Gifts From the Past

8/7/2019 Gifts From the Past

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Gifts from the Past:

The Material Culture of Ancient Amazonia

Cristiana Barreto

The exhibition AMAZONIA, Native Traditions aims to show the Amazon,

today much praised for its pristine environment and biodiversity, through the arts

and beliefs of its traditional peoples. It brings to China, for the first time, a

universe of objects and artifacts that is largely unknown, not only to the Chinese

public, but to the world in general.

The challenge of showing Amazonian materials to a new public is greateryet in China if we consider the sharp contrasts between, on the one hand, the

remarkable antiquity and sophistication of material culture traditions from

Chinese civilization and, on the other hand, the common view that pictures

Amazonian Indians as small, primitive groups whose material culture failed to

reach advanced levels of technological or artistic achievement - a view, we

believe is simplistic and mistaken.

If any comparisons between the ancient traditions of China and Amazonia

are in order, perhaps it is in their most contrasting features, such as the

monumentality of ancient Chinese artistry, embodied for instance in Xians terra-

cotta army, or perhaps the antiquity of a writing system through which an

enormous territory was united and which enabled the recording of much of

Chinese civilizations history. It is true that societies of ancient Amazonia never

developed formal writing, nor did they build monuments of similar scale. However

they do have and enduring, long history of technological and artistic

achievements, ones that survived the great threats of colonial domination toleave material and spiritual marks on both the regions landscape and todays

culture.

Texto publicado no catlogo da exposio Amaznia, Native Traditions realizada em 2004 emno Museu da Cidade Imperial, Pequim, China. (Catlogo editado por Lus Donisete BenziGrupioni e Cristiana Barreto, So Paulo, BrasilConnects, 2004).


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These sharp contrasts, rather than undermine the task of showing

Amazonian traditions in China or intimidate the consideration of their antiquity

and technical achievements, have instead inspired and helped us to organize the

exhibition, in terms of showing contents that we believe will be intuitively

understood by the Chinese public. We therefore chose to directly address the

question of antiquity, of technological advances, of the unity of an enormous

region, its artistic traditions and its cultural means of preserving them, themes

and perspectives that are very much known to the Chinese in their own country.

Accordingly, the first part of this exhibition is composed of objects primarily

related to Ancient Amazonia, i.e., its cultural traditions from the past before

European colonization of the region, a past that is known only through

archaeological research and the material remains that have survived until ourtimes.

The antiquity of Amazonian cultural traditions

For most of the 20th century, Amazonia was considered as one the

persistently marginal regions of the New World, where cultural development had

lagged behind other better-known ancient civilizations, such as the complex

societies of Mesoamerica or the Andes.

However, archaeological research undertaken in the last two decades has

demonstrated not only that important endogenous cultural developments

flourished in the Amazon, but also that such developments can now be seen as

the result of a continuous, long, and very early human occupation of the region.

Today we know that the region has been occupied by foraging groups

since at least 10 500 years ago, and that sedentary villages were already in

place by at least 6 000 to 5 000 years before the present. Compared to most

other areas of the Americas both dates are extremely old. Even when compared

to the Neolithic periods of Europe and Asia (broadly considered from 8 000 to 4

000 years ago), the emergence of village life and early agriculture in the Amazon

does not lag much behind these developments in other world regions. Indeed,


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the appearance of pottery in the Amazon, dated at 8 000 BP, appears to be the

earliest pottery in the Americas, and amongst the oldest in the world.

The antiquity of Amazonian culture matters not just because of these

comparisons across time with other cultural complexes. It matters because this

antiquity demonstrates that the indigenous populations of present Amazonia

have shared a long history, and that ruptures caused by contact with Europeans

roughly 500 years ago have to be seen as a relatively recent event. In sum,

Amazonian traditions must be considered dynamically, in their full context of a

long history, past and present.

This also implies that the present indigenous societies of Amazonia, or as

we have known them for the last hundred years or so, cannot be taken as

models of how these peoples have lived and created throughout the long span oftheir existence, i. e., during a 10 000 year-long cultural and social trajectory. The

massive disruptions caused by European colonization, such as dramatic

population losses due to disease and war, enslavement, and territorial

displacement, have markedly changed their social practices and political nature.

Indeed, contrary to the common view of the region, recent archaeology clearly

shows that, just before 1500 AD, the Amazonian floodplains were densely

inhabited by large populations organized into many complex polities, most of

which participated in region-wide exchange networks. Estimates of the total

population of the Amazon basin now reach six million inhabitants (Denevan

1992a) .

The flourishing of sophisticated pottery styles throughout the middle and

lower Amazon approximately 2000 years ago is perhaps the best testimony of

cultural developments among pre-colonial Amazonian societies. And while no

monuments, temples, or cities were left behind to give us a better picture of

cultural achievements, archaeology has unveiled other kinds of remarkable

human interventions in the regional landscape.

This brings us to state clearly the most important implication of the long

presence of man in Amazonia: their long-term successful adaptation to tropical

forest environments, involving the cumulative development of knowledge about


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natural resources and resource management strategies as to not only preserve

but also increase the regions bio-diversity. This is perhaps the greatest

technological achievement of ancient Amazonian societies.

Arrows and axes:

Forest management and agriculture in ancient Amazonia

We chose to open this exhibition with two groups of relevant artifacts in

the history of Amazonian forest management: projectiles points for hunting

arrows and spears of diverse shapes and sizes made of chipped stone that

indicate ancient hunting traditions in the forest; and the polished stone axe

blades that indicate the intense practices of forest clearing for both village settling

and gardening.Forest management in the Amazon probably began around 10 000 years

ago, when foraging groups lived in a changing environment by the end of the

Pleistocene. These first human interventions in the forest were probably a major

factor that contributed to the extinction of large Pleistocene animals through the

systematic and predatory hunting of such species, although climatic changes

may have also contributed to their extinction.

Since big game hunting succeeded as a human survival strategy, hunting

strategies evolved throughout 10 000 years becoming not only a matter of

subsistence but also a highly symbolic practice of native Amazonia, through

which relations between humans and animals have been constantly conceived

(Politis 2001, Rival 1996).

In addition to instruments made of stone, which were certainly special, an

equally wide range of hunting instruments (arrows, bows, blow guns, spears,

darts, and atlatls) were most likely fashioned from wood and vegetal fibers, along

the lines these instruments are still made today, but have not survived the

archaeological record.

Most chipped stone projectile points are isolated finds in the Amazon, and

rarely have they been encountered in their original contexts, i.e., in early hunter-

gatherers sites. They can, however, be linked to the early human occupation of


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the region, prior to development of agricultural societies since they are absent in

these better known-sites.

The sophisticated technological skills of stone chipping (using both

bilateral percussion and pressure) in the making of the projectile points for

hunting arrows and spears indicates the importance of hunting as a subsistence

activity very early on, specially considering the scarcity of stone sources in the

region and the rarity of stone implements in general.

Furthermore, the wide variation in size and shape of these hunting

instruments suggest a diversity of hunting practices, involving both large and

small game, as perhaps a way to preserve the faunal diversity of the region from

very early times. Fishing arrows and spears are also still used in select parts of

the Amazon along with other fishing techniques.Indeed, in one of the very oldest sites in the Amazon, dated from between

11 700 to 9 800 years ago, a flaked projectile and organic remains have been

preserved, and analysis of remains indicate that these groups were living on a

broad-spectrum diet, one based on a wide variety of both terrestrial and aquatic

animals as well as plants, including fruits, nuts, and seeds (Roosevelt et all 1991,

1997; Oliver 2001).

Along with specialized hunting, the gathering of plants have led very early

on to human intervention in terms of the distribution and reproduction of certain

plant species in forested areas. The clearing of forests and management of

secondary growth (capoeiras) seem to be very ancient practices, the evidence of

which is found in the numerous artificial groves of highly valued palm or fruit

trees throughout the region (Bale 1993).

In pre-colonial times, forest clearing was achieved mainly through the

cutting of large trees with stone axes and burning of delimited forest areas, a

technique usually known a slash-and-burn. Stone axes, such as the ones

exhibited here, were therefore important subsistence tools (Denevan 1992b).

Men probably dedicated a great deal of their time in the making and use of stone

axes. The polishing of stone pebbles (sometimes preceded by chipping)

necessary for the making of an efficient hafted axe is a task that probably took


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more than a days labor. And while the very large trees of the Amazon (some

reaching 50 m high and 10 m diameter) can today be easily felled with power

chainsaws in a few hours, the cutting of large trees in the past with stone axes

was certainly a very demanding task.

Forest clearing was not only necessary for building villages but also for

gardening and farming, and this was probably the most significant way in which

Amazonian societies have altered their environment. Through a cyclical system

of village mobility and forest clearing, by letting palm trees grow in abandoned

village clearings, by rotating garden plots, by storing edible roots underground,

and by the manipulation of an wide range of wild plants, ancient Amazonian

societies could create a world of diverse, abundant and reliable resources (Bale

1989).Traditional Amazonian agriculture relies mainly in high caloric tuber

varieties of manioc as the staple, a crop for which consumption levels in tropical

regions is surpassed only by Asian rice. In the past, it is possible that peoples

had a more varied diet. The most impressive evidence of human agency in the

preservation and increase of plant diversity in the Amazon is perhaps the series

of hundreds of species that were originally domesticated (or semi-domesticated)

in the region, including manioc (Manihot esculenta), pineapple (Ananas

comosus), peanuts (Arachis hypogea); passion fruit (Passiflora edulis), papaya

(Carica papaya), and many other nut and fruit trees such as gouava, cashew,

cocoa, and Brazil nuts, to cite just the ones which are known worldwide (Bale

1989,1993; Rival 1998).

Since European colonization of the Amazon, farmers have noticed

the remarkable fertility of the very dark soils along most of the basins floodplains.

Thanks to recent research, we now know that most of these dark soils are

anthropogenic, that is to say of human origin, either because the decay of

indigenous settlements contributed to a high proportion of organic materials in

the soil, or because these soils were purposely enriched with organic materials

by indigenous peoples in the past. These black soils, known by local farmers as

terra preta de ndio (indians black earth), are evident across most of the


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Amazonian basins floodplains, attesting both to the very high degree of human

intervention in the landscape by Amazonian pre-colonial societies and that,

before Europeans arrived, these people had found the means of sustainable

development for large populations (Petersen et all 2001).

Green stones and ancestral worship:

The making of a regional tradition

Amazonia is an enormous region with many local cultural expressions and

practices. The language and cultural diversity of its indigenous peoples is

surpassed only by its bio-diversity. What bounds the region together, culturally

speaking, is not only its traditional subsistence practices, as described above, but

also truly pan-Amazonian ways to conceive and represent the world, ways thatcan display particular and partial similarities with those of other regions of the

Americas, such as the Andean, the Mesoamerican or North American indigenous

peoples, but that are fundamentally integrated as a unique, whole, Amazonian

cosmos. This can be said especially for the set of rules and rites that regulate

marriage, residence, and individual power, for their mythology, for the way

communities are conceived, for their notions about the place of humans in the

world, for their relations with other living beings, and for their means of access to

spiritual worlds.

In the past, this regional unity can be seen in two sets of material

evidence: materials (and associated values) that were shared throughout the

entire region, and that probably circulated through a wide regional exchange

network, as is the case with a variety of small artifacts made of green stone, such

as beads, pendants and amulets (or muiraquits); and assemblages of similar

artifacts that performed similar functions across the local cultures of ancient

Amazonia, such as ceramic funerary urns.

Amazonian green stones (varieties of nephrite and quartz) appear mainly

as small pendants in the shape of frogs, but other animal (fish, birds, bats) and

human forms are also known. Although their exact use is still a matter of

research, we know that some clay figurines from lower Amazon depicting high


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status women seem to display similar objects as hair ornaments (Gomes 2001).

These semi-precious stones have also been found in funerary contexts, inside

highly decorated burial urns alongside other offerings and personal belongings of

the dead (Palmatary 1950, Shaan 2003a).

However rare these items seem to have been, the muiraquitswere

distributed very widely in geographical terms, being found throughout the

Amazon and Orinoco basins, and as far as the Caribbean Islands. Although the

exact sources of these stones have not yet been identified, it is believed that their

main area of production was along the Jamund and the Trombetas rivers, two

northern Amazon tributaries near the town of Santarm. This region seems to

have been densly occupied by large settlements since at least 800 AD, probably

by the ancestors of the Tapaj, an ethnic group now extinct. The frog pendants,in particular, vary little in shape and size and can therefore be easily recognized

as being Amazonian in origin, even when found far away from the region.

Considering the existence of wide trading networks (Colson 1985, Myers

1981, Porro 1994), it is plausible to view muiraquitsas prestigious items traded

among Amazonian chiefdom elites of the time. Indeed, scholars have advanced

the hypothesis that these green stones were exchanged by tribal leaders and

chiefs as means for death compensation, marriage transactions, and peace

making ceremonies, as well as other forms of non-commercial payment to

establish or maintain alliances (Boomert 1987).

Today, many legends of Amazonian popular tradition explain the origins of

muiraquitsas involving the mythical warrior women called Amazons, who also

gave their name to the river. Amazonians still confer special powers on

muiraquitsas good fortune amulets. Indeed this is one of the few items of pre-

colonial indigenous traditions that have not only remained in use in contemporary

popular and literary traditions, but also are still cherished by common people as

symbols of happiness and good fortune.

But if the region seems to have been bound together through regional

exchange networks, it is also true that many shared beliefs have cemented

regional traditions. One of these is a strong belief that ancestors need to be


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called upon for maintenance of their cosmos, not to mention the general

importance assigned to ancestry and particular attachments to ancestors. This is

still expressed throughout Amazonia in the extremely long, complex, and

demanding rituals dedicated to the dead, whether in funerals or other

ceremonies.

In the past, this tradition can be observed in the widespread funerary

practices of burying the dead inside anthropomorphic urns that display symbols

representing the individuals place in the community. These urns, in many areas

of lower Amazonia, were kept unburied in caves or shelters in order to facilitate

direct access. This sort of funerary immortalization of the dead seems to coincide

with the flourishing of more complex cultural traditions about 2000 years ago, and

are observed throughout the basin, from Maraj island, at the mouth of theAmazon, till the Upper Amazon, close to the present Colombian border.

In this exhibition we chose to show five groups of urns belonging to these

different traditions from the middle and lower Amazon: Marajoara, Aru, Arist,

Marac, and Guarita. All of these urns served for the secondary and final burial

of bones from individuals whose bodies had previously been buried and left to rot

in order to separate flesh from bone, and whose bones were thereafter carefully

recovered, treated, and placed inside these ceramic vessels in a second funerary

ceremony, sometimes with other offerings and belongings.

All urns have, in one way or another, anthropomorphic references, some

very clear, such as Marac urns which display seated individuals with a number

of specific attributes such as size and gender (relating to the age and sex of the

deceased), as well as body painting and head decoration (probably relating to

the social status of the deceased) (Guapindaia 2001). Other urns, such as those

from the Guarita or Marajoara, exhibit only a face or eyes, in more or less

stylized representations. However different these local styles may be, they all

belong to a pan-Amazonian ancient tradition of burial practices in

anthropomorphic urns (Meggers 1957).


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Pots and figurines:

The body language of ancient Amazonian ceramics

We noted above how Amazonian indigenous traditions have survived

through time without a writing system, as has been the case with many other pre-

Colombian cultures. Indeed the role of oral traditions in passing on cultural

practices and values from generation to generation through time is well known

(Chernella, 1988; Hill 1993). Objects, and the way they are produced and

utilized, also play an important part passing on cultural values.

The different styles of decoration and representation that have survived on

pre-colonial ceramic artifacts indicate that true systems of communication of

ideas, values, and beliefs were at use on ceramics. These systems displayed

more or less ambiguous sets of graphic references and designs that most likelycould be understood throughout the region. They probably represented a variety

of information about the potters specific community and origins. Considering that

ceramics were widely produced throughout Amazonia by the year ca. 1000 AD,

as attested by extremely dense ceramic sites, and considering that by this time

the region was fully integrated by a wide ranging fluvial trade network ensuring

the flow of goods, people, and, most importantly, of ideas, ceramic objects were

an ideal portable and durable base for displaying and spreading information

about the particular societies who made them.

The most striking information these artifacts display is related to the

identity of individuals or social groups within their communities. We have already

mentioned how funerary urns can display information about the deceased

individuals buried inside them, in terms of their age, gender, and group affiliation.

In Maraj, urn sizes and decorations are also clearly related to the prestige and

social status of the dead: the larger and more decorated the urn, the greater the

power and access to prestige goods of the individual.

In addition to referents to funerary urns and items, objects used in rituals

of initiation also seem to display information about an individuals place in

society. The ceramic pubic covers (or tangas) found in Marajoara sites, probably

worn by girls during puberty rites of initiation, have been found to be composed


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of patterns and variation in graphic design that seem to relate to different levels

of information.

As with other Marajoara decorative patterns, the designs on the tangas

seem to follow very strict rules. The external triangular area is usually divided into

three fields: The first a thin band at the top, where bars and filled areas are

combined in patterns that are found throughout the majority of tangas; a second

band displays linear and horizontal patterns that seem to differ a bit more across

the universe of decorated tangas, but still are often repeated patterns. Below this

band, a third and larger triangular area displays crosses, spirals, and straight and

zigzag lines combined to form totally unique compositions.

This gradual variation of motifs in well-ordered fields has been interpreted

by archaeologists as displaying information about the wearers different groupaffiliation and social status, perhaps following some order of group inclusion,

from larger groups (such as gender, lineage, and clan) to the wearers more

specific individual identity (Barreto 2002; Shaan 2001b, 2003b).

Body painting and ornamentation are traditional practices among

indigenous Amazonian groups that still thrive today. Contemporary studies of

such practices have documented how they are performed, especially during

rituals, in terms of following strict rules as to the designs and materials used.

These studies also show how designs display information about the individuals

affiliations, but may also relate to elements in their cosmologies, representing, for

instance, ancestral and mythical beings (Vidal 1985, 1992; van Velthem 1992).

Close parallels can be traced between the way human bodies and ceramic

vessels are decorated among past Amazonian societies (Roosevelt 1988; Shaan

2001a). Indeed, Brazilian anthropologists have shown that the way people

conceive of and represent their bodies can be seen as mental models of their

selves (Viveiros de Castro 1987). This is probably why peoples of ancient Maraj

and Santarm produced a great number of ceramic figurines depicting people, in

most cases, showing their decorated bodies. Because of they are portable,

figurines allow human bodies to be shown wherever they are taken. Man,

women, and children are represented in figurines with a wide variety of body


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paintings and ornaments around wrists, ankles, and necks, with perforated ear

lobes, headdresses and hair adornments.

Among the different types of ceramics produced during the Marajoara

phase on Maraj Island, figurines of woman, often depicted in a squatting birth-

giving position are also famous for their overall phallic shape, combining both

female and male attributes in the same object. Many of these figurines seem to

have been used as rattles for ceremonial performances. Intentional decapitation

seems likely, for most are found headless. While the composition of heads

seems always to differ from one figurine to another (perhaps because hair

ornaments and headdresses had an important role as asserting individual

identities), body decorations, mostly body-painting designs, are often shared by

other figurines, most likely as signs of membership to a particular social group(Barreto 2002, Roosevelt 1988, Shaan 2001a, 2001b).

The more realistic depictions of people in ancient Tapajs figurines seems

to also stress differences between individual and group identities, in particular

between men and women. While men are always depicted in either very relaxing

or thoughtful poses, women faces often display a clear expression of

discontentment.

Body ornaments such as ear plugs, labrets, muiraquits, pendants and

necklaces are found in the archaeological record in a number of materials, sizes

and shapes. Some were probably highly prestigious items, like the rare green

stone muiraquitsand labrets. However, similar ornaments were also made out

of clay, following the exact same shapes, perhaps allowing less prestigious

individuals to decorate their bodies in similar fashions. Body decoration appears

to have been performed across entire communities and not as an exclusive

practice of elites.

The potential of ceramic analysis has long been recognized as an

important tool that may reveal better understanding of past Amazonian societies.

However, in-depth iconographic studies of the graphic designs displayed on

ceramics and peoples bodies (as represented by figurines and anthropomorphic

urns), have just begun. Such studies, by incorporating iconographic


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interpretations with the more in-depth archaeological data acquired during the

last decades, seem to be the most promising research able to increase

knowledge about past Amazonian worlds (Gomes 2001, Guapindaia 2001,

Shaan 1997,1999, 2001b).

Stools, pipes, and special pots:

Identity and power in ancient Amazon

Results of archaeological research during the last decades seem to

converge toward a reconstruction of Amazonian peoples across the region prior

to European contact as fairly hierarchical societies, organized into more or less

stable chiefdoms, integrated by regional networks, but also competing amongst

each other through constant warfare (Carneiro 1995, Heckenberger 1996,Heckenberger et all 1999, Roosevelt 1999, McEwan et all 2001, Neves 1999).

Although the nature and dynamics of the hierarchical principles that

organized past Amazonian societies are still poorly understood, two characters

seem to be of central relevance for understanding how political leadership,

differential access to goods, and social mobilization may have developed: the

chief and the shaman.

Until today, objects such as necklaces, batons, rattles, and other items are

found to be for exclusive use by chiefs and shamans, functioning as truly special

objects and power insignias. In the past, the existence of such exclusive objects

is suggested by select items which seem to have performed similar roles, either

because of their similarity with contemporary ceremonial objects, or because of

how rare they are in the archaeological record.

Ceramic stools or head-rests, seem to have been one such special item.

According to different sources (Zerries 1970, 1985; McEwan 2001) it is likely that

seats, as in other parts of South America, would have served to mark rank and

status, and, especially in the Amazon, would have been an essential possession

of chiefs, warriors, and shamans. Indeed, carved wooden stools such as the

ones still made today by contemporary indigenous groups, seem to be present in

a number of legends and origin-myths as special objects. Stools often represent


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symbols of stability and wisdom, and were seen as essential tools for shamans to

sit upon and reach spiritual worlds (McEwan 2001, Reichel-Dolmatoff 1975,

Zerries 1970).

In the archaeological record, ceramic seats appear both represented in the

anthropomorphic funerary urns, such as the Marac urns which depict individuals

seated on zoomorphic stools, and as isolated items, such as the ceramic stools

found in Marajoara sites. The latter display a variety of decorative patterns that

replicate traditional woven patterns.

In ancient Maraj, other objects also seem related to shamanistic

practices, such as the ingestion of hallucinogenic herbs to induce trances, or

smoke pipes, as well as pots for the fermentation of alcoholic beverages and the

storage of drugs. Some display dramatically altered human expressions tosuggest the shamans altered states while performing cures or talking to

ancestors in dreams.

Conclusion

When displaying objects that have survived in the archaeological record of

past Amazonian societies one needs to constantly keep in mind that stone and

ceramic objects must have been but a small part of the diverse material cultural

universe of these peoples. We know that a wide range of other objects made of

wood, leather, cotton, bone, shells, seeds, feathers and many other materials

must have existed in the past, perhaps displaying just as many symbolic

meanings as the stone and ceramic objects we can admire.

Among the earliest indigenous materials to reach Europeans were the

colorful works of feather that seemed so exotic, and which were to be forever

associated with Amazonian peoples, in a way overshadowing the other aspects

of a rich repertoire of utilitarian and ceremonial objects fully embued with

symbolic meanings.

Objects have an enormous potential for telling stories and are normally

used in exhibitions as means to recreate particular universes. Non-material

expressions such as music, stories, myths, designs, and beliefs are also


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important to define and communicate Amazonian traditions. Unfortunately, in the

case of Ancient Amazonia, only material objects and, often, just fragments of

these objects, are the only clues left by this rich cultural tradition.

Archaeology can, however, unveil the deep knowledge embedded in the

making and use of these objects, the same way it has brought attention to how

the past peoples of Amazonia have, for millennia, managed and sustained large

populations in the forest.

This exhibition also hopes to show how the material culture of ancient

Amazonia can open new perspectives on how contemporary indigenous objects

can be viewed, showing not only the long history behind them, but also alerting

for the importance of preserving this rich cultural heritage.

Acknowledgements

This paper benefits from discussions about Amazonian material culture with many

archeology colleagues who, in one way or another, have brought to my attention

different ways of reading objects and interpreting their meanings, in particular EduardoNeves, Denise Shaan, Vera Guapindaia, Colin McEwan and Julia Berra. The curatorial

partnership with ethnologist Luis Donisete Benzi Grupioni and our memorable journeys

inside museum reserves have been extremely rewarding in the learning of and

comparison with ethnographic materials and their contexts. I am alone responsible for

any shortcomings and contentious interpretations herein advanced.


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Gifts From the Past

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