A Prehistoric Mother
The attempt to analyze and interpret many religious/ceremonial objects of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is a very difficult task. The ideas that the native craftsman had in creating a given piece of artwork will never be known much less understood. But we modern Americans can certainly empathize with the emotions of the potter who made this rare ceramic effigy – A Prehistoric Mother.
The Indians of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, in the Mississippi River Valley, made many types of pottery vessels, most of which were for simple utilitarian usage in the preparation of meals and for the storage of foodstuffs. Some, though, were obviously made for some unknown ceremonial/artistic purpose. A water bottle made as an effigy of a plant or animal or human would certainly have functioned as a water container but why would the maker spend the extra time and energy if the vessel was only to hold liquid. Perhaps for the belief in and appeasement of their gods! Or for fear and respect of the supernatural or the unknown! Or for the knowledge of their natural world! Or maybe for the love of a fellow human being!
This hooded human effigy bottle, which was discovered on the Campbell Site in Pemiscot County, Missouri and will date to AD 1500-1700, is a very unique version of a simple liquid container. Human effigy vessels are rare but within that genre of this pottery style, there are certain traits that are considered to be typical. This bottle has some of those characteristics, namely that the effigy is in a kneeling position with the legs and feet tucked underneath the body and it has the typical modeled facial features of eyes, nose, mouth, ears with ornaments and a hairline, After these qualities, though, the vessel becomes more unordinary with the following traits. It is a true miniature, being only three and a half inches tall when most human effigy bottles fall within the six to nine inch tall range. Also it has the arms folded across the stomach area which is theorized to be a sign of pregnancy or fertility, there are female breasts evident on the abdomen and the face is tilted upward toward the sky.
It was found with a bowl that has a stylistic motif called Rhodes Incised. It is also unique because most vessels of this pottery style are bottles or jars and because it is also a miniature being only two and one-eighth inches in diameter. Incising of pottery was a technique of altering the surface of green or un-fired ceramics by cutting fine, close and deep line incisions into the semi-dry clay using a sharp tool. In Rhodes Incised vessels, this decoration took the form of spiraling lines, curved triskeles and swastika designs. This bowl has four sets of deeply incised spirals both inside and outside the vessel body.
The discovery of either of these vessels would indeed be rare but to find both together is almost unheard of. The current theory is that since they were found together, the bowl represents a birthing basket for the pregnant female who is looking skyward, perhaps for guidance and assistance from a supreme being in the delivery of a child. They pose some very interesting and most probably unanswerable questions. Were these two artifacts made as fertility symbols to aid in an easy birth? Were they a physical image of thanks for a completed birth? Or do they, in fact, have nothing to do with childbirth and, maybe, were simply playthings for a child? The thoughts of the ceramic artisan who made these vessels will never be known but one can be confident that, today, they were probably made with love and adoration of A Prehistoric Mother.
REFERENCES:
Fundaburk, Emma L. and Mary D. Foreman
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Griffin, James B.
ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES
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Hathcock, Roy
ANCIENT INDIAN POTTERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER VALLEY
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Maus, James E.
“A Lady and Her Basket”,
CENTRAL STATES ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, Vol. 51, No.3
2004
O’Brien, Michael J.
CAT SERPENTS AND HEAD POTS
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