Gushing.] ^'OO • ysov. 6, 



The painted shells I have referred to as contained in the pack just de- 

 scribed, were those of a species of Solenidte, or the radiatingly banded 

 bivalves that are locally known in that portion of Florida as ' ' sun-shells. ' ' 

 Each pair of them was closed and neatly wrapped about with strips of 

 palmetto leaves that were still green in color, but which of course imme- 

 diately decomposed on exposure to the air. On opening this pair of them, 

 I found that in one of the lids or valves, the left one, was a bold, conven- 

 tional painting, in black lines, of an outspread hand. The central creases 

 of the palm were represented as descending divergingly from between 

 the first and middle fingers, to the base. This was also characteristic of 

 the hands in another much more elaborately painted shell of the kind, 

 that was found by Mr. George Gause within four or five feet of the bird- 

 painting or altar-tablet. As may be seen by reference to Fig. 4, PI. 

 XXXIV, this painting represented a man, nearly nude, with outspread 

 hands, masked (as indicated by the pointed, mouthless face), and wearing 

 a head-dress consisting of a frontlet with four radiating lines — presumably 

 symbolic of the four quarters — represented thereon, and with three banded 

 plumes or hairpins divergingly standing up from it. The palm-lines 

 in the open hands of this figure were drawn in precisely the same manner 

 as were those in the hand painting of the pair of shells found with the cere- 

 monial pack, and the thumbs were similarly crooked down. Upon the 

 wrists, and also just below the knees, were reticulate lines, evidently de- 

 signed to represent plaited wristlets and leg-bands. Otherwise, as I have 

 said, the figure was nude. It was not until our excavations were well ad- 

 vanced beyond the middle sections of the court of the pile dwellers, that 

 these singular painted sliells were discovered, since they were closed 

 when found as were those in the collections that I found under the sea wall 

 at the southwestern margin of the court. Throughout the richer portions 

 of the court which we had already passed over, we had quite generally 

 encountered these closed sun-shells, so many of them, in fact, that we 

 had usually thrown them aside ; since we had regarded them as intrusive, 

 as probably the remains of living species that had found their way into 

 the court after its abandonment. Hence I have no doubt that we missed 

 many treasures of this kind of symbolic painting From the small num- 

 ber of specimens we recovered, it is ditficult to surmise what could have 

 been the purpose of these painted shells. There is of course no doubt 

 that they were ceremonial or sacred, but whether they were used in 

 Shamanistic processes of divination or not, it is measurably certain that 

 they were regarded as potent fetiches or amulets, for in the one that con- 

 tained the painting of the outspread hand that I myself found and opened, 

 a substance, whicli I regarded as decayed seaweed, had apparently been 

 placed to symbolize, in connection with the figurative hand, creative 

 potencj'^ ; for alg<« and the green slime of the sea is regarded by many 

 primitive peoples as earth-seed or world-substance. Unfortunately I did 

 not see the other shell until after it had been opened by Messrs. Gause and 

 Bergmann ; but hearing their cheers over tiie discovery, I ran immediately 



