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Deep Surfaces: Pottery Decoration and Identity in the Mission Period
Abstract
In the southeastern United States, many Native American societies invested iconographic meaning in the surface decorations incised or stamped on pottery. While some symbols represented cosmological concepts, others probably designated tribe, village, clan, or other social units. This is certainly true of groups that lived in La Florida, where, at contact, there were clear correlations between some Native American groups and pottery types. During the mission period, however, these associations became blurred. Variability diminished, and three pottery types dominated assemblages of utilitarian wares used by Native Americans and Spaniards. Heretofore, this stylistic turn of events was explained as the result of new allegiances and identities that emerged in the 1600s. It is argued here that, in the Southeast (as elsewhere), the market was responsible for some of this uniformity. Cosmological concepts present in the prehistoric variant of one of these types were retained for some time, however.
... Colonial processes that resettle and combine indigenous peoples from different towns and territories result in the emergence of new missionperiod traditions for a variety of reasons. Such changes may take time (e.g., Saunders [2012]) or are prompted by major disjunctions (Liebmann 2008:366). Different colonial temporalities existed at various settlements and places in the Americas in the 16th century and beyond (Keehnen et al. 2019:10). ...
Indigenous pottery traditions and other mate-rial aspects of daily life in Yucatan were slow to change during the early colonial period. This conservativism reflects a gradual rate of social change at the community scale as Maya peoples contended with a Franciscan missionization program imposed on them from the mid-16th to 17th centuries. Ceramic assemblages from the rural visita sites of Hunacti, Yacman, and Tichac reveal divergent—and parallel—trajectories of house-hold economies and footprints of social identity during the first century of Spanish rule. The quantity, kind, and distribution of indigenous pottery at these sites refines interpretations of late precontact, contact, and colonial-era ceramic traditions and the broader socioeconomic contexts that affected them. This study joins a robust literature from other places in the Americas that consider the complex manifestations of hybridity and ambiva-ence in colonial encounters.
... Colonial processes that resettle and combine indigenous peoples from different towns and territories result in the emergence of new missionperiod traditions for a variety of reasons. Such changes may take time (e.g., Saunders [2012]) or are prompted by major disjunctions (Liebmann 2008:366). Different colonial temporalities existed at various settlements and places in the Americas in the 16th century and beyond (Keehnen et al. 2019:10). ...
Indigenous pottery traditions and other material aspects of daily life in Yucatan were slow to change during the early colonial period. This conservativism reflects a gradual rate of social change at the community scale as Maya peoples contended with a Franciscan missionization program imposed on them from the mid-16th to 17th centuries. Ceramic assemblages from the rural visita sites of Hunacti, Yacman, and Tichac reveal divergent—and parallel—trajectories of household economies and footprints of social identity during the first century of Spanish rule. The quantity, kind, and distribution of indigenous pottery at these sites refines interpretations of late precontact, contact, and colonial-era ceramic traditions and the broader socioeconomic contexts that affected them. This study joins a robust literature from other places in the Americas that consider the complex manifestations of hybridity and ambivalence in colonial encounters.
... For example, Brather (2005) suggests that Roman imports found in elite graves in first-and secondcentury Germania were likely evidence of diplomatic gifts or payments related to Roman political manipulation of Germanic leaders, rather than evidence of culture change among Germanic peoples. A parallel example from North America can be found in Saunders's (2012) reevaluation of ceramics in Spanish-colonial Florida; she argues that changes in Native American ceramic forms and decorations during colonization were more likely a response to market forces rather than a reflection of changes in ethnic identities. ...
Many archaeological researchers studying colonialism are critiquing theories of cultural change (e.g., hybridity, creolization) in favor of interpretive models that emphasize cultural persistence and continuity. Ethnogenesis, the emergence of new cultural identities, has been put forward as a consensus model: what is "new"-the "genesis" in ethnogenesis-is increasingly interpreted as an authentic remaking of communal identities to foster persistence and survival. This somewhat utopic emphasis on continuity in ethnogenesis theory broadens the concept of ethnogenesis to the point that its value as a theory of identity transformation is being lost. Overall, the archaeological emphasis on ethnogenesis as a tactic of resistance among subaltern communities has led to a general neglect of how ethnic identity practices are deployed in the exercise of power. The increasing use of bioarchaeological evidence in ethnogenesis research also raises pressing ethical and epistemological issues about the relationship between the body and identity. A more focused and restricted application of ethnogenesis theory is necessary to identify and investigate those situations in which colonialism and its consequences resulted in ruptures and structural transformations of identity practices.
In this article, the pottery production of indigenous groups living inside and outside of colonial spaces in southern Georgia is compared by identifying portions of the chaîne opératoire of pottery production. Diachronic and geographic changes to production demonstrate that groups living in the interior of Georgia were in continual interaction with coastal groups in the mission system. This interaction likely contributed to the emergence of the Altamaha pottery tradition, which spread from southern South Carolina to northern Florida during Spanish colonization of the region. This research shows that Native American groups navigating colonialism drew on a wide network of communities to alter traditions in the face of unprecedented social change.
The compatibility of processual and postprocessual archaeology has been heavily debated. This discussion is frequently phrased in terms of scientific vs. nonscientific/humanistic archaeology. We suggest that the "postprocessual debate" is based on a mischaracterization of science that is pervasive in archaeology, and is largely unnecessary when a more reasonable view of the nature of science is considered. To demonstrate this point, we begin our discussion by identifying several commonalities within most postprocessual approaches to provide a foundation for our discussion. We then consider the two classic criteria used to differentiate science and nonscience, Baconian inductivism and falsification, and demonstrate why these views lead to an incomplete and inaccurate understanding of science. We next examine seven attributes that are commonly accepted as characteristics of science in order to provide a more accurate view of the nature and workings of science. Based on this discussion, we argue that much postprocessual research is in fact scientific, and we ultimately conclude that postprocessual approaches as currently applied can contribute to a scientific understanding of the archaeological record.
A comprehensive study that traces the craft of pottery making among the Catawba Indians of North Carolina from the late 18th century to the present. When Europeans encountered them, the Catawba Indians were living along the river and throughout the valley that carries their name near the present North Carolina-South Carolina border. Archaeologists later collected and identified categories of pottery types belonging to the historic Catawba and extrapolated an association with their protohistoric and prehistoric predecessors. In this volume, Thomas Blumer traces the construction techniques of those documented ceramics to the lineage of their probable present-day master potters or, in other words, he traces the Catawba pottery traditions. By mining data from archives and the oral traditions of contemporary potters, Blumer reconstructs sales circuits regularly traveled by Catawba peddlers and thereby illuminates unresolved questions regarding trade routes in the protohistoric period. In addition, the author details particular techniques of the representative potters factors such as clay selection, tool use, decoration, and firing techniques which influence their styles. In assessing the work, David G. Moore, of Warren Wilson College, states, "This book represents an enormous body of work concerned with a significant topic the persistence of the Catawba Indian pottery tradition. Using his extensive fieldwork and a narrative presentation, the author juxtaposes the evolving ceramic technology with a fascinating discussion of the role of pottery in changing Catawba economy from the 18th and continuing into the 21st century." Thomas John Blumer is a retired ethnohistorian and author of Bibliography of the Catawba. William Harris is a respected leader of the Catawba Indian Nation. © 2004 by The University of Alabama Press. All Rights Reserved.
Multiple dimensions of complicated stamped pottery in southern Louisiana - design distribution, paddle matching, and petrography - were analyzed to evaluate two main issues: (1) production (local vs. nonlocal; limited vs. widespread) and (2) cultural interaction (were pois or paddles moving?). We conclude that complicated stamped pottery was widely and locally produced within the context of Coles Creek culture and that, while some intersite movement of both paddles and pots occurred, ceramic vessel exchange was neither a large scale nor a highly organized component of cultural interaction in southern Louisiana. Formerly assigned to the type Gainesville Complicated Stamped, we propose that complicated stamped vessels in Louisiana be assigned to a new type, Cameron Complicated Stamped, consonant with the evidence of local production in a cultural context that is both temporally and spatially discontinuous with the type locale for Gainesville Complicated Stamped in Mississippi and Alabama.
The claim is periodically made for the existence of an Hispano ceramic tradition in Northern New Mexico. The accuracy of that claim is mired in local folklore and anchored more or less firmly in published archaeological speculation. Neither the origins, distribution nor time depth of such a tradition are known, but references to Spanish American pottery making are limited to the 1930s. This article reviews both the folklore and the speculation, not for the purpose of disproving or validating either, but in order to establish a framework for asking why and under what conditions Hispanos in New Mexico may or may not have made pottery.
A response is provided to Richard Gould's account of utilitarian variables in hunter-gatherer technology, especially his recent discussions of Binford's Nunamiut data.
Wiessner's analysis of stylistic variation in San arrows entails valuable ethnoarchaeological observation and insight. But her evidence contradicts the iconological theory she imposes upon it, whereby San artisans are thought to purposefully invest their products with ethnic symbolism in order to transmit social information to various target populations. However, an alternative view, according to which the arrows simply exhibit the ethnic style latent in all isochrestic behavior (see Sackett 1982), is consistent both with their formal variation and with the commonplace ethnic symbolism that the San themselves are reported to read into them. This view also provides a more reasonable explanation than does the iconological theory of why stylistic distinctions fail to emerge among San bands engaged in risk-sharing strategies. In any event, isochrestism is the basic source of ethnic style in material culture. Iconicism is a special case and ought not be invoked unless specific expectations are met by the evidence.
This site contains three major components. Mandeville I is a very Late Deptford culture, represented by sizable village deposits, the premound occupation under Mound A, the initial pyramidal mound building at Mound A, and most of the burial mound, Mound B. Significant contacts are seen with Copena and Ohio Valley Hopewell, and there are definite ties with the Crystal River complex. Mandeville II is a continuity with Mandeville I, but may be considered Early Swift Creek. New layers were added to Mound A, but there was little activity on Mound B. Village deposits of this component are extensive. Primary outside contact for the group is with the Crystal River complex, though some continuing Copena and Ohio Valley Hopewell influence is seen. Mandeville III, unrelated to the earlier components, is an expression of the Mississippian Rood focus 500 to 1000 years after Mandeville II. Village deposits of this component are not plentiful. Mound A was capped and presumably used for a temple base. Relationships lie with Macon Plateau and Lake Jackson, and ultimately to the northwest in the Tennessee and Mississippi valleys.
Isochrestic behavior as Sackett describes it is recognized to be one of the important sources of variation in material culture. The behavioral bases for isochrestic variation and for what I describe as stylistic variation are contrasted and some of their implications for variation in material culture are discussed. Kalahari San projectile points are then reexamined within the framework of isochrestic and stylistic behavior using both historical and contextual data. It is concluded that variation in San projectile points better fits the expectations of stylistic than isochrestic behavior, at least with our current understanding of isochrestic behavior.
Some Indians would walk to Columbia [South Carolina, approximately sixty-eight miles from Catawba Indian lands]. Just the women would go. Grandma told me that they’d put the pottery on their backs and went on.
During the Senior Powwow in late spring of 2008 I found myself soaking in an elder’s voice; Beckee Garris whispered strong, capturing my ear, teaching me that the Catawba women hold the key to their nation’s survival. It was not until much later, after considerable time and effort poring over primary documents such as interviews, genealogies, and other archival materials in the T. J. Blumer Archival Collection, that I began to understand what she meant: the Catawba, or The People of the River—the only federally recognized Indian group in the state of South Carolina—survive because of their women; these female potters gave their hands, their backs, their minds, their whole bodies for their people. My intention in this piece is to retell the Catawba women’s narrative of survival from the Civil War through Reconstruction, around 1860–1880. It was within these critical twenty years that Catawba women literally kept their nation alive by creating, trading, and selling pottery. In the spirit of the storytelling tradition I have attempted to use the purest voices, Catawba voices, whenever possible to provide the reader with a historically accurate account. What follows is the story of a few courageous women, told from their descendants who remember their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers sacrificing themselves for their people. These stories also help to provide a voice for other Catawba women potters who lived similar lives but who have been silenced due to lack of descendants’ voices or absence of records.1
The story of Catawba pottery begins approximately 4,500 years ago, but this particular survival narrative begins in 1861 because it was then—at the commencement of and during the War between the States—that the Catawba Indian nation of less than 100 members lost many of its men, leaving the women to support the nation. Catawba historian and theorist Thomas Blumer recounts that all sixteen of the nation’s able-bodied men served in the war, but they did not enlist simultaneously. Although the first group of four Catawba men volunteered December 9, 1861, the last group of two men did not enlist until August 29, 1864. Of the sixteen able-bodied men who left to fight for the Confederacy, only five returned to their Catawba families, leaving a total of approximately eighty people in the nation in 1865. And, as Blumer suggests, “of the five men who returned home to face the hardships of Reconstruction, only two were without wounds and remained able to support their families.”2
The loss of the majority of able-bodied Catawba men during the Civil War added more burden to the women’s already heavy responsibilities in these bleak, precarious times. And as a result of a long history of land loss, social marginalization, and political exclusion, the Catawbas were left living on six hundred acres of hostile barren land, which today encompasses only one square mile. Such times tested the women’s resiliency and forced them to lead their nation out of its crisis. They had a long history of leadership and initiative from which to draw dating back to their infamous ancestress the Lady of Cofitachequi, who had duped Hernando de Soto and saved her people from his violent cultural genocide. But whereas the Lady had sought to defend her people against the Spanish invasion, the Catawba women of the late nineteenth century had to rebuild their land and themselves anew.3
Catawba Indian women knew that at that time the only profitable resource that could be extracted from the infertile land was its clay: plentiful and marketable for the exchange of food, clothing, and other goods. From the Civil War to well into the twentieth century, Catawba women, with the assistance of their children at times, dug the clay, molded the clay, fired it into pots, and traded or sold the finished products in order to survive.
One of anthropologist Charles Hudson’s...
Gender and race are central to archaeological investigations of empire. In research on the Spanish colonization of the Americas, one prominent theory, the St. Augustine pattern, argues that cohabitation between Spanish men and Native American and African women in colonial households resulted in a distinctly gendered form of cultural transformation: indigenous, African, and syncretic cultural elements appear within private domestic activities associated with women; and European cultural elements are conservatively maintained in publicly visible male activities. This article reconsiders the St. Augustine pattern through analyses of new research that has revealed considerable diversity in the processes and outcomes of colonization throughout the Spanish Americas. Archaeological methodologies such as the St. Augustine pattern that rely on binary categories of analysis mask the complexity and ambiguity of material culture in colonial sites. Additionally, the abundance and ubiquity of indigenous, African, and syncretic material culture and foodstuffs in colonial households in the circum-Caribbean indicate that macroscale economic, trade, and labor relationships, rather than household composition, were important causes of colonial cultural transformation in the Americas. An analytical focus on labor in colonial settings provides a multiscalar methodology that encompasses both institutional and household-level entanglements between colonizers and colonized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Typescript. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Florida. Vita. Bibliography: leaves 107-112.
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