Shell Beads at Pueblo Bonito

                Shell pendants found at Pueblo Bonito

            Shell beads are always in greater abundance than turquoise at any pueblo ruin.  Despite the inconvenience of distance and transportation, immense quantities of Pacific shell found their way into pueblo country.  Shell was the easiest to carve and drill.  Olivellas were the easiest to convert into beads.  All one had to do was grind off the spire and run a thread through the mouth.

                                Olivella shells: One of the first trade items among Native Americans

            Among the decomposing ceiling beams of a kiva at Bonito, Neil Judd found seven sacrificial bead deposits.  There were 399 olivellas with only the apex cut, 119 olivella halves or thirds, 79 oblong and figure-8 beads, 3 discoidal shell beads, 11 bracelet fragments, 1 hook-shaped shell fragment, 1 conus pendant, 30 ½ discoidal turquoise, 8 turquoise pendant fragments, and 6 tesserae.

            Discoidal shell beads are the most prevalent of all the ancient pueblo ornaments.  A few on a string would make an eardrop and several hundred or more would go into a single strand necklace.  The major source of sea shells to reach the southwest in all periods of bead history is the Gulf of California.  The following is a listing of the species of shells unearthed at Bonito:

            Glycymeris giganteus Reeve

            Glycymeris maculates Broderip

            Glycymeris sp.

            Proptera coloradoensis Lea

            Anodonta sp.

            Laevicardium elatum Sowerby

            Spondylus princeps Broderip

            Chama Echinata Broderip

            Chama sp.

            Haliotis sp.

            Cerithidea sp.

            Turitella leucostoma Valenciennes

            Strombus gracilior Sowerby

            Phyllonotus nitidus Broderip

            Columbella fuscata Sowerby

            Columbella mercatoria Linnaeus

            Nassarius ioaedes Dall

            Olive (Agaronia) testacea Lamarck

            Olivella dama Mawe

            Olivella sp.

            Conus interruptus Broderip

            Conus sp.

                                   Shells were the original currency among many indigenous peoples

           

             The greatest single cache of shell beads was found in a fire-gutted room in the old section where a ceiling had collapsed and all the contents of the living room above were mixed in with rubble, charred timber, adobe flooring and beads.  Judd’s crew gathered them into eight arbitrary lots with only one small strand of red claystone beads still intact on its original cotton string.  The other seven lots of beads gave no indication of their original design as ornaments.  The beads were scattered everywhere amid the debris.  Pack rats had obviously carried many away and disturbed others throughout the room.  In this room they also collected a quantity of figure-8 shell beads, four olivellas, a pendant made from a shell bracelet fragment, three lots of stone beads, a walnut-shell pendant, and sixteen beads made from seeds of Rocky Mountain Hackberry. The stone beads were made from lignite, oil shale and various shades of grey clay.  One string is made almost entirely out of earth-brown discs labeled by the division of mineralogy of the US National Museum as ‘rhyolitic tuff which has been mixed with some clay and baked.’

            Some are sintered or vaguely fused on the outside, but the condition could have been created by the fire that destroyed room as easily as by baking in a kiln.  Yet microscopic examination offers proof of the shaping and molding of plastic substances.  If this is accurate, then these manufactured beads are unique in pueblo country. 

                                                      Jet pendants found at Pueblo Bonito

           

Shell beads alternated with shale to create a necklace found laid about the skull in another grave in the old section.  It had probably been laid upon the head during the original burial.  When they were restrung they measured twenty-two feet, eight inches long, or enough to make an eight strand necklace.  Three-fourths of the total is shale beads of about 3.5mm in diameter and twenty-six to the inch.  The rest are shell discs of similar size alternating with sixty-two univalves from the Gulf of California and about fifty figure-8 beads from 2.8mm to 4.0mm in length.  This necklace is exceptional in many ways.  It is the only one found at Bonito that uses stone and shell together and it contains the only samples of Nassarius found to date in Chaco Canyon.  The figure-8 and stone beads are the smallest yet unearthed at Bonito.  These tiny stone beads are reminiscent of the work of the Hohokam in southern Arizona and may have been acquired through trade with Gila River Indians.

            Shell Beads.  A pair of shell eardrops was found near the chest and shoulders of a male skeleton in a burial room at old Bonito.  Also with the skeleton was a necklace  made from discoidal and cylindrical shell beads, pendant beads of Chama and apex-cut Olivellas that have small quartz pellets pushed under the lip to keep them aligned after stringing.  This was a common practice among ancient stringers and sometimes one finds bits of shell or turquoise or tiny discoidal beads used in place of the quartz pellets.  The pendant beads on the necklace just described are of irregular shape and size and range in hue from creamy white to pink.  They were identified as Chama echinata, a shell from the Gulf of California.  Many appear to be reworked parts of older, larger pendants.  Some exhibit previous drillings and a partially bored hole in the lower part of the pendant will be plugged with turquoise beads.  Many of the cylindrical and irregular discoidal beads on the necklace are also made from Chama shell.  No other beads constructed from Chama shell were found in old Bonito, but beads, pendants, and fragments of Chama are in much evidence in the newer sections, especially as sacrificial offerings in the kiva pilasters. The most common were tooth-like pendants or the discoidal style of bead.

                                   Pendant by Harvey Garcia, Pueblo Santo Domingo: Spondylus

                                   princeps shell inlaid with turquoise, jet, mother-of-pearl. Inspired

                                   by historic pendants found at Pueblo Bonito. 

             Pendants.  It’s difficult to distinguish between ear pendants and those created to be worn individually on a cord or worked into a necklace design.  Presumably, they are eardrops when pairs are found together, particularly if located near the head of a skeleton.  Two abalone pendants were the only ones located at Bonito with more than three lobes and were discovered amid the rubble of a fallen wall.  They are believed to be part of a ritual offering sealed up over one of the first story ventilators.  In a kiva offering they found more of this type of abalone ear drop.  

            Archaeologists also found a shell pendant made from Spondylus princeps, native to the Gulf of California and as far south as Panama.  Spondylus is still a favorite trade commodity in the Pueblos of New Mexico, particularly at Santo Domingo. Navajos, also, are working with it. The only shell fetish found could represent a wide range of four-legged animals.  An unidentified shell fragment shows a type of pendant that was popular in spite of its fragile construction.  Though delicate, the subtle color and iridescence of shells appealed greatly to Native Americans, as it still does today in the Southwest.  Similar shell pendants were unearthed in kiva ritual offerings and were also done in a mosaic style with inlaid turquoise and jet.  Six small Glycymeris shell pendants were located at Bonito; the four largest were found in a rubble of human bones and burial furniture.  None of the six were decorated in any way.

Figure-8 Beads.  The figure-8 bead was a variation of the oblong bead and a great favorite at Bonito.  When strung as a necklace they give the illusion of a double strand of discoidal beads.  The side notch, which gave this style its unique form, was the last step in the process of creation.  After the oblong pieces had been finished and securely strung, the notch was grooved into the side.  End-spreading was a problem with these beads due to the elongated form so they were frequently wedged-shaped, being thinner at the drilled end.  It is interesting to note that over ninety percent of the figure-8 beads recovered had been found deposited as ritual offerings in the kiva pilasters, or in traditional pueblo style, placed as protective charms within the actual walls of the house at the time of construction.

            The figure-8 bead seems to be unique to the Pueblo III period.  It’s still not clear exactly where it originated or how widely it was traded.  They have been unearthed in at least two ruins in Arizona in addition to Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon and Cameron Creek Valley in New Mexico.  The design had been executed in stone, bone and shell.  Most of these beads found at Bonito were made of shell.  A.V. Kidder reported a find of figure-8s made of white stone at a cliff dwelling near March Pass in northeastern Arizona.  The only complete necklace of figure-8 beads found thus far was located in a Pueblo III dwelling near St. Johns in Arizona.  The structure was superimposed on a pit house which yielded no traces of this style of bead.

            Jet Beads.   Lignite is found as laminate masses in the bituminous coal beds of
Chaco Canyon.  In its natural and unpolished form the color will vary from brown to grey to jet black.  It is relatively soft and carves easily.   When polished it achieves a luminous black color.   Numerous lignite pendants were recovered at Bonito in a variety of shapes.  The cord holes in these pendants, instead of being drilled straight through, are sometimes paired and bored through at an angel to meet below the surface.  These rectangular and square bits of polished jet were often used in connection with turquoise and/or shell in mosaic work.   It is interesting to note that no jet ornaments or fetishes were found in the kiva pilasters or any other sacrificial deposits.

            Claystone.  Claystone or red shale is clay turned red by burning of the underlying coal beds.  It can vary greatly in texture but the higher grades have a smooth surface. The Bonitans used claystone for mosaic work, pendants and beads.  Occasionally it was used for discoidal beads and rings.

           

The style set for jewelry in 1200 AD at Pueblo Bonito still exerts a profound influence on the design sensibilities of Native American and other contemporary jewelers.  People come from all over the world to study the artifacts of this culture at museums in the southwest.  At Pueblo Santo Domingo, a fresh and exciting jewelry began to take shape in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Influenced by this ancient art and led by Angie Reano Owen and the Reano family, the mosaic style of Pueblo Bonito artists was revived.  The Reanos began to create pendants and earrings, using a base of shell and inlaying traditional materials on top.  Spondylus princeps was used for the color red instead of coral, jet for black and a variety of shells provided texture and color.  As old as this style was, the Reanos and other Santo Domingo artists managed to tweak it and create a radical chic with deep roots in their ancestral heritage.  Their work is represented in many museums, including the Smithsonian.

            Among the Native Americans, there is a profound respect for what was achieved at Pueblo Bonito.  At a time of little civilization or culture, Bonitans built splendid apartment houses and created jewelry so sophisticated that nine hundred years later it still seems avant garde.  Their basketry and pottery is impeccably crafted.  The pueblo was renowned for its artifacts and trade goods from California to Peru. It was to Indian cultural life at that time what New York City is now to the world art market. 

           Southwestern Indians call them ‘the ancient ones’ and claim a genetic and spiritual connection to these amazing people.  What finally happened at Pueblo Bonito remains a mystery.  Many tales abound of witchcraft, famine, drought, disease, and invasion by cannibalistic foreigners.  Yet Bonito keeps its secrets.   

Next week: Beads in Navajo Witchcraft