Lot 74A
Pre-Columbian, Caribbean, perhaps Dominican Republic, Taino (Arawak) peoples, ca. 1000 to 1500 CE. A dramatic stone bowl of ovoid form with central bowl decorated on each side with the head of a zemi figure. Each figure with large hollow eyes, hands to their ears and muscular shoulders. String cut and incised geometric patterns to each side. A lovely example! Size: 7.25" L x 2.625" W x 1.5" H (18.4 cm x 6.7 cm x 3.8 cm)
In the ancient Caribbean, the heads of ancestors were objects of devotion, kept in special baskets in the round temples known as bohios. The head, rather than other bones was kept because the Taino peoples of the Caribbean believed that spiritual power in the body resided in the head, particularly the face, through which people could communicate their emotions and spirit. However, although durable, these carefully kept skulls disintegrated over centuries of veneration, so later Tainos (ca. 1000-1500 CE) made stone representations of skeletal heads, like this one, that seem to have fulfilled the same purpose as the keeping of skulls. These are often known as "Macorix heads," as many of them have been found near San Pedro de Macoris, in the Dominican Republic. However, they are also part of a broader group of objects known as zemis or cemis, which refer to ancestral spirits and the earthly containers for those spirits. Because this head was the container for the presence of a known ancient and powerful ancestor, it was not necessary for the sculpture to be portraitlike. Most are quite generalized, but show status in part through a headband or diadem that wraps across the high foreheads of these figures, ending at their ears.
Provenance: ex-private collection, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, USA, collected from 1985 to 2015
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#198541
- Condition: Repair to each head along natural fissures. Small hole on one side of bowl. Nice surface wear and deposits.
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