Number 30 - South American Explorers

20 SOUTH AMERICAN EXPLORER
event, it certainly furnishes material for speculation.
Made of fine-grained clay, the warrior's legs are bound,
an example of a practice possibly copied from the fierce
war-like Carib, a people who migrated down the River
Magdelena into the interior of Colombia around A.D.
1,000. The custom of binding the legs until the lower
extremities swelled up was a much-admired deformity,
one that may not have represented beauty enhancement
so much as rank or position in the community.
Body alterations, clothing, jewelry, body painting, and
other marks of external distinction offered instant recognition
of social status to a non-literate society. Art,
too, with its symbols and forms, developed over time
into a language serving early man as a means of communication
with other men as well as between the community
and their gods. As society grew more complex,
art forms reflect increasingly skillful technologies and
ever more useful and meaningful forms. Not all cultures,
of course, developed art to a high level of excellence,
or at thesame speed. But all practiced some form
of art. Nevertheless, the systematic study of the art of
ancient cultures in Colombia is very recent. We have yet
to develop a clear idea of the immense diversity.
The La Tolita/Tumaco urn lid, Figure Four, has an
altogether different tone, distinguished by drama and a
rare narrative interest. An enormous feline, larger than
life, stocky and fearsome, dominates the scene. It stands
over the small, recumbent form of a woman who lies
between its front legs. This piece belongs to a small
group of ceramics which feature an over-sized jaguar in
association with humans. One of Colombia's great early
archaeologists, Reichel-Dolmatoff, was deeply interested
in the mythology of present-day native populations.
He has left some thought-provoking comments,
suggesting that this group of ceramics represents the
spirit master of the animal "writ large," artistically portraying
the idea of spirituality, other-worldliness, power
and scope beyond the norm, connected wilh shamanistic
perceptions. Reichel-Dolmatoff participated in the
hallucinogenic}>«/e-drinking ritual, to experience an altered
state of mind in which he thinks ancient craftsmen
ABOVE, Feline effigy urn lid, 200 B.C.-200 A.D., La
Tolita/Tumaco culture, Colombia/Ecuadorian border.
Denver Art Museum.