Page 609 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

477
CROCODILE

Diquis
cast gold
l
l
5.5xi5.8(2 /sx6 /8)
Museos del Banco Central de Costa Rica, San Jose

This striking piece shows a crocodilian reptile
with a human in its mouth. Crocodiles, caymans,
and alligators are all found in Central America;
crocodile is used here as a generic term in describ-
ing Diquis artifacts. In this case the relative sizes
of man and beast indicate that this is a mytholog-
ical crocodile. There was a basic pan-American
pre-Columbian belief in a giant saurian (some-
times a crocodile, sometimes a turtle) on whose
back the world rested. In the hierarchy of deities
in almost every major pre-Columbian culture, this
creature symbolized the basic foundation of the
universe. In Diquis and all of Costa Rica and
northern Panama, the crocodile motif was prob-
ably the most frequently depicted (the next two
being the jaguar and the eagle-vulture).
While the symbolism of this composition
cannot be known with certainty, it is notable that
another similarly proportioned gold figure from
Diquis (Museos del Banco Central de Costa Rica,
San Jose, no. 297) shows a deer holding a maize
cob in its mouth. It may well be that the Diquis
thought that the deer, a major indigenous protein
source, was sustained in part by maize, a product
of man's farming activities, whereas the crocodile,
one of the principal deities, had to be propitiated
by man's body itself, presumably through human
sacrifice. M.J.S.

478
MAN WITH CROCODILE COSTUME

Diquis
cast gold
7
12.3x7.5 (4 /sx 3)
Museos del Banco Central de Costa Rica, San Jose

Some of the most impressive gold figurines from
Diquis depict men costumed as crocodiles. They
may represent shamans or warrior-chiefs. The
spatulate hands and feet, recalling fins, accentuate
the reflective glitter of the gold. The dynamic yet
splendidly elaborate costume worn by this figure
appears to cover his entire upper torso, and the
triangular elements along each side of the body
symbolize the scaly plates of crocodiles, or pos-
sibly feathers recalling the tail element in almost
all avian pendants. The scrolls on the sides of the
head either represent ear spools or denote the
act of "hearing and understanding/ both human
traits. These scroll-shaped elements do not appear
on realistic effigies of animals. The tiny figures

608 CIRCA 1492