Page 539 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

argument that Tairona goldwork is much more were the idols and the offerings: uncut Helms, Ancient Panama: Chiefs in Search of Power
than a decorative art. emeralds, seashells brought from the Caribbean (Austin and London, 1979).
The archaeological remains of the Muiscas are coast, wooden items, and tunjos wrapped in 3. Helms 1979, 79.
unspectacular, but their society, like that of the cotton cloth and stored in jars or packed in man- 4. Doris Stone, Pre-Columbian Man in Costa Rica
(Cambridge, 1977), 107-135;
Elizabeth P. Benson,
Taironas, can be classified as an advanced chief- tles. The offerings were eventually buried out- ed., Between Continents/Between Seas: Precolum-
dom or an incipient state. 16 side the temple. bian Art of Costa Rica [exh. cat. Detroit Institute of
Rich individuals wore jewelry made of The most famous Muisca ritual, which has Arts] (Detroit, 1981).
imported gold or gold alloyed with locally avail- earned a permanent place in the legends of the 5. Sauer 1966, 131.
able copper, manufactured by specialist crafts- New World, is the ceremony of El Dorado (liter- 6. Luis Ferrero A., "Ethnohistory and Ethnography in
the Central Highlands—Atlantic Watershed and
men under the patronage of caciques. ally the "gilded man") carried out at Lake Gua- Diquis," Detroit 1981, 93-103.
18
Castellanos remarked that the goldsmiths of the tavita. Each new ruler, when he took office, 7. Samuel K. Lothrop, Archaeology of the Diquis
town of Guatavita were esteemed as specialists, went to the sacred lagoon where his skin was Delta, Costa Rica, Papers of the Peabody Museum
traveling through the neighboring provinces annointed with a sticky earth onto which was of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University
17
and earning a living by their skills. It is said, blown gold dust until he was covered from head 8. 51 (1963), 94. The Talamancan Tribes of Costa Rica,
Doris Stone,
too, that anyone employing a Guatavita jeweler to foot. He was then placed on a raft, with piles Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and
had to send two of his own vassals to work of gold items and emeralds to be offered to the Ethnology, Harvard University 43, no. 2 (1962), 64.
in Guatavita for the duration of the contract. gods, and with him went four retainers, also 9. Ferrero in Detroit 1981, fig. 34.
Other goldsmiths were attached to the prin- with their offerings. To the sound of music and 10. Fray Pedro Simon, Noticias Historiales de las Con-
cipal shrines and were perhaps responsible for chanting the raft slowly moved to the center of quistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales,
making the tunjos, which are a uniquely Muisca the lake, where the gilded man made his offer- 11. bk. 4 (Bogota, 1892), 32-34. Varones Ilustres de
Juan de Castellanos, Elegias de
contribution to native American metallurgy. ings and (in some versions of the story) plunged Indias (Bogota, 1955), 3:74.
These tunjos were not jewelry, but votive into the lagoon to wash off his golden coating. 12. Simon 1892, 26.
offerings, roughly cast in the shape of human In the words of Juan Rodriguez Freyle (who 13. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Colombia (London,
figures, animals, snakes and dragons, weapons, learned the details from the nephew of the last 1965), 142-158.
Chaman-
insignia, and household utensils. The aim seems cacique of Guatavita): "From this ceremony 14. Gerardo Reichel-Dolamatoff, Orfebrena y del Oro
iconogrdfico
Un estudio
ismo:
del Museo
to have been to produce objects that were easily came the celebrated name of El Dorado, which (Medellfn, 1988).
19
recognizable (with plenty of diagnostic detail) has cost so many lives/' No European ever wit- 15. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, "Things of Beauty
rather than merely beautiful, well finished, or nessed the ceremony, but many like to believe Replete with Meaning —Metals and Crystals in Co-
7
correctly proportioned. Tunjos may have served that the raft of El Dorado is represented by the lombian Indian Cosmology/ in Sweat of the Sun,
Moon:
and
Emerald Treasures of
Gold
much the same purpose as the ex votos offered finest of the tunjos in the collection of the Tears of the [exh. cat. Natural History Museum of Los
Colombia
in today's churches. Museo del Oro in Bogota. Angeles County] (Los Angeles, 1981), 17-33.
Muisca shrines were located in inaccessible 16. Reichel-Dolmatoff 1965, 158-168.
places such as mountain peaks, caves, and NOTES 17. Castellanos 1955, 4:142.
lagoons, and they continued in clandestine use 1. Carl Ortwin Sauer, The Early Spanish Main 18. Warwick Bray, The Gold of El Dorado [exh. cat. The
Royal Academy]
(London, 1978), 18-23.
long after the Spanish conquest. They are (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966). 19. Juan Rodriguez Freyle, El Carnero (Medellfn, n.d.),
described as small dark huts made of wood and 2. Robert A. Drennan and Carlos A. Uribe, eds., Chief - 66.
straw, black with the smoke of incense. Inside doms of the Americas (Lanham, 1987); Mary W.

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