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Authors: Mary Anna Evans
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arranged around an open area for outdoor work like soapmaking or blacksmithing. Their African slaves had brought with them different notions of how life should be organized. This site could possibly enable her to look at two plantation complexes from two different periods in the same field trip, which could be quite a time-saver. Faye didn’t know any graduate students who weren’t all about getting their work done and getting the hell out of school.
She and Nina had spent January poring over earlier archaeological reports and histories of the site. They’d spent February digging test pits and developing a plan for a more detailed investigation. The Feds had liked their proposal for follow-up work, so Dauphine had joined them in March, and they’d all been hard at work for two months. Faye was proud of the things they’d gotten done this semester. The summer should be even better, except for the distinct risk of sunstroke.
As if to make up for Nina’s easygoing nature, Dauphine existed only to embrace life’s oddities. She eschewed practical field clothes in favor of flowing, wide-legged pants and colorful cotton blouses. Fuchsia, lime, scarlet, lavender—if Faye found herself craving an afternoon nap, she could just look at Dauphine for a caffeine-free pick-me-up.
No matter what neon color Dauphine was wearing, her braids were always wrapped neatly in a sky-blue scarf. The happy color flattered her praline-colored skin and framed an extraordinary pair of eyes. They were green, like Joe’s, but they looked nothing like Joe’s eyes. His eyes were a clear emerald, while Dauphine’s were a milky green, the color of slow-moving swamp water. They were wide and calm, yes, but not placid.
Faye didn’t think that Dauphine’s eyes missed much. They gave the impression that she was cataloging everything she saw, because it was all useful. In Faye’s limited understanding, a voodoo mambo was a scholar of nature and a minister to humans in all their frailty. She suspected that Dauphine was very good at whatever it was a mambo did.
She was a damn fine shovel bum, as well. Faye knew her team was top-notch, but the project timetable, like all project timetables, required the team to do the impossible. Faye thought that this team could actually pull it off.
The pre-Civil War foundations they were hoping to find had eluded them, so far, but some interesting things had turned up nonetheless. These finds hardly filled Faye’s cupped hands—two hundred years is a long time—but they hinted at something more surviving beneath the park’s neatly manicured grass. Among the fragments of pottery had been a bit of transfer-printed British pearlware, chipped and polished into a neat disk. Faye thought it might have been used as a counter for the African game mancala. They’d also found two pink marbles nearby, both made out of…well…marble, as well as a silver coin with a hole drilled through it.
She knew that wearing a silver coin tied around the neck was thought to ward off evil in African-American culture. Mancala was also rooted in African culture, though it had spread into general use. The marbles, like the mancala counter, could have been used by adult or child, as a mere entertainment or as part of a gambling game.
In a time when material goods were hard to come by, any of these objects would have been special possessions. The possibility that she was looking at someone’s cache of treasured items, scattered through the soil by the blade of a plow, made Faye eager to get to work every day.
Faye hoped there was something fascinating waiting for her, buried, and not just because she was a history nut. This was her first actual job as a professional archaeologist who wasn’t associated with the university. When the job announcement popped up in her e-mail, the salary had been big enough to make Faye gasp for breath. It might not be a lot of money to some people but, by an archaeologist’s standards, the federal
She and Nina had spent January poring over earlier archaeological reports and histories of the site. They’d spent February digging test pits and developing a plan for a more detailed investigation. The Feds had liked their proposal for follow-up work, so Dauphine had joined them in March, and they’d all been hard at work for two months. Faye was proud of the things they’d gotten done this semester. The summer should be even better, except for the distinct risk of sunstroke.
As if to make up for Nina’s easygoing nature, Dauphine existed only to embrace life’s oddities. She eschewed practical field clothes in favor of flowing, wide-legged pants and colorful cotton blouses. Fuchsia, lime, scarlet, lavender—if Faye found herself craving an afternoon nap, she could just look at Dauphine for a caffeine-free pick-me-up.
No matter what neon color Dauphine was wearing, her braids were always wrapped neatly in a sky-blue scarf. The happy color flattered her praline-colored skin and framed an extraordinary pair of eyes. They were green, like Joe’s, but they looked nothing like Joe’s eyes. His eyes were a clear emerald, while Dauphine’s were a milky green, the color of slow-moving swamp water. They were wide and calm, yes, but not placid.
Faye didn’t think that Dauphine’s eyes missed much. They gave the impression that she was cataloging everything she saw, because it was all useful. In Faye’s limited understanding, a voodoo mambo was a scholar of nature and a minister to humans in all their frailty. She suspected that Dauphine was very good at whatever it was a mambo did.
She was a damn fine shovel bum, as well. Faye knew her team was top-notch, but the project timetable, like all project timetables, required the team to do the impossible. Faye thought that this team could actually pull it off.
The pre-Civil War foundations they were hoping to find had eluded them, so far, but some interesting things had turned up nonetheless. These finds hardly filled Faye’s cupped hands—two hundred years is a long time—but they hinted at something more surviving beneath the park’s neatly manicured grass. Among the fragments of pottery had been a bit of transfer-printed British pearlware, chipped and polished into a neat disk. Faye thought it might have been used as a counter for the African game mancala. They’d also found two pink marbles nearby, both made out of…well…marble, as well as a silver coin with a hole drilled through it.
She knew that wearing a silver coin tied around the neck was thought to ward off evil in African-American culture. Mancala was also rooted in African culture, though it had spread into general use. The marbles, like the mancala counter, could have been used by adult or child, as a mere entertainment or as part of a gambling game.
In a time when material goods were hard to come by, any of these objects would have been special possessions. The possibility that she was looking at someone’s cache of treasured items, scattered through the soil by the blade of a plow, made Faye eager to get to work every day.
Faye hoped there was something fascinating waiting for her, buried, and not just because she was a history nut. This was her first actual job as a professional archaeologist who wasn’t associated with the university. When the job announcement popped up in her e-mail, the salary had been big enough to make Faye gasp for breath. It might not be a lot of money to some people but, by an archaeologist’s standards, the federal
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