Shamans, Supernaturals & Animal Spirits: Mythic Figures From the Ancient Andes

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Band from a Tunic
The Radiant Cosmic Deity (Staff God)
Early Tiwanaku style, Southern Highlands
AD 200-700
Camelid wool; tapestry weave
10" x 12½"
The celestial and mountain symbolism of Tiwanaku art,
sculpture and temple architecture are condensed in the
figurative and abstract iconography of this textile.
The large face ringed with a solar or thunderbolt corona
represents an abbreviated (regional?) interpretation of the
Cosmic Deity, best known from the iconic Sun Gateway.
The modern title bestowed on the icon—the Staff God—
hardly does justice to the totality of the metaphysical symbols
and ideas packed into the figure, which had a profound and
widespread impact on Andean ritual iconography during the
Middle Horizon period (circa AD 500-1100).
Like a rising or setting sun, the radiant head emerges above
a stepped form that recalls the terraces of the sacred Akapana
pyramid in the ceremonial city. A quivering, comb-like motif
embedded in this geometric shape similarly evokes the water
that was channeled through the site or which flowed from the
nearby Choquepacha spring and other rivers originating in the
sacred mountains visible on the horizon. Ultimately, all pre-
Columbian temples refer to such cosmologically significant
peaks.
Concurrently, however, these two motifs are fused into an
anthropomorphic figure that replicates the pose and features
of the staff-bearing divinity depicted on the stone portal. The
terraced platform becomes a patterned tunic or truncated body,
and serpentine/bird motifs pointing down at each side suggest
his staffs. Architectonic forms, also inlaid with bird faces, frame
and separate each zone of the design, which was probably
repeated along the span of a banded, red-ground tunic or shirt.
The fragment belongs to a rare group of textiles that has been
linked to a regional manifestation of the related, but distinct,
Pukara and Tiwanaku traditions. Their origins are elusive, but
the weavings are believed to have been unearthed in areas that
lie closer to the Pacific coast than to the highlands around Lake
Titicaca where those cultures arose. Their motifs and modes of
representation, moreover, show affinity with certain early Sihuas
themes (see cat. 14). Yet how those cultures interacted—or
which one might have been the originator of the iconography—
remains problematic.
The Staff Divinity concept was well established throughout
the Andes long before Tiwanaku’s influence radiated south and
west along llama caravan networks, together with the trade in
precious materials and prestigious goods. Tiwanaku’s visionaries
appear to have blended that archaic icon with a southern sierra
cosmological figure who personified thunder and lightning
(known later as Tarapaca or Tunupa).
The present understanding is that the Sun Portal was installed
at Tiwanaku after AD 500. Curiously, numerous "regional"-
style textiles displaying related imagery predate the gateway and
presumably could not have been inspired by it. There are several
plausible explanations for this, including the possibility that
the gateway we know today is actually older, that it replaced
an earlier version or that textiles actually supplied the design
template for this important ritual and calendrical monument. 1
1 Margaret Young-Sanchez, ed., Tiwanaku: Ancestors of the Inkas (2004): 36, 49.
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