i've collected these images here on one page for reference and study.
if you know of other pictures, or other translations of the Eye in Hand meanings, i'd really appreciate learning about them. - tpkunesh

An illustrated short novel about a woman
who notices a strange mark on her hand
as she is traveling through Morocco.
The mark slowly gets bigger and starts
to resemble a map, which leads her on a
frightening journey through the country.
Written in the form of a journal,
this is an intriguing mystery,
unraveled in the desert towns
of North Africa.

merci à M. Radun de Toronto

White Tara, Goddess of Compassion, the Divine Mother
detail - 4 of her 7 eyes (3 in her head, 2 in the palms of her hands, and 2 in the soles of her feet),
White Tara / Weiße Tara Dharmapala Thangka Centre, Tibetan Buddhist School of Thangka Painting

"the legendary All-Snatching & All-Looking Hand & Eye of Bob"
Icon, Universal Church of the Subgenius Triunfante, official global purveyor of three-layered Slack®

[ the spiral-in-the-Hand is considered a healing Hand
- see below and again ]

$19 - Amazon.com Price: $13.49, 160 pages, Chartwell Books / Carlton Books; ISBN 1858687292 (July 15, 2000) Paperback; ISBN 0785806423 (October 1996) Hardcover Printed in Italy

"Raymond J. Walters explores how humankind has used and exploited these stones throughout the ages and across the world, not just for their beauty, but also the magical powers many believe they possess."

Stone Pallete, plate 93
Ceremonial disk found at Moundville, Alabama
with rattlesnake and Hand and Eye design;
12.5" diameter (Courtesy, Alabama Museum
of Natural History).
- Sun circles and human hands: the southeastern Indians - art & industry edited by Emma Lila Fundaburk & Mary Douglass Foreman, Southern Publications, Fairhope, Alabama 1957,1985

Rattlesnake Disc - The rattlesnake disc is probably the most famous item found at Mound State Monument. We have no explanation for the meaning of the designs on the face of this 12.5 inch disc. It is thought that the rattlesnakes bound at two points mean war. The Hand with the Eye in the center probably represents those of the creator. Since no other disc is so elaborately inscribed, archaeologists have reason to believe that this disc was one of great importance and was probably used in religious and/or war ceremonies.
- display placard at Mound State Monument, Moundville

Almost 50 years ago, Clarence B. Moore* called attention to the presence of "the symbol of the open Eye on the open Hand" in both the Southeastern United States and Mexico (Moore 1907: 346). The design has achieved some renown as one of the motifs characterizing the so-called "Death Cult" in the Southeast and has also continued to be cited as an indication of Middle American connections (for example, Phillips 1940: 356). Rather little has been done in following up Moore's observation through detailed comparative studies between the 2 areas. Recently, however, Schuster (1951), and following him, Covarrubias (1954), have touched upon the Hand and Eye motif in these regions as part of a larger problem -- that of cultural connections between the Old World and the New. They have noted the existence of eyelike forms on the Hand in the art of various American cultures, extending in a broken distribution from Peru (Schuster 1951, Fig. 82) to the Northwest Coast (Schuster 1951, 16-17; Covarrubias, 1954: 35, 190, Fig. 56). The same writers have presented extensive datga which would seem to indicate a connection of the Hand and Eye with various markings, including faces and nucleated cirles, on the joints of arms and legs (see also Schuster 1952; Seler 1902-23, Vol. 2: 955-6).

It is not the purpose of the following remarks to consider the more far-flung of these correspondences. The comments, rather, are an expansion of a paper given before the Eleventh Southeastern Archaeological Conference at Moundville, Alabama, in November, 1954. As such, their point of departure is the eastern United States, with particular reference to the art of the Southern Cult. Nevertheless, the culture areas from which comparative material is drawn, Mesoamerica and the Northewest Coast, must be asknowledged by any but an arch diffusionist to be geographically remote. No implication is made that the various art forms to be discussed are necessarily related historically.

To give additional perspective to the specific comparison which follow, it should be noted that, in Southeastern art, hands lacking an Eye at the palm have been cited as showing Mexican affiliations. Moore (1907: 346) made comparisons with the severed Hand as depicted in Mexico, and more recently particular attention has been directed to similar subjects, strongly Moundville-like in character, at Tazatlán in Tlaxcala (Griffin 1949: 97; Noguera 1927; Marquina 1951, Fot. 34; Moore 1905, 1907). Mention might also be made of the Moundville-like aspects of one of the Classic Veracruz yokes, which shows the human radius and ulna stripped of flesh but attached to a Hand from which the flesh has not been removed (Proskouriakoff 1954, Fig. 2, Yoke 13; Moore 1905, Fig. 147). A description relating to the Aztec is very suggestive of the Southeastern Death /end 247/begin 248/ Cult in this general connection. The passage is from Sahagún and deals with the war god, Uitzilopochtli: "And the cape ... was designed with skulls, with the palms of hands, with hip bones, ribs, legs, the lower arm bones, and with the outlines of feet" (Anderson and Dibble 1950-54, Bk. 2: 69).

Fig. 1. Variants of the Hand and Eye motif. a, b, c, Southeastern United States (after Waring and Holder 1945, Figs. 1, 7 a-c); d, Lienzo de Tlaxcala: 40 (after Seler 1902-23, Vol. 2: 569, Fig. 99).

In their paper on the Southern Cult, Waring and Holder (1945) illustrate several variations on the Hand and Eye motif (Fig. 1). The Eye is occasionally replaced by a cross in a circle or by an ellipsoidal to rectangular element. These forms usually occur at the palm of a Hand which is extended downward, although examples are not wholly lacking in which the back of the Hand is shown or the Hand is opened upward (Moore 1905, Figs. 7, 173).

The Hand and Eye design in Mexico cited by Moore is shown in Figure 1 d. It is from the Lienzo de Tlaxcala -- again Tlaxcala appears as a place where the Hand is emphasized in Southeastern fashion -- and dates from shortly after the Spanish Conquest. A shield is depicted, decorated as a grotesque face. Two detached hands are placed over the area of the eyes in such a way that an Eye is showing through the palm of the each Hand. The hands are extended upward, not downward as is usually the case in the Southeast. Additional examples occur of this Mexican version of the Hand and Eye motif. On a stone teponaztli (drum) in the Museo Nacional, horizonally [sic] extended hands appear on a grotesque face (Fig. 3 a). The hands overlie the eyes, which show through the palm of each. A tenoned stone hacha in the Museo de Oaxaca is reproduced as Figure 2. With lid clearly visible, an Eye this time is showing through the back of an open Hand. Fingers upward, the Hand once again is detached and placed against the face at the region of the Eye. A pattern thus existed in Mexico for the Hand to be superimposed over some facial feature, with this anatomical feature showing through the Hand. In the Mexican codices, numerous examples occur of the Hand over the mouth, the outline of the lips appearing against the Hand. In some instances the lips and teeth are completely surounded by the the Hand (Codex Borgia: 48), in this respect being identical to the Eye as illustrated in Figures 1 d, 2, and 3 a. In other codex portrayals, the indentation of the lips forms part of the hand's profile (Fig. 3 b). The latter treatment seems to occur in the art of the Southern Cult (Fig. 3 c). Phillips (1940: 356) calls attention to "the Hand on jaw" as one similarity between the Southeast and Mexico.

Fig. 2. Thin stone head or hacha, Oaxaca (?) (after Seler 1902-23, Vol. 2:363, Fig. 110 a).

The Hand and Eye symbol in Aztec Mexico was not restricted to examples in which an Eye shows through a superimposed Hand. An apparent variant of the motif (Fig. 4), perhaps mainly associated with the earth monster, shows fangs in conjunction with the eyes and locates these profile faces on hands, feet, elbows, and knees. The faces, and particularly the eyes, tend to be so placed as to lie on the wrist and ankle, rather than directly on the palm of the Hand or the sole of the foot. Schuster (1951, Figs. 43, 44) illustrates 2 examples of the earth deity whose joints are overlaid with these grotesque faces; similar forms appear in Nicholso (1954, Figs. 3, 4), Proskouriakoff (1954, Fig. 9 e), and Peñafiel (1910, Pls. 51, 72, 74). That the nucleated circles at the region of the hands and feet in these representations are to be identified as eyes is indicated by their near identity in treat- /end 248/begin 249/ ment to the eyes of the associated skulls. Compare also the eyes in Figure 1 d. Moreover, a 16th century French source states "... the goddess of the earth, Tlatechutli ... had eyes and mouths at every joint, with which she shapped like a savage beast" (Jonghe 1905: 28, quoted in Schuster 1951: 16).

Fig. 3. a, sculptured face, identified as Aztec god Macuilxóchitl (after Castañeda and Mendoza 1933, Pl. 13); b, head of the Mexican god Macuiltochtli (after Seler 1902-23, Vol. 2:488, Fig. 37); c, head of a sheet-copper eagle, Dunklin County, Missouri (after Moorehead 1932, Fig. 8 a); d, arm of human figure on engraved shell gorget, Spiro, Oklahoma (after Burnett and Clements 1945, Pl. 60); e, Maya day sign Manik, Chichén Itzá, Yucatán (after Thompson 1950, Fig. 7, 44); f, Maya glyph (prefix with haab completed), Piedras Negras, Guatemala (after Thompson 1950, Fig. 5, 43); g, Maya glyph for completion, Copán, Honduras (after Thompson 1950, Fig. 25, 39).

The Aztec wind god Quetzalcoatl is also shown with faces at his knees, a detached Eye appearing at each elbow (Schuster 1951: 16; Seler 1902-23; Vol. 2: 955, Fig. 3). The placing of eyes on the elbows corresponds to Figure 3 d, from Spiro, Oklahoma. At Spiro it is the forked Eye, one of the motifs of the Southern Cult, which overlies the elbow, the Eye itself being centered on the elbow joint. The design not only offers a specific corespondence to Mexican material but suggests that, in the eastern United states, an association existed between eyes and joints. Adena* designs on the Lakin A and Gaitskill tablets (Figs. 5, 6), which are thought by Webb and Baby (1957) to be the prototype of the Hand and Eye motif, may be compared. In these designs, nucleated circles occur at the joints of highly stylized figures -- apparently at the shoulder, hip, elbow, ankle, and wrist. Rather than being placed at the wrist joints, however, the circles could sometimes be thought of as occurring directly on the "hands" or "bird feet" -- an impression which is especially pronounced in Figure 6. It may be noted that the use of nucleated circles in the Adena designs offers another correspondence to Mexican art forms (compare Figs. 1 d, 4, 5, 6). Finally, mention may be made of a nucleated circle silhouetted at the "palm" area of a sheet mica eagle foot in Hopewellian art (Shetrone 1930, Fig. 62). While the sample is small, the available data suggest the possibility that, in the eastern United States, there was a late substitution of the realistic Eye for the nucleated circle as a marking to be associated with joints or hands. In earlier times, perhaps, the emphasis was on the marking of joints, in Cult art on the direct association of the Hand and Eye. Willey (1948) discusses other treatments accorded the back of the Hand, knuckles, and wrist on a pre-Cult horizon in the Southeast. It would seem that considerable elaboration of art motifs may have been taking place, rather than a simple linear development.

[ * The Adena culture was a conglomerate of many Indian communities that inhabited the Central and Southern regions of Ohio in the first millennium BC. The Adena people lived in villages and survived by hunting, fishing and gathering wild plants. Although the Adena culture survived for many centuries (500-100 BC), much of what we know of them today is drawn from mounds.
Their location on the Ohio River provided them an accessible passageway to and from New York, Pennsylvania, and southern Illinois. Many Adena artifacts have been found in these regions. Their location had many resources and supplied them with the copper and mica that they traded. The Adena culture is also distinguished by their siltstone smoking pipes. These pipes are fine examples of prehistoric Indian art. The building of the mounds began around 500 BC.
-- from http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/NorthAmerica/Adena.html ]

Fig. 4. Sculptured Aztec earth monster (after Covarrubias 1954, Fig. 8). Fig. 5. Lakin A tablet, West Virginia (after Webb and Baby 1957).

A nucleated circle, composed of rather widely spaced concentric lines, occurs frequently in connection with the Hand in Maya hieroglyphs. The element usually appears on the back of the Hand, at the area of the wrist (Fig. 3 e). Occasionally, however, the design is shifted to the back, or possibly the palm, of an extended Hand (Fig. 3 f). Correspondences with these glyphs my be noted in the eastern United States, that is, the Adena joint markings and the Cult Hand and Eye motif. (In the latter connection, compare especially variations on the order of Brown 1926, Fig. 279). The normal position of the circle at the wrist in the Maya glyphs suggests that a joint mark may have been the basic concept, rather than a marking on the upper part of the Hand. Nucleated circles are present both in the Adena and Maya motifs. Comparisons, then, are closer to Adena than to the Hand and Eye in the Southern Cult. Within Mesoamerica as a whole, the basic forms of the Maya hieroglyphs were established on a horizon considerably preceding known occurrences of the Hand and Eye motif. The marking of a wrist with a nucleated circle is present in a sizable body of glyphs. It might be argued, therefore, that in Mesoamerica wrist markings were earlier than the direct assocation of the Hand and Eye, at least as a favored art form. In any event, extant examples of the /end 249/begin 250/ Hand and Eye motif apparently cluster on a late (Aztec) horizon; the earliest illustrated (Fig. 2) presumably dates from the Classic period. Tenoned and sometimes perforated or portraying the skull, the Oaxaca type of hacha seen in Figure 2 tends to have specialized features provisionally associated with the Late Classic horizons (Proskouriakoff 1954: 79-80; Seler 1902-23, Vol. 2: 363, Figs. 104-110 b). It has been seen, in the art of both Mexico and the Southern Cult, that at times the Hand was superimposed on some portion of the face, so that the Eye or the mouth showed through the Hand. A partial analogy is suggested in another Maya glyph (Fig. 3 g), where a Hand is so placed on the jaw that the outline of the thumb coincides with that of the lower lip (compare Fig. 3 b, c). Thompson (1940: 132) points out that in this glyph (zero or completion) the Hand is connected with death, thereby corresponding to its association in Mexico -- as also in the Southeast. The association of death elements with a Hand having ellipsoidal markings is also present in the glyph reproduced in Figure 3 f (compare Thompson 1950, caption to Fig. 5, 43-5). As indicated, the encircled cross substitutes for the Eye at the palm of the Hand in certain Southeastern designs (Fig. 1 c). Partially comparable forms exist in Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions and art. (1) Clenched hands occur with crossed bands set against the palm (Fig. 7 a; Thompson 1950: 40, Fig. 51, 4). Not only is the Hand clenched and held upward, thereby differing from Southeastern examples, but the X-shaped design formed by the crossed bands differs in detail from the cross-in-circle. (2) In the Maya glyph for west, the kin (sun) sign sometimes apprears as an infix in the Hand (Fig. 7 b, c; Thompson 1950: 251, Fig. 41, 18, 19, 21, 33). Again the Hand is clenched. Moreover, the kin element appears at the back of the Hand, toward the wrist, rather than in the palm. In Figure 7 c, however, the variant of /end 250/begin 251/ the kin sign, somewhat approaches the Southeastern cross-in-circle in appearance (Fig. 1 c). It is apparent that the correspondences just cited are not truly specific ones. Their function (glyphic versus more purely decorative or, at best, grossly symbolic) is of course in sharp contrast. In the various designs, nevertheless, the Hand is associated with perhaps related elements: a so-called "comic symbol" (Fig. 1 c), sun sign (Fig. 7 b, c), and possible segment of an astronomical band (Fig. 7 a). Conceiveably, then, there could be a common concept involved which finds expression in these somewhat divergent forms.

Figure 8 illustrates a compound wooden mask of the Kwakiutl Indians, from the Northwest Coast. To the left, attached to an arm, a 4-fingered Hand extends upward. At the palm of the Hand is a rectangular element with rounded corners, very comparable in appearance to that found in identical position in the art of the Southern Cult (Fig. 1 b). To the right appears an element which may be an Eye in the palm (or back) of the Hand. The Hand is so placed that the supposed Eye occurs over the region in which the mask's Eye would normally appear. If an Eye is actually depicted this placement is striking indeed, in view of the Mexican examples in which an Eye shows through a superimposed Hand (Figs. 1 d, 2, 3 a). On the other Hand, the bent arm with /end 251/begin 252/ rounded, boneless appearing elbow finds a close correspondence in the previously cited Adena designs (Figs. 5, 6). Compare the "hocker" motif of Covarrubias (1954: 34, 190, Figs. 5-9, 51-5).

A brief consideration of certain aspects of Northwest Coast art may be in order, in view of the correspondences between the designs shown on the Kwakiutl mask and the Hand-Eye motif in the Southeast and Mexico. Boas (1927: 253) notes that in Northwest Coast art, "The Eye design appears in a variety of forms ranging from a large double Eye to a circular pattern with black center." Exemplified in Figure 7 g, the latter treatment agrees genearlly with the supposed Eye in Figure 8 and to a design, shown on the foot of a bird, in Figure 7 d; compare Boas (1927) Figures 191, 192, 244, 166 g. Compare further the nucleated circles which mark bird feet on the Adena tablets (Figs. 5, 6). Boas (1927: 252) also describes the Eye design as consisting of "a round or oval field ... commonly so placed that it corresponds to the location of a joint." Accordingly, it often appears at the wrist, as well as the shoulder, hip, and ankle or, in the case of the whale, at the base of the tail or dorsal fin. As a nucleated circle, the "Eye /end 252/ begin 253/ design" is sometimes considered to be a cross section of the ball and socket joint (Fig. 7 d). The "Eye design" is not only substituted for the joint (Fig. 7 e) but occurs in the mouth of an animal, at the tail or wings of birds, and as decorative fillers (Boas 1927: 158, 204, 252-3).

The so-called Eye appears, therefore, in a wide variety of contexts in the art of the Northwest Coast, and once a process of elaboration such as would tend to bring this about was under way, it might be a fairly simple matter for the design to be shifted from the wrist joint to an area roughly centered on the palm of the Hand. ...

Fig. 8. Compound Kwakiutl mask (after Hodge 1907-10, Pt. 1: 814).

Fig. 9. a, painted Tlingit box (after Boas 1927, Fig. 276); b, woodpecker, Moundville, Alabama (after Waring and Holder 1945, Fig. 4 e) c, Tsimshian painting representing an eagle (after Boas 1927, Fig. 241).

Fig. 10. Haida tattooing representing a duck (after Boas 1927, Fig. 226).

-- Robert L. Rands, "Comparative Notes on the Hand-Eye and Related Motifs", American Antiquity 22 (1957):247-57 (Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale IL; retired 1990)

*"Clarence B. Moore (1852-1936), a wealthy Philadelphia socialite, paper company heir, and photographer made the archaeology of the Southeast his passion beginning in the 1870s." - Jeffrey M. Mitchem
The Hand and Eye Motif (image from "Certain Aboriginal Remains of the Black Warrior River" by Clarence B. Moore, Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 13:125-244, 1905.)

Hopewell Hand of mica
The Hopewell were a later group of Native people who lived in
what is now Ohio from around the year 1 to 700 c.e., built large mounds,
and represented a greater refinement over the earlier Adena culture.

Haida Eye in Hand design
The Haida live on the Queen Charlotte Islands
(Haida Gwaii) and in the southern part
of southeast Alaska.

"The most popular form of Eye-in-Hand amulet is probably the blue glass charm from Turkey. In the region of the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean, the evil Eye is generally conceived as blue in colour. Thus a blue Eye-charm is considered most efficacious in warding off the influence of envious gazing. The blue glass Eye-in-Hand charm shown here is from Turkey. It is 3-3/4 inches in length and is equipped with a hanging chain and decorative blue ribbon. The Turks are prolific designers and manufacturers of this type of apotropaic charm. Being so large and fragile, these glass objects are not made to be worn as jewelry, but rather hung on the wall, probably over the door or near the bed of a baby. Other blue glass wall-hanging amulets from Turkey include a dark blue all-seeing Eye, a pale blue horseshoe covered all over wth small eyes, and a large circular blue Eye from which is suspended a gold-toned horseshoe and a bunch of plastic grapes. In addition, the Turks make a smaller, jewelry-like blue glass amulet i call eyes-all-over."

The White Cloud
Chief of the Iowa

1844/1845 George Catlin, oil on canvas, 71 x 58 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

The White Cloud, Chief of the Iowa, stands before us in front of a cloudy, lit-up evening sky. What impresses us first about this portrait is the exotic appearance of the chief. Yet at the same time the conservative style with which Catlin has approached this new subject appears strange: he painted the inhabitants of the wilderness in the same way as he painted prominent personalities in Philadelphia before.

He may not have achieved the subtle excellence of his friend Rembrandt Peale, but he certainly mastered the art of portraiture. With the illumination a certain drama has been added to an otherwise rigid composition. He has depicted his model in half profile to emphasize the striking shape of the head which he has shown slightly from below so as to highlight this leader's pre-eminent personality. The precise representation of the headdress emphasizes the Chief's dignity.

Catlin has devoted his full attention to the face and The White Cloud's expression. The eyes have been painted with such care that they seem to tell us of a prudent and experienced middle-aged man. Light and shadow model the facial features without beautifying them. Everything else takes on a secondary role, important but not essential.