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Other objects of art known from the American Bottom include incised and engraved pots, shell beads, and copper-covered earspools. Figures depicted on gorgets and in figurines are adorned with a variety of decorative items, perhaps including galena or mica mirrors, body tatoos, animal pelts, and feathered capes.

Sandstone birdman tablet, Cahokia site.

The Birdman on the plaque from the Cahokia site, for example, has a large convex circular plate (mirror, or shell gorget?) set in a larger collar around his neck. The Birdman also appears to be wearing a feather cape made to look like the barred wing feathers of the falcon. In the southeast U.S. falcon priests incised on shell gorgets are often adorned with what appear to be animal pelts, and large earspools.


Filed incisors of a Mississippian.

Finally, like people all over the world, Mississippians used their bodies as an artistic medium. Many human forms show designs suggestive of tatooing and/or body paint. The large earspools must have been quite impressive in the ears of Mississippian men. Other adornments such as tooth filing give us definitive evidence of Mississippians using their bodies for decorative purposes.

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