Page 635 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

POPAYAN (CAUCA) tion. His hair is transformed into feathers that excavation, but it is known that they are asso-
open above a pierced crescent recalling chullos, ciated with large ceramic figures of highly
This area is best known for representations of the cloth caps that are still worn to protect adorned personages seated on benches and
the bird-man, one of the most common images against Andean cold. The twisted nose orna- carrying shields with pierced decoration (see
in pre-Hispanic Colombian gold work. The ment, necklace, belt, and ties under the knees cat. 540). The date of the pectorals is not
transformation of the shaman into a bird sym- give a human quality to these figures, which known; however, the technique of casting in
bolizes his capacity to fly toward the super- are nevertheless portrayed with the unfurled gilded tumbaga arrived late in the Colombian
natural world, the source of his knowledge tail of a bird. The central figure is accompanied southwest, at the same time that the use of the
(Reichel-Dolmatoff 1988). by two or more small bird-men and by auxil- twisted nose ornaments became common. These
In the large pectorals of gilded tumbaga that iary animals that assist him in his transforma- nose ornaments are associated with the son-
have been found in the region of the upper tion (Reichel-Dolmatoff1988). soide ceramic tradition, which lasted from
Cauca River, south of the city ofPopaydn, the None of the pieces of this type has been approximately the tenth to the sixteenth cen-
man with a bird's beak occupies a central posi- recovered from a controlled archaeological turies A.D.

538

HUMAN FIGURE PENDANT
WITH HEADDRESS

Pop ay an (Cauca)
cast, hammered, and gilded gold-copper alloy
3
29.8 (n / 4)
The Trustees of the British Museum, London

The Popayan or Cauca style of gold work has two
principal images: the human figure and a spread-
winged bird of prey, perhaps a falcon or an eagle.
These two icons merge into one another to pro-
duce intermediate forms (human-headed birds,
winged humans, eagles wearing necklaces). These
make clear reference to the themes of human-
animal transformation, extracorporeal flights, and
drug-induced visions that lie at the heart of sha-
manistic practices everywhere in the New World.
This pendant is one of the finest of the Popayan
group. The central figure has a lizardlike body and
wears a nose disc of the kind common in burials
from the region. The main personage is accompa-
nied by subsidiary creatures: two bird-headed
quadrupeds and four bird-headed humans. These
may represent the shaman's spirit helpers. The
pendant is part of a collection of objects found by
a treasure hunter in a cemetery of shaft and
chamber tombs at the Hacienda de la Marquesa,
Timbio, department of Cauca, Colombia. The
tombs also yielded a necklace of gold frogs, a gold
bird, two nose ornaments, and nine effigy pots
(see cat. 540). W.B.

634 CIRCA 1492