Carved Bone from Fort Ouiatenon Christina Snyder is the Thomas and Kathryn Miller Professor of History at Indiana University, and a Faculty Curator at the Glenn Black Laboratory of Archaeology. This piece of carved bone was recovered from Fort Ouiatenon, southwest of present-day Lafayette, Indiana. Built by the French in 1717, the fort was a military post, but its main purpose was to facilitate trade with Native people, including local Wea Indians. Many Indigenous women married French men at Ouiatenon. Documents rarely mention these women, but this artifact highlights their presence. Likely a decorative hairpin, it depicts the phases of the moon and was probably made and worn by a woman. Many Native cultures associate the moon with women’s reproductive abilities and the agricultural cycle overseen by women. Elegant in its simplicity, this artifact signals the enduring power of Native women, even in colonial contexts. As a historian interested in material culture, I seek to combine different kinds of evidence to understand North America’s deep and ongoing Indigenous history.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 23:44:31 +0000
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