Embodying Identities: The Human Figure in Pre-European Native American Art

Summary

Two- and three-dimensional human figures, and disembodied parts of figures, are commonly found across North America, and are considered important dimensions of Native American art. Figures appear in diverse media and sizes including stone, copper, shell, earthen effigy mounds, and petroglyphs/petrographs. In the literature, they are most frequently addressed as examples of art for the regions in which they are found, but rarely as pan-North American phenomena. A solely regional perspective implies that they only had local audiences. Human figures and disembodied parts are rarely examined, or compared/contrasted with reference to wider geographic regions as potentially having had diverse and travelling audiences. This regionalism has developed despite Omaha self-identification as having relocated several times, and the patchwork distribution of linguistic groups across North America for example, speakers of Siouan languages are found in both the Great Plains and South East. This research looks at full figures, hands, and hand and arm postures as one example of such widespread imagery. Hand and arm postures are significant not only for their variation in visual imagery, and in disembodied formats, but also their use in historic American Indian gestural sign language.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20673