A History of the World in 5 American Objects

Christmas brought to our house the new book,  A History of the World in 100 Object by Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum.  Originally a BBC radio series, the 100 objects range from a 2 million-year-old hand axe from the Olduvai Gorge to a contemporary Chinese solar powered lamp and charger, all from the museum’s collection.  

I spent a delightful Christmas afternoon perusing chapters on a Byzantine icon, a Korean roof tile, a Hebrew astrolabe and of course the Rosetta Stone.  I wondered, were any of the objects from America?   (MacGregor admits the selections were hard to make, some obvious omissions, others arguably obscure.)  

Five American objects made the cut; things found in one of the current 50 states.  All are pre-1776.  (But then only the last ten objects in all are post-1776, including the ship’s chronometer from the HMS Beagle and a suffragette-defaced penny.  It really is a fascinating collection.) 

Clovis Spear PointOldest American object is # 5 (they are presented chronologically): a 13,000-year-old fierce spearhead, made by the first American humans, and found in Arizona.  MacGregor tells us he included it to remind us how different human history is in the Americas.  Humans had widely settled Europe and Asia by 40,000 years ago, but not until 12,000 BCE did the retreating ice created the land bridge from Asia to Alaska and the warmer climate a path down the continent.  This type of spear made it possible to kill mammoths and other large mammals, and by 10,000 years ago the large mammals were all gone, and people had reached the southern tip of South America.  But rising seas meant there was no way back, and the peoples of the Americas lost all other human contact for another 10,000 years, developing on their own until Europeans arrived. 

North American Otter PipeNext is object #37, a charming 2000-year-old stone pipe in the form of an otter, found in one of the massive burial mounds in Ohio.   MacGregor describes how the native people used an hallucinogenic form of tobacco for religious ceremonies and chose animals as spirit guides.  He contrasts this practice with the English settlers’ development of and exploitation of tobacco for trade; “Bremen and Bristol, Glasgow and Dieppe all grew rich on American tobacco.” 

So far, yes, I do recognize America in these objects; weapons, extinction, tobacco and commerce. 

Objects #86, 87, 88 are all from the 18^th century, a drum, a helmet and a map.  None are made by white people, Europeans or their American descendents. 

Akan DrumThe drum is West African but found in Virginia by Sir Hans Sloane, whose extensive collection of exotic objects from around the world formed the foundation of the British Museum.  Sloan was himself a wealthy slave owner and wrote about the slaves’ music, noting they were soon forbidden from playing it because it encouraged rebellion.  But Sloan thought his drum was Native American; only 200 years later did a museum curator identify its origin and connect it to horrific scandal of American slavery.  MacGregor says it is an example of “global displacement,” of both objects and people. 

Hawaiian Feather HelmetThe helmet was made of precious bird feathers and presented to Captain Cook by the King of Hawaii, not long before Cook was killed.  No one knows why the Hawaiians turned on Cook after honoring him thus, but the diseases and lifestyle Cook brought to Hawaii managed to murder many of those folks also. 

North American Buckskin MapThe map can be more precisely dated to 1775 because it depicts boundaries set after the Seven Years War between England and France for control of Midwest territory around the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.  Beautifully and poetically etched on buckskin by a native Piankishwa, it details a proposed land grab by the English that circumvented official treaties and was never completed, because of the Revolutionary War.  We are reminded of the great difference between the Native Americans sense of the land as a sacred trust and the settlers who wanted to take it. 

So these three objects are pretty American too; conquest by whites of natives or slaves by means of slavery, musket, disease, lies and money.  

Well, that was depressing.  Let’s try again.  Can we reclaim anything positive and positively American in these objects? 

The spear head: An early example of American ingenuity, great tool making, precision instruments.  

The stone pipe: 18 US states now allow some medicinal use of marijuana.  And there’s a huge interest in various “spiritual but not religious” forms of nature worship. 

The African slave drum: Precursor of so much great American black music, jazz, rap, exceptional drumming. 

The feather helmet: Americans make and wear some pretty cool headgear.  And it’s a reminder we are not all dour New Englanders; our president is a native of exotic Hawaii. 

The buckskin map: Americans have travel in our genes and stories, and we are the only people to have traveled to the moon. 

Check out the book, and imagine what the objects say about your nation, and our human race.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah Streeter