Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: Abalone Tales by Les Field Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection # of Pages: 6 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-09-03 15:38:39 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:11:35 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 03:11:35

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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_waintil his death in 1852. The final deposition of the artifacts he collected on his voyages has never been Precisely determined (see the introductory essay by Pierce in von Langsdorff 1993: xxii). Unfortunately, the Freiburg museum was unable to Provide any supporting acquisition documents that would warrant such an argument. Similar considerations could bear on the location of the seven-pendant von Langsdorff necklace. A specimen in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (figure 5) features olivella-shell beads rather than clamshell beads. The necklace therefore seems to be quite old; however, the beads and the abalone pendants are strung on commercial cotton string, according to Bates, and there are ten rather than seven abalone pendants. Similarities and differences among these necklaces and between each of them and what is displayed in the von Langsdorff engraving create considerable ambiguity and room for multiple interpretations. Moreover, it is worthwhile to entertain the possibility that each item in von Langsdorffs engraving represented an assortment of such items (i.e., abalone necklaces, baskets, etc.) that he encountered with frequency in his dealings with Native peoples on the California coast. In that case, each engraved item is a generic representation of a type of object rather than a specific representation of a particular item. It would be very possible to find among the few surviving abalone necklaces from the early nineteenth century an assortment of materials used, reflecting local preferences and technologies, that all share very similar iconographies and design features. Other abalone necklaces in the St. Petersburg collection have been linked by Bates, Hudson, and others to Russian visitors who came after the establishment of the Russian settlement at Fort Ross (1812-42), particularly the objects from the L G. Voznesenski expedition (Bates 1983; Blackburn and Hudson 1990). The Voznesenski necklaces are unmistakably related to the earlier objects, as demonstrated by the very similar rectangular and pentagonal forms of the abalone pendants, the way these pendants are attached to and hang from beaded bands, and the overall composition of the objects. European explorers of note collected other objects that featured abalone ornaments, particularly baskets, during the early post-contact period. These explorers include German Admiral Baron F. P. von Wrangell; objects from his collection are now in Frankfurt. The collection of Ferdinand Deppe now largely re32 Artifact, Narrative, Genocide e Fuld Alston, Tat. . : 7 : 20% sides in Berlin, and the respective collections of the British explorers F. W. Beechey and A. F. Belcher reside in the Pitt Rivers Museum and British Museum. Continuities and Attribution< Trying to ascertain the present-day location of von Langsdorff's nec laces might be an entirely fruitless project if the purpose in so doing ist determine the cultural groups who made them. Bates pondered ii. provenance of both the abalone necklaces in von Langsdorits engr'v ings and of the necklace in St. Petersburg (figure 2), ‘nan he and other: consider identical with one of the necklaces in the engraving: This necklace [MAE 570-23; see figure 2], with its pentagonal pensent oO abalone shell, is similar to specimens in some American collections: iii toric Sierra Miwok examples [LMA 1—71833; see figure 6] are similar archaeologically the form is found in widely scattered locales . a in th Sacramento Valley, in the San Francisco Bay Area and intervening r region, and north to Marysville (Gifford 1947: 23). Because of this wi scattered archaeological distribution, and because such multiple abal pendants have been reported for the Miwok, Maidu, Patwin, Nizers, Pomo peoples, it is impossible to ascribe a specific tribal origin to the pir (Bates n.d.: 32) The Sierra Miwok necklace (figure 6) Bates notes is a late-nineteen century specimen that now resides in the Phoebe Hearst Museuiai Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. The necklae pentagonal pendants and beadwork band cannot help but bring to mi the older necklaces collected by von Langsdorff and other Euitopéans the beginning and the middle of the nineteenth century. Eelward Gi ord’s exhaustive comparative monograph, “California Shell Atiiacts" '1047), graphically portrays the widespread occurrence of pentagon a abalone pendants over a wide area of southern, central, and northe: California during a very long period, stretching back at least four thoi sand years. ae The implications of the broad geographic and temporal distribution such iconography in abalone shell with regard to identifying the cule: tural origin of these objects is further complicated by the tribal namie a: Muwekma Ohlone Cultural Patrimony he