two bone items up for discussion

[larson1951]

we found these about twenty years ago after a heavy rain when the site was planted with some alfalfa that did not grow
the paint stick with a face on it..............
......the symbols to the left of the face represent staffs of eagle feathers...... (the long poles with the feathers on them)
i wanna point out an observation i have made over the last 27 years..........
.......i have seen about at least a half dozen or a bit more faces and none of them ever has a nose.....only a mouth and a pair of eyes......
........can't figure out why?

now the other piece shows a dandy with his hands stretched above his head with a drawn bow and arrow pointed at him

anyone have any thoughts or opinions on these?

 

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[GatorBoy]

I for some reason feel like if it were my handmade tool I would personalize it.. I wonder if these were a kind of signature.
Did you find them close enough together to imagine they could have belonged to one person?

 

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[rock]

I have a question......where are the gravers?

 

[NC field hunter]

Notice the faces with no noses all look sad or lost. I wander if they are the Mandan equivalence to the weeping eye.??

 

[catherine1]

Wow Larson. Thanks for the view and history on your artifacts. Those are some amazing pieces.

 

[larson1951]

The face with no nose, is a face only. No body. Could it represent a ceremonial mask?? It lacks native features as well. Long hair, head dress or similar native styles. It could represent white man. For what reason, I do not know. He seems rather expressionless or empty. No emotion, no body, representation of a spirit or soul?? On the other piece, I see the bow drawn and the Dandy with his hands up. He's under arrest! Just kidding! It would really add insight if we could see the man behind the bow. Without that, the story has nothing to build on. I do think its a story or fable scribed in these. Nice stuff Larson! It kills me to have a puzzle with missing pieces. I guess you can rewrite the parts lost in time. I think it could be fun. Even more fun, let your trahokia (grand daughter) put her swing on it. What is grand child again? I may have really gotten that one wrong. I like the language you use.

you know rusty your vivid imagination just blows me away sometimes lol

i think you mean Takoja (ta-ko-sha) Sioux for grand daughter

a few more:

hihanna waste' (wash-tay) Sioux meaning 'hey good day'
dosha maguada Mandan-Arikara-Hidatsa meaning 'hello friend'

I for some reason feel like if it were my handmade tool I would personalize it.. I wonder if these were a kind of signature.
Did you find them close enough together to imagine they could have belonged to one person?

hey gator man, we have found lots of those sticks but only two of them have the face on them-the angled marks on them represent the staff of feathers a common phrase i hear is that they are a tipi....but they are not.....the mandans never had tipis....they were not nomadic like the sioux....they were farmers that lived in huge earth lodges year round on the clans site
these were all found on one site of about 35 acres, in no particular spot or order to where they were it used to have up to 90 some earth lodges on it which were rebuilt every 7-8 years when a new lodge was built it was built on the same spot by tearing down the old one those sticks were used for pressure flaking, for paint sticks, for quill flatteners, and other uses they are rare but consistently could be found at any mandan site along the several hundred miles of missouri river in north and south dakota
this site is an exception that it is privately owned almost all of the mandan sites are owned by the US Army Corps of engineers and are off limits to everyone

I have a question......where are the gravers?

hey hey friend rock those graver things are so prolific at this site we don't pick them up unless it is a real nice piece
rock i don't want you to take what i said as me meaning anything other than there are lots of them

 

[rock]

No problem I know most dont pick them up. I just figured with all of that engraved items you find they would probably be some out there.

 

[larson1951]

yup rock they are there and i saved quit a few of the nicer ones

one thing i wanna point out is the number of scrapers we find.....there are thousands of them....and about half the scrapers have graver spurs on them and we save all of them
i am thinking that you might have some of the ones i sent

this is what i mean the scrapers/gravers........the right scraper has graver spurs and the left one does not