very possible that later Indians found the birdstone and kept it in a leather pouch or wore it as an article of adornment or as a good luck stone, that not being the original purpose of the effigy.
14. Birdstones were tied on bunches of arrows or to the game bags by the Shaman, or by the medicine man, to bring success in the battle, or in the hunt. Or they may have been tied on personal property to bring good luck. Again I state, one birdstone per village could not go around. The method of tying to a bundle, or to a game bag, would not have needed well drilled holes at each end.
15. To represent the Thunderbird or God of War.
16. Mounted on a staff to be used by the medicine man, or by the conjurer, in a complex religious precept, or mounted atop a stake or a pole as our National Flag. A sacred totem of a clan.
17. In Earl Townsend’s book on Birdstones, page 53, Ralph Whitehead is quoted as writing in a 1936 American Antiquity journal that the Algonkin tribes had used wooden shaped birds attached to grave posts of certain tribes. This is getting close to my theory, is it not? ■

Figure 107

Top Left. Warren County, Ohio. This weathered banded slate birdstone has a shortly stubby tail, a curved underneck, and a pointed down beak. Found at Ft. Ancient, Ohio. It was in the Dr. Rollin Bunch collection (Red #39), then in the Dr. T. Hugh Young collection as #210, and in the Cameron W. Parks collection after October 1960 as #116.

Top Right. Scott County, Illinois. This banded slate birdstone is slightly of an animal type. Purchased at Garth’s Delaware auction where Mr. Parks bid on it because of red number 32 which was the sale numbers put on Dr. Rollin Bunch’s collection when it was first put up for sale. He expected that it might be illustrated in Townsend’s book, which it was and on page 370-371, plate 129 C. It had been in Dr. T. Hugh Young collection as #174 and joined the Cameron W. Parks collection as #346.

Lower Left. Noble County, Indiana. This dark gray hardstone (granite) birdstone has a chunky body, an undercurved neck, and an upturned tail. A perforation was started at both angles of the front but is imperforate at the rear. Formerly in the Claude V. Stone collection (Peoria, Illinois), in the Dr. T. Hugh Young collection as #99, and in the Cameron W. Parks collection after October 1960 as #159. Illustrated in Townsend, page 424-425, Figure D.

Lower Right. DeKalb County, Indiana. This poorly showing banded slate birdstone was collected by A. C. Grahlke (Waterloo, Indiana) in 1895. It has been in the Hubert Wachtel collection, the B. W. Stephens collection as #5, and in the Cameron W. Parks collection after Dec. 1965 as #293. It is illustrated in Moorehead’s Birdstone Ceremonial of 1900, figure 34, and in Townsend, page 424-425, Figure A.