Page 607 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

apparently reaching Costa Rica by diffusion According to Spanish descriptions, those who shared with northern South America, suggest-
around A.D. 300-500. possessed access to sumptuary goods such as ing a quite different cosmogony or ''world
By the 15005 there was a highly developed gold were caciques, warriors, and shamans; an view" than that of Mesoamerica, where squares
social system, of the kind anthropologists call a individual could hold more than one of these and references to the four cardinal points were
chiefdom or rank society. Unlike the highly social positions. Bozzoli (1975) noted that his- fundaments in the prevalent mythic structure.
stratified political states or empires of the Inkas torical native peoples still recalled that there Similarly, the shaft and chamber interment and
or Aztecs, for example, chiefdoms in Costa were three warrior classes: the jaguars, the red the stone cist tomb, a burial placed in an edifice
Rica, Panama, and Colombia did not have monkeys, and the "two-headed" ones (biceph- of stone or wood including floor, walls, and lid,
monumental stone edifices or cities with tens of aly, and even twins, were historically regarded are also seen in many Colombian sites; the
thousands of inhabitants. This was probably as symbols of impending doom). It is also ethnographic explanation is a taboo against
because of their smaller population base and remembered that the settlements of the jaguar the deceased's body coming into contact with
the ecology of slash and burn agriculture, and monkey clans, the only clans from which the earth.
which requires the moving of sites with some chiefs could be designated, were located system- Our view of Diquis at the time of the first
frequency. Instead the smaller chiefdoms atically between the villages of other lesser European contact, then, is one of warring city-
developed highly sophisticated crafts with ritual clans so as to better control them. Cobble- states, rising and falling over just a few gen-
significance, such as gold casting, stone and paved causeways or ''Indian roads" (now erations; complicated, pantheistic religious sys-
wood sculpture, and feather work. Although buried) crisscrossed Diquis, and the Spanish tems that meshed with sociopolitical realities
the Spaniards sometimes described groups of observed that some roads connected principal and that were embodied in many sculptural
native peoples as if all or most wore gold adorn- settlements with gold-bearing rivers and media, one of the most impressive being cast
ment, archaeology suggests that the distribu- included vine suspension bridges over deep can- gold; and an ingrained custom of human
tion of gold artifacts among the general yons. Each major chief had a symbol of his sacrifice as part of the spoils of war, probably
population was much less democratic. Elite bur- reign, which he frequently caused to be tat- viewed as necessary for the maintenance of
ials with fifty to one hundred gold objects of all tooed on all his subjects. many deities and the viability of the ruling
kinds have been found (see Bray, this volume); Bray (this volume) has provided a synthesis social strata. Today we see no pyramids, no
such burials are often grouped together, as if in of Diquis mythology as known through his- evidence of a writing system or calendar: the
a special funerary precinct. On the other hand, torical indigenous peoples, especially as it real complexity of these indigenous societies is
archaeologists have excavated whole cemeteries relates to the symbolism contained in gold arti- just beginning to be deciphered from an exuber-
of more than 150 well-made stone cist tombs facts. It may be added that the circular house ant corpus of portable sculpture.
and found only a single tiny gold avian pendant. form (and general village layout) is a tradition M.J.S.

475 476
displaying their superiority over a vanquished
PEG-BASE FIGURE enemy. The trophy head cult (commented upon FELINE

Diquis by the first Spanish chroniclers) was reflected in Diquis
stone all sculptural media, frequently on metates, indi- stone
35.5*12.7(14x5] cating that human sacrifice formed part of the 18 x 31 (f/s x i2V 4j
rituals used to propitiate agricultural deities.
Alfonso Jimenez-Alvarado The Spaniards also noted the presence of statu- Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, San Jose
ary around open plazas and elite residential or
The stone sculpture of the Diquis in protohistoric ritual centers; archaeological excavations in This stone feline, which could represent any of
times was markedly different from that of the Diquis and the Atlantic zone have in fact revealed the six wild cats known from Central America,
rest of pre-Columbian Costa Rica, sharing instead the cobblestone mounts for such sculptures, some has full, softly rounded contours that at first
clearly South American styles, especially the with the broken bases of the sculptures still in glance give it a benign, almost cartoon-character
sculptural tradition of San Agustfn, Colombia, and place. It is true also that the famous stone spheres quality. Some other Diquis animal sculptures
that of Muisca gold work. Much Diquis statuary of Diquis were frequently arranged around an share this particular style. However, it should
is stiff and highly stylized, almost giving a two- open plaza. As some smaller stone spheres found be recalled that the jaguar was one of the most
dimensional impression, with only a slight bow from Veracruz to Guatemala appear to be related important and frequently used symbols in pre-
to realism in the depiction of anatomical features. to the Mesoamerican ball game and associated Columbian America. For the historic native
The resulting formality recalls architectural cosmological symbolism, it is possible that ritual peoples of southern Costa Rica, this feline was
embellishment, which the peg-base figures may decapitation of the losers after the ball game "hunter, killer, warrior, clansman, uncle, brother-
have been, more than individual work. (or some other ceremony held in the zone sur- in-law; symbol of strength and power; equivalent
This piece is carved in a more appealing fully rounded by sculptures) is represented by figures to eagles above, crocodiles in the water, and to the
round style, but as is the rule in most pre-Colum- like the present example (Graham in Detroit Xanthosoma edible root (name) in the vegetable
bian sculptures, every element, every posture had 1981,127). M.J.S. world" (Bozzoli 1975,180). In this region, the
sociopolitical or religious significance. Figures clan identified with the jaguar was one of only
such as this one, carrying an inverted human- two that could provide caciques (ruling chiefs).
head trophy and, like many of the gold figurines, This sculpture shows the N-shaped incisors or
wearing a serpent belt and what is probably a fangs characteristic of most pre-Columbian feline
feline mask, must represent warriors or shamans sculptures from South America. M.J.S.

606 CIRCA 1492