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

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Fragment from a Tunic
Staff-Bearer with Cactus Motifs
Wari culture
AD 600-900
Camelid wool; interlocking tapestry weave
7" x 5"
The Tiwanaku Sun Gateway, with its vision of a radiant
Cosmic Deity framed by a multitude of running or
kneeling attendants brandishing shamanic staffs, is regarded as
the core expression of Andean highland religion.
The monumental sculptural frieze switches between two
renditions of this winged attendant, which is replicated in
horizontal rows flanking the cosmic icon. One version of
the figure has a human face; the other is transformed into a
bird with the conspicuous beak of one of the large raptors or
vultures that dominate the Andean skies, such as the condor or
harpy eagle.
Wari tunic design typically selects one of these two icons,
but also conceives other variants of the figure, including one
endowed with feline characteristics. Here the staff-bearer
retains human form but acquires a fanged mouth and a doubled
open/split eye. The image is rendered in a style moving toward
overall geometric abstraction, emphasizing the play of circular,
square and rectangular shapes distributed throughout the
composition. Recent scholarship has been reluctant to pursue
(and even refutes) connections between Chavín iconography
and the traditions that developed subsequently in the southern
sierra. However, this link is awakened by the proposition that
certain renderings of the Wari staff emblem either directly
represent the San Pedro cactus, or allude to it via a distinctive
candelabra-like finial and headdress ornament.
Recent scholarship has been reluctant to pursue (and even
refutes) connections between Chavín iconography and the
traditions that developed subsequently in the southern sierra.
However, this link is awakened by the proposition that certain
renderings of the Wari staff emblem either directly represent
the San Pedro cactus, or allude to it via a distinctive candelabralike
finial and headdress ornament.
At Chavín de Huántar, a ritualist bearing a naturalistic San
Pedro cactus is portrayed in a procession converging on a
paramount deity. If information from that scene is transposed
to Wari iconography, and the connective tissue supplied
by Tiwanaku imagery of the magic cactus is taken into
consideration, it is tenable to interpret this staff motif as also
signifying that sacred plant, which was a pan-Andean agent of
psychedelic experience.
The tri- or multipart branching motif, which evokes a cluster of
flower-tipped cactus stalks, dominates this design. It decorates
both the headdress and the staff (“expanded" following the
classic Wari stylistic conventions), and in a visual pun on the
shape of a feather, it is conflated with the wing. The element
is also placed upside-down behind the rear arched foot, thus
diagonally echoing the identical emblem embellishing the top
of the staff and deftly balancing the composition.
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