Plate from Caspar Plautius, Nova Typis Transacta Navigatio, [n.p.],1621. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C.

Caspar Plautius

The ring of dancers surrounding this Native American leader from the American South and his bounty of squashes and pumpkins signal the high status of the man and the crops.  Yet, typical for all American Indians at the time of European contact, this community had no special reverence for the orange field pumpkin.