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.

MISSISSIPPIAN HAND-AND-EYE SYMBOLS:

Mississippian Hand - and - eye symbol. After an engraved artifact from Moundsville, Alabama.

We have all seen many examples of hand prints in petroglyphs and pictographs, from all over the world, but there is a variation of that theme, the hand-and-eye motif of the Mississippian cultures of North America. I recently received some wonderful photos of the Rocky Hollow rock art site in Missouri, from Dr. Michael Fuller (http://www.profmichaelfuller.com/rocky-hollow--23mn1-.html), and one panel includes the fascinating Mississippian symbol of the Hand-and-Eye motif.

It is quite probable that my personal fascination with this theme goes back to my very early childhood introduction to First Nations art of the North American Northwest Coast in the Burke Museum at the University of Washington in Seattle. In this sophisticated and complex art figures are often filled with eyes representing joints and other body parts, somewhat similar to the eye in the middle of the hand Mississippian motif. Whatever the case, I do find it fascinating, and the discovery (or at least confirmation) of another example is exciting.

Rocky Hollow Site, Missouri, Photograph Prof. Michael Fuller, 2020.

Close-up photograph showing eye in hand, Rocky Hollow Site, Missouri, Photograph Prof. Michael Fuller, 2020.

Eichenberg field drawing, 1944, note "eye" labeled in the middle of the hand.

Diaz-Granados, Carol, and James R. Duncan, 2000 The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri, University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Note the label "eye" has been removed from this version.

In describing his discovery at the Rocky Hollow site Fuller stated “the open hand petroglyph with red pigment immediately catches the eye when you approach the site. In the palm of the hand, I see the faint outline of an eye; this feature appears in a 1944 drawing of the panel (Eichenberger 1994:Plate XV), but was not recorded in the drawing of the panel (Eichenberger 1994: Figure 8). This interpretation was not made by other investigators who probably see the design in the palm of the hand as a natural damage or flaw in the rock. The hand-and-eye motif was used during the Mississippian Period (AD 900-1450) on shell artifacts from Spiro Mound (in Oklahoma) and at the Three Hills Creek Petroglyph Site (23WA17022) in Missouri. Reilly (2004:130) noted that the hand-and-eye motif is interpreted “as one of the portals or doorways to the Path of Souls”; a more detailed discussion of this concept was published by Lankford (2004:212) where he suggests a link between the motif and the “Hand” constellation which is called Orion in the European vocabulary of the sky. (Fuller 2020)” Interestingly, Diaz-Granados Duncan, had used Eichenberger’s drawing of this panel in her 1993 thesis which showed the shape in the middle of the hand with the label “eye” written in it, but when she reproduced it in her 2000 publication the label “eye” had disappeared.

Hand-and-Eye, cluster 7-A, Three Hills Petroglyph Site, MO., photoraph Michael Fuller.

Other rock art examples of the Hand-and-eye motif, although fairly rare, are known to exist. One example, also photographed by Dr. Michael Fuller, is seen at the Three Creek Hills site, also in Missouri. Dr. Fuller stated (2020, personal communication) that he saw a second example of the Hand-and-Eye motif in a photograph taken by the landowner but that he has not seen the actual second petroglyph at that location (both the Rocky Hollow site and the Three Creek Hills site are on private land and in rough country).

James L. Murphy, Tycoon Lake Petroglyph Site, Gallia County, Ohio.

A couple of other sites containing images proposed to be examples of the Hand-and-Eye motif are found at Tycoon Lake, in Ohio, and at The Jeffer’s Site in southwest Minnesota. I have serious reservations about both of these. With the example at Tycoon Lake, Ohio, there is indeed a hand and an oval shape that is vaguely eye-like, but it is on the wrist of the hand, not in the palm. While I cannot say what it represents, it certainly does not give the sense of being an actual example of the Hand-and-Eye motif,

Jeffer's Petroglyph site, Minnesota.

And with the example from the Jeffer’s Site in Minnesota all of the necessary traits are visible but in a very strangely distorted image, and there is no other rock art at the Jeffer’s site that displays any Mississippian cultural traits. I cannot go along with calling this an actual example of the Hand-and-Eye motif either.

Examining the images I find a roughly even number of left hand and right hands based upon which side of the hand the thumb is found. One uncertainty comes in trying to decide whether these images represent and eye on the palm of the hand or the back of the hand (which would affect the thumb position in the image). Most seem to be images of the palm of the hand, but the image I used at the top of the page shows fingernails on the fingers indicating that this is the back of the hand, so I think we must conclude that there is not a firm rule about how this motif is illustrated in that respect.

Next week in Part Two of this I will add some examples of the Mississippian Hand-and-Eye motif in other media.

NOTE: I wish to thank Dr. Michael Fuller for permission to use his photographs and information from his website in this paper.

Other 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 in the references listed below.

PRIMARY REFERENCES:

Diaz-Granados Duncan, Carol Anne,

1993 The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri: A Distributional, Stylistic, Contextual, Functional, and Temporal Analysis of the State’s Rock Graphics, Vol. I and II, Copyright Carol Anne Diaz-Granados Duncan, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.

Diaz-Granados, Carol, and James R. Duncan

2000 The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri, University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa

Fuller, Michael

2020 Rocky Hollow Site (23MN1), http://www.profmicAhaelfuller.com/rocky-hollow--23mn1-.html

Murphy, James L.

Date unknown, A Probable "Hand-and-Eye Petroglyph, Gallia County, Ohio, Ohio Historical Society.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Eichenberger, J. Allen

1944  Investigations of the Marion-Ralls Archaeological Society in Northeast Missouri, Missouri Archaeologist 9.

Lankford, George E.

2004 World on a String: Some Cosmological Components of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Arts of the Ancient Midwest and South, Art Institute of Chicago.