Saturday, May 4, 2019

Brief notes on 18th century Shawnee Material Culture

Although the transient Algonquian speaking Shawnee Indians were protagonists in the 18th century struggle for control of the Virginia back country and Ohio Country; comparatively few museum artifacts are attributed to them. The compilation of information below is far from exhaustive  and I am indebted to those who have shared and published this information before. I hope to add more sources as they come to hand. For further reading on the Shawnee, I recommend Warren's The Worlds the Shawnees made.




Primary Descriptions of the Shawnee:

Reverend David Jones 1773
"I WOULD dismiss the subject about these Indians, only it will be expected that some description of their apparel should be given* In this respect they differ nothing from most of other Indians. ...The men wear shirts, match-coats, breechclouts, leggings and mockesons, called by them mockeetha. Their ornaments are silver plates about their arms, above and below their elbows.  Nose jewels are common.
  They paint their faces, and cut the rim of their ears, so as to stretch them very large.  Their head is dressed in the best mode, with a black silk handkerchief about it; or else the head is all shaved only
the crown, which is left for the scalp.  The hair in it has a swan's plume, or some trinket of silver tied in it.  The women wear short shifts over their stroud, which serves for a petticoat.  Sometimes a calico bed-gown.
 Their hair is parted and tied behind.  They paint only in spots in common on their cheeks.  Their ears are never cut, but some have ten silver rings in them.  One squaa will wear five hundred silver broaches stuck in her shift, stroud and leggings. Men and Women are very proud, but men seem to exceed in this vice.'Tis said that they suffer no hair to grow on their body, only on their head. Some pull out their eyebrows."



Nicholas Cresswell 1774

"Wednesday, December 7th, 1774. Went to Winchester...Saw four Indian Chiefs of the Shawnee Nation, who have been at War with the Virginians this summer, but have made peace with them, and they are sending these people to Williamsburg as hostages. They are tall, manly, well-shaped men, of a Copper colour with black hair, quick piercing eyes, and good features. They have rings of silver in their nose and bobs to them which hang over their upper lip. Their ears are cut from the tips two
thirds of the way round and the piece extended with brass wire till it touches their shoulders, in this part they hang a thin silver plate, wrought in flourishes about three inches diameter, with plates of silver round their arms and in the hair, which is all cut off except a long lock on the top of the head. They are in white men's dress, except breeches which they refuse to wear, instead of which they have a girdle round them with a piece of cloth drawn through their legs and turned over the girdle, and appears like a short apron before and behind. All the hair is pulled from their eyebrows and eyelashes and their faces painted in different parts with Vermilion. They walk remarkably straight and cut a grotesque appearance in this mixed dress. "

 Trade Lists  and Clothing

When David Jones wrote that "some description of their apparel should be given* In this respect they differ nothing from most of other Indians..."  he drove home the point that speaking broadly, Indian consumers from Georgia to Maine purchased and were given many of the same types of goods, and as Edmund Atkin noted in 1755, the Shawnee were "the greatest Travellers in America".


Goods fit for a Present to the Six Nations. 1752 (Virginia House of Burgesses)

"...Goods fit for a Present for the Six United Nations together with the Shawanse, Delawares, Twigtwees, Picts and Windotts
Strouds...Duffils....Halfthicks....Garlix (to be made into plain shirts for men...to be made into shirts for men, ruffled with Muslin...flints...Gartering and Bedlace, the gartering scarlet and Star...Ribbon, deep red, blew, and green...Striped Callimancoe lively colours, Mens's large worsted caps...cuttoe knives...100 Guns, small bored, and 25 pr pistols... 5 doz. Cutlasses...square Indian Awl Blades, Brass kettles...wire..Beads small white...50 Meddals with His Majesty's picture on one side and the British Coat of Arms on the other...with a loop to put a ribbon through..."

Fort Johnson 25 Janr?. 1757.
 The Papers of Sir William Johnson, Volume 9 p592

Another Belt to the Shawanese King returning him thanks for the early Intelligence he sent me and desiring he would constantly accquaint him of the Enemies Motions in that part of the Country, also exhorting him & his Nation to adhere firmly to the Treaties & Friendship subsisting between them & the English which they would find to be their Interest & with all giving them a hearty Invitation to come & join His Majestys Arms when called upon. Sr. Wm. gave the Messenger 10 Dollars, a fine Scarlet Blanket with several Rows of Ribband on it, a fine Ruffled Shirt a Silver Arm Band for the Kings Son — Pipes, Tobacco, Powder & Ball & a pair of Snow Shoes — so parted


p649
1757 Janry Brought over
 
To an Express sent to me by the Shawanese King with News of a Body of French and Indians coming from Mississippy...4/-/-
To a Do. a Scarlet Strowd with Ribbons to it...3/-/-

 

Thomas Rideout An Account of my Capture by the Shawnee Indians on the River Ohio in 1788 
  "My Dress consisted of a calico shirt, made by an Indian woman without a collar, which reached below the waist; a blanket over my shoulders, tied round the waist with the bark of a tree; a pair of good buckskin leggings, which covered almost the thighs, given me by the great war chief, a pair of moccasins, in which I had pieces of blue cloth to make my step easier; a breech-cloth between my legs; a girdle round my waist; and a small round hat, in which the Indian placed a black ostrich feather by way of ornament (the smaller the hat the more fashionable)." 

The 1922 Guide to the Heye Foundation Museum of the American Indian includes a reference to a pair of "Shawnee Deerskin Leggings" but I have not been able to find images or a current location for this item.





Tecumseh's Headdress ( no later than 1813)

Weapons


 

Trading gun by Bumford  Colonial Williamsburg Emuseum

In addition to trade lists with French and English "trade" guns, a few indications of the types of weapons used by 18th century Shawnee warriors can be found in primary sources and through archaeology. 


Edward Marshall’s Rifle further discussion here

1752 at Bethlehem PA- "...Daniel Kliest repaired a rifle for a Shawanoe/Shawnee chief who visited Bethlehem that summer, and Albrecht "stocked a rifle to his complete satisfaction..." p21 Moravian Gunmaking 2 Bethlehem to Christian's Spring by Robert Paul Lienemann Kentucky Rifle Foundation


Col. John Bradstreet, December 4, 1764
"from the Governt of Pennsylvania all the Shawnees and Delawar Indians are furnished with rifle barrel Guns, of an excellent kind, and that the upper Nations are getting into them fast..." (p77 British Military Flintlock Rifles, 1740-1840; De Witt Bailey)




Artifacts from the Bentley site in Kentucky, also known as Lower Shawnee town (abandoned in 1758 due to flooding) included a French fusil fin sideplate, an English cuttoe knife fragment and a kettle fragment with a sheet brass ear/bail lug. The fusil sideplate is very similar to the mounts on an intact Thollier fusil fin with a long gilt decorated barrel that is in a private New England collection.

Brass mounted French fusil de chasse (private collection).


Shawnee town of Wakatomika (1st village of that name which was destroyed in August of 1774) goods including a possible limestone "Micmac" pipe bowl and what is likely a French trade fusil lock and rammer pipe from Dresden Ohio.
War Party Plunder from the Battle of Point Pleasant 1774

"* * * told that of 430 Shawnese Warriors or upwards that came out, only 200 had returned, as they were Assisted by the Mingoes, Tawas & Wiandots. and perhaps had several Delawares with them, it confirmed the Judgement we formd £ found to be 23 Guns 80 Blankets 27 Tomahawks with Match coats Skins Shout [shot] pouches pow[d]erhorns Warclubs &c. The Tomhawks Guns & Shout pouches were sold & amounted to near 100 1..."
"Our men got upwards of 20 scalps, 80 blankets, about 40 guns, and a great many tomahawks; and intended in a few days to go over the river, to meet the Governor, 20 or 25 miles from their towns. The Indians the Governor lately concluded a peace with, it is assured, were in this battle. We suppose they have had the other struggle before this time, and are very impatient to know the issue. "

 
Pipe Tomahawk ca. 1770 Attributed to Richard Butler, gunsmith at Fort Pitt. Made for Lt. John Maclellan of Pennsylvania. The quilled decoration may be Shawnee in origin.



Amateur Archeologist Greg Shipley's Shawnee artifacts portions are from pre-1787 contexts at McKee's Town, Wapatomica [2nd] and Moluntha's Town.

Techumseh's Galloway pipe Tomahawk ca. 1795


Tecumseh's Adena pipe tomahawk ca 1807 

Techumseh's Bow ca. 1812


Proctor Techumseh pipe tomahawk ca 1812 

Russell Techumseh pipe tomahawk ca 1812

Techumseh's Powder horn ca. 1813


Pipe Tomahawk with Shawnee attribution (acquired in 1882 via Kansas) from the British Museum


Although to my knowledge, there are no known war clubs with an iron clad 18th century Shawnee provenance [please correct me if I am wrong], 18th century writers mentioned they were visually distinct from those of other tribes:

Col. John Floyd to Col. William Preston, Boonesborough, 7/21/1776; 2: "After the girls came to themselves enough to speak, they told us there were only five Indians, four Shawanees & one Cherokee; could all speak good English. They said they should take them to the Shawanee Towns: and the war club we got was like those I've seen from that nation. Several words of their language which they retained was known to be Shawanee.." [33S300-305 Draper Manuscripts: Daniel Boone Papers, 1760-1911, Series S, Wisconsin Historical Society Madison, Wisconsin]


Ethnographic Objects

Shawnee town of Wakatomika (destroyed in August of 1774) goods including a possible limestone "Micmac" pipe bowl and what is likely a French trade fusil lock and rammer pipe from Dresden Ohio.
In addition to a 1753 reference to a Shawnee black buffalo hair "string for tying of slaves", a possible 1790 reference to a Shawnee quilled tumpline or hoppis from "Incidents attending the capture, detention, and ransom of Charles Johnston of Virginia"  (the war party in question was "fifty-four Indians, consisting chiefly of Shawanese and Cherokees") is discussed in RS Stephenson's excellent article The Decorative Art of Securing Captives in the Eastern Woodlands.
 
A Journal of two visits made to some nations of Indians on the west side of the River Ohio, in the years 1772 and 1773"  by David Jones available here, mentions the ceremonial use of false face masks and turtle shell rattles among the Shawnee.
 

Possible Shawnee Figural Pipe


Tecumseh's Headdress (no later than 1813)
 


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