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Problems and Questions In the Interpretation of Christian-Themed Artifacts
In the study of Jesuit finger rings it seems one is left at a scholarly impasse
when venturing beyond mere typology and into the realm of meaning. Carol Mason
notes: “some writers distinguish between the rings with obvious religious decoration
and those that are the same except that the religious tie is not recognizable (e.g.,
Mandzy 1986; Wood 1974), but most archaeologists do not (e.g. Hauser 1982)”
(Mason 2003:235). Because so little has been discovered as to why, how and when
the rings began venturing into North America, speculation as to what the rings were
intended for is also rife with division.
One of the more problematic but compelling points of view is held by Adrian
Mandzy. Even though he acknowledges that “secular” designs do occur, Mandzy
again repeatedly refers to the rings as “Christianization rings.” He suggests that the
rings “were probably brought over by the earliest explorers as their own personal
items” and that “with the advance of Christianity came the use of rings for religious
order” (Mandzy 1986:51). To make his case, he recalls a Huron ossuary excavated by
the University of Toronto that contained six rings.
Jean de Brebeuf, described a Huron ossuary which he had visited in 1636.
Excavations made by Kenneth K. Kidd and the Royal Ontario Museum of
Archeology, Toronto, produced six copper finger rings, two of which were still
in situ on the third phalanges (finger bone), and all but one were imported, the
exception being a crude open band, probably of native manufacture. Of the
remaining five rings all had bezels and well fashioned circles. The simple bezel
bore a design of a star bordered by two vertical impressed lines. Two of the
five bezels retained glass faces and behind one of them a reddish substance
was visible (Kidd, 1953:370) The number of rings correlates with Brebeuf’s
account of the number of Christian burials and the probable number of married
Christian women who may have used these rings as wedding bands. Provided
this is true, would it not be most probable that the Jesuits who were performing
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