Pics and a story!

[diggingthe1]

Was down in Southern Colorado and friend from way back acquired a collection. My jaw dropped when she pulled them out on the hood of the car. What would you do with these? Didn't quite get the whole story but they came from a museum in OK that closed that they were related to. They inherited part. One of the stories was there was a warehouse that these came from. Inside there was a net 4 feet high maybe 75 feet long made of human hair to catch small game. Has anyone heard of this?
That was incredible to hold the contents. They (her and her husband) said it was a medicine man's pot and contents. I do see a polishing stone. These were handed down from generations. The ceremonial point is about 7 inches. I love the bird effigy? It has a band around that is rough around the middle? What was it used for? Hope you like the pictures! Thanks for looking!

 

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[joshuaream]

Looks like a decent collection.

The big knife looks like a harahey knife, the bevel on the edges shows that it was used and resharpened extensively. They are a late plains culture knife and were probably specialized tools for basically filleting out bison meat for drying/smoking/preserving. (Jerky, Pemmican, etc.) 7" would be larger than normal, but there are early stage examples that are 8" to 9" long.

The net is interesting, we don't see them very often but they are thought to have been a pretty common technique in some areas. I believe the Basketmaker or Fremont Culture used to use nets for catching small game; there is a pretty famous net that was found inside a big pottery olla that was displayed at the Temple show a few years back and pictured in Prehistoric American. Most of the time they aren't actual hair but very fine fibers from different types of plants.

The bird effigy could be a a little agate/chalcedony pebble that was picked up an polished.

 

[Americus]

Very nice artifacts. Thanks for sharing.

 

[austin]

Very nice and they belong back in a museum somewhere...

 

[smokeythecat]

"Decent" is inadequate. Awesome is better. Museum quality for sure, and if you find the right museum don't forget about inquiring about a tax write off. That little white "bird" is unbelievable.

 

[diggingthe1]

Glad you like the pics! Thank you for the info Joshuahream!!!! I'll pass along the info. HH

 

[creekhunter]

Wow that's a unique collection of relics!

 

[RGINN]

Pretty cool. Since they came from a museum was there any sort of documentation for the pieces? The museum was in Oklahoma but the artifacts aren't from that area, so maybe somebody's private collection from the 4 Corners area on display locally, so maybe you could do some research on who the donor was. And nobody EVER made a net out of human hair. First time I've heard that theory.

 

[always diggin]

awesome recoveries!

 

[diggingthe1]

One of the pieces says springer AZ colorado drainage. Here is a good article about rabbit drives that documents a net found in new mexico made of human hair. They were kind to share the artifacts. http://content.lib.utah.edu/utils/getfile/collection/USHSArchPub/id/5562/filename/5597.pdf

 

[RGINN]

Cool link and it does indeed say they found a net made of human hair. That raises some questions in my mind, that I wish they would have pursued a little further. In the cultures I am familiar with human hair would not have been used for day to day projects. It was considered sacred. I don't know anything about the culture in AZ, but I wonder if something caused a shortage of other natural material, so they had to resort to using hair? Drought, wild fire.... Good post, diggingthe1, and some good info.

 

[scruggs]

A Super Nice Collection of Artifacts!!!