Plaster cast of a carved deer ear, painted with white, brown, black and blue pigment. [SM (Verve) 3/10/2016]

Collection type: Object
Description: Plaster cast of a carved deer ear, painted with white, brown, black and blue pigment. [SM (Verve) 3/10/2016]
Geographical reference: United States of America
Northern America > North America > United States of America; Southern USA Florida Collier County Marco Island Key Marco
Person: Field collector Barbara A. Purdy; Field collector Frank Hamilton Cushing; PRM source Kenneth Page Oakley
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1975 Archaeological period: Southeast
Date collected: By 1975
Acquisition information: Donated: 1976
Materials and processes: Material Plaster, Material Pigment, Material Wood Plant, Process Cast, Process Painted, Process Carved
Dimensions: Height: max 220 mm total, Length: max 170 mm total
Object numbers: Accession number: 1976.3.4.1
Research and responses: Cushing described the discovery of the original wooden mask (of which this is a cast) as follows:
A strikingly perfect example of the kind of animal carving I have earlier characterized, was the figurehead of a deer, which Gause and I found near the edge of the northernmost of the shell benches along the western border of the court. It was lying, in a very natural position, on its side. Thus seen in the midst of the dark muck, its light-hued painted lines vividly revealed by contrast, its large, deep brown eyes wide open and lifelike – for the pupils were formed of polished, cleverly inserted discs of tortoise shell – it was the most winsome and beautiful figure of the head or face of a doe or deer that I have ever seen, albeit so conventionally treated. The illustration of this figurehead [reproduced in the paper] by no means does justice to the graceful lines of the original carving, or to the fineness of the painted decorations thereon, for the view is too directly full-faced. The ear-pieces had been attached to the back of the head by means of cords passing over pegs thrust through them and then through bifurcated holes at the points of attachment to the head-piece, in such manner that they could be used as pulleys for the realistic working of these parts; and the unpainted edge, as well as peg-holes all around the rearward portion of the head, plainly indicated that the skin of a deer or some flexible substitute therefor, had been also attached to it, the more perfectly to disguise the actor who no doubt endeavored in this disguise to personate the character of the deer-god or dawn-god, the primal incarnation of which this figure was evidently designed to represent (Cushing 1896: 392). [Dan Hicks 10/08/2012]
Associated publications: Cushing, F.H. 1896. Exploration of Ancient Key Dwellers' Remains on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 35: 329-448. http://www.jstor.org/stable/983594 [Dan Hicks 01/08/2012] Referred to on page 424 of 'North America', by Dan Hicks and Michael Petraglia, in World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: A Characterization, edited by Dan Hicks and Alice Stevenson (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013), pp. 409-454. Hicks and Petraglia write: ‘There are 3 objects from archaeological sites at Key Marco. There is a perforated shell club-head, from excavations by C.L. Moore at ‘Goodland Point, Key Marco’, which was donated to the PRM by Louis Colville Gray Clarke in 1924 (1924.10.7). There are also 2 casts of carved wooden objects – a figure of a kneeling panther- or lion-like figure (1976.3.3) and a mask in the form of a deer (1976.3.4) – which were excavated by Frank Hamilton Cushing. The original of the deer-head figurehead is curated by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia..’. [MJD (Verve) 21/1/2016]

Search terms: Reproduction, Figure, Religion, Mask, Animal Figure, Cast