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

151
Fragment from a Tunic
Staff-Bearer with Feline Attributes
Wari culture
AD 600-1000
Camelid wool; interlocking tapestry weave
24" x 11"
The logic underpinning this variant of the staff-bearer in
its feline incarnation is difficult to establish.The cryptic
visual scheme may reflect either a local aesthetic innovation,
or that the weaver-designer was at a remove in time from
the original conception of the sacred icon, resulting in the
inadvertent scrambling of design conventions.
Like most Wari tunics, the imagery engages multiple
perspectives depending on whether the textile is oriented
vertically, as worn, or horizontally, as on the loom. Accordingly,
the figures can be understood as either flying in a horizontal
plane, or standing upright, facing opposite directions, with
their heads twisting upward.This dynamic back-and-forth
movement was presumably intentional.Yet the organization
of the composition has several perplexing characteristics that
confound the viewer’s perception of space and proportion.
Taking up an equal ratio of space in each pattern block,the
repeat figure and his emblems create parallel columns of design
down the length of the panel.Although the width of the staffbearer’s
body is unchanging, the elements on one side (a staff
alternating with a headdress) are enlarged, while the same
motifs on the opposite side are extremely compressed. The
disproportionate scale and geometricization of the left-hand
staff or headdress, compounded by the exaggerated size of the
hand wrapped around the shaft, breaks this zone of design into
a mosaic of color and shape.
The placement and rendering
of the outsized hand is similarly
confusing (detail right). In
every second figure in the
sequence, the relationship
between the thumb and fingers is correctly represented,
matching the action of holding a staff.There is no logic to the
placement of the hand in the alternating figure, however. In that
register it appears in back of the staff-bearer, underneath the
headdress, with the thumb pointing down. In this improbable
location, therefore, the motif is seemingly employed as a design
filler to create a pleasing symmetry—apparently a triumph of
aesthetics over verisimilitude.
56