PRE-COLUMBIAN TEXTILES

All photographs Don Tuttle

of the back) and the countershading (dark back, light belly) of fish that are backlit as they cruise the surface. The tonal contrast distinguishes an even more menacing predator: the killer whale or orca (5), which haunts inlets and bays up and down the Pacific coastline. The mammal’s dazzling black and white markings and lunar eye spot are instantly recognisable whenever it breaches the surface. Andean people prize such stark juxtapositions of dark and light in animal patterning (as with the llama or the falcon), which Aymara speakers call allqa. The term anchors a system of verbal and visual metaphors, equating light with day/male, dark with night/female. 4 It is feasible that in the remote past, the killer whale’s colouring was just as evocative. The resemblance of the eye-catching tall dorsal fin flaunted by the male orca to a blade or weapon did not escape pre-Columbian people. While orcas are not known for attacking people, their skill as hunters of fish, sea lions and other whales is unrivaled. Working in teams, orca pods drive their prey toward shallow water, sometimes nearly beaching themselves in order to seize a young seal pup. And once they have snared their quarry, they might toy with it, tossing it into the air before tearing into the flesh. This behaviour – chilling to human eyes – resonates symbolically. The supernatural versions are portrayed as the most savage of hunters, armed with knives, and quasi-human in their quest for ritual blood. As reapers of blood, takers of life, shark and orca incarnate the terrifying, wild aspects of the ocean, which ancient people perpetually sought to subdue through ritual and sacrifice. Nasca and Paracas iconography similarly suggests that these titans symbolise the realm of death that shamans enter to gain spiritual power. The idea of being engulfed by that great mouth, or gashed by its vicious teeth, becomes an effective metaphor for shamanic initiation or transformation. Indeed, two complementary figures from the Paracas pantheon – a shamanic personage wearing a

fish-shaped cape and an anthropomorphised shark – are thought to represent consecutive stages in a transformation allegory that is told through a series of discrete images embroidered on various textiles from the Paracas Necropolis. When these figures are arranged in a logical narrative sequence, they collectively illustrate the evolution of an extraordinary human being into animal form. 5 That metamorphosis is inferred in (1), where the face of an ancestral or shamanic being mutates into the extended jaws and serrated teeth of the ocean predator. His pose defies gravity – as if he is already swimming. Together, the elongated head and multi-finned train draped over the back read as a complete fish superimposed on a human body. Trophy heads and a doublebladed knife, tumi, symbolise the supernatural’s bloodthirsty role as ‘harvester’ of the sea. Ultimately changed into a fearsome fish, the character still wields a blade or staff in its uncannily human hand.

1. Facing page: Shaman or ancestor transforming into a shark, Paracas culture. 15 x 12cm (6" x 4 1 ⁄ 2 "). Private collection, USA

2. Above: Puffer or porcupine fish, Wari culture, 600900 AD . 41 x 23cm (1'4" x 9"). Private collection, USA

3. Below: The Lord of the Sea:Human shark with weapon, Paracas culture, 600-100 BC , 13.4 x 12.7cm (5 1 ⁄ 4 " x 5"). Private collection, USA

HALI 144 I 55