The Jaguar Within Shamanic Trance in Ancient Central and South American Art Pdf

Fertility and Shamanism in ancient Due south American Art

Ane of the earliest civilization so far discovered in S America is the Valdivian civilisation in Ecuador. This dates back to between 3500 and 1800BC, and the terracotta figure of a fertility goddess pictured below (F ig i ) is from thi southward early culture. The Valdivians generally used red and gray colors; and the polished dark red pottery, as exemplified in this piece, is characteristic of their work. Their figures were also highly individualized as each piece displayed different hairstyles and sha foot. They have been institute interred with the expressionless, cached under homes and made in very large sizes, upwardly to several feet loftier, presumably for ceremonial employ. This indicates the tremendous importance of the female figure in Valdivian ritual. Figures from the before periods emphasized item, after ones lost expression, actually becoming cruder. Many of them announced pregnant, w ith holes in the centers of their bellies and some accept objects inside that rattle when moved, while others take prominent busts and buttocks showing pubic hair. The piece below is certainly not crude and probably has a relatively early engagement. Information technology is highly probable that such figures were intimately related to fertility rituals.

Fig 1 Elevation 13 cms

The Valdivia culture was discovered in 1956 by the Ecuadorian archaeologist, Emilio Estrada . Estrada, forth with the American archaeologist Betty Meggers, who led excavations, have suggested that a relationship between the people of Ecuador and the people of Japan existed in ancient times.You may detect that the features of this goddess hav e an oriental feel to them, and, generally in style, there seemed to exist a strong connection between thi due south Valdivia pottery and pottery produced by the Jomon civilisation from the island of Kyushi in Japan. If truthful this possibly could have led to a belief in the minds of the Valdivian'south, that these traders from the sea were gods and goddesses to be worshipped. However, this connection is far from proven, and does no longer accept a following in the academic community. Others have since emphasised the similarities with other South American cultures.

Below ( Fig 2 ) is an idol made from lapis lazuli, from the early Chavin civilization of Peru - Initial Period - and shows certain similarities to the Valdivian figure above. It'south "oriental" eyes, and its nose and mouth are very reminiscent in shape, and the legs wi thout anxiety too parallel the goddess figure. This slice too may have been linked to fertility rituals.

Fig two Superlative 12.5cms

What other evidence do we accept of the identify that fertil ity rituals had in ancient South American cultures? If nosotros turn to the Nasca people, a culture based in the southern coast of Republic of peru from 100BC to AD 750, their art contains many images of disembodied heads. A large numbers of trophy heads accept besides been found in the region's archaeological record, and eight headless bodies have been recovered with evidence of decapitation. Christina Conlee's (Texas Country University) examined a headless torso, from the site of La Tiza, and provided important new bear witness of the human relationship of decapitation to aboriginal ideas of expiry and regeneration. The third vertebrae of the La Tiza skeleton was shown to take dark cut ma rks with rounded edges, indicating that decapitation occurred at, or very shortly subsequently, the fourth dimension of death. A ceramic jar busy with an prototype of a head was placed adjacent to the body and as tin be seen in Fig 3 the caput has a tree with eyes, directly above information technology, and the tree'south branches encircle the vessel. It has also been shown that ritual battles often took place just before the planting of crops and trees. Unripened fruit also figured in these rituals, in which the shedding of bl ood was necessary to nourish the earth to produce a good harvest". Conlee writes. "The presence of scalp cuts on Nasca bays heads suggests the letting of blood was an important function of the ritual that resulted in decapitation." This is the third "caput" jar plant with a headless skeleton, and may take been used to drink the blood from the sacrificial victim. Conlee says "If the head jar was used to potable from during fertility rituals, so its inclusion in the burial further strengthens the relationship between decapitation and rebirth". Notably, in that location is also no show of home in the La Tiza region during the Middl e Nasca period (AD 450-550), to which the head jar of Fig three da tes. All of the Nasca domestic sites in the area engagement to the Early Nasca, indicating that the La Tiza skeleton may have been deliberately buried in an abandoned settlement that was associated with the ancestors. "Human cede and decapitation were office of powerful rituals that would accept allayed fears past invoking the ancestors to ensure fertility and the continuation of Nasca gild".

Reference: Christina A. Conlee, "Decapitation and Rebirth: A Headless Burial from Nasca, Peru." Current Anthropology 48:iii.

Fig iii

So in the hostile environment in which the Nasca lived, many rituals, which were always carried out by the shamans, related to propitiating and controlling the forces of nature. Magic was invoked in an attempt to ensure adequate water, expert soil, and a sufficient harvest. The bays heads were thus symbolic of, or a metaphor for, regeneration and rebirth. This concept tin exist seen iconographically in diverse scenes pictured on ceramics where plants are growing from the mouths of trophy heads as in Fig three . In their view of the world, the Nasca people must have placed great importance on the human being head as a source of power, and the burial of groups of trophy heads a way of concentrating a rese rvoir of ritual power.

It may be that the human being skull acted as a similar source of ability over regeneration and rebirth, to the Aztecs in Mexico. This piece ( Fig four ), beautifully crafted in ala

baster, probably belonged to a shaman and was made around 1400AD.

Fig 4 - Meridian three.2cms

Below is a second Aztec skull ( Fig 5 ) from a similar period, this time in turquoise. These skulls obviously had a very important role in Aztec ritual, beingness fabricated of su ch precious materials, and were thought to be used by shamen to conjure upward the spirits of the ancesors to ease the passage of the deceased into the afterlife. Fertility in terms of crops etc was very much seen in a wider perspective in terms of the generation of new life in terms of lif e across the grave.

Fig 5 - Pinnacle ii.9cms

Below in Fig half dozen is a huge stone axe of beautiful aethetic class, where the central area gives a perfect fit for the human being hand. This axe was made by the Narino Carchi people of Northern Ecuador and Southern Columbia and dates to a time somewhere beween 850 and 1500AD. The purpose of this axe would have been ritual in nature, and may really have been used for decapitation.

Fig vi - Elevation 23.5cms

Shamanism has been rife throughout South and Cardinal America over the centuries. Beneath is a depiction of a shaman in a trance state, handmade from t umbago, an blend of gold, silver and copper, by the Tairona people of Columbia, who are known since 900AD. This gold object ( Fig seven ) and also the piece shown in ( Fig 8 ) were establish in a identify called "El Dragon" (The Dragon) x km. from the Sierra Nevada de Sta. Marta in the Magdalena Valley region by Mr. Julio Sanchez in circa 1802. Object was later acquired by collector Mr. Pedro Dominguez on April 1894. Mr Dominguez was a well known and reputable historian and politician in Columbia. Their verbal age is unknown simply probably around 15th century. The depic tion we see in Fig seven is of a male shaman holding a ritual vase in each hand, perhaps containing hallucinogenic drugs to aid the trance state. He wears a number of ce remonial ornaments including a screw crown,earrings,bracelets and a 6 strand necklace. The expression on his face, in his eyes and his mouth, suggest a trance state. One of the hallucinogenic drugs used was a highly toxic substance that was excreted from the head of a particular toad, to protect it from its enemies. Another is a drink made from the ayahuasca vine.

The shaman as well has an aura or crown around his head in Fig 7 which represents an affluence of light, it is seen as multicoloured, and merely appears when he is in an altered land of consciousness. Also it can merely be seen past another shama north in a like contradistinct land of consciousness. When he is radiating light he is also believed to be able to see into the darkness.

Mircea Eliade, philosopher of religion and professor of the Universit y of Chicago, said shamans are the concluding human beings to exist able to talk to the animals. This engagement with a broad sweep of animals is very evident in their art, and is seen, non as a link to an individual animal, only to a connection with a whole species, which and then performs a guardian office to the shaman, and the shaman is then believed to take on the spiritual power of the sp ecies. One animal which particularly comes to the fore, in Southward American culture is the jaguar. The jaguar plays an important part in the beliefs and rituals of shamans, who run across this large cat equally a spirit companion or " nagual ", which volition protect them from evil spirits, while they move betwixt the globe and the spirit realm. The jaguar was thought to have the ability to cross betwixt these two worlds. Daytime and nighttime represented these two dissimilar worlds. The living and the earth were associated with the day, and the spirit globe and the ancestors were associated with the night. As the jaguar is quite at home in the nighttime, the jaguar was believed to role of the underworld. In guild for the shamans to combat whatever evil forces may be threatening, it was believed necessary for them to actually transform into a detail animal, often the jaguar, sometimes the bat, to enable them to cross over into the spirit realm. The jaguar was likewise chosen every bit a " nagual " considering of its forcefulness , so that the shamans could "dominate the spirits, in the aforementioned manner equally a predator dominates its prey" (Saunders 1998:30). As well as its nocturnal habits, the jaguar was also thought to possess the power to move between worlds because of its comfort both in the copse and the h2o, and the habit of sleeping in caves, places oftentimes associated with the dec eased ancestors. They were also associated with state of war considering of their ferocity, and with magic and sorcery because of their furtive behaviour. For all these reasons, the jaguar was considered the most effective ally of the shaman,who was believed to magically transform into a jaguar and harness the brute'south magic. Below in F ig viii is depicted a shaman in the process of this ritual transformation into a jaguar. His face is clearly transformed, and his hands have get claws, simply the figure however retains some of the shaman'due south ritual ornaments.

Fig 8 - Height 7.5cms

The pre-Colombian ceramic mask pictured below, of a "were-jaguar" (Fig ix) encodes an Amanita muscaria mushroom into the olfactory organ and forehead of the homo side of the mask so depicts the effects of the mushroom on the left side equally underworld jaguar transformation. (photograph, by Prof.Gian Carlo Bojani Director of the International Museum of the Ceramics in Faenza)

Fig 9 Ceramic "were jaguar"

The spirit globe of the Nasca, and many other ancient groupings in Southward America, included the most powerful creatures of the air (condor and falcon), earth (jaguar and puma) and water (killer whale and shark). These should exist viewed as symbolic stand for ations of either the nature spirits themselves or of the spiritual power ( huaca) that they emit. The shamans were the intermediaries between the spirit world and the everyday globe. They used various means to contact the spirits, including hallucinogenic drugs to induce visions and to proceeds command over supernatural forces. All this took place at sacred sites, such as sure mountains, rather than temples, and involved special paraphernalia including panpipes, mouth masks, animal skin cloaks and Spondylus shell necklaces, as part of the religious anniversary. The spondylus vanquish below, with eye and ear south pools inlay, in F ig ten , shows a similar transformation where the head is part human, part jaguar. This is from the Moche civilization, which flourished in Northern Peru from 100-500AD. One tin can see the very distinctive canines emerging.

Fig ten - Height 10cm

The Moche people too produced cute gilded piece of work for burial, and belo due west is a gilt mask (Fig 11) which would take been buried with a member of an aristocracy fa mily. It would probably have represented the link betwixt the transforming shaman in this life and the dead person in the world of the ancestors.

Fig xi - Diameter 12 cms

Below is yet another example of the ancestry of a transformation into the "were-jaguar", this time from a very different culture in the art of the Olmec pe ople who lived in Mexico from 1600 to 300 BC ( Fig 12 ). This prototype is constitute on the a bully variety of fine art ranging from the smallest jade maskette, as in this case, to the largest rock sculpture, on celts, masks and elongated figurines. The optics are al ways almond shaped or slit-similar, the olfactory organ is human, the oral cavity is down-turned and the upper lip everted, and toothless gums are unremarkably visible. A scissure on the head is too oft visible. This piece is from the Centre Formative menses (900-300 BC). These images symbolise the beginnings of new life, depicting the "baby" were jaguar.

Returning for a moment to the lapis lazuli idol in Fig 2, the slit like optics and the cleft in the forehead are clearly visible in this very early on piece, and this may represent some kind of precursor to the "were jaguar".

Fig 12 - Height 4 cm

Below is a larger Olmec jade maskette from the Veracruz area of Mexico, showing a much more developed were-jaguar form, a protruding upper lip, a pronounced cleft in the middle of the forehead, a broad nose a nd elongated almond eyes. The face has a very distinctive feline form, further on, in the transformation procedure of the shaman sharing his identity with the jaguar. The cleft in the forehead is idea to stand for a natural feature seen in a jaguar's skull.

The flared upper lip expressed, for the Olmec, a ferocity, a snarling mouth, and was also used to designate a link with the supernatural globe.

The jaguar was also thought to take a winged partner, the harpy eagle. Peter Furst in "The Olmec World - Ritual and Rulership" says "In Olmec art we frequently find the feline combined with its celestial counterpart (the harpy hawkeye) the latter appearing in shorthand form as flame (or plumed) eyebrows on were-jaguar masks" (p 75). This characteristic is clearly visible on the mask beneath. This symbolism has also been reported in the Chavin civilisation of Peru, which was gimmicky with the Olmec. Peter Furst goes on to say "wings, claws and beaks, and presumably all the balance of the harpy features, as well occur in Olmec art, only the feature that came to stand up more than any other for the bird is the prominent feather crest (flame eyebrows). The crested harpy, the most powerful winged predator, which flies in the tall canopy of the tropical forest with incredible agility at speeds up to fifty miles per hour, is to the upper globe what the jaguar is to the surface of the earth and the earth beneath."

Furst also says "the white hairs from the jaguar'due south underbelly and the harpy eagle's fluffy white down feathers are essential in shamanic initiation. Stuffed together in his ears, they provide the initiate, who is in an ecstatic trance induced by Virola pulverisation (made from the inner bark of the Virola tree) with magical hearing and the ability to unders tand the language in which the spirits speak."

Fig 13 - Width eleven cm

Fig 14 is another transformation figure, this fourth dimension a shaman c an be seen in the mouth of a toad. This toad, (bufo marinus), secretes a powerful hallucinoge n that was probably used by shamen in the transformation process, and the toad was seen as a spirit companion to the shaman, the toad carrying the shaman in its mouth on its supernatural journey. The toad shed its skin, and and then ate its own pare, then very symbolically was identified with a transformation process. This piece is made of pure chrysocolla, a copper ore and a semi-gem. It originated in the Zapotec culture in the Oaxaca region of Mexico.

Fig 14 - Length iv.5cm

Beneath (Fig xv) is a beautiful duck in transluscent stake light-green jade perchance obtained by the Olmec people from Guatamala, and which would have been used in bloodletting rituals. The duck symbolised the link between earth, water and heaven, thus linking the natural earth of earth with the supernatural world. The sm all receptacle in the heart of this jade slice would have been used to receive blood, possibly from the penis of a ruler, for use in fertility rituals. Claret was seen as a magical substance, opening a window between the natural and supernatural worlds, equally an enacted ritual to bring rain to fertilise the crops, particularly maize. Claret from the penis was seen as especially life giving, being linked to fertility.

Fig xv - Length eight.5cm

The large mask shown in Fig sixteen and 17 is from the Mezcala culture and comes Guerrero state. This civilisation was almost gimmicky with the Olmec cu lture, and there was a certain overlap between them geographically. The protruding upper lip here is very reminiscent of Olmec style. Having said that, this mask primarily portrays the very distinctive geometric style of Mezcala culture. At certain points in that location is a yellowish colouration, which is characteristic of the use of iron pyrites, possibly as an inlay for the eyes.

Fig 16 - Height 17 cm

Fig 17

Below, (Fig 18), is a Chinese bronze effigy from the Warring flow period (3rd century BC) from Sichuan province. The figure is very reminiscent of the pottery dancing figures with long flowing robes that would be involved as musicians and dancers in rituals for the dead. The figure is male and has several interesting characteristics. Firstly his ears are in the grade of snakes, a animal from the underworld. Secondly his optics are uncharacteristically large and penetrating. I take him to exist a shaman who accompanies the dead on their journey to the underworld. And so thirdly his body is out of proportion with extremely short legs and possible some disability, a group in society who were as well known for their shamanic powers. So many shamanic characteristics seem to traverse the continents.

Fig xviii - Height xv cms

The were-jaguar face was only one of the images depicted by the Olmec. The maskette below(Fig xix ) shows a more homo figure, rounder heart sockets, more pronounced olfactory organ, this fourth dimension with teeth. This is probably an image of a ruler of the peopl e and originates from the Veracruz region.

Fig 19 - Height 5.v cms

Returning to the practice of the shaman, below (Fig xx) is a carved black stone spoon, once more depicting a jaguar head. Its eyes are inlaid with turquoise, and information technology has retained a considerable amount of red cinnabar, in the bowl of the sp oon and around the carving of the jaguar'south head. Turquoise was a profoundly prized mineral and was associated with decease, the sky the afterlife. Information technology was often used to decorate objects to be buried. No-i was allowed to own or article of clothing turquoise, rather it was reserved as an offer to the gods.

This spoon is from the Chavin culture, which emerged in the fundamental Highlands of Peru around Chavin de Huantar in the mid second millenium BC, and dates from about i,200 BC. It would probably take been used past the shaman to measure out out his hallucinogenic drugs and to ingest it every bit snuff. A number of Chavin rock sculptures have been found s howing mucus strands hanging from the nostrils of the effigy depicted. this is a articulate indication that the psychotropic drugs were ingested as snuff. The spoon was probably used equally function of a ritual involving a dead person, with whom the spoon was cached. Perhaps the spoon was given equally part of the deceased resources for use in the afterlife.

Fig 20 - Length 5.5 cms

Staying with the Chavin culture, beneath are six more pieces from th e shaman'due south ritual. First, beneath, you will see two whale bone pectorals (F igs 21 and 24 ), worn around the shaman'due south neck during ceremonies, and on each one can see the two holes used for suspension effectually the cervix. When the shaman was on a spirit journey to meet the god into whom he was seeking to exist tranformed, he would wear a bone pectoral equally, both a protecting breastplate against the power of the deity, and as an identification with the deity to aid the transformation process. Whale bone was used in the coastal regions for various ritual objects. Richard Burger in his very informative book "Chavin and the o rigins of Andean Civilisation" pictures two items on page 97 - wha le os snuff trays. The two os pieces were found originally nigh Trujillo on Peru's due north declension.

Chavin art has a developmental sequence with an increasingly abstract fashion. Things began, in what is known as the Pre-Chavin catamenia, where significant artistic developments emerged in the Kotosh period spanning 1500-1200 BC. Depictions expressing the "feline cult" were generally naturalistic in form and were distinguished by circular cornered curved lines that often ended in elaborate ophidian and feline depictions. Fig 21 is from this period and one tin can come across two felines chasing each other's tails in a yin/yang formation, where i of their tails is actually depicted as a ophidian, a non unusual art depiction of this flow. Other snakes announced at various points in the scene. The scene still bears traces of cinnabar indicating its burying context.

Stylized felines, birds and snakes featured prominently in the art of this early menses, representing metaphorically the three realms of nature : world, heaven and sea. In this early period the snakes are depicted equally having seperate center, olfactory organ and oral cavity elements, and the claws of the felines are seperate from the paws, and are short and recurved.

Fig 21 - Bore fourteen.v cms

Chiaki Kano writes well-nigh the evolution of artistic class in "The Origins of the Chavin Culture", seeing this as expressing the development of the " god concept ". In Pre-Chavin times, up until about 1200 BC, Kano says "Zoomorphic images of the god signal religious concepts notwithstanding in the animistic stage as in Fig 21 . The form of a feline god represented is non merely the "feline" of the natural world, only an animistic beingness, possessing supernatural conjuring powers and exercising control of the religious earth.

Increasingly the feline images took on an anthropomorphic dimension. The paradigm o f the god, for instance, represented by the " Lanzon Stone " (the prime stone religious image in the former temple at Chavin de Huantar), is later and conspicuously anthropomorphic" ( Fig 22 ). This early anthropomorphic rendering of the "god" is usually referred to as the " Smile God ".

Fig 22 - The Lanzon Stone - Chavin De Huantar

Kano talks virtually this transition in the Kotosh period, moving on from pure feline course every bit seen in Fig 21 , to the beginnings of anthropomorphism in bone objects discovered in the tombs of Kotosh leaders, and showing similarities to the Lanzon . This has been seen to indicate, by Kano, "that the principal, as the performer of the feline cult rites, had an especially close relation with the feline deity. Morover, the custom of burial an image of the god inside a human grave probably shows that the god and chief /shaman were gradually becoming identified with each other....the main/shaman/priest would perform the cult rites in place of the god.... The god would communicate his wishes through the shaman, past virtue of the spirit of the deity residing in his torso/

Kano observes that "the head of the Lanzon Stone ( Fig 21 ) is that of a feline monster, merely the trunk (torso) is human in class and is adorned with ear pendants, a necklace, tunic and girdle. Snakes are shown at the ends of the hair and eyebrows; th ese probably represent lesser gods, attendants of the jaguar god". Its likely that the dress represented on the Lanzon equates with the ceremonial dress used by the shaman. Thus information technology seems that the image of the Lanzon was a fusion of the images of the feline deity and the shaman of the Pre-Chavin period. The building of a permanent shrine for the Lanzon is thought to link the image with an ancestor deity, representing the beginnings of ancestor worship in the Chavin civilisation.

Richard Burger in his book "Chavin and the Origins of Andean Civilisation" points out that the Lanzon has "its right arm raised with open palm of the hand exposed, and its left arm is lowered with the dorsum of the hand visible. This pose eloquently ex presses the office of the deity as a mediator of opposites, a personification of the principle of balance and society". By balance and social club, accomplished as a result of shamanic activity, would exist meant abundant rainfall, ample harvests, the avoidance of disasters and illness, and harmony within the customs. The Lanzon would be seen as fundamental to achieving this as the source of power and prosperity.

It holds a place at the center of the Old Temple in an clandestine chamber, the top of the sculpture penetrating the roof of this chamber. This is idea to be "symbolic of its role as an axis or conduit connecting the heavens, earth and underworld". A verticle aqueduct leads down from the top of the sculpture and it has been suggested that the blood of sacrificial victims was poured from above into this channel running down the sculpture as function of the shamanic ritual.

The Castillo, which houses the Lanzon, is a foreign edifice with few entrances and fiddling light access. This has led to speculation that it is in fact a tomb. The Smile God depicted on the Lanzon may therefore draw a specific revered chief/shaman/priest who came to exist seen equally a god.

The 2d pectoral shown in Fig 24, is from a slightly later fourth dimension, the beginning of the second menstruum of Chavin history, dated well-nigh 1100BC, where the sculptural form had begun to take more than vertical and horizontal lines and sharper edges. The pectoral depicts one of the main deities of the Chavin people, that has come up to exist known as the "Staff God", conveying a staff in each manus, and famously depicted on the "Raimondi Rock" (Fig 23), in the New Temple in Chavin de Huantar. The Staff God is usually portrayed with claws, a feline face with crossed fangs, a staff in each hand representing authority, with snakes emanating from his hair and his belt. This prototype, like the image on the Lanzon , may likewise stand for a revered principal/shaman/priest god from a slightly later period. As seen below, the Raimondi Stone shows significant development in complication of imagery, when compared with the earlier Lanzon .

The religious development in this period went hand in hand with a significantly growing population, which would have had a deep influence on social society, producing cohesion in the community. Anyone countering the human authorization of the day, would have had to also counter the dominance of the deity.

Fig 23 - Raimondi Stone

Interestingly the Staff God depicted on the pectoral below ( Fig 24 ) does non accept crossed fangs, as is usual for the Staff God, but just two large fangs in the upper jaw. Two fangs is the normal delineation of the " Smiling God " to be seen on the " Lanzon Rock ", the centrepiece sculpture of the Old Temple, a god that seems to predate the Staff God. It is thus likely that god on the pectoral is a very early rendering of the Staff God , that still retains this characteristic of the Grin God of the Old Temple. This is thus evidence that this pectoral probably comes from as early as 1100 BC.

The Chavin shaman, similar in so many early Southward American cultures believed in transformation into the form of a god or animate being, through the use of hallucinogenic drugs. Interestingly a major source of hallucinogens was the " San Pedro cactus " a nd the staffs of this god depicted are similar in form to this varie ty of cactus. Again there is evidence of a cinnabar coating on the pectoral.

Fig 24 - Diameter 18.5 cms

I would like to think a little more than about the depictions of snakes in these various objects. They seem to occur emerging from the head and the genital region, which makes me wonder if the snake is a symbol of magical authorisation for the Chavin people, thought to reside in the head and the sexual organs. Even in the early zoo-morphic images such as the bone pectoral in Fig 21, the snakes sally from these two regions.

The next piece of Chavin civilisation shamanic ritual, is a deeply incised southwardtone (steatite) plate ( Fig 27 and 28 ), securely carved with four depictions of the Staff God , dividing the plate into iv singled-out sections. These plates were used in formalism rituals involving a variety of herbs used to facilitate the drug induced state. This slice should be dated slightly later at the cease of phase ii, around 900BC. It depicts pairs of canines on either side of the oral fissure reminiscent of the Staff God . Snakes emanate from the hair in profusion. It is interesting that on this plate there is a greater sophistication in the delineation of the snakes, than on the two pectorals. The close upwardly of one quadrant of the plate in Fig 28 shows plant leaves emanating from the god'south mouth, linking the image to fertility and bountiful crops.

Fig 27 - Diameter 22 cms

Fig 28

The beautiful stone sceptre below (Figs 29 and thirty) and too belongs to the Chavin culture, originally belonging to a shaman for use in shamanic rituals. The figure represented wears some kind of crown, which may link the shaman to a position of some power within the community, even an association with royalty.

Fig 29 - Height 29 cm

Fig 30

I would but similar to digress for a moment to compare the the shamanic transformation images of the jaguar in South American art, with similar images emerging in widely disparate places in the world at a very similar fourth dimension period.

Fig 31 beneath is a Chinese bronze chariot beam pivot from the Western Zhou Dynasty dating to about 900 BC. It depicts the fused image of a shaman with a tiger, where the man's buttocks are besides the tiger's olfactory organ, the human being's dorsum is the tiger's forehead, and the human's foot the tiger's tongue. This represents the shaman entering on a spirit journey to meet with the ancestors, and harnessing the power of the tiger to enable him to do this. Please run into my Chinese blog :

Fig 31 - Height 12 cms

Then in Fig 32 we take a bronze standard from Luristan in ancient Iran dating to approximately 1000 BC, where the two heads of the shaman are confronting powerful felines, and merging into their bodies. Here is man confronting and controlling the forces of nature and harnessing their energy for shamanic purposes. Please see my Near Eastern web log :

Fig 32 - Height 12.5cms

So we have a common time menstruum early on in the first millenium BC, and a very similar paradigm appearing in iii continents, and each one linked to shamanism. Assuming that these images did not emerge from physical contact between these peoples, their seems to be a powerful parallel collective process emerging from the homo psyche, as a function of mankind'southward spiritual development. Actual contact between these cultures and then early is highly unlikely, and if it had been the instance, 1 would look more than evidence of cantankerous fertilisation of form as well as expression of convergent religious belief in the archeological history of the different cultures.

The story even so doesn't seem to end there. This same image, this time of a king of beasts/human being, has occured at a far earlier fourth dimension. A group of sculptures carved in ivory, were discovered in a cavern in South Western Frg, near Ulm, including one in this form (Fig 33). They were discovered in the lower levels of the sediments of the cave floor. The sculpture is 29.6 cm in summit and was carved out of mammoth ivory with a flint knife. Opinion has been divided as to whether the figure is male or female. It is fabricated more hard by the fact that male lions of this catamenia did non accept manes. This is an amazing discovery depicting, and then long agone, human moving easily between his immediate earth and an imaginary earth. A smaller lion headed figure has since been found, with several bone flutes, in another cavern in the aforementioned region of Frg. This adds weight to the sense that this image played an important function in the mythology/religion of the people of the time, and is consistent with shamanic behavior of spirit journeys to the life beyond the grave embarked on by shamen in later times.

Fig 33 - Height 29.6 cm

Some other piece of a shaman's equipment is pictured below in Fig 34 . This is a black stone insufflator tube decorated with a scorpion, which was used in ritual healing. Affliction was often associated with possession past evil spirits, and the tube would have been placed in the ill person's rima oris past the shaman. In the course of the ritual the patient would exist encouraged to accident into the tube, expelling the evil spirits, then breathing in the skilful spirits to restore health. This piece comes from Tiwanaku or Pre-Inca civilisation in the Tarija Valley in Bolivia, and dates to about 100 AD.

Fig 34 - Length 8cms

Below in Fig 35 is a quartz crystal head from the Moche culture of the north declension of Peru, dating to virtually 100 Advert. Similar previous pieces, it would have had a ritual and magical function. It is non a etching of a diety, but a human head, possibly an ancestor. Information technology would be seen equally an object of ability for the person who owned it.

Fig 35 - Height 6.5cms

Yet some other piece of shamanic ritual art tin can exist seen in Fig 36. Information technology is a black rock palette, again from the Tiwanaku or Pre-Inca culture in the Tarija Valley in Republic of bolivia, and dating to almost 100 Ad. It has four compartments for different coloured paints, used for facial and body painting in important rituals. It is decorated on 2 corners past llamas and on the other two corners by foreign faces.

Fig 36 - Length sixteen.5cms

The piece below ( Fig 37 and 38 ) perhaps gives a greater sense of the feeling and the atmosphere of shamanic ritual in ancient times. It is a volcanic rock ritual vessel consisting of two squatting figures, male and female, joined by their backs as one, holding, with their right hands over their heads, an offering vessel, with the figures every bit a pedestal. This is reminiscent of the Lanzon where one hand is raised and the other lowered as a symbol of the mediation of opposites and the principle of remainder and order. Information technology depicts the opposites of male and female person, duality equally unity, besides symbolising a sense of harmony with the customs. The vessel they hold has two carved lizards, godlike animals in the Pre-Columbian cultures, associated with water and fertility. The pedestal is amazingly carved, with the nose ring of the male effigy and the ear rings of the female figure carved out of the same piece of rock. Past its size this slice may have been placed over an altar.

Inside the vessel were establish traces of lime, which was used to aid the release of cocaine from coca leaves, which would nearly certainly been office of inducing a shaman's ritual trance.

The sculpture comes from La Chaquira well-nigh the San augustin archeological park in Columbia and dates from the Determinative period somewhere between 800 and 300 BC.

Fig 37 - Height 38 cms

Fig 38

The rock mask of a female (Fig 39) below comes from the same culture of San Augustin in Columbia, and from the same period as the vessel in Fig 37 and 38. It would have been attached to other artifacts, linked to the deceased, in a mummy bundle.

Fig 39 - Height 27 cms

Other blogs : http://ancientchineseshamanism.blogspot.com/ http://ancientfertilitycultsintheneareast.blogspot.com/

email accost : malcolm.rushton1@virgin.net

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Source: https://ancientsouthamericanshamanism.blogspot.com/

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