Gushing.] <^ * "* [Nov. 6, 



were also striking- and thrusting-weapons of slender make and of wood, 

 save that they were sometimes tipped with deer horn or beautifully 

 fashioned spurs of bone, but they were so fragmentary that I have thus 

 far been unable to determine their exact natures. 



Personal Ornaments and Paraphernalia. — Numerous objects of per- 

 sonal investure and adornment were collected. Aside from shell beads, 

 pendants and gorgets, of kinds found usually in other southern relic 

 sites, there were buttons, cord-knobs of large oliva-shells, and many 

 little conical wooden plugs that had obviously formed the cores of tas- 

 sels ; sliding-beads, of elaborately carved deer horn — for double cords — 

 and one superb little brooch, scarcely more than an inch in width, made 

 of hard wood, in representation of an angle-fish, the round spots on its 

 back inlaid with minute discs of tortoise shell, the bauds of the diminu- 

 tive tail delicately and realistically incised, and the mouth, and a longi- 

 tudinal eyelet as delicately incut into the lower side. There were very 

 large labrets of wood for the lower lips, the shanks and insertions of which 

 were small, and placed near one edge, so that the outer disc which had 

 been coated with varnish or brilliant thin laminae of tortoise shell, would 

 hang low over the chin. There were lip-pins too ; and ear buttons, 

 plates, spikes and plugs. The ear buttons were chiefly of wood, and were 

 of special interest — the most elaborate articles of jewelry we found. They 

 were shaped like huge cuff buttons — some, two inches in diameter, re- 

 sembling the so-called spool-shaped copper bosses or ear ornaments of the 

 mound builders (see d and Fig. 3, PI. XXXV). But a few of these were 

 made in parts, so that the rear disc could be, by a partial turn, slipped 

 off from the shank, to facilitate insertion into the slits of the ear lobe. The 

 front discs were rimmed with white shell rings, within which were nar- 

 rower circlets of tortoise shell, and within these, in turn, little round, 

 very dark and slightly protuberant wooden bosses or plugs, covered with 

 gum or varnish and highly polished, so that the whole front of the button 

 exactly resembled a huge round, gleaming eyeball. Indeed, this resem- 

 blance was so striking that both Mr. Sawyer and I independently recog- 

 nized the likeness of these curious decorations to the glaring eyes of the 

 tarpons, sharks, and other sea monsters of the surrounding waters ; and as 

 the buttons were associated with more or less warlike paraphernalia, I 

 hazarded the opinion that they were actually designed to represent the 

 eyes of such monsters — to be worn as the fierce, destructive, searching 

 and terrorizing eyes, the "Seeing Ears," so to say, of the warriors. This 

 was indicated by the eye-like forms of many of the other ear buttons we 

 found — some having been overlaid in front with highly polished con- 

 cavo-convex white shell discs, perforated at the centres as if to repre- 

 sent eye pupils, — as in/, of the figure last referred to. 



There were still other ear buttons, however, elaborately decorated with 

 involuted figures, or circles divided equally by sinusoid lines, designs 

 that were greatly favored by the ancient artists of these kays. The 

 origin of these figures, both painted, as on the buttons — in contrasting 



