Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World

Chapter Thirteen. Dancing in the Otherworld: The Human Figural Art of the Hightower Style Revisited by F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Garber

etowah and upper tennessee valley 294 chapter 13 Dancing in the Otherworld The Human Figural Art of the Hightower Style Revisited F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Garber Introduction Hightower-style gorgets are beautifully executed human figural or anthropomorphic carvings on marine shell. The first reported Hightower anthropomorphic gorget was recovered from the Toqua Mound in Tennessee (Wilson 1896). Forming a corpus of approximately twenty-eight known examples, the majority of the Hightower-style human figural objects originate in the Upper Tennessee and Coosa River Valleys, with the largest concentration found at Etowah. Since their early publication in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Hightower-style objects have continued to be a focus of research for archaeologists and art historians alike (Brain and Phillips 1996; King 2003, 2004; Kneberg 1959; Marceaux and Dye 2007; Muller 1966a,b, 1989; Phillips and Brown 1978; Sullivan 2001, 2007; Chapter 12). Except for two examples, the occurrences of the Hightower style are limited to a relatively restricted geographical range of the Upper Tennessee and Coosa River Valleys (see Map 1 in the Introduction). Because of this limited distribution, Hightower gorgets are an excellent example of related objects that support the argument for the existence of regionalism within the overall temporal boundaries of Mississippian art. Methodology “Style” by its very definition is most easily understood as the formal qualities of a work of art that link it to other works of art. Additionally, style in its various definitions is understood to have a point of origin. It has been shown repeatedly that the best way to identify a style and its origins as well as themes and their meaning is through the methodology of structural analysis. Structural analysis is best defined as understanding a composition or work of art by separating the object under study into its component parts. dancing in the otherworld 295 Structural analysis is one step in a process of iconographic interpretation that was pioneered by the art historian Erwin Panofsky (1939:3–32). Currently “Panofsky’s Method” is usually shortened into a series of organizational steps: (1) assembling a corpus of imagery; (2) grouping these images within “like” subgroups that reveal patterning; (3) dissecting all or specific examples of the imagery corpus; and (4) offering interpretation when possible. It should be noted that the basis of all symbolic interpretation is patterning. Patterning is the recognition of relationships among subgroups in terms of their compositional divisions such as elements, symbols, motifs, and themes. Using this methodology as a primary foundational focus, the purpose of this chapter is to introduce a previously unrecognized theme or motif set of the human figural Hightower-style gorgets (Brain and Phillips 1996:44). We will propose a relationship of this new theme set to the rest of the corpus and suggest a possible structure of interpretation based on a “storyboard” layout. Art and symbolism are often used as visualizations of ideology in those nontechnologically complex societies that lack written forms of expression (Earle 1997; Helms 1979, 1993; Reilly 2004). The Hightower Style: Identification and Temporal Placement Few styles have gone through as many name changes as the Hightower style. As previously mentioned, the “type object” for the Hightower style was unearthed at what was then called the Big Toco site, now referred to in the literature as the Toqua site located near Chattanooga, Tennessee (Brain and Phillips 1996:44). Jon Muller analyzed this Toqua gorget and other gorgets of the human figural corpus. He chose the name “Mound C Tentative Style” because the largest number of these gorgets had been recovered from Mound C at Etowah (Brain and Phillips 1996:44). Subsequently he would change the style designation to “Hightower” (Muller 1989:20, 67–70). His expanded definition , however, included “turkey cock” and “spider” theme gorgets under his Hightower designation. Jeffrey P. Brain and Philip Phillips dropped the “Hightower” designation in favor of the original “Big Toco” designation and placed this style, with others, within a late archaeologically discernible period of ad 1400–1650 (Brain and Phillips 1996:395-397). Despite the expanded corpus of the Hightower style proposed by Muller, this chapter deals exclusively with the human figural examples. Human figural gorgets are usually found in elite mortuary context. etowah and upper tennessee valley 296 In fact, King has shown that their placement in Mound C at Etowah is closely associated with the highest level of elite burials (King 2007a:107-133...