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7 Pendants and Gorgets Engraved and perforated pendants made from stone were produced by Indians to be worn as personal adornments. However, not all pendants were perforated ; some were notched or shaped in other ways to facilitate suspension. Pendants have been found throughout the Northeast and were made from a variety of types of stone and in many sizes and shapes and were decorated with representational images and abstract and geometric designs. Charles C. Willoughby, archaeologist, artist, and curator of the Peabody Museum,Harvard University,between 1899 and 1928,published a book titled Antiquities of the New England Indians in which he illustrated several pendants. Willoughby (1935:180) described them as personal neck and ear ornaments.He quotes William Wood’s 1634 observations of the Indians’ use of pendants in the region of the Massachusetts Bay colony:they wore “pendants in their ears as forms of birds, beasts, and fishes, carved out of bone, shells, and stone.” Pendants were a form of self-definition and social display for the individual, but they were also part of the cosmology of the Indians’ culture or group. Analysis of these artifacts must consider such questions as,Do the images represent clan designations,social distinctions,or belief systems? Do the animals depicted on them have any relationship to procurement and subsistence practices? Pendants were usually produced from locally available stone.Their manufacture was labor intensive. The stone had to be shaped, ground, polished, drilled,carved,or sculpted.An examination of the suspension hole,which is usually conical in shape,often reveals evidence of wear at the top of the hole, which suggests that the specimen was suspended vertically. Turtle and Celestial Images (Figure 58) The red shale pendant with incised designs shown in Figure 58 was part of a collection of artifacts recovered from several sites in the Kennebec River valley of Maine. The collection was acquired by George H. Barton, who reported that the specimens “are well documented as to the location from Pendants and Gorgets / 119 which each came” (Barton 1963:26).However,the precise location of where this pendant was found is unknown. The pendant measures 41 mm (19 /16 inches) in length,27 mm (11 /16 inches) in width, and 4 mm (3 /16 inch) in thickness. Its edges are beveled and smooth. There is a conical suspension hole at the top of the stone that has been drilled from one side. There are two figures on the obverse side (Figure 58, right) that I interpret as a sun at the center and a star above. A series of seven nicks is present along the bottom edge.Taken together,these images seem to suggest a record of time or a week.The image on the reverse side of the pendant (Figure 58, left) appears to be that of a turtle with a somewhat square carapace with nine sections.The turtle figure may represent a clan symbol. The turtle motif is not uncommon in the Northeast. Pendants containing turtle figures have been found in Narragansett Bay; in Kingston, New York,in the Hudson River valley;in Setauket,Long Island,NewYork;and in Howland Hook,Staten Island,NewYork.Turtle figures have also been found on permanent petroglyph sites including Hemlock Hill in Tuxedo, New York, and the Bronx Botanical Garden, New York (see Lenik 2002). Star and sun symbols are also present on permanent petroglyph sites in the northeast region. Images interpreted as stars are present at the Chestnut Street petroglyph site in Middleborough,Massachusetts,on theTiticut petroglyph in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and on small portable artifacts such as the Rosenkrans pebble and the Pahaquarry knife in New Jersey. The Pahaquarry knife has been dated to the terminal Late Woodland period. Sun symbols appear on Mark Rock in Rhode Island, on the Thom petroglyph in Newton, New Jersey, and on a pendant found in West Milford, New Jersey (see Lenik 2002). Inscribed Pendant (Figure 59) A geometric pattern appears on a finely crafted pendant recovered from an unknown site in Barnstable,Cape Cod,Massachusetts.It is a surface find and Figure 58. Red shale pendant with turtle and celestial images found in the Kennebec River valley of Maine. Drawing by T. Fitzpatrick. 120 / Chapter 7 part of a private collection of Indian artifacts.The stone is flat with rounded and smooth edges and a conical drilled hole near the top center. The design motif includes an incised chevron pattern at the top and above the suspension hole. Below the hole are three incised...

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