MISSISSIPPIAN HAND-AND-EYE SYMBOL, PART TWO:

This is part two of the two-part examination of the hand-and-eye motif of the Mississippian cultures of the American midwest, illustrating further examples of the motif in various artifacts, not rock art. In ceramics and other media it seems almost ubiquitous.

The eye in the middle of the palm of the hand is a fascinating and evocative image, the eye peering out from the middle of the hand. This is a combination of two of the anatomical details that define our humanity; the expressiveness of the eye, and the sensitivity and dexterity of the human hand. The hand-and-eye theme is also found on other artifacts from many of the Mississippian- influenced cultures. 

The Moundville Disc - “engraved circular palette with hand-and-eye motif and intertwined rattlesnakes. Moundville, Alabama, A.D. 1300 - 1450,” Alabama Museum of Natural History, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Fig. 1, P. 167, Steponaitis and Vernon, 2004.

Willoughby Disc, Moundsville, Alabama. Peabody Museum of Art and Ethnology, Harvard University.

We can also look at the theme of the hand-and-eye motif in other media. One well-known example of the theme is found on The Moundsville Disc, also known as The Rattlesnake Disc, and engraved circular palette with the hand-and-eye motif enclosed within two intertwined serpents, made on fine sandstone and measuring 31.9 cm in diameter. Rattles can definitely be seen on the serpents providing the identification as rattlesnakes. These palettes were possibly used in rituals serving as the mixing surface upon which medicines and supernaturally powerful mixtures were prepared. "The two serpents carved on the Moundville disk are intertwined to form an ogeelike portal that surrounds a hand-and-eye motif. Currently, the hand-and-eye motif is interpreted as one of the portals or doorways to the Path of Souls." (Reilly 2004:130) If the mixtures had any hallucinogenic properties the identification of this theme with a portal to another level of being makes sense. Also illustrated is a second palette, known as "The Willoughby Disc" with a double hand-and-eye motif on it, also found near Moundsville, Alabama.

Examples on pottery are fairly common. This illustrated example was recovered near Mobile, Alabama.

Bottle with ogee and hand-and-eye motif, Alabama, near Mobile. A.D. 1400-1500, ceramic, 15.9 cm. High. Harvard University, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Fig. 9, p. 212, Townsend, Richard F., 2004, Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand.

Another example is on this potsherd from Moundsville, Alabama.

Potsherd with hand-and-eye motif from Moundsville, Alabama. Online photo Wikimedia.

Other examples found in Mississippian culture are artifacts known as oblong pendants.

Oblong pendant with rayed circle, ogee, and hand-and-eye motif, Moundville, Alabama.  A.D. 1250 - 1500, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian. p. 175, Fig. 14, Townsend, Richard F., 2004, Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand.

These oblong pendants were a lapidary specialty of artisans at Moundville. “Fashioned from thin stone of uniform thickness, these pendants were shaped, polished, and engraved to represent standard symbols. In most though not all cases the material of manufacture is a blood-red, fine-grained ferruginous stone. - - - This design’s original prototype is an older Mississippian motif consisting of a human scalp stretched on a frame.” (Steponaitis and Knight 2004: 176) Presumably they would be worn on a cord as a pendant for important ceremonial occasions, although there have also been suggestions that they may have served as palettes for grinding herbal concoctions for use in these ceremonies. Examples have also been found that were made out of native copper, a valuable material which also had ceremonial implications.

From Dorcas Miller, 1997, Stars of the First People, p.237, Fig. 11.9, Pruett Publishing Co., Boulder, CO. 

These hand-and-eye symbols are thought by many researchers to refer to the hand constellation of Native American cosmography, which itself is thought to represent the portal or doorway to the Path of Souls to the afterlife (the Milky Way). The hand constellation is comprised of the lower half of the constellation that we identify as Orion. Our designated belt of Orion represents the wrist of the hand constellation and Orion’s sword represents the thumb of the hand constellation. The star Rigel, which we identify as Orion’s left foot is the tip of the index finger in the hand constellation, and Eridanus is the tip of the little finger of the  hand constellation.

Whatever its original meaning the hand-and-eye motif is a compelling and truly fascinating image and there must be more of these examples in rock art from the regions that were inhabited by Mississippian cultures still to be found. I look forward to seeing more of them.

NOTE: I wish to again express my gratitude to Dr. Michael Fuller for his generous sharing of photographs and information that helped me with this paper.

Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

PRIMARY REFERENCES:

Miller, Dorcas, 1997    Stars of the First People, p.237, Fig. 11.9,Pruett Publishing Co., Boulder, CO. 

Reilly, F. Kent, III, 2004 People of the Earth, People of the Sky: Visualizing the Sacred in Native American Art of the Mississippian Period, pp. 125-138, in Townsend, Richard F., general editor, and Robert V. Sharp, editor, Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South, Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University Press, New Haven.

Steponaitis, Vincas P, and Vernon J. Knight, Jr., 2004 Moundville Art in Historical and Social Context, pp. 166 – 181.  in Townsend, Richard F., general editor, and Robert V. Sharp, editor, Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South, Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University Press, New Haven.

Townsend, Richard F., general editor, and Robert V. Sharp, editor, 2004  Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South, Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University Press, New Haven.

AN ALABAMA CAVE CONTAINING INSCRIPTIONS WRITTEN IN CHEROKEE:

Cherokee inscription,

Manitou Cave, Alabama.

Internet, Public Domain.

We now know that writing was invented numerous times in human history, but very seldom do we get to know exactly who invented a writing system and exactly what their original creation was.

"Back in the 18th century, when tribes such as the Cherokee were a subject of study by white settlers, the natives in turn were amused by the "talking leaves" they possessed. They could communicate and transmit messages, a skill that to the people unfamiliar with the concept of an alphabet, or reading and writing, seemed more like magic. There were many members of the Cherokee who were against their society's assimilation with the white people and tried to prevent it in many different ways, mostly by emphasizing the importance of their own cultural elements." (Radeska 2018)

Cherokee syllabary, Sequoya.

Wikipedia, Public Domain.

"Nobody did as much as the man known as Sequoyah. Observing and analyzing the newcomers and their "talking leaves," Sequoyah decided that creating a system that would allow his people to communicate and transmit their own stories and messages might help prevent the assimilation and the loss of Cherokee culture. Hence, he invented the Cherokee syllabary with which to write the Cherokee language. This was one of the two times in recorded history when a pre-literate person created and original and efficient writing system." (Radeska 2018)

"It took Sequoya 12 years to finish the work he started in 1809. At first, he had been ridiculed and insulted. Even his wife was said to have burned his initial work as she believed it was some form of witchcraft. But the man didn't give up." (Radeska 2018)

"Although he first experimented with logograms, his final product resulted in a system of 86 symbols, each representing a syllable. He studied the Greek, Latin, and Cyrillic alphabets and even borrowed a few symbols from them, but the sounds and representations of each in the Cherokee syllabary hs no similarity. When Sequoya finished his project, he had to find a way to present it to his people, who were very skeptical at first and couldn't see the importance of his work." (Radeska 2018)

"Sequoyah's first student of his new linguistic system was his six-year-old daughter, Ayokeh (in some places mentioned as the daughter of his brother-in-law). He taught her the system of reading, and then went to the Indian Reserves in the Arkansaw Territory, where he found local leaders, the first people he needed to convince. Sequoyah asked each one of them to tell him a word, which he wrote down. Then he called Ayokeh to read what he had written. His tactic turned out to be convincing, and he got permission to teach the syllabary to more people." (Radeska 2018)

Viewing Cherokee inscriptions,

Manitou Cave, Alabama.

www.ntd.com, Public Domain.

Now a team has identified and deciphered inscriptions found in a cave in Alabama written in the Cherokee script. "Inside Manitou Cave in modern Alabama, nineteenth-century Cherokees carried out sacred ceremonies, recording their activity on the walls using (the) Cherokee syllabary, a system invented in nearby Willstown by Cherokee scholar Sequoyah. Through collaboration between modern Cherokee scholars and Euro-American archaeologists, the authors report and interpret - for the first time - the inscriptions in Manitou Cave. These reveal evidence for secluded ceremonial activities at a time of crisis for the Cherokee. Pressures from the surrounding white populations disrupted the Cherokee ancient lifeways, culminating in their forcible relocation in the 1830s along the Trail of Tears." (Carroll et al 2019:519)

Although there are extensive examples of partial words and symbols in the Cherokee script on the walls throughout the cave "we focus on two areas within the cave where Cherokee inscriptions are extensive and where their meanings can be translated. The first area is more than 1.5km into the cave's main passage, the second approximately 300m from the cave entrance. Each area contains multiple inscriptions, and one inscriptions in the deeper area includes a written date. Associated with these inscriptions are signatures, one of which is a name that appears twice in the cave and which significantly enhances the historic importance of the site. All of the inscriptions in the two areas concern ceremonial and/or spiritual matters; they were probably made in the seclusion of the cave and were not intended for general audiences." (Carroll et al 2019:524)

"One inscription on a wall deep inside the cave, translates as, "leaders of the stickball team on the 30th day in their month April 1828." (Bower 2019)

"Other inscriptions on a ceiling near the caves entrance may be religious messages to Cherokee ancestors or other supernatural beings. The script is written backward, likely because it was intended to be read by residents of what they Cherokee considered to be a spirit world reachable only via Manitou Cave, the researchers say." (Bower 2019)

I am certainly not a scholar of the Cherokee language or writing but I have a problem matching some of the symbols in inscriptions retrieved from the internet with characters in the Cherokee syllabary I found on Wikipedia. Perhaps I am just failing to recognize the backward characters, or perhaps some of the inscriptions contain ligatures. The paper by Carroll, Cressler, Belt, Reed, and Simek does not mention any ligatures in the inscriptions but I find myself wondering if any of the characters are indeed ligatures. "In hand writing, a ligature is made by joining two or more characters in atypical fashion by merging their parts, or by writing one above or inside the other." (Wikipedia) I will have to leave that determination to the experts.

In any case these discoveries provide a fascinating look at a painful period of history, and underscore the importance of some historic inscriptions to our understanding of past events.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Bower, Bruce

2019 Newly translated Cherokee cave writings reveal sacred messages, April 16, 2019, https://www.sciencenews.org/article/newly-translated-cherokee-cave-writings-reveal-sacred-messages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature

Radeska, Tijana

2018 How Sequoyah, inspired by "talking leaves," invented the Cherokee writing system, Feb. 24, 2018, https:/www.thevintagenews.com/2018/02/024/cherokee-writing-system/

Carroll, Beau Duke, Alan Cressler, Tom Belt, Julie Reed, and Jan F. Simek

2019 Talking Stones: Cherokee Syllabary in Manitou Cave, Alabama, Antiquity, Vol. 93, Issue 368, p. 519 - 536.