[Bonetools] Painted vertebrae - John Wesley bones

Sun Sep 6 22:53:56 CEST 2015

Hi all

I came across these Painted vertebrae (attached), called Wesley bones, which seem to have some varied and interesting folk lore attached.

http://the-philosophers-stone.com/articles/bones/bones2.htm
"They are known as Wesley Bones, and originate from the Black mountains just over the border in Wales. In the nineteenth century, John Wesley and his Methodist Mission was quite busy in the area, and the adherents travelled across some very rugged terrain to reach and preach at isolated homesteads, and to give them something else to worry about. Indeed, the rather narrow, precipitous and perilous road across the Black Mountain from Hay-on-Bookshop to Capel-y-ffin and Llanthony Priory is now known as the Gospel Pass. In the 19th century life was extremely hard up on the Black Hills without 4x4s and TV soap operas, and the long evenings were often spent pondering over the bible. It seems they also spent quite some time worrying about what their neighbours were up to. Hence the Wesley bones. Taking the large vertebrae from a bull or a cow, they would decorate them ... to produce an item which looked like a preacher with the devil standing behind him with arms outstretched. On one of the bones in my possession there is also painted a warning to a particular person to repent before it is too late. "

I don't see the devil figure on these or on the one I just found for sale on ebay, so I'm not so sure about the above slightly sarcastic details. Also the town listed above is probably Hay-on-Wye, which is mostly bookstores. But interesting. 

I have to say, I can also 'see' winged figures 'in' the horse C-verts I've examined. 

I couldn't find anything else about these in my quick google search...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-ODDITY-1850-BONE-MAN-PREACHER-FOLK-ART-Book-John-Wesley-Methodist-Wales-/311422736497

"Very rare and interesting piece of antique folk art. This is called a "Wesley Bone", made to represent an image of famous Methodist preacher John Wesley. These were made in Wales and how it came to be here (US) is a mystery. We purchased it at a church sale. They usually used a horse or cow vertabrae-this is a real piece of bone. I was able to find a very few articles about Wesley Bones on the internet. I am not sure about the age of this one but these were made during the 1800's. Size is aprox. 5 1/2 inches high by 4 inches across. At some point someone added plaster to the inner core, probably to stabilize it. You probably will never see another one of these, as the few references I found online show them to be in museums, so don't let it get away! Also included is a copy of "John Wesley's Awakening" 1937 by James Richard Joy."

Cheers
Pam

Pamela J Cross
PhD researcher, Zoo/Bioarchaeology
Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford,  BD7 1DP  UK
p.j.cross (at) student.bradford.ac.uk  / pajx(at) aol.com
http://www.barc.brad.ac.uk/resstud_Cross.php
http://bradford.academia.edu/PamCross

Life at the Edge  "liminality...enable[s] evolution and growth ... Boundaries and edges also characterize the dynamics of landscapes ... environments..[both intellectual and physical]." Andrews & Roberts 2012, Liminal Landscapes

-----Original Message-----
From: Alice Choyke <choyke at gmail.com>
To: Mailing list for archaeologists of the research group for the study of object and waste of bone, antler. ivory and horn. <bonetools at listserv.niif.hu>
Sent: Sun, Sep 6, 2015 1:58 am
Subject: Re: [Bonetools] Painted sperm whale tympanic bullae

The doll heads actually look striking like the Punch and Judy puppet heads!.  

Alice  

On Sun, Sep 6, 2015 at 9:12 AM, Christian Küchelmann    <info at knochenarbeit.de> wrote:   

Dear Sonia, dear list,    

 while searching for something completely different, I came across a picture I took 2012 in an exhibition about whales in the Museum für Naturkunde Münster, Germany (see below), which recalled our recent discussion about painted bones and resulted in last month's bonetool on the WBRG website (    http://www.wbrg.net/bonetool-archive).    

 The label to the exhibit describes the two painted sperm whale tympanic bullae as being dolls heads from Norway (mid 20th century). Taking up your thoughts on the expression of humour through modified bones, these examples may allow to put these thoughts even further as the items do not only express humour (or other emotions) in itself, but are obviously the surviving parts of composite objects. They may for instance have had bodies dressed with specific garments expressing typical characters and may have been used in theatre plays (not only by children). Would be a nice topic to investigate further (if there would be time...).    

 Best    

 Christian
 --
 Knochenarbeit

 Hans Christian Küchelmann

 Konsul-Smidt-Straße 30, D-28217 Bremen, Germany
 tel: +49 - 421 - 61 99 177
 fax: +49 - 421 - 37 83 540
 mail: info at knochenarbeit.de
 web: http://www.knochenarbeit.de

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