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27th January 2013, 07:07 PM
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#1 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 1,429
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Quote:
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27th January 2013, 07:31 PM
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#2 |
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Member
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: What is still UK
Posts: 5,875
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Also rather nice.
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27th January 2013, 09:35 PM
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#3 | |
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Member
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 608
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Quote:
 And thank you as well, Tim...It is in fact a Chumash arrow straightener, unusual in being figural in form. The Chumash were the Native American people who inhabited the Channel Islands and the mainland area around present-day Santa Barbara. They were seafaring, semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who routinely navigated the deep waters covering the 50+km distances in their tomols to the Channel Islands and to Catalina Island further south. They were known not just for their accomplished maritime travel but for their steatite/soapstone implements and carvings as well as their basketry. Chumash steatite was traded all over Southern and Central California.  Chumash man ca. 1878 I would presume the Chumash straightener depicts a seal or sea lion, as the general form as well as the renderings of the eyes and mouth resemble several other Chumash lithics I have that unmistakingly portray seal lions and/or seals. Most arrow straighteners used by the indigenous peoples of Southern California were simple utilitarian objects, or more stylized abstractions based on simple geometric forms. I've attached a photo below of two more arrow straighteners from Southern California; the left-most one was recovered near the home in which I grew up in inland San Diego. The circular one was recovered in Costa Mesa, in the very southern part of coastal Orange County. The arrow in the photo(s) is Yokut; Yokut territory bordered the Chumash to the NE. |
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