Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
Olmec colossal head from La Venta, c. 1000 BCE, basalt
1. “The first major Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmec, emerged during the Formative period along the Gulf of
Mexico, in the swampy coastal jungles of the modern Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. In dense vegetation along
slow, meandering rivers, the Olmec cleared farmland, drained fields, and raised earth mounds on which they constructed
religious and political centers. These centers probably housed an elite group of ruler-priests supported by a larger
population of farmers who lived in villages of pole-and-thatch houses” (Stokstad, Art History 447). An early Olmec
center, “at La Venta, rose to prominence…, thriving from about 900 to 400 BCE. La Venta was built on high ground
between rivers. Its most prominent feature, an earth mound known as the Great Pyramid, still rises to a height of about
100 feet. This scalloped mound may have been intended to resemble a volcanic mountain, but its present form may
simply be the result of erosion after thousands of years of the region’s heavy rains. The Great Pyramid stands at the south
end of a large, open court, possibly used as a playing field, arranged on a north-south axis and defined by long, low
mounds. An elaborate drainage system of stone troughs may have been used as part of a ritual honoring a water deity”
(447-448). “Many of the physical features of La Venta- including the symmetrical arrangement of earth mounds,
platforms, and central open spaces along an axis that was probably determined by astrological observations- are
characteristic of later monumental and ceremonial architecture throughout Mesoamerica” (448).
2. “In addition to the smaller works in jade and serpentine, the Olmec produced an abundance of monumental basalt
sculpture, including colossal heads, altars, and seated figures. The huge basalt blocks for the large works of sculpture were
quarried at distant sites and transported to San Lorenzo, La Venta, and other centers. The colossal heads, ranging in
height from 5 to 12 feet and weighing from 5 to more than 20 tons, are probably the best-known Olmec sculpture today.
The heads represent adult males wearing close-fitting caps with chin straps and large, round earplugs… Each face is
different, suggesting that they may represent specific individuals. Most scholars now consider them to be portraits of
rulers” (448). The colossal heads at La Venta “are carved from basalt boulders that were transported to the Gulf Coast
from the Tuxtla Mountains, more than 60 miles inland” (448). “The four colossal heads at La Venta were set as if to
guard or protect the ceremonial core of the site, three to the south and one to the north. If erected during the reign of a
ruler, such heads would have been effective images of royal power; if erected posthumously, fearsome memorials”
(Miller, Art of Mesoamerica 26).
3. Most of these colossal heads “wear hemispherical, often helmet-like head-gear clamped over their brows and have
similarly puffy cheeks, flattened noses and thick lips, the ethnic traits of a master-race perhaps, though it is not known
whether they represent gods or hierarchs (chief priests). Differences in their head-gear suggest the possibility of individual
portraiture or at least of specialized regalia. These heads were placed facing outwards from a ceremonial precinct,
perhaps to ward off evil (like Assyrian lamassu)” (Honour and Fleminig 110-111). “Olmec ceremonial centers were not in
the maize-growing lands that supported them, but in the tropical rain forests, and were permanently inhabited by no more
than a few hierarchs and their retainers (probably including sculptors). The materials of which they were constructed and
also the huge stone heads were brought from far away” (111). “The Olmecs seem to have initiated the practice of ritual
construction, destruction and reconstruction of religious buildings, which was observed by later civilizations of
Mesoamerica in accordance with 52-year cycles of the calendar. (In Japan, also, Shinto temples were to be destroyed and
rebuilt at regular prescribed intervals)” (111). “The plan of the mounds and courts at La Venta resembles a jaguar mask.
Symbols of such a size that that their imagery can be recognized only when seen from far above were created in other
widely separated parts of the Americas. In the north, between the mid-first millennium BC and the first millennium AD,
earth-works called ‘effigy mounds’ were raised in the form of snakes and birds, presumably as ceremonial centers for the
farming communities which supplemented agriculture with hunting and gathering” (111).
4. “Like many of the later Mesoamerican sites, the organization of La Venta may have followed certain astronomical lines
of sighting, with buildings pointing to locations on the horizon where the solar bodies rose and set at various times of the
year. The main structure of this remote city on a stoneless island in the swamps is a tall conical pyramid. Archaeologists
have not tunneled inside, but it may contain the tomb of one of the individuals represented by the four colossal heads
found here. The structures, 110 feet high, which has been described as a ‘fluted cupcake’, has no stairway or structure on
its summit. It appears to be a replica of a Mesoamerican volcano: some such volcanoes have deep erosion ditches or
flutes alternating with ridges on their soft cinder slopes. Is it possible that the volcano with its passageway to the
underworld was seen as a gateway to the Olmec ‘other world,’ the realm to which the shaman… was traveling?” (O’Riley
260). The Olmecs seem to have been trying to explain the meaning of their art, religion, and culture, through visual forms
and developed a hieroglyphic script and system of counting. Their hieroglyphs have not been fully deciphered but they
may represent the names of gods, historical individuals, days in their calendar, and other important concepts in Olmec
thought” (260). The name Olmec “is derived from an Aztec name, Olman, (‘the Rubber Country’), given to the low-lying
tropical forests along the lower Gulf Coast of present-day Mexico, where the ancient Olmecs lived by about 2250 BCE.
However, the true ethnic and linguistic identify of the Olmecs is open to debate” (259)
The Maya
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
1. “Since the rediscovery of the Classic period Maya sites in the nineteenth century, scholars have puzzled over the
meaning of the hieroglyphic writing that abounds in Maya artwork. They soon realized that many of the glyphs were
numeric notations in a complex calendrical system. By the early twentieth century the calendrical system had been
interpreted and approximately correlated with the European calendar. The Maya calendar counts time from a starting
date some 5,000 years ago, now securely established as August 13, 3114 BCE. This system, known as the long count,
incorporates the short-count system, based on interlocking 260-day and 365-day cycles, of other Mesoamerican societies.
The long count is unique to the Classic period Maya” (Stokstad, Art History 452).
2. “The religious philosophy and art of the Maya reflect their beliefs in Xibalba (‘place of fear’ or ‘worship and
reverance’), an otherworldly realm occupied by the gods. The sacred book known as the Popol Vuh describes the
exploits of mythological twins who outsmarted the gods and survived a visit to Xibalba. Like the mythical twins and living
rulers, Maya temples and sculptures were believed to have a dual nature that reflected the terrestrial and celestial worlds.
The tall platform temples… were conceived in symbolic or metaphysical terms as sacred mountains; their doorways were
the moths of mountain caves reaching to the other world of Xibalba, which existed underground during the day and in
the heavens at night. The Maya believed that their gods and sacred ancestors lived in the recesses of these templemountains, which they called y-otot (‘his/her house’). Below the temple-mountains, the Maya erected sculptures they
called ‘treestones.’ Today these are called ‘stelae.’ In the minds of the Maya, the temples and sculptures represented
symbolic mountain-forest landscape diagrams of the Maya cosmos, the other world of the gods. As they performed rituals
in these symbolic landscapes, the Maya rulers moved back and forth, from one world to the other, to demonstrate their
sacred powers before the public masses assembled in the plazas. This ability of the rulers to move between the two
worlds, expressed in their mythology, hieroglyphic inscriptions, and rituals and illustrations, stands at the very core of
Maya art and thought” (261, 263).
3. “The Maya believed in cycles of creation and destruction, ages of development, and an apocalyptic end of the world.
They conceived of the universe as having three tiers: sky, earth, and underworld. The earth was a square or rectangle
resting on the back of a crocodile. The four corners of the world were oriented to the cardinal directions and associated
with different colors. East was red like the sunrise, and west, where the sun sets, was black. North was white and south
was yellow. Supporting the Maya sky- conceived of as a two-headed serpent- was the great Tree of Life at the center of
the world… Hunabku was the omnipotent god who controlled the universe. The chief god Itzamna (‘Lizard House’) was
depicted as an old man who invented writing; he was the god of science and knowledge. His wife, Ix Chel (‘Lady
Rainbow’) was the goddess of weaving, medicine, childbirth, and the moon. Together, Itzamna and Ix Chel gave birth to
all the other gods in the Maya pantheon” (Adams, Art Across Time 356).
Maya Temple I, or the Temple of the Great Jaguar, (Tikal, Guatemala), before 800 CE
1. “By the beginning of the Classic period (c. 250 CE), many regions within Mesoamerica had large metropolitan
centers… At the height of their prosperity in the Late Classic period, around the late eighth century CE, the Maya lived in
about fifty city-states, the capitals of which contained tall platformed temples and palaces decorated with architectural
sculptures and murals. They created finely painted pottery and illustrated books or codices” (O’Riley 261). “Some of the
city-states may have been confederated under such large centers as Tikal, but the Maya were never united in a single large
state or empire. City-state rulers representing local dynasties ruled over a complex hierarchy of farmers, merchants,
nobles, warriors, artists, and craftsmen” (261). “In 682, a year before the death of Lord Great-Shield, a strong ruler
named Lord Sky God K (ruled 682-734 CE) took the throne at Tikal, the largest of all Classic Maya cities. This great
metropolitan center was occupied from c. 750 BCE to 900 CE” (O’Riley 264). “Tikal prospered as an international trade
center until Lord Water from the Maya city of Caracol conquered it in 562. Monuments erected in the years to follow
describe a century of anarchy and economic instability” (264).
2. “Tikal enjoyed a renaissance under Lord Sky God K, who launched ambitious building campaigns. He reconstructed
Tikal on a grand scale around a network of broad ceremonial roadways up to eighty feet wide that may have been used by
large ritual processions moving through the city paying homage to the tomb-temples of the deceased kings and queens.
The Tikal market also became one of the largest economic and social centers in the Maya lowlands. The nearby temples
around the Great Plaza north of the new palace complex had become an important center for rituals and religious
activities” (264). The Temple of the Giant Jaguar or Temple I “contains the tomb of Lord Sky God K” (264). “Lord Sky
God K’s body was placed in a vaulted tomb over which the platforms supporting the temple were constructed. The nine
levels of the platform may symbolize the nine layers of the other world above the king’s new position at the base of
Xibalba. The temple at the summit of the platforms was the focal point for funeral rituals performed in his honor.
Carved roof beams in the temple illustrate his accession and military prowess. A now eroded monumental stucco image
of the enthroned king also appeared on the roof comb of the temple with a serpent looped over his head, the war god
Itzamna representing the dome of the heavens. This monument, and the other ‘skyscraper’ temples of Tikal from this
period, provided the cit with a dramatic skyline that had no equal among European cities of this period” (264).
“Protected from the tropical winds and rains that eroded the king’s image on the roof comb of the temple, the offerings
sealed in his tomb at the base of the temple platforms are very well preserved. Such royal tomb offerings normally
included vases painted with fine-haired brushes illustrating mythological events and rituals taking place in this world and
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
Xibalba. They may have been designed to accompany and assist the dead on their journeys to the other world. Creating
images of Xibalba gave the Maya artists marvelous opportunities to exercise their imaginations and give visual form to the
poetic imagery in the Maya myths describing activities in the other world” (264). “Tikal, in what is now northern
Guatemala, was the largest Classic period Maya city, with a population of as many as 70,000 at its height. Like other
Maya cities- and unlike Teotihuacan, with its rigid grid- Tikal conformed to the uneven terrain of the rain forest. Plazas,
pyramid-temples, ball courts, and other structures stood on high ground connected by elevated roads, or causeways. One
major causeway, 80 feet wide, led from the center of the city to outlying residential areas” (Stokstad 452).
3. The North Acropolis “follows a north-south axis and dates to the early Classic period. It contained many royal tombs
and covers earlier structures that date to the origin of the city, about 500 BCE. The tall pyramid in the center is known as
Temple I or the Temple of the Giant Jaguar. It covers the tomb of Au Cacau (Lord Chocolate, 682- c. 727), who began
an ambitious expansion of Tikal after a period in the sixth and early seventh century CE when there was little new
construction at this or other major Maya sites” (452). “Temple I faces a companion pyramid, Temple II, across a large
plaza. These two structures changed the orientation center from north-south to east-west. The new plaza provided a
monumental entrance to the North Acropolis, and the two new pyramids framed the ancestral core of the city, visually
linking the old and new” (452).
4. “From Au Cacau’s tomb in the limestone bedrock, Temple I rises above the forest canopy to a height of more than
140 feet. It has nine layers, probably reflecting the belief, current among the Aztec and the Maya at the time of the
Spanish conquest, that the underworld had nine levels” (452). In Temple I, “the temple sanctuary comprises three
connected chambers with a corbel-vaulted roof. The purpose of the sanctuary is connected with the frequent rites of
human sacrifice. The victim’s blood ran onto the steps, and the still-beating heart was ripped out and offered to the gods.
The inner face of the wooden lintel above the opening is carved with an image of a jaguar” (Stevenson 20). The crest that
rises over the roof of the temple, known as a roof comb, was originally covered with brightly painted sculpture” (Stokstad,
Art History 453).
5. “The cities of the Maya were extensive. Tikal (Guatemala) was one of the largest, covering some 6 square miles of
hillocks connected by causeways with nine main courts surrounded by the remains of religious buildings. No traces of the
dwellings of the population survive. Durable materials seem to have been reserved for the gods (as in much of Asia). And
the siting of buildings was governed by astronomical observations relating them to the cosmos, for the Maya were just as
much concerned as people in other parts of the world to maintain harmony between the earth and the heavens. In the
ritual ball-game, for which courts were built in all temple precincts, the rubber ball flying over the players’ heads probably
signified the sun- and the sacrifice, which sometimes followed, was no doubt intended to ensure that the sun continued on
its daily course. From the beginning of the ‘Classic’ period, the Maya built with stone and a remarkably strong burnt-lime
cement, from which concrete, used for cores, was subsequently developed. They also refined the technique of corbelled
vaulting which had been little used in America. But their temple architecture was predominantly one of exteriors, since
all the public rituals were conducted in the open air. At Tikal two unusually steep pyramids topped by temples, rising to a
height of some 230 feet, each with an unbroken flight of steps climbing precipitously up its front, faced one another
across a spacious square. Here, as elsewhere, the height of each temple was increased by the vertical extension of its rear
wall into what is called a ‘roof comb’, and the whole construction might be described as a high-backed throne set on a
dais” (Honour and Fleming 510).
6. “Large-scale sculpture is mainly in relief rather than in the round… Megaliths often of impressive size were carved as
stelae with images of rulers in full regalia staring out (sometimes from the front and back), surrounded by tropical
profusions of hieroglyphs which record their legitimizing ancestry and the precise dates of birth, accession to power,
marriage and conquests, and also the day on which the stone was erected- an important ritual event” (510). “Mayan
temples were viewed as sacred mountains, the doors of which were seen as the entryways into the caves at the heart of the
holy mountain. Deep within the cave the Tree of the World grew, denoting the axis mundi, the center place of the
cosmos. This tree grew up out of the Mayan underworld, Xibalba, and united all three of the main cosmic zones. A
number of temples built together on a sacred platform thus represented a high mountain range which towered over the
tree stones on the floors of the plazas, representing a forest of trees. Sacred geography and sacred space then consisted of
three elements: mountains, trees and caves” (Lunquist 10). “At Tikal… the Temple of the Giant Jaguar (Temple I), on the
eastern side of the Great Plaza, was built in nine architectural levels, expressing the Mayan view of the nine underworld
regions. Mayan ideas of solar cycles and other calendric information were incorporated in the architecture of the
building. In the same complex at Tikal there are ceremonial complexes consisting of twin platforms with stairs on four
sides, facing each other at the east and west ends of a temenos. Since there are no temples on top of the platforms, they
may have served for ritual performances or sacred dance within the temple complex. There are nine monolithic stele in
front of the west platform, with a round altar in front of each stela. A long building on the northern edge of the temenos
has nine doors. These ‘twin complexes’ were built to commemorate a katun, a scared calendric cycle of twenty years”
(15).
Maya Lintel 24, from Structure 23, Yaxchilan, Mexico, 725 CE, limestone
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
1. “Two buildings in Yaxchilán contain a series of panels commemorating the accession rituals of Lord Shield Jaguar and
Lord Bird Jaguar, who reigned during the seventh and eighth centuries AD. The scenes depict the rituals performed to
invoke powerful ancestral spirits, ensure success in battle and secure captives for sacrifice. These ritual deeds legitimized
the lords’ authority and ancestral right to rule. Each panel formed the upper lintel of a doorway so that the participants in
the ritual passed beneath them” (Caygill 364).
2. “Blinded by their devotion to a belief that the Maya monuments depicted calendar priests, [scholars] did not recognize
the troubling imagery for what it is: a woman running a rope through her tongue, on her knees before a king with a
blazing torch” (Miller, Maya Art 18). The woman is Lady Xoc, the wife of Shield Jaguar. She is wearing a Tlaloc
headdress for bloodletting and sacrificial rites (Tucker 39). Tlaloc is a Central Mexican rain god (Miller, Maya Art 18).
3. “Elite men and women, rather than gods, were the usual subjects of Maya sculpture, and most show rulers dressed as
warriors performing religious rituals in elaborate costumes and headdresses” (Stokstad, Art History 454). “That identified
in the literature as lintel number 24 shows the king Shield Jaguar ornately attired and with the shrunken head of a past
victim lashed to the top of his head. He holds a flaming torch. Facing him in a kneeling posture is his principal wife,
Lady Xoc, equally elaborately attired and with an imposing architectural headdress. The glyphs identify the event as an
act of blood-letting which occurred on 28 October AD 709” (Mack 108).
4. “The succeeding lintel (number 25) takes the sequence of activity to the next frame. Lady Xoc, shown still kneeling but
now alone, gazes upwards to be confronted by a warrior armed with spear and shield emerging from the open jaws of a
large two-headed serpent which rises up from the blood-stained scroll. In her hands Lady Xoc holds instruments of
sacrifice and a skull. The serpent is a visionary manifestation of the founder of the Yaxchilán Dynasty which in the image
emerges literally from the split blood. The implication is that the blood-letting has itself caused the hallucinatory visionas will actually happen if the brain is subject to a loss of oxygen caused by significant blood loss” (108).
5. “A series of reliefs from the façade of a building at Yaxchilán is ascribed to the so-called ‘Cooke cutter Master’. One
lintel shows, according to the inscription, king Shield Jaguar with the shrunken head of a sacrificial victim in his feathered
crown, holding a flaming torch over his principal wife, Lady Xoc, who kneels, pulling a cord knotted with thorns through
her perforated tongue to draw blood which drips onto strips of paper that will be burnt and thus transmitted to the gods.
The day on which this particular blood-letting rite was performed is also commemorated in the inscription- the equivalent
of October 28, 709. Few works of art produced by the Maya reveal as completely their religious and political ideas in an
appropriately sacramental style. The stolid impassivity of the figures is set off by the hard-edged clarity and firmly
weighted balance of the composition, the mystical meaning of the subject by the realism of the detail (Lady Xoc’s
patterned robe, the jade ornaments that hang from bands round Shield Jaguar’s knees and his jaguar-skin footwear). It is
pictorial rather than sculptural; outlines must have been drawn on the surface of the stone, the background cut away and
the details incised- with surprising delicacy in view of the fact that only stone tools were available. And it was originally
painted in bright colors of which only a few traces remain” (Honour and Fleming 510-511).
The Hero Twins
1. “The Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, were Central American Mayan gods venerated for ridding the world of
the earth giants and other monsters. In the story below, they rescue their father and uncle from Xibalba, the gloomy
underworld. Years before they were born, their father Hun Hunahpu and uncle Vucub Hunahpu were challenged by
One Death and Seven Death, the lords of Xibalba, to a game of tlachtli, the Mayan ritual ball game. But they were
tricked, sacrificed, and buried under the ballcourt. When the twins grew up and learned of their father’s fate, they
traveled into the depths of Xibalba past many dangers to wreak vengeance” (Philip 100).
2. “When they arrived, they defeated the lords of Xibalba at tlachtli and were thrown into the House of Lances where
they were stabbed at by demons. They escaped, but were then shut up in the Houses of Cold, Jaguars, Fire, and Bats.
Surviving all of these, the twins boasted that they were immortal and, to prove it, were sacrificed and had their bones
ground like flour. When they came back to life, their enemies were so impressed that they wished to experience death
and rebirth themselves. So the twins killed them but, as planned, did not revive them. Instead they brought their father
and uncle back to life and went home” (100).
Maya Lord (Tabasco, Mexico), 6th century, wood
1. “Hereditary rulers were theocratic, that is, their claim to power rested on establishing a connection with the gods. The
Maya Lord, a wood carving from Tabasco, kneels in a ritual pose, wearing a skirt and an elaborate necklace. The Maya
shared the pervasive Mesoamerican belief that the gods had given people their own blood when they created them. The
gods thus had to be repaid in kind with human blood, and elaborate rites were performed in which rulers let their own
blood slightly as a sign of their identification with the gods. The fate of their captives, however, was not so benign.
Typically, four men would each hold a limb of the captive, while a fifth cut out the heart” (Adams, Art Across Time 356).
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
2. “The daily ‘death’ of the Sun at nightfall and its ‘rebirth’ at daybreak were reenacted in a symbolic battle called the
ballgame, in which two teams propelled a hard rubber ball around a special court without using their hands and feet. The
losing team was often put to death. Human sacrifice and other bloodletting rituals were important to the Maya, who
believed that the gods required human blood for sustenance” (Tucker 58).
Cylindrical vase depicting ball-playing, c. 600-900, slip on earthenware
1. “Paintings on pottery vessels reveal more intimate and often more lively aspects of this civilization. Despite their small
size, rarely more than about 12 inches high, they are among the most remarkable Mesoamerican works of art. One
represents a ball-game that might appear to be a sporting event rather than a solemn ritual, showing players with different
facial expressions and in a variety of postures skillfully rendered by contour and flat color. Recession is indicating by
placing the figures on different base-lines. Glyphs, as yet undeciphered, are linked to the men by freely drawn wisps.
Many other vessels, dating from the sixth to the eighth century, bear paintings of courtly and ceremonial life, of
mythological subjects and of animals, executed in slip (diluted clay), predominantly, black, white and shades of red, in a
wide range of personal as well as regional styles within the same set of pictorial conventions. The vessels are normally
cylindrical and must be rotated in the hand to read the scenes and inscriptions wrapped around them. These painting are
not (as are those on ancient Greek vases) decorative embellishments so much as independent works of art for which
pottery served as a convenient support. Nor were they alternatives to more expensive metalwork. And although many
were buried with the dead they were not all conceived as grave-goods; some have dregs of cocoa that show they had been
used for drinking and repairs indicated they had been so used before burial. Inscriptions naming the notable people for
whom they were made suggest that they were symbols of status. And the artists who signed several of the finest examplestheir signatures being the only known artists’ signatures in pre-conquest America- were scribes who probably painted
codices as well (though these have perished), sometimes the sons of ruling families and always members of the educated
elite that flourished while the great Mayan monuments were being built” (Honour and Fleming 511-512).
Chichén Itzá (Mexico), c. 800-1000
1. “A Postclassic Maya people, the Itzá, flourished in northern Mexico. In their central city of Chichén Itzá, a more
cosmopolitan Maya style assimilated forms from central Mexico, as did Maya social and religious institutions. The many
frescoes at Chichén Itzá- on the walls of the ballcourt, and in the Temples of the Jaguars and the Warriors- are
unfortunately in very poor condition. But architecture here clearly reflects the continuing development of new forms”
(Adams, Art Across Time 360). Chichén Itzá “was undoubtedly occupied during the Classic, but despite many
excavations and much speculation no precise chronology has so far been established for the sire. What is most clear is
that many building relate closely to the Late Classic Puuc developments at Uxmal, during the era when Teotihuacán had
fallen into decline, perhaps unleashing new migrations across Mesoamerica. This early phase was then probably followed
by a period of contact with a Mexicanized Maya group, the Itzá. Subsequently, Chichen began an era of construction
when Toltec influences were pronounced. The relationship between the Itzá and the Toltecs remain obscure” (Miller,
Maya Art 177).
2. “All Chichén Itzá sculptures were carved in situ, and the very process of production must have filled the city every day
with skilled laborers” (145). “Chief among the new sculptural forms at Chichen are the chacmools, serpent columns,
mini-atlanteans, and standard bearers, all of which become omnipresent in the buildings of rulership. The chacmoolliterally ‘great or red jaguar’- was so dubbed in the nineteenth century by the workmen of adventurer Augustus Le
Plongeon, and the term has come to mean all sculptures of reclining figures with the head at 90 degrees, who hold a
vessel for offering on the belly. The local workers who coined the term may have retained some ancient lore of a buried
red jaguar, although surely one could not have mistaken the reclining chacmool figure for a jaguar. Nevertheless, at least
one red jaguar throne was buried at Chichén Itzá, and it came to light in 1936” (146). The bowl held by the recumbent
figures over their stomachs “may have been a receptacle used to hold the hearts of sacrificial victims” (O’Riley 274).
3. “Both sources and historical tradition linked Ce Acatl Toplizin with Quetxalcoatl, the mythical Plumed Serpent whose
worship and iconography permeate the monuments of Chichen Itza. The Maya of the Yucatan were persuaded to
worship this new god which had been brought to them by the Toltec colonists, and this religion took over from them the
ancient cult of ancestor worship. The new religion was called Kukulkan, a word meaning Quetzal-feathered serpent. (A
quetzal is a vividly feathered South American bird.) The oral history of the flight of Ce Acatl from Tula, sent into exile by
his brother with his followers, is borne out by what has been discovered through archaeology. It seems that around 1000
AD Chichén Itzá was transformed into a very large urban center, rich in monuments which clearly illustrate the
combining of the Mayan culture of the late Classic Period with that of the Toltecs” (Bourbon 316).
4. At Chichén Itzá, a cylindrical tower called the Caracol “was originally covered by a false cupola at the summit of two
overlapping platforms. Inside it there is a spiral staircase leading to a room with several windows placed so as to permit
the study of numerous heavenly bodies and precise astronomical phenomena, including solstices and equinoxes” (320).
Each ramp of the Castillo, the main structure of Chichén Itzá, is “formed by 91 steps. If we add these to the continuous
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
step which runs around the base of the pyramid we are given 365, which corresponds to the number of days in the solar
calendar” (320). “According to the Maya, the planets (and segments of time itself) were ruled by the gods, usually
represented in Maya art as men and women carrying burdens on their shoulders. The Maya and the various MesoAmerican peoples that followed them believed in the cyclical creation and destruction of the world, and they prudently
entrusted the sacred mission of timekeeping to their priests” (Fiero, European Renaissance 116).
5. “In the far north the ceremonial center of Chichén Itzá was enlarged under foreign influence though the work was
apparently done by Mayan artists and artisans. Here the most interesting building, one without precedent in
Mesoamerican architecture, is the observatory enclosing two concentric annular passages with unusually high corbelled
vaults and an upper story reached by a winding stair (a caracol in Spanish, after which the building is often named). Shafts
radiating from the center of the upper story were directed to transit points of the sun and stars and also the ball-courts
below, thus permitting observation and correlation of heavenly phenomena and earthly ceremonies” (Honour and
Fleming 512-513). “Relief carvings at Chichén Itzá reflect a preoccupation with human sacrifice more obsessive and
explicit than in the sculpture of the Maya. On each side of the ball-court- the largest in Mesoamerica- teams are lined up
with the leader of one decapitated. There are carvings of warriors marching procession, files of eagles and jaguars
devouring human hearts, and rank upon rank of skulls on poles in front of a platform where the heads of sacrificial
victims were probably displayed. But some images have no precedent in the art of the Maya, notably statues of a deity
usually called Chacmool (though this is in fact a nineteenth-century name), a reduction of the human figure to severely
impersonal geometry, resting on his elbows with knees up and holding in his lap an offering tray but turning his head away
from it with apparent indifference, as gods accept the lives of men” (513).
Pyramid of the Sun, from Teotihuacán (Mexico), c. 50-200 CE, (site 100 BCE-750 CE)
1. “The Aztecs called it ‘the place of the gods.’ And they were by no means the first to be impressed by Teotihuacán’s
countless temples and the giant pyramids of ancient Egypt in size. From the beginning of the Christian era to about 750,
Teotihuacán, with an area greater than that of imperial Rome, was the greatest religious center in ancient Mexico. Even
in the early 14 century, hundreds of years after is eclipse, the Aztecs, who were than the dominant people in the Valley of
Mexico, regarded it as a sacred site and buried their rulers there” (Harpur 98). “At its height in about AD 500, it was the
largest city in the entire Americas- a grand metropolis of up to 200,000 people. However, since its people left no written
documents, scholars have had to rely on the remains of monuments, faded murals, figurines, pots, and other material
evidence, supplemented by later Aztec legends, for information about this once-great civilization” (98). “Monumental
stone architecture and an ordered design show that the city’s planners were sophisticated architects who had a unity of
vision. The buildings were laid out on a geometrical grid in which even a river was rerouted to conform to its plan. Its
main spine, the Avenue of the Dead, connected the huge marketplace and the so-called Citadel at its southern end with
the grand pyramids of the Sun and the Moon to the north. Lining the route were small pyramid-shaped platforms
originally topped with temples” (98-99). The so-called Avenue of the Dead extends “for more than 3 miles” (Stokstad, Art
History 449).
th
2. “Rising in distinct diminishing platforms, the Pyramid of the Sun resembles a Mesopotamian stepped ziggurat rather
than a true smooth-sided pyramid. Its massive façade is lined with a monumental staircase leading up to the summit,
where a small temple once looked over the grand avenue, plaza, and buildings. Here, amid clouds of copal incense
billowing up from burners, priests clad in flamboyant feather headdresses conducted rituals, perhaps to propitiate the sun
god- or, during a drought- Tlaloc, the god of rain” (Harpur 102). “Beyond the Pyramid of the Sun lies the smaller
Pyramid of the Moon, a little more than 150 feet high. However, because it occupies higher ground, their summits are
about the same height. From the south, the chunky stepped outline of the Pyramid of the Mood, with its broad plaza in
front, is framed by the now extinct volcano Cerro Gordo, as if the pyramid’s architect had aimed to echo its natural
prototype” (102). The Pyramid of the Sun “is built over a four-chambered cave with a spring that may have been the
original focus of worship at the site and the source of its prestige” (Stokstad, Art History 449).
3. “Scholars have pointed out various alignments in Teotihuacán that suggest that its buildings were carefully orchestrated.
The Avenue of the Dead, for example, runs 15 ½ degrees east of due north, parallel to the front of the Pyramid of the
Sun and along a line that passes through the center of the Pyramid of the Moon to a depression on top of Cerro Gordo
behind it. And from the Pyramid of the Moon, a line runs through the center of the Pyramid of the Sun to Patlachique
Mountain in the distance. In a similar vein, the Pyramid of the Sun and the stemlike passage of its cave seem to have
been aligned with the setting point of the constellation known as the Pleiades” (Harpur102). “The Pleiades formed a
central role in Mayan mythology… During the first and second centuries AD, when the grid plan was created, the Pleiades
set just before dawn on the morning of the day when the sun passed the zenith in the sky. On this day, the Pleiades
would have disappeared exactly where the sun rose moments later. The midsummer solstice day is the only day when
this phenomenon occurs and this influenced both the calendar and the customs of the people” (Mann 71). “In short, the
builders of Teotihuacán appear to have been both astronomers and mathematicians who sought to harmonize their
creations with the celestial bodies above and the mountainous landscape all around” (Harpur 102). “The residential
sections of Teotihuacán adhered to the grid… The large palaces of the elite, with as many as forty-five rooms and seven
patios, stood nearest the ceremonial center” (Stokstad, Art History 450).
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
4. “Apart from the pyramids of the Sun and Moon, the city’s most significant sacred structure was the temple of the god
Quetzalcoatl. This lay within the precinct of the Citadel, a vast four-sided complex of temples and palaces, more than
21,000 feet square, which may have been the seat of government. Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, had the body of a
snake and the feathers of the quetzal bird and was one of the great gods of Mexico. For the people of Teotihuacan, he
seems to have been a god of nature; for the Aztecs, however, he was a culture god, inventor of books and the calendar,
and identified with the planet Venus” (Harpur 103). “The ruins of the temple of Quetzalcoatl lie within the Citadel at the
southern end of the Avenue of the Dead. The temple was built in the classic architectural style known as talud-tablero, in
which inward-sloping stone panels (talud) alternate with perpendicular one (tablero). Originally covered with lime plaster,
the temple’s walls were studded with the protruding stone heads of Tlaloc, the saucer-eyed rain god, and Quetzalcoatl, the
Feathered Serpent- the only occasion that these two deities are seen together in Teotihuacán” (102). “The Rain God and
the Feathered Serpent may represent alternating wet and dry seasons, may be symbols of regeneration and cyclical
renewal, or may have some other meaning that has been lost” (Stokstad, Art History 450).
5. “Quetzalcoatl and all Teotihuacán’s other gods were unable to save the city from its terminal decline. The cause of its
end is shrouded in mystery. Perhaps the writing was on the wall in the seventh century, for warrior figures appeared with
growing frequency in Teotihuacán art; and this was perhaps an indication of an increased military emphasis by the time of
the city’s destruction by fire during the mid-eighth century… Whatever happened, Teotihuacán became a smoking ruin.
Yet the gods did not desert the city. And later, it became a source of spiritual renewal for the Aztecs, for whom the
carefully sited pyramids were a living connection between the gods and humankind, between heaven and earth. Its status
is evident from the fact that Moctezuma II- the last Aztec ruler before the Spanish conquest in the early 16 century- made
pilgrimages on foot to the city’s ruins from Tenochtitlán. But after Moctezuma, the city’s gods retreated from the brave
new world of Christianity, turned from powerful deities into inanimate idols with eyes of stone” (Harpur 103). The name,
Teotihuacán is an Aztec word meaning ‘the city of the gods’ (Stokstad, Art History 449).
th
6. “At its heart an avenue, 130 feet wide and a mile and a half long, connected massive stepped platforms- so-called
‘pyramids’ but more like ziggurats in form as in function – each of which was originally crowned by a temple approached
up a broad flight of stairs. The earliest, and also one of the largest not only here but in all Mexico, was sited on an axis
with the point where the sun set on the day of its zenith passage. It is composed of layers of clay faced with rough stones.
A more elaborate system of construction was adopted for the later pyramids- a skeleton framework of piers and slabs of
tufa, to stabilize earth and rubble fillings, and finely dressed masonry on the exterior. That at the southern end of the
avenue was exceptional in the richness of its relief carvings of plumed serpents and menacing heads composed of circles
and squares, perhaps representing the mosaic head-dresses of warriors or the fire serpent identified with warfare. These
sculptures were fortuitously preserved when the platform was enlarged and its surface was covered with painted plaster”
(Honour and Fleming 508). “Paintings executed in a fresco technique came to be preferred for the exteriors and interior
patios of both religious and secular buildings. And several reveal an accomplishment in the creation of large tightly
integrated compositions of small delicately rendered symbolic elements that is unsurpassed in later Mesoamerican art.
The sloping inside walls of one structure were painted in shades of red and touches of green and blue, with at least eight
almost identical scenes- repetition enforcing the power of the imagery. They represent a ritual of blood-letting, to ensure
the fertility of the soil and probably human fertility as well, performed by a celebrant who has pierced his skin with the
hard, sharp spine at the tip of the leaf of the maguey plant, a species of agave indigenous to Mexico where it was a source
of food and medicine, fibre for textiles, rope and paper, also the intoxicant pulque drunk in religious ceremonies” (508509).
Coatlicue, fromTenochtitlán, Aztec, c.1487-1520, stone
1. “The colossal statue of Coatlicue, goddess of life and death, is the largest and most finely wrought of several similar
Aztec figures. It was preserved intact perhaps because neither the Spaniards nor their locally employed laborers dared to
violate a figure of such obvious supernatural power. (When disinterred in 1790 the statue was promptly re-buried and
not put on public view until the mid-nineteenth century.) Coatlicue is shown decapitated by her jealous children while
giving birth to the Aztec national god Huitzlopochtli. The heads of two snakes rise from her neck confronting one
another to simulate a face with unwinking reptilian eyes. A skull dangles from a necklace of human hands and hearts
above her pendulous breasts and she wears a skirt of entwined snakes. There are serpent fangs at her elbows and her feet
have feline claws. Images of terrifying divinity of other cultures are docile in comparison. Although completely
dehumanized, the statue owes its almost hallucinatory power to the combination of recognizably human elements with
naturalistically carved natural forms- the slithering bodies of snakes and their vastly magnified heads” (Honour and
Fleming 515-516).
2. A colossal statue raised in honor of Huitzilopochtli’s mother, Coatlicue (Aztec, ‘she of the serpent skirt’), would have
greeted visitors to the Huitzilopochtli. Not only are there plaited serpents in her skirt, but Coatlicue’s arms also terminate
in large serpent heads and her broad face is formed by a pair of opposed serpents in profile. The earth goddess wears a
pair of skulls at the front and back of her waistband, and a necklace of severed hands and hearts from sacrificial victims.
Massive and clawed, ‘she of the serpent skirt’ was a demanding deity. Legends say that the Aztecs offered her plentiful
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
numbers of sacrificial victims to ensure the fertility of her body, the earth. The interplay of the patterns of shadows and
highlighted stone contours as they might have appeared with their original paint in the light of flickering torches would
have added to the emotional impact of this monumental piece of sculpture” (O’Riley 277).
Coyolxauhqui (She of the Bells), Aztec, from the Great Temple of Tenochtitlán (Mexico City), late 15 th century, stone
1. “The people who lived in the remarkable city that Cortes found were then rulers of much of Mexico. Their rise to
such power had been recent and swift. Only 400 years earlier, according to their own legends, they had been a nomadic
people living on the shores of the mythological Lake Aztlan somewhere to the northwest of the Valley of Mexico, where
present-day Mexico City is located. They called themselves the Mexica, hence the name Mexico. The term Aztec
derives from Aztlan” (Stokstad 877).
2. “At the urging of their patron god, Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec began a long migration away from Lake Aztlan, arriving in
the valley of Mexico in the thirteenth century. Driven from place to place, they eventually ended up in the marshes on
the edge of Lake Texcoco. There they settled on an island where they had seen an eagle perching on a prickly pear cactus
(tenochtli), a sign that Huitzilopochtli told them would mark the end of their wandering. They called the place
Tenochtitlán. The city, like Venice, grew on a collection of islands linked by canals” (877).
3. “According to Aztec belief, the gods had created the current universe at the ancient city of Teotihuacan. Its continued
existence depended on human actions, including rituals of bloodletting and human sacrifice. The end of each round of
fifty-two years in the Mesoamerican calendar was a particularly dangerous time, requiring a special fire-lighting ritual.
Sacrificial victims sustained the sun god in his daily course through the sky. Huitzilopochtli, son of the earth mother
Coatlicue and the Aztec patron deity associated with the sun and warfare, also required sacrificial victims so that he could,
in a regular repetition of the events surrounding his birth, drive the stars and the moon from the sky at the beginning of
each day. The stars were his half brothers, and the moon, Coyolxauhqui, was his half sister. When Coatlicue conceived
Huitzilopochtli by inserting a ball of feathers into her chest as she was sweeping, his jealous siblings conspired to kill her.
When they attacked, Huitzilopochtli emerged from her body fully grown and armed, drove off his brothers, and
destroyed his half sister, Coyolxauhqui” (877).
4. “Sculpture of serpents and serpent heads on the Great Pyramid in Tenochtitlan associated it with the ‘Hill of the
Serpent,’ where Huitzilopochtli slew the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui. A huge circular relief of the dismembered
goddess once lay at the foot of the temple stairs, as if the enraged and triumphant Huitzilopochtli had cast her there like a
sacrificial victim. Her torso is in the center, surrounded by her head and limbs. A rope around her waist is attached to a
skull. She has bells on her cheeks and balls of down in her hair. She wears a magnificent headdress and has distinctive
ear ornaments composed of disks, rectangles, and triangles” (878-879).
Mictlantecuhtli and Quetzalcoatl, illuminated page from the Borgia Codex (from Puebla/ Tlaxcala, Mexico), c. 14001500, deerskin
1. “The Mixtecs, who succeeded the Zapotecs at Monte Alban after 700, extended their political sway in Oaxaca by
dynastic intermarriage, as well as by war. The treasures found in the tombs of Monte Alban bear witness to Mixtec
wealth, and the quality of these works demonstrates the high level of Mixtec artistic achievement… Seven Mixtec books
survive, largely genealogical and historical in content. For Postclassic Mesoamericans, books were precious vehicles for
recording not only history but also rituals, astronomical tables, calendric calculations, maps, and trade and tribute
accounts” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 942).
2. Bishop Diego de Landa, the sixteenth-century Spanish chronicler of the Maya of Yucatan, explains… ‘We found a
large number of books in these [Indian] characters and, as they contained nothing in which there were not to be seen
superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them
much affliction’” (942). “The extensively illuminated Borgia Codex, from somewhere in central highland Mexico
(possibly the states of Puebla and Tlaxcala), is one of a different group of codices, which though slightly related to Mixtec
genealogical codices, treats primarily ritual subjects. The page we illustrate shows the god of life, the black Quetzalcoatl
(depicted here as a masked human rather than in the usual form of a feathered serpent), seated back-to-back with the god
of death, the white Mictlantecuhtli. Below them is an inverted skull with a double keyboard of teeth, a symbol of the
Underworld, which could be entered through the mouth of a great earth monster. The image conveys the joining of
opposites and the inevitable relationship of life and death, an important theme in much Mesoamerican art. Symbols of
the twenty days of the two hundred sixty-day Mesoamerican ritual calendar appear in panels in the margins” (942). “The
Borgia manuscript is the single most complex surviving Mesoamerican book. The Venus pages in the center of the
manuscript contain the travels of Quetzalcoatl in the underworld” (Miller, Art of Mesoamerica 225).
Embroidered Paracas mantle with shaman figures (Peru), first century CE, weaving with stem-stitch embroidery
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
1. “By the third century BCE, the textile artists of Paracas were designing garments of alpaca wool and cotton with woven
and embroidered designs which were placed in tombs as part of an elaborate cult of the dead. In some arid areas along
the coast around Paracas where very little rain falls, many of the textiles recovered from the bottle-shaped, rock-cut tombs
are marvelously well-preserved. The deceased were arranged in flexed positions, adorned with jewelry, and wrapped in
many layers of cloth. In the necropolis or cemetery at Cerro Colorado on the edge of the Paracas peninsula, the mummy
bundles were buried with usually lavish offerings. Their wardrobes included as many as 150 well-decorated cotton and
wool tunics, scarves, slings, headbands, headdresses, bags, fans, and mantas (Spanish, ‘shawls’ or ‘royal mantles’), none of
which showed signs of wear. Such treasures were apparently signs of wealth and status in the afterlife, where the deceased
could continue to enjoy the pleasures of life. The embroidery on the mummy bundles depicted myths, mythical
ancestors, zoomorphic beings associated with the earth, sky and sea, and images of the deceased performing rituals. In
this regard, the textiles appeared to play a role in the transformation of their owners from this world to the afterlife”
(O’Riley 247).
2. “The fact that it may have taken a single artist up to ten years to complete the textiles for one mummy bundle gives
some idea of the importance attached to grave offerings and the cult of the dead among the Paracas elite” (247-248). “The
weavers (or fiber artists) of the Andes worked with cotton and the wool of llamas, alpacas, and vicunas. They
incorporated their early techniques of knotting, twining, braiding, looping, and wrapping fibers in later works done on
backstrap looms (developed in the second millennium BCE). With this type of loom, still in common use in some parts
of the Americas today, the warp (lengthwise threads) is stretched between poles attached to a stationary device (often a
tree) and a strap looped around the back of the weaver. The weavers, most of whom are women, control the tension on
the warp while threading the weft (crosswise threads) through it. Working in the tapestry technique, weavers used special
weft threads for each color in the design so the color pattern is woven into the structure of the cloth. This technique is
more laborious and time-consuming than embroidery, in which the design is stitched into a prewoven fabric” (247).
3. “In Paracas textiles, the designs… develop into more complex compositions of richly attired persons, shamans, and
other ritual performers carrying weapons and trophy heads. Basic motifs are enlarged, diminished, reversed, inverted,
simplified, and elaborated in inventive variations that follow numerical and geometric rules of order” (248-249). “Feline,
bird, and serpent motifs also appear on some of the textiles, but the human figure, real or mythological, predominates.
Art historians have interpreted the flying figure as a Paracas shaman dancing or flying during an ecstatic trance such as
those shamans experienced in rites to cure individual illness or to insure the fertility of the community’s crops” (Kleiner,
Mamiya, and Tansey 404).
Vessel in the form of a one-eyed man, found in the Chicanna Valley (Peru), c. 250-550 CE
1. “The Moche occupied a series of river valleys on the north coast of Peru…Their ceremonial architecture consisted of
immense pyramidal platforms that, due to the scarcity of stone, they constructed of adobe and then plastered and painted
in bright colors” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 405). “The Pyramid of the Sun, the largest ancient structure in South
America, was originally a cross-shaped structure 1,122 feet long by 522 feet wide that rose in a series of terraces to a
height of 59 feet. This site had been thought to be the capital of the entire Moche realm, but evidence is accumulating
that the Moche were not so centralized” (Stokstad 459).
2. “Like the Negroes of Nigeria, the pre-Columbian Americans were perfectly capable of representing the human face in
a lifelike manner. The ancient Peruvians liked to shape certain vessels in the form of human heads which are strikingly
true to nature” (Gombrich 50, 53). “Although the Moche hand made early vessels without the aid of a potter’s wheel, they
fashioned later ones in two-piece molds. Thus, numerous near-duplicates survive. Moche potters continued to refine the
stirrup spout, making it an elegant slender tube” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 405). “It may depict the face of a warrior,
a ruler, or even a royal retainer whose image may have been buried with many other pots to accompany his dead master.
Among ancient civilizations, only the Greeks and the Maya surpassed the Moche in the information recorded on their
ceramics. Moche pots illustrate architecture, metallurgy, weaving the brewing of chicha (fermented maize beer), human
deformities and diseases, and even sexual acts” (405). “These mold-made grave vessels with rounded, stirrup-shaped
spouts were hand-finished by sculptors and painted to represent a wide variety of face types, figures, and figure groups.
Some of the Moche vases illustrate deformed faces, images of death, and figures engaged in sacrificial or erotic activities
that may be part of fertility and death cults. The tradition of naturalism in clay which had existed along the northern
Peruvian coast since pre-Chavin times reaches its apogee in the fifth century in a group of about fifty very mature and
dignified face types that may be portraits of Moche rulers” (O’Riley 252).
Machu Picchu (Peru), fifteenth century
1. “At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Inka Empire was one of the largest states in the world, rivaling China in
size. It extended more than 2,600 miles along western South America, encompassing most of modern Peru, Ecuador,
Bolivia, and northern Chile and reaching in modern Argentina. Like the Aztec Empire, its rise had been recent and swift.
The Inka called their empire the Land of the Four Quarters. At its center was their capital, Cuzco, the ‘navel of the
world,’ located high in the Andes Mountains. The initial history of the Inka people is obscure. The Cuzco region had
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
been under the control of the earlier Wari Empire, and the Inka state was probably one of the many small competing
kingdoms that emerged in the highlands in the wake of the Wari collapse” (Stokstad, Art History 879).
2. “No Andean civilization ever developed writing, but the Inka kept detailed accounts on knotted and colored cords. To
move their armies around and speed transport and communication within their empire, the Inka built nearly 15,000 miles
of roads. These varied from 50-foot wide thoroughfares to 3-foot-wide paths. In common with other Native American
civilizations, the Inka had no wheeled vehicles. Travelers went on foot, on llamas were used as pack animals. Stairways
helped travelers negotiate steep mountain slopes, and rope suspension bridges allowed them to cross river gorges. The
main road on the Pacific coast, a desert region, had walls to protect it from blowing sand. All along the roads, the Inkas
built administrative centers, storehouses, and roadside lodgings. These lodgings- more than a thousand have been foundwere spaced a day’s journey apart. A relay system of waiting runners could carry messages between Cuzco and the
farthest reaches of the empire in about a week” (879).
3. “Cuzco, a capital of great splendor and magnificence, was home to the Inka, as the ruler of the Inka Empire was called,
and the extended ruling group. The city, which may have been laid out to resemble a giant puma, was a showcase of the
finest Inka masonry, some of which can still be seen in the modern city” (879). “Machu Picchu, one of the most
spectacular archeological sites in the world, provides an excellent example of Inka architectural planning. At 9,000 feet
above sea level, it straddles a ridge between two high peaks in the eastern slopes of the Andes and looks down on the
Urubamba River. Stone buildings occupy terraces around central plazas, and narrow agricultural terraces descend into
the valley. The site lies near the eastern limits of the empire, suggesting that it may have been a frontier outpost. Its
temples and carved sacred stones suggest that it also had an important religious function” (880).
4. “The city is remarkably well preserved because, until 1911, its existence was unknown except to a few regional
inhabitants. A main road passing through a gate in the city wall leads to the Great Plaza in the center of the complex.
Machu Picchu has many of the same types of buildings around its plaza that an Inca traveler might have seen in any of the
provincial Inca capitals around 1500: a temple of the Sun, houses for priests, a royal palace, barracks, workers’ quarters,
storehouses, and baths. In a few places, large rock outcrops have been reshaped and incorporated into the masonry.
One of these structures is known as the Intihuatana Stone (‘place to which the sun [Inti] is tied’). It may have been used as
a sundial during celebrations marking the movements of the sun at important dates such as the June solstice (midwinter in
the southern hemisphere), marking the beginning of the new ceremonial year” (O’Riley 256-257).
5. “The site was forgotten for four centuries, and only rediscovered in 1911 by the American architect Hiram Bingham”
(Bourbon 334). Perhaps Machu Picchu was built “to protect the inhabitants of Cuzco from the pressure of the warlike
peoples who lived in these regions, in which case it would have been built as a fortress, a strategic center with a truly
eccentric structure. Another theory is that Machu Picchu was a kind of giant convent used to house the Virgins of the
Sun, young foreign women whose purpose was to satisfy the desires of the Inca ruler. Others believe it was built to hide
King Manco, who was placed on the throne by the Spaniards as a puppet ruler after the betrayal and death of Atahualpa.
In 1536 Manco rose up against the conquistadors and was forced to flee… Recent studies have led to some interesting
new hypotheses about the function of the site, such as a place of worship link to the observation of the stars” (334, 336).
6. “Sophisticated irrigation channels kept the crops watered and various stone staircases on the sides of walls led to
different levels of the structures. The two sectors of Machu Picchu presumably had residential and ceremonial-religious
functions respectively. In the ceremonial western section, one structure that stands out is El Torreón, a massive semicircular tower with windows, similar to the lookout towers that can be seen all through Europe… The rock that supports
the Torreón has been dug out and has the appearance of a burial chamber. For this reason, the place was called the
Royal Mausoleum, even though there is nothing to prove that a person of high rank is buried there” (336). “The Incas,
like the other Andean peoples, had neither the wheel nor iron tools, and this makes their abililty to work with and
transport masses of granite weighing several tons even more amazing. Research has shown that the blocks were simply
cut out from the quarries and that the finishing work took place on the building sites, to which the blocks were apparently
taken by rolling them on tree trunks. In spite of the popularly held belief that the blocks were fitted together using a dry
stone technique, they were nearly always joined together using a kind of mortar which is no longer visible today” (338).
Pipe from the Adena culture (Ohio), c. 500-1 BCE, stone
1. “Scholars have divided the pre-contact history of the eastern and southeastern United States into an Archaic period
(ending in 1000 BCE), the Woodland period (300 BCE- 1000 CE), and the Mississippi period (900-1500). Some large
mounds marking ceremonial sites and burials with finely carved and polished stone sculptures as grave offerings appear
by the Archaic period. The transition from the Late Archaic to the Woodland period accompanied the spread of these
traits. There are two major traditions or cultures in the Woodland period, the Adena (c. 1100/700 BCE-700 CE) and
Hopewell (c. 100 BCE- 500 CE). The influence of those cultures eventually spread from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky
Mountains” (O’Riley 282).
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
2. “About 500 sites in the central woodlands have been identified with the Adena culture. The Adena are known for
their carved stone tablets, which may have been used as stamps, sculptured pipes, and objects made from stone, copper,
bones, and sheets of mica deposited in the graves of their elite. An Adena stone pipe (c. 500 BCE- 1 CE) carved in shape
of a standing man with large earplugs has a facial type that resembles examples from the somewhat later Central Mexican
city of Teotihuacan” (282). “Most Adena and Mississippian objects come from burial and temple mounds and are though
to have been gifts to the dead to ensure their safe arrival and prosperity in the land of the spirits” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and
Tansey 410).
Serpent Mound, Mississippian (Ohio), late 11th century
1. “Serpent Mound is one of the largest and best known of the Woodlands effigy mounds. Rescued from certain
destruction at the hands of pot hunters and farmers a century ago (in one of the first efforts at preserving a Native
American archeological site), it is today the subject of considerable controversy. Archeologists long attributed Serpent
Mount, first excavated in the 1880s, to the Adena culture, which flourished in the Ohio area for several centuries before
the Christian era. New radiocarbon dates taken from the mound, however, indicate that it was built much later and thus
by the people known as Mississippians. Unlike most other ancient mounds, this one contained no evidence of burials or
temples. Serpents, however, were important in Mississippian iconography, appearing, for example, etched on shell
gorgets… Snakes were strongly associated with the earth and the fertility of crops. A stone figurine found at one site, for
example, depicts a woman digging her hoe into the back of a large serpentine creature whose tail turns into a vine of
gourds” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 411).
2. “But another possible meaning for the construction of Serpent Mound has been proposed recently. The new date
suggested for it is 1070, not long after the brightest appearance in recorded history of Halley’s Comet in 1066. Could
Serpent Mound have been built in response to this important astronomical event? It even has been suggested that the
serpentine form of the mound replicates the comet itself streaking across the night sky. Whatever its meaning, such a
large and elaborate earthwork only could have been built by a large labor force under the firm direction of a powerful
elite eager to leave its mark on the landscape forever” (411). “It measures nearly a quarter mile from its open jaw, which
seems to clasp an oval-shaped mound in its mouth, to its tightly coiled tail” (410).
Cahokia, Mississippian culture (Ohio), c. 1150 CE
1. “Lying eight miles east of St. Louis, Missouri, Cahokia is named for a native American people (the name means “Wild
Geese”) who inhabited the area in the 17 century. It was the main city and ceremonial center of a culture known as
Mississippian that flourished from c. 1050 to 1250” (Harpur 113). During the mid-12 century, Cahokia “was the largest
settlement in North America, covering an area of about six square miles and with a population of as many as 20,000
people” (114).
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2. Built in stages for three centuries, the most impressive of the temple mounds found there is Monks Mound. It may
have served as an elite residence, a temple, and a burial structure. “In 1831, a certain Amos Hill built a house on top of
Monks Mound; he is said to be buried in its northwestern corner. The mound continued to remain in the hands of
private landowners until the early 20 century” (114). “From atop Monks Mound, the ruler and his attendants could gaze
from a grand thatched ceremonial building over the city with its 120 mounds and the outlying villages” (114). “Since they
were preliterate and left no written records of their culture, most of what is known about the Mississippians comes from
material evidence. The Natchez people, however, who were the cultural heirs of the Mississippians, were observed by
various French explorers between 1698 and 1731. Scholars believe that Natchez life and customs shed valuable light on
those of their Mississippian ancestors” (115).
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3. “The Natchez were divided into distinct social classes governed by a ruler-priest known as the Great Sun. He was the
representative of the sun on earth and was treated with godlike reverence by his people. For example, wearing a crown of
snow-white swan plumes, he was always borne aloft in a litter so that he would not be defiled by contact with the ground.
Only the Great Sun and his priests could enter the main temple, perched on the central mound, where a sacred fire was
kept burning and bones of previous rulers were stored. After his death, a lengthy funeral ensued. His wives and retainers
were strangled; his house was burned; and his bones, in times, were laid in the temple. As with the Natchez, the
Mississippians had elaborate funeral rituals involving human sacrifices. Excavations of Mound 72, a six-foot-high ridgetop
mound about a half mile south of Monks Mound, have shown that it enclosed three smaller mounds and burial pits in
which almost 300 people were interred. The prize burial was that of a middle-aged man, presumably a chief, whose body
had been carefully placed on a bed of 20,000 shell beads” (Harpur 115-116).
4. “The layout of their city indicates that they were fully aware of alignments. Monks Mound, for example was in the
middle of the site, aligned with the four points of the compass. Also, Cahokia’s north-south axis ran from Monks
Mound’s south to Mound 72 via other significantly placed mounds. And other prominent earthen works marked the
city’s east-west axis. The discovery in 1961 of the remains of a circle of cedar poles is further proof that the Cahokians
used orientations and alignments. Located to the west of Monks Mound and dubbed Woodhenge, the circle was about
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
1,000 years old and had been enlarged five times (the third cycle of 48 posts has been reconstructed on the site).
Investigators believe the posts were used for calendrical purposes, perhaps to track the phases of the moon or, more
probably, the path of the sun, in order to establish key seasonal dates, such as the summer and winter solstices. It is also
possible that the circle was used to fix the alignments of Cahokia’s mounds” (117).
5. “At the spring equinox, when crops had to be sown, an observer standing in Woodhenge at dawn would have seen the
sun rise directly over Monks Mound itself. At this key moment in the calendar, the ruler-priest, the servant of the sun,
may have emerged from the mound’s temple to mark this pivotal event- perhaps by lighting a sacred bonfire” (117). “For
some 200 years, Cahokia thrived as the spiritual, cultural, and commercial hub of the Mississippians. But toward the end
of the 13 century, it began to decline. The reasons remain an enigma. There may have been adverse climatic conditions
leading to crop failure, famine, and civil unrest. Overexploitation of woodland and other natural resources may also have
played a part. Whatever the causes, by the end of the 15 century, Cahokia was a ghost city, its people gone and its
mounds overgrown” (117). “A stockade, or fence, of upright wooden posts- a sign of increasing warfare- surrounded the
250-acre core. Within this barrier the principal mound rose in four stages to a height of about 100 feet. On its summit
was a small, conical platform that supported a wood fence and a rectangular temple or house. Smaller rectangular and
conical mounds in front of the principal mound surrounded a large, roughly rectangular plaza. In all, the walled
enclosure contained more than 500 mounds, platforms, wooden enclosures, and houses” (Stokstad 461-462).
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Iroquois False Face Masks, 20th century
1. “One of the largest tribes living in the northeast area of the Woodlands Region was the Iroquois. Expert wood carvers,
the Iroquois created wooden masks that were usually painted and decorated with horse hair. The best known were
created for a society of healers known as the False Faces because of the masks they wore. These masks were thought to
be sacred and represented the spirits who gave healers the magic they needed to treat illnesses. Because they were
considered to be so powerful, these masks were hidden away when not in use so they would not cause accidental injuries”
(Mittler 255).
2. “Most False Face masks exhibit features that were used over and over again. These included repeating arching curves
that were used to emphasize the staring eyes and the open, distorted mouth. Metal rings of various shapes were used to
set off the eyes, and hair was fashioned from a horse’s tail” (255).
The Indian Removal Act of 1830
1. “Dress clothing and the occasions such as social dances and religious ceremonies during which it was worn became an
important means of preserving a sense of cultural identity after the onset of the ‘reservation period’ late in the nineteenth
century. The Indian Removal Act signed into law by Andrew Jackson in 1830 forced tens of thousands of Eastern
Woodlands people to leave their traditional homelands in the east and resettle in ‘Indian Territory’ reservations, mostly
in Oklahoma and Kansas. Those who lived in more remote areas to the north were spared removal, but logging interests
and more aggressive European-American settlement forced land sales that encroached on the land originally allotted to
reservations. Indian children were forced to attend school where speaking their native language was forbidden, and they
were taught that the old culture was obsolete in the modern world” (Penney 28).
2. “Traditional livelihoods collapsed, and poverty, often starvation, resulted. Fortunately, dress clothing, regalia, and the
occasions to wear it continued to celebrate traditional Native values. Throughout the late nineteenth century, the
traditions of women’s craft work that were carefully passed from one generation to the next played a large part in the
survival of Indian culture” (28).
Man’s leggings, Ojibwa (Minnesota), c. 1900
1. “Ojibwa women of the White Earth and Red Lake reservations in Minnesota excelled in glass bead embroidery
executed in a naturalistic floral style, like that visible on this particularly beautiful and meticulously decorated pair of
man’s leggings. Subtle colors represent abundant varieties of leaves and blossoms that are arranged on gently
meanderings stems. The heavy, dark blue velveteen provided a sturdy support for the weighty beads. The patterns were
embroidered on these dance leggings, which were part of a man’s formal regalia worn during social dances and religious
ceremonies. The leggings were pulled up each leg and tied to the hip to a belt. They were worn with a breechcloth or
apron, also elaborately beaded, along with a colorful, printed cotton shirt decorated with silk ribbon. Beaded moccasins,
garters tied around the leggings just below the knees, woven sashes worn across the shoulders, and other decorative
accessories completed the dance outfit” (28). “Ojibwa women of Minnesota originally learned the floral style from
missionary teachers who had taught them to use silk thread to embroider tablecloths and napkins” (28).
Mimbres bowl (New Mexico), 900-1100 CE, ceramic
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
1. “The villages of the Mimbres valley reached a peak of development during the eleventh and twelfth centuries AD.
This so-called classic period saw the construction of massive apartment complexes composed of dozens of contiguous
rooms. In some villages room ‘blocks,’ as archaeologists call them, numbered over one hundred individual chambers.
The rooms were constructed of cobble and adobe masonry covered with a mud plaster. Upright posts of pinion pine
supported a flat roof fabricated in the typical Pueblo fashion, with logs, red willow saplings, and mud plaster. The
Mimbres River was harnessed into the service of irrigation, and Mimbres culture enjoyed an episode of growth and
stability that was never again to be matched at that location” (Penney 54).
2. “Mimbres room blocks were probably inhabited by related kin, and it was their practice to bury deceased family
members beneath the floor of the apartment. The dead were often accompanied by offerings, which included in many
cases painted pottery bowls. Pottery had been introduced to the Mimbres area from the south by approximately AD 200,
with simple painted pottery becoming common during the seventh century. The classic black painted designs against a
white slip were not produced until about AD 800. These early black-on-white pottery designs were predominantly
geometric, nonrepresentational patterns, but figural images of animals and human beings were seen with increasing
frequency through the eleventh century. Classic Mimbres figurative painting on pottery bowls as seen here was a
development unique to classic Mimbres culture since there is no evidence of any comparable figure painting” (54).
“Mimbres bowls have been found in burials under house floors, inverted over the head of the deceased and ritually
‘killed’ by puncturing a small hole at the base, perhaps to allow the spirits of the deceased to join their ancestors in the
sky” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 412). “Because the potter’s wheel was unknown in the Americas, the artists used the
coiling method to build countless sophisticated shapes of varied size, always characterized by technical excellence” (412).
“In Mimbres art, animals, human beings, and composite creatures seem to relate to mythic narratives of a religious
nature, but their specific meaning remains unknown” (Penney 54).
Anasazi Cliff Palace (Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado), c. 1150-1300
1. “The Anasazi (Navajo word meaning ‘the ancient ones’), emerged in the Four Corners region, where Colorado, Utah,
Arizona, and New Mexico meet. The Anasazi, who adopted the irrigation technology of the Hohokam, turned to an
agricultural, village way of life somewhat later than the other two groups. Around 750 CE they began building elaborate,
multistoried, apartmentlike structures with many rooms for specialized purposes, including communal food storage. The
Spanish called these communities pueblos, or ‘towns.’ The descendents of the Anasazi, including the Hopi and Zuni, still
occupy similar communities in the Four Corners Area” (Stokstad 462).
2. “These dwellings, which have often been called the earliest apartment houses in North America, were often found
nestled under overhanging cliffs, where they could have protection from the weather and from raiding nomadic peoples
such as the pre-European contact Navajo and Apache” (Corbin 71). “The multistoried architecture is hidden beneath the
overhanging face, and there are remnants of rounded and squarish tower-like structures, attached dwelling and storage
rooms of a basically rectangular plan, and circular subterranean ceremonial ‘kivas’. Similar kiva structures were in use by
various pueblo peoples at the time of contact in the sixteenth century and are still used today in sacred rites” (71).
Detail of a kiva painting from Kuaua Pueblo (New Mexico), late 15 th to early 16th century
1. “Two basic kiva types were found among the Anasazi: a round type in the western Anasazi and a rectangular type in the
eastern Anasazi. By analogy with historic pueblo peoples, we can assume that various clans used individual kivas for
ceremonies tied to their concepts of religion, initiation, and social order. An important form of artistic expression found
in many of these kivas was painted plaster frescos depicting supernaturals and various flora and fauna associated with
seasonal ceremonies of an agricultural nature” (Corbin 71).
2. “The kiva painting from Kuaua, New Mexico, may represent kachina-like deities associated with agricultural
ceremonies. There are two human-like figures on either side of the panel, with a central region depicting a flying eagle, a
fish, a batlike creature, and a ceremonial pot overflowing with moisture. All of these stand on a base of horizontal bands
probably representing a rainbow and the boundary between the underworld of the kachina spirits and the upper world of
the kiva and the Anasazi clans who used it. The kachina spirit on the left appears to be a male, with a staff in one hand
and a prayer stick and feather offering in the other. There are feather-like shapes on top of his headdress and there is a
kilt and skirt over the lower part of his body. Below him to the left is a bird with some form of moisture droplets coming
out of its beak. The thin staff he holds appears to be set within another stream of moisture droplets, coming from the
fish’s mouth. Zigzag pointed arrows (representing lightning) also come from the fish’s mouth, as does a rainbow which
arcs upward to the tip of the centrally placed eagle. Lightning arrows and moisture or seeds are coming out of the eagle’s
mouth and descend over a batlike form who has droplets falling from its head. Beneath the eagle is a pot set within a
shallow container, with lightning and moisture symbols flowing upward and outward from its neck. To the side, away
from the pot, are small, dark arrow points and footprints set in a continuous pattern” (71, 73).
Water Jar from the Zuni Pueblo (New Mexico), 1825-50
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
1. “Zuni Pueblo is located in western New Mexico on the Zuni River, a tributary of the Little Colorado… The Spanish
first encountered the Zuni living in six villages, or pueblos, the most prominent being Zuni and Hawikuh. These were
mistakenly reported as the ‘seven cities of Cibola,’ which were seen from a distance during an initial visit by the
Franciscan Priest Marcos de Niza, and news of which inspired Francisco Vasquez de Coronado’s conquest of Hawikuh in
1540. The Zuni lived under Spanish rule until their participation in the Pueblo revolt of 1680. Thereafter, the Zuni
abandoned their pueblos, fearing Spanish reprisals” (Penney 56). “The stepped triangles, based upon the form of a rising
thunderhead, refer to rain, which was so necessary to cultural life in the Southwest. And the migratory butterfly reinforces
the them since butterflies arrive in the Zuni region along with the rainy season” (56).
Serape-style Navajo Blanket (Arizona), 1870s
1. “The Navajo arrived at their present homeland of the Colorado plateau of northern Arizona via migration sometime
during the fifteenth century. The closely related Apache accompanied them into the region. Both peoples lived by
hunting and gathering wild foods, unlike the resident pueblo dwellers of the Southwest, who were farmers” (Penney 64).
A style of striped wool blanket known today as a ‘chief’s blanket,’ developed by the Navajo in the nineteenth century,
became a highly valued commodity” (64). The term “serape style” is “something of a misnomer since Mexican serapes
are cut with a slit in the center for the head and worn hanging down in front and back, while Navajo serape-style blankets
are made with no slit and are worn horizontally around the shoulders” (64).
2. “It is not possible to determine exactly how or when the Navajo learned Pueblo weaving techniques, although Spanish
records of the eighteenth century do mention Navajo weavings and trade in Navajo textiles” (64). “The Navajo women
own the family flocks, control the shearing of the sheep, the carding, spinning, and dying of the thread, and the weaving of
the fabrics. Weaving is a sacred activity for women and a paradigm for their existence. A mythic ancestor named Spider
Woman wove the universe, a cosmic web that united Sky Father and Earth Mother out of sacred materials on a great
loom made of cross poles (sky and earth) with a warp (sun rays), baton (sun halo), and spindles (lightning and rain). It
was she who taught the Navajo Earth Mother, Changing Woman, how to weave. As they prepare their materials and
weave, the Navajo women imitate the transformations of Changing Woman as she creates the ever-changing forms of the
world around them. Working on their looms, Navajo artists create microcosmic and holistic images through which they
experience harmony with nature… Thus, the weaving is a way of seeing the world and being part of it” (O’Riley 294).
Navajo Sandpainting Weaving (northern Arizona), early 20th century
1. “During the early twentieth century, most Navajo weaving was intended for outside markets. Anglo entrepreneurs at
trading posts within the Navajo Reservation worked closely with weavers to develop categories of weaving and design that
would appeal to outside buyers. Weaving production shifted from blankets to rugs, some of them based on Turkish
carpet patterns provided by traders. Another style that proved very popular with Anglo buyers incorporated figural
images employed by Navajo healers in sandpaintings. Sandpaintings possessed sacred, healing powers and were
destroyed the same day they were completed. Although many Navajo felt uneasy about bowling sandpainting imagery for
weavings, figures drawn from sandpainting compositions were commercially desirable and began to appear in the work of
Navajo weavers during the final decades of the nineteenth century” (Penney 66).
2. “Sandpaintings are made for a ceremony called a ‘chant,’ which is the recitation of part of a long story about the
beginnings of the world. The sandpaintings are at once illustrations of the story and the ‘gifts’ that are given to the heroes
of the story. The narrative, its sandpaintings, and other details of the healing ritual are the property of a ‘singer,’ or
healer. When someone falls ill, the singer is hired to create sandpaintings linked to different events of the narrative
depending upon the diagnosis of the ailment. Generally, a sandpainting ceremony will employ only four sandpaintings at
most, representing only a small fragment of the entire narrative. The painting itself is produced with dry pigments mixed
with sand on the floor of the patient’s home. When it completed, the patient sits in the center of the painting and the
singer and his assistants rub the sand on his or her body to apply the healing powers of the images” (66).
3. “This weaving illustrates a sandpainting from the Shooting Chant, one of some twenty to twenty-five different Navajo
chants. Shooting Chant is particularly effective against diseases caused by lightning and protects against arrows and
snakes. The chant narrative begins with the time when Changing Woman lived in difficult, nearly barren land filled with
dangerous monsters. Dripping Water and Sun impregnated her with twin boys named Slayer-of-Alien-Gods and Childof-the-Water, who were to rid the world of these evil beasts and make it fruitful. The myth then recounts the adventures
of the twins and their encounters with Holy People who would help them. The painting illustrated on this weaving is
called ‘The Skies’ and was taught to the twins by the Sun, their father, at Dawn Mountain” (66). “The image shows the
four skies of a single day and their directional orientations: the white sky of dawn to the east, the blue sky of day to the
south, the yellow sky of twilight to the west, and the black sky of night to the north. Each of the four skies is represented
by a trapezoidal shape of the appropriate color. The horned faces toward the center of the composition represent the
blue sun, the black wind, the white moon, and the yellow wind. In each corner is one of the four sacred plants
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
recognized by the Navajo: corn, tobacco, squash, and bean. Like many sandpaintings, the composition is radial, growing
outward from the center. This weaving has no healing power; only the sandpainting, executed and used properly by the
healers, is sacred” (66).
4. “Men, who personify the stable or static side of life, make sand paintings that are accurate copies of paintings from the
past. Motionless figures with stiff, unbent torsos are arranged in symmetrical compositions within large circles. The songs
sung over the paintings are also faithful renditions of songs from the past. By recreating these arts, which reflect the
original beauty of creation, the Navajo bring beauty to the present world. As newcomers to the southwest, where their
climate, neighbors, and rulers could be equally inhospitable, the Navajo created these art forms to control the world
around them, not just through their symbolism, but through their beauty, hozho, so they could live in beauty” (O’Riley
294). The concept of “hozho” “coexists with hochxo (‘ugliness,’ or ‘evil,’ and ‘disorder’) in a world where the opposing
forces of dynamism and stability create constant change. When the world which was created in beauty becomes ugly and
disorderly, the Navajo gather together to perform rituals, with songs and make sand paintings to restore beauty and
harmony to the world so they can once again ‘walk in beauty.’ This sense of disharmony is often manifest when a Navajo
becomes ill. Thus, the restoration of harmony is a type of curing ceremony” (O’Riley 293).
Robe with War Exploits, created by unknown Plains tribe, 1797-1805, buffalo hide, dyed porcupine quills, and paint
1. “It was customary for Plains men to paint a record of their war exploits on items of dress clothing... When
accomplished warriors wore garments such as this one painted with representations of their heroic acts, all who saw knew
that they possessed the authority of men who had proven themselves in the highest test of character and resolve” (Penney
40). “This robe shows at least ten different episodes of combat involving a man wearing a brown and red shirt, red
breechcloth, fringed leggings, and a single eagle feather in a roach headdress… In three instances the warrior is shown
carrying a pipe indicating that he was the leader of the war party” (40). “In general, the artist has chosen to represent the
moments when the warrior strikes his enemy, each blow counting as a ‘coup’ to his credit” (40).
Southern Cheyenne dress (Oklahoma), c. 1880, deerskin, cowrie shells, glass beads, tin cones, and paint
1. “After the California gold rush of 1849, the Cheyenne saw their hunting territory cut in half by a mounting tide of
settlers. Reservation life began with the imprisonment of Cheyenne leaders in 1875 and the capture of northern
Cheyenne in 1876” (Penney 44). “On or off the reservation, Cheyenne women who made and decorated clothing were
recognized and honored for their skills… At feasts women elders were invited to stand up and tell how many robes they
had made and decorated, a practice not unlike the way men publicly recounted their victories in battle” (44).
2. “This dress was made by a Cheyenne woman who lived on the reservation at Fort Sill (Oklahoma) during the late
1880s. She made it with three deerskins… The dress was worn with a leather belt decorated with circular medallions of
German silver called ‘conchas’… Most surprising, perhaps, are the cowrie shells sewn in parallel rows across the bodice.
The shells, ancient North American symbols of wealth and spiritual blessings, were probably harvested from the coast of
Africa and brought to Oklahoma by traders” (44). “This is a formal garment, not an everyday dress. As formal regalia, the
dress was most often worn for dancing” (44).
Bella Coola Sun Mask (Central British Columbia), 19th century, painted wood
1. “The Bella Coola are a Salish-speaking people who once lived in forty-five villages located along the Bella Coola,
Deans, and Kimsquit rivers, and the Burke and Dean channels that lead to the Pacific. The terarain is rugged and heavily
forested” (Penney 94). “Like their Northerwest Coast neighbors, the Kwakiutl, the Bella Coola staged elaborate masked
rituals during the winter months… The kusiut society, who membership was determined by ancestral right, organized
masquerades, keeping secret the means by which they impersonated powerful supernatural beings” (94).
2. “Many of the kusiut masquerades dramatized the mythic narratives of Ahlquntam, the most important of the
supernatural creatures recognized by the Bella Coola. Ahlquntam was the creator of all men and animals… He and his
counselors decided who would be born among human beings, who would die, and who would be initiated to perform
kusiut dances” (94). “This mask represents the sun, which Ahlquntam used as his canoe… During the kusiut ceremonies,
the mask was raised against the rear wall of the dance house and traveled across the ceiling, simulating the journey of the
sun across the sky. This was accomplished with strings and other mechanical contrivances” (94). “The three-dimensional
face of the sun in the center of the mask is framed by two ravenlike birds, a killer whale, and wings painted on the sun
disk frame” (94).
Hamatsa Crooked Beak Mask of the Kwakiutl (British Columbia), 1940s
1. “The Kwakiutl live along the Straits of Georgia on the southern coast of British Columbia. Their traditional livelihood
depended primarily upon abundant harvests of salmon and smeltlike candle fish, and they divided their time between
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
spring and summer fishing camps and large seaside winter villages. The winter has always been the ceremonial season,
the time for planning and hosting large feasts called potlatches and staging impressive ceremonies. This mask represents
a cannibal bird known as the Crooked Beak monster, which appears as part of the cannibal dance, the most powerful
supernatural masquerade of the Kwakiutl” (Penney 92).
2. “According to the mythic narrative of the cannibal dance, the Crooked Beak is one of four monstrous beings who live
at the north end of the world and crave human flesh. During the winter season, they come south to the Kwakiutl villages
to capture young men of noble families and transform them into cannibals. At large intervillage feasts and ‘give-aways’
known as potlatches, the chiefly host may stage a reenactment of the cannibal monster myth with his own son portraying
the victim and fellow clansmen impersonating the dreaded cannibal monsters by wearing frightful masks like the one seen
here” (92).
3. “The cannibal dance is performed over a period of several days when guests from other villages have assembled for a
potlatch. Late in the first evening, after everyone has been assembled and fed in the host’s massive wooden house, the
guests hear strange and eerie whistlers that announce the approach of the cannibal monsters. Suddenly, the chief’s son
vanishes, having been kidnapped by the cannibals. In reality, special dance assistants have taken him to the forest where
they tell him how to perform the last act of the drama. When the chief’s son returns to the village he behaves as if he has
become a cannibal himself, and he must be restrained from attacking others… The culminating dramatic moment of the
cannibal dance comes the last evening of the potlatch, when the elder men of the village must cure the young many of his
hunger for flesh… The Crooked Beak dancer wears the mask tilted upward, pausing occasionally while dancing to snap its
beak hungrily as a sign of its voraciousness” (92).
Haida Totem Poles
1. “The prosperous, sea-oriented people living along the 1,500 miles stretch of heavily forested hills on the Northwest
Pacific Coast from the California-Oregon border to the panhandle of Alaska produced some of the finest woodcarvings in
North America. In pre-contact, times, this was one of the most densely populated regions in the world without
agriculture. By 1900, the pre-contact population (c. 200,000) had dwindled to about 40,000 and, the so-called ‘totem
poles’ installed in museums became universally recognized icons of the ‘vanishing Indian’”(O’Riley 285).
2. “Although the tradition is a very ancient one, we know relatively little about Northwest Pacific Coast art before the
eighteenth century. Almost all of the wood sculptures and weavings predating this period have disappeared. In many
cases, once a carved pole was erected, it would not be repainted or altered in any fashion; such acts might require as
much ritual preparation as the original carving. Many poles that fell were not reset or repaired; they were allowed to decay
in the rainy climate of the coast and remain part of the ongoing cycle of nature. Aside from the monuments that were
moved to museums for safekeeping, most of the sculptures and houses that existed in great numbers as late as the 1880s
have disappeared” (285-286).
3. “Such was the fate of Skidegate, a Haida village that was photographed in the 1880s. The houses were built in rows
following the curvature of the beach with the residences of the chief and high-ranking nobles near the center of the village.
The straight grains of the cedar trunks allowed the builders to split the trees into planks up to forty feet long. Originally,
some of the poles were painted to help visitors arriving by canoe to recognize the clan-crest symbolism and marking the
homes of their friends, relatives, and enemies- and navigate accordingly. In addition to the poles inside houses supporting
rafters, and those attached to the facades, tall, freestanding memorial poles and somewhat shorter mortuary poles with
hollow cavities to hold burials were set in front of the houses” (286).
4. “All of these so-called ‘totem poles’ display animals and other heraldic signs belonging to the lineage of the family
erecting them, along with references to the legends that explain how these family badges were obtained. It was important
for families to display their crests, emblems, songs, ceremonies, and other art forms to validate their noble status. As in
the European tradition, wealthy Northwest Pacific Coast families ‘owned’ certain crests or image-types indicating their
moiety or clan as well as their personal family crests, and they displayed these on their houses and canoes in which they
traveled to their communities. The animals in the crests may have had supernatural contact with a mythical ancestor or
taken human form to establish the lineage” (286).
5. “Animals are not shown in their entirety, in a naturalistic fashion. Generally, the artists will select characteristic,
silhouetted forms such as eyes, eyebrows, tails, claws, or fins that enable viewers to recognize the species being
represented. These forms are fragmented, distorted, and rearranged to fit into the ovoid shapes defined by the formlines.
The images present the core of the myths and ideas they represent in flat patterns, without implied space. As heraldic
crests or signs, they are highly abstract, but immediately recognizable to the initiated, who know the culture well enough to
‘read’ and interpret the fragmented forms. Often, a single form may be part of two overlapping or interlocking images
and must be ‘read’ two ways, like a kind of visual pun” (288).
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
6. “The flowing compositions of these well-matched, curved, and organic formlines and shapes have a rhythmic pulse, a
vitality, and a strong sense of unity. To characterize them further, we might say that they are slow-flowing, compact,
forceful, and that they may echo the flora, fauna, and aquatic shapes of this area. Also, there may be an important
kinaesthetic relationship between these rhythms and those of the music and dances that accompanied them in
ceremonials” (288).
71