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Tune-Up Tour – Pre-Columbian Galleries
February 15, 17, 2008
by Carol Hallenbeck
(This written tour contains more information than you can possibly use during a 30-45 minute
tour, but the information is presented here to make touring easier for you.)
Introduction
Welcome to the Bowers world of Pre-Columbia,
the civilizations in the New World as they existed before contact with the Spanish.
Our exhibit contains artifacts from 3 different groups
-- West Mexico
-- The Maya
-- and groups to the south of Mexico that shared many of the Mayan concepts.
Pre-Columbia history is a patchwork quilt of different cultures joined by
-- a very complex set of religious beliefs
-- an all-pervasive series of creation myths
-- and the belief in the Shaman.
We’re still trying to learn more about these groups because of
-- difficulty deciphering their writing
interpreting their glyphs requires the ultimate in code breaking
and the Spanish burned most of their works as heresy.
-- much of their sculpture, pottery, and architecture is lost, buried deep in the jungle
-- only been working at deciphering their culture since the 1850s
-- we went in with stereotypes
(Aztecs were bloody; the Mayas peaceful;
the people weren’t creative because they didn’t have the wheel)
Theme Question: But in many ways, we are discovering that they were people just
like us with problems to solve.
Interaction: What problems do we have, as individuals? as a nation?
(Summarize the answers visitors give: finding food, staying healthy, solving
psychological problems, weather, war, competing religions)
Theme Answer: In these cultures, the person who helped was the shaman. Like a
superhero, his job was to solve problems.
Transition: We’ll learn all about shamans in this first gallery, our art from West Mexico.
Objective: To name the roles of the Shaman and associate these roles with specific objects
in the gallery.
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First Gallery: Art from West Mexico – The Vision of the Shaman
West Mexicans in these early days lived in simple villages. Their art comes from shaft tombs,
some 50 feet deep. People were buried right outside their doors. Their art shows us a slice of
life.
If wood and fabric are buried in tombs, they rot and disappear. If gold and silver are
buried, the tomb is apt to be robbed. What is buried that lasts and is not valuable enough to steal
– pottery! That’s why so many of the artifacts you will see are pottery.
Dignitary with Attendants (on the left)
Here’s your first look at the shaman and one of the roles he plays! Can you see two figures?
One is a dignitary, an important man, probably a ruler, carried by attendants. He’s holding a dog
in his right arm and a fan in his left hand.
The second figure on the platform is the shaman. He carries a mushroom-shaped
umbrella. Shamans used mushrooms to go into a trance state. The shaman is obviously trying to
help the ruler solve a problem, for he served as an adviser, a counselor, a psychologist.
Between the two is a food offering – two large basins filled with food. One of the ruler’s
and the shaman’s duties was to see that people had enough to eat and to provide a healthy
ecological system.
Transition: Providing food required knowing when to plant and how to control of the
weather. So the shaman became an astronomer and developer of ideas about the cosmos.
Jar with Eight Crested Human Heads (o the right)
This piece is basically a gourd with 8 heads. It's ceremonial. But anything with 4 and 4 markers
refers to the cosmos. Four of the heads represent the cardinal directions – north, east, south and
west. The other four are the solstice points -- when the sun crosses the equator and when it is
furtherest north and furtherest south. These people were farmers. They had to know when to
plant, so the shaman studied the stars and developed the calendar.
Transition: Plants grow and die. People grow and die. The shaman had a role to play in
comforting the dead and dying.
Shaman’s Backrest (next on the right)
This is a funerary object, a backrest shaped like a bird. The concentric circles represent the
shaman’s eye and his power to penetrate the mysteries of life and death. The shaman’s soul can
leave his body and go into “soul-flight.” He can shape shift in his need to find answers for his
people’s problems. In Pre-Columbia, people believed that then they died, they continued to live
but in a different place. They were shocked when they died and woke up in a tomb. When they
saw something like this buried with them they knew that the shaman would be their guide to the
underworld. He was a tomb guardian who would keep evil spirits from harming them.
Transition: Shamans could be male or female. (next on the right)
Seated Male Shaman with Crossed Arms; Seated Female Shaman Chanting( figures on the
left)
Note the magic mushrooms coming out of the man’s head. He needs the help of the drugs the
mushrooms produce to go into his trance. And look at the woman’s mouth. She is singing a
power song to free herself from her everyday life and activate her psychic center. There’s a
whole tradition about resonating different pitches, tones, intensities. How about the Tibetan
“oooommmm.”
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Transition: Along with his ability to shape shift, the shaman was a chemist and botanist
known for his knowledge of plants and their healing capabilities.
Figure with Tube and Jar (figure on the left)
This figure represents a shaman blowing his vital breath into an herbal mixture in the jar.
Contemporary shamans in West Mexico still do this, believing that their breath adds potency to
the concoction. Part of their spirit force is now infused into the medicine.
Notice that this shaman is a skeleton. Although he is reduced to a skeleton, he can bring
himself back to life. West Mexicans believed that the bones were the seeds that could infuse with
blood and recreate life. The shaman was thus capable of transforming and creating life.
Transition: Remember, we talked about the shaman being a guide for the dead in the
underworld? Well, perhaps the shaman himself needed a guide.
Dogs (Last artifact on the left)
This is the special little hairless Mexican dog is associated with shamans. It was regarded as a
tomb guardian as well as a guide to alert the shaman to danger. It was small, reddish in color,
probably weighing about 30-40 pounds. At times it was made part of a religious ritual where it
was sacrificed and sometimes eaten. The breed still exists in Peru, Ecuador and Columbia,
although it is rare. Skeletons of these dogs were found at the entrances to the shaft tombs in West
Mexico. The artist who painted our murals had one with him when he painted the murals.
Transition to the Hall of the Master Builders: While the West Mexican civilization
consisted of small villages and the artifacts that were created were small, at least one
civilization grew very large. In the 700s AD when Europe was in the Dark Ages and
London just a few wooden huts and dirt streets, the Maya were building large cities of stone
with many public buildings. Tikal had 40 people. Let’s visit the Hall of the Master Builders.
Interactive Question: Where do you see faces in your own home?
Interactive Question: Where would you be most apt to see faces of famous people?
The Architectonic Faces of Maya Nobles (stone faces on the right)
To identify members of a clan, or an important lord, to show men who rose to positions of great
leadership, the Maya put faces on their buildings, on top of the pillars, as parts of the façade or
structure of the buildings. (Not Doric, or ionic or Corinthian – like the Greeks and Romans. The
men were members of a proud, haughty upper class.
You can see a photograph of one of the large Mayan stone buildings directly ahead.
Transition: The shaman, too, underwent a change as the cities grew larger, and more
shamans were needed. Shamans began to specialize. Some became great astronomers and
studied the heavens big time. Others specialized in medicine. And some became priests,
conducting religious rites -- involving fire, snakes and human sacrifice.
Incensario with Elaborately Decorated Lid
This is an incense burner, one of a pair. It was used in religious rites associated with fire.
This was a culture that believed in reciprocity. What you get from nature must be repaid.
And since they received such blessings from nature – food, life, -- they must return life to the soil
– human sacrifice.
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This is the topography of Mexico – valleys, volcanoes everywhere with the volcanoes
breathing smoke, running with snake-like, blood red streams of lava down their sides. The Maya
equated the volcano with the breath of men and women and the lava with the blood with which
their gods created them and which they believed they owed their gods in return.
They saw flames in their campfires as sparks of light (stars) and eddies of heat that were
snake-like. Smoke is the breath of fire that rises to the sky. Like a serpent, it writhes and eddies
as it ascends, reminding men that clouds are also similar to smoke and to serpents. Serpents live
hidden in the earth, emerging from the underworld, symbolizing rebirth as they sheds their skin.
Man’s intestines and spinal cord, the vines and branches of trees, as well as the rays of the sun
have serpent shapes.
Is it any wonder, then, that smoke from incense burners became part of their religious
ceremonies?
They built temple pyramids in the shape of volcanoes in the special places that seemed to
be the source of energy or life force and this is where the priests held ceremonies in which the
kings and their queens gave blood from their tongues and genitals.
Transition: Many of their buildings were decorated with impressive wall murals. Ours was
painted by Raoul Anguinao, the last of the great Mexican mural painters. It’s a synthesis of
past and present Maya culture and represents his visit to the ruins of one of the Mayas
great sacred places, the temples at Bonampak.
The mural (on the opposite wall of the room)
See how many of these Mayan icons you can find as I name them:
-- the scribe, in the center, writing the history of his people. The book is fan-folded and
called a “codex.” There are only 4 left in the world because the Spanish burned
the rest as heresy.
-- the priest or warrior -- the large figure in profile to the left, copied from the fresco at
Bonampak
(Note the flattened forehead that was done purposely to show that he came from
the upper classes of Mayan society.
-- the two present day Lacandon Indians – modern men seen by Anguiano in 1949 on
his way to Bonampak. The current theory is that Pre-Columbian civilizations
fell when the kings could no longer prevent losses in war or crop failure by
simply giving their blood to the gods. When the people saw that their shamans
and kings were really powerless, they simply drifted away. And the jungle
reclaimed the stone cities.
-- dancers and musicians dressed as animals such as crawfish and alligators also
from the murals found at Bonampak
-- Nocturnal monkey – indigenous to the Lacondon forest –possibly one of the early
attempts by the gods to make mankind.
-- Glyph – near the foot of the scribe – from the palace building of Palenque drawn by
Anguiano in 1954.
-- Mexican Lord of Death – Ah Push
who presides over the lowest of the 9 levels of the underworld. His companions
are the dog, the Moan bird, the owl.
He is allied with the god of war and human sacrifice.
He is the one that Lord Shield Pacal must conquer n the Underworld. You can
see him through the window as you stand by Pacal’s tomb.
--Quetzacoatl –on t he far left, is one of the most important figures of Pre-Columbia
Mexico. He might be compared to King Arthur as both a historical person and a
myth. He is believed to have started the Toltec empire, descending from the
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heavens to the earth, living as a celibate or holy priest. However, when he
succumbed to evil influences, he punished himself by giving up his kingdom and
dying voluntarily by fire. His body burned, but his heart rose to the heavens
where it was transformed into the planet Venus.
Another myth claims that he traveled across Mexico on a raft of serpent
skins, sailing towards the sunrise, and that his heart flew upward to join the sun.
It was Quetzalcoatl who was supposed to return and bring peace and
justice and whom the Mexicans thought was returning when they saw the sun
flash off the swords, helmet and shields of the invading Spanish conquistadors.
Quetzalcoatl is the feathered serpent. He represents wisdom and the life
force that governs all things. He is the serpent because he represents
regeneration and return. He is the bird with feathers because he went up into the
sky and became the planet Venus.
Transition: Quetzalcoatl has another form too, as the Lord of the Wind. We’ll see him in
this form in the next gallery.
Ehecatl
As Ehecatl he wears a mask with a pointed snout what covers the lower part of his face. Temples
created in his honor are circular, so that the wind can blow in any direction and not be confined to
the four corners of the world. Remember, too, that man’s breath is necessary to make speech.
Interaction: Try talking without breathing out!
Transition: Bt we have not forgotten our shaman and our quest to understand his role. As
the idea of the shaman spread and developed throughout the Pre-Columbian/Mesoamerican
world, the shaman became associated with certain animals and reptiles and we see one more
role of the shaman.
Polychrome Pedestal Bowl: “Shaman-in combat” theme
Interaction: Look at the figure in this pedestal bowl and try to assume his position.
Feet apart; hands clenched. Teeth gritted. : Push down as hard as you can.
How does this position make you feel?
powerful? fierce? determined? dangerous?
Note the concentric eyes and menacing pose with clawed hands and feet. These are all artistic
images associated with the “shaman-in-combat” theme. He is trying to protect the grave and the
souls of the dead. Can you see the crocodile mouth?
Pre-Columbian Panamanian art shows the empowered soul of a shaman as a saurian, a
creature that blends human and crocodilian characteristics. They are trying to show the shaman’s
ability to go into soul-flight and change the shape and appearance of his soul-form.
Why would a shaman go into soul-flight? Perhaps the answers to the problems that you
are having are hard to find. So the shaman releases his mind or soul from his body and goes in
search of answers, perhaps even having to fight off evil spirits that are harming you.
Transition: The shaman is also associated with frogs.
Jars with Frog Adornos
Because frogs go from pollywog stage in water through tadpole stage to amphibious frog, they
also symbolize the ability to shape-shift, to transform from one realm of being to another, just as
the shaman can shape-shift to other realms and dimensions of being. The frog is also a symbol
of fertility.
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The pottery in this case is Tarrago Biscuit Ware, unpainted, made without the potter’s
wheel, with very, very thin walls. These pots are decorated with small animal figures called
adornos. Many of the adornos are frogs.
Transition: There is one more animal whose shape the shaman used, the largest, strongest,
most beautiful cat in the New World, the jaguar.
Metate in the Form of a Jaguar
The jaguar dominates the Mesoamerican rain forest with its high speed, massive strength and
nocturnal hunting skills. So it symbolized silent power that kings and even the gods tried to copy.
Its spotted black and gold skin was interpreted as the nighttime starry sky.
Its special night vision, combined with its power, made it an excellent counterpart of the
shaman’s extraordinary skills, so the jaguar became the shaman’s familiar, helping the shaman
with its power and protecting him.
This is a metate, a stone for grinding corn. The jaguar imagery on it represents the soul
of a shaman who has shape-shifted to become a jaguar. The legs of the metate are upside-down
parrot heads, one atop another, referring to the underworld where everything is said to be upsidedown. Remember, one of the shaman’s jobs is to guide the dead in the underworld.
The interlocking geometric elements at the jaguar’s head refer to the shaman’s control
and power over the dualistic forces of nature.
Corn is a hybrid plant which does not occur naturally in nature. It is produced by man
whose cultivation of corn began 10,000 years ago. The Mayan myth says that the earth mother
took her metate and ground corn, then shaped man and woman from the corn. Since people came
from corn, the corn goddess is important in religious ceremonies. Archaeologists have found
heads without bodies as early as 7000 BC, a time which coincides with plant cultivation. In
Mayan ceremonies, decapitation is associated with the plucking of an ear of corn from a plant.
The corn kernel could be replanted and corn could be reborn. So man could be reborn – life goes
in cycles.
Transition: How can the angry gods of the underworld be placated, defeated? It was the
shaman’s role to advise. Perhaps he even had a hand in the Mesoamerican ball game,
deciding who would play and what happened after the game was over.
For the Maya, the confrontation with death, evil and disease took place on the ballcourt. The
battle represented a metaphor. Life was like a game, with the ultimate stakes the maintenance of
the cosmos and rebirith after death. The roles of the players, the conflict between teams, the
winning and losing of bets, the basic metaphors defined destiny and history for the Maya. It was
often the ceremonial climax of the struggles between neighboring kingdoms. The game must have
embodied physical prowess, virtue and devotion.
The ball game was played in all the villages, towns and cities. It was the first game ever
played with a rubber ball, with teams, on a court. So all our games with teams, balls, courts trace
back to Pre-Columbia. But we don’t sacrifice the losers.
This ball game was not a sport, played for fun or exercise. It was a religious rite. The ball
was the sun and not allowed to touch the ground and when the game was over, the one of the
teams could be sacrificed to the gods. We have no exact idea of how the game was played.
There are rectangular courts and long, narrow ones, courts with hoops on the side and courts
without, courts with seats for watchers and courts without. There may have been different rules
in different places.
But we know that these ceremonial items represent items used in the actual ball game.
The Stone Yoke represents the leather ones ball players wore for hip protection because they
could hit the ball with their hips. It was a solid rubber ball, heavy, probably about 4 pounds. The
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Manopla was presumably a stone handgrip used to propel the bal. The Palma was probably
worn at the opening of the yoke and also used to hit the ball. the Hacha in the form of the head
marked the place where the ball hit the ground.
Transition: Why would one of the teams be sacrificed? Why was the game a religious rite?
There are two reasons, both related to myths:
1. The Creation Story of the Popul Vuh, the Purpose of Bloodletting
When the Creator Gods finished making the Earth, they wanted to create beings who
would praise and nurture the gods. First they created the birds and beasts of the field who
squawked, chattered and howled, but could not speak the names of their makers or pray or keep
track of the days. So the Creators then shaped people from mud, but the new beings were too
soft. They crumbled, became lopsided and dissolved. Dissatisfied, the Creators made manikins
from wood, but the wooden people were still, had no feelings, and were unable to care for
anyone, so the Creators sent a flood to wash them away. They became monkeys and even today
monkeys are a sign of the second creation. The third creation is the world of the Hero Twins
which was destroyed by a great flood. In the fourth creation, the one we are living in now, the
Hero wins were reborn as Maize Gods who ordered four old gods to set up the four sides and
corners of the cosmos and erect the center tree. The Maya saw this as a great ceiba tree in flower,
but also as the Milky Way. The raising of this tree created the space in which we all live. The
Maize Gods then spun the heart of the sky into motion, which gave humans the perception of
time. The First Mother than made human beings out of corn. The gods wanted creatures who
could worship them, but they also needed people to give them sustenance. The very existence of
the universe depended on the willingness of human beings to sustain the gods with their blood
offerings. The gods, themselves, also gave their blood to maintain the order of the cosmos.
2.The Pre-Columbian mindset, revealed by the Book of the Dead, the Popul-Vuh
indicates that the dead must play a ball game with the rulers of the dead. Their myth of the Hero
Twins describes two mythical brothers who survive a series of tests in the underworld, succeed in
defeating the Lords of Death in a ball game, and confine these evil lords for all time to the
underworld. One twin becomes the sun, the other, the moon.
Transition: Other cultures, influenced by the religious belief in the shaman, also use the
frog imagery.
Jar with Frog Effigy
Vessel with Two Interfacing Skeletonized Man-frogs
This is the Taino culture. Traditionally, shamans had to undergo initiation. In these ceremonies,
they symbolically died, were defleshed and reduced to skeletons, and then transformed and
reborn as initiated shamans. In the other jar, we see the back of the frog viewed frontally, is the
front side of another animal, possibly a lizard, again, indicating transformation.
Transition: One man who might have had to play a ball game with the Lords of the
Underworld is Lord Shield Pacal. A copy of his tomb cover is in the next room.
Tomb Cover – Lord Shield Pacal
One of the most fascinating Classic Period burials yet discovered in Mesoamerica is that of Lord
Pacal, a ruler of the Maya city of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico. He was buried in an elaborately
decorated limestone sarcophagus placed within the pyramid known as the Temple of the
Inscriptions. Until this sarcophagus was found, Mayan temples were considered only temples,
not burial sites.
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The intricately carved lid depicts Lord Pacal falling and descending into the gaping jaws
of Xibalba, the dreaded Maya Underworld. Pacal does not descend alone. He sits atop the head
of the Quadripartite Monster which symbolizes the sun. Crossed circles, symbols of the sun, can
be seen on each side of the monster’s head. Note that Pacal is barefoot. Where the king walks is
divine. Where you stand is holy ground.
Above Pacal is the World Tree, atop of which is perched the Celestial Bird, representing
the Upper World and the Big Dipper. The branches of the World tree are drawn in the form of
serpent bar which is a symbol of Maya kingship. Wrapped around the World Tree, it represents
the earthly middle world. The bone or seed of rebirth is just above Pacal’s nose. Much of the rest
of the imagery contains instructions for Pacal to help him defeat the evil lords of death in the
underworld and rise to the heavens and be reborn as the Corn God. Other figures around the
edges are glyphs which correspond to the names and emblems of his parents and his other
ancestors.
The Maya were a highly stratified society, governed by a powerful class of hereditary
nobles. Lord Pacal comes from a line of Palenque kings that extends for about 300 years. He
began ruling the city-state of Palenque when he was only six years old, with the help of his
mother. In AD 615 when he turned 12, he became king in his own right. He seems to have
married his sister, keeping the royal blood in the family.
During his 68-year reign, the city of Palenque flourished. During a long lifetime of
accomplishment, he brought Palenque into its own as a leading city of the Late Classic Period. It
had been a remote and rustic village until the first third of the seventh century AD. It flourished
for about 150 years.
Before he died, he planned and commissioned the Temple of Inscriptions, the building
that would permanently memorialize him. Because his sarcophagus was larger than the entrance
to the burial chamber, scholars believe it must have been in place before the pyramid was
constructed. A body-shaped hole was cut into the sarcophagus for is royal remains. The interior
of the hole is all red with cinnabar, the color of the east where the sun is reborn each day. In
death, he “entered the womb of the earth, and as a kernel of regeneration, he spawned the World
Tree.”
He was buried with his head oriented to the north. Only bones were found in the tomb.
When the flesh decayed, the bones were cleaned, then put into the tomb. It was closed and
sanctified. His clothing was gone and he wore a life-sized mosaic mask of jade. His eyes were
represented with shell and obsidian. Symbolically, this green mask would have transformed the
face of the elderly ruler into that of young maize for all eternity. Under the mask his teeth were
painted red. He wore hundreds of beads of light-green jadeite, rings on each finger, earplugs of
jade and mother of pearl, several necklaces of tubular jade beads and other ornaments. Each hand
held a large piece of jade and another was placed in his mouth.
If you look through the window, into the Hall of the Master Builders, you can see Ah
Push, the lord of the underworld that Pacal must face and overcome if he is to be reborn.
Transition: Before we close, look for just a moment at the insensario lids you will see
decorating the walls. Of particular interest is this one, the priest wearing the skin of a
sacrificial victim, killed for one of the spring renewal rites.
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Conclusion: In our travels through these Pre-Columbian galleries you have seen artifacts
from the patch-work quilt of different cultures joined by
-- a complex set of religious beliefs
-- a series of creation myths
-- and the belief in the Shaman
with his powers to heal,
his ability to guard the spirit in the afterlife,
to shape shift to find answers to problems,
to use his knowledge of plants and herbs,
his knowledge of the stars and weather to help his people survive and flourish.