Pre-Columbian Art of the Caribbean 1683400542, 9781683400547

Citation preview

Pre-Columbian Art or

THE

Caribbean

Lawrence Waldron

Univer ity of Florida Pre 01\INP

VILLI

Copyright 2019by Lawrence Waldron All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper This book may be available in an electronic edition. 24 23 22 21 20 19 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Waldron, Lawrence,author. Title: Pre-Columbian art of the Caribbean / LawrenceWaldron. Other titles: Ripley P. Bullen series. Description: Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2019.I Series: Florida Museum of 'atural History: RipleyP. BuUenseries I Includei bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018010073I !SB, 9781683400547(cloth: alk..paper) Subjects:LCSH: Indian art-Caribbean Area. I Caribbean Area-Antiquities. Excavations(Archaeology)-Caribbean Area. Classification:LCC F2172.W352019I DOC 972.9/01-dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010073 University of Florida Pres 2046 NE Waldo Road Suite 2100 Gainesville, FL 32609 http://upress.ufl.edu

(i) UF PRESS UNIYUtSITY

OF FLORIDA

For Neslyn

Contents

List of Figures ix List of Maps xv List of Plates xvii Acknowledgments Introduction

xix

1

1.

Art Periods and Peoples of the Pre-Columbian Caribbean 7

2-

Ceramics of the Eastern Caribbean

23

3- Ceramics of the Greater Antilles 85

4. Rock Art and Ritual Spaces

s. Sculpture

121

209

6. Jewelry and Personal Adornment Epilogue: Living Legacies 342 Notes 353 Bibliography 38 1 Index 401

309

Figures

o.1. Art periods of the pre-Columbian Caribbean xx.ii 1.1. Paddle-shaped axes, Antigua and Guadeloupe, Archaic

11

1•2 •

Spheroliths, unknown sites, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and

1.3,

Selected types of Saladoid white-on-red symmetry

2

Polar projection of white-on-red vessel exterior, unknown site, St. Croix, Saladoid 30

Grenada, Archaic

.1.

2 2 • •

11

20

Common types ofSaladoid white-on-red everted bell vessel, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico,and St. Croix 33

2

·3• White-on-red vessel with figure-ground reversal motifs, Canas, Puerto

Rico,Saladoid 34 2

+

Zone-incised and zone-polished vessel lug, Indian Creek, Antigua, Barrancoid

2

38

•5. Saladoid incense burners from the Windward Islands (Vive, Martinique; Chatham Bay, Union Island; unknown site, St. Vincent) 42

2

-6. Snuff bowls from Erin Bay, Trinidad, Barrancoid-Saladoid, and La Hueca, Vieque Huecoid 43

2

•7•Asymmetrical dish with zoomorphic adorno, Morel, Guadeloupe, Huecoid 4 6 2 8 • • Bowl with zoomorphic (dog) adorno, La Hueca, Vieques, Huecoid 49 2

•9. Manatee adorno, Morel,

uadeloupe, Saladoid

52

2 10 • •

Vessels with flexed frog motif from Saladero, Venezuela, Land's End,

2 1 - 1.

Incised duck- haped ve sel with a ymmetrical strap handle, St.

Barbado , and Cana

Puerto Rico, Saladoid 56

therine', Trinidad, Saladoid-Barrancoid 2 12 • • 2 1 • 3·

Saladoid frog labyrinth motif

57

61

Ve el neck with anthropomorphized owl bases, from unknown site, uadeloupe, and Teda, Puerto Rico, Saladoid 66

2.14. Composite dog-manatee adorno with characteristically Huecoid deeply

4.8. Turtle motif with central "navel" dot on plastron, Mountain River Cave,

Jamaica, Ostionoid

incised eyes, Gare Maritime, Guadeloupe, Huecoid 67 2.15. Anthropomorphic vessel necks from unknown site, Antigua, and Great

(Dominican Republic), and Cueva Lucero (Puerto Rico), Taino 148

Courland Bay, Tobago, Troumassoid 70 2.16. Caliviny vessel fragments from unknown sites in Baliceaux, Grenadines,

4.10. Petroglyphs representing twins and Boinayel as personified cloud, Las

Caritas, near Lago Enriquillo, Dominican Republic, Taino 151

and Carriacou; and drawing of rare intact Caliviny vessel with frog and

4.11. Trigonal cemi petroglyph, Ruthland Vale estate, Layou, St. Vincent,

spiral motifs, Pearls, Grenada 74

Saladoid or Troumassoid 153

2.17. Carinated bowls, Woodford Hill beach, Dominica, Cayo 77

2.18. Vessel fragment with rare high-relief frog adorno, Overland, St. Vincent,

4. 12.

Cayo 79

Lucia, late Saladoid or early Troumassoid 155

90

3-2. avicular vessels from Cambridge Hill Cave, Jamaica, Meillacan, and

4-13- Petroglyphic motifs at Cueva de! Indio, Puerto Rico, Taino 156 4.14. Incised rock art figures (with comparisons to selected painted/drawn

unknown site, Jamaica, Meillacan White Marl 96 3.3. Geometric versus organic aesthetics in Taino pottery

motifs) 157

101

3.4. Zoomorphic adornos from Santo Domingo vicinity, Dominican Republic, Chican, and Ile de la Gonave, Haiti, Chican with Meillacan elements 102

4.15. Wrapped figure and crowned faces, Pare Archeologique des Roches

Gravees, Trois-Rivieres, Guadeloupe, Saladoid or Troumassoid nacional Los Haitises, Dominican Republic, Taino 164 4-17- Plan ofTibes with Portugues River, Puerto Rico 168

103

3.6. Taino mammiform-phallic bottle type from Salado Cave , and Altos de

Chav6n, Dominican Republic, Chican

Taino 169

4.1. Detail of incised motifs on Piedra Escrita (western end), Rio Coabey, Jayuya, Puerto Rico, Taino 123 4.2. Modified speleothem with multiple anthropomorphic,

owl, and bat

face , Warminster Cave, Jamaica, Taino 124 4.3. Figure-ground rever al motif at

4-18. Batey de! Cerni and its western pavement, Tibes, Puerto Rico, Saladoid-

107

3-7 Punctated bowl with frog adornos, Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Chican 107

4-19- Plaza de Estrella, Tibes, Puerto Rico, Saladoid-Taino

Plan of)acana with Portugues River and tributary, Puerto Rico

4-2 1.

Part of northern monolithic line, Jacana, Puerto Rico, Taino 182

4-2 3- View of Cerro el Cerni, Caguana, Puerto Rico, Taino 190

ladoid,

Cueva de Borb6n, Dominican Republic, Taino 143 4.5. Detail from mural illu trating t ry f Demi nan • racara ol' d rsal

pregnancy, Hoyo de Sanabe, Domini an Republi , Taino 144 6 4- • Frog-flexed figure , ueva de la Maravilla mini an Republi , Talno 145 14 6

180

4-22. Plan of Caguana with Tanama River, Puerto Rico 189

Caguana, Puerto Rico, Talno 192 4-2 5- Monoliths with incised aquatic creature , Caguana, Puerto Rico, Taino

4-4, Figure in cohoba ritual carrying patient in h ulder pole gurne ,

41. Frog-flexed figure , Wingfield E tate, t. Kitt , late

169

4- 2 0.

4.24. Batrachian (anuran) figures near center of western monolithic line,

ueva de Borb n/Pomier,

and Hoyo de anabe, Dominican Republic, Taino 142

Figure

161

4-16, Modified speleothem with perched owl form, Cueva Willy Simo, Parque

3.5. Composite form vessels from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic,

Trouma oid

Frog labyrinth motifs on incised ceramic body stamp, unknown site, Carriacou, Saladoid, and petroglyph on boulder at Balenbouche, St.

3.1. Elastic-type Ostionoid bowl, unknown site, Puerto Rico, Ostionan

Chican

147

4.9. Dimensional/volumetric figure pictographs from Cueva de la Linea

em re c mplex de ign 15 the frog labyrinth, which presents a highly ab tracted dorsal view of a frog with a Clfcle m the center of it back f h· h d rom w 1c ~roll outward four set of mean er that resolve into the flexed I g Of th f . . e e rog (~e chapter 2). Fie ed frog figure including that of the frog labyrinth, can be found throughout the aribbeaJl• across the Ceramic Florescence and aero th f ]yph ' e art r m potter to petrog body stamp to duho (elite tool and thr ne ) ( h ) ~e apter 2, , 5 . 20

chapters 4 and 5).

position. Motifs located in a single register encircling a ceramic vessel could

Pre-Columbian Art of the Caribbean

Perhaps most compelling of the continuities from the Early to Late Ceramic Florescence 1s • an enigmatic class of object found from -r,o bago to H.ispamo · 1a, but rare in Trinidad and Cuba. Trigonal cemis demonstrate the perennial interest • smooth or adorned geometric form . Most o f t hem are comca • 1w1"th . m circular or oval bases. It is their triangular profile that derives their popular name, "three-pointer :•These holy object have no apparent antecedents on the surrounding mainland Saladoid Eastern

and are thu a uniquely Caribbean ritual object. In the

aribbean and Puerto Rico, they were smaller and made of a

Wider variety of material

whereas in the Taino Greater Antilles and Leeward

Islands they greatly increased in ize and were elaborately carved with figural and abst • ract de 1gn-.,u ually in \tone ( ,;ee chapter 5). . Along ide trigonal cerni , the Caribbean tyle of duho seem at first impression to have been a Late eramil; Florescen e invention, but at least two whole duho have been found in the Ea\tern Caribbean, in · Trim · ·d a d , d atmg • to t he

~~ . . eram1c Flore ten

.

h

.

(see figures. 44 ). Their retrieval from t e preserving •nterior of the Pitch Lake on that mo t outhern aribbean i~land, and the clear zo rnorph 1•c ad ornrnent on ne of th •m, whi,h i but a ·imp Ier ver ion · o f w hat

Art Period,~nd Peoples of the Pre•(;olumbian Caribbean

21

is seen on Taino duhos a millennium later, suggests that this class of honorific seat originated in the early Ceramic Lesser Antilles. Across the Ceramic Florescence, but especially in its earlier years, sculpture and modeled pottery adornments presented an array of visual devices such as 42

contour rivalry, figure-ground

reversal, 43

visual kenning,

44

ambigrams,

45

2

and

other forms of polysemy that cause one thing to become another when looked

Ceramics of the Eastern Caribbean

at from another angle or with a different focus. These multivalent and transformational qualities of pre-Columbian Caribbean art do not only attest to the religious (often shamanic) associations that many object had; they also suggest that there may have been cultural tastes and philosophical interests in: similar-

The Spirit then sent him for a cooking-pot, telling him that he

ity within difference (and vice versa); divergence within cohesion and other

would find one lying among the roots of a certain tree, which he

intra-opposed concepts; and the organizing of animal species by shared, met-

described to him. The man went as directed, but could see only a

onym1c • 46 leatures so t hat two or more creatures might inhabit a single motif.

bush-master snake. When he came back, and reported what he had

The plural content and complex visual operations of pre-Columbian Caribbean

seen, the Spirit said: "Didn't you notice that the snake was coiled

art are as evident in painted ceramics as in hardwood sculpture, proof that the st rong artiSt ic connections bridged not only time and space but ometimes creative disciplines.

up like a pot? Why didn't you bring it as you were told?" So the man again went on his way, and when he reached the spot, lo and behold! there was a real cooking-pot painted in all the colors of the snake. From an Arawak legend, Guyana 1

In the Arawak narrative excerpted above, a man meets a spirit in the forest who assigns him a series of ta ks, all of which cause misunderstandings between the Protagon·1st and the unpo . . ogre-like spmt, . . for the latter spea ksin · metap h ors. mg When he sends the man for "akara" (land crab ) he means armadillos, by "cassav "(b a read/cakes) he means giant toad tool and by a "cooking-pot" he means a very large•co iied viper . . d erstan d'mgs with bold, geometric markings. A the m1sun play out i h . . • f n t e tale, we the audience are 10 tructed m the Arawakan use o metaphor in im . ( " age and peech, and their use of metonym to connect species e.g., shell" or "burrow" with armadillo and crabs, and "coil" with nake and pots). The aSSociation between the nake and the winding coil method by which Pots are m d . h· a e of clay al of rge a link between the creature, the mo1 t eart 1t Prefers a d h ' n t e earthen ymboli m of water-filled clay pot . Finally, while the Pot requ t ed eS by the fore t pirit is for co king, the pattern on a bushmaster are Parr1 I u arly analogou\ of the b Id polychrome de ign that could be found Pre-Columbian Art of the Caribbean

on adorned, ceremonial ceramics from the Amazon Delta to Puerto Rico by the

important effects on the material construction of an originaJly South American

beginning of the Common Era. The coloration of the black and brown snake

ceramic tradition, what with the increased access to shell and volcanic tem-

changes from the head to the tail, with either an even balance of the two colors

pers for ceramic pastes. 4 Additionally, since not all Early Ceramic Florescence

or a predominance of brown near the head and mostly black near the tail. When

settlers arrived at the same time (or even from the same place), interactions

the snake sits coiled like a pot, triangular markings from different parts of its

between different groups of settlers, across the region and across the period (c.

body end up adjacent to each other, in dramatic color reversals and complex

50o BCE-650 CE), also shaped the development of new ceramic vessel forms,

symmetries. Two-tone motif inversions of this sort abound in the early deco-

ritual functions, symbolism, and style.

rated ceramics of Orinochia and the Caribbean.

Early Ceramic Florescence settlers brought several types of adorned and un-

Sometime in the fifthor sixth century BCE, groups of South American pot-

adorned pottery into the region. The most widespread and characteristic type of

tery-making horticulturalists began arriving in the Antille . Their arrival was

adorned ceramic in the period was a slip-painted variety with boldly rendered

accompanied by an explosion in artistic production. The visual culture(s) intro-

motifs, often employing dynamic figure-ground reversals. These are diagnostic

duced by these new settlers encompassed sculpture both large and small, rock

features of the Saladoid series of pottery, whose white-on-red (WOR) decora-

art, jewelry, and pottery. No doubt, many important and potentially revelatory

tions With sharp, graphic contrasts are the most instantly recognizable of the

works from this early period in Caribbean art history have been lost to the ages,

Early Ceramic Florescence. The series derives its name from the site of Saladero

but owing to the sheer, overwhelming majority of surviving works in ceramic,

at the apex of the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela where a wide range of vessel types

we might call this new age the Antillean Ceramic Florescence.

and adornments were first catalogued in the early twentieth century. But such

From current carbon testing results and other archaeological evidence, this

boidJypolychromed pottery can be found from the Middle Orinoco to eastern

Antillean Ceramic Florescence appeared first on the large island of Trinidad and Puerto Rico, folJowed by smaller islands such a Martinique, Montserrat, and Antigua. In the last five centuries before the Common Era, inten ive levels

Hispaniola. Indeed, the Saladoid has one of the widest geographical ranges of a single series or style of pottery ever known in the Americas, rivaled in its geo-

of pottery-making commenced at sites on the,e i land and pread aero the East ern Caribbean. By the third or fourth century of the Common Era, islands

The Saiadoid was not the only pottery series of the Early Ceramic Florescence' b uI smce • . of that era h as b een ',oun d m • most of the artistic production

such as Grenada, Carriacou, St. Vincent, and even di tant Barba do ea t of the

Saladoid context (i.e., found and excavated alongside diagnostic Saladoid pot-

main archipelago, were dotted with permanent and temporary settlement

tery), scholars often conceive of the whole Early Ceramic Florescence in the islands as th e Saladoid era. Lasting more than a millennium · · • h A n fll 1 es, in t e this fern1 · · I e period of exchange and innovation gave nse to new sty es, mott·fs, and even d 1stmct • · classes of decorated object that were unprece d ente d on t h e

well as sites where specialized activitie and salt production were conducted.2

uch a

3

tone quarn'ing, bead-maki!lg,

The Ceramic Flore cence may have been a revolution not onl} in the arts but also in the •m tensivene • of Caribbean horticulture and the exploitation f

°

natural resource · It was al o a period marked b con iderable change in the organization of Anti"llean oc1e • 1·1e an d the charatter f the regi n' re1·1g1o • u . beliefs and ritual pract·tees. Th e mteract1on · • d between the new ettler\ an the region' older (i e "A h • ") • h b h ,, • ·• re aic m a itant arc ·et p rl under tood, but t e"' encounters may have g· • .~d iven nse to new technique and \-mbol in p ttery ..,. the other arts In f t h . .~ • ac , upon t e1r entran e int the Antillt'.., the ra.,.-aleri and tyl of Caribbean pottery i used to represent symbolic animals,and ondarily, anthrop morphic haradcr such a mytho-historical

tndeed

Figure 2.9. Manateeadorno, Morel,Guadeloupe, Saladoid.C • I>•· . R' . Id eram, • 2.5 6 -5 ,m. recuon cg1ona e, Affaire Culturelles Guadel Ph , oupe. otograph b •uth,,r.

Pre-Columbian Art of the Caribbean

cramic of the Ea tern aribbean

53

figures or deities. These constituted a major part of the potters' symbolic vocab-

a deity, or cemf, during the Taino era. The translation of ceramic dog adornos

ulary, and that of their societies as a whole. Early Ceramic Florescence modeled

to freestanding sculpture and carved amulets might also suggest a gender shift

adornments offer more promise of being deciphered than painted and incised

in the producers of dog imagery (i.e., presumably from mostly female potters to mostly male sculptors).

motifs. The abstract WOR designs of Saladoid ceramics are briefly treated above in terms of design elements but not symbolic content, although some painted

The Antilles rearranged the zoomorphic iconography of the mainland tropi-

motifs are arranged to represent zoomorphic and other figures. Cedrosan Sala-

cal lowlands. Imagery of monkeys, those mythic nemeses of humanity in the

doid adornments attract our attention for their graphic strength and intrigu-

Amazonian mythos, became exceedingly rare, and feline imagery virtually noneXistent. In this maritime environment, the enormous, dive-bombing pelican

ing portrayal of species, but this repertoire of figural representations may have sparked even greater interest in people who were, presumably, initiated in the "reading" of these decorated vessels. Precisely because of the interest they en-

is paramount position among mainland aviforms) may have been shamanic

morphs have been the focus of this author's previous research, as well as that

healing symbols among the Huecoid of the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico, and on the few Windward Islands where they appeared in Saladoid adornos.

of scholars such as Peter Roe and Henry Petitjean Roget. The reader is referred

Likewise, crocodilians, a mainland staple, enjoyed only a very limited cult

to those publications (cited throughout this section), but substituted here, only

significance on certain islands with scarce freshwater, where these nonnative,

in the briefest terms, is a necessary discussion of some of the major symbolic zoomorphs.

riverine creatures connoted the Orinoco's seasonal flooding into the Caribbean. Parrots and macaws, however, retained their mainland solar connota-

The Cedrosan Saladoid presents by far the greatest diver ity of zoomorphiC

tions, and long-legged swamp birds, their mythical associations with storms.

imagery in pre-Columbian Caribbean art. More than twenty species are repre-

Ducks, symbolically impervious by virtue of their water-repellant feathers and their lik . eness to canoes in tropical lowland legends, were an easy motif to adapt th tn e Saladoid Windwards. But the pan-Antillean interest in owls and other

gender and the meaning they seem to impart, Early Ceramic Florescence zoo-

sented in Cedrosan adornos, alongside a multitude of hybrid and fanciful crea37

tures. The corporeal species represented include armadillo , opo um , dogs, anteaters, monkeys, manatees, bats, owls, vulture , pelican , wamp birds (e.g., with rare incidences of songbirds, snakes, lizards, whale , dolphin , harks, pro·

night birds, from their first appearance on Saladoid-era pottery to their abiding Popula ·ty S n across the later Taino arts, seems to have been unprecedented in the aladoid mainland arts.39

cyonids (coatis and raccoons), agoutis and other rodent

Th·UsuaJly,for Cedrosan and Huecoid adornos, only the head was represented.

herons, egrets, and ibises), ducks, parrots, macaws, caimans, frogs, and turtles, coendou

peccaries,

and tapirs, especially in the southernmost islands. Among the many species that appear in ceramic adornment

of the EarlY

Ceramic Florescence in Eastern Caribbean and Puerto Rico, the turtle as aJl· cestral mother, the frog as the bringer of fertility, the bat a corporeal embodi· ment of the dead, the owl as their emissary, and dog a ._ mpani n-guides to the afterlife are the most common. Intere tingly, the~

ame pecie\ (with thf

exception of dogs) also constitute the relatively re tricted menagerie of cerami' zoomorphs during the Late Ceramic Flore ence. It $tern, that the favorite pe· cie_sof the Cedrosan Saladoid potter

pecificall • were pa ed down to the

Tamo-era ceramicists. In the ca!>11 • • Pierrr WildfowlTrust, Trinidad. PhrAograph bY author. • pOlnt

.,, •

,ramie uf 1he Easlern aribbean

57

of Early Ceramic Florescence iconography. The use of fine painting and mod-

The sea turtle would have made not only a good symbol of the primary

eling elevated pottery above the utilitarian level of the charred, undecorated

female ancestor with many offspring but also the consummate symbol of the

pots found throughout the Caribbean. A pot's decoration also associated the

Antilleans as a distinct people-a people born on these islands (from an other-

imagery thereon with the ceremonies in which such pottery was used, suggest·

worldly, aquatic ancestor), and destined to live their lives with one proverbial

ing that the animal motifs were intended to impart, embody, and/or engender

foot on land and the other in their canoes at sea. The sight of a sea turtle appear-

certain narratives, themes, and ideas. These symbolic animals would have re·

ing or disappearing in the surf would also be visually analogous to the sighting

lated not just to particular ritual acts, but also to the foods, medicines, and other

of an island on the horizon. Perhaps this confluence of mythological, ethologi-

materials used in vessels bearing their image.

cal, and visual connotations is why the turtle was the most common zoomorph th roughout pre-Columbian Caribbean art, appearing in more than just the

For example, traditional narratives of Conquest-era Hispaniola suggested that the ubiquitous turtle and frog images of the Antilles symbolized differ· ent aspects of fecundity. A turtle figures prominently in a Taino-era narrative in which the culture hero Deminan Caracaracol discovers a female sea turtle gestating in a swelling on his back. When his three brothers pry open his back and remove the turtle, they become her husbands, and together, the quadru· plet brothers and "Turtle Woman" parent the first Antilleans. 42 Thu , from the dorsal pregnancy of one brother comes the wife they will share in polyandrous union, perhaps siring four original lineages of the Antillean -all, proverbial children of the Sea Turtle.

shapes of bowls and dishes but also in rock art, amulets, and sculptures across th • l e is ands, throughout the entire Ceramic Florescence. Some pre-Columbian houses seem to have referenced the turtle's shape in their floor plan and their typicallydomical roofs. 45 Just as widespread and second only to the turtle in how commonly it apPeared on early pottery was the frog. In the rainy season the Caribbean nights resound . h Wit the mating song of piping frogs. In fact, wherever freshwater flows or Pools, regardless of the time of year, it is accompanied by frog-song. The tiny Pipingfro (El f gs eutherodactylusspp.) of the islands were, and are, sonic markers 0

This story seems to be part of a whole cycle of legend about the Taino cul· ture hero Deminan Caracaracol and his three brother (unnamed in the Coll' quest-era transcription) whose adventures and misadventures in turn provide part of the greater origin narrative of people in the Greater Antilles. Several other parts of the cycle appear to be lost, but the ubiquity of the ea turtle efll• blem throughout the Late, but also Early Ceramic Florescence ugge t a 100.g 1 tradition of reverence for this animal symbol. Although sea turtle imagery ,s . ~s known m South American Saladoid ceramics, the popularity of the rept image understandably increased in the Antille (where turtle ne t far rnore numerously), 43 and carried through to the Late Ceramic Florescence. Conquering Spaniards are at once the cause of the lo ofTaino-era traditions, through the killing or conversion of the tradition bearer themselve , and the re· •

tenl!on of some Indigenous tradition if only a onqui tador/mi

~

ionary rep ·ral

age. Upon his return to Spain after hi second voyage t the America

dJl1l

6P Columbu left behind on the island of Hi paniola a Hieronymite friar, Ralfl Pane, charging him to record what he could of the cu tom and belief of t)lt PeopeI th ere.44 In th I• late fifteenth-century account, th fir t of on! a few written • th C _,,,,,tefS m e onque t-era and early colonial Caribbean, me of the maj r h.u~ in Antillean religion, hi tory, mythology, and art ha\'e been con~rved. 58

Pre-Columbian Ari of the Caribbean

potable Water,and heralds of the rainy season-the period of planting. Frogs seem to h h ave eld this symbolism across the northern crown of South America andweII · th into Central America as well.46 When planting was finished, but while e torrentj 1 . . a rams continued to douse the conucos(agricultural plots), couples spent mor . . .. e time together. This season of germinating seeds, tubers, and Joints of manioc I . was a so a penod of human fertility. The fact th at t h e mother goddess, Atabeyra, represented on the Tamo-era , PetroglYPh , 1· sat Jacana and aguana in Puerto Rico (see chapter 4) has the flexed llllbsof a f . . r rog much like those depicted on both Early and Late Ceramic Floescence ex . pottery, amulets and trigonal cemf link frogs to the profound human Perience of ' "f pregnancy. When giving birth, women probably took Atabeyras rog•flexed" .. . . . e po 1tion, toopmg with knee apart and level with their breasts to -~~y. Thus, frog .imagery could invoke the rainy . • •• and penod of crop fert1hty human co . . N nccpt1on, and al o the moment of birth. 0 . statu more evident . · a part1cu • Iar mo t'1f th Where i th e fr g, pec1al than m at transce d f th n ed the boundarie of art form and per i ted throughout most o eAntillean · · bl xh'b" the erarn1 Flore ccnt:e. It i a c mplex, mazelike em em e I itmg geometric I· h. h d'd ap a mtcre t of the Ronquinan aladoid potters, but w 1c I not Pear unn1 h . . t e cdr an in the i lands, at which point 1twas painted on WOR-

( eramict of the Ea tern taribbean

59

ware, incised and/or modeled on monochrome and unpainted vessels, carved as petroglyphs, incised into sheU amulets and body stamps, and inscribed onto wooden surfaces as well, although few wooden examples survive. The expanding popularity of this symbol in the likewise expanding Saladoid world follows a trajectory from naturalism to abstraction, with the various forms of stylization (i.e., the subjecting of the naturalistic image to a design scheme) bridging the two extremes. In Early Ceramic Florescence pottery, there p· tgure 2 .12. Saladoid frog labyrinth motifs. Drawings by author.

are many naturalistic representations of frogs and frog features, especially on adornos. However, the abstract frog emblem seems to have developed from one of the more stylized renditions of the creature in dorsal view, legs symmetrically flexed (i.e., hind legs versus front ones) on the edges of the animal's simplified, oval, often faceless body. These stylized versions of the frog image were painted and/or incised on Cedrosan Saladoid and Barrancoid dishes and bowls frorn Venezuela to Antigua (figure

interior or exterior of the vessel with few modeled details if any. The body of

h_avebeen mindful that the hourglass motif has a kind of inverse relationship to a circle Th .. • us, it ts as a complement to circles that the hourglass shape was selected

the frog was sometimes rendered by a thick outline, leaving a large undecorated

by Cedrosan potters to create the four cruciform extensions from the central

area in the middle (in the shape of an O) coinciding with the bottom/center

circle of the frog labyrinth, effectively making the labyrinth a kind of quincunx.

of the vessel. Each leg of the creature was rendered "ith a curled, sometirnes

The hourglass shapes in other Saladoid pottery designs actively create figureground reversals and these are no exception. Regardless of the cross they make Whene · nvisioned alone, the beholder/user was probably intended to hold both frog maze and cardinal hourglasses in mind simultaneously.

2.10

le.ft).They took up the greater part of the

scrolling line of similar thickness extending toward the vessel rim. Thi. glyph· like oval figure with four curled limbs was probably the tyliz.ed prototype oft.he totally abstract emblem that anthropologist Henry Petitjean Roget has called the "frog labyrinth" motif, 47 one that span the Antillean Ceramic Florescence and is not found in South America. By the third century of the Common Era, the o,-al frog motif had gone fro(ll a glyph-like simplification of a frog image to thi elaborate, labyrinthine rnotif with more detail than any naturalistic Saladoid or Barrancoid frog had ever required. It was now a compact, internally complicated emblem with leg con· 3

sisting of hairpin meander densely pressed together in a dizzying pattern t.h t rippled from a central, undecorated circle (figure

2.10

center and right). In the

''el·

t

small gaps between the flexed hind and front leg (i.e., where the frog f 0 b ows"al most touc h' it kn ees), there wa created the familiar hourg Ia rnotif

painted (and incised) SaJadoid pottery. 48 The same motif wa also created in we open space between the two front extremitie. and between the two back ones as well. Together, the four hourglas (figure 2.12). The hourgla

.

hape created a Mahe e er

-like desiSfl

ated

motif of Saladoid pottery i it If a hape that can be ere

t

between adjacent circle lined up in a regi ter with th ir circumfer..-n~e aJrflO'

60

touching. Saladoid potters often had occasion to place circles or roundels together in this way, thereby creating this shape in between, and so they would

Pre-Columbian Art of the Caribbean

th The maze of the frog's body and limbs is in turn enclosed by a larger circle on ezoom h' orp s outer contour, which sometimes comes to the edge of the vessel 1 ::

•

like gates to the labyrinth or, given their symmetry, like cardinal gates of

center).Sometimes, the central circle of the . . of . )'Tinth skirts the nm of a vessel (figure 2.10 right). In the dizzymg effect f lffialayan mandala (figure ~~. . Wire-line

2.10

11 h scro s turning about the central circle (a dense pattern t at can .

~~..

• e optical 1Uu ions of motion we get from looking at radial patterns), 1t is eas y to lose ight of the frog. th Why it became necessary to ab tract the frog motif to this degree, beyond •~an . . . th Yother zoomorph, remain unclear. Both the circle 1n the middle of e motif and h . . th , 1 1 . t e four quadrant around it seem to be of ignificance. In e ,o • Diving h c apters, the importance f the number four to Late Ceramic Florescence Peoplei ct· a 't , iscu sed furth r but even in thi chapter we have already encountered aino-era . . . tl .. , (a narrative 1n whi h quadruplet brother , together with Tur e vvoman Progenito • I . b . inan na qu1ncunx in their own right), produce what may have een ongy four m a1or • Ian of Antillean 49 In colder part of the Amencas · (an d m •

( eramic of the Ea tern

aribbean

61

many other parts of the world), the number four can represent the four seasons,

frog'srain-pummeled back. The "ripples" from the frog's back may reference time

but in the tropical lowlands, where there are only two or three seasons (dry, wet,

and continuity between descendants and ancestors, the living and the dead.

and a third for hurricanes), the other meanings of the number are stressed, re-

In addition to the numberless frog pendants made throughout the Ceramic

lated to the cardinal directions and lunar phases. These may also exist alongside

Florescencewith circles drilled or carved at their centers, an unusual carved stone

ritual and mythic references to other quadripartite symbolisms peculiar to the

object from St. Vincent engages directly with the circle on the frog's back, but

groups. 50

The cruciform symbolism of the frog labyrinth mo-

offersa completely three-dimensional interpretation of the high abstraction that

tif may have some relevance to barometrics, given the zoomorph's association

characterizes the two-dimensional motif of the frog labyrinth. The stone object

with rain. But the likely numerological, astrologicaVethno-astronomical or other

is rather too large to be a pendant (and has no holes for attaching it to a cord)

cultural values assigned to the number four, and the question of which of these

and suggests that the abstract frog motif with the circle on its back was already

related directly to frogs, remain uncertain for Saladoid-era people.

a full-fledged icon (i.e., the Saladoid-era equivalent of a cemi) in Cedrosan St.

ethoi of certain

Regarding the dense, elastic scrolling of the limbs of the labyrinthine zoo-

v·incent (figure 5.21).

The full cemi status of the frog motif in the Early Ceramic

frog labyrinth, but in this more "baroque" version, the womorph's elastic Junbs

Florescence might explain the degree to which it was abstracted in the arts of th at period. This in turn suggests that people of that time might have reserved abstract" c ion ,or the profoundest iconography and naturalism for lower, more accessible ( . . . unm1tiated) levels of symbolism. The presence of so many naturalistic

make another hairpin turn, which connects the flexed limbs at the front end of

frogadornos from the same Early Ceramic Florescence culture that produced this

the zoomorph with those at the back-the left front limb now connected to the

:resumably cemi-class frog labyrinth inspires fascination and creates confusion. Ut th is phenomenon was echoed in the Late Ceramic Florescence where, even on trigonal • f . cem1s, rogs were sometimes rendered in naturalistic and even expressivedetail d , an at other times anthropomorphized or abstracted (see chapter 5).

morph, they might be a decorative flourish on more straightforward versions of the emblem, but perhaps also attributed with meaning from traditional narratives about travel or other movement. In simpler versions, a circle tightly encloses the

left hind limb and the same for the limbs on the right. The hourglass "gates" are affected by this connection of limbs, in that the ones at the front and back ends of the frog still manage to reach the outer circle of the maze, but the ones on the side become contained within the maze, as dead ends (figure 2.12 center). These deliberate decisions in designing the pattern make it difficult to guesS whether the clever artisan was being playful or expres ing a pecili.c meaning-

The naturalistic, stylized, and abstract frog imagery that informs adorned Pots a nd effigy vessels (but other art forms as well) from the Cedrosan Saladoid and u l\nf P to the Taino era testifies to the frog's perennial (if adjustable) place in an

5

. illean propagation principle, where thi womorph likely occupied several d tfferent s . . till emiotic categorie . Considering the turtle's role at the head of the An-

essentially static motif but imparted extra layer of meaning with the compleJ''

f ean matrilineage, the manatee's likely a ociation with the nurturing aspects th :. rno erhood (manati meaning "brea t" in Taino Arawakan),53 and swamp 1rd s' relationship to the les benevolent water of the hurricane season, Antil-

Since we are assured that the frog did in fact posse

great ymbolic importance

for ancient Antilleans, it is likely that the more elaborate, quadripartite ver i0J1 of the frog labyrinth motif were not simply exuberant! decorated ver ions of 311 ity added across the Ceramic Florescence. In previous studies, I have ugge ted that the frog emblem with a circle on it back connotes, and may have been inspired by, the corporeal referent seen fro:

1eanP

ropagation belief (or "fertility cults") eem to have varied considerably across th e region by the aladoid era' end.

above in water with its back either ju t in.king beneath or breaking the urfaceAnd it is not just that the female fertility ymbol of the frog i a

ciated witb

life-giving water but also that in the co mology of man tropical lowland people f th • . L _,I; 'of rom e Amazon to the Antilles (and m Mewamerica as "-ell), great Osecure>settle" strategy followed by some Arawakan-

It is noteworthy that the Ostionan's Troumassoid-like gravitation toward simplicity was not accompanied by some major population decline, as appears to have been the case in parts of the Eastern Caribbean but rather occurred alongside an expansion and apparent increase in the construction of cerem 0 • nial centers, diversification of social practices, and expanding stratification of

definiteness and suddenness with which Ostionoid traits appeared all over the Greater Antilles-a demographic phenomenon, as noted by Curet. 22

Greater Antillean society.17Yet the two contemporaries had in common that

The evidence of a westward population expansion is particularly clear in

their ceramicists were innovating form (rather than elaborating surface decora·

Jamaica and the Bahamas. On the large, mountainous island of Jamaica, the first·ever human settlement seems to have taken place only during the Os-

tion)-elastic cazuelas in the west, and footed vessels and tripod griddles in the east. The move then toward new forms and decorative simplicity in the irnmedi· ate post-Saladoid period does seem to be a pan-Antillean aesthetic trend, witb unique regional expressions, and perhaps effected or mitigated by conditions beyond those in the physical environment. Rather, the internal workings of culture seem to have been driving innovations in the waning years of the firSI millennium. Irving Rouse saw the "Ostiones culture" as a direct descendant of the Jate Saladoid, albeit with increasing interactions with older Greater Antillean peo· pies (i.e., the Archaic Corosan and Casirniroid people) as the post-Sa!adoi~ Arawakans pushed westward into new territories of the Greater Antilles, However, subsequent generations of scholars, including

1arcio Veloz N!ag·

giolo, Antonio Curet, Renie! Rodriguez Ramos, and others have stressed

we

likelihood of multiple cultural interactions in an emerging O tionoid betweeJl a variety of peoples living in Puerto Rico and Hi paniola. 19Indeed, in puert~ 0 • th e tra d'1tions • Rico of Ceramic Florescence people ( i.e., the de cen dants . . and Huecoid potters) would have encountered not only A~ t h e Salado1d r •csas decorative traditions in sculpture and variou ephemeral art but in ceraflll

we11 • As we now know, Archaic people in the Greater Antille were no t~~ 1iat as "aceramic" a Rouse had believed initially. \ e are only ju t uncovering W ·d 0001 techniques, vessel forms, and motif might have been contributed to O ti pottery from semi sedentary Archaic people. 20 r· mu e th e p1oneermg • • d~~ cholarship of Rou e ha been complicate c

not

ably by recent archaeological di coverie and methodological h1ft , he was

92

►

speaking peoples in the northern Amazon. 21The preliminary explorations and permission-securing part of this strategy would also explain the apparent

Pre-Columbian Art of the Caribbean

tionan•23H ab'1tat1ons . first appeared in coastal regions, 1eavmg . ev1.dence o f m• tensive f . d · • . use o manne resources, and then spread to the rugge mtenor wit• h increased d

. ependence on horticulture. 24This fits the profile of new settlers m

anisIand environment

with an initial orientation toward the sea; however, the

s~meheavy dependence on marine foods and materials also resembles the subsistence patterns of Archaic people in the Greater Antilles.25Jamaica's settlers ~P~bl a Yan already genetically and culturally mixed Arawakan-speaking • Peoplew· h b . Ji· It oth Archaic and Arawakan subsistence kits brought mtact from ispaniola and adaptable to a variety of situations and island environments. c . Thee ar 1· ier assumption that the westward-expanding cultural trans,ormalions of th . . . . S e Ostiono1d period were the result of resumed migration of postaladoid A · b . rawakans has been itself expanded to a hypothesis that people, 0 ~~ . . d • nology, and ideas were all moving westward (and sometimes eastwar intothe L . I eeward Islands a well), sometimes together but sometunes separate Y and at ct·tt no i erent rates.26 A people' tool art, and even parts of their religion, 1 th ey th lllenclature, and social custom. can arrive in a place before t h ey do ('f emselve b sever follow at a!J), brought by ingle exiles, by exogamic spouses, or YeJCogeno f. I u nend allie , captive or trading partners. • a n thew e tern ,reater Anti Ile the ight of a ingle pot ma de or d ecora te d m n eJCor the ic ea tern tyle, itting by the fire, or a new kind of amulet worn arou nd ele neck,could park a creative revolution among local arti t and artisans. Style rrtents t I I d f • sio rave much fa ter than entire people do with canoe- oa s o proVJn •And 1 t he transculturati n engendering and characterizing th e Ostionoi • 'd

·r

Ceramic of the Greater Antilles

93

period in the Greater Antilles was doing so not only in the realm of intangibles,

of the Meillacan Ostionoid, a ceramic subseries that emerged alongside the late

but on a genetic level in the intimacy of human pair-bonding, then the children

Or s 1onan in several parts

of the western Greater Antilles.

of such unions potentially would be the inheritors of plural traditions. The Ostionan period emerged from, and was supported by, a brisk exchange of ideas, aesthetics, and customs across the Greater Antilles, but as mentioned above, only Jamaica and the Bahamas seem to confirm the very first arrival of

Around

900

CE Ostionan redware gave way to mostly unpainted ceramics.

people along with their pottery and other artifacts. The other islands of the re·

From that point onward, the majority of pottery in the Greater Antilles would

gion present reliable evidence of a dynamic circulation of artifacts and cultural

be unpainted. 29 Named after the Me iliac type site in northeastern Haiti near

traits, although the exact patterns of movement of ethnic Arawakans clirectlY

today's border with the Dominican Republic, Meillacan Ostionoid pottery

descended from the Saladoid-era settlers are yet unproven. The detectable pop· ulation growth in the Greater Antilles from the Ostionan to the Taina periods

77

supports the idea of new infusions of settlers expanding from the east as conceived by early scholarship on the region. In the i99os anthropologist Peter Roe credited the intensification of agri· culture (not only in coastal communities but increasingly in island interiors) as the cause of this population growth but also as the cause of an evident west· ward Ostionan expansion out of Puerto Rico. Perhaps a power was consoli· dated by leaders on that island, or as resources became partially depleted there, people felt urged to move westward into new areas and renewed egalitariaJl' ism. He points to this growing, westward-expanding population as the cause 5 of the second artistic apogee of the pre-Conquest Caribbean. The innovatiOl1

(hereafter referred to as "MeiUacan") was an important subseries of this unpainted pottery and seems to have issued from the central area of Hispaniola that is 1·t . s namesake. From there it spread westward to Cuba and Jamaica, and northward to the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos. 30 There is little evidence that th e Meillacan subseries spread eastward back toward the Ostionoid heartland surround· h mg t e Mona Passage (i.e., easternmost Hispaniola and westernmost Puerto R· ) b ico and thus seems to have closely followed the thrust of what would th e e last great Arawakan migrations within the Antilles. The fact that the newly'Arawakanized" territories of western Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Cuba also Produced th. is new kind of pottery is perhaps testimony to the dynamic cultural exchang . . . es going on m the expand mg frontiers between Arawakans (now, them-

~~ . m1Xedancestry) and other Antilleans. The ever-expanding use of their 1

Eastern Caribbean behind as an ancient place of origin on it eastern margiJlS,

anguage is a key f ac t or m • t h.1s"Arawaka mzat1on . . " wh ose dynam1cs . m1g . ht more Properlyb d . e escnbed as a process of transculturation. . • ceramics · exh1·b·its exogemc · el Meillacan po tt ery more than any other Ost10no1d ernents i b introct n vessel construction and decoration-i.e., elements that seem to e

within the Greater Antilles region itself, the prototypical complex chiefdoms of

1·

of this period, for Roe, seem to have centered in Hispaniola, e~entially leavillg Puerto Rico on the eastern, "provincial" margins.is Thu , in the same way that the ascendant Greater Antilles might have left the now somewhat depopulated

Puerto Rico had become eastern ancestor to a newl 'a cendant Hi paniolall• Jamaican, Bahamian, and Cuban sphere by the time of the Chican OstionoidThe evident westward population growth, and the apparent fir t settleJTlenl of Jamaica and the Bahamas, seem to confirm a fre hand growing upplY_of settlers, perhaps migrating fir t out of Puerto Rico a Roe ugge t The iniual Ostionan part of this expan ion seem to have further complicated the alreadY 3

5 : Puerto ruca11 0 they encountered yet other peoples in new we tern territorie . It goe ,~ith \

plural identities of Saladoid-Barrancoid-Huecoid-Archalc saying that the people they met in Hi paniola and

uba may al o have been o_

plural Archaic and non-Archaic identitie , born of en unter we are yet to uJI . . ·oJlS cover. Possible evidence of continuing pluralization lie in certain eXPreSS•

94

Meillacan Ceramics and Ostionoid Diversity

Pre-Columbian Art of the Caribbean

uced from outside the evident Saladoid-to-Ostionoid developmental ine, or eve th O . h' n e st1onan-to-Chican lineage. Ostionan and later C 1can pot1 ery ernpl . . fel oyed sun1lar clay paste exhibiting light-colored flecks of quartz and dsparte · d mper • Meillacan pottery made between these two style penods, an 0 Verlapp· h lvith ing I em in many location sometimes employed very different clays, ceramj • .. k · h • i cs m Ha111containing darker colored tempers from roe 5 nc m ~~ . . f rnagne ium. Archaeologi t William Keegan and others have inferred rornth·I th a nd other evidence that Mcillacan potter in fact did not share entirely e Sarne" . the common tradition" that linked the Ostionan to the Ch1can and that elCogen· th A h · inh . ic contributors to the Meillacan pottery tradition were e re ate abttant 0 f . H1 paniola. 11 Addition II d a Y, many elCample. of Meillacan ceramics have been excavate

cramics ufthe Greater Antilles

95

alongside lithic objects of the pre-Arawakan Casimiroid type otherwise found at older (i.e., Archaic) sites in the western Greater

Antilles. 32 Meillacan

pottery,

vessel'sprofile) and other edges were often softened. A characteristic aspect of

with only partial Ostionan origins, apparently being made and used alongside

Meillacan shoulder decoration is the band of directional incisions that seem to

Archaic-type stone tools indicates that the frontier between Arawakan and pre·

rnimic the weave of baskets-yet another expression of the Ostionoid penchant

Arawakan populations extended down into the grain of everyday life, and into

for referring to softer materials in ceramic. Appliqued decorations were also

the households of individual families. On the other hand, an indication that

carried over from the Ostionan. [n some cases, their patterns also reference the

the Arawakan-Archaic frontier might have operated on the structural level of

crosshatched texture of basketry as do the lines of punctations found on some Pottery walls.

culture can be glanced in the potentially symbolic forms and decorations of ceramics and other art objects.

If there is any doubt about Meillacan potters' interest in the texture of bas-

Meillacan vessels tend to be geometric (hemispherical, globular, or conical)

ketry, the potters of the Bahamas settle this by having imprinted actual basketry

or of the bulging and sagging type established in the Ostionan. Among the geo· metnc• vesse1s especially, the Meillacan potters preferred restricted mou thD s. in shape. In fact, Meillacan potters showed even greater interest in navicular

(probably from woven palm mats) directly onto the walls of their vessels before th ey dried. 34 This shell- and limestone-tempered "Palmetto" ware was made th by e Lucayo-the Bahamian branch of the expanding Arawakan population. th Wi th ese weave impressions, the Lucayo not only devised a quick and clever

vessels than their Ostionan predecessors, sometimes elongating the vessel forll1

~~~d ecoratmg · · process for their pottery but also left us a partial record o f

Many examples from the bulging-sagging category were decidedly navicula!

to more closely resemble a canoe (figure 3.2). The diametric "tightened" parts of the vessel rim thus became the raised bow and stern of the vessel. Unlike the vessel illustrated here, much of Meillacan ware is of a rougher clay, downright gravelly to the touch (figure

3-2

right). Like O tionan ware, MeilJacaJl

decoration is usually located on the shoulders of ve sels but, given the organic contours of some vessels discussed below, sometimes it was the decorations th emselves that established where that shoulder began. With the new plasti'

F' . iJ)aCOl1· igure_3.,. av,cular vessels: (left) div, with notched rim de.ign. Cambridge Hill C..Ve.J:unai,-a, M• -g1,d ceramIC, 33 cm length (\mithsonian • 'ational Mu.eum of the Amen,an Indian, \\.a,hington, DC):(~_ bow_lwith notched rim design, uncertain site (probably White Marl), Jamai a, \leill an \\'hit< Marl, '.:of, IC Wlth white pigment a • I . h b •auu• • ppro,umate Y 30.5 cm diameter (Taino \luseum, Jamaica) Photogrop '

96

b

aesthetic of the Ostionoid, carinations (i.e., sudden changes in direction on the

Pre-Columbian Art of the Caribbean

~~ f . F es O cane/reed/leaf weaving used in at least the latter half of the Ceramic

lorescence. Other incised patterns of the Meillacan took rectilinear motifs as . . 1-1 sis, a visual scheme that recalled Huecoid designs (although not with Uecoid 2 . . one-mc1sed textures augmented with pink or white) but also pre~ ili . . .. e ascendant Antillean key of the subsequent Chican Ostt0no1d senes. t he1r ba .

The rims of navicular Meillacan vessels were often augmented with two diarnetric tab I I ,i:, u ar ugs. These u ually took on a triangular, fishtail shape (figure 3.2 1e,,} but c Id b ou e more elaborately modeled into a variety of full-fledged adornos, includ. . . th ing those that turned the two points of the regular fishtail shape mto e ears 0 r ear tufts of bats or owls, re pectively. Some pointy-eared adornos ~~ . represented dogs a well, ince we know that Ostionan and Me1llacan Potters in C b . . th u a at least maintained the practice of making canine adornos m e Sa!adoid/H . .. in ueco1d manner even as that particular zoo morph was trans1tt0nrng out . of 1•1keIY 1cemale-dominated pottery into the cemf sculptures ma d e bY en1no . . hono1d Hi paniola. A dog ad . Ofl-J. orno from el Museo Indocubano Banf in Cuba's eastern provmce olguin ·h · d in represent the creature perched erect on the vessel rim, wit raise , ward-curt· · · f both ing tail, peering int the ve sel mouth exactly m the manner o in l-1.uecoidand Saladoid adornos, induding Ronquinan Saladoid ones datg all thew . . Alth ay back to the !>econdmillennium B I:.on the Middle Ormoco. Cal[;ugh th e anachroni,tic. ad mo i broadly labeled "Taino" in Maure's and

Art and Archaeologyof Pre-( olwnbian Cuba, and it does indeed exhibit

(..eramic, of 1he Greater Antilles

97

the pronounced ribcage of some Taino shaman sculptures, its posture, tail, and

tion toward fully unpainted wares with a high degree of modeling was almost

erstwhile location on a vessel rim are all Early Ceramic Florescence traits and

complete. This transition would culminate in the Taino pottery of the Chican ostionoid, which nevertheless made selective use of Meillacan and Ostionan elements.

probably date this adorno to sometime earlier in the Ostionoid style progres· sion than the Chican-perhaps

the early Meillacan or even the Ostionan.

The Bani dog adorno is not alone in its strong resemblance to Saladoid zoo· morphs. Pelican adornos at el Museo Antropol6gico Montane in northwestern

Ch·ican Culture and Ceramics

Cuba, some of them still attached to sherds of Ostionan or Meillacan-type na· the Saladoid Eastern Caribbean. 35 Additionally, on their own, the Troumas·

Tue Late Ceramic Florescence culminated in the Tafno or Tainoan societies that sp d anne the last three centuries before the Spanish Conquest (c. 1200-1500

soid-type "M-brows" over coffee bean eyes of anthropomorphic adornments on

CE), and which encompassed geographically almost the entire western Carib-

some Cuban ceramics could be dismissed as pan-Antillean elements that war.

bean from central Cuba to some of the northern Leeward Islands, and including th e Bahamas and Turks & Caicos. The ceramic series associated with this period

vicular bowls or dishes, are identical in shape, style, and execution to those frorn

and wane with the various transitions of style across the region, but coupled with the very conservative retention of Saladoid dogs, birds, and other zoo· morphs that turn up on some Ostionan and Meillacan vessels, the far western island of Cuba presents some unexpected and fascinating continuities from the Early Ceramic Florescence in the far eastern islands. These apparent anachrO· nisms in Cuban Ostionoid adornment await further investigation. Although Meillacan incised and modeled pottery is usually unpainted, doz· ens of coastal and interior sites on the island of Jamaica consistently produced a white-painted ware called White Marl.

amed after the ite where it was

found by archaeologist Randolph Howard in the 1950s, White Marl potterY .b. f h · ·oJa, exh I its many o t e same vessel forms as Meillacan pottery in H1spaJ11 Cuba, and other parts of Jamaica itself. The same alternating tensions and sagging in the contour of Ostionan and Meillacan vessel can be seen in any white Marl navicular bowl, with the same raised, diametric fi htail lugs (figure 3.z right). Perpendicular to those lugs are the same notched, applique ridges aJong

the vessel's shoulder that can be seen in other Meillacan ve sel , so that each cardinal point on the vessel shoulder is punctuated either by a fishtail lug (e.g., on the raised/tight "bow" and "stern" of a navicular pot) or notched ridge (oO either side of the navicular form' gunwales). Indeed, the notched ridge ne: the rim of some Meillacan vessel may have functioned much like aJl actll . ifllle gunwale m that they seem to have helped trengthen the pot's rim by v of their thickening of the vessel wall. The notche on the e reinforced ridges would also have been used as grips. . . ted ver· In Jamaica, it seems that Ostionan redware pa d into a white-pain f-iow· sion of Meillacan notched fishtail ware, known a White Marlpottery. si· ever, in other parts of Jamaica and the re t of the

Pre-Columbian Art of the Caribbean

b

realer ntiJles,the traJI

Was!he Chican Ostionoid, named for the site of Boca Chica in southeastern Hispan·10I a. The period in which Chican pottery was made saw a further consolidati f .. . on polit1cal and religious power by caciques, and even by paramount

°

cac,ques over lesser ones. 36 Below each cacique, Tafno society was divided into nobles ( · . nitafnos), and commoners (naboria). The age of Tafno caciques also Witnessed . . . . . . S an artistic explosion the hkes of which had not been seen smce the aIadoid . . expansion JUst before the dawn of the Common Era. The ascendant st ~ower ructures at work in the Greater Antilles during this second invigora1onof A . . ntillean arts seem to have imposed on the region certain kinds oflin1st ~h ic, cultural, and stylistic cohesion. This is why Caribbean pre-Columbian c olars • .. continue to refer to these cultural affinities by a single generalmng 1 errn-Tafno. In fact th s ' e people we caJI the Taino today were a spectrum of related, and ornetime . ma· . s unrelated, people . It i very likely that the Arawakan-speaking e JOrityamong "the Taino" and the variou linguistic minorities and isolates ncountered b E . . . b Y uropeans 1n th1 reg10n referred to themselves by a great numer of local n 37 ak spea . ame • For example, the paniards came to know the Araw anni· k.i_ng people of the Bahama a· the Lucayos; they knew important linguistic tnorities • • . an . in Hispaniola uch a the Macorix and iguayo; and they called an ctent Arch • 38 H the aic group in we tern uba, the iboney ( iboney). owever, y seem t0 h . de . ave ignored many other name by which Arawakans would have signated . .. ha\r and a serted their local and regional 1dent1t1e. Such names may ederived f I h. . 1 . gin rom ocal topographic or maritime feature , mytho- 1stonca one"ents, which or predominant moiety/clan affiliation to name but a few ways by People • h rnig t derive their dernonym .

·eramic of1he Greater Antilles

99

Toe Arawakan term tafno simply meant "good people" and seems to have

a partial departure from the Ostionoid lineage, perhaps as a result of a profound

derived its Spanish usage from an episode in 1493 in which a certain group of

interpenetration of Hispaniolan Archaic and Arawakan arts, Chican ceramics

captives brought from Boriken (Puerto Rico) to Karukera (Guadeloupe) by the

appear more directly descended from Ostionan pottery, at least in their mate-

Kalinago had distinguished themselves from their captors. Thus, when encoun-

rial manufacture and common vessel forms. The exuberant decoration on some

tered by Spaniards, these Puerto Rican captives seem to have used the terrn

Chican ceramics is quite another matter,

taino more as a description of themselves than as an ethnonyrn. The proper

Chican potters, and many of their Meillacan neighbors, favored restricted

name "Taino" came into vogue only in the early to mid-nineteenth century as

vessels.These often took the form of hemispherical, globular, and conical bowls, adhering to the rational geometry of the Saladoid era vessel forms. The vessel in

a cultural designation for the chiefdoms (cacicazgos) of the Greater Antilles.

from the material culture of the last centuries before Spanish arrival. 39 It is only

figure 3-3 left extends this geometric aesthetic to bottles and vases as well. But 0th er Chican bowls and vases employed the organic, bulging-sagging forms of the older Ostionan subseries (figures 3.3 right and 3.4 left). Meillacan and

because of certain clear cultural affinities and for want of more specific terril•

Chican potters in contact with each other could use Chican geometric forms

that we refer to the Arawakan-speaking majority (and even some of their close

in surprising combination with highly plastic, stylized Meillacan adornments

neighbors) by this problematic catchall, "Taino;• and might describe the arti·

(figure 3-4 right). In the hands of a Chican potter, a crisp navicular form like the M ill e acan one in figure 3.2 left might take on the form of a potbellied canoe (fig ure 3-4 left). The anthropomorphized bat adorno in figure 3.4 right,with its

The name has since engulfed much of the cultural diversity that is partially appreciable from Conquest-era Spanish accounts of the Greater Antilles a nd

facts and practices from this culture region as "Tainoan" or "Tainan:• We also consider there to have been a "Taino era;• a kind of golden age or florescence of art and cultural production in the last three centurie of the grand Ostionoid period. But even if we consider "Taino" to be an era rather than a culture, vie accidentally imply that the Spanish Conquest brought an end to everything authentically "Taino;' which it did not. Since the Chican Ostionoid ceramic series coincide with the Taino culi-uril . . miCS, spec t rum o f 1200-1500 CE an d Its related geographic area, Ch1can cera like most other contemporaneous arts are viewed a Taino arts. In fact, given the early archaeological use of ceramics in devi ing the pre-Columbian

ca-

st ribbean culture chronologies, Chican ceramic might be con iderecl the rn° d e fimtlve • • o fT amo ' arts. To ese ceramics, perhaps more so than rock art or evell sculpture, will continue to be designated as Taino until continued re~arch reJl' d ers a finer-grame ·d· picture o f the connections and divergence between arts, . cultures, languages, and genetics in the Greater Antille from around the thJl'•

Figure 3.3-Geometric versus organic aesthetics in Taino pottery: (left) spherical bottle with anthropomorphic adornos on cylindrical neck, Dominican Republic, ceramic with modeled and linear decorations, Chican, 8 cm diameter; (right) bulging and sagging (i.e., elastic type) globular bowl with zigzag version of oscillating roundel design, Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic, ceramic with puncto-tinear incisions, Chican, approximately 15 cm diameter. Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC. Photographs by author.

teenth century onward. 40 0 More so th an its • O stlonan • and Meillacan predece sor , which are krl0 v1nf '

their redware and White Marl subclas e of painted pottery re pectively, Chiall .

.

e,.SelS

pottery was charactenstlcally an unpainted erie . In rare ca e hica11 v d • d d 41 . were pamte re . A stated earlier, Meillacan pottery ometirne ernploYe . II d·cc rtiaUY ra d 1ca y 111erentceramic pa te. from tho e u ed in the older but pa , . 0 . ii r tefll 1 over appmg shonan. Chican pottery, by compari. on, used ver irn_a . nal pers to those of the preceding O tionan_42Although Meillacan ceraJlllC sis

100

Pre-Columbian

Art oft he Caribbean

cramic,ofthe

Greater Antilles

101

figure 3.4. Zoomorphic adornos: (left) elastic type restricted, navicular bowl with frog adornos, Santo Do· mingo vicinity, Dominican Republic, Chican, ceramic, 21cm longer diameter; (right) bowl with anthropo· morphic bat adorno possessing undulating winglike arms, Ile de la Gonave, Haiti, Chican with MeiUacan elements, approx. 30 cm diameter. Smithsonian ·ational Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC. Photographs by author.

Meillacan-type notches in the crown and across the wing-arms of the figureis typical of the boneless,snakelike limbs attached to man Meillacan head ador· nos. Theseappliqued partial figuresare distinct from the disembodied facesaJld occasionalfull figuresthat usuallyemerge from the side of Chican pots (figures 3.3 left, 3.4 left, and 3.5). Chican potters did not simplyattach plastic-lookingadornment to geornet· ric vesselforms. They chose to combine geometric vessel form into exotichYbrid pots, such as twin globes, either side by side or tacked to form a bottleor 0 vase with a restricted waist (figure3.5 left).Such va-,e evoked the i.mageofr." separate restricted vessels.one neatly stacked atop the other with the baseof one nested inside the mouth of the other. Some take on the profile of a globulaf bowl sitting atop a cylindrical beaker (figure 3-5 right),a compo ite forrn actu· ally pioneered in the late Saladoidbut never common then. . ~~ 0 ne part ofhd t e ecorativeprogram for re tricted bowl and the e two· • d des1gns . on the vesselexterior , e peciallyon their shouJdeCS· vesse1s was •mc1se These took the form of oscillatingroundel de ign -a erie of pun tated ci-~

f the

connected by diagonal line from the top of one circle to the bottorn ° d other, then vice ver a (figure 3.3 right,barely di'ICernible n figure 3-4lefta:d 3-5left, and clearer in plate 7). The dotted or punctated roundel had beenu~ bellies, throughout the art of the Ceramic Flore cence to denote eye , brea t~

102

Pre-Columbian An of the Caribbean

Figure3 5 C . n,· • • ompos1te form vessels: (left) waisled vessel with bat face adornos on strap handles, Santo Do.tgo, Dominican Republic, Chican, incised ceramic, 13cm wider diameter; (right) vessel with bat face •n~rnos, unknown site near Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Chican, ceramic with linear incisions in punctations, 9 cm diameter at base. Smithsonian 1',ational Museum of the American Indian, Wash• I g on, DC. Photographs by author.

~d sometimes the joints of limbs. Here it could be used to either abstract or gura]effect.The oscUlatingroundel incisions, like many later Ostionoid linear lllark-rnki a ng, were often clearly carved to a moderate depth, although some ex:ample1'I] s ustrated here are fairly subtle. The other major decorative element on Ch· ican pottery was the modeled adornment on handles and spouts, and sorner . . . lffieseven aero s exterior walls (separate from or among the mc1sedde• signs)Th .. a ct· • e elaborate adorno of ancient Cedrosan times had returned, albeit m tfferentstyle. WhileOst1onan • and Meillacan ve sel sported simply modeled tabu1ar 1ugs or diam . . . etnc strap handles during the Chican these developed mto highly rn~cl~ • • .. s adornos taking the hape of animal and humans, sometimes m ~~. ., visual hybridity (figure 3 _ 4 )_◄3 The zoomorphic adornos on Ch1can ~~ . • presented a relatively mode t range of pec1e~compared with the 111 ~~. .. h. es . ier Salado1dmenagerie of the Ea tern Canbbean, althoug an mtert ln a w·d . 1 er vanety f species can be glimp ed in Talno sculpture (see chapter

Ceramics of the Greater Antilles

103

5). The narrowed selection of species on Ostionan lugs (and on those of the parallel Troumassoid series in the Eastern Caribbean) was evidently passed

American Indian, a diminutive, less carefully fashioned effigy vessel, perhaps

on to Chican pottery-bats,

thropomorphs and bats especially might gaze up at the pot's user, across the

splay-legged posture of the Barrancoid figure. Given the difficulty of cleaning th e interiors of these complex vessels, they were probably used for sanctifying

concave vessel mouth at each other through large ocular cavities or visorlike,

water. In Deminan's case, the associations with water are legion (see below).

owls, frogs, turtles, and anthropomorphs. The an·

representing Deminan's mother, Itiba Cahubaba, echoes the belly-clutching,

connected eyes, or in a common occurrence on Taino pottery-diametrically

The question arises as to how ceramic forms such as the pregnant effigy vessel

outward.

(for even male Demi nan is in a kind of pregnancy with Turtle Woman gestating

The "visors" of bat adornos consisted of either a compressed, horizontal oval

nium. For it is one thing to retain motifs across the centuries, preserving them

were, in fact, stylizations of the hairline around bats' faces, much like a mon·

in one media or another before transferring them back to their original or some

key's, in that they framed the eyes. These ocular hollows could be made by

sunuar material context, but it is quite another to resume making a specific kind

either mildly indented pits, deep gouges, or punctations on adornos (figures 3.3

of object that is made only in a particular material after a centuries-long hiatus.

left and 3.5). Stylized eye or visor pits could also be used to reference the large

lllce there is scant surviving evidence that the Early Ceramic Florescence vessel forms were mamtame • • d m, · say, woo d (or per haps were suggeste d m · some

s·

of ancestral skulls. This oculate, batlike anthropomorph was a common subject in Taino sculpture as well.

:ay on carved calaba hes) through the Ostionan and Meillacan style periods,

Unlike their immediate predecessors in the Ostionan and Troumassoid, Chi·

~Ore than oral tradition and perhaps some kind of antiquarianism. Taina-era

can ceramic adornos could exhibit elaborate and often naturalistic modeling

archaism"has been documented and briefly explored as a deliberate practice by Schol d ars such as Peter Roe,44 but Taina-era burials with cherished, antique Cerosanor B arrancoid heirloom pots interred alongside the honored dead are not a docurnent d h . . . sr e P enomenon m the Canbbean. It remains mystenous as to what 1111 ft u!us rn •ight have excited the return of these ceramic forms and practices a er such 1 . n a ong penod. It was not just revived effigy vessel forms, renovated aturalis . t rn, and an increased interest in fineness of decorative detail that seemed 0 1eap c across the ages from the Saladoid to the Taino eras. Many motifs, figural onvenr A ions, and classes of objects also seem to have made the jump.

comparable to that of the Early Ceramic Florescence. Even the placement of adornos on the spouts and sometimes the walls of vessel (where they did not serve as handles but rather purely as images) was more akin to Cedrosan wares than to those of the Chican's proximate forebears in the Greater Antilles. A]sO making a return from the first millennium were animal and anthropomorphi' effigy vessels, as had been seen in Barrancoid and Cedrosan Saladoid Veneiu· ela, Trinidad, or Martinique. In a Barrancoi·d effigy vessel from Venezuela, a round-bellied, pregnan t~d male figure holds her thin arms and elbows pressed to her ide ' with nan s on her abdomen. Both her eyes and mouth are made by appliqued lengths of clay, which have been pressed into the urface of the head, rounded on the ends and incised with a single cleft to create the patented coffee bean hape (figure

. o· 5-36 left). The effigy vessel representing the Taino culture hero Derninan . arablY racaraco 1, ma d e more than a millennium later in Hi paniola, ha cornP able thm arms (though these are akimbo, precariou for ceramic ), and cornpar d

;:s

coffee bean features (figure 5.36 right and plate ). Hi wide! . paced legs thickened feet, though with forward-facing knee , erve the ;,a.mefunctlO

·d

those of his pregnant predecessor from Lo Barranco (a ite where aarrancoie and Saladoid ceramic style famou ly collided). At the , 'ational ~tuseufDoftJl

►

his back) had been conserved if no one had been making them for a millen-

or a figure-8 shape laid on its side like a Western infinity symbol. These shapes

eyes of owls, or the cadaverous ocular cavities of shamans, and the hollow ones

104

111

Pre-Columbian An of the Caribbean

t e long memory of the Arawakan Antilleans seems to have been aided by little

't , lllong the feature of the Early Ceramic Florescence that persisted into the

~~ . te were the Antillean key, pioneered by Huecoid and Barranco1d potrs (corn .. tlle pare figures 2.6 right and 4.13 left), plu a ho t of Saladoid curvilinear anders a d • · f lab . n spiral , not lea. t of which wa the increasingly widespread rog Ytinth (c \If ompare figure 2.12, 4.12,and 5.18left). The oscillating roundel mo•SUcha pro • ·d · · d Patt mment de ign in Taino art~, al,o had roots in Barranco1 mc1se · painted motif (compare plate 3 and 6 wit · h figure 3.3 righerns and SaJad01d t and pl . . . th ate 7). Figure-gr und reversal remained an important concern m e Pottery O f . Sat the Late erami Fl re ence even though the vaned forms of ado·d ' I th symmetry would become narrowed con ·iderably by the Taino. Both e coffeeb ean eye and round, treaming eye f ~edrosan Saladoid and Bar-

era mies of the (,realer Antilles

105

rancoid ceramics and other arts would continue on into the arts of the Taino (see figures 5.36 and 5.40 and plate 18), along with broad, grimacing mouths and platyrrhine noses. The shell dentures found in the Lesser Antilles indicate that the gnashed teeth in those grimacing mouths were sometimes inlaid just as they were in later Taino art. All these resurgent forms and motifs accompanied certain key zoomorphs that would retain and sometimes even increase their importance from era to era, including the dog, bat, owl, turtle, frog, and pelicanBats and owls were favorites of the Chican potters, while the other animal species enjoyed prominence in the other Taino arts. As in the Saladoid pottery before them, Chican owl adornos were often placed at the juncture of the necl< and body of vessels-a kind of crossroads in the clay organ of these vessels and thus an appropriate position for a winged messenger from the afterlife. In the Chican, however, a unique and striking class of"owl-necked" vessel had joined the ones from earlier eras. These vessels could be as large as forty-five centi· meters tall, and heart-shaped (figure 3.6). Upon closer inspection, the bulging twin chambers of the heart-shaped body revealed themselves instead to be

FigureJ.6. Taino mammiform-phallic bottle type: (left) reconstructed vessel,SaladoCaves, Dominican Re~Ubl,c, Chican,ceramic,46 cm height (Smithsonian 'ational Museum of the American Indian, Washington, (~); (right) vesselwith flying owl/bat adorno on neck, Altos de Chav6n, Chican, ceramic, 35.5cm height UseoArqueol6gicoRegional,Altosde Chav6n). Dominican Republic.Photographand drawing by author.

mammiform, sometimes complete with nipples and areolae. From between the twin orbs of this feminine symbol protruded the neck of the vessel, which iool< on a decidedly phallic form. The complementary symboli m of these vessels i: discussed in the section "Ritual, Aesthetics, and Meaning in Chican Ceramics below. At the juncture where mammiform and phallic emblems met wa usuallY 6 located either an owl, a bat, or a conflation of the two (figure 3.6). In figure 3· right, the bat's fleshy nose is given to the round, oculate face of an owl. Addition· ally, bat wing emblems protrude from the ide of the phallic bottleneck. Frogs and turtles did not appear in Chican potter a often as in the SaJadoidWhen they made an appearance, it was often on vessel that were unusual ill . zoomorphic iconography. A bowl from ,_,e A, cibO, some oth er way b es1'd es th e1r ._ 3

Puerto Rico, with a cruciform punctated pattern on it exterior features di

metric frog adornos that would seem to link the bowl' diagram-like, perhaps calendric

45

pattern with the amphibian rain ymbol (figure 3-7).

F·

'&ureJ.7.p . . . . d' Slllith . unctated bowl wuh frog adorno

we

human male, with none of the keletal attribute f harnanic imagery, and ~act th at scuJptor took the trouble to make it in the fir t place (1.e., . •111a societY hat we w h ere there seems to be no art ju t for art' sake) and to give it the po et . . reseJl1 wo uld see m later unages of deitie , it appear that the tatuedoe not rep _ 0

a mere human being. The figure in que lion might be a cadque, honored rnyth

280

Pre-Columbian Art of the aribbcan

histor·

ic progenitor, or culture hero. The treatment of anatomy seems to stress reproct · Uction and ancestry a a prevailing theme of the work.

. What appear to be a low buzz cut on the statue's head is striated in the Z1gza b . g a ket weave pattern that form the headband of feather crowns as dePlcted. T , h b in a1no culpture and rock art. The eye and teeth seem to ave once een inlaid with other materials, which, going by other examples of Antillean lvood • I h sculpture, would have been carved shell or bone for teeth and possib Y an,niered guanfn (a gold-copper alloy) for the oval eyes. The hollows in the

Sculpture

earlobes were probably also inlaid, perhaps by bone, shell, or even some stone of a symbolic color. Otherwise, they may have sported actual feather ornaments. The naturalism of this early sculpture would give way to the more stylized forrns oflater, and presumably more orthodox imagery, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The cemi figure in plate

16

is much larger, and is posed in the sarne

way, with arms almost in the same position, but in th.is case, pressed firrnlY to the wood matrix instead of with elbows out to create openwork, and with hands level at his hips. Ligatures also wrap the legs, and like the thin arrns, the erect penis and testicles are pressed to the body rather than pendant from it. The defined musculature, protrusions and openwork, and swelling forms of the earlier ancestral figure have been replaced by cylindrical forms, relief, and incised surfaces. A permanent channel of tears streams down the cheeks from each srnail, . the oval eye of the statue. Both the eyes and these twin tear streams contaJJl ·ve desiccated residue of some kind of paste, which probably served as the adheSl for inlaid materials now lost-possibly glistening guanln. The inlaid denture re· mains, made of either bone or shell, striated with a grid of gnashed teeth. seven in each row. While no adhesive remains there, the neat, cyl.indrical sockets 1.(1 0th the earlobes seem to have once contained inlaid materials a well, or some er seern 10 ornament. The narrow, flattened ovals of the eye and narrow mou th thr0· be a Jamaican variant of the rounder, broader features in Hispaniolan an 8) 1}!e pomorphic, wood statues (compare plate 16 and figure 5,41 to plate 1 • . but its gnashed teeth and tearing eyes might identify this figure as a shaman 1 . bl' hit firs formal, upright stance and lack of utility as a cohoba pede ta! e ta JS and foremost as a cemi. a focus of veneration.

.,~

. g fa,,·

~~5 . . ·4°, Anthropomorphic

,,

. . maskette with gnashed teeth and tearing eyes,

•~u11•n' B bad s ay, Barbados, Saladoid. Pumice,

4.5 x 3 cm. Barbados Museum, Bar-

os. Photograph by author.

of dro h 120 • b ug t. And on a flat coral island uch as Barbados, where many nver• the early months of the year, the rain deity would undoubte dl Y b~ ~ n d ry m ethe

center of devotional attention.

Related to the tearful iconography of the haman, image of a weeplJJ . kULO1 deity seem to have persisted throughout Caribbean sculpture and roe aJ1l . le sire most cases, only the head of the deity wa represented, with a SUl& . elY

like the earlier wooden statue, and several others in the surviving corpus ofl'a· b ino Wood sculptures, the Briti h Museum' Boinayel statue seems to have hr~c arved from guayacan, one of the dense\t of Caribbean hardwoo d s. an d

of tears trailing each eye, down to the bottom of the face. A miniature, Ji]iglll •46• liamm, k type duho, nt ntille wa a u de • ~~-re egory o f the textile art . In thi art form, full figural repre~ntation out o f woven fiber . Far from being tuffed doll or puppet , the were con tructed over cane armature

JOO

Pre-Columbian Art of the Caribbean

u ing

.

~~ _ ei. hr11qu

phi tkated ""ea,1ng te

Woodencemis and stone carvings. But this textile cemi, now at the Museo di ~tropologia ed Etnographia in Turin, Italy, is not only an image of the skeletal ead. Representing and embodying a departed ancestor, this object is at once a symbol0 f death and eternal life. th In eir 2012 study of the "Turin cemi" ethnologist Johanna Ostapkowicz and ' anthropologist Lee ewsorn published the results of a series of tests and analyses d b. 160 'th conducted on thi arre ting and a tonishingly well-preserve o iect. e fibers of the textile sculpture were typed by species and carbon-dated. This Part of th d th e analy is confirmed that the majority of the fibers were cotton, an atthe d , · ate of the cemf manufacture wa the latter part of the Tamo era, circa 14 r 39to I 522-t61 The cemi wa al CT-scanned to determine the shape an d 1oca~ ~. . d it content which are di cussed below, and the weaving techniques an Otherc . . f t . On tru tion of the figur were carefully analyzed, revealing a vanety 0 ~a

ingou Pproache generally progre ing from

.

1mpler

~ comore e_laboratem_o

a !ward fr m the i n' core to it urface. Close vi ual analysis of the obiect ndthex . I co -ray image al l helped t determine part of the step-by-step matena nsrrucr ton f the obje t' interior. Sculpture

301

The biological and cemic core of this object is obvious from the view of its teeth and mandible visible through the weave in and around its open mouth.

All

lllarks of an expert Taino wood carver) as they undulate over the now heavily

human anatomy they resemble in general shape. In fact, with the exception of

Padded "organs" of the cemi, imitating the contours of living flesh.

the actual front part of a skull over which the cemi's face is built with a kind of

Ostapkowicz and Newsom comment on the "life-affirming physicality" of th e cemi's bulging forms, particularly visible in the calves and arm muscles, but

reconstructive fiber modeling, the "bones" of the cemi are made of lianas bent " • the shapes of arms and legs, with smaller pieces of cane used as th~~ mto e 0

Perhaps most notably in its framed, emphasized navel and attentively woven

of the cemi's digits. Over the cane "bones" is built up a series of layers of cotton

Penis, and they juxtapose this youthful, masculine physicality with the icon's

"flesh" in a variety of techniques, ranging from simple wrapping of the lianas

simultaneous woven emphasis on skeletal features such as the jutting ribs and

(i.e., treating them like bobbins) to the more complex twining and weaving that rd uses the simple, but tight, wrapping underneath as its stabilizing warp. Co s are thus woven as weft in between these warps that thickly wrap the armature,

framed ocular orbs, but also the "embroidered" hipbone hollows visible on its 164 buttocks. This superimposition of virility and cadaverousness has been noted as a Visualconvention of shamanic arts of the Taino era 165but is employed in the

or "skeleton:'

cotton cemi io ran ancestra l image • · 1s • JUSt · as, 1'f not more, appropna• t e. w h ere 1t d limbs

f is used to encase the large, flat stone that fills the che t cavity and abdomen f 0 the cemi, and the upside-down wooden paddle lashed to it. The broad part

°

dl which the paddle, tied to the stone, serves as the ba e for its upended han e, f 0

extends upward beyond the torso, providing a "neck" for the cemi. Toe toP th· d ~ amen mag· 1swoo en neck plugs into the hole at the base of the kull (the or d num) as would the top of a spinal cord. Thus, stone "viscera; \,'Ooden limbs aJla "spme, • " an d relic skull are wrapped in cords, then woven toge th er, becorrung single textile body. d • , aratelYaJl Interestmgly, the head of the cem1 was wrapped and woven sep fig·

th

then attached to the wooden " pine" protruding up from the torso of e d 162 ds exten ure. To prevent any slippage in the kull' tight cotton leeve, cor th the tee from the woven "flesh" around the mouth, and are threaded between 163 to help fasten the outer weaving to the maxilla and mandible. . allY . h teristlC In its surface treatment , the cotton cemi pre ent everal c arac Late , . . di . n of the Tamo-era styh tic features, locating it firmly in the vi ual tra !IO itJ.in, Ceramic Florescence. To empha ize certain feature in the Tafno iyle,. a!IY . meuc flexible cane were woven into the outer "fle h" f the figure to co re produce the appearance of jutting rib , whiht additional line of twining ::.i, e m bro1'd ere d atop the cloth body to frame the hairline, eye , open mouth, . csnell• n ave,I an d pu b'1 m · characteri tic Tai no tracer . The eye were •in laid with . daJ1 h . . ontaine as were t e eye of many w den cem( but given that th1 1' n def!• _,_ d rd hell l actua ,.,._uJl,with it teeth bared, there wa n need for the t.1n a jals •

ture inlay. The navel and palm may have al o been inlaid but tho

►

consistent directionality in the pile (resembling the controlled, directional adze

other materials are non-anthropic, used in analogous ways to those parts of the

The same wrapping-then-weaving technique used for the skull an

302

are now lost. The "skin" of the cemi is woven with great expertise exhibiting a

Pre- olumbian A rt of the Caribbean

~~

The alternating swelling and pinching of the cotton cemi's musculature, created 10 · d part by the tight wrapping with threads of the cemi's limbs hunreds of times, is not a mere artistic affectation. These forms imitate and ex?gerate the same kind of ligatures that ancient Antilleans wore on their own llnbs and h. h . w 1c are seen in several sculptures discussed in this chapter. The icon's portrayal of full nudity imitates that of Taino-era shaman images in wood to th n e same extent as does the style of the eyes, hairline, bared teeth, ave!, h· . b ips and nbs mentioned above. Some style elements extend further ack th . c an the unmistakably Taino conventions. Of particular note are the Otton b ll h th a s t at have been woven into the shoulders, wrists, and ankles of Orercerni.The tradition of marking the Joints with incised circles, punctations,

ana1sedm ed a 11· ions harks back to the ceramic sculptures of the Barranco1·d · on the Lower Orinoco and Windward · • th e E d Cedro san salado1d Islan d s m • Fl fd • tharJyCerarn IC orescence. Here, the old Barrancoid convention o ecoratmg OsePart Of h b . . h. h t e ody where energie tran form and change d1rect1on, w JC as Passed d liv own through the adorno of the Cedrosan Saladoid ceramicists, es on. in textile form. 166 lheelaborate IYwoven urface of the cotton cemf i not unuorm ,, • • l Its . in its co or. \\I

dy lll1Xture f well-pre~rved and ca ionaJly tattered fibers are mostly uned, but · I Ornearea appear to be tained and others, bleached. It 1s unc ear etherih I . . . . . f . . Ill taming and bleaching come from the ntual application pig en1or f . . to h r rn the partial degradation of the cem! an the cave where it seems ave sat i · · fb h U d lllicro r ·enturic after the onque t, or a combinat1on o ot • n er '!Copy, rne tain appear mor c n i tent acr the length of fibers than '\\lh

°

Sculpture

303

might have been caused by age or accident. 167Red dye appears on some parts of the icon, especially on the front of the object, and the resin still clinging to

destroyed on the spot in their place of origin, or fascinatedly hoarded by Euro-

several features, such as the object's left eye, navel, and palms, confirms that

peans of the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries is that they were reported,

they once held in place some other material. In the case of the missing inlay

often grudgingly, by conquerors, clergymen, and colonists alike to be "oracles"

for the cemi's left eye, it is unclear whether it had a matching white, shell eye,

Withmagical powers, able to speak at seances, heal, bewitch, and render predictions and verdicts. 174

with an iris cut out of it in the same way as the right eye, or if there was sorne intended heterochromia. 168The ears were also woven with pii:!rcingholes intO

accorded kinglike/godlike treatment by their constituents, receiving first fruits

ton, or feathers), but these pierced lobes are now broken. ln the Taino traclition,

as offerings and being sequestered in the caneys of rulers or the caves administered by sharnans. 175In one Lesser Antillean ritual described by the missionary

From the signs of inlay and applique, and from the staining on its cotton fi-

Jean-Baptiste du Tertre, a cloth cemi was immersed in water for purposes of

bers, the cotton cemi seems to be a different color now than in its heyday. Jrnag· • d wt.th th e cer emonial ine the icon new, on the day it was finished, or access1one

divining the weather and other major events, and if the icon sank it portended st0rm or disaster, whereas if it floated, good fortune would follow.176Cloth

union of icon and ancestral spirit, its unbleached, unstained cotton a pale ivory,

cemfs were evidently also used in black magic to call down vengeance upon

with its shining pearlescent eyes and most of its teeth; with its inserted ear orna· • • ·1 stained ments, and with shell- or stone-inlaid navel and pa Ims. Th en unagme 1

enemies, causing them to waste away. Perhaps this is why Tertre also reports that some Kalinago in Martinique refused to approach the cloth cemis they

red with its first offerings of roucou, perhaps rubbed into the cotton balls sewn · cotton cem1• wa once a mu ch rnore to its shoulders and other joints. 169 This

had found in a cave. The missionary reported that the Kalinago had previously

colorful object. Woven cemis were made to house (in the reliquary sen e) and embody (iJJ . tant per· the cemic sense) the remains of ancestors, beh1que , an d o th er 1mpor

feared retribution from the icons. When asked by the French to help remove th e cemfs, the Kalinago refused, left the cave, and never entered it again. 177Thus,

. k d and were sons. It is recorded that they were named after the peop 1e th ey 1nvo e • have b een. 110 From I-1s m orphologY honored and feasted as their referents might ,. T . t be that of a and dentition the skull within the cotton cem1 rn urm appear O 172 . . . th .I d'ficatioll young adult male. 171The lopmg forehead indicate e crania mo 1 •d er· practiced by Antillean Arawakan people at lea t ince the late Saladoi ' P . . . . th ~~~ haps as a status or cultural ignifier-to d1 trngu1sh them from o er gr the increasingly diverse Antille .

. dicate Conquest-era and early colonial chronicle and inventorie clear lY ,n t that there were many more of these cloth cemi surviving the onqueS lhaJI . . 1't'on disap· exist today. But those not lo tat sea or eized b the pam h lnqUJ 1 t]1 Th Turin cl0 e ther O cemi i the only known urvivor.m It cannot be di counted that some aJI

peared into private collections, and from provenience record •

example of an ance tral cloth cemi exi t somewhere in a negle ted £uroP~es inventory, but it i equally po ible that the blitzkril-g and other cata. troP'Jlle and depredation

of the World War have long in c di patched the re t. e " . •(ason ntillean \aJnt

reason these cloth cemj , containing the skull of the

b

They were known to be reverenced by both the Taino and Kalinago, and were

which might be inserted actual ornaments (whether made of bone, shell, cot· the inlaid navel and palms were probably made of white and/or black shell.

304

Renaissance bishop called them), would have been either wholly abjured and

Pre-Columbian Art of the Caribbean

defeated the corporeal Arawakan relatives of these ancestral cloth cemis and

according to missionaries at least, Antilleans appeared to fear cloth cemis made byothers, particularly by rivals or foes.178 'Theclose relationship between these cemis and their "maker-relatives" (and th us, the fear these objects might have inspired in the enemies of said relatives) deserves some attention for how it might elucidate the process by which an anth ropogenically fashioned object itself becomes a powerful, living being. The ritual of con tructing a new body for the skull of a departed ancestor would have . b een not only a technical1y challenging task, but also one accompame• db Y ritual preparation a the weaver-sculptor reconstructed, or restore d , an ances tor frorn h·1 or her relics, and other natural materials, but while · using • a d'ist·metiY cultural method. on idering that onque t-era and colonial chronicles confirrn that weaving was commonly a female profession among Amerm • d'ians m • both the reater and Le er Antille O tapkowicz and Newsom suggeSt th at the rnet hodical, r t rative weaving of an ance tral body m1g • h t h ave b een I'k 1•

• d 179o ders a period of ge tat ion, albeit a culturally prescnbe one. ne won lvhat form of a c tici m or purification might have accompanied such an exenectt0

Uterocrafting of the new body, and whether it extended back through the whole

Sculpwre

305

b

production process to the collecting of cotton, the methodical picking, ginning,

their methods and cleverness in their adjustments of technique to the contours

carding, and spinning, before the contemplative process of weaving.

and forms of the contained skull and other materials, was also built to last as an

The fact that women were likely the ones performing this most sophisticated form of sculpture, an art form otherwise dominated by men working in wood and stone, again calls to mind the permeable boundaries of the

disciplines as we might witness in the ceramic effigy sculptures mentioned ear-

is, in fact, one of the reasons it has kept much of its integrity over the last six centuries.

lier. It is interesting to note that in both cases where women are the likely sculp·

At least the idea of the properly prepared and cherished icon, readied for the

tors-ceramics

and weaving-an

ative artisanal

additive technique is employed, whereas the

arrival of the specially invited deity, would be understood by today's Caribbean

forms of sculpture practiced primarily by men are reductive approaches involv-

Practitioners of South Asian and African religions. The Hindus of modern-day

ing the removal of stone or wood to reveal the cemi believed to be already there.

Trinidad, Guyana, Guadeloupe, and Jamaica would recognize the sustained de-

Thus, some sculptures made by Taino women might not represent indwelling scribed by Pane) but rather are sculptures, artfully made, and then imbued by

votion to the icon as a purified dwelling place of the noumenon, through which th e devotee and deva regard each other in mutual contemplation-a reciprocal Process known as darsan in Sanskrit. 185Today's Hindus and Vodoun practitio-

cemis who are ceremonially invited to come and inhabit the newly made and

ners would also recognize the lavishing treatment of the icon, in staining it with

properly prepared icon. We cannot ignore, however, that the very core of the

holy unguents and pastes, swaddling it in cloth, 186carrying it in procession or

Turin cloth cemi is the biological relic, or "seed;' of an ancestor, one who might nd have been understood as dwelling in the skull throughout the weaving (a

~tltingand celebrating in its presence, and surrounding it with stacked food, all

cemis in the material matrix who ask to be hewn into particular forms (as de-

perhaps guiding it), and thereafter expanding to the cloth body once it was complete and spiritually charged in some ritual of investiture. Its posture and size strongly suggest that the cotton cemi was made to be . . bl. ,so '!he displayed to groups, either in family gathenngs or to a greater pu 1c. th stone in its chest, and accumulated mass around its legs and arms give the clo • ed cemi stabilizing weight, but its tendency to lean backward might have reqUJf it to be either propped forward 181or otherwise seated on its own hammock-t}'Pe duho. This mode of display is of course consistent with the treatment of a cernl, . the especially one representing a deified ancestor who could it like a man in cinct, caney of the cacique, or perhaps in the open air of a plaza or sacred pre . an d ntu . al ouen ,r ·ngs of the presi.di ng over ceremonie , receiving t h e attent10n living, and participating in the fe tivitie . The cotton cemi wa therefore aver; . • bl. bloO special relative, not only repre enting the pirit world but al o ena 1ng

'

.

f~~

'

re1atives to interact with that world, and perhap even harne part O d - .. :lla a!l 182 pernatural power. The mouth of the cem[ wa woven to hold the ma;u, ch mandible apart, opening it for the pa sage of breath and the i uance of pee • ·ng the Ostapkowicz and ew om ugge t that thi ance tral icon, contain 1 . skull of a blood relative, wa a different kind

-

Jate1J1

f cemi that did not c1rcu

d ·ne

the ritual exchange de cribed by Oliver for trigonolith , but rather rernaJ 'Jl •m th e r,ami!y. • 1sJ Indeed, uch beautifully woven object, with con •1 tencY1

Jo6

heirloom to be handed down through many generations and thereby remain "involved" in the lives of its descendants. 184Its very complexity of construction

Pre-Columbian Art of1he Caribbean

tn a form of ritual sacrifice known to Haitian Vodoun practitioners as mange loa/rn . . . . an1e1wa (1.e., feedmg the spirits), and to Hindus as puja.187However, the Ideathat a divinity was always dwelling locally within a material (in this case, th e skull), which then had to be modified, under that divinity's direction, into a Proper· . icon, 1sa concept that is characteristically pre-Columbian. lhe Construction of cloth cemis seems to have grown as an elite art form Outof a Wider Antillean tradition (practiced by people of all social stations) of Conser • , ving the bones of the ancestral dead in calabashes and baskets suspended ,rorn th b . e earns and rafters of communal (i.e., family or clan) houses. 188In this Practice h d in ' t e ancestors were lovingly kept nearby, and they could be consulte . ritual for their wisdom and supernatural powers. Yet the tradition of creat:g a new body for ancestral remains i not restricted to only this part of the rnericas I d h ,• T • i . • n eed, the solution employed by the surviving clot cemi in unn ndicate th • • d tra d'1. at It wa probably part of a widely, if not commonly, practice t1onof c . reating new bodie for the dead. Its use of a cane keleton remind of Andean arts where Chinchorro clay lllurnrn· · d ies of the fourth millennium B E and earlier were built aroun cane and act I . · Uh • d ua b ne keletons, and it elaborate textile olut10ns reca t e twme and oth l 1 t . er loom le textile art of the ame Ande going back a most as ong 0~ h uch a Hua a Prieta. 1~ Amazonian counterparts to these arts wou

w

~~

.

1 ••

ng 1nce di integrated, but in the cool, dry Andes, archaeo og1sts gam

Sculpture

307

glimpses into the very ancient origins of South American textile arts. There is no reason to assume that Amazonian arts were any less advanced at the same time, especially in light of the new discoveries not only about Amazonian cit· ies and monumental earthworks but also about the likely Amazonian origins of Andean pottery and featherwork}

90

If, then, the Arawakans had brought

6

3

sophisticated South American textile tradition anywhere near the caliber of the

Jewelry and Personal Adornment

Taino cotton cemi during their first migrations into the Antilles, there might have been cotton cemis even in the Early Ceramic Florescence. Spanish chronicles reported that the Indigenous people of the Caribbean went almost entirely nude. The fact that they had achieved the astounding level of textile arts displayed by the Turin cemi indicates that their interest in weaving would have been associated more with art and sacrality than with the utility of clothing. The following chapter gives additional evidence of this, presenting

3

mostly uncovered, tropical and maritime people, regaled in more fine items of shell, bone, gold, and semiprecious stones than garments of cloth.

They go as naked as when their mothers bore them .... They paint themselves black, and they are the color of the Canarians, neither black nor white. Some paint themselves white, others red, and others of what color they find. Some paint their faces, others the whole body, some only round the eyes, others only on the nose.

ChristopherColumbus,Friday,12thOctober,the day offirst contact'

The cacique wore around his neck some ornaments of copper which they call guani ... which is very fine and looks like 8-carat gold.It was in the shape of a tleur-de-lis, and as large as a plate .... Although he Went naked he wore a girdle of the same workmanship as his coronet, but all the rest of his body was exposed. His wife was likewise adorned and naked .... The elder and more beautiful daughter was completely nude. She only wore around her middle a single string of small and very black stones, from which hung something like an ivy leaf, made of green and red stones fa tened to woven cloth.

AndresBernaldez,describinga caciqueand his entouragein Jamaica, July14942

layin e . cau g ye upon the pe pie fthe Antille