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

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Textile Figurine
Woman with Face Decoration
Chancay culture
AD 1000-1476
Cotton, camelid wool, reed; interlocking
and slit tapestry weave, wrapping
10 ½" high
Literature
Amano Museum 1979a, 199, figs. 230–233.
Stone-Miller 1992b, 156-157.
Although the practice of fashioning soft figurative
sculptures from a variety of textile materials was broadly
established among coastal Andean cultures, the tradition was
especially abundant among the Chancay.
The miniature cloth and fiber objects include representations
of human beings, llamas, birds and even plants and trees.
Costumed male and female figures are sometimes portrayed
engaging in activities such as weaving and rafting, or as part
of multifigure marriage and ceremonial scenes. Despite having
been tagged with the earlier misnomer “dolls" (spurring a
cottage industry of modern replicas), these appealing figures are,
however, better understood as being part of a long continuum
of human effigies and votives crafted out of clay, gold, silver,
shell and wood, and associated with fertility, shamanic rites,
mountain worship and ancestral cults.
Individual textile figurines have been found in numerous
Chancay tombs, interleaved between the layers of fabric
composing mummy bundles. Some offerings are presented
on stuffed "cushions." The figures and tableaux seemingly
commemorate ordinary people—either members of the family
or ayllu, or the deceased themselves.
This figure is illustrative of the way most Chancay figures
are fabricated. The body, limbs and articulated hands and feet
consist of reeds or sticks wrapped with pink yarn. Twisted
camelid wool is used for the hair or wig, while the face is
made from a small tapestry-woven panel. Miniature customsized
garments and headcloths emulate Chancay styles of dress
(and, in fact, supply useful information about it).
While this female personage conforms to type, she has a
particularly poignant visage, decorated with standard yellow,
pink and red zigzag step designs (face paint or tattooing?). Her
long, scroll-patterned dress or wrapper (possibly a modern recreation)
is consistent with Andean female attire.
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