South and Central American Shields?

[Lee]

Request in my e-mail. Can you help?

I am contacting you in hopes that you can point me in the direction of some information. I am an artist and currently I am preparing for a 7 session "be your own super hero" after school enrichment class for some 4th and 5th graders. We are exploring all types of history and science information while they create their own super hero character. In the second session we are making shields. I have found a wealth of information on the history of shields from Greece forward, but all are decidedly Euro centric. I was hoping to also incorporate some information from maybe native american shields (especially south american, as many of the students have south american ancestry). About all I found were references to the North American mandellas, I will use this as a point of discussion as they have quite a different twist to them than the european shield, with the relationship of medicine and power. Are there other examples that you know of that would follow along this line, that would be more closely related to south and or central America? Any clues or information would be appreciated.