Page 562 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

bought by the museum and brought to New York. 38 4
One presumes from its excellent state of preserva-
tion that the site was a dry cave. ATLATL
The piece is a wooden disk faced on the obverse Mixtec-Aztec
with a finely made mosaic, by Saville's estimate wood and gold leaf
consisting of fourteen thousand turquoise tes- length 57.5 (22 /s)
5
serae, most of which are tiny circular bits. Within
and without the Aztec empire the art of turquoise Museo di Antropologia e Etnologia, Florence
mosaic was mainly in the hands of the Mixtec
of Oaxaca and Puebla, although many of the sur- Aztec warriors held spear throwers, called atlatls
viving objects may have been made by order of in the Nahuatl language, to launch their darts
the Aztec state as is probably the case with this with greater force, in effect lengthening the arm
shield. While the exact source of the turquoise has to provide greater impetus to the projectile. This
not yet been determined, there were apparently weapon also has been documented in various
no pre-conquest mines in Mexico proper; it is other parts of the world and is generally thought
generally believed that the people of central to be an invention older than the bow and arrow.
Mexico obtained their turquoise from the Pueblos In the case of the piece shown here, two darts
of Arizona and New Mexico, in return for parrot were placed in the pair of notches carved on the
and macaw feathers. working face of the atlatl, and were fixed against
In inventories of Cortes' loot, 150 shields are the two hooked protuberances at one end. The
enumerated, mostly decorated with feathers, but rich carving and gilding decorating this atlatl sug-
25 are specified as being ornamented with tur- gest that it was used for ceremonial purposes
quoise mosaic (Saville 1922, 69); and we know rather than in actual warfare.
from early colonial sources, for example Saha- There are at least twelve Aztec ceremonial
gun's, that images of specific gods carried such atlatls known. The present object is a particularly
shields. Karl Taube (personal information) rare example, both because it allows two darts to
suggests that this piece might have been a back be launched at the same time and because the
shield, worn on the small of the back by warriors carving on its back is so complex.
and gods, and that the perforations were for On the working surface, the two notches are
suspending feathers. decorated with incised motifs, one in a fishtail
The turquoise disk recalls Aztec solar disks, pattern and the other in a design recalling woven
although the eight radial spokes in the outer band mats or petlatl. The two hooks are carved in bas
suggest the eight cycles of the planet in the five- relief with two standing warrior figures facing
year Venus calendar. In the center is a scene of each other.
great interest, since it alludes directly to the myth The back of the atlatl, worked in high relief on
of the tribal origin of the Aztec rather than the the first level and in bas relief in the second and
Mixtec people. Below a celestial band with stars third, is divided into three areas, with the central
and a solar disk, a female figure, clad only in skirt, one occupying four-fifths of the entire carved
descends head down; she may be a Cihuateotl, surface. In the first area, at the top, are two fig-
one of the dread warrior-goddesses of the west, ures with all the signs of their status: nose orna-
the souls of women who had died in childbirth, ment, earrings, and feathered headdresses. They
who were thought to descend during eclipses are seated on two ceremonial stools and stretch
and at the end of the world ages (see cat. 370). their arms out to shake hands. A third male fig-
Directly comparable images can be seen on the ure, also of high rank, can be seen between the
world-direction pages (49-52) of the Codex two with his hands on their outstretched arms, as
Borgia. She is flanked by two male figures, per- though ratifying an agreement. This probably
haps two of the Ahuiteteo (pleasure gods) who are represents a pact between mythical ancestors, as is
found on the same Borgia pages. indicated by the fact that they are separated from
Below is the "twisted mountain" place glyph of the second area by the glyph for the rainy sky.
Colhuacan, most likely not the Colhuacan (or Cul- The second area, divided into six sections,
huacan) in the Valley of Mexico whose princess describes the adventures of the noble warrior
was sacrificed and skinned by the Aztecs, but the i Rabbit and his allies. This hero sits on the
original mythical Colhuacan, the Mr-homeland symbol of a house and rests his foot on the out-
of the Aztec, which was in an island in a lagoon stretched hand of i Grass while the latter points
in the land of Aztlan. This was a magic and with his foot to a warrior seated on an alligator
enchanted place, in which the mother-goddess crouching on the glyph for water and holding a
Coatlicue lived and which was reached by the sacrificial knife. Behind the alligator is a warrior
migrating Aztec tribes, according to the Codex whose hand is covered by what appears to be a
Boturini, in a year i Flint (A.D. 1168). The scene kind of knuckle-duster. This section evidently
on the shield, therefore, recalls an episode of the narrates i Rabbit's conquest of i Grass and the
Aztecs' great migration legend, perhaps an astro- sacrifice, through the offices of the sacrificing
nomical event of some sort. M. D. c. god and his assistant, of a noble warrior who had

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