Page 536 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

EMBLEMS OF POWER IN THE

CHIEFDOMS OF THE NEW WORLD

Warwick Bray

T clay until it was transformed into something along the present-day boundary between Costa

Ihe first
European contacts with the New
3
4
World were not with Aztec Mexico or Inka useful or pleasing. In the pre-Hispanic New Rica and Panama. On the Pacific side it incor-
Peru, but with the lands in between (the old World, gold objects served a purpose as symbols porated the Diquis region of southwest Costa
"Spanish Main"), where the conquistadors of authority and prestige. Chiefs bedecked their Rica and the adjacent Panamanian provinces of
encountered simpler forms of society ruled by bodies with gold. They competed for it, used it Chiriqui and much of Veraguas. Finds of similar
local chiefs (caciques). 1 Each cacique controlled to bribe political allies, and with it paid ransoms pottery and goldwork at the Caribbean end of
a group of villages. Most of these territories for sons captured in war. They stole it from the frontier extend this culture area to the
were small, with populations of ten to forty their rivals and, in times of danger, hoarded it coastal region visited by Columbus in 1502
thousand subjects, nearly all of whom lived in secret places. Gold ornaments functioned as during his fourth voyage.
within a day's journey of the principal town. insignia of rank and as amulets or talismans; In the sixteenth century the name Veragua
Since warfare was endemic, some of these towns they defined tribal or lineage identities and, was applied to the whole of Caribbean Panama
were fortified. indirectly, linked the real world with the super- from the Laguna de Chiriqui to Punta Rincon.
The chiefdoms of the Americas were hier- natural. All these artifacts carried messages The diary of Fernando Columbus describes a
archic, nonegalitarian societies in which power, whose different layers of meaning could be typical beach scene at Cerebaro, now known as
status, and wealth were concentrated in the hands decoded by all members of a particular society. Almirante Bay. The Spaniards found twenty
2
of a ruling elite. At the top of the hierarchy was This area of lower Central America and canoes pulled onto the beach and "the people on
the chief himself, supported in office by contri- northern South America, stretching between the shore naked as they were born, except for a
butions in goods and services from his subjects. the Aztec and Inka empires, was the home of mirror of gold at the neck, and some with an
5
The cacique was the ultimate political authority. many different ethnic groups, each with its own eagle of guanin [gold-copper alloy]." This is the
He declared war, made diplomatic alliances, culture. Notable works of art, in gold and other first mention of the discs and eagle pendants
adjudicated quarrels and disputes, and con- materials, were produced by the inhabitants of found archaeologically throughout the isthmus.
trolled the production and distribution of the Diquis and Chiriqui subregions of the The brief accounts by members of Columbus'
certain goods. He also sponsored feasts and isthmus, in the Sinu and Tairona archaeological expedition can be supplemented by later docu-
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religious ceremonies at which he gave presents zones of Caribbean Colombia, and also by the ments from Diquis. Spanish chroniclers
to his supporters and handed out food and Musicas of the Colombian highlands and the reported that the population was organized
drink to the populace at large. As possessor of Manteno of Ecuador. into a network of villages, the largest of which
sacred knowledge and "owner" or patron of The subregions of Diquis and Greater served as the residences of paramount chiefs
essential rituals, the authority of the chief Chiriqui included most of the frontier area who warred with each other for booty and
became sanctified, identified with important
supernatural forces, and surrounded with
religious ceremonialism.
This power brought its rewards. Chiefs
received special titles and forms of obeisance,
insignia of rank, the finest craft products, a reti-
nue of slaves and servants, and all the trappings
of influence and status. In death as in life these
distinctions were maintained. Paramount chiefs
were dressed for burial in gold from head to
foot, and into the tomb were put all that was
needed for the afterlife: food, serving vessels,
regalia and weapons, and sometimes also wives
and servants.
When we consider the products of the
American chiefdoms we must abandon Euro-
pean attitudes about art and artistic values. In
these societies, gold was not particularly valued
as bullion or as precious metal. The son of a
Panamanian chief pointed out to the Spaniards
that raw gold had no more value than a lump of

THE AMERICAS 535