Page 582 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

inventories. A very similar shell headband in Ulm wide and so tightly woven that "an harquebus inventory of the Munich Kunstkammer and was
was first described in 1909 (Andree 1914) as part would not have been able to pierce them, or only illustrated in Pignoria (1626, 563). Resembling in
of the seventeenth-century Weickmann collection with difficulty" (Vega 1973, 212-214; Alegria shape a cotton zemi now in the Museo di Antro-
of Africana, but does not appear in any of the 1983,129-131). While this description fits the pologia in Turin, but covered on the outside "with
Weickmann catalogues and may have an entirely beaded belt, and iconographically its zemi is small white and red interlocking rings, with big
different history. closely related to other pre-Columbian images of eyes of blue glass" (Heikamp and Anders 1970,
The beaded belt now in Vienna has equally these supernaturals, the presence of glass beads 210), it was obviously related to the Rome and
poor documentation. It first appeared in an 1877 and mirrors on the belt clearly proves its postcon- Vienna pieces. The Munich inventory reports that
inventory of the Ambras Collection and is identi- quest origin. In addition, the shells used for the it had come from Mexico and had been part of the
fied as a transfer from the Vienna Schatzkammer, teeth of the zemi have been identified as a West collection of Cardinal Francisco Ximenes Cisneros,
but cannot be traced to any earlier list or inventory. African species of Marginella. Similarly, the face the archbishop of Toledo (Feest 1986,190-191).
Before its identification as a Tamo work in 1952 of the Roman beaded zemi has recently been Although the cardinal had died in 1517 (and a
(Schweeger-Hefel 1951/1952), it had been vari- shown to be of rhinoceros horn (Vega 1989). Mexican origin would be precluded also for that
ously thought of as Malayan or Indonesian, and The kind of convex mirrors used as a substitute reason), the provenance is possible as soon as a
later as a Kongo mirror fetish. Its obvious and for shells in the zemi's eyes and in the ear spools Tamo origin is recognized. Since the eyes were
close relationship to the beaded zemi that has of the Pigorini zemi date both pieces to no earlier made of glass other than convex mirrors, there is
been preserved in Rome in the Museo Pigorini than the second quarter of the sixteenth century no reason why it should not have dated from the
since 1878 (Laurencich-Minelli 1982) suggested a (Schweeger-Hefel 1952, 226). At that time, first quarter of the sixteenth century. C.F.F.
common origin and quite probably some shared however, the destruction of Tamo religion and the
history in European collections. Since the beaded zemi cult may have been nearly complete. Peter
zemi was first mentioned in 1680 as an "idol from Martyr dAnghiera (1530, i. Dec., book ix), for
the Indies" (not specifically from Santo Domingo example, reported that "they are now all subject
as is sometimes reported) in the collection of Fer- to the Christians, all those who had stubbornly
nando Cospi of Bologna, any shared history must resisted having been executed. Nor remains there
predate 1680 and may involve an Italian past of yet any memory of their zemes, for they have all
the beaded belt. been brought to Spain, so that we may be certi-
Early accounts describe Tamo belts, some of fied of their illusions of evil spirits and idols."
them with attached "masks," made of "fish bones, Among other Tamo objects recorded in
white and in between some red in the manner of sixteenth-century European collections but since
seed beads," and cotton: they were four fingers lost, another larger beaded zemi appears on a 1598

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