mussel shell tool replicas

[swamp monkey]

In Missouri it is permissible to collect some mussel shells if you mind the limits.  I needed some mussel shell tools for a program I do with kids on resource use.  It is a compare and contrast thing demonstrating that we and Native Americans both have to live off resources.  The natives directly harvested and processed their items is the main real difference. 

Below is an shell adze I recently finished.  In the other pic is a woodland/Mississippian era hoe (simple and easy to make) a plant cutting tool, a spoon and a necklace. 

Shell is harder to work with than bone but the results are worth it. 

[swamp monkey]

yeah I have been on a shell kick of late.  I am beginning to make disks for a shell necklace.  Lots of work involved here.  I can see why Manhattan was sold for a hand full of beads.  Those things are valuable if crafted by hand!

The one pic shows a bead with the hole nearly complete. 

I will post the full necklace when I get it done.

[Silver John]

I like your twined grass matt you displayed your shell work on.
Very well done.   

[swamp monkey]

Thank you.  Bullrush

[swamp monkey]

I have been outta the PA loop for a while with scouts and other teenager stuff.  Managed to finish this necklace.  I use it in programs.  It gives me a platform to talk about mussel conservation and the industrious efforts of Native American artisans.  The shell pendant is a marine whelk.  It is the wrong species of whelk.  the Mound builders used Lightning whelk.  I had a knobbed whelk to use.  Just being up front about it.  The major difference is the direction of the spiral is opposite.  beyond that they work about the same. 

This necklace weighs a whopping 2 lbs. 

[Spotted Dog]

Please be careful working the shell. I have a friend that got lung cancer from making wampum beads.
I hope your working them with or under water.

Dog

[swamp monkey]

Dog, thanks for the concern.  I take the dust very seriously.  I use oil.  It also keeps the temp down.  Combine that with a dust mask, eye and ear protection.  I am suited up so to speak.

[Parnell]

Good stuff!

[Spotted Dog]

I love your work on shell.  Have you been to Cahokia Mounds in East St. Louis ? Wonderful museum.
Lots of shell work.

[swamp monkey]

I have been there numerous times.  It is inspiring every time I visit.  Great trails and visitor center.

There was a burial in mound 72 that had hundreds and perhaps thousands of disk beads laid down in the form of a falcon. The hours involved in making those beads must be staggering. 

[Spotted Dog]

The artifacts are wild. When I got home from that trip I made a stone hoe. I used it at my dads
to work my garden up. My buddy and I climbed Monks Mound and put 2 copper disks in the
dirt on top.

[swamp monkey]

a fishing lure made to resemble those in the archaeological record here in the Mississippi Valley.  cord is dogbane.  hooks are deer toe bones.