Entanglement

There is a concept in anthropology known as “entanglement” that recognizes the connections between objects—or in archaeological parlance, artifacts and features—and human beings. Objects in this conception are not static but are entangled in the flow of individual lives, events, and history.

In traditional Haitian folklore, Tonton Macoute—a Creole expression meaning “Uncle Knapsack”—is a bogeyman who stalks wayward children and kidnaps them in his knapsack and eats them for breakfast. At once avuncular and evil, this apparition has its origins in West Africa, making its way to Haiti via the slave trade in the 16th and 17th centuries.

It’s more archaeological urban myth, but it does happen on occasion, that the best discoveries occur on the last day of any dig. And here we are atop this forsaken Sierra Nevada ridgeline trying to translate French of all things. For the last eight days we’ve been working at KER-1286, the alpha-numeric identifier used by the State of California to inventory archaeological sites by county, in this case Kern County. On our last evening, having just found the button, my friend and archaeologist, Rick, arrives at our field camp located in a small valley well below KER-1286. There is a long tradition of fellow archaeologists visiting the field camps of their companions and colleagues.  Of course, we tout our new find. “Ah, a Phoenix button,” he deadpans; we sit there incredulous that he’s already got this wired. “Yes” he says, “that’s French you’re looking at—I Rise from My Ashes—but think Haiti, not Paris.”

“Haiti? What?” I blurt out. I was flummoxed, and could not conjure any connection between a button, a small Caribbean country, and the gray archaeological deposits of KER-1286. This time, Rick has no pat answers and after a long pause, finally says, “Well, one thing is for sure: this little button has travelled far and wide in its time, and has no doubt meant a lot of different things to all sorts of people.” On that I could only agree.

At the time, my understanding of Haiti was scant—but I did know that this is where it all started. Hispaniola, as the Spanish called the island, at the Bay of San Nicolas, where­ the Old World blindsides the New: Christopher Columbus and his Spanish sailors staring down the native Taino across the width of a tropical beach. I’ve since learned that the specifics of this encounter are unknown. There are, however, Columbus’s own words for the people before him: “They are loveable, tractable, peaceable, gentle, and decorous. They bear no arms and are so completely defenseless and of no skill in arms, and very cowardly, so that a thousand would not face three; and so they are fit to be ordered about and made to work, to sew and do all the things needed.” Fifty years later, most of the half-million Taino that once resided on Hispaniola were gone.
 

And in West Africa an apparition begins to stir—the white sails will soon appear on the western horizon and the knapsacks will fill with children.

Our days at KER-1286 begin before sunrise with a straight-line ascent of over 1,000 feet from our field camp to the site, most of the route through a ribbon of soft, ankle-deep scree. The top of the ridge is razorbacked, plunging immediately down the opposite side as soon as we crest. The site is located on a small, flat perch just a short traverse along the scarp, among a bastion of granite outcrops. The soft sands and geometry of this space are inviting and would attract anyone who had made it this far.

This ridge, however, couldn’t be more remote and removed from the world. This is not the High Sierra of Muir, but its rump southern terminus where the last of the pine forests give way to the Joshua trees and creosote scrub of the Mojave Desert. Desiccated by late spring, even at an elevation of 6,000 feet, this landscape is unremarkable in any modern sense and, with the possible exception of a decadal stopover by a sheepherder or hunter, beyond even casual visitation. For the native Kawaiisu people, however, these uplands are part of their ancestral homeland. Through the centuries, it was the sparse cover of piñon that clings to these ramparts, and the all-important autumn pine nut harvest, that brought them to KER-1286.

Pottery sherds, obsidian tools, and stone working debris litter the site surface. A dark, ashy midden underlies a crust of loose sand and gravel. Off to the side stand the stone foundations of two circular house structures. Owing to the confinement of this living area, as well as the modest size of the artifact assemblage, there is an intimacy here—not so much the spirit of a village or large clan, but of a family. Confirming the purpose of this camp, a five-meter-long wooden pole is ensnared upright deep within the lattice of limbs of an ancient piñon—a piñon pole used to knock the ripened cones off the highest branches of the tree. It has been shaped and smoothed but is severely weathered, having endured more than a century of exposure to the elements.

That the pole had not completely decomposed provides an initial clue to the age of the encampment. The crude brownware pottery and small, side-notched obsidian arrow points found on the surface of the site all point to the final phase of Indigenous occupation, commencing at about A.D. 1350. Several cobalt blue glass beads of European origin were also found and are of a type that did not enter this region until about 1830. We also obtained charcoal from a hearth within one of the house structures. Subsequent radiocarbon assays on two samples from this feature produced dates of 1740 + 50 and 1800 + 50. While KER-1286 was most likely visited over the last 650 years, the most intense period of occupation probably occurred within the last three centuries. The Phoenix button pairs well with the glass beads, also arriving in the 1830s, some 340 years after that first encounter at the Bay of San Nicolas.

Somehow emerging from the shadows of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology, even early Christian accounts, King Henry’s coat-of-arms, the Phoenix, entangles a new moment and object in history.

Haiti’s descent into darkness ground on during these centuries. The Spanish, having decimated the Taino, cast their gaze to West Africa for the slave labor that would drive the island’s emerging plantation economy. But it was the French, who in 1687 were ceded control of what would become Haiti, that perfected this trade in human beings. At that time, there were only a few thousand slaves in Saint-Domingue, as the French called Haiti. By 1789, there were almost half a million.

An accounting of the French slave period in Haiti reveals the usual horrors when humans are reduced to property: ghastly working conditions, malnourishment and starvation, life expectancy at less than 21 years, and the refinements of torture and murder. Over 40,000 African slaves were brought to Haiti each year during this period to replace the dead, dying, and incapacitated. In the end, one million people succumbed to the conditions of slavery.
 

At night, the Tonton Macoute roams the countryside; Haiti is now his home. He leers and then laughs through the cracks and peep holes of the slave quarters. And another generation falls into his knapsack.

The Phoenix button arrives in Haiti in the heady swirl and aftermath of the French and American Revolutions, and the first successful slave revolt in the Americas nearly 60 years before the American Civil War. Enter Henry Christophe, celebrated Haitian revolutionary military leader who helped defeat the French and was elected president of an independent Haiti in 1807. Several years later he proclaimed himself Henry I King of Haiti.

King Henry remains a contested figure in Haitian history: hero for his role in the revolution for independence, megalomanic and despot for his dalliances with feudal monarchy and the brutal suppression of a newly freed slave population. By 1820, the practiced instruments of subjugation—an unfortunate legacy of the old French slave masters—could no longer contain the populace. General rebellion broke out and with his royal palace at Sans Souci under siege, he put a bullet through his heart.

But it was King Henry’s particular fascination with European-style monarchy—English in structure, French in adornment—from whence the Phoenix button appears. At San Souci, King Henry held court and created hereditary nobles in gaudy opulence unmatched even in the royal courts of Europe. He promulgated in exacting detail specifications of court dress and regimental uniforms. Princes and dukes, for example, would wear black cloaks faced with scarlet and gold over white tunics and white silk stockings; shoes would be of red leather with gold buckles. The image of the Phoenix is front and center in King Henry’s elaborate coat-of-arms, as it is in our Phoenix button (the button’s No. 9 refers to the King’s old Port-au-Paix regiment). Consignments of this finery flowed freely from Europe into Haiti during King Henry’s reign, then suddenly ceased with his suicide.

Somehow emerging from the shadows of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology, even early Christian accounts, King Henry’s coat-of-arms, the Phoenix, entangles a new moment and object in history. There are numerous variations but at the center of the story the Phoenix obtains new life by rising from the ashes of its predecessors. It’s probably the case that King Henry was unaware of the motif’s ancient pedigree, but likely understood its association with destruction, resurrection, and renewal. He may have sensed that he would need it.

The first of many shipping manifests from Haiti arrived at Bushby’s, No. 5 Saint Martins Avenue, London, in 1807. Given relations between Britain and France at this time, this English clothing manufacturer was in the unenviable position of providing personal and regimental military uniforms with a decidedly Napoleonic cast to the court of King Henry. With their primary customer now dead, these consignments of buttons, uniforms, and other adornments of the Haitian nobility and military languished in the warehouses of London and Port-au-Prince.

In the Mexican settlements and presidios of Alta California, American and Hudson’s Bay Company traders had long noticed the tatters and rags adorning the Mexican officer corps and general soldiery. Taking advantage of expanding trade opportunities, sailing ships calling at the mission and presidio in Santa Barbara in the 1830s were packed with a plethora of goods, including gun powder, glass beads, iron kettles, needles, window glass, uniforms, and buttons—Phoenix buttons sold off as surplus to traders and now transmuted from royal symbol to commercial commodity. It is unclear whether these buttons had any effect on the sartorial presentation of the Mexican army, but they did find their way into the Indigenous settlements surrounding these missions and garrisons.
 

The Tonton Moucute is no longer a safe world away. He’s been a stowaway. This time arriving to new shores not with his human cargo but with letters of credit, silver coin, and his wares—ready to do business.

On the clearest of days, you can make out the southern San Joaquin Valley and Coast Ranges from KER-1286, and further west the horizonless vanishing point of the Pacific Ocean. The sea is 180 miles from KER-1286 as the crow flies, but by foot there are a gauntlet of mountain passes, steep canyons, raging rivers, and vast tule marshes at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. This would have included the territories of a number of other Indigenous tribes, some friendly with the Kawaiisu, others not. By the 1820s, these impediments also included Mexican military patrols that had fanned out across much of interior southern California to seize Native American escapees and return them to the labor camps that were part of the Catholic mission system.

But the Kawaiisu were also part of a vast Indigenous trade network that had been in place for millennia. From the Coso quarries, located just 40 miles northeast of KER-1286, came obsidian—a black volcanic glass preferred by Native craftsman for the business ends of arrows and spears, as well as for a variety of other the cutting and scraping tasks. Most of southern California is bereft of naturally occurring obsidian and when found in coastal archaeological sites is almost always Coso obsidian, and for archaeologists a handy signature of the extent of past Indigenous trade from the interior to the coast. From the coastal settlements to the west came the traditional goods—sea otter pelts, abalone shell, soapstone bowls, and Olivella shell beads. But nearing the end of this ancient trade network, new objects appeared: iron needles and knives, glass beads from the workshops of Italy, and our Phoenix button.

It’s hard to know what sort of alchemy occurred when the button suddenly appeared among the Kawaiisu. The letters and text on the button were certainly inscrutable—but there it was, the sacred eagle, somehow animated on an indestructible metal surface. And no longer a button. The brazed metal loop is nearly worn through by the constant wear of a fiber or leather thong most likely placed around the neck. And again, the eagle, that venerated symbol of so many cultures throughout the world and across time. In California, Eagle is the mythic hero of almost every Indigenous tribe—Master of the Sky and the messenger between humans and the Creator. He is the avatar of all that is strong, courageous, and wise. The button has metamorphized into an amulet, a source of power and protection, visible to both the physical and spirit worlds.
 

But the Tonton Moucute now roams freely in this new land. He chortles and is all smiles when he thinks of all the willing takers of his goods and enticements. He bides his time.

From the aerie that is KER-1286, you can also scan to the east down to the desert valleys and distant ranges of the Mojave Desert. Just visible to the north are Indian Wells and Rose Valleys and still further out of view Owens Valley. All bounded to the west by the Sierra Nevada, this the largest and westernmost trough of the basin-and-range geological province that constitutes much of the Intermountain West. It was also a convenient north-south travel corridor for the Kawaiisu, Shoshone, Paiute, and their ancestors.

But on one particularly hot July day in of 1863, it was the spectacle of a mile-long throng of people, horses, dust, and misery making their way south along this route that can be seen from this perch. U.S. Army Captain Moses McLaughlin commanded this drive, who had only four months earlier “with lead shot and sabers” methodically massacred 35 defenseless Native Americans on the banks of the Kern River just north of KER-1286. As part of the Army’s ongoing war of annihilation, nearly 1,000 captive Indigenous men, women, and children were forcibly marched from Fort Independence in Owens Valley to Fort Tejon located some 120 miles to the southwest. Some escaped but many more died on this particular trail of tears. Now a footnote in most historical accounts, the event remains vivid for the Native peoples of this region who today still speak of the wanton cruelty and atrocities committed by the soldiers.

It is at this time the living and ancestral voices at KER-1286 quiet and then go silent. The Phoenix button separates and goes to ground and for the next 150 years is no longer entangled in the lives of human beings.

Sometimes I wonder if entanglement is not just a theory or construct but a central feature of ourselves and many of our objects. This single artifact, a button, swirls in a multiverse of time, symbols, histories, and possibilities until it is revealed—captured in some sense—and then becomes fixed, measurable, attributable. But this capture seems to have a half-life, subject to decay and even loss until it is entangled once again in the flow of individual lives and events. Yet, while the Phoenix button moves through its histories it never seems to completely decay. It lingers ghostlike as a physical remembrance of cataclysm in Haiti, and in California as an unintended marker of the end times of traditional Indigenous lifeways.

The Phoenix button returns again to the flow of individual human lives, events, and history—this time to science and the story telling of archaeologists…

I’ve never been to Haiti, but since my time at KER-1286 I find myself continuing to check in with this ill-fated island country, keeping an eye on things—back in the day with the occasional newspaper or magazine article, more recently by bumping into a story while scrolling online. The news arrives in snippets, almost always microbursts of violence and despair: Prime Minister Jovenel Moise assassinated; Mass killing in Cite Soleil: 180 dead; A 1,000 percent rise in sexual violence against children; Port-au-Prince now controlled by the G9 Alliance street gang led by Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier; Trump ends protected status of Haitian asylum seekers. I rarely read these stories in their entirety, an annotating headline sufficing as confirmation.

And Uncle Knapsack? He’s still at it but no longer an apparition. This time he’s joined the eponymously named Tonton Macoutes paramilitary police that was established in the late 1950s. Armed with guns and machetes, and sporting their signature sunglasses, berets, and denim shirts with deaths-head arm patches, they were thought of as zombie-like fanatics known throughout the country for their abductions and assassinations. More recently, the Macoutes have morphed into violent street gangs that today have overwhelmed virtually all state institutions in Haiti and most of the remaining threads of civil society.

On our final hours at the site, the Phoenix button is placed in a cotton-packed film cannister and then in a plastic bag. Also enclosed is a temporary tag with provenience information: KER-1286, Unit 3, Level 20-30-cm, Feature A, Artifact No. 13. Along with the rest of the collection, all is securely placed within my backpack for the descent down the ridge. The Phoenix button returns again to the flow of individual human lives, events, and history—this time to science and the story telling of archaeologists, to me, to this essay.

In the last surge of warm air before sunset, a squadron of vultures catches an updraft. There is a larger bird also soaring but much higher than the vultures. Rick, still with us, says that it’s a golden eagle. The vultures scatter, but the eagle circles above us the entire way down the mountain.

Kelly R. McGuire is a founder and past president of Far Western Anthropological Research Group. His scholarly work has appeared in books and journals, including American Antiquity, American Museum of Natural History Anthropological Series, Quaternary International, University Utah Press, Left Coast Press, and Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology. His previous creative non-fiction has appeared in Catarmaran and, along with this essay, reflects his career-long passion in bringing both the science and experience of archaeology to a broader audience. He splits his time between Davis, California and Gold Hill, Nevada.

Read “Deep Space Station,” an essay by Kelly R. McGuire also appearing in Terrain.org.

Header photo of the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California by David P. Smith, courtesy Shutterstock.