File:Antiquities of the southern Indians, particularly of the Georgia tribes (1873) (14590708789).jpg

Identifier: antiquitiesofsou00jone_0 (find matches)
Title: Antiquities of the southern Indians, particularly of the Georgia tribes
Year: 1873 (1870s)
Authors: Jones, Charles C. (Charles Colcock), 1831-1893
Subjects: Indians of North America Indians of North America
Publisher: New York : D. Appleton and Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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jurers images,as the private property of priests, as the likenesses offamous dead, and as the potent charms of medicine-men, than as the generally acknowledged embodimentsof the person and presence of unseen yet recognizeddivinities. Although Bolzius, Bartram, Adair, and others,deny either positively or inferentially the existence ofidols or images within the limits then occupied by theGeorgia Indians, subsequent investigations prove bythe discovered presence of the images themselves, thatat some time or other idol-worship of some sort washere practised. The ornamented posts, the woodenimages, and the questionable figures of men, birds, andanimals sketched upon the white walls of the Creekhouses—if any religious significance they possessed—have long since perished. Next in the order of du-rability are small images formed of burnt clay andmodelled after the similitude of birds and animals,and of man. (See Plate XXV.) These occur invarious parts of the State, and vary in height from
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J_2. AM. PHOTO-LITHOGRAPHIC CO NY.\ OSBORNES PROCESS) CLAY AND STONE IMAGES. 431 three to seven inches. Those which represent thehuman figure are little more than rude terra-cotta dollsclumsily fashioned. The owl, the wild-cat, and thesun, were favorite subjects for imitation at the handsof the primitive artists. So readily could they havebeen made, and so little care was generally bestowedupon their construction, that it may well be questionedwhether they amounted to much more than playthingsfor children. It may be, however, that in the reper-tory of the priest, the conjurer, and the medicine-man,they possessed greater dignity and were designed formore important purposes. In a previous chapter we have described severalinteresting idol-pipes, and have suggested that theywere in all likelihood intimately associated with thereligious ceremonies of the aborigines. Whether theyshould properly be classed with the simulacra whichwe now proceed to consider, we do not confidentlyaffirm or den

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