Dentalium shell

Last updated • 3 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Plateau dentalium choker and bracelet, from Nez Perce National Historical Park, 19th century, made using Antalis pretiosa shells NEPE2194 Necklace.jpg
Plateau dentalium choker and bracelet, from Nez Perce National Historical Park, 19th century, made using Antalis pretiosa shells

The word dentalium, as commonly used by Native American artists and anthropologists, refers to tooth shells or tusk shells used in indigenous jewelry, adornment, and commerce in western Canada and the United States. These tusk shells are a kind of seashell, specifically the shells of scaphopod mollusks. The name "dentalium" is based on the scientific name for the genus Dentalium , but because the taxonomy has changed over time, not all of the species used are still placed in that genus; however, all of the species are certainly in the family Dentaliidae. [1]

Contents

Dentalium shells were used by Inuit, First Nations, and Native Americans as an international trade item. This usage is found along the western coast of Canada and along the Pacific Ocean coast of the northwest United States [2] extending southward to Southern California. Traditionally, the shells of Antalis pretiosa (previously known as Dentalium pretiosum, the precious dentalium (a species which occurs from Alaska to Baja California) were harvested from deep waters around the Pacific Northwest coast of North America, especially off the coast of Vancouver Island. [3] Today most dentalium shells in the shell trade are smaller, more brittle, and are harvested from coasts off Asia — i.e. they are shells of Indo-Pacific species of scaphopods.

Uses

Pacific Northwest

Wishram woman wearing a dentalium shell bridal headdress and earrings, photo by Edward Curtis Edward S. Curtis Collection People 088.jpg
Wishram woman wearing a dentalium shell bridal headdress and earrings, photo by Edward Curtis

Peoples of the Northwest Pacific Coast would trade dentalium into the Great Plains, Great Basin, Central Canada, Northern Plateau and Alaska for other items including many foods, decorative materials, dyes, hides, macaw feathers which came from Central America, turquoise from the American Southwest, as well as many other items.

Nuu-chah-nulth peoples were the primary harvesters of dentalium shells. Among the Northwest Coastal tribes, the shells were valued for both trade and adornment. Young Nuu-chah-nulth girls of high status wore elaborate dentalium jewelry. When the jewelry was removed, a potlatch was held to celebrate and the girl would be considered eligible for marriage. [4]

Athabaskan peoples of Alaska and subarctic Canada incorporate dentalium into jewelry with glass beads. Along with iron, these items were regarded as prestigious trade goods in the 19th century. [4]

Shells of the species Antalis pretiosa which had been gathered on the shores of Vancouver Island were first traded to the Canadian Plateau between 1000 and 1 BCE. During the 1st century CE, the shell was a common trade item in the Plateau. [5] Some very elite women from Plateau tribes wore dentalium shells through pierced septa. Elaborate bridal headdresses from the 19th and early 20th centuries, features dentalium shells strung on hide with Chinese brass coins and glass beads. [6] Nlaka'pamux peoples have included dentalium shells in their relatives' burials. The shells are sometimes given away at memorial services. [7]

California

Dentalium shells are highly culturally significant to California tribes. Yurok oral history says that Pithváva, or "Big Dentalium," a deity, created that smaller dentalium and dictated their significance as sacred wealth. Among northern California tribes, dentalium was traditionally the most important unit of exchange – incorporated into regalia and used for gambling and commerce. [8] The shell's length and quality determined value. Highest quality shells would be about 2.25" long, and a dozen would typically be strung together, and a 27.5" string of dentalium was the price of a redwood dugout canoe. Certain men, who became known as "Indian bankers," tattooed marks on their arms with which to measure the length of the shells. [8] Among northern California tribes, such as the Yurok, Karuk, and Hupa, dentalium shells were stored in elk-antler purses or treasure baskets. [9]

On the Central Coast of California, shells of Dentalium neohexagonum (a species that occurs from Monterey, California to Baja California) have been recovered from prehistoric habitation sites of the Chumash, who apparently used these shells as tubes, [10] possibly in jewelry.

Great Plains

Loose dentalium shells Dentalium 1.JPG
Loose dentalium shells

Among Plains Indians, dentalium shells have traditionally been associated with wealth and embellished women's capes, yokes of dresses, hair ornaments, necklaces, and long, dangling earrings. [11]

Modern

Dentalium shells is still used today in Native American and Inuit regalia as decorations and jewelry.

Middle East

In the ancient Levant, dentalium shells were used in the ritual burials of the deceased, although uncertainty of its significance to the dead remains.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beadwork</span> Decoration technique

Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another by stringing them onto a thread or thin wire with a sewing or beading needle or sewing them to cloth. Beads are produced in a diverse range of materials, shapes, and sizes, and vary by the kind of art produced. Most often, beadwork is a form of personal adornment, but it also commonly makes up other artworks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Klamath people</span>

The Klamath people are a Native American tribe of the Plateau culture area in Southern Oregon and Northern California. Today Klamath people are enrolled in the federally recognized tribes:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuu-chah-nulth</span> North American ethnic group

The Nuu-chah-nulth, also formerly referred to as the Nootka, Nutka, Aht, Nuuchahnulth or Tahkaht, are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast in Canada. The term Nuu-chah-nulth is used to describe fifteen related tribes whose traditional home is on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Clayoquot is an anglicization of the Nuu-chah-nulth language name "Tla-o-qui-aht", one of the indigenous tribes of the region so named. It may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nootka Sound</span> Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada

Nootka Sound is a sound of the Pacific Ocean on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island, in the Pacific Northwest, historically known as King George's Sound. It separates Vancouver Island and Nootka Island, part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It played a historically important role in the maritime fur trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wakashan languages</span> Native American language family

Wakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Nuu-chah-nulth, a.k.a.Nootka, is a Wakashan language in the Pacific Northwest of North America on the west coast of Vancouver Island, from Barkley Sound to Quatsino Sound in British Columbia by the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples. Nuu-chah-nulth is a Southern Wakashan language related to Nitinaht and Makah.

Nootka may refer to:

The Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council is a First Nations Tribal Council in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The organization is based in Port Alberni, British Columbia.

The haietlik is a lightning spirit and legendary creature in the mythology of the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) people of the Canadian Pacific Northwest Coast. According to legend, the haietlik is both an ally and a weapon of the thunderbirds, employed by them in the hunting of whales. They are described as huge serpents with heads as sharp as a knife and tongues that shoot lightning bolts. A blow from a haietlik injures a whale enough that the hunting thunderbird can carry it away as prey. The haietlik is variously described as dwelling among the feathers of the thunderbirds to be unleashed with a flap of the wings, or inhabiting the inland coastal waters and lakes frequented by the Nuu-chah-nulth people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast</span>

The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are composed of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities. They share certain beliefs, traditions and practices, such as the centrality of salmon as a resource and spiritual symbol, and many cultivation and subsistence practices. The term Northwest Coast or North West Coast is used in anthropology to refer to the groups of Indigenous people residing along the coast of what is now called British Columbia, Washington State, parts of Alaska, Oregon, and Northern California. The term Pacific Northwest is largely used in the American context.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nootka Crisis</span> Naval confrontation between the United States, Great Britain and Spain near Vancouver Island

The Nootka Crisis, also known as the Spanish Armament, was an international incident and political dispute between the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation, Spain, the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the fledgling United States of America triggered by a series of events revolving around sovereignty claims and rights of navigation and trade. It took place during the summer of 1789 at the Spanish outpost Santa Cruz de Nuca, in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island in present-day British Columbia, Canada. The commander of the outpost, Jose Esteban Martínez, seized some British commercial ships which had come for the maritime fur trade and to build a permanent post at Nootka Sound. Public outcry in Great Britain led to the mobilization of the Royal Navy, and the possibility of war. Both sides called upon allies, the Dutch joined the side of Great Britain; Spain mobilized her navy and her key ally France also mobilized theirs, but the latter soon announced they would not go to war. Without French help, Spain had little hope against the British and the Dutch, resulting in Spain seeking a diplomatic solution and making concessions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Opitsaht</span>

Opitsaht, spelled also as Opitsat and Opitsitah, is a Tla-o-qui-aht settlement/community in the Southwest area of the Meares Islands, Clayoquot South, British Columbia. This peninsula-like region is the home to the Tla-o-qui-aht people from the Nuu-chah-nulth nation, a tribe from the Pacific Northwest region in the lower Vancouver area, known for their lifestyle revolving around the marine life trade and culture within the community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Native American jewelry</span> Overview of the cultural diversity and history of jewelry that originated in Native American tribes

Native American jewelry refers to items of personal adornment, whether for personal use, sale or as art; examples of which include necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings and pins, as well as ketohs, wampum, and labrets, made by one of the Indigenous peoples of the United States. Native American jewelry normally reflects the cultural diversity and history of its makers, but tribal groups have often borrowed and copied designs and methods from other, neighboring tribes or nations with which they had trade, and this practice continues today. Native American tribes continue to develop distinct aesthetics rooted in their personal artistic visions and cultural traditions. Artists may create jewelry for adornment, ceremonies, and display, or for sale or trade. Lois Sherr Dubin writes, "[i]n the absence of written languages, adornment became an important element of Indian communication, conveying many levels of information." Later, jewelry and personal adornment "...signaled resistance to assimilation. It remains a major statement of tribal and individual identity."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Woody Point</span> 1811 conflict between American fur traders and the indigenous Tla-o-qui-aht people

The Battle of Woody Point was an incident in western Canada in June 1811 involving the Tla-o-qui-aht natives of the Pacific Northwest and the Tonquin, an American merchant ship of the Astor Expedition. The vessel had traveled to Clayoquot Sound off Vancouver Island to trade for furs. Following an argument begun during the bartering, the Tla-o-qui-aht captured the vessel and massacred most of the crew; one remaining sailor then scuttled her by detonating the powder magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuquot Whalers' Shrine</span> Collection of carved figures previously serving as a Yuquot ritual site

The Yuquot Whalers' Shrine, previously located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, was a site of purification rituals, passed down through the family of a Yuquot chief. It contained a collection of 88 carved human figures, four carved whale figures, and sixteen human skulls. Since the early twentieth century, it has been in the possession of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, but is rarely displayed. Talks are underway regarding repatriation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Reserve</span> UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in British Columbia, Canada

Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Reserve is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve situated in Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. A diverse range of ecosystems exist within the biosphere reserve boundaries, including temperate coastal rainforest, ocean and rocky coastal shores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Charles Stuart Strange</span> British politician

James Charles Stuart Strange was a British officer of the East India Company, one of the first maritime fur traders, a banker, and a Member of Parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drift whale</span>

A drift whale is a cetacean mammal that has died at sea and floated into shore. This is in contrast to a beached or stranded whale, which reaches land alive and may die there or regain safety in the ocean. Most cetaceans that die, from natural causes or predators, do not wind up on land; most die far offshore and sink deep to become novel ecological zones known as whale falls. Some species that wash ashore are scientifically dolphins, i.e. members of the family Delphinidae, but for ease of use, this article treats them all as "drift whales". For example, one species notorious for mass strandings is the pilot whale, also known as "blackfish", which is taxonomically a dolphin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whaling on the Pacific Northwest Coast</span>

Whaling on the Pacific Northwest Coast encompasses both aboriginal and commercial whaling from Washington State through British Columbia to Alaska. The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast have whaling traditions dating back millennia, and the hunting of cetaceans continues by Alaska Natives and to a lesser extent by the Makah people.

References

  1. "dentalium" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  2. James Ruppert and John W. Bernet, Our Voices: Native Stories of Alaska and the Yukon, 2001, University of Toronto Press, 394 pages ISBN   0-8020-8467-2
  3. "Shells: Jewels of the Sea." Archived 2010-03-06 at the Wayback Machine Glimmerdream. (retrieved 17 July 2010)
  4. 1 2 Dubin, p. 423
  5. Dubin, p. 362
  6. Dubin p. 359
  7. Dubin, p. 360
  8. 1 2 Dubin, pp. 436-437.
  9. Dubin, p. 438
  10. C. Michael Hogan, Los Osos Back Bay, The Megalithic Portal, ed. Andy Burnham (2008)
  11. Dubin, p. 281
General