Some of our artifacts & shtuff

[ombudsman]

A couple of notes on the second picture:
1. the dart points at the very front of the drawer are not puebloan. They are from central Oklahoma.

2. Notice the little red scraper amongst the Mogollon pottery. It too is Mogollon from far western N.M. Notice that it is made of Alibates "flint" from the Texas panhandle, three or four hundred miles away.

 

[privvydigger]

great digs...I wonder do you ever find indian bones?

 

[ombudsman]

ORIGINAL: privvydigger

great digs...I wonder do you ever find indian bones?  

Nearly all of that stuff is surface finds. A friend in western Colorado took me to a pueblo village site on private land where digging was allowed. We didn't find anything in particular that day, except shards, but there were bone fragments all around. At that time (years ago) I would have happily dug a gravesite to get the grave goods. Not now. I don't empathize with the Indian attitudes re. old graves, but I respect them.

When we lived in N. Dakota, my best friend, on a geology field trip, visited an ancient Mandan village. He found a human skull weathering out of a stream bank. He brought it back and gave it to me. I had it for some years, not thinking too much about it. Then one day I found my daughter and a playmate (they were about 4 years old) playing with it on the carpet. It suddenly struck me that here was a person (so to speak) who had lived a life, a person perhaps far superior to me in one way or another (perhaps in all ways) and his/her skull was being played with by children. I called several tribes in N.D. and Minn., telling them that I had this skull and how would they like me to return it. Without exception, they showed no interest at all and suggested I bury it anywhere. I did.

 

[Plumbata]

Nice stuff man!

When sitting on the boulder looking at the flintknapping debris, did you happen to be using the peace pipe included in the first image? Was the knife found in the vicinity of your perch?

Also, on this forum it is rare to see a demijohn with its wicker still intact, hehe. A salute to your restraint. []

In regards to the human skull discovery, I have seen looted skulls of the Andean "conehead" people sell for over 4,000 bucks on eBay, and even if the skull you had was totally insignificant it would still probably fetch 300-500, but probably more since it was likely a particularly intimate part of a long-gone American native. Not to say that I condone digging and selling human body parts, but it would be lucrative...

 

[ombudsman]

ORIGINAL: Plumbata

Nice stuff man!

When sitting on the boulder looking at the flintknapping debris, did you happen to be using the peace pipe included in the first image? Was the knife found in the vicinity of your perch?

Also, on this forum it is rare to see a demijohn with its wicker still intact, hehe. A salute to your restraint. []

Thanks. No that pipe has only been smoked on a few very special occasions, like when friends we hadn't seen in a long time came to visit. It has never experienced tobacco. []

Since this area wasn't settled until 1893, the chances of a pontil lurking under the wicker are just about nil. I would just have an amber demi. If I had reason to believe that the bottle would be more beautiful or interesting w/o the wicker I would probably take it off. I did that recently to a 5 gal. carboy with about 30% wicker intact. Man, it looks sooooo much better now.

 

[privvydigger]

I have an Indian skull. And a picture of him in a coffin at a trading post with Native American Artifacts all around him. Everything hanging has a pricetag on it. Wasn't sure how that type of collectable would go over here. I personally jumped at the chance to get it along with the picture and story. Gave a good bottle up for it.

 

[ombudsman]

That's interesting, Priv. I'd rather have a good bottle, though.

I worried that perhaps there are laws concerning possession of human remains. Even if not, I didn't relish the thought of the police hassling me in the process of checking me out about it.

 

[Plumbata]

ORIGINAL: ombudsman
It has never experienced tobacco. []

Attaboy! []


Privydigger, I would venture a wager that the skull alone is worth a minimum of 800-1,000 bucks since it is a Native, probably much more with the picture which must have had a 1 in 5,000 chance of remaining with the skull all these years. I have a feeling that the bottle you gave up wasn't quite on par with that, so good trade! I am curious about what you said though, how old was the picture? Did someone dig the Indian back up and take the skull, or was the skull itself in the coffin photo? Care to show us an image or 2 of the items (if you aren't worried about being PC, etc.)?

 

[surfaceone]

Thanks. No that pipe has only been smoked on a few very special occasions, like when friends we hadn't seen in a long time came to visit. It has never experienced tobacco.

Hey David,

I, for one, would love to see more, closer images of the pipe. Catlinite, isn't it?

 

[ombudsman]

ORIGINAL: surfaceone

Thanks. No that pipe has only been smoked on a few very special occasions, like when friends we hadn't seen in a long time came to visit. It has never experienced tobacco.

Hey David,

I, for one, would love to see more, closer images of the pipe. Catlinite, isn't it?

Yes, it is catlinite. Thanks for the George Catlin addition to the thread. He is one of my favorite artists. I have studied him some. Thirty years ago I saw some of the prints from his big folio for sale in an antique shop. I think they were like $85 or something like that. I want to kick myself every time I think of that. I deeply regret not buying at least one.

The pipe was made by a young Sioux. The stem, unfortunately, seems to be made from a piece of sawn wood - maybe started off as a 1X2. I wish he had taken the trouble to make the stem from wild wood. I added the brass tacks, in the style that Indians often used. I'll go take a pic.