White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) were an important source of food to many early Georgians; but they also were used for other purposes.

Recent work at a site near present-day Savannah, Georgia, offers information about some of these other uses. This site is associated with Mary Musgrove, the daughter of a Creek Indian woman and an English trader. Mary and her husband, John Musgrove, established a trading post known as Cowpens on Yamacraw Bluff in 1735. From this post colonists traded for meat and other supplies and Native Americans also participated in the deerskin trade that flourished at that time. The trading post operated until the 1740s.

Several deer antlers were recovered by archaeologists during their study of the trading post. The antlers were hollowed out in back and were altered in other ways, too.

One explanation for these modifications is found in an engraving by Theodore de Bry, dated 1591. This engraving shows hunters using deer hides and antlers as decoys to attract deer. The hunters are wearing the entire skin of the deer, a method described by the artist Le Moyne in 1565: "They manage to put on the skins of the largest which have been taken ... with the heads on their own heads, so that they can see out through the eyes as through a mask." (Swanton 1946.)

A different description says that only the head of the deer was used as a decoy and was "...made of the head of a buck, the back part of the horns being scraped and hollow for the lightness of carriage." (Swanton 1946.)

Dumont de Montigny, writing in the 1750s, described how the decoy would be used by the hunter. "He carries [the head] with him hung on his belt ... [and seeing a deer] he passes his right hand into the neck of this deer, with which he conceals his face, and begins to make the same kind of movements as the living animal would make." (Swanton 1946.)

The hunters were very good at deceiving the deer they hunted, in fact, one anecdote tells of a hunter, so good at acting like a real deer, who was shot at by another hunter (Swanton 1946.)

Another explanation is that these antlers were part of a costume worn for a dance or on other important occasions. Many people wear antlers, horns, and similar decorations during ceremonies. Today these may be made of cloth or of an artificial material (e.g., reindeer antlers at Christmas), but in the past these ornaments were made of wood and bone.

If you compare the pair of modern, unmodified antler shown here with a pair of antlers recovered from Mary Musgrove's trading post, you can see that the back side of the pair of antlers from the trading post has been removed. It is likely these antlers, and others from the trading post, were made at the trading post, or nearby, and sold there. When the trading post closed, these antlers were discarded.

If these antlers were part of a decoy used by hunters, how well did they work? Chad Braley of Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc. reports that "during the early years of the colony, Mary reportedly took in 12,000 pounds of skins annually (that's about 10,000 deer, assuming the skins were dressed.)" (Personal communication 2005.)

You can read more about Mary Musgrove in the New Georgia Encyclopedia. Additional engravings by de Bry are posted by the New York Public Library.

Funding for the archaeological study of Cowpens is provided by The Georgia Ports Authority and Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc to the University of Georgia and the Georgia Museum of Natural History. "Hunting Deer" is used by the kind permission of the New York Public Library.

- by Dr. Elizabeth Reitz, Georgia Museum of Natural History, February 9, 2005

Source:
Swanton, John
.....1946 The Indians of the southeastern United States. United States Bureau of
.....American Ethnology Bulletin 137. U.S. Govt. print. off., Washington, D.C.