Guaízas part III: Making Faces

Shell Face distribution in the Antilles

Another week, another post about guaízas.  The previous two weeks I discussed the material properties of the guaíza and two of its functions: as an ornament and as a gift for outsiders.
In my Master thesis I catalogued all known occurrences of shell faces in the Caribbean. In my thorough survey of collections and literature I found that they had a large distribution area outside of their stylistic heartland in South-East Hispaniola (Dominican Republic). The most southern report of a shell face — I do not like to call shell faces found outside of the Greater Antilles “guaízas” since the information from the historical sources mentioning their name cannot just be copy-pasted to other areas of the Caribbean —  at that time was the tiny Île de Ronde in the Grenadines and the most western report was from Central Cuba. I figured that because they figured so prominently as gifts in the Early Contact period that perhaps this “gift to outsiders” idea might also explain why Pre-Colombian shell faces that were distinctly Greater Antillean looking were found so far away from their supposed place of (stylistic) origin. Indeed the sites in which they were found in the Lesser Antilles seem to be internationally oriented, showing other lines of evidence of partaking in larger exchange networks as well. So, this would suggest that shell faces were distributed through exchange.

Venezuelan Shell Faces

Some time ago, however, I came across Venezuelan examples of two shell faces from the Lago Valencia region. One looks too generic to tell, but the other looks distinctly Greater Antillean in style. If they are indeed connected to Antillean shell face objects then they are puzzling specimens, because their context is much earlier than that of the Antillean shell faces — the Valencioid style of 600/800 AD for Venezuela compared to the Chicoid style of 1000/1200 AD for the Antilles. Then my friend and colleague Alice Samson sent me a couple of photographs, one of her own making and one that was sent to her by former Leiden student Erlend Johnson, that show shell faces, but these shell faces are not from the Antilles or the South American mainland, but from Maya territory in Yucatan, Mexico. Although three of them are, stylistically, likely not Greater Antillean in origin one looks like it might be. This presents me once again with an interesting problem that is at the heart of my dissertation research, which I already briefly discussed in the post about the frog-legged lady on the pillars of New Seville a couple of weeks ago: what artefact similarities constitute evidence for Pan-Caribbean human-to-human interaction and what similarities are due to other factors such as universal human neural wiring, living in similar ecosystems, comparable societal developments, or shared artefact symbolisms that arise out of shared, “deep spiritual” pasts when the first inhabitants of the Caribbean were still colonizing its shores?
Why do similarities in form and style of shell and other type of faces keep appearing in

Mayan Shell Faces

different times and places across the Greater Caribbean? My own hypothesis that I am working from runs somewhat along the following lines. Across the globe we find that the face or parts of the face have an extremely important place in the iconography on buildings, objects and parts of the landscape — especially the eyes are important in this regard. The material cultural remains of the Pre-Columbian Caribbean are exemplary of this human focus on the face. Why is this?

All humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize — “make human” — their surroundings, non-human living beings but other non-living things as well. This is because, going back to humanity’s shared history on the plains of Africa, we as a hyper-social animal compulsively interact with the elements in our world in a social manner, which was perhaps a good survival strategy for group interactions or is a by-product of other fitness enhancing traits. When we anthropomorphize animals and things this often results in us tracing characteristics of the human face in that animal or thing. Examples includes me and my girlfriend’s new puppy that we can see has done something naughty because of the look on her face, the face of Maria that materializes in an old mouldy stain on the wall, or that cloud that is drifting by that I swear looks like my teacher from sixth grade. When we anthropomorphize we focus on the face because it is the most social part of our bodies, providing us with the information that we need to engage in interactions. If we had another social tool that was as highly developed we would perhaps project these parts of our bodies onto other beings and things — if I was my puppy I would probably project dog-like smells onto non-dog things and beings because of my highly developed nose.*

To put it this way, humans have a propensity for “making faces” and I think that is part of the reason why there are so many similar (shell) faces in Caribbean material culture. Additionally, the face is the most recognizable and social aspect of our body and therefore face objects make a very recognizable and social object when offered in exchanges with outsiders. Perhaps this is also part of the reason why Las Casas, Colombus and other Europeans were able to see that what the indigenous people were offering when presenting guaízas was a face that was meant as a gift, while other objects that were offered by the indigenous people of the Greater Antilles were perceived as trade goods.

My sixth grade teacher in a cloud?

Of course this explanation is not completely satisfactorily when viewing the multitude of similar face-depicting artefacts in the Antilles and the wider Caribbean, among which Venezuelan and Mayan “guaízas”, which in the end is best explained through local historical and cultural contexts, but I think that evolutionary theories such as these might provide a starting point for an exploration of Caribbean faces like the guaíza that is more focused and therefore can go further. This is what I will attempt in next weeks Angus’s Artefacts, which will discuss how Caribbean Archaeologists think that the indigenous people thought — difficult isn’t, all that projecting? — Pre-Columbian Antillean face of the living and face of the dead looked like.

*If you want to read more about this I recommend Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained" and Stewart Guthrie's "Faces in the Clouds." For another, similar theory of the "bared teeth-motif", a prominent part of shell and other faces in the Antilles I recommend Alice Samson and Bridget Waller's "Not Growling, but Smiling", which can be found on Alice her blog.

Guaízas part II: "Guaízas are a cacique's best friend."

Part two of the triptych on the guaízas. Last week I explored some of the material properties of the guaíza, but what was the object used for? I think there are multiple answers to this question, but I will focus on two for this week’s episode of Angus’s Artefacts.

You might have guessed correctly that the guaíza (with or without gold or guanín inlays) was some sort of ornament. We know of its ornamental function from the perforations on many of the guaízas, similar artefacts, available ethnohistorical information and a rare depiction of a guaíza on a petroglyph at Caguana, Puerto Rico (see picture above). Although exceptions would have existed guaízas would have been worn in one of three ways: (1) as pectoral pendants probably together with feathers and other beads, (2) as part of cotton belts together with other beads and (3) as part of headbands. You can imagine that these bright objects were conspicuous centrepieces of a rich set of adornments that consisted of body paint, feathers, cotton, precious stones and perhaps some precious metals.

In our mind such a costly display of riches immediately conjures the notion of a powerful man or woman and therefore the guaíza has always been seen as one of the regalia of a cacique. Only one excerpt of the ethnohistoric records — once again by Las Casas — speaks about the high status of the guaíza (paraphrased here): “They took these faces that they called guaízas out from their colliers to place them over the heads of their lords and kings, suspending them with two strings like in the manner we suspend the mitres of our bishops.” We should be careful, though, to base too much on this one statement: the first Spanish chroniclers were often blind for  uses of “elite objects” by people of the supposed indigenous lower classes. There is an additional argument if one wants to connect the guaíza to persons of higher status. Through a structural analysis of the placements of the different petroglyphs at the Caguana ballcourt José Oliver has argued that the petroglyph above depicts a mythical prototype of a cacique. This would indeed lend more credibility to an interpretation of guaíza-like ornaments as a marker of high status in the Greater Antilles.

Guaíza from the Dominican Republic

In my Master thesis I used the historic descriptions of interactions between indigenous caciques and Columbus to suggest that aside from their use as conspicuous, possibly elite ornaments they have a, to me much more interesting, social function: as gifts from one powerful individual to another. The historic descriptions make mention of a wealth of different objects being exchanged between the indigenous people and the Spaniards, especially those from the First and Second journey to the Caribbean while the relations where still relatively peaceful. However, the guaíza is one of the only objects that is mentioned continuously in exchanges from the indigenous people to Columbus. Perhaps the most telling is how the exchange of guaízas seems to have structured the relationship between Columbus and Guacanagarí (Wa-ka-na-ga-RI) who was a cacique on the north-coast of Haiti with an ambivalent role in the ethnohistorical narrative of the early years of contact.

Courtesy of K. Deagan

According to the chroniclers Las Casas and Oviedo, Admiral Colombus has several friendly encounters with Guacanagarí in the final days of 1492, just before Christmas. When, in the night before Christmas Day Colombus’s flagship the “Santa Maria” comes aground on a reef and has to be abandoned, Guacanagarí helps Columbus rescue the cargo of the ship and offers him shelter in his village. Also, on Christmas day a huge feast is held in honour of Columbus and the other Spaniards and at this feast the first guaíza is ceremoniously presented to Colombus, which he and the chroniclers have interpreted as a sign of respect and friendship. The following day the “Pinta,” one of the other ships, comes back to collect the Spaniards and continue the journey. Columbus gives the orders to use the flotsam of the wreck of the Santa María to build a small fort in the vicinity of Guacanagarí’s village that he calls “La Navidad” — “Christmas” in remembrance of the fateful shipwreck on Christmas day. He leaves a small group of his men to man the fort.

Dominican Republic

When Columbus returns on his second journey in November 1493 with a larger fleet he finds that La Navidad is burnt to the ground and his men are nowhere to be found. Of course, Colombus goes to Guacanagarí who is at rest in his hammock in his village to demand an explanation. As an explanation Guacanagarí states that a rival cacique came and attacked the Spaniards and that he himself tried to help them but got wounded in the attack, which is why he needs to rest. The documents are unclear on whether the Admiral believed his story or not and neither has it become clear through archaeology what exactly happened at La Navidad between December 1492 and the return of the Spaniards in late 1493 — in fact we do not even know its exact location, but read Kathleen Deagan's excellent book on Puerto Real if you want to know more about this. What we do know from the historic sources is that after this “little hiccup” Columbus and Guacanagarí’s bond of friendship continues.

This is exemplified by the large number of guaízas that he receives mainly from Guacanagarí but also from other caciques at the new Spanish settlement of Isabela. We know exactly when Columbus received these guaizas and what their appearance was because all the gifts received at Isabela have been catalogued by Queen Isabella I’s treasurer, Sebastián de Olaño, who accompanied Columbus on his second journey. The image I get from this is that Guacanagarí and other caciques continuously doted Colón with gifts, among which many guaízas, with the goal to bind him to their cause as their ally. Especially the guaízas were well loved by the Spanish crown because many of them contained gold-like inlays.

Quantities and different types of objects presented to Columbus at La Isabela

When these objects were brought to Europe they were probably destroyed and their inlays were smelted to be minted into coins. From an art-historial and archeological standpoint it is a great shame that so many guaízas and  similar objects were destroyed just for their gold-like inlays. However, I can’t help but feel a strange sense of vindication that when many of these gold-like inlays and objects were smelted they proved to be worthless for minting: a good quantity of the indigenous objects that were smelted turned out to be of the guanín gold-copper alloy and the Spanish smelters were not able to separate the copper to obtain the pure gold.

Even though many guaízas would have been destroyed there is still much to learn from the objects that are on display in museums and are recovered by archaeologist's in the field. One of these things is the question why guaízas featured so centrally in indigenous-outsider exchange relations such as those between Columbus, Guacanagarí and many other caciques? Why did they make such excellent gifts from an indigenous perspective? I’ll delve deeper into this complex issue in next week’s post.

Guaízas: Face to face with the indigenous Caribbean

Last week I gave a lecture for a Master’s course on something that had been on the forefront of my mind for a long time, but for a long time really hasn’t: the subject matter of my 2005 Bachelor and 2007 Master’s thesis. Although I was a bit rusty I really enjoyed revisiting the artefact type that was my intellectual bread and butter for three years. That’s why I felt that I should give them a place of honour as this and the next few weeks “artefact of the week.” So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I present you the guaíza.

Cuban guaíza from the Gabinete de Arqueología, Havana

When Caribbean archaeologists are speaking about a guaíza (pronounce: wa-i-sa)  they are talking about a 3-12 cm large shell object that depicts a human face — sometimes with animal features —, crafted either from the lip of a Lobatus gigas shell or from a complete, conical shell like smaller Lobatus spp.. The faces that are displayed on these shell objects are all unique “individuals”, but they all belong to a range of one artefact-type. This is apparent from their shared features: deep-set eyes, prominent cheekbones and a big set of grinning teeth. Very often they have additional motifs that I interpret to be some kind of headband, sometimes sporting a big jewel as centrepiece, and earrings. For those who are more familiar with Pre-Columbian Caribbean iconography they look like a “normal” indigenous depiction of a face (in a Chicoid style), but for those who see them for the first time the faces often reminds them of miniature skulls (and you wouldn’t be far off, but you’ll have to wait a few weeks more for my explanation of your intuition).

Altos de Chavón, Dom. Rep.

As you might have understood from its exotic sound and form, the word guaíza cannot be found in any European language, but is of local, indigenous origin (probably from a language belonging to the Arawakan language family). Faithful readers of my blog might have suspected this already, but the indigenous people of the Caribbean left no written sources and as far as we know all speakers of the indigenous language(s) of the Greater Antilles have all been eradicated by the violence, disease and famine following the beginning of the contact period. Normally, a language that has no speakers and no written sources does not get preserved. How then, you might wonder, did archaeologists come to identify these shell faces with the local, indigenous term guaíza?

This is because these shell faces were among the first objects that Columbus brought back from the Caribbean after his first voyage. During his “homecoming” party he presented several of them to the Spanish queen and king, Isabela I and Ferdinand II. In his description of that ceremony at the court in Sevilla Bartolomé de las Casas (one of the main chroniclers of Columbus’s journeys) mentions that: Colón brought […] guaycas, which were masks/faces made out of fish bones in the manner of pearl and contained a great quantity of fine gold.” This rare direct translation of an indigenous word in a Spanish source lets us connect this term with an artefact that still can be recovered by archaeologists during excavations today.

Cuban guaíza

What also becomes apparent from the description by Las Casas is that — at least some of —these shell faces were covered with gold. In actuality this might have been true gold — caona in the indigenous tongue — or it might have been the guanín of which I spoke in last week’s post. Some have suggested that there were faces that consisted completely of gold/guanín, but these have not been preserved. Although they haven’t been preserved either it is more likely that most guaízas were made of shell or maybe even some other material like wood or cloth that was then inlayed with gold/guanín at central places such as the eyes and the mouth. The remains of resin used to glue the metal inlays into place in the picture of the Cuban guaíza above is evidence of this.

It is a popular misconception that archaeologists are all after the “gold X” (coin, amulet, idol, city, etc.). Although I do profess that a golden guaíza would be the find of my lifetime it is not the fact that some of them might have been covered in gold that made them worthy of my continued attention for a 3 year stretch. So, why are they such tantalizing artefacts? Find out next week…

Artefact of the Week: Poporos, Saving the World Since the First Millenium AD.

Poporo from the Gold Musem in Bogotá, Colombia

The artefacts of the week before (the Jamaican historic pipe and the Cuban Ídolo del Tabaco) were both connected to a certain drug. One was obviously linked to “sexuality” while the other is a symbol of power. This artefact of the week combines all these aspects and then some into one object.

This Colombian poporo of the archaeological culture we know as Quimbaya was probably made somewhere in the 4^th to 7^th century AD. It looks like it is made of gold, but it is actually tumbaga or guanín, which is an alloy of 80% gold and 19% copper with minor inclusions of silver. It is therefore yellower than most pure gold, much harder and has a distinct odour. Contrary to what may be expected, among indigenous peoples objects made from this alloy were far more appreciated than those made of pure gold . Before European contact the indigenous peoples of Colombia were widely renowned craft masters of tumbaga and pure gold objects and their beautiful creations can be found far from their Colombian homelands.

Aside from the fact that the material from which this particular object was made was highly valued, the poporo would have been an important personal artefact that was probably used for the ingestion of burned coca leaves and lime. We know this because using poporos in this way is a still surviving, longstanding tradition among Colombian indigenous peoples, especially those living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Part of the traditional dress of the men of these peoples consists of a gourd and a stick — probably organic poporos were used in the past as well, but they were not preserved, leaving only a few durable, gold examples. The gourd is filled with a mixture of burned coca leaves and lime which is scooped out of the gourd with the stick. Ingesting this mixture has a slight narcotic effect  — although in no way comparable to the effects of using the party-drug cocaine, which also has coca leaves as raw material. A man will use his gourd multiple times per day in this way.

Taken from Reichel-Dolmatoff 1990

From ethnographic fieldwork, among for example the Kogui of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, we know that a poporo is given to a boy at his passage into adulthood and that he will not be willingly separated from his poporo for the rest of his life. The stick will be swiped clean after each use, so, over time, lime accretes on the top of the gourd. Therefore the poporo of an old man will have a thick crust of lime as can be seen in the picture below. So, it is actually possible to estimate the age of a certain person by looking at his poporo. I think that the only object that comes close to having a comparable close bond with its owner in our society is the wedding ring, although even these are becoming more and more easily disposable.

Still, a poporo is not only important for the personal identities of these people. It is also a vital tool for safeguarding the future of all of creation. First of all the act of dipping the stick into the gourd is seen as analagous to the act of procreation (you don’t need Freudian psychology to recognize the suggestive nature of this act) and it is actually believed that the gourd and stick are a micro-model of the layout of the cosmos.

Taken from Reichel-Dolmatoff 1990

Additionally, in the belief of the resident indigenous peoples the Sierra Nevada is literally the heart of the universe and the indigenous priests, called mamás among the Kogui, are its caretakers — more about this in this TED presentation by anthropologist Wade Davis (at 10 minutes 30 seconds). So, if anything goes wrong with the Sierra Nevada, every living thing everywhere will suffer. Nowadays the mamás guard the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta by raising global public awareness on the importance of the Sierra Nevada and similar natural resources. Aside from this they actively contribute to the well-being of the cosmos by carefully manipulating ‘time cycles’ that act as the gears in the mechanism of life. In order to do this the mama needs to become 'master of time', which, among other things, is achieved by ingesting the mixture of coca and lime inside the poporo. Experienced mamás claim they can actually phase out of time and while being phased out can see and manipulate the time cycles that makes the cosmos run.

It is not known for sure if these ideas were present among indigenous cultures of the first millennium AD, but the fact that poporos were made of expensive and durable materials such as tumbaga suggests that it was already an important artefact at that time. Additionally we know that trying to understand or have a measure of control over cyclical processes of time has great antiquity in many places in the Caribbean basin and that those persons who were adept at these sorts of things often held important political and religious offices.  It is not unlikely that the poporro has already been used to save the world from harm since before the birth of a certain other saviour of humanity.

Artefact of the Week: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"

Taken from Cubaheadlines.com

Ídolo del Tabaco, Museo Antropológico Montané, Havana.

Last week I talked about an interesting pipe from the historic town of Port Royal, Jamaica. There I argued that pipes were a far more interesting smoking “artefact” than cigarettes or cigars. I forgot to mention, however, that the cigar holds a much more important place in the history of the Caribbean than the pipe. Therefore for this week’s  artefact of the week I 'll talk a bit about the biggest cigar of them all.

Of course, economically speaking the cigar was and arguably still is the most important export product of the Greater Antilles. However, its cultural value should not be underestimated, either, especially in the case of Cuba. The U.S.A. still has an embargo on Cuban cigars, which has a cultural as much as an economic motivation — their loss, I would say. Before the Cuban revolution the famous Cuban anthropologists Fernando Ortíz discussed the nation’s colonial history and cultural spirit using its two biggest export products: cigars and sugar. Where sugar is grown in huge number and produced through the large-scale processing of hundreds and hundreds of tons of sugar cane — a process that, before mechanization, relied solely on slave labour —, cigar tobacco stands for the free-spirited and careful process of  planting, selecting, picking and hand rolling of quality brand cigars by various specialists. The production of sugar and cigars shows, according to Ortíz, the three cultural forces at work in Cuba: a combination of Western and African culture in the form of mass-production and the import of humans and crops from Africa and entrepreneurship combined with an indigenous, Pre-Colonial “tobacco ideology,”  respectively.

This artefact of the week, aptly named the Ídolo del Tabaco, is perhaps the most famous example of this Pre-Colonial Cuban “tobacco ideology.” It is not difficult to see that it resembles a big cigar with a face on it. Many believe that the fact that this idol is shaped like a giant cigar is not coincidental. While in other parts of the America’s pipes were also used to smoke tobacco with, in the Greater Antilles we only know of tobacco consumption in the form of cigars or by burning it like incense. The few ethnohistorical sources do not mention any particular god or spirit that was connected with the consumption of tobacco, but many think that this idol is a representation of some cigar god, hence its name.

Still, if it was directly involved with the intake of tobacco the fact that the Ídolo de Tabaco has a flat top would actually seem suggestive of burning tobacco like incense rather than smoking it as a cigar. The problem with this interpretation is that platters on the head of an idol like this one are best known for their use as “snorting tables” for the ingestion of another Pre-Columbian drug, commonly known as cohoba. This cohoba contained a mixture of the crushed seeds of the Anadenanthera peregrina, a tree that is still quit common in the Caribbean today, and the chalk from crushed shells. By snorting this drug up through the nose and together with fasting and a lot of vomiting this could induce powerful hallucinations.

These drug-induced hallucinations were thought to be the domain of the shaman, who was called behique among the indigenous people of the Greater Antilles. This person, perhaps in combination with the chief, was the spiritual advisor of his community — I am not being chauvinistic here, but there is, as of yet, no evidence for female behiques. Using trance and hallucination he would communicate with other than human beings and use that to, for example, tell the future or communicate with the dead. Cohoba was not the only drug used for this. As many who smoked a good strong Cubano can vouch for, tobacco can be another very effective means of entering these trance-like states and we know that this was another drug the Antillean behiques used regularly.

So, although we see a big cigar with a face when we look at this idol,  a cohoba-snorting, tobacco smoking behique probably saw a spirit in material form. Perhaps it was even an actual cigar-spirit that could be communicated with when in trance, which is the case among some contemporary societies of the Guyanas. It is not unlikely to think that idols like this one were perceived to be influential friends and helpers of the behique, who was a respected and feared member of his community for just that reason. Nowadays smoking a cigar with friends in high places is often a good way to climb the social ladder, the Ídolo del Tabaco, avatar of all Cuban cigars, shows that this was not much different in the past.

Tobacco and networking, they tell me it is a winning combination…

“Ceci n'est pas seulement une pipe” Update

New info on the date, origins and maker of the pipe. This comes from Lia Schouten, who is a specialist on pipes from Gouda and a contact of my good friend Daan. He went through all the trouble of contacting her for me, so thanks a lot for that — he has recently quit smoking, so he is still a little bit fixated on tobacco-related artefacts.

The pipe probably comes from the late 19^th or early 20^th century and was made by an — apparently — famous French company by the name of “Gambier.” Gambier was a really big player in the pipe-making business, producing over 26 million pipes of various designs each year. There is still a small chance that the pipe comes from Gouda, though, because Gambier sold their old moulds that had gone out of fashion in France to Gouda pipemakers. It seems like the French are “avant-garde” in everything and the rest of the world gets stuck with yesteryears fashion…

Artefact of the Week: “Ceci n'est pas seulement une pipe”

This week I feature an artefact from historic times, which is in the private collection of mr. George Lechler. George Lechler has run a “blasting company” in Jamaica for a long time and because of his work has encountered many different artefacts, collected them and built an interesting and extremely diverse assortment of objects from the recent to distant Jamaican past. I visited him to photograph his collection of Pre-Columbian artefacts, but when he showed me this pipe head I couldn’t resist taking a picture.

One of my grandfathers was a pipe smoker and perhaps because of that I have always been fascinated by them. I don’t really collect them and hardly know anything about them, but I think they are really an underappreciated artefact category. Smoking has been important to many people in many times and still is. Also, rather than disposable smokes like cigarettes or cigars, this is an artefact that sticks with you, making it an important part of your every-day life. Your pipe potentially says a lot about who you are.

So what does this particular pipe say about its previous owner? Well he — perhaps saying that it was a he is cutting corners, but I am just thinking like a male chauvinist here — was certainly a lecherous smoker, but there is more. According to what George told me, he got it from someone who found it in Port Royal. Some of you might know Port Royal from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and indeed — at least this part of the movies is true — Port Royal was a place of ill repute, until it was destroyed by a big quake in 1692. After that Port Royal cleaned up its act.

Very likely the pipe came from overseas — perhaps even from Gouda. It's clay, but well-made, so it would neither have been terribly expensive nor cheap to buy. Judging from the style of the pipe, I am guesstimating it dates from the early to middle 19^th century. So, although we can discount a sexist pirate because of its late date, I have the feeling it must have belonged to a sailor. Makes sense… when you’re out on the open sea with no real women aboard (that’s bad luck), at least you’d have your pipe head woman staring at you in ecstasy. 

Tobacco and sex, they tell me it's a winning combination...

Angus's Artefacts of Week 3 2011

The famous Atabeyra as photographed by Joost Morsink.

In the two posts before this, I presented two artefacts that are believed to be representations of some form of Caribbean Mother Goddess. There are those who wish to go further than that by stating depictions like these are representations of “Atabeyra.” Atabeyra is one of the several names of a deity-like being that is mentioned as the mother of the creator spirit in the accounts of Fray Ramon Pané. Depicted here is one of the central figures of the famous petroglyphs (carvings in stone) at the ball court at Caguana, Puerto Rico that was identified as Atabeyra. Since then the petroglyph and Atabeyra have gained a prominent status in Puerto Rico as a symbol of national pride, especially for those Puerto Ricans who are in favour of Puerto Rican cultural and political independence from the United States.

Taken from Mason's 1936 book on the Archaeology of the Santa Marta.

Recently, Puerto Rican archaeologists Reniel Rodríguez Ramos has pointed out the similarities between elements of Greater Antillean representations of “Atabeyra” and Pre-Colonial Colombian depictions of a figure that is perhaps some kind of sun deity, such as can be seen in this turtle bone plaque. It does seem that many elements — like posture, frogs (the figures have frog-legs and the plaque is shaped like a frog with its two huge eyes at the top) and birds being depicted (birds are easily visible on the plaque and Rodríguez Ramos has suggested that the earspools and hands of the Puerto Rican Atabeyra are shaped like two big-beaked birds) — of the two figures are the same, which leaves us with some interesting questions. Why is there such a similarity between two cultures that were geographically separated by a huge stretch of water? Were there perhaps regular contacts between the Greater Antilles and the South American mainland? This would be no mean feat seeing that sailing didn’t exist yet in Pre-Columbian times; all transport between islands had to be done by canoe.

Photo courtesy of Arie Boomert.

On the other hand it also leaves us with some interesting problems on what constitutes evidence for cultural contact in situations in which we have no written sources. Traditionally, archaeologists have always stressed “style” as one of the most important indicators of cultural contact, but there seems to be no correspondence in styles between the two regions. Still, many feel that in this case the similarities in form and symbolism between the two representations are too great to be explained as a simple factor of chance. We should not forget, however, that the frog has been an important symbol in many different places and times in the Caribbean. For example it is clear from the archaeological record that the frog is one of the most important symbols of migrant groups that came from the Mainland into the Antilles some centuries before the birth of Christ. Perhaps this means that the frog and its symbolism is just a Caribbean-wide phenomenon and that there were no contacts between the Greater Antilles and Colombia? On the other hand, in the absence of “memory banks” such as books, it is extremely rare for symbols and traditions to remain the same for more than thousand years.

To put it short, we do not know yet how exactly the figure that we recognize as “Atabeyra” in the Greater Antilles is connected through the different times, places and cultures of the Caribbean or what this connection means. Any ideas?

Angus's Artefact of Week 2 2011

Froglegged Lady depicted on the Sevilla la Nueva Pillars at the National Gallery of Jamaica.

Sevilla la Nueva was the first Spanish settlement of importance on the island of Jamaica. It was settled in 1510 AD, but abandoned on the order of the King in 1534. Although it wasn’t really successful as a settlement it represents an important episode in the early colonial history of Jamaica.

Although its locations had been forgotten for more than 4 centuries in the late thirties of the last century local archaeological enthusiast Charles Cotter succeeded in uncovering architectural remains that were probably part of the Governor’s house or of the first stone Christian church in the Americas (paid for by the well-known Peter Martyr of Anghiera who never visited the island, but still was Jamaica's " bishop at a distance").  The column that is this Artefact of the Week is one of several such columns found by Cotter.

From Charles Cotter 1948's publication on the pillars

It is done in a typical European style called platteresque, depicting lush foliage and four Grotesques (mythical creatures). When I visited the National Gallery of Jamaica I immediately noticed that the centre figure had much in common in terms of form and symbolism with the famous frog-legged Mother Goddess that is known as Atabeyra (see last week’s Artefact of the Week for more info). After consulting with my sister (an art history student) it turned out that the form of this Grotesque is unknown from this period in Europe. It also turned out that these pillars were probably crafted by the original inhabitants of Jamaica as part of the services they were required to deliver under the encomienda-system.

We therefore suspect (and will explore this possibility in an upcoming paper) that this figure is indeed a syncretistic variation on the Caribbean frog-legged mother that was done in a style that was recognizable to the Spaniards, but with a symbolism and form that was distinctly Caribbean.

Next week the last of my triptych on the Caribbean frog-legged mother goddess!

Angus's Artefact of Week 1 2011

The Atabeyra of Holguín, Cuba

A clay figurine of a woman that is either pregnant or giving birth. This particular object was found in a field in the Banes area and is now in the Museo Indocubano Baní. It is one of several of such type of artefacts in East Cuba. It is notable that a number of these artefacts can be found here, because female figurines are rare in the other Greater Antilles.

It is said that this particular type of figurine represents Atabeyra, who is a Precolumbian type of mother goddess according to eye-witness accounts from Hispaniola made by Fray Ramon Pané in the final years of the 15^th century. Whether this figurine actually represents Atabeyra or some other type of fertility figure remains unknown, but it is striking that figurines such as these also played a prominent role in the establishment of the syncretic (Indigenous, African and Catholic) cult of the Virgen del Caridad del Cobre, which is Cuba's Patron Saint.

Next week more on mother goddesses in the Caribbean!