FOOTLOOSE
In praise of spirals and whorls
MAYA JAYAPAL
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A unique museum in Florida is dedicated to collect, catalogue and the study sea shells in all their variety and beauty.
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Photo: Maya Jayapal
Celebrating sea shells: The Bailey-Mathews Museum in Florida.
Shells have always fascinated me. They are, in author Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s words, “gifts from the sea”. They are graceful and complete in detail, with spirals and whorls and knobs, clearly defined, exquisite symbols of the sea
217;s bounty.
Recently, I was in Sanibel Island, off the coast of Florida, an island known for its variety of shells, offering a natural catch-all for the billions of shells which drift ashore because of the strong north-western winds. They were used by the Native American Indians as tools, weapons, in architecture, and in the household.
Their abundance has attracted scientists from all over the world to harvest, catalogue and research these sea-shells.
Unique museum
We visited the unique Bailey-Mathews Shell Museum, devoted to explaining the miracle of the Mollusc. Named in honour of the parents of the three Bailey brothers who donated the land on which the museum stands, the museum is small enough not to be intimidating and is very viewer friendly, with beautifully catalogued displays of shells bearing such evocative names as angel wing, the banded tulip (a snail shell like an unopened tulip with spiral bands), the lightning whelk with zigzag lightning-like colour streaks, the rose petalled tellin, the sunny Venus, the horse conch, the turkey wing, the lace murex, the scotch bonnet, the lion’s paw, the cayenne keyhole limpet — names evocative of their characteristics.
There are about 26 displays. One of the most fascinating to me depicted the importance of shells in historic times. In religion, they were used to summon people for religious ceremonies, to call warriors to battle, to prayers (as in the conch shell for the Hindus), as fetishes etc. In medicine, shell amulets were supposed to ward off ill health, infertility or bad luck, or they were used as potions when ground. In industry, they played a very important role: shell currency has been used for over 400 years in the form of cowries by the Aztecs, in New Guinea etc. They were also significant in the household, for, they were used as oil lamps, as household tools and utensils such as dishes, scoops, fishing gear.
Apart from straightforward displays in the museum, there is a shell classification wheel which helps you identify Florida shells by the turn of a wheel, a magnificent shell art form called Sailors’ Valentine which was developed in the early 19th century by women in Barbados and other Caribbean areas for sailors to take home to their loved ones and a display which also shows how shells have influenced shapes and proportions in architectural design. It is a children’s treasure trove, for, there are school collection kits and a children’s lab with hands-on displays and a live tank where kids have an opportunity to become familiar with creatures they do not normally encounter. There was a school group when we went and the wonder on their faces as they moved from exhibit to exhibit, pointing, oohing and aahing, was a revelation.
An informative video satisfied my curiosity about an object I had seen in the house we had rented. It stood on a small glass table, and looked like a stiff, sloughed-off snake skin. I found out that it was a whelk egg case. The eggs are laid in protective, flat, rounded egg capsules joined to form a paper-like chain of egg cases and are called a “Mermaid’s Necklace”. After laying the eggs the female will bury one end in the sand, thus providing an anchor for the developing eggs. Each egg capsule contains 1-99 eggs and most strings have about 40-160 capsules. A staggering number, but necessary given their precarious vulnerability to predators and environmental dangers. And so that mystery was solved.
Fragile beauty
Some of us went for a walk along the beach at sunset on the last evening of our stay. We adopted the famous “Sanibel Stoop”, the posture that characterises most shell collectors! The sun was setting, a fiery red ball on the horizon, dyeing the waters with a spectrum of reds and golds. Sandpipers scurried along, taunting the waves and then retreating with the peculiar walk which is neither a run nor a walk. Hundreds of shells littered the sands, a feast for the collector. I preferred to let them lie there, their bare beauty so evanescent, fragile and perfect.
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