page_title: Shell gorget
section_title: Iconography
hierarchical_section_title: Shell gorget / Mississippian / Iconography
caption_attribution_description: English: A Mississippian culture Cox style shell gorget with a cross in circle solar motif and four woodpecker heads.
context_page_description: Shell gorgets are a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated.
  Shell gorgets were most common in Eastern Woodlands of the United States, during the Hopewell tradition and Mississippian cultural period; however, tribes from other regions and time periods also carved shell gorgets. The earliest shell gorgets date back to 3000 years BP. They are believed to have been insignia of status or rank, either civic, military, or religious, or amulets of protective medicine. Due to the placement of the holes in the gorgets, they are also thought to be spinners that could produce whistling sounds.
context_section_description: Iconography on the shell gorgets comes from the Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere. Extremely common designs include the triskele, coiled rattlesnake, spider, chunkey player, and birdman, sometimes called a Falcon Impersonater.
  Native Americans, art historians, and anthropologists all have a wide range of often conflicting interpretations of the Mississippian iconography. Coiled rattlesnake gorgets were often found in the graves of young people and are believed to relate to age as opposed to status. The forked-eye motif, commonly identified as markings from a peregrine falcon, dates back to the Hopewell exchange, and the symbol references excellent vision and hunting skill among Muscogee Creek people. "Strength of Life" design is interpreted by Kvokovtee Scott and Phillip Deer (Muscogee medicine man) as referencing a whirlwind and dancing movement.
  There are over 30 pre-contact examples of the Cox Mound gorget style, found in Tennessee and northern Alabama and dating from 1250-1450 CE. The Cox Mound gorget style features four woodpecker heads facing counter-clockwise, a four-lopped square motif, and a sometimes a cross within a rayed circle. It has been interpreted as a visualization of the Yuchi myth of the winds. The four-looped square, or guilloche, is considered by some to be a "whirling sun" motif, or a priestly or chiefly litter; by some, the earth held up by cords to the Sky Vault at the four cardinal points; and by others, the path of life with four stages of maturity. Woodpeckers are associated with the four winds and are medicine birds that can extract illnesses among Muscogee Creeks. The birds are also sometimes interpreted as the four winds. The rayed circle or  sun is interpreted literally, a deity or ancestors, council, and/or sacred fire. The entire design could also illustrate the Yuchi myth of the winds.
  A gorget from the Castalian Springs Mound Site in Tennessee features a man holding a mace and severed head. This has been interpreted by some anthropologists as a "flying shaman."
  Some agreement can be found in interpreting the cross-in-circle design, which references the sun and the ceremonial fire, fed by four logs aligned to cardinal directions. Another design widely agreed upon is the water spider with a cross-in-circle design on its cephalothorax. Spider gorgets have a widespread distribution but are commonly found in what is now Illinois.
caption: Cox style gorget
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