A Mechanical Waterbird Mask from Pineland and the Calusa Masking Tradition

14 A Mechanical Waterbird Mask from Pineland and the Calusa Masking Tradition rMerald R. Clark So unmistakable, indeed, were the associations of these things with one another that I could vividly picture the time of some of the performances—when, for example, the Bat God of Night led the other masked dramatists up from their canoes in the dark courts and bayous, uttering cries of sea monsters and water birds, to perform on the high shell dance-courts till the Gray Wolf God of Dawn drove their Day God, in the form of the Deer-headed man, down the slopes to the waters again. Frank Hamilton Cushing, New York Journal, June 21, 1896, page 19. I n 1990 the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) accepted the generous donation of a wood carving of a bird’s head that was discovered protruding from a dredged pile of muck on site 8LL757 within the Pineland Site Complex on Florida’s southern Gulf Coast (Figure 1). The artifact (Figure 2; FLMNH catalog number 90-24-1) is one component of a mechanical mask representing the cranium and upper mandible of a waterbird—probably a crane—that once articulated in a precision mechanism with an unrecovered lower bill. Like the jaws of the carved alligator mask found a century ago at the famous Key Marco Site (8CR49), the Pineland crane’s bill was capable of being opened and closed with a loud clacking sound. This waterbird efigy was carved in cypress by a master artisan using only shell and shark-tooth tools, and is perhaps the best example of a precolumbian mechanical mask to have been recovered in an archaeological context in the Americas. The discovery of this bird carving at Pineland, together with the rich assemblage of facemasks and igureheads from Key Marco and several intriguing references in historical Spanish records, suggest well-developed stagecraft in the dramatic arts: a testimony to a time of surplus wealth reaped by southwest Florida’s isherfolk in abundant harvests from estuary and sea. igurehead to be nearly perfect in form, though delicate and requiring careful handling. The word “mask” has a wide range of meanings. Its most common meaning in western cultures is that of an artiicial face worn for purposes of disguise, whether that disguise is effective or an “open secret.” But “mask” in its broadest sense may signify anything that disguises or transforms an individual’s identity, such as face and body paint, headdresses, costumes, or even the mimetic transformation of one’s features and behavior (Crumrine 1983:1; Tooker 1983:15-16). The term can also refer to crafted faces worn elsewhere on the body—as ear ornaments, gorgets, or hung at the beltline—or displayed not on the human body at all, but mounted on walls or ceremonial staffs. In this chapter I employ “mask” in this general sense, because I am considering not only the artifacts of Southwest Florida, but also the Spanish accounts of Calusa masking activities that may have included the full range of disguisings and mask usages listed above. For more speciic reference to a face mask that would have been wearable over a performer’s actual face, I shall condense the phrase to a single word, “facemask.” Animal and bird head efigies, such as those from Key Marco and Pineland, might be loosely termed masks if worn in a headdress by a disguised performer, but probably not if mounted elsewhere, for instance on a ceremonial staff or the prow of a canoe. I therefore refer to the animal head efigies as “igureheads,” following the usage of Cushing (1897) and Gilliland (1975). The crane head was found in 1971 by Phyllis and Ed Thomasson while searching for antique bottles after a storm. The tip of the bill protruded from a wet spoil pile near the main Pineland shell mounds (8LL33, 37) and Ms. Thomasson, her curiosity aroused, pulled the soggy igurehead from the muck. Astonished, the couple immediately undertook a gallant search effort for the missing lower mandible, but it was never found. In notes provided at the time of donation, the Thomassons recalled that “there was ‘thick’ pottery next to it” (document in FLMNH’s Accession 90-24 ile). They allowed the waterlogged artifact to dry out and stored it safely in a shoebox, where it lay for nearly twenty years. Curators at the FLMNH found the PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PINELAND FIGUREHEAD The crane figurehead has undergone little warping, shrinking, or breakage. Artifacts that have endured long storage in anaerobic muck often shrink and warp upon drying, or crumble to unrecognizable fragments, but this 621 622 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex artifact has survived relatively intact and retains most of its original form. One corner has broken off in the right hinge area and there is some degradation of the top surface that is probably due to exposure to air. Purdy (1991:285286) describes and illustrates a carved wooden igurine recovered from the Ozette wet site in Washington state that underwent similar differential deterioration. This carving was partially exposed for weeks before it was discovered and the head was severely cracked whereas the rest of the igure was still buried in the mud when found and had remained in excellent condition. Archaeobotanist Lee Newsom, then a doctoral student at the University of Florida, identiied the Pineland igurehead’s wood as cypress (Taxodium sp.) and noted that “the specimen is feather-light and exhibits the checking and iber separation characteristic of an advanced state of decay...rehydration is not recommended” (memorandum to W. Marquardt, 15 August 1990). It now weighs 55 grams, about half the original weight to judge by a replica, also carved from cypress wood. The Thomasson bird igurehead is delicate and needs conservation, but there is no process that does not irst require re-soaking the artifact in water and that would likely result in its complete dissolution. example of this may be seen in a Nigerian wooden efigy of a human head attached to a basketwork cap by eight holes around the bottom edge of the efigy’s neck: “the basketry base helps the mask balance on the wearer’s head and secures it to him by means of a string which ties under the chin” (Pelrine 1988:88-89). The Pineland crane head might have been attached to such a base or to a long neck piece interposed between igurehead and mounting base. The artifact’s creator probably carved it without beneit of metal or stone tools (see artist’s concept of a maskmaker in Figure 4). Perhaps the carver irst roughed out the form of the igurehead with a shell-bladed adze or gouge, such as those recovered at the Pineland and Key Marco sites, and then shaped it further with shark-tooth knives, and chisels and awls of shell and bone (see Chapters 12 and The length of the bird head is 27.4 cm and the cranium portion is 6.0 cm wide and 5.4 cm high. The igurehead was carved from the heartwood of a branch or trunk of cypress, with the grain running along the artifact’s long axis, and it was hollowed to an average wall thickness of less than a centimeter. A slotted lange lies at the hingepoint of the jaws and is a three-sided forward extension of the hollow of the cranium (Figure 2b). The slot was apparently designed to receive a vertical tab rising from the lower mandible, thereby forming an alignment guide for precise opening and closing of the bill (Figure 3a). Nine holes perforate the bottom rim of the cranium (Figure 2b). Two small holes lie inside the hinge points with another pair just outside. Centered on the sides are two signiicantly larger holes and the remaining three small holes surround a central notch at the very back. Some, or all, of these holes may have served for mounting it to a cap for wearing. A good Figure 1. Archaeological and ethnohistoric sites of southern Florida mentioned in the text. A Mechanical Waterbird Mask 623 16, this volume; Cushing 1897:368-371; Gilliland 1975:Plate 82). Concerning the shell gouges, Cushing (1897:368-369) tells us, “I made a tool of this description, which worked admirably on the hardest wood I could get; and retained its edge amazingly well.” The deep hollowing of the artifact may have been facilitated by the careful application of burning coals (Brown 1994:Plate 8.16). Finally the mask maker used ine sand, shark skin, or rasps of coral limestone to polish the outer surface of the igurehead (Cushing 1897:371; Kozuch 1993:2-3), but did not bother with the inner, hollowed surfaces of the Crane igurehead where ine parallel striations left by shark-tooth knives can still be seen. Details such as eyes, nostrils, and feathers were not carved into the surface. These features were most likely represented in paint, though none remained when the igurehead was found. I also examined the bird head under ultraviolet light, but there were still no traces of the original decoration to be seen. reconstruction suggested their own solutions and I was able to determine the probable operational system of the igurehead (Figure 3). As I began work on the replica, I looked to the mechanical masks of the Paciic Northwest Coast. The Kwakiutl of British Columbia in particular are famous for their elaborate mechanical masks (Waite 1982), some dramatizing the transformation of one spirit into another by opening to reveal a second, or even third, mask inside. Others, of more immediate interest, were the numerous movable-beak igureheads in the form of bird spirits and cannibalistic monsters (Figures 5a-h). The usual method employed by Kwakiutl maskmakers for creating beaked mechanical igureheads is to attach a cord midway along the lower beak, then pass it upward to a hole or notch in the upper beak, through which it passes and turns toward the back of the efigy head and onward to a point where the performer can grasp the end of the cord (Figures 5b, 5h). This operating system allows the audience to see the cord connecting the mandibles when they are opened, thus revealing a bit of the mechanics behind the mystery. However, this construction is often necessary, especially when the leverage is needed to raise the longer of the wooden beaks, some of which may reach two meters in length, though most are signiicantly smaller. But the upper bill of the Pineland crane head lacked a peg or hole by which a lifting cord could be turned toward the back, nor could any cord pass from the interior of the bill through to the back of the head since the anterior wall of the slot effectively separated the two areas. Therefore, the Pineland mechanical bird head seems not to have been MECHANICAL OPERATION It is clear that the Pineland crane head mechanism was once the centerpiece in a masterwork of illusion, the bill gaping open and closing again with a sharp clack, probably accomplished by means of hidden cords. Its mechanical nature was clear from the outset, but the details were not, and it was immediately apparent that replication of the piece, along with a trial-and-error reconstruction of the lower mandible, would facilitate understanding of this rare example of precolumbian robotics, if it may be called that. I proceeded to carve a cypress-wood copy of the artifact complete with a conjectural lower bill. As expected, problems encountered in this irst attempt at 0 cm 10 Figure 2. The Thomasson bird igurehead (FLMNH 90-24-1) from Pineland: a) proile view; b) underside view, arrows indicate drilled holes; and c) posterior view. 624 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex each side. But I found instead that, if the igurehead were to function properly, the lower bill could be attached only by the two holes inside the hinge area with the further advantage that the hinge cords were almost completely concealed from view (Figure 3a). a In the irst reconstruction of the lower mandible, I carved a tab extending straight out from the back, then drilled a hole, and attached a cord (similar in form to that shown in Figure 3b). A tug on the string easily closed the mandibles hard enough to make a loud clack, but only if the string was directed downward when tugged, as it might have been if it were intended to pass through a long neck piece. However, a backward tug on such a horizontal rear extension is less effective in closing the bill. If the lower mandible had been constructed with a vertical tab instead (as in Figure 3c), then the operating cord could be attached high inside the hollowed cranium and the crane’s bill could then be clacked by either a backward or a downward pull (though the original designer probably only employed one of these choices). In addition, a vertical tab would slide within the upper piece’s slotted lange to ensure perfect alignment of the two mandibles. b c Figure 3. Reconstructions of the Cranehead’s lower beak and operating mechanism: a) igurehead with conjectural lower beak opened wide to show probable hinge attachment and the tab-in-slot alignment; b) the irst attempt at reconstruction in which an operating cord attached to a tab extended out from the rear end of the lower beak and required a downward tug in order to close the beak effectively; and c) the second attempt in which a higher attachment point for the cord allows the beak to be closed with either a rearward or a downward tug. operated by the method most commonly employed in the beaked igureheads of the Northwest Coast. If the lower bill of the Pineland igurehead was not lifted from its middle, then it must have been pushed up from underneath or levered upward by a downward tug on a rear extension. There are four holes near the artifact’s hinge points, one pair inside and one outside, and I had assumed, before beginning the replica, that the hinge cords would in some manner pass through both holes on In a highly conjectural artist’s concept I have depicted the igurehead operated by cords passing backwards and worn by a Crane Dancer in a irelight performance at ancient Pineland (Figure 6; Marquardt and Clark 1993). This portrayal is intended to give a sense of the magniicence that must have accompanied the Pineland bird head in action. Some details are inspired by archaeological and ethnohistorical sources; many are creative inventions out of necessity. Some of the holes around the base of the crane igurehead may have been attachment points for beads or feathers, or may have served as guideholes for cords that operated other moving parts, such as a tail or wings. There might even have been additional mechanical heads combined in the same headdress as was occasionally found in Northwest Coast mechanicals (Figure 5f; Malin 1978:Plate 13). The two largest holes, centered on each side of the cranium’s basal edge, could have served as rocker points A Mechanical Waterbird Mask 625 Crane Dancer image is thereby so conjectural, I felt compelled to reconstruct four alternative mountings for the Crane igurehead (Figures 7a-d), hoping to forestall any assumption that the artifact’s original usage has been authoritatively identiied. Figure 4. Artist’s conception of an artist in precolumbian south Florida carving facemasks for an upcoming performance. Laid before him are woodworking tools made from shark teeth and sea shell and a measure of shark skin for the inal polishing. for a neck piece supplied with an angled upper rim, allowing the Crane head to nod up and down as it sat atop the long neck. I have imagined such a neck piece used by the Whooping Crane Dancer in Figure 6 with the conjectured rocker surfaces (in the picture hidden by decorative leather coverings) allowing the Crane Spirit’s head and neck to extend forward or draw back against the decorative panel. Two cords, one to operate the lower bill and the other activating the neck, are shown passing through the panel and downward to tuck in the wearer’s waistband. At the moment depicted in Figure 6, the toggle ends hang free as the dancer performs the crane’s dance of courtship, gravity dropping the bird’s neck forward and its bill open. An artist’s conception can be a valuable tool to further understanding of a past cultural phenomenon. When there exist no ethnohistoric accounts relating directly to a given artifact, as is the case with the Pineland bird head, and the archaeological record provides the only evidence from which an artist may attempt to bring the past to life, he or she must of necessity ill in missing details. To reconstruct a scene from the past using only those details provided by archaeology would impoverish a picture intended to portray a moment of pageantry overlowing in the minutiae of ornament. And thus, an artist reconstructing precolumbian times must in part create a iction. Since the The range of possible usages for the Crane figurehead is further suggested by engraved shell art of the Mississippian period from Spiro Mound, Oklahoma, that is now scattered in collections across the world, but recorded, compiled, and reproduced in six volumes by Phillips and Brown (1978; 1984). Two shell gorgets depict birds or bird efigies worn as components of ceremonial costume. On one gorget, two dancers face one another, each wearing a bird headdress (Figure 8a). The second gorget shows a long-necked bird mounted on a performer’s back (Figure 8b). Engravings on Busycon shell cups depict bird heads worn on belts (Figure 8c, d), mounted on staffs (Figure 8e), and possibly carried on clubs or batons (Phillips and Brown 1984:Plates 280-323). A Pineland dancer or shaman might have employed the crane head efigy in any of these ways. ICONOGRAPHY OF THE PINELAND FIGUREHEAD The Thomasson bird artifact is natural in form, apparently lacking stylized abstractions, and probably was intended by its creator to represent a natural species, and the obvious question arises: which one? The inquiry may be doomed to failure if, for instance, the artist had in mind an esoteric bird-spirit character particular to local myth, or had recreated one of the smaller egret species in a larger than life replica, all the better to be seen by a large audience. If the Pineland igurehead represented either of these cases, then we would never know what was intended. But if we assume for the present discussion that the carver attempted to closely mimic nature in size and form, then which bird its the bill? The likeliest natural models for the Pineland igurehead (Figure 9) are the cranes, either the whooping crane (Grus americana) or Florida sandhill crane (Grus canadensis pratensis). But herons (Ardea sp.), egrets (Casmerodius sp.), the brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), and the wood ibis or wood stork (Mycteria americana), have also been suggested by casual viewers of the artifact. 626 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex a g b c e d f h Figure 5. Bird igureheads with mechanical beaks created by Native Americans of the Paciic Northwest Coast, not to scale: a) Kwakiutl Crane or Raven igurehead (after Bancroft-Hunt 1992:69); b) Kwakiutl Cannibal Crane igurehead mask, 161 cm long (after Malin 1978:Plate 11 and Farmer 1949:Figure 2); c) Nootka bird igurehead frontlet (after King 1981:Plates 63, 64, Color plate 7); d) Tsimshian bird igurehead and humanoid igurine mounted atop a facemask (after Maxwell 1978:310); e) Kwakiutl crane igurehead with mechanical beak, neck, and wings (now bare of their cloth draping) mounted atop a mask of Komokwa, ruler of the sea (after Malin 1978:Plate 25); f) Kwakiutl headdress including a facemask mounted with multiple bird igureheads (after Jonaitis 1988:Plate 77); g) Kwakiutl loon igurehead mounted atop a facemask of the Ruler of the Sea (after Malin 1978:Plate 31); and h) Method of wearing and operating one of the enormous spirit bird masks (redrawn from Malin 1978:37). A Mechanical Waterbird Mask 627 Figure 6. Artist’s conception of the Crane igurehead in use in precolumbian Pineland. A performer imitates the courtship dance of the whooping crane at a community festival. He operates the crane’s beak and neck by cords that pass backward through a decorated panel and then downward through his waistband. At the moment portrayed, the cords are left to dangle and gravity drops the crane’s beak open and its neck forward. The igurehead’s distinguishing features are its large size, the long, straight, robust beak, its pronounced forehead, and the underslung orientation of the neck. The artifact is slightly larger than the heads of whooping cranes and sandhill cranes. Its bill measures approximately 17 cm long while that of the whooping crane averages 14 cm (Johns- gard 1983:185) and that of a Florida sandhill crane 13 cm (Johnsgard 1983:172). Cranes also have straight beaks and distinct foreheads and their heads are set fairly upright atop their necks. The Thomassons, shortly after inding the igurehead, showed it “to some Seminole friends who 628 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex Egret and heron bones were reported for the Key Marco collections (Gilliland 1975:220; Wing 1965), and Cushing described (1897:379) a “sucking tube made from the wingbone of a pelican or crane” that was probably owned by a shaman. However, no wading bird species appear in the faunal lists from the Pineland excavations (see Chapter 8). b a Heron species have straight beaks also but, in contrast to the Pineland igurehead and to cranes, their beaks appear more acutely pointed and merge more smoothly with the outlines of the sloping forehead. The necks of herons set more toward the back of the head, while a crane’s neck is positioned more to the underside. The even, downward-curving beak of the wood stork and the hooked tip of a pelican’s beak are unlike those of the artifact, and this reduces the likelihood that it was modeled after one d of these species. The wood stork (also known as “wood ibis”) was suggested as a possibility by Mary Frances Johns, c a Seminole woman of southern Florida, after seeing the artifact. Its deteriorated top surface, and perhaps its dull gray color also, reminded her of the bare, wrinkled head of the stork and an old Seminole Figure 7. Alternative reconstructions for the Crane igurehead from Pineland: a) story she had heard when she mounted on a totem pole in a temple or dramatic setting; b) worn on the hand as a was young that told of a dark puppet for use in performance, or as a hunter’s decoy; c) worn on a hat or helmet as time before the sun was in heraldic display or an insignium of rank; and d) operated from below by a thin rod the sky. In this tale, Wood Ibis agreed to take Sun up into the attached to the lower beak. sky to provide heat and light for people, but in so doing said: whooping crane, maybe” (Phyllis Thomasson, letter he burned the feathers off his head and neck (William to Lee Newsom, 1990). Marquardt, personal communication, 1995). However, the The whooping crane is a large and impressive bird nearly roughness on the artifact’s upper surface is not symmetrithe height of a human and its feathers are all white except cal and does not appear to be an intentional part of the for black wing tips and a black mask. It also displays a artifact’s form. Probably that area of the igurehead was bright red cap that is in fact a patch of red skin bare of exposed to deteriorating conditions, as described above. feathers. Formerly widespread in Florida, whooping Waterbirds may have been iconographically important in cranes became extinct here about 1925 (Bartram 1928:241; Florida ever since the arrival of the irst humans. Clausen Cerulean and Morrow 1993:11). Over two centuries ago, et al. reported (1979:203) the recovery of a wooden panel William Bartram (1928:135-136, 175, 189) noted frequent carved with the image of a long-necked waterbird at Little encounters with sandhill cranes, or savannah cranes as Salt Spring, an underwater site just north of Charlotte he called them. Harbor (see map, Figure 1). The panel was found with an Archaic waterlogged burial 5,000 to 6,000 years old. A Mechanical Waterbird Mask 629 a b c d e Figure 8. Bird efigy motifs engraved on shell gorgets and cups from Spiro Mound, Oklahoma, that illustrate possible usages of the Pineland Crane igurehead (all redrawn from Phillips and Brown 1984): a) whole-bird efigies worn in headdresses (after Plate 128); b) whole-bird efigy (or actual bird?) worn low on a performer’s back (after Plate 127); c, d) bird heads or igureheads attached to the belts of human performers or mythological beings (after Plates 318 and 286, respectively); not to scale; and e) bird heads or igureheads apparently afixed to staffs (after Plate 283). An in-depth study of the iconography of cranes and other waterbirds is not within the scope of this paper, but a few examples from Historic-period Native American cultures may serve to illustrate the variety of beliefs (see Johnsgard 1983:70-74 for a worldwide overview of crane iconography). Crow chiefs of the North American Plains are known to have attached the dried heads of cranes to ceremonial shields (Figure 10; Gilbert et al. 1981:4, Figure 2). The Kraho people of Brazil conduct village ceremonies for good ishing in which staffs mounted with efigies of heron heads are carried, because the heron is an excellent isher (Severin 1973:189). On the Northwest Coast, cranes were sometimes depicted in light bearing shamans on their backs. In particular, Tlingit shamans of southeastern Alaska sought power through visions in which a crane carried the seeker “over great distances or dived beneath the sea” (Bancroft-Hunt and Forman 1979:104-105), and numerous shaman’s rattles exist that are carved to represent sleeping shamans on the backs of cranes and other birds (Emmons 1991:377). An amazing Kwakiutl mechanical mask of the early twentieth century (Figure 5e) took the form of a crane with a movable beak, an extendable neck, and large wings made of hinged slats hung with painted cloths. The wings could be opened to reveal Komokwa, the King of the Sea, one of the most revered of Northwest Coast spirits. One can imagine a dramatic moment when the performer suddenly stopped short in his crane-like antics, slowly and proudly extended the crane’s neck, and opened wide the wings to reveal the face of Komokwa within. Many of the Northwest Coast dances involving animal mimicry were performed expressly for purposes of entertainment, and imitating the crane was no exception. In 630 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex e a b d c g f Figure 9. The Crane igurehead compared with the heads of several species of waterbird: a) whooping crane (Grus americana); b) sandhill crane (Grus canadensis); c) great blue heron (Ardea herodias); d) Louisiana heron (Hydranassa tricolor); e) common egret (Casmerodius albus); f) brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis); and g) wood stork (or wood ibis, Mycteria americana). 1888 George Emmons (1991:379), ethnographer of the Tlingit, described an artifact in a catalogue entry as a “general dance mask of wood—represents a crane’s bill and head so constructed that the bill can be opened and closed by means of strings, of Haida origin and workmanship and used in general dances for amusement.” The native peoples of the southeastern United States also imbued the crane with symbolisms ranging from the holy to the hilarious. In an example of the former, Howard (1968:45) describes the Creek reverence for the large wading birds: “In their most sacred rite, the Feather Dance of the Green Corn, the Creek use white feathers from the crane rather than those of the eagle.” The Upper Creek of Hickory Ground, Oklahoma, and of several other Creek communities, mounted crane and heron feathers on staffs for the Feather Dance that was the high point of the Busk, or Green Corn Ceremony (Howard 1968:95). Men carried the feather staffs and whooped and sang songs to the Powers Above, to call the Birds of the Upper World. Bartram (1928:393) reported the use of heron and crane feathers in headdresses of the Muskhogee Creeks in the late eighteenth century. Women dancers of the Alabama peoples of eastern Texas carried staffs with four crane feathers, each feather a different color, and the staffs of the leader and the last woman bore entire crane wings (Swanton 1928:528). Swanton notes that, at gatherings other than the Busk, the A Mechanical Waterbird Mask dances of the Creeks were “principally animal dances,” and sometimes included a Crane Dance (1928:523, 534). The crane lends itself to a wide variety of symbolic interpretations to the extent that it has been viewed in some cultures as the epitome of grace and in others the very embodiment of awkwardness. Ainu girls of northern Japan perform an elegant, costumed Crane Dance whereas a Cherokee myth (Mooney 1982:290-291), with strong parallels to the Tortoise and the Hare fable, relates the tale of Crane’s race with Hummingbird (“who was as handsome as the Crane was awkward”) as they competed for the hand of a pretty woman in marriage. Although Crane won because he lew all night (while swift Hummingbird stopped to rest), the woman refused to keep her part in the bargain, declaring “she would never have such an ugly fellow as the Crane for a husband.” No culture adheres to consistent constructs of belief attested to in common by all its members. Every community and nation is comprised of individuals who vary considerably in their beliefs and attitudes toward the interaction of the natural and spirit worlds. A spiritually inclined person might believe, for instance, that the whooping crane is the physical embodiment of the sacred Ferryman to the Upper World, while a neighbor, on the other hand, sees the crane as nothing more nor less than a lovable, though clownish, bird. A talented dancer portraying Alligator or Bear Spirit might gain the audience’s favor by enlivening the character with seemingly inconsistent personality traits—heroic now and a moment later the butt of Trickster’s prank. It is changeability and apparent contradiction in a character’s behavior, more so than predictable consistency, that can make for a good story or an inspiring performance. 631 CHRONOLOGY OF THE PINELAND FIGUREHEAD The Pineland crane figurehead has been acceleratorradiocarbon-dated to A.D. 865-985 (calibrated range ± 1s, 1140 B.P., Beta-81501; see Chapter 3, this volume), placing it in the Caloosahatchee IIB period (A.D. 800-1200), a time of rising sea level (Stapor et al. 1991, Walker et al. 1995) and intensive mound building throughout the Charlotte Harbor area (William Marquardt, personal communication, 1994). Another bird-head efigy found at Pineland, a small bone pin decorated with a duck’s head, was associated with materials dated to A.D. 900-1120 (Chapter 17, this volume), and a third efigy, a hawk’s head pendant sculpted in stone (Chapter 15, this volume), is believed to date to Caloosahatchee IV (A.D. 1350-1500). A precolumbian date for the wooden Crane igurehead is supported by other evidence. First, there is the absence of Spanish goods at Pineland (save for two glass beads in a disturbed context). More directly, the shark-tooth tool marks inside the Crane head suggest that it probably was carved before Europeans irst arrived in the area around A.D. 1500. Mask carvers in Southwest Florida likely abandoned their shell and shark-tooth knives in favor of metal-bladed tools as soon as these became readily available from the Spaniards. The presence of thick, sand-tempered plain potsherds found in association with the Thomasson igurehead (and surface-collected from the mangrove zone all around), considered with the absence there of Belle Glade sherds, suggests the Caloosahatchee I (500 B.C. to A.D. 650; Cordell 1992:105), though it does not rule out the Caloosahatchee IIB period indicated by the radiocarbon date. In addition, these sherds of sand-tempered pottery, more common in the earlier period, might easily have been brought up from deeper muck deposits during the excavations undertaken for mosquito control that created the spoil pile in which the Crane igurehead was found. THE FIGUREHEADS AND FACEMASKS OF KEY MARCO The mechanical bird head is the lone artifact of its type from Pineland. Barbara Purdy (1991:1) commented in her study of the art of Florida’s wet sites that “idiosyncratic objects are not signiicant, no matter how interesting they are, because social scientists cannot determine what they represent to the culture.” Indeed, were it not for the recovery of several other wooden animal heads at Key Marco only 90 kilometers away, researchers might have regarded the Thomasson bird head as a curious relic, a whittled toy perhaps a few decades old. Figure 10. Shield of Crow Chief Arapoosh (Rotten Belly) with mummiied crane head attached (after Maxwell 1978:195; Gilbert et al. 1981:4, Figure 2). Key Marco is the largest and the northernmost island of the Ten Thousand Islands region of Florida’s southwest coast (Figure 1). In 1895 and 1896, Frank Hamilton Cushing of the American Bureau of Ethnology led expeditions to Key Marco to follow up on the discovery of well preserved precolumbian artifacts 632 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex found by the landowner while dredging up muck and peat for garden use. Cushing and his colleagues slogged and dug their way through a quagmire of mud, rotted vegetation, and interlocked mangrove roots, tormented all the while by guardian hordes of mosquitos. What kept the excavators digging, and even digging with enthusiasm, was the astounding array of unusual and marvelously crafted artifacts scattered throughout the mucky pond (Cushing 1897; Gilliland 1975, 1989). The Key Marco Site yielded many common archaeological items, those of durable materials such as ceramic, bone, teeth, antler, stone, and shell. But the excavators also recovered many rare, perishable materials: cordage, woven mats, and artifacts made of gourds and wood, some of the latter decorated with painted designs. “The objects found by us in these deposits were in various conditions of preservation, from such as looked fresh and almost new, to such as could scarcely be traced through or distinguished from the briny peat mire in which they were embedded....Articles of wood far outnumbered all others” (Cushing 1897:358). Cushing and crew found weapons and tools, some uninished and some with sets of replaceable parts (1897:367374). They found the structural remains of dwellings, including log pilings, braces, thatching, lattice-work, and matted screens (1897:361-363). There were mortars, trays, cups, scoops, and other domestic items, some carved in wood and others in shell and used in the processing and serving of food (1897:364). The crew recovered ishing gear including nets, hooks, and tackle (1897:364-367). There were several miniature canoes (some with paddles) that probably served as toys, as serving vessels for food, or both (1897:364-365). Numerous ceremonial and recreational artifacts and items of personal adornment were among the inds, the latter including ear ornaments, headdress components, even fringes and cord tassles (1897:374-387). But surely the most intriguing items to be brought out of the waters of Key Marco were the animal igureheads (Figure 11; Appendix A) and the human-faced masks (Figure 12; Appendix B) that would be considered masterpieces of the woodcarver’s art in any age. Cushing found the facemasks and igureheads scattered throughout the mire, a few as isolated inds and many in groupings or even stacked together (1897:388, 393). He also tells us that The animal igureheads, as I have called them, were somewhat smaller than the heads of the creatures they represented. Nearly all of them were formed in parts; that is, the head and face of each was carved from a single block; while the ears and other accessory parts, and, in case of the representation of birds, the wings, were formed from separate pieces. [Cushing 1897:388] Several of these animal head efigies (Appendix A) exist today in something close to their original forms and are curated at the University Museum (UM) at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) formerly known as the U.S. National Museum (USNM) in Washington, D.C., the FLMNH in Gainesville, and the Heye Foundation (HF), now known as the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). Other igureheads, now lost or existing only as unrecognizable fragments, were mentioned in passing by Cushing and associates and these were identiied as fox, raccoon, rabbit, hawk, great horned owl, owl-hawk, and eagle (Cushing 1896:19; 1897:329, 388, 392, 399; Gilliland 1975:85,116; 1989:80-84). Some of these labels may have been casually applied, and some of the extant carvings might have been identiied by more than one term each, so this list is not likely to be indicative of the number of lost igureheads. The Falcon igurehead (Bird of Prey 1) (Figures 11b, 13a) is carved from a single block of wood and is well-hollowed. It has a long hook to the beak and stalklike, protruding eyes. Cushing labeled this efigy a leatherback sea turtle (1897:389), due no doubt to its large size, and this misidentiication was perpetuated for decades. However, the protruding eyes, the form of its brows and beak, and the painted markings point more convincingly to those of a falcon (Figure 13), if one ignores the efigy’s exaggerated size which, it must be admitted, is closer to that of a sea turtle than to a bird of prey. It is the only igurehead, at least of those described here, to have been modelled larger than life, and this is probably the main reason it was misidentiied. This artifact may have been modelled after a single natural species, such as the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus; Figure 13b), or after a spirit incorporating traits of several members of the hawk family. Its large size might have been for dramatic effect, or may have manifested one of “the ierce hawklike birds of gigantic size, and possessed of man-eating proclivities” as found in the tales of most Historic period tribes of the American Southeast (Howard 1968:43-44). This falcon carving was pierced by only two holes, one at each side, and may have been worn as part of a dancer’s headdress, hafted and carried as a rattle, mounted as the igurehead on the prow of a canoe, or set up as a religious icon over a temple altar. A second Bird of Prey igurehead (Figure 11c), possibly representing an osprey (Pandion haliaetus)(Figure 13c) or a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), has never been photographed or illustrated, and was rediscovered in the Key Marco collections at the FLMNH in 1995. The two damaged pieces form the head of a raptorial bird with wide-open beak and extended tongue. The hook of the beak and the tip of the tongue are broken and missing. The painted left eye is still visible with traces of white paint behind the eye, which may mean it is the igurehead of a ish-hawk, or osprey, mentioned by Cushing (Gilliland 1975:85, 116). This Osprey carving (Bird of Prey 2) is more naturalistically represented than is the Falcon igurehead, the latter somewhat conventionalized in morphology and surface markings. Ironically, this Osprey igurehead, mirroring the difference of opinion over the Falcon head efigy, was also identiied as a turtle head efigy by some who viewed it on the day it was rediscovered in the collections. I myself am not inclined toward that interpretation, but it should not be ruled out. A Mechanical Waterbird Mask 633 d c a b e g f j h i k Figure 11. Eleven precolumbian wooden igureheads from Southwest Florida, shown to human scale and reconstructed from artifacts, watercolor paintings, ield photographs, and casts (the Crane igurehead is from Pineland, all the rest are from Key Marco): a) Crane, lower beak reconstructed; b) Bird of Prey 1 (Falcon); c) Bird of Prey 2 (Osprey); d) Bird of Prey 3, reconstructed from shrunken fragments; e) Brown pelican, wings reconstructed; f) Deer 1, antlers reconstructed; g) Wolf 1; h) Wolf 2, right ear and face reconstructed; i) Bear, ears reconstructed from fragments; j) Alligator; and k) Blue crab, legs, claws, and upper view reconstructed. 634 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex 3 2 1 4 7 6 5 11 10 8 12 9 13 14 15 Figure 12. The wooden facemasks of Key Marco for which images still exist, shown to human scale and reconstructed from artifacts, watercolor paintings, ield photographs, and casts. The facemasks have been assigned numbers for ease of discussion. Facemask 3 is known only from a photograph shot at an oblique angle (unless it is the same mask as Facemask 15, which is possible). A Mechanical Waterbird Mask 635 a b d g e h c f i Figure 13. Bird of prey igurehead or sea turtle igurehead? a) the Falcon igurehead (Bird of Prey 1) of Key Marco in proile and underside views; b) peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus; nineteenth-century engraving); c) osprey (Pandion haliaetus by Cynthia K. Moncrief (CKM) after Burton 1991:32); d) hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata redrawn by CKM from Cornelius 1986:4); e) leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea redrawn by CKM from Cornelius 1986:4); f) loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta drawn by CKM after National Geographic, February 1994:103); g) green turtle (Chelonia mydas redrawn by CKM from Cornelius 1986:4); h) olive Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea redrawn by CKM from Cornelius 1986:4); and i) Mayan depiction of a hawksbill turtle with exagerrated beak tip (Codex TroCortesianus 1967:17a). 636 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex A third Bird of Prey (Figure 11d) was rediscovered the same day in the FLMNH collections, and consisted only of two shrunken and warped fragments that retain dried remnants of a glue that once held the two pieces together. The glue, now laking from the palate of the upper piece, left a dark stain on the upper surface of the lower beak. The two pieces appear to have been carved originally in two parts and glued together by the creator of the igurehead and probably do not represent a broken artifact repaired by Cushing or a later curator of the artifact. The Pelican igurehead (Figure 11e), a small bust probably representing the brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), was found with “thin slats, admirably cut and painted to represent the wings” (Cushing 1897:425), though the latter have not survived. This igurehead probably was not worn as part of a dancer’s costume, for its small size suggests that it functioned as a frontlet, a badge worn on the forehead indicating clan afiliation or elite status (Figure 14). It could also have been mounted on a ceremonial staff. T. H. Below, a biologist of Rookery Bay Sanctuary near Naples, Florida, noted (personal communication, 1996) that the Pelican igurehead corresponded well, in size and proportions to a three week-old pelican chick. The carved efigy head of a Deer (Figure 11f) was certainly modelled after the Virginia whitetailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and is one of the most famous works of precolumbian art in the American Southeast, and justiiably so. Its delicate features and large, winsome eyes encourage many to identify it as a doe, in spite of Cushing’s description (1897:430) of the two peg holes for the attachment of antlers. The antlers were not found and he felt they were probably facsimiles made of a material that did not preserve. The ears were carved separately and Cushing (1897:392) suggested they once were itted with cords in such a way as to allow for “the realistic working of these parts.” However, it was unclear to me just how this would have been accomplished and I suspect the ears were immovably affixed. When found, the deer’s eyes were inlaid with tortoise shell held in place by “combined bees-wax and rubber-gum cement” (Cushing 1897:430). The painted crescent on the Deer’s forehead may have held a lunar symbolism. The surviving images (Cushing 1897:Plate 35; Gilliland 1975:Plate 71) indicate that the upper zigzag edge of the crescent was composed of between 27 and 30 points, and might have represented the number of days in the lunar cycle (Susan Milbrath, personal communication, 1995). Two ears from a second Deer igurehead (Deer 2) are reportedly housed at the NMNH (Gilliland 1975: 116). The igurehead that I have termed Wolf 1 (Figure 11g) was assumed by Cushing to represent a wolf (Canis lupus). This seems the likeliest candidate for the intended original, however, we should not exclude consideration of the red fox (Vulpes fulva), the gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), the coyote (Canis latrans), or the dog (Canis familiaris). The igurehead’s ferocious open jaws were carved together in one immovable piece and the tooth rows were realistically Figure 14. Artist’s conception of the Pelican igurehead worn as a frontlet by a noble of Key Marco. A Mechanical Waterbird Mask modelled. The igurehead was found disassembled, the head piece bound up in bark matting and leaves with the lat ears and shoulder pieces. Probably these components were mounted securely, not as movable parts, and were carved separately only for convenience. Five holes are to be found around the back edge of the head, one at top center and two on each side. Each ear is pierced at the base by two holes. One of the shoulder pieces is pierced by two holes and the other by three; perhaps one of the latter was a misplaced hole that was re-done. When found, the wolf head was painted in black, white, and red (or pink), and some faded color can still be seen on the ears. Fragments of a second Wolf figurehead (Figure 11h) indicate that the head piece was similar to that of Wolf 1, but the ears of the Wolf 2 artifact appear to have been smaller and more naturally modelled than the lat cut-outs of Wolf 1’s ears. Gilliland (1975:116) noted that wood fragments comprising the lower jaw of a third canine igurehead, Wolf 3, are curated at the NMNH. Carved prominently on the forehead of a half-mask is the Bear igurehead (Figure 11i) most likely depicting the American black bear, Euarctos, syn. Ursus americanus. It has a humorously pouted lower lip and spiral-tipped ears, the latter originally ixed immovably into two slots. I have somewhat arbitrarily classed this artifact as an animal igurehead, even though it was apparently intended to be worn over a performer’s face, because the half-mask was featureless apart from the two eyeholes and was apparently intended to obscure the wearer’s human face, not to transform it. The Alligator igurehead (Figure 11j) probably represents Alligator mississippiensis. It was made in two parts, upper and lower jaws, which lacked any representation of teeth whatsoever, the edges of the mouth being nothing more than lat surfaces. Representations of teeth were probably avoided so that the well-hollowed jaws could be clacked together easily and loudly, acting as a sound box for dramatic ampliication. This would make the Alligator artifact, like the Pineland Crane igurehead, a potentially amusing or frightening noisemaker. Its teeth did not have to be seen; they could be heard. Although the artifact remains in good condition a century after its removal from the muck, its method of operation is not immediately apparent. The upper jaw piece has ive holes in it, a pair at the hinge points of the jaws, one hole behind each eye near the back edge, and one centered on the forehead between the brow protuberances. This last hole might have been the hole for a cord to pass through for the mechanical operation of the mandibles, except that no attachment point was apparent on the lower jaw. Or perhaps there was no complicated mechanical contrivance. The two pieces of the Alligator igurehead might only have been hinged together with the wearer manipulating the lower jaw by simply lifting it from below. A igurine in the form of a Blue Crab (Callinectes sapidus) (Figure 11k) is known from only the wooden body piece, as no claws or legs were recovered with it. These, like the antlers of the Deer 1 igurehead, may have been made of wrapped plant ibers or another perishable material. A 637 photograph taken in the ield shows the crab igurine’s underside (Gilliland 1975:Plate 73). It may have been a component in a dancer’s headdress, as was seen during masquerades in the village of Ibani, Nigeria, in 1978 in which many dancers performed wearing large crab igurines mounted in headdresses (Anderson and Kreamer 1989:50). Alternatively it might also have been an altar icon or a toy carved for a child. It may even have been itted with movable limbs like those of a mechanical octopus mounted atop a nineteenth-century Kwakiutl humanfaced mask (Malin 1978:Plate 33). On this Northwest coast artifact, strings attached to the tentacles passed through the octopus’ head and allowed the dancer to wave the creature’s arms about. The Crab igurine of Key Marco might have been pulled by a string out into the performance area, as if it were a living, scampering crab, where it could “scare” one of the performers or be “caught” by another. This sort of dramatic special effect was to be found in the Beaver Dance of the Eastern Cherokee (Speck and Broom 1951:69-71), a performance in which a stuffed “beaver” lying on the dance loor was made to jump by an offstage operator tugging on a long string whenever a dancer hit the poor “creature” with a club. The facemasks of Key Marco, at least those for which I can ind images, are shown in Figure 12 and referenced in Appendix B. I include in Appendix B the labels that Cushing gave to several of the facemasks to indicate the presumed dual animal-human spirit, though we can no longer determine to what extent Cushing’s iconographic interpretations actually matched those of the facemask’s original owners. The masks were exceptionally well modeled, usually in realistic representation of human features, and were life-size; hollowed to it the face, and provided at either side, both above and below, with string-holes for attachment thereto. Some of them were also bored at intervals along the top, for the insertion of feathers or other ornaments, and others were accompanied by thick, gleaming white conch-shell eyes...that could be inserted or removed at will, and which were concave...to increase their gleam. Of these masks we found fourteen or ifteen fairly well-preserved specimens, besides numerous others which were so decayed that, although not lost to study, they could not be recovered. [Cushing 1897:388] My count of facemask images and artifacts matches that of Cushing’s, though perhaps only coincidentally. They are currently curated at the UM in Philadelphia, the NMNH in Washington, D.C., and the FLMNH in Gainesville. In every case that a facemask’s condition permitted a determination, I found that it had originally been quite wearable. They were hollowed to it the face comfortably, though not necessarily closely. Some had extra hollowing at the nose and mouth. The eyes were pierced through in all of the Key Marco facemasks, unlike the wooden masks found at Spiro Mound in Oklahoma (Figure 15d; Brown 1982:471-472) and at the Emmons Site in Illinois (Figure 15f; Walthall 1981:16). The facemasks of Key Marco were intended to be worn, at least occasionally. Only some of them had the mouth pierced through, an attribute that, when present, makes for better ventilation and allows the wearer to speak or sing during performance. If worn in a 638 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex a b c e f d g h Figure 15. Facemask 2 of Key Marco as a possible Falcon impersonator mask: a) Facemask 2; b) Facemask 12, listed as the “Bear-Man God mask” (Gilliland 1975:80) which Cushing found with Facemask 2 tucked inside it at Key Marco; c) the Wuling copper repoussé plaque depicting a composite human-falcon being with a jawless trophy head displayed in its hair (after Brose et al. 1985:Plate117); d) wooden antler-headed facemask from Spiro Mound, Oklahoma, with shell inlay for eyes and teeth (after Brown 1982:Figure 7); e) agnathous trophy-head rattle made of wood covered in copper and with teeth made of shell inlay, Etowah Mound, Georgia (Hall 1989:241, 256-257; Larson 1957); f) wooden efigy-head rattle with forked eye-markings, Emmons Site, Illinois (Hall 1989:241, 256; Grifin and Morse 1961); g) Falcon Man copper repoussé plaque from Etowah Mound, Georgia (redrawn by CKM from Strong 1989:225); and h) Falcon Man plaque from Etowah Mound (drawing by Wells Sawyer in Cushing 1897:Plate 35). A Mechanical Waterbird Mask 639 healing ceremony, a mask with an open mouthhole also would permit a shaman to blow an errant soul back into an ill person’s body or suck out a possessing demon. All the Key Marco facemasks in good enough condition to allow a determination had holes in the edges for attachment cords. An exception may be Facemask 15, which seems to have had none. My usage of the terms igurehead and facemask represents an artiicial dichotomy and, as with most classiication systems, the categories are not sharply bounded or exclusive. The Crab igurehead, rather than being worn as part of a performer’s headdress, might instead have been a free-standing igurine or a child’s toy, as discussed above. The Bear igurehead edges close to the facemask category by virtue of the halfmask descending from it. Facemask 10 (Figure 12) clearly has several features that identify it as the efigy head of a bobcat (Lynx rufus), but it also has a humanoid nose and pursed lips and was intended to be worn over a performer’s face (Gilliland 1975:Plates 47, 55). A cast of Facemask 10 (made from a mold produced in the ield in 1896) is intriguing. It is comfortable to wear, has good visibility, and the mouth is pierced and readily allows speech or singing. These mask categories grade into one another and, in any case, probably do not closely match the classiications once employed by the inhabitants of Pineland and Key Marco. Fenton (1987:28, 501-502) noted that systems developed by museum curators to organize Iroquois False Face masks into types actually correlated very poorly with distinctions made by the Iroquois themselves, for whom the “role behavior of actors in ceremonies is more important than mask morphology.” Cushing relates (1897:386) that he recovered a sunray venus clam shell (Macrocallista nimbosa) at Key Marco that, when opened, revealed the painted image of a standing man with hands upraised (Figure 16a). This igure appears to be wearing a mask with narrowed eyes, eyebrows, and a nose, but no mouth. The man also appears to be wearing on his head a bowl cap, a sun-cross headdress panel and three bone pins or “batons.” A wooden igurine (Figure 16b), also from Key Marco, has a round, lattened mask-like face and appears to be wearing a cape. On the other hand, it may have been a child’s doll in the form of a round-faced baby lying on a mat or a cradle board. The well-known Kneeling Panther (or Bobcat) igurine from Key Marco (Figure 16c) may represent a dancer wearing a facemask, for the igure is not sitting upright like a cat, but kneeling like a human. Cushing (1897:387) felt that the igurine represented a feline spirit whose blunt-ended fore and hind legs indicated a taboo against depicting the talons of a dangerous spirit, however the undeined feet could as easily represent part of a dancer’s costume, possibly broad leggings of woven or fringed plant ibers obscuring hands and feet. a b 0 cm 10 c Figure 16. Three artifacts from Key Marco that may depict masked performers: a) masked igure painted on the inside of a sunray venus clam shell (Macrocallista nimbosa; after Gilliland 1975:Plate 115; scale not provided); b) wooden igurine possibly representing a masked person with a rectangular cape, though it might just as well have been a child’s doll in the form of a baby lying on a mat (after Gilliland 1975:Plate 71); and c) wooden igurine that may depict a kneeling human dancer in feline disguise, a cat-human spirit, or a natural bobcat or panther (after Gilliland 1975:Plates 69-71, 73). Other carved wooden igurines have turned up occasionally throughout the decades in archaeological contexts in south Florida, and some appear to represent masked individuals. Photographs of a wooden igurine (Figure 17a) found early in this century near the Glades-Hendry county line are found among the papers of John M. Goggin (Box 11, P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History, University of Florida). This kneeling man wears a cat- or owl-eared mask and his hair is worn in a bun at the back above two layers of hair. The cords holding the mask on the man’s face are lightly, but clearly, depicted on the sides of the head passing under the bun, but over the ponytail and loose hair. Another cat igurine (Figure 17b) in the collections of Rollins College, Florida, was once a work of art that surpassed in beauty even the Key Marco Cat igurine, though it is now in poor condition. This artifact may have been produced in the same iconographic tradition as the Key Marco cat, although it does not appear to have any human traits. A wooden igurine of a kneeling man (Figure 17c), found near Pahokee, Florida, appears to 640 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex be wearing a square-cornered, rimmed mask reminiscent of Facemask 8 from Key Marco (Figure 12), as does yet another carving of a sitting man (Figure 17d) described by Fewkes (1928:1-3). The facemasks and igureheads of precolumbian Key Marco and Pineland testify to a presumably unbroken masking tradition in southwest Florida that continued into early Historic times when Spaniards attempted to establish a military and missionary presence in the Calusa domain. The failed attempts by the Europeans to occupy the southern portion of the peninsula were recounted in Spanish records. These accounts contained references to Calusa masked performances and buildings that housed painted masks and other ceremonial igures that the Spaniards invariably found to be “very ugly,” “one worse than b a d c Figure 17. Four wooden artifacts from south Florida that may depict masked performers (not to scale): a) the Padgett igurine found near Lake Okeechobee, depicting a kneeling individual clearly wearing an eared mask (after photograph in Papers of John M. Goggin, Box 11, P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History, University of Florida), possibly representing a feline or a horned owl (note the straight top edge and the mask cords that appear to originate at the back edge of the mask and pass downward along the side of the igure’s head to pass below the hair bun); b) igurine of a cat from the archives of Rollins College with similarities to the Key Marco cat igurine (when newly inished, it must have been even more elegant and beautiful than the Marco cat); c) the Mahoney igurine from near Pahokee, Florida (note the rimmed, squared-off masklike appearance of the face); and d) the Miller igurine found near Lake Okeechobee’s north shore (after Fewkes 1928:Plate 1 and Purdy 1991:Figures 103a, -b, and -c; note the rimmed top edge of a mask). A Mechanical Waterbird Mask the other,” or examples of “hideousness” (Hann 1991:287, 160, and 422 respectively). THE ETHNOHISTORY OF CALUSA MASKING In 1566, the Spanish established a short-lived military garrison and Jesuit mission at Calos, the island residence and capital of Carlos, the cacique of the Calusa. Calos was probably located in Estero Bay on the island known today as Mound Key, about midway between Pineland and Key Marco (Figure 1). In 1567, the mission’s spiritual leader, Father Juan Rogel, gave a description (Hann 1991:287-288; Lewis 1978:34-35) of processions of masked dancers who emerged regularly from a temple on a mound and presented daytime performances in the plazas to the accompaniment of women singers. Rogel roused the ire of the Calusa when he “preached the truth to them about what was involved in that fraud” and “revealed their secrets and profaned their religion.” A few days later the dancers, upon spotting the Jesuit father at the gate of the Spanish fort, took their procession up the mound to capture him or, at the very least, to annoy and insult him. The masks referred to by Rogel were probably facemasks, as I have been using the term, but may well have also included more elaborate headdresses and costumes that involved carved igureheads. In another report referring to his small congregation among the Calusa (Hann 1991:247), Rogel noted that “they do not receive the jolt that they received at the beginning, when I revealed the deceptions of their sect to them and the falseness of their idols.” The references to “fraud,” “secrets,” and “deceptions” may well have meant that he had “pulled aside the curtain,” so to speak, and exposed the hidden dancers inside animal costumes as they worked mechanisms that made their painted creatures speak and move. It is not known whether the Calusa perceived Rogel’s actions more as blasphemy against the living incarnations of their spirits, or as the arrogant rudeness of a heckler ruining a beloved magic show. But, whether Rogel displayed boorishness or blasphemy, he came dangerously close to igniting a battle. Besides the masks they were wearing, the dancers in the procession who confronted Father Rogel at Calos may have carried igurines or igureheads as part of their performance, for Cushing (1897:383-385) described artifacts found at Key Marco that he felt were dance batons and Gilliland (1975:116) noted bird efigies that may have been used as staffs or scepters. Similarly, in some communities of the Alabama Indians of Texas in the Historic period, leaders in the Snake Dance performed with a wooden snake. Dancers of the Koasati Muskhogee carried wooden ish efigies in the Garish Dance (Swanton 1928:525, 531532). Bartram noted that the bachelor men in the Muskogee town of Muclasse possessed a great owl skin cased and stuffed very ingeniously, so well executed, as almost to represent the living bird...this ensign of wisdom and divination, they wear sometimes as a crest on the top of the head, at other times the image sits on the arm, or is borne on the hand. [1928:395] In 1569, not long after the Rogel incident, an anonymous Spanish account outlined four sacriices practiced by the Calusa (Hann 1991:316-319), of which the third and fourth 641 are pertinent here. The third sacriice made use of Christian shipwreck victims held captive by the Calusa. Each year the Calusa killed one of these captives so that they might “feed their idol,” a fearsome being who ate “human men’s eyes.” This belief might explain the three facemasks from Key Marco that were created each with one eye hole signiicantly larger than the other (Facemasks 8, 12, and 14 in Figure 12; Gilliland 1975:Plates 42R, 56, 58). Could these masks have represented unfortunate individuals who had risked the god’s wrath and had consequently lost an eye to its hunger? Perhaps the mask makers of Marco considered that a single empty eye socket communicated this horrible fate more dramatically than a mask with both eyes “missing.” The description of the third sacriice (Hann 1991:316) ends with the statement, “and they dance with his head each year,” an ambiguous reference either to an efigy head of the eye-devouring spirit or to the head of the European sacriice victim. The inal Calusa sacriice (Hann 1991:316) may also have involved animal igureheads: “the fourth sacriice is that after the summer some shamans...come in the guise...of the devil with some horns on their head. And they come howling like wolves and many other different idols, which make noises like animals from the woods...And these idols are four months [?] that they never rest neither day nor night that they go running about with great fury.” Over a century later, in 1697, a second attempt was made to establish a Christian mission in Calusa territory, again at Calos, but this time by Franciscan priests. This mission lasted only three months, however. Father Feliciano López, the mission’s leader, told of his experiences the irst day after their arrival: While examining the village because of having heard much celebration on the preceding night, and not seeing anything more than a house...in the area where I heard them, they say [it is] the house of Mahoma, and when I was most unprepared for it, all the Indians came running and yelling...so that I reckoned that my hour had arrived, but I took it as a joke, making them think I had not seen it. And as they saw me in celebration they themselves showed me everything. It is a very tall and wide house with its door and an abujero [a roof opening?],...in the middle a hillock... or very high lat-topped mound...and on top of it a sort of room...[made] of mats...with seats...all closed. One can imagine the purpose it serves. They dance around it. The walls are entirely covered with masks, one worse than the other. [Hann 1991:159-160] López seems to have described an enclosed room atop a mound that was inside a large building, though alternative interpretations are possible. The house of masks may have been enclosed by a wall and sitting atop a mound, or the enclosure might have surrounded the entire mound. Ocmulgee Mound in Georgia was described as having had a raised earth platform in the shape of a falcon inside the temple (McCane-O’Connor 1995:118). Juan Esteván, a young man serving with the friars, elaborated upon the masks themselves: ...and they engaged in their idolatries in a hut apart, where there are many wooden masks, painted in white, red, and black, with noses two yards in 642 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex length...and they keep these masks above...a type of altar with a mat...in front of it in the fashion of a frontal. [Hann 1991:195-196] One of the Key Marco facemasks, Facemask 13 (Gilliland 1975:80, Plate 39) might have been one of these long-nosed masks. The nose piece was never recovered, but it was obvious from the form of the facemask itself that this missing nose had been carved as a separate component, having been attached to the face piece with mortise and tenon, and presumably glue. A separately made nose implies a long nose for this mask, one that would have been awkward to carve in one piece along with the face. During the Franciscans’ short tenure in 1697, the Calusa residents of Calos engaged in their lively celebrations “every three nights” inside the building decorated with masks (Hann 1991:159-160, 196). This might represent a departure from the customs of 130 years earlier when Father Rogel witnessed masked performances occurring perhaps just as often but out in the open and probably during the day. The Franciscans did not state whether the native celebrants in 1697 actually wore the wall masks during their performances, but it would not be unreasonable to suppose they did. The frequency of these activities, as implied by Rogel’s report of the 1567 incident and by the López testimonies of 1697, suggests that many (if not most) of them represented community entertainments like those held nearly every night in one Cherokee town in the 1770s (Bartram 1928:298). By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Calusa peoples had been devastated by a combination of factors not directly recorded in any source. The ravages of European diseases, the incursions of Creek raiders from the north, and perhaps appropriation of ishing waters by the Spaniards of Cuba, all may have had disruptive effects on the fabric of the Calusa domain. In the year 1743, the Spaniards had gathered together a small community of remnant Calusa, Keys, and Boca Raton peoples near the mouth of the Miami River, founding for them a Jesuit mission christened Santa Maria de Loreto (Figure 1). The Indians used one of their huts as a diminished echo of their former mask houses, and Father Joseph Xavier Alaña reported (Hann 1991:422) that it contained two “idols.” One was a board covered with deerskin and painted with the image of a barracuda surrounded by tongue-like designs. The other icon, “which is the God of the cemetery, the theater of their most visible superstitions, was a head of a bird, sculptured in pine, which in the matter of hideousness well represented its original.” There were masks also, for Alaña notes that upon the altar was placed “the most ugly mask destined for the festivals of the principal idol,” whom the Indians called Sipil (Hann 1991:422). The father was angered that the mission Indians were making a laughing stock of Spain and the Church with their “manifest hoaxes...maintaining the sacrilegious adoration of some brute beasts almost within our sight” (Hann 1991:431). Like the Calusa “secrets” and “deceptions” exposed by Father Rogel almost two centuries earlier, the “manifest hoaxes” and “brute beasts” may refer to imaginatively constructed animal and spirit regalia employed in dramatic performances. It is likely that the Calusa expertise in woodcraft had greatly declined by this time, just before their ultimate demise. But even these last descendants of south Florida’s precolumbian inhabitants, forcibly settled together in the tiny rivermouth community in 1743, had stubbornly continued their traditions of masking and animal mimicry to the very end. SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF MASKS According to the Spanish missionaries whose unsuccessful conversion efforts in south Florida spanned three centuries, the Calusa masks and woodcarvings represented a “cult of idols” that were housed in “temples,” and the Calusa “adored” them and “engaged in their idolatries” (Hann 1991:195, 246, 287). But, of course, the Jesuit and Franciscan priests operated from a strong religious perspective and one can not be sure that the “temples” they described were not regarded by the Calusa themselves as more of a community building or council house. Even Frank Cushing emphasized the seriousness and intricate ceremonialism inherent in the facemasks and igureheads left by the Calusa’s predecessors at Key Marco (Cushing 1897:391). However, the masking traditions of southwest Florida no doubt also included comic aspects, for masked performances and animal mimicry throughout the world take many forms, from the solemnity of dramatized spiritual incarnation to the merriment of secular entertainments. In eastern North America, the Iroquois and the Cherokee, whose languages derive from a common Iroquoian stock, had active masking traditions that continued well into the twentieth century (Fenton 1987; Fogelson and Walker 1980). However, the Iroquois False Face masks and the Cherokee Booger masks, if these also shared a common origin in the distant past, have since diverged in their relative sacred signiicance. “In general, Iroquois False Faces are imbued with sacred religious qualities, while Cherokee masks are secular objects and the masked dances are profane, if not profaning” (Fogelson and Bell 1983:53, 59). Masked activities are also variable within a cultural group. Tlingit shamans of coastal British Columbia and Alaska practiced healing accompanied by elaborate dramatics (Emmons 1991:386; Jonaitis 1982). Generally, each shaman owned a set of four masks (or sometimes eight), representing both human and animal spirits, and these were worn successively throughout a healing ritual to dramatize the shaman’s transformations between spirit forms. Other Tlingit mask traditions occurred at potlatches: laymen of his clan imitated the shaman’s healing dances; nobles sponsored the dance-telling of clan-origin myths involving their crest animals; and performers presented comic and dramatic entertainments. Tlingit welcoming ceremonies held for the arrival of traders were also occasions for grand speeches and masked amusements (Emmons 1991:205, 295). The Kwakiutl of British Columbia hosted elaborate dances and dramas at potlatches that spotlighted their famous mechanical masks. These magniicent mechanical headdresses and costumes often represented natural animals that burst open to reveal within themselves a second mask (and sometimes even a third) manifesting a A Mechanical Waterbird Mask human or animal soul (Malin 1978:56-57; Waite 1982). The Kwakiutl potlatches were also attended by Fool Dancers who clowned and entertained as they fulilled their social role as bouncers, or police force, of the festival (Jonaitis 1988:142-143). When masks are at their most sacred, they may be employed to express recognition of the spiritual transformation between animals and humans and manifest “a restoration of the mythical prehistoric era, when all beings possessed a double nature—animal as well as human—and were able to alternate between the two forms at will,” as professed by shamans of Siberia (Waite 1982:146). A masked performer can assist his or her audience in a communal spiritual transformation, may undergo self-transformation, or may simply be the bearer of the mask that is itself the focus of the community’s power (Crumrine 1983:3). Shortly after returning from Key Marco, Frank Cushing reported in a news release that this dual aspect of spirits was clearly manifested in the facemasks that he had recovered, and in the painted animal igureheads that were “fortunately always found with them.” These were found just as they had been put away ere the houses fell, in sets, each complete, with its appropriate animal igurehead, and each evidently designed for use by a single priestly actor in the old myth-dramas, when personating the successive transformations of some tribal Ancient or Totem God—as beast or man at will [Cushing 1896:19]. By the time of his more formal presentation before the American Philosophical Society in November of 1896, Cushing had cautiously modiied his claim: “on one or two occasions I found the masks and igureheads actually bunched” (1897:388). But he nevertheless reiterated his belief (1897:391) that the facemasks and igureheads fulilled a highly ceremonial function for the ancient pile dwellers, for these disguises were the “means of becoming actually incarnated with the spirits of ancestors, mythic beings, and animals, or totem god.” In some communities, the masked priestly actor and the audience may believe implicitly in his or her spiritual transformation during a given ceremony. In other situations, the performances may be every bit as serious, everyone agreeing publicly that the masqueraders are in fact incarnated spirits, and yet in private will readily admit that the disguise is mere pretense. The eastern Bororo of the Mato Grosso plateau in Brazil must regularly tolerate a noisy invasion of their villages by demons known as aije, enacted by the villagemen of one moiety whose ceremonial disguises consist primarily of liberal amounts of white, smelly mud (Crocker 1983:158-160). The men claim that the aije come to terrify the women and, indeed, the women promptly block the windows and doors of their huts when they hear the animal roars and cries of the approaching demons. However, an ethnographer was caught inside a hut during one such invasion with several other women, who calmly closed up the building with mats and continued with their work. She found the raucous cries of the monsters and the pounding on the thatch to be an eerie experience, but the Bororo women assured her that 643 it was “just a silly man’s game,” proceeding to describe in detail the sacred masculine “secrets.” Perhaps furthest along a spectrum from sacred to secular, the veneer of pretense can become an open jest, as when Waurá men, neighbors of the Bororo, don their demon costumes after the morning’s ishing and mischievously accost their hard-working wives to mooch an afternoon snack. Just as in western cultures today, smaller scale societies at times support maskers who perform in social functions with no particular religious meaning. The masks are created and worn explicitly for sheer enjoyment. The Inuit of Labrador, for example, engaged in comic masquerades at secular social gatherings, and loved to compete in the production of comic plays (Vastokas 1982:66). In modern Venezuela, festival clowns perform their antics and carry large bird and animal efigies in profane folk plays and street parades that derive from a complex heritage of African, Spanish, and Native American origins (Pollak-Eltz 1983:180). Swanton noted that Historic-period Creeks held purely social dances...most often, it is said, when the moon was full, but ceremonies were performed near the period of the new moon. The fact that dances were held so often in the full of the moon, however, gave early travelers an impression that the Indians observed a ceremony every month. While there were...certain ceremonies observed from time to time, most of those that have passed as such were little more than social dances [1928:522]. William Bartram observed in the 1770s that when the people of the Cherokee town of Cowe gathered, the musicians seat themselves, and round about this the performers exhibit their dances and other shows at public festivals, which happen almost every night throughout the year [1928:298]. Bartram also recounted that the residents of Cowe, besides the ball-play dance, have a variety of others equally entertaining....indeed all their dances and musical entertainments seem to be theatrical exhibitions or plays, varied with comic and sometimes lascivious interludes [1928:299-300]. Over a century later, the Cherokees continued to enjoy comic performances at social gatherings—in particular these were manifested in the rude mischief of the Boogers, masked clowns with obscene names who burst in on the festivities “uninvited” (Fogelson and Bell 1983; Fogelson and Walker 1980). Although most of the Booger Masks were carved in wood to look like old men or animals, some of the Boogers wore facemasks made of dried gourds that gave them outrageously phallic noses. Until about 1900, the Seminoles of Florida also performed masquerades of Old Men (Fogelson and Bell 1983:60-61), possibly remnants of mask traditions brought from the north by their Creek ancestors or, conceivably, adopted from the Calusa or other peoples whom these invaders displaced. “A profane attitude pervades much southeastern masked dancing. Joking, parody, and burlesque seem to be its lifeblood” (Fogelson and Bell 1983:61). 644 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex Animal mimicry is favored in the human experience both as a form of primary entertainment in its own right and also contained as comic relief within more serious performances. In the early sixteenth century, Spanish friars in Mexico reported Aztec theatrical entertainments that were formally staged and had no apparent religious content (Bricker 1973:191, 193). Actors impersonated black beetles, lies, butterlies, birds, lizards, and large toads to the delight of the audience. In the nineteenth century, George Emmons (1991:294) compiled a list of Tlingit performances on the Northwest coast that he labeled “amusement dances generally connected with animals in which they use whole skin and represent very exactly the movements and actions of the animal.” The ability of humans and animals to adopt each other’s outward forms has always been a popular theme, whether employed in serious spirituality, as discussed above, or in light entertainment. Today’s western societies are no exception. Although serious belief in human-animal transformation is seldom professed in the western world today, we have taken the illusion of shape-shifting to new technical heights. In the contemporary world of entertainment, there is no shortage of human characters who transmutate into vampire bats and werewolves. And there is nothing conceptually new about a popular children’s television series and feature-length ilm wherein ordinary young people (called the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) transform into mighty heroes to do battle with the forces of evil. Their human-faced masks, like those found at Key Marco, bear identifying colors and stylized animal-efigy designs that bring each hero and heroine the power of their individual totem animals. In direst extremity (which befalls them in every episode), the heroes turn into mechanical counterparts of their animal totems. These animals of power, represented on their facemasks and as gigantic mechanical efigies, are primeval creatures (such as the tyrannosaur and the sabertooth tiger) from out of the ancient past, from our scientiic version of the mythic age of monsters. In the ilm version, the heroes took on new totems derived from animals of the present age, and it is a fascinating commentary on recurring choices of favorite totems among human societies that four of these six heroes take on the totemic attributes of the Wolf, Falcon, Bear, and Crane, all to be found coincidentally among the known igureheads from Key Marco and Pineland. These and countless other entertainments are contemporary morality plays, the most recent expressions of wish-fulfillment tales involving shape-shifting metahuman heroes, that assist western societies in deining their important ideals and evils. The details may be all high-tech metals, plastics, and computer effects, but the underlying human dreams, fears, and love of entertainment are ages old. For ancient South Florida, as with ourselves today, highly artistic and well-crafted artifacts were not solely the province of sacred worship. The delight engendered by dramatic enactment of favorite stories is a powerful impetus for the production of artistically rendered stage properties and regalia, all elaborated to the extent that a society’s surplus wealth will allow. These discussions of sacred rituals and entertaining pastimes are not intended to separate cultural activities into deined categories, but simply to indicate the diverse ways that impulses toward the sacred and toward social amusements may express themselves, whether separately or in medley of serious ceremony with comic relief (or even comedy with serious relief). Cushing recognized that it is possible to over-compartmentalize secular and sacred activities: It is always dificult to determine as speciic, the purpose of a primitive art-form, for the high degree of differentiation characteristic of modern art was not developed generally in primitive art. It is particularly dificult to distinguish between the purely ceremonial and the more or less ornamental in such personal paraphernalia as I have been describing. To a certain extent all personal adornments, so called, of early peoples, are ceremonial or sacred, since the most rare and beautiful objects are like to be regarded by them as also the most effective charms or medicine potencies, if only because of their rarity, their substances and their colors [1897:377]. At the Key Marco Site, the sacred and the serious clearly are represented in the profusion of art objects pulled from the ancient watercourts; but there is evidence, too, of an artistic indulgence in the lighter side of life. Toy canoes (Cushing 1897:364), the assymetrical long-faced mask that is so unlike any of the other human masks (Facemask 11 in Figure 12; Gilliland 1975:Plate 48), and the pouting lip of the Bear igurehead (Figure 11i) might all have been the creations of playful imaginations. One can imagine the amusement generated at irelight performances in ancient Pineland or Key Marco when a nervous child tries to act brave in spite of the intense stare of the approaching Crane Spirit, or when an old man nearly falls off his seat, startled by the sudden lunge of Alligator Man with his snapping jaws. The Calusa sense of humor could be cruel and arrogant, to judge by historic Spanish accounts (Hann 1991:159, 171, 184-185). Of course it is not surprising, considering that Spanish-Calusa relations were so often confrontational, but if the Calusa had played host to sympathetic and accepted ethnographers, who can say what humorous entertainments might have been recorded in the historical literature? Whether the Calusa masquerades were generally ceremonial or celebratory, serious or playful, one could expect the missionaries to describe those they witnessed in primarily religious terms. The Jesuit and Franciscan fathers were probably unwilling to investigate deeply into native categories for sacred rituals, political ceremonies, comic interludes, and lascivious dances, inding these all to be equally offensive and probably therefore equally blasphemous. Even if the priests were cognizant of Calusa distinctions concerning their own social activities, it might have proved an easier task for the Christian priests to condemn all suspect performances than to sort out the solely religious ceremonies for censure. Certainly we are dealing with sacred objects of religious and political importance in many of the inely carved and painted masks of Pineland and Key Marco. But the A Mechanical Waterbird Mask masking traditions of Southwest Florida undoubtedly also fulilled the human need for play, entertainment, and creative expression. The Calusa, and those who came before, certainly employed an appropriate portion of their rich material culture for lighter pursuits—the toy canoes, the more clownish of the facemasks, and igureheads that could turn a favorite uncle into an eerie, beak-snapping bird approaching in the irelight. It is tempting to read grand generalizations into one’s study set, even when the set is too small and distinctly unrepresentatative of the presumed whole (all the masks that once existed in precolumbian South Florida). I would not suggest that the following interpretations bear a close correspondence with precolumbian Florida belief systems, but I shall offer them in the hope that they trigger further productive consideration by the reader. Three worlds or planes of existence may have been represented in the igureheads of Pineland and Key Marco: the Upper World by the Falcon, Osprey, and Bird of Prey 3 efigy head carvings; the Underworld by the Alligator and the Crab; and This World by the Deer, Wolves, and Bear. Perhaps the Crane and the Pelican were creatures that easily crossed the boundaries of all three world dimensions. But, alas, while ultimate meaning may in some fashion be intrinsic to physical objects such as the facemasks and igureheads, I suspect that much (or all) of what we call meaning is provided for a given object by any person who lends it even a single thought. The commissioning patron of a mask has in mind certain symbolisms at the outset. The artist attempts to communicate those symbolisms, and elaborates upon them, sometimes utilizing traditional iconography and sometimes creating new forms. Perhaps the owner puts the artifact to use to symbolize something never originally intended. The performer adds lourishes that enliven the symbolic qualities of the piece and the members of the audience are stirred by their dramatic experience, but perhaps come away with widely varying interpretations. An enemy who invades and destroys the community brands the mask as blasphemous and lings it into the swamp. Centuries later the archaeologist brings to the object his or her ethnographic knowledge and experience, and later readers of the archaeologist’s report do likewise. Undoubtedly, along the way through the centuries, many meanings have been applied to every one of the facemasks and igureheads discussed in this chapter. When a cultural group is known only from a few clues left behind in sand and muck, it is especially dificult to make well grounded statements about that group’s ritual customs and iconography. David Attenborough’s comment on ancient Egyptian mythology may be applicable also to the Calusa masking traditions: Indeed, their attitudes towards animals, moulded by 3,000 years of theological elaboration, ultimately became so full of complexities, conlations and contradictions that almost any generalisation about them can be contradicted by one example or another, any rationalisation about their origins or responsibilities confounded by an illogical conclusion [1987:79]. Nonetheless, however improbable of success is our quest for understanding of Calusa masked ceremonies and 645 entertainments long forgotten, not to attempt it deprives the past of meaning entirely. CHRONOLOGY OF THE KEY MARCO SITE The radiocarbon date of A.D. 865-985 determined for the Pineland crane artifact is not inconsistent with the range of dates (roughly A.D. 100-900) obtained from ive Key Marco artifacts (Gilliland 1975:257-258). A canoe paddle was dated to about A.D. 100; Facemask 9 (Figure 12) and a painted wooden panel depicting a bird were both dated to around A.D. 700; a wooden net-loat was whittled sometime between A.D. 700 and 900; and a post fragment dated to A.D. 900. But the chronological position of the Cushing site at Key Marco remains open to debate (Purdy 1991:28-31; Widmer 1988:89-93). Gilliland (1975:37-38) noted an early consensus among researchers that the Key Marco Site had probably been occupied for a considerable time terminating at a “late-ifteenth-century, pre-contact date.” This assessment was based on the absence of gold and other European goods at Cushing’s site, a single Carbon-14 date (determined in 1968) of A.D. 1670 ± 100, the presence of several iconographic traits ordinarily associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex of the Mississippian period, and the presence of Glades Tooled and Fort Walton potsherds. The ceramic evidence is questionable as the sherds probably did not come from Cushing’s Key Marco watercourt site, but it is likely that Cushing collected them from Goodland Point, another site on that large island, and the two artifact collections were inadvertently combined in subsequent decades (Ryan Wheeler, personal communication 1995). Gilliland (1975:39-42) herself favored an earlier, irst milennium A.D. time for the Key Marco watercourt site as the ive radiocarbon dates suggested, and she downplayed (1975:257) the apparent presence of several Mississippian period motifs at Key Marco: “These dates...lend great support to the author’s thesis that this site was occupied over an extended period and demonstrate the presence of sophisticated art forms in Florida at a very early date.” Milanich (1978:682) challenged the radiocarbon dates, suggesting that the Marco artifacts had been treated with organic pesticides for several decades since their discovery and that this heretofore acceptable treatment had contaminated the artifacts, invalidating the radiocarbon evidence, though he agrees with Gilliland that the Key Marco artifacts probably accumulated in the muck over a considerable period of time (Milanich, personal communication 1995). It is plausible that Cushing’s Key Marco Site was occupied over a period of several centuries and that artifacts gradually accumulated in the waters and middens, but that the community was eventually destroyed by a hurricane or by war. Such a disaster could have caused the sudden, massive accumulation of domestic and ceremonial articles into the watercourt and abandonment of the site. Cushing noted (1897:360-361) that “the greater number of objects were, however, promiscuously scattered” and that “occasionally we found fragments separated by considerable distance which, when brought together, itted perfectly.” 646 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex The Key Marco assemblage represented for Cushing a moment in ethnographic time: I have only to add that the combined archaeological data and collections which we gathered from the ancient keys, were together so complete (happily because so many perishable objects were preserved intact and in their proper relations) that they might be called, what though so very ancient, almost literally ethnological, rather than archaeological collections [1897:414-415]. Typically, Cushing’s lair for abandoning interpretive caution, openly stated and enthusiastic, is appealing and, truly, if any archaeological site deserved to be called “ethnological,” Key Marco would be a candidate for irst place. Cushing’s statement dramatizes the point that the greater bulk of the Marco materials probably represented a rare, single episode of artifact burial, especially considering that there has been no comparable archaeological ind in more than a century since. When and how the destruction of the watercourt village may have come about is unknown, but the recovered remains might have derived from the destruction of a mortuary temple, a council house, the residences of chiefs or noble families, a shaman’s house, or indeed several such structures all at once. The abundance of watercraft paraphernalia in the muck deposits, but the absence of the watercrafts themselves, suggests that the residents may have abandoned the village just before the onslaught of the storm, or enemy raid, that destroyed their homes and possessions and consigned them to the waters. The site may have been reoccupied with a renewed day-to-day accumulation of artifacts and midden materials. SPECULATIONS ON THE FALCON MAN AT KEY MARCO George Luer (1992:57-58) suggests that the Falcon igurehead of Key Marco (Bird of Prey 1; Figures 11b, 13a; Luer termed it simply “a bird’s head”) and several other popeyed bird-head efigies from sites in west-central Florida probably dated to the late Mississippian/ early Historic period (A.D. 1400-1700; Glades IIIb and IIIc, corresponding to Caloosahatchee IV and V). Although well outside the time range of the ive questionable radiocarbon dates for Key Marco discussed above, this would be consistent with the possibility that this igurehead was used in association with Facemask 2 (Figures 12, 15a, 18c) as components in the regalia of a Mississippian-period Falcon Impersonator (Clark 1995:46-58, 127-135, 159-160). Frank Cushing demonstrated (1897:388-389, 424, Plate 33), with two illustrated examples, his belief that the igureheads and facemasks came in paired sets based on their respective physical proximities when found and on similarities in their painted markings. The irst pair (Figure 18a) was the Wolf 1 igurehead and Facemask 1 (Cushing’s Wolf Man God mask), and the second pair (Figure 18b) was the Pelican igurehead and Facemask 7 (Cushing’s Pelican Man God). After the losses of a century, with only deteriorated and fragmented artifacts remaining, it is not easy to validate the correspondences in these two sets, however I nonetheless agree with Cushing that at least some of the igureheads did have counterpart facemasks. For there is a third pair (the Falcon igurehead and Facemask 2 shown in Figure 18c) that demonstrates obvious similarities also noticed by Cushing (1897:389, 393), though he chose not to emphasize the match. He identiied the igurehead as a great Sea Turtle and the associated facemask became for him the Turtle Man God mask (Gilliland 1975:85, Plates 40B, 45, 50). As stated above, this identiication of the igurehead as a sea turtle was probably wrong; it more likely represented a peregrine falcon or other bird of prey such as the osprey (Figure 13b, c). Nonetheless, I do believe that Cushing was correct in the association of these two artifacts and that this pairing probably matched the intent of the artist(s). The triangular patterns on the forehead of Facemask 2 bear resemblance to the markings behind and above the eyes on the Falcon igurehead. The eyes of both the facemask and the igurehead are contained each within a white area that is itself within a dark, forked marking, a stylized depiction of the peregrine falcon’s forked eye-mark (Figures 13a, b). Facemask 2 is probably an actual example of a wearable Falcon Man’s mask, an item that is known elsewhere in the Southeast only from small images engraved on shell, embossed in copper, or carved in wood as a rattle, but nowhere as the actual mask itself (Figure 15c, f, g, h; Figure 19; Strong 1989). A further indication that Facemask 2 and the Falcon igurehead might have been an expression of Mississippian iconography is the presence of the concentric ovals painted on the throat of the igurehead. It is strikingly similar to the concentric ovals frequently depicted on the breast of Mississippian falcons and Falcon Men (Figures 13a, 15c, 20a, 20b; Phillips and Brown 1978:153-154). If the facemasks and igureheads of Key Marco were indeed created in Mississippian times, then they might easily be separated in time from the Pineland Crane igurehead by more than half a millennium (not to mention their geographic separation of 90 kilometers). It should not be assumed out of hand, therefore, that the Pineland mechanical igurehead and the Key Marco masks must have been part of the same masking tradition. Even if Key Marco’s Falcon igurehead and Facemask 2 did in fact constitute a transformational pair of masks for a Falcon Man spirit, it is plausible that this represents, not the Falcon Man of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, but rather a Falcon Man of independent origin. It is possible that the Key Marco Falcon Being was a peculiarly southern-Florida personiication of the dream of human aerial prowess that happened to manifest itself in Early Woodland times. Indeed, it is even conceivable that a south Florida Falcon Man could have been the origin of the later Mississippian Falcon Impersonator far to the north. Cushing himself noted, concerning the widespread occurrence of the forked eye-surround motif: Thus, through a study of the conventional treatment of such igures here in the keys of lower Florida, we not only arrive at an understanding of a new meaning of these igures or lines around the eyes of maskoids and head-carvings found in the far away north (namely, that they represent animals of prey or their human counterparts), but we also see that the same art was, in these widely separated regions, so identical in this particular, that we cannot but as- A Mechanical Waterbird Mask 647 a d e b f c Figure 18. Six igurehead-facemask pairs illustrated by Cushing or inferred from references in Cushing’s works: a) Wolf 1 and Facemask 1; b) Pelican and Facemask 7; c) Bird of Prey 1 and Facemask 2; d) Deer 1 and Facemask 4; e) Bear and Facemask 12; and f) Cat igurine and Facemask 10. b a Figure 19. Two limestone pipes associating a bird of prey with a dead human: a) efigy pipe representing a peregrine falcon grasping a human head in its talons, found in Washington County, Mississippi, and dated to A.D. 1100-1200 (Dye and Wharey 1989:344; McCane-O’Connor 1995:88-89); and b) pipe in the form of a bird of prey plucking out an eyeball or tearing lesh from the face of a human corpse, found at the Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma and dated to A.D. 1200-1350 (Dye and Wharey 1989:338). 648 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex sign to it a single cultural origin....Now the bulk of evidence at hand favors the belief that the place of origin of the peculiarities I have noted, was here in the far south; probably among the keys [of Gulf coast south Florida]. (Cushing 1897:399- 400). If such a Falcon transformational spirit existed at Key Marco, it might have been an isolated emergence of totemic identiication, one that had no more historical linkage with the Mississippian Falcon Man than to Horus, the falcon-headed god of ancient Egypt. I believe the Falcon igurehead (Bird of Prey 1) and Facemask 2 to have been in some manner associated in an expression of symbolic identiication with the perceived powerful qualities of a bird of prey, probably the peregrine falcon. But the relationship between this Falcon Being of Key Marco and the more familiar Mississippian Falcon Impersonator remains unclear. There are three basic possibilities. First, the Key Marco Falcon Man may be a typical, Mississippian period expression of the Falcon Impersonator imported from the northern Mississippian cultures, for many of the costume elements depicted in shell and copper artifacts throughout the Southeast may have been represented at Key Marco. These include a trophy-head mask with forked eye-surrounds (Fasemask 2), a falcon head efigy (Bird of Prey 1), ear spools (Cushing 1987:383, Plate 35; Gilliland 1975:72-75), war clubs (Cushing 1987:373, Plate 35; Gilliland 1975:123, 133, Plate 81), cross-in-circle gorgets (Cushing 1987:378; Gilliland 1975:175, Plates 113, 114), headdress panel elements and batons (Cushing 1987:373, Plate 35; Gilliland 1975:142, Plates 85,115), and “brickwork” bands on arms and legs (Cushing 1987:379, Plate 34; Gilliland 1975:Plate 115). A carved and painted wooden artifact found by Moore (1905:314) on nearby Chokoloskee Key is reminiscent of the depictions of the ”bellows-shaped apron” in Mississippian art (Phillips and Brown 1978:98-101). A second possibility is that the cultural borrowing went in the opposite direction, from south to north. In this scenario, the Falcon Being from Key Marco would be an earlier, Woodlands era progenitor that originated in South Florida and was borrowed by emerging Mississippian cultures to the north, ultimately inding widespread popularity and artistic expression throughout the Southeast. And, third, it may be that the Marco Falcon Being was unrelated to the Mississippian Falcon Impersonator, an independently developed expression of a world-wide human proclivity toward totemic adoption of the peregrine falcon, a bird of notable prowess and the most globally dispersed of all bird species. Frank Cushing found Facemask 2 tucked inside another facemask that he called the “Bear-Man mask” (1897:393) due to the resemblance of its painted markings to those of the Bear igurehead. Unfortunately, even though a cast exists of the Bear igurehead, this resemblance cannot be veriied because its markings seem never to have been recorded and have not survived in any form. Also, Facemask 12 is described by Cushing in a catalog entry as “an associated human mask painted with bear face markings to represent Bear Man God” (Gilliland 1975:80), so we may (cautiously) identify Facemasks 2 and 12 as the two masks that Cushing found tucked together. He was puzzled by this nestled association of two facemasks representing a turtle-man and a bear-man, but if we irst consider that the “Turtle-Man” mask (Facemask 2) may instead have been a Falcon-Man mask, then the association might make more sense iconographically. A Mississippian shell gorget from Oenaville, Texas, depicts a bear-like animal and a bird of prey facing each other (Phillips and Brown 1978:160) in a position that would be termed “combatant” in English heraldry. A Cherokee myth (Mooney 1982:286-287) entitled “The Ball Game of the Birds and Animals” tells how Eagle was chosen Captain of the Bird Team with Hawk as his second-in-command. Their opponents were the Animals Team, and Bear was its Captain. In the belief systems of the Iowa is to be found the story of the Thunderbird (a hawklike myth-being) who competed in a ball game against opponents who were a special race of bears (Hall 1989:246). Could there have been a widespread mythical theme in the precolumbian Southeast concerning a great game or struggle between two great powers led respectively by the Raptorial Bird and the Bear? In this light, tucking a Falcon Spirit’s facemask together with that of a Bear Spirit would be a likely combination of artifacts. Perhaps this game or war between Bird of Prey and Bear is a frequently-reinvented dichotomy in the human experience, for this grand game saw recent manifestation in the global superpower struggle between America’s Eagle and the Soviet Union’s Bear during the Cold War of the mid-twentieth century. The painted markings on Facemasks 2 and 12 (Figures 15a, b) resemble associated sets of facial markings seen in certain Mississippian Falcon Man depictions found engraved on shell artifacts and embossed in copper. Figure 15c is a detail of an embossed copper plate of a being with a human head and a falcon’s body. This entity’s face bears inger-like markings on the cheek similar to those on Facemask 12, and in his hair is depicted a trophy head (turned face upward) that has the forked eye-marks that may indicate totemic association with the peregrine falcon. Two other Falcon Men (15g, h) appear to represent fullyhuman performers wearing falcon costumes. These two Falcon Men have forked-mouth markings on their faces that may be related to the inger-like markings seen on Facemask 12 (Figure 15b) and on the face of the Falconbodied Man (Figure 15c). More signiicantly, however, each of the two Falcon Men (Figures 15 g, h) bears in his left hand a rattle in the form of a trophy head with the forked eye-marks. There is other evidence revealing a possible connection of Facemask 2 with death symbolism. The watercolor painting of this facemask (Gilliland 1975:Plate 50) gives the impression that vampire-like fangs were painted on the inside of the mouth, but an examination of Sawyer’s ield photograph (Gilliland 1975:Plate 45 upper right) shows that these white elements may have been the remnants of shell inlays representing teeth revealed by the drawnback lips in the rictus grin of a corpse. Whatever they once were, however, no trace of them remains today (Gilliland 1975:Plate 40b). Shell inlay has been used elsewhere to depict teeth on deathmasks: one example is the wooden A Mechanical Waterbird Mask 649 human-faced mask (shown with deer antlers) from Spiro Mound, Oklahoma (Figure 15d; Brown 1982:471-472, 481), and another is a wooden trophy head rattle from Etowah Mound, Georgia (Figure 15e; Hall 1989:241, 256257; Larson 1957). The Etowah Mound trophy head rattle is very similar to another wooden rattle that was found at the Emmons Site in Illinois (Hall 1989:241, 256; Grifin and Morse 1961). The Emmons Site rattle has the forked eye-markings, though they are a visual negative of the eye markings of the peregrine falcon, being light-on-dark. Both rattles are probably actual examples of the “trophy heads” that appear as a hair ornament of the Falcon Man in Figure 15c and in the hands of the Falcon Men in Figures 15g and 15h. The dome of the cranium is missing from both of the actual trophy-head rattles (Figures 15e, f) and from the trophy-head hair ornament (Figure 15c) and in all three cases it is replaced by what appears to be a stepped crown, but which probably represented broken skull bones. This stepped pattern also appears at the points where the missing lower jaws should have been attached in Figures 15c and e, and is also to be found at the break points of ruined war clubs depicted in Mississippian art (Phillips and Brown 1978, 1984). It seems to have been a convention employed by Mississippian artists to indicate torn lesh, broken bone, or even broken wood. peregrine falcon markings have represented the spirit of a True Warrior that is carried to the Upper World by a Falcon or a Falcon God? To close on a cautionary note, the observations just discussed have less value if two conditions are not irst met. One is that I have correctly identiied the two nested facemasks described by Cushing as being Facemasks 2 and 12. The second condition is that we can trust Wells Sawyer’s watercolor renditions of their painted markings as appropriate guides to interpretation of iconographic content. Both conditions are open to question, and I leave it to the reader to judge whether these observations hold value for further consideration. CHRONOLOGY OF MASKING IN SOUTHWEST FLORIDA The radiocarbon dates for the Pineland crane head efigy (and perhaps also the Key Marco masks) suggest that impressive performances involving masks were taking place in Southwest Florida between A.D. 700 and 900. The archaeological record of Key Marco (Facemask 2; Cushing 1897; Widmer 1989) suggests the use of masks in the expression of iconographic motifs that may have Two examples exist of Mississippian pipes made from limestone that associate a raptorial bird with dead human forms (Figure 19). The irst pipe was found in Washington County, Mississippi, dated to the Early Mississippian period (A.D. 1100-1200), and depicts a peregrine falcon with mouth open and holding a human head in its talons (Figure 19a; Dye and Wharey 1989:344; McCane-O’Connor 1995:88-89). The lips on the human head are drawn back to reveal the teeth. The second pipe (Figure 19b; Dye and Wharey 1989:338), from the Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma, dates to the Middle Mississippian (A.D. 1200-1350). It shows, in less clearly delineated sculptural forms than the irst pipe, a raptorial bird plucking out an eyeball or tearing lesh from the face of a human corpse. Finally, I note two examples of copper embossings depicting Falcon Men apparently reposed in death (Figures 20a, b). They are shown with lips drawn back and teeth revealed, each wearing a falcon costume and each associated with a separate falcon efigy. Does the occasional appearance of the Falcon Man eye-markings in the context of a death’s head indicate the sometime victories of a mythological Bear moiety over a Falcon/Hawk/Eagle moiety? Alternatively, could a death’s head with a b Figure 20. The Falcon Impersonator in death: a) two copper repoussé plaques found in association at the Lake Jackson Site in north Florida, one of which depicts a Falcon Man in death, the other a falcon or osprey (redrawn by CKM from Jones 1982:34); and b) a single copper repoussé plate depicting a Falcon Man apparently lying in state who is himself shown wearing a falcon headdress plate, Etowah Mound Site in Georgia, redrawn by CKM from Strong 1989:225). 650 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex been linked with Late Mississippian cultural traits to the north, particularly that of the Falcon Man or Bird Man seen on artifacts that date to A.D. 1350-1500 (Strong 1989:216). Spanish ethnohistoric accounts include mention of frequent Calusa masked performances during the years of intermittent contact with the Calusa, approximately A.D. 1500-1750. I trust it is not incautious to propose a continuity of elaborate masked performances in southern Florida from at least as early as A.D. 800 through to the demise of the Calusa in the mid-eighteenth century, representing a masking tradition that may have been inherited by the Seminoles and retained until early in the twentieth century. This is not to say, however, that masking, particularly mechanical masks, is a particularly Calusa trait. It may be that the excellent preservational qualities of Florida’s bogs and peat have skewed our view of the masking complexes of the precolumbian Southeast. There is no way of establishing to what extent the many cultures of the peninsula, and in the greater Southeast, throughout the centuries produced masks or used them in performances of whatever nature. Was masking an important tradition in Florida 2,000 years ago? Five thousand? It is even possible that masking traditions have been upheld continuously throughout the entire 12,000 years of human occupation of the Florida peninsula. CONCLUDING REMARKS In iconography, we clutch at straws. Phillips and Brown 1978:Plate 122.2 Concerning the mechanical transformation masks of the Kwakiutl, Waite (1982:137) states that “in view of the rarity of such masks throughout the world, the Northwest coast examples take on very great importance.” This statement can apply as well to the mechanical masks of Southwest Florida, and I propose that the Crane and Alligator igureheads are the most clearly mechanical precolumbian masks to have been recovered archaeologically in the Americas. It is true that many Paciic Northwest Coast masks are more mechanically complex, and the igureheads and facemasks from that region are far more numerous than those of the Florida peninsula. However, the Native American masks of British Columbia and Alaska are still being produced and worn at contemporary potlatches and other social gatherings, but are otherwise known only from the collections of museums and private collectors. The masks of southern Florida, in contrast, have come to us by a different path from precolumbian times: through archaeological excavation. The mechanical masks may be indicative of a culture with the prosperity to indulge an appetite for imaginative stagecraft in its ceremonies and entertainments, and a culture that also prizes woodcarving as a venue for ine artistic expression. For the coastal peoples of Southwest Florida and the Paciic Northwest, this prosperity derived from the bounty of estuary and sea, from such abundant resources of ish and shellish that these marine harvests rivalled in richness the continent’s most fertile croplands. These isherfolk perhaps had an added advantage over agricultural peoples in that, although they expended time and effort in the reaping, they had no need to till, sow, or keep their “ields.” These two widely separated cultural regions, rimming the Paciic Northwest Coast and the Gulf Coast of South Florida, had many similarities besides rich ishing resources, a love of woodcarving, and masked social functions, but one should be cautious not to overdo the comparisons. Any similarities were independently derived, of course, for there was certainly never any direct cultural exchange at such remote distances. Although differences between these regions are signiicant (Marquardt 1986:67-68), their similarities are noteworthy. Beautiful sculptures of inely carved and painted wood reached high artistic achievement in these two areas of North America that also are noted for their mechanical stagecraft. All cultures concern themselves in some manner with the relationship of humans to the natural world and to the realms of the spirits, and these beliefs, hopes, and fears will find expression in the most cherished artforms. Human societies deine themselves in part by the arts they honor, as well as by those they favor less, or choose not to support at all. The portrayal of animals and animal spirits can be accomplished in many media. Their ways may be sung, danced, related by a master storyteller, or enacted in plays. Images of them can be illustrated in paint or woven into cloth, baked into clay, engraved on shells, or sculpted in stone. But wood may be the most suitable of naturally accessible materials for combining the solid visual arts with performance arts to yield the most impressive special effects when personifying the ways of natural or mythological animals. In the creation of sculptural forms for use in dramatics, stone and ceramic are too brittle to endure the stresses of performance and too heavy to be endured by the performer, while the iber arts may be too imprecise to make excellent working mechanisms. These are broad statements, and can in no sense be proven, but I suggest that stage mechanicals may be rare because, although there are many and varied ways to mimic the denizens of nature, only those cultures that highly prize their woodcarvers are likely to afford themselves the luxury of truly mechanical creatures for use in mimetic performances. Those societies that place a lesser value on woodcarving as an art form will ind other equally artistic means to illustrate the non-human inhabitants of their world, but they are less likely to reproduce them mechanically. When more highly elaborated technologies are included in the consideration, wood yields its precedence in mechanical utility to metals, plastics, and electronics that, in modern state civilizations, have allowed the ancient human tradition of animal mimicry to scale new heights of complexity, economic investment, and audience size. Dramatic recent examples in the American entertainment industry are the giant, robotic dinosaur igureheads of the 1993 ilm Jurassic Park. Another potential similarity between the Calusa (and their ancestors) and the peoples of the Paciic Northwest Coast comes to mind. The tradition of theatrical masking was well-developed among the latter in precontact times but received an unexpected impetus when Canadian and American authorities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries strongly enforced their prohibitions against war A Mechanical Waterbird Mask between aboriginal groups. Powerful rivalries continued but the energies of war were channelled into intensiication of the potlatches: elaborate social gatherings in which chiefs attempted to “defeat” their rivals by outhosting them, by establishing who could distribute the most gifts and offer the greatest hospitality. Elite patrons subsidized crafters of entertainments and clever stagecraft with the utmost fervor, and urged them to ever greater heights of illusion (Figure 5). The stakes were high for the continuing prestige of the patron, and he or she demanded ingenuity in the creation of new special effects and their lawless operation during performances presented before rival chiefs (Malin 1978:69-71). The Spanish conquistadors of early contact-period South Florida, like the later Canadian and American authorities far to the north, made similar attempts to prevent warring between Native American groups, and occasionally got results (Solís de Merás 1964:223-225). However, I suggest that the Calusa caciques themselves may have already achieved greater successes in this endeavor before the Spanish ever arrived. They may have strengthened their heirarchical positions and tributary systems by arrogating unto themselves the privilege to make war. It is conceivable that the Calusa rulers achieved this feat through the encouragement of inter-community social gatherings and the channeling of aggressive energies of rival and tributary nobles into competitive hospitality, pageantry, and entertainments. It may be that, while masking practices arrived with the Paleo-Indians (in Florida’s irst great Age of Exploration), the appearance of skillfully crafted mechanical masks (such as the Alligator and Crane igureheads) might indicate an age of accumulating wealth, increasing social stratiication and indulgence in prestige displays. Unfortunately there is little evidence that would validate such a marker for increasing social and political complexity. Perhaps, as population levels climbed centuries ago along the ancient shores of southwest Florida, carved wooden mechanicals were the result as noble patrons and their artisan specialists sought ever-grander outlets for exhibiting their surplus wealth. But, if such were indeed the case, further research would be required to establish the proposition. Abundant archaeological remains hinting at the wonders of precolumbian Key Marco were recovered by Frank Cushing. Ancient Pineland, however, has yielded forth nought but one example (however exquisitely worked the Crane igurehead may be) of wooden theatrical effects and otherwise has allowed few glimpses into the artistic achievements that surely once marked this canal-mouth community as an important political center. But the potential exists at the Pineland Site Complex for further discovery of well-preserved organic artifacts, especially those constructed of wood, arguably the most-favored art form of the aboriginal peoples of South Florida. Recent investigations, as detailed elsewhere in this volume, reinforce Frank Cushing’s contention (1897:342) that at Pineland “in the court of the canals I found the inest and best preserved relics I had yet discovered.” If he saved any of these Pineland artifacts, either they deteriorated not long after he collected them, or they were never 651 properly catalogued and are now mixed with artifacts he collected at other Gulf Coast sites. This suggests that a search of museum collections and archives might yield signiicant additions to our knowledge of the Pineland shell mound complex. The shell mounds, mucky watercourts, and remnant pools of the ancient canal at Pineland are the silent relics of a forgotten community of the Calusa and those who came before, unmentioned by the early Spanish adventurers whose deep-hulled galleons could not ply the shallow seagrass meadows of Pine Island Sound. The Pineland nobles, those who would have secured the beneits of holding the western gateway to Pine Island’s great canal, controlled a good deal of precolumbian trafic and trade to the interior, and they probably saw to it that this crossroads emerged as a great cultural center to which the peoples of the lands and islands all about converged to see spectacles of amazing theatre and imaginative stagecraft. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Properly, appreciation should be expressed irst for the creators of the Pineland crane head efigy and the Key Marco igureheads and facemasks. These artists have not left us their names and it is too easy to pass them by when it comes time for recognition. I only hope this paper bears witness that artists of great skill and accomplishment once lived and worked along the ancient shores of southwest Florida. I would like to express my appreciation to Phyllis and Ed Thomasson for their observational skills, their thoughtful care in preserving the delicate Crane igurehead, but most especially for their generous donation of it to the FLMNH. This intriguing artifact is an invaluable addition to the record of precolumbian Florida masking traditions. For their generous assistance with the artifact collections of Key Marco, I would like to thank Lucy Fowler Williams of the UM in Philadelphia and Elise LeComte of the FLMNH in Gainesville. For her personal assistance in the interpretation of the masks of Key Marco, I offer my heartfelt appreciation to Marion Gilliland. My warmest thanks go to my wife, Cynthia Moncrief, for her encouragement, her editorial comments, and for reining me in when I started to go too far aield. She kindly, and with considerable skill, took over some of the more delightful illustration tasks, thoughtfully freeing me to indulge myself in the drudgery of rewriting. All other igures and illustrations are my own unless otherwise noted. I must extend special regards and appreciation to William Marquardt, for the opportunity to study the Crane igurehead and the Marco collections, for listening patiently to my occasionally over-enthusiastic ideas about precolumbian drama, and for his excellent blend of cautionary advice and generous encouragement to use the freedom of artistic imagination in my illuminations of precolumbian times. I wish to thank Karen Walker and William Marquardt for their excellent editorial efforts in the prooing of the early drafts, and also thank Sue Ellen Hunter for her patience and hard work in the desktop-publishing of this chapter. 652 The Archaeology of Pineland: A Coastal Southwest Florida Site Complex And I am glad to be able to extend my gratitude to those others who supported my ideas, or debated against them, and who assisted my efforts by pointing out new leads, by offering encouragement, and helping in more other ways than I can list here. These gracious individuals include, but are not limited to Karen Walker, Jerald Milanich, Susan Milbrath, Ryan Wheeler, and Matthew and Lori Power. APPENDIX A. The Known Animal-Efigy Figureheads Recovered from the Pineland and Key Marco Archaeological Sites. Artifact Crane Site Pineland Bird of Prey 1 Key Marco (Falcon; Cushing’s “sea turtle”) Bird of Prey 2 Key Marco (Osprey) Bird of Prey 3 Key Marco Pelican Key Marco Deer 1 Key Marco Deer 2 Wolf 1 Key Marco Key Marco Wolf 2 Key Marco Wolf 3 Bear Key Marco Key Marco Alligator Key Marco Blue Crab Key Marco Catalog Number References, this Chapter References, Other Texts FLMNH 90-24-1 Figures 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11a Clark 1995:24-39, Figures 3-1, 3-2, 3-4, 3-5, 3-24a. Marquardt and Clark 1993:1-3. Purdy 1991:240, Figure 97 UM 40715 Figures 11b, 13a, 18c Clark 1995:46-58, Figures 3-12, 3-14, 3-24d, 4-19a. Cushing 1897:388, 389, 393, 429. Gilliland 1975:85, Plates 59, 68 FLMNH A-5564 Figure 11c Clark 1995:58-59, Figures 3-15, 3-24b. Cushing 1897:432. Gilliland 1975:85, 116. Gilliland 1989:84 (“hawks head”) FLMNH A-5554 Figure 11d Clark 1995:60, Figures 3-16, 3-24h. Gilliland 1975:116 UM 40708 Figures 11e, 14, 18b Clark 1995:78-80, 158-159, Figures 3-22, 3-23, 3-24e, 4-18b. Cushing 1897:388, 389, 424-425, Plate 33. Gilliland 1975:85, Plate 67. Gilliland 1989:76 UM 40707 Figure 11f, 18d Clark 1995:63-70, Figures 3-18, 3-24i, 4-19b. Cushing 1897:388, 392-393, 399, 429-431, Plate 35. Gilliland 1975:85, Plates 64, 66, 71, 73 USNM 240707 Not shown Gilliland 1975:116 UM 40700 Figures 11g, 18a Clark 1995:39-45, 158, Figures 3-9, 3-24g, 4-18a. Cushing 1897:388-389, 424, Plate 33. Gilliland 1975:85, Plates 64, 65 FLMNH A-5555 Figure 11h Clark 1995:45-46, Figures 3-11, 3-24c. Gilliland 1975:85 USNM 240702 Not shown Gilliland 1975:116 FLMNH A-5546, Figure 11i Clark 1995:61-63, Figures 3-17, 3-24f. A-5547 Cushing 1897:388, 389, 393. Gilliland 1975:85 UM 40718 Figure 11j Clark 1995:70-75, Figures 3-19, 3-20, 3-24k. Cushing 1897:388. Gilliland 1975:85, Plate 62 HF 1/6913, Figure 11k Clark 1995:76-78, Figures 3-21, 3-24j. formerly 40719 Gilliland 1975:116, Plate 73 A Mechanical Waterbird Mask 653 APPENDIX B The Known Facemasks Found at the Key Marco Site Here Assigned Arbitrary Numbers for Convenient Reference. Facemask 1 Facemask 2 Facemask 3 Facemask 4 Facemask 5 Facemask 6 Facemask 7 Facemask 8 Facemask 9 Facemask 10 Facemask 11 Facemask 12 Facemask 13 Facemask 14 Facemask 15 FLMNH A-5541 Clark 1995:123-127, 158, Figures 4-3, 4-18a, 4-23 Cushing 1897:389 (“wolf-god” facemask), 424, Plate 33 Gilliland 1975:Plates 45 (bottom), 49 FLMNH A-5538 (formerly USNM 40717) Clark 1995:127-135 (“Falcon Dancer” facemask), Figures 4-4, 4-19a, 4-23 Cushing 1897:393 (“turtle-man” facemask) Gilliland 1975:85, 184, Plates 40b, 45 (upper right), 50 Purdy 1991:Figure 6b May be the same mask as Facemask 15, but if Clark 1995:135-137, Figures 4-5, 4-23 not, its whereabouts today are unknown. Possibly Cushing 1897:393 (“bear-man” facemask) Gilliland 1975:Plate 45 (upper left) Possibly FLMNH A-5540 (but could instead Clark 1995:137-138, Figures 4-6, 4-19b, 4-23 be USNM 240722) Cushing 1897:392-393 (“deer-god” facemask) Gilliland 1975:Plates 43, 53 Probably FLMNH A-5540 (but could instead Clark 1995:138-140, Figures 4-7, 4-23 be USNM 240722) Cushing 1896:17 (“Badger God”) Gilliland 1975:Plates 43, 51 Wardle 1951:185 (“Raccoon Man God”) HF 1/6922 Clark 1995:140-141, Figures 4-8, 4-23 Gilliland 1975:26, 80, 85 (confused with the “Pelican Man mask,” but in fact “representing another character”), Plate 42 Maxwell 1978:88 Wardle 1951:181 FLMNH A-5539, formerly USNM 40722 Clark 1995:141-143, Figures 4-9, 4-18b, 4-23 Cushing 1896:17 (“Bat God Mask” and ”Pelican God Mask”) Cushing 1897:389 (“man-pelican” facemask), 424-425, Plate 33 Gilliland 1975:85, Plates 40a, 41, 42, 54 Purdy 1991:Figure 11b UM 40714 Clark 1995:143-144, Figures 4-10, 4-23 Coles and Coles 1989:48 Gilliland 1975:80, Plate 42 Possibly Cushing 1897:393 (“man-bat-god” facemask) FLMNH A-5548 Clark 1995:144-145, Figures 4-11, 4-23 Cushing 1896:17 (“Cormorant Man Mask”) Possibly Cushing 1897:393 (“cormorant” man-god facemask) Gilliland 1975:Plates 44, 46, 52 Possibly USNM 240722, a cast of this Clark 1995:145-148, Figures 4-12, 4-23 facemask is at FLMNH (catalog number Cushing 1897:393, 399 ("wild-cat man-god" facemask) 92-41-8) Gilliland 1975:Plates 47, 55 Probably FLMNH A-5544 (a piece of it might Clark 1995:148-150, Figures 4-13, 4-23 be USNM 240722) Cushing 1897:393 (“sun-ish” man-god facemask) Gilliland 1975:Plate 48 UM 921208-2693, formerly USNM 40705 Clark 1995:150-152, Figures 4-14, 4-21c, 4-23 Cushing 1897:Plate 35-3e; this facemask and Facemask 3 are both possible candidates for the “bear-man” facemask mentioned on page 393 Gilliland 1975:80 (“Bear Man God”), Plate 58 UM 40713 Clark 1995:152-154, Figures 4-15, 4-23 Gilliland 1975:80 (the facemask missing a nose), Plate 39 UM 920127-2418, formerly USNM 40716 Clark 1995:154-155, Figures 4-16a, 4-23 Gilliland 1975:80 (facemask with “turtle face” designs), Plate 56 Probably UM 40721 (could instead be Clark 1995:155-157, Figures 4-17, 4-23 FLMNH A-5540, or even USNM 240722). 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