Hi,

 

Ken Brown found mirror fragments at the Jordan Plantation slave quarters, in the residence/working area he identified as belonging to the curer/conjurer. They were interpreted as being part of the "conjurer's kit". The kit was reported in Brown and  Cooper 1990, but mirror fragments as part of the kit were reported a bit later, here (and in the final report submitted to the State of Texas).

 

Brown, Kenneth L. 2001. "Interwoven Traditions:  Archaeology of the Conjurer's Cabins and the African American Cemetery at the Jordan and Frogmore Plantations." In Places of Cultural Memory:  African Reflections on the American Landscape, edited by Larry D. Hudson, 99-114. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.  

 

It used to be online but I can't find it at the link where it was earlier. If you want a copy of the PDF let me know off list. I believe there were some mirror fragments found elsewhere in the deposit as well. They should all be available in the Levi Jordan Plantation collection, now located at the Texas Historical Commission in Austin.

 

Ken used to be on this list, maybe he’ll want to comment.

 

And I could be wrong, but didn't Mark Leone find some, perhaps in one of the "cache" contexts he and his teams found?

 

Carol 

*****************************

Carol McDavid, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Community Archaeology Research Institute, Inc.

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Rice University

Co-editor, Journal of Community Archaeology and Heritage (http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ycah20/current)

1638 Branard

Houston, TX 77006

www.publicarchaeology.org/CARI 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Linda Derry
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2017 12:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: mirrors etc. recovered from slave contexts

 

Mark,

 

Saw your query about mirrors from slave quarters.  Have you heard about a folk tradition of "ghost mirrors"  in Alabama's Black Belt region?  In fact, I still see them occasionally when I drive through very rural, African American communities here.  (And in fact, I have have placed one on our visitor center at an archaeological park along with a bottle tree to protect our operations).

 

People reportedly put mirrors on the outside of their houses next to their  front and/or back doors.  Sometimes it's just a fragment of a broken mirror nailed to the wall.  The purpose is to keep the devil out of the structure.  The reasoning is that Satan is a night time angel and  tries to enter your home at night, but he is also very vain, so when he sees his image in the mirror, he stops and admires himself until the sun comes up,

and then he has to leave.   This was documented in a little book of

folkways of Alabama's Black Belt region  by Kathryn Tucker Windham called *Count Those Buzzards!  Stamp Those Grey Mules*, published in 1981.

 

Windham was a journalist and in her elder years became a regionally famous storyteller.

 

Of course this is not  an archaeological example and therefore not a direct answer to your colleague's question, but it is contexual information that might be helpful, depending on where he/she is finding the mirror pieces.

So, I guess I'm  trying to say that  some mirrors might not necessarily

have anything to do with "representation of self."     Just saying . . . .

its something to consider.

 

 

 

 

Linda Derry

Site Director, Old Cahawba Archaeological Park Alabama Historical Commission

9518 Cahaba Road, Orrville, AL 36767

park:  334/ 875-2529

 <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]

 

 

 

On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 3:55 PM, Warner, Mark ( <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]) <  <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]> wrote:

 

> All,

> I have a colleague in the history department here at Idaho who is not 

> on Histarch but has an interest in material culture in historical contexts.

> He is doing a project on representation of self in slave communities 

> in the 18th and 19th century U.S.  He was querying me about the 

> archaeological recovery of mirrors/mirror fragments in slave contexts.  

> I said I'd do a Histarch post to see what the HA community has in 

> their collections along these lines.  Feel free to respond to me or contact my colleague directly.

> His contact info is:  Matt Fox-Amato, email   <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]<mailto:

>  <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]>

> 

> Thanks,

> Mark Warner

> U. of Idaho

>