PUEBLO ESCULTOR

Stone Statues from San Agustín and the Macizo

Colombiano

drawings and text by

Davíd Dellenback
 inspiración--inspiration

"Sería bien interesante recoger y diseñar todas las piezas

que se hallan esparcidas en los alrededores de San Agustín.
Ellas nos harían conocer el punto a que llevaron la escultura
los habitantes de estas regiones, y nos manifestarían algunos
rasgos de su culto y de su policía."

["It would be very interesting to gather together and

illustrate all the statues that are found dispersed in the San
Agustín area. They would give us knowledge of the point to
which sculpture was developed by the inhabitants of these
regions, and would manifest some traces of their religion and of
their politics."]

– – Francisco José de Caldas, "Estado de la Geografía del

Virreinato de Santa Fe de Bogotá" in Semanario del Nuevo Reino
de Granada, 1808.

*************************

"Ojalá que mi esploración...despierte la voluntad de

nuestros anticuarios i los determine a esculcar, auxiliados por
trabajadores, los rincones de aquel valle misterioso i las
ruinas que no me fue posible [destapar]. La arqueolojía i la
historia antigua de este país ganaría mucho en ello, porque en
mi concepto no tienen número las preciosidades que podrían
desenterrarse...i que juntas como las pájinas de un libro, ahora
desencuadernado, referirían hechos que los cronistas de la
conquista no pudieron ver o no supieron transmitir."

["I hope that my exploration awakens the will of our

students of ancient culture and stimulates them to search, with
the aid of local workers, the corners of that mysterious valley,
and the ruins which I was not able to uncover. The archaeology
and ancient history of this country would gain much by it,
because in my opinion there are innumerable objects of value and
beauty which could be unearthed and which, gathered together
like the pages of a book, as yet unbound, would tell us of
realities that the chroniclers of the conquest could not see or
did not know how to relate."]

– – Agustín Codazzi, "Antiguedades Indíjenas – – Ruinas de San

Agustín" in Jeografía Física y Política de los Estados Unidos de
Colombia (Volume II), p 92, by Dr. Felipe Pérez, 1857.

!5
 table of contents

Inspiration: Caldas and Codazzi…………………………………… 5

Introduction ………………………………………………………… 9

1. The Macizo Colombiano and the Pueblo Escultor………………. 15

2. Studies of the Pueblo Escultor…………………………………… 41

Santa Gertrudis; Caldas; de Rivero & von Tschudi; Codazzi; Stübel; André;
Chaffanjon; Gutiérrez de Alba; Cuervo Márquez; Stöpel; Preuss; Trujillo &
Montealegre; Lunardi; Wavrin; Walde-Waldegg; Hernández de Alba; Pérez
de Barradas; Silva Célis; Rivet; Duque Gómez; Reichel-Dolmatoff; Cháves &
Puerta; Llanos Vargas; Drennan.

3. The Pueblo Escultor and American Traditions………………….. 67

Introduction to this study; Introduction to our chosen image; Six doublings;
Cristóbal de Molina; Introduction to the survey; Olmec; Mesoamerica; Aztec;
Central America; Chavín; Titicaca Basin; Tiwanaku; Northern Perú.

4. Categories………………………………………………………... 137
One: The Serpent; Two: Woman; Three: Male Signs; Four: Sacrifice Figures;
Five: Doble Yo; Six: The Feline; Seven: Cayman/Rana/Lagarto; Eight: Bird
Figures; Nine: Other Animals; Ten: Coqueros; Eleven: Masked Figures;
Twelve: Lengua/Cinta/Cabeza; Thirteen: Other Implements in Hands;
Fourteen: Death Posture; Fifteen: Several Other Categories; followed by Lists of
Categories.

5. The Creation of This Catalogue………………………………….. 237

6. Footnotes to Text…………………………………………………. 251

7. Bibliographies…………………………………………………….. 257
Key Bibliography; General Bibliography; Tierradentro Area Bibliography;
Other Pueblo Escultor Areas Bibliography; French Bibliography; German
Bibliography; English Bibliography.

8. Information Cards………………………………………………… 281

Intro to Data Cards; Lists of Statue Codes (San Agustín Area Site-Codes; Other
Pueblo Escultor Area-Codes; Other Pueblo Escultor Site-Codes; Museum Codes);
Note on Statue Codes.
 San Agustín Area, Cards #1 to #387………………………… 290
Other Statue Areas, Cards #a1 to #g15……………………… 449

9. Images…………………………………………………………….. 517

!7
 INTRODUCTION
This is the book of the Pueblo Escultor; the name (which is spanish for ‘The
Sculpting People’ or ‘The Sculptors’) refers to the Statue-Makers who many
centuries ago inhabited the flanks and valleys of the Macizo Colombiano, the great
massif or mountainous knot in the southwest of what is now Colombia, and buried
their monoliths in subterranean tomb-complexes. The statue-makers of the Pueblo
Escultor were the authors of the greatest and most extensive library of stone
images ever created in precolumbian America, and the book before you represents
the presentation, the revelation, of the imagery of this fabulous stone library.

So, to delve into the heart of this study, turn to the pages of images, the
drawings of the stone statues of the Pueblo Escultor. Make of them what you will.
The rest of the information in this book is subsidiary and concomitant; perusal of
the drawings and meditation on these ancient images will facilitate a glimpse into a
vanished (and yet not completely dispelled) realm essentially forgotten by today’s
modern world, and basically unknown even to most experts in the field of
precolumbian archaeology.

The name ‘Pueblo Escultor’ will fail to ring a bell with the great majority of
readers and students, some of whom at least will associate the label ‘San Agustín’
with the statues and images here displayed. But this latter appellation is
misconceived for two principal reasons. First: while it is true that the valley
surrounding the town of San Agustín is home to a great number of statues—more
than ⅔ of the total considered in this survey were found in the San Agustín area—
nonetheless, the considerable remainder were elaborated and buried elsewhere in
the lands of the Macizo Colombiano. Important nuclei of statues such as
Tierradentro, Moscopan, Platavieja and others are located far from San Agustín,
and yet clearly and unmistakably—in style, in substance, and in spirit—represent
the world of the Pueblo Escultor.
 And second, it is reasonable—and accords with the method ruling the
application of nomenclature to archaeological sites and cultures—that the names of
living, present-day towns and peoples are not to be given to archaeological vestiges
and locations. In other words, the ‘culture of San Agustín’ is not a historical relic
that once existed in the past, but rather the living entity that inhabits the valley of
San Agustín today, and is comprised of campesinos, coffee farmers, shopkeepers,
dayworkers, auto mechanics, city employees, housewives, schoolchildren and
teachers, dentists and doctors, soccer players, huaqueros, expatriate foreigners,
and so on. The ancient culture, on the other hand, the makers of the statues, the
authors of the earthworks and tomb-structures and ceramics and other vestiges that
we can still perceive today, who lived and wrought in this and other Macizo valleys
many centuries before the establishment of the town of San Agustín—these ancient
statue-makers must have their own handle. I call them the Pueblo Escultor.

And I am not alone in so doing, nor did this name originate with my studies.
Carlos Cuervo Márquez, the first colombian to publish a detailed description of
these antiquities, coined the term ‘Pueblo Escultor’ to refer to the statue-makers in
1892, and K. Th. Preuss, the eminent german archaeologist who first brought these
tremendous monoliths to the wider world’s notice, used the name in his classic
1929 volume whose title translates as Prehistoric Monumental Art (later published
in spanish, but never in english). Given that Agustín Codazzi’s groundbreaking
study was the only published monograph preceding Cuervo Márquez to deal with
these statues in any detail, it is fair to say that our title has been in the literature
virtually since the beginning of our awareness of these people and their art.

Pueblo Escultor it is, then.

As I say, look first, and principally, at the drawings of the monoliths. This
book is above all a catalogue, as complete as possible, of the Pueblo Escultor
statues. Secondly, be aware that each statue is accompanied by a ‘card,’ which is a
page of basic data; the ‘card number’ referenced is printed at the foot of each
drawing. By referring to the given card, the reader will add, to the visual image,
associated knowledge: dimensions, original location, present location (though it’s
been 15 years and more since that “present”), bibliographical trail, a brief
descriptive title. And in a more subjective manner, the card also lists the categories
(examined in chapter four) into which the particular statue falls, and the specific
analogs to the given statue: the other images which may be fruitfully compared
and associated. The observer unfamiliar with the Pueblo Escultor who makes use
of this ‘category’ and ‘analog’ information will hopefully find it useful in providing
a general orientation and method of study.

This project was carried out some significant time ago, and the term ‘cards’
is a nostalgic nod to an anachronistic method—but one that, nonetheless, teaches a
good bit, however tedious and repetitive the act of writing and erasing and then
reflecting and rewriting on a little paper card may be—in the same way that
drawing a picture rather than snapping a photo may not always produce a superior
image on paper, but it will surely do so in the mind, and one that may be richer and
deeper in experience, too.

To turn, now, to a glance at the text of this book: the first chapter begins
with an attempt to place the Pueblo Escultor within a description of their natural
environment, that of the Macizo Colombiano and the reaches of the andean
cordilleras that surround the Macizo. With this vision in place, there follows a
detailing of the different nuclei or site-areas of the Pueblo Escultor within that
world, the emerald, tropical, many-rivered world of the Macizo. The reader will
find, at the end of this section, the assertion that “The statues may have been
created over a period of up to, or even more than, one thousand years.” Take this
statement, please, as an admission of what will not be found in this book.

What will not be found here—what would indeed be appropriate at this point
—is a wide-ranging, learned discourse on this archaeological entity, the Pueblo
Escultor, authored by a well-trained and very acute professional archaeologist, who
would be able to dig into the documented remains of the ancient statue-makers and
artfully present them for us against a background of mastery of the context, the
precolumbian world. Believe me, I would love to read such a study myself; it is
sadly lacking. The fact that it simply doesn’t exist stands as one of the major
prompts which led me into the labyrinth of my own studies, a maze that I hope
now to be exiting with the presentation of this effort. But the fact remains, that I
am not that person; no resumo los requisitos, as the phrase runs in spanish. I am
not the master of that knowledge. My life in Colombia and in the Macizo
Colombiano has led me to conclude that a lifetime is remarkably short, that one
can spend the years and enmesh oneself in the web that leads to graduate degrees
and professional attributes and knowledge (assuming one has the skills to do so),
or one can live and breathe, and laugh and curse, the life of an adopted culture, and
make it full-time one’s own; but it is little likely that one will do both.

The published literature on the Pueblo Escultor (by whatever name) simply
isn’t satisfying enough or up-to-date, at this point. The classic work—that of
Preuss—dates, unfortunately, from 1929, and its author saw less than one-fourth of
the lithic statues available in the present survey. In addition, while Preuss gives us
much raw data that remains valuable, his context and his analysis are somewhat
laughable, and not of much use, and in addition, the book never appeared in
english. The two major ‘modern’ works both date from the 1960’s, and thus are
nearing the half-century mark in age without having been notably bettered by any
other updated publication. One is by Duque Gómez, who was virtually an
archaeological caudillo in Colombia, and remains an icon to today’s colombian
elite in his field, but frankly, his research, while again proportioning reams of
useful raw data, is confusing and mostly useless (and in addition, of course, quite
unavailable in spanish, and nonexistent in english). The best book in the field,
then, is Reichel-Dolmatoff’s San Agustín: A Culture of Colombia, published in
1966, in english; the reader who seeks the best archaeological study of the Pueblo
Escultor must still search out this excellent, if outdated, volume.

Chapter one closes with a brief glimpse of the lands of the Pueblo Escultor
after their demise, between their disappearance and the 16th-century european
invasion of America. The second chapter presents a history of the study of the
Pueblo Escultor, from the first mention of the antiquities in print, penned by the
wandering franciscan friar Juan de Santa Gertrudis in 1757, up through the
publications of the 1980’s. The quina boom of the late 19th century, we will see,
provided the trigger that led to the unearthing of the flood of monoliths we are now
able to observe and analyze. The contributions of such authors as Codazzi, Cuervo
Márquez, Preuss, Pérez de Barradas, Hernández de Alba, Duque Gómez and
Reichel Dolmatoff are covered, as well as those of many other students.
 This chapter attempts to throw light on the process that led to the progressive
discovery of all of the different Pueblo Escultor statue-nuclei, and not just the
statues near the town of San Agustín; and on the developments that saw the
marvelous statue complexes in Tierradentro, Platavieja, Moscopan, Aguabonita,
Saladoblanco, Nariño and Popayán progressively marginalized and ignored, while
the focus intensified on the San Agustín monoliths. The present catalogue of
Pueblo Escultor images is an attempt to redress that skewed balance.

With chapter three, we dig in to my own analyses of the statues that I have
studied for so many years. The background is the entire tableaux of the creation of
lithic sculpture in precolumbian America—in Mesoamerica, in the Andes, and in
the intermediate zone between them, which includes the Macizo Colombiano—and
against this tapestry I attempt to point the way to valid comparisons, in style, in
substance and in function, that allow us to glimpse the meanings behind the wealth
of iconography that teems in this remarkable statuary. The alphabet of this
incredible stone library, the language of its revelations, has been only imperfectly
approached up until now, its depths only very casually plumbed; and since the
curtain came down on our protagonists, the makers of the statues, five centuries
before the coming of the european invasion, an understanding of this iconography
depends to a large degree on a grasp of the background context. Hopefully this
look at the possible relationships between these Macizo statues and the stone-
carvings created elsewhere across the breadth of the american continent throughout
the sweep of the history of high culture will aid in the decipherment of this
passionate communication from the ancient past.

In chapter four, I attempt to group the different statues in categories that

allow us to try and take them in and penetrate them. Hopefully, a consideration of
my category groupings will assist future students in arranging their own ways of
comparing and contrasting the statues. The point is, there are more than 460
images at play here, which translates into a huge, confusing welter for any
observer, especially the principiante. Some method of classification and
codification is necessary for considered observation not to become a blur.

I have attempted to approach this task as rigidly and mathematically as

possible. It is fine to note that there are many serpents portrayed in the stones of
the Pueblo Escultor; but are there, really? How many is many? Can we be sure we
are seeing serpents, or is the identification merely apparent, or likely? And in what
contexts do we see them? Do they always appear in the same context, alongside
the same companion symbols? Do we see more, or less, birds in the lithic
imagery? In what contexts? Felines? Monkeys? Frogs? After we have asked and
answered some of these questions, we may be able to put ourselves in the position
of asking the deeper questions: What are we being told here? Why do we think
so? How sure can we be?

How many of the statues are anthropomorphic? Can we tell which are
female and which male? How many represent each gender, and why can we feel
confident in saying so? In what contexts do we find male and female? What
iconography accompanies each? [We will learn that, surprisingly, there are
virtually no stone images of females in all the rest of South America, and that the
tremendous set of stone females created by the Pueblo Escultor stands as one of its
most striking and important features.] The question of items held in the hands of
human-shaped personages will take on great importance in our attempt to group
and analyze the statues. What do they hold? What is the meaning? How sure can
we be?

The important series of coca-chewers with their coca appurtenances are a

vivid and peerless glance at the great, timeless sacrament of andean
spirituality………and there are figures holding what appear to be
weapons……..the little childlike ‘horned’ figures held in the hands of
adults……..the ‘staff-and-mask’ figures who hide their true faces behind
masks……..the famed ‘Doble-Yo’ or ‘Double-I’ figure, long considered iconic of
the Pueblo Escultor people………the ‘lodges’ that appear to represent
buildings………the ‘feline procreator’ and his human female partner…………. the
bird grasping a serpent in its talons and beak……….the mysterious figure that
holds its own protruding tongue, which in turn seems to transform into something
else……..

The images are legion. Some method of analysis is necessary to even begin
to make any sense of this great stone library. The systematic groupings in chapter
four, when used in concert with the information ‘cards’ and while searching the
images, may prove to be of great value. There is, in addition, at the end of the text
chapters, an extensive bibliography; when I finished compiling it, I would have
considered it definitive. Almost two decades have passed since that date, however,
so it is could no longer be called so; for the time period it covers, however, it is
certainly close to complete. Appended sections fine-tune the bibliography, too,
into french, german and english sources, and listings detailing sources for the
Pueblo Escultor sites not found in the valley of San Agustín.

Davíd Dellenback
April, 2008
 the macizo colombiano

In order to focus our attention on the Pueblo Escultor, the

Statue-Making People who were the creators and sculptors of the

vast tableaux of stone statues that form the axis of the present

study, we must look closely at the world in which they were

born. It is the world of the Macizo Colombiano—the Colombian

Massif—the great mountainous knot in the southernmost reaches of

the colombian Andes, not far from Colombia’s border with

Ecuador. Today, the states (or departamentos) of Huila, Cauca

and Nariño divide, on paper, the unity of the Macizo. With or

without an overlay of theoretical divisions, however, the Macizo

sits astride the vast mountainous spine of the southern

continent like a huge knot in the warp of the andean system, and

is called, because of this, the ‘Nudo Andino,’ or Andean Knot.

It is a defining point of articulation between two very

different worlds.

To the south is the land of Tahuantinsuyu, the ‘Four

Quarters’ into which the Incas (and doubtlessly other, earlier

rulers/patrones) would conceptually divide their world, and

which ended where the southern reaches of the Macizo began. It

is the northernmost sector of what we today call the Central

Andes, in which the massive range has a unitary aspect, with few
wide lowland valleys to divide it into separate cordilleras,

running southward through Ecuador and Perú, toward Bolivia and

the altiplano. The Macizo Colombiano (and lands northward) lay

outside of the borders of the ‘Four Quarters.’

The Andes to the north of the Macizo are distinct from

the mountains to the south in the sense that northward the

andean chain breaks up into three separate cordilleras which no

longer form one cohesive barrier, but rather fragment a much

broader area of mountains into innumerable different micro-

systems, countless valleys and slopes and plains, river-valley

deserts and tropical jungles and high-mountain páramos. The

mountain systems in Colombia are lower than those to the south,

and in addition the Northern Andes are fully within the tropical

zone, so that the nature of these mountains is florescent and

green, with only isolated instances of extremely high snow-

covered ridges and peaks. These colombian Andes “…unfold like a

splendid multicolored fan, spreading out its mountains and

valleys from the evergreen tropics to the bleak and cold

highlands, from arid, wind-blown deserts to the lush, temperate

slopes of the subtropical zone.”1

The Macizo Colombiano, which conjoins the Northern and

Central Andes, also forms the point of union, the zone in which

the three separate cordilleras, running nearly parallel to each

other north-south the length of the Colombia, converge to form
the great mountain knot. These tripartite Andes (known as the

Cordillera Occidental, the Cordillera Central and the Cordillera

Oriental) gave birth to the many and variegated andean worlds

whose extreme physical diversity would be reflected in the

diverse precolombian peoples of Colombia. The Andes here are

flanked on both sides by tropical lowlands. On the west are the

low, impenetrable jungles of the Pacific coast. To the east of

the Cordillera Oriental lie the plains of the Orinoco

headwaters, known to colombians today as the llanos, and further

south the beginnings of the Amazon basin in the form of the

headwaters of the Caquetá and Putumayo Rivers. Within this

tropical frame, the three cordilleras of the andean world are

divided by two extremely long river valleys, those of the Cauca

and the Magdalena, which take their waters south-to-north the

length of the country.

The life of the Macizo, whose numerous high places are over

4000 meters in altitude, is determined by its equatorial

position, less than two degrees north of the equator. Altitudes

this extreme in the peruvian cordillera might commonly be snow-

covered, while ranges of even half that height in the north of

the North American continent are often wild, snow-blown and

uninhabited. In the south of Colombia, though, given this

proximity to the equatorial line, the situation is different,

and the majority of the Macizo receives snow, if at all, only
briefly during periods of storm. A number of great volcanic

cones in the area, raised up above the surrounding heights of

the cordillera, are snow-covered peaks, such as the Puracé

Volcano, just where the Cordillera Central is subsumed into the

Macizo. But the greater part of the highest land in the Macizo

conforms features known as páramos: exceedingly cold and wet

wildernesses at extremely high altitudes which are at the same

time bleak, in that they are solitary, forbidding and often

shrouded in mist, and yet luxuriant, covered with a flourishing

and uniquely strange vegetation particular to these islands of

relatively flat, very high land.

A string of such páramos is situated in the heights of the

Andean Knot and along the apices of the different cordilleras

which extend northward from this point of junction. Colombia’s

latitude is such that there are many separate páramos in the

country, and more than 20 examples of this peculiar high

ecosystem in the southwest of Colombia alone; often they form

solitary islands set among higher mountains and lower habitable

zones, while other páramos border on each other and form long

stretches of interlocked and adjacent wilderness. Near the

convergence of the Cordillera Central and the mass of the Macizo

are located the Páramo de las Papas, the Páramo del Letrero, the

Páramo de Cutanga and the Páramo de la Soledad, forming nearly a

contiguous chain; along with the Páramo de Coconuco and the
Páramo de las Delicias not far away to the north-east, they echo

the present-day border between the departamentos of Huila and

Cauca.

All páramos are extremely wet, and being at the tops of the

cordilleras, function naturally as sources of water. But the

páramos near this Macizo junction are such extraordinary water

sources that there can be few places on the planet where such a

fantastic volume of water is born in such a limited space of

land. Colombia’s longest and principal river, the Magdalena,

begins on the northern edge of the Macizo, issuing forth from

two small lakes named La Magdalena and Santiago, first running

west precipitously down the Macizo slopes to the valley or

meseta of San Agustín—by which time it is a thundering and

dangerous wild-mountain river carrying a great volume of water—

and then continuing on west to near the town of Pitalito where,

having left the cordillera behind and entered the broad central

valley, the Magdalena curves to the north and begins its

successively hotter and more leisurely course to the distant

Caribbean, some 1800 kilometers away.

The San Agustín native and scholar Don Tiberio López,

writing, as he tells us, “…because I know these places inch by

inch…”2 goes on to describe the birth of Colombia’s other great

rivers on the páramos of the Macizo: only two kilometers to the

south-east of the Magdalena’s birthplace, five small lakes join
their waters to give birth to the Caquetá River. This major

affluent of the Amazon bursts forth from the earth and flows

south off the slopes of the Macizo before eventually curving to

the east and continuing on to traverse the entire breadth of

Colombia, then entering Brazil, and flowing eastward through

South America’s vast lowland basin. When it finally enters the

Amazon River, it has covered more than 1800 kilometers in its

course from its birthplace on the Macizo Colombiano.

Only five kilometers from the birthplace of the Magdalena a

small river, the Pancitará, is born, and mingling its waters

with a series of other small rivers flowing off the western

slopes of this same chain of páramos gives birth to the Patía

River which, running west and then south, passes through the

states of Cauca and Nariño, and on to the Pacific Ocean, having

journeyed some 400 kilometers. So we see that these three

rivers, born with a handful of kilometers of each other, flow in

three separate directions, the Magdalena north to the Caribbean,

the Caquetá east to joint the Amazon from whence on to the

Atlantic, and the Patía west to the Pacific.

And only some 75 kilometers to the north a fourth major

river, the Cauca, is born on the Páramo del Buey, on the upper

slopes of the Puracé Volcano near the Huila-Cauca border. This

river runs off the flanks of the Cordillera Central toward the
north-east, and then assumes the northbound course it will
maintain for 1000 kilometers before joining its waters with the

Caribbean-bound Magdalena. These two rivers, forming one river-

system, constitute the single major watercourse in the country.

The Macizo Colombiano is the hub and central spoke of this

web of rivers which spirals outward immense distances toward the

eastern, northern and western quarters, and the consequences of

this web in terms of interregional and inter-pueblo

communication must always have been very important: the river-

valleys were in a sense a series of highways leading outward

from the massif and its peoples. And the rivers were only the

beginning, as we can appreciate from an attentive reading of

pertinent early documents which speak of ancient roads re-opened

in post-conquest times. In other sections of the Andes the

cordillera may have been an effective barrier to travel and

communication; in the case of Colombia’s Macizo, the opposite

was true. In precolumbian times the páramos that ring and crown

the Macizo functioned as crossroads, as the pathways of

communication. Precisely because they are not snowbound wastes,

but rather are relatively flat plains whose low, stunted

vegetation in these equatorial latitudes, however wild and lush,

approaches open land, the páramos have been not the home, but

rather the highway, for innumerable prehistoric peoples.

“Today the Massif is a wild, solitary mountain country,

remote and inhospitable, sparsely inhabited…..But it was not so
in ancient times. Long before the arrival of the spaniards,

generations of aboriginal peoples had occupied these mountain-

folds…..” writes Reichel-Dolmatoff. The road which from San

Agustín ascends the uppermost courses of the Magdalena River

through the village of Quinchana and on up to the river’s

birthplace lakes was certainly an important one in ancient

times; the descent from the Páramo de las Papas, down the far

(eastern) side, brings today’s traveler to the town of Valencia

and then on down to the city of Popayán, capital of the

departamento of Cauca. Once up on the páramo, however, the

traveler is in a position to descend the Cauca side not only

toward the northwest and Popayán, but as well toward the

southwest, across the Páramo del Letrero and then down to the

town of Almaguer, there joining the road heading south to Pasto,

capital of the state of Nariño, which puts one on the high road—

both in ancient times, and on today’s Panamerican Highway—to the

south, towards Ecuador.

Leaving the meseta of San Agustín not in ascent toward the

páramo upriver to the west, but rather downriver into the valley

and then on towards the southeast, the traveler leaving the

Macizo will find the lowest pass in the eastern cordillera

leading across to Mocoa and the headwaters of the Putumayo and

Caquetá Rivers. The Franciscan friar who gives us our first

historical glimpse of the stone statues of the Pueblo Escultor,
in 1756, reached San Agustín by this road, up from the Putumayo

lowlands.

There is, in addition, another way to cross the Macizo

between San Agustín on the eastern slopes of the Cordillera

Central and Popayán in Cauca, by a road certainly in use since

pre-columbian times, whose terminus lies close to San Agustín,

on the northern side of the Magdalena River in the municipality

of San José de Isnos. This road leaves Popayán up across the

southwestern flanks of the Puracé Volcano, crosses near the

Páramo del Buey, and descends the deep cleft of the Mazamorras

River down into San José. The first spanish conquistador to

enter Colombia from the south, Sebastián de Belalcázar, probably

made use of this road in 1538, and the men riding in his

vanguard became the first europeans to travel through the valley

of San Agustín, and the first to cross the Macizo and the lands

of the Pueblo Escultor.

The area of the Macizo Colombiano is today shared by three

different states or departamentos. That of Huila composes the

northeastern side of the Macizo, and includes the principal and

best-known sites of the Pueblo Escultor near the town of San

Agustín, up on the eastern flank the mountainous Knot. The

northwestern and western sides of the Macizo form part of the

state of Cauca, and this state as well runs across the top of
the massif and down the eastern side, so that the southeastern
section of the Andean Knot is also in the state of Cauca. The

southern and southwest slopes of the Macizo are included within

the boundaries of the state of Nariño, whose southern edge runs

along the border with the nation of Ecuador. Evidence of

enclaves and vestiges of the ancient Sculpting People are found

in all three states.

The Cordillera Central at its southern extremity, before

joining the Macizo, forms the irregular border between Huila and

Cauca with its chain of water-soaked páramos. If we except the

statues from a handful of very little-known sites south of the

Macizo in the state of Nariño, and those from the few sites we

know in the Popayán area to the west of the Macizo in Cauca

state—and these two statue-areas are certainly those which most

diverge stylistically from what we might call the ‘norm’—we

could then say that all of the presently-known sites of the

Pueblo Escultor are found in this area comprising the two sides

of the Cordillera Central as it approaches and joins the Macizo.

The different Pueblo Escultor nuclei, though widely

separated in distance among the folds of the Macizo, are all

much alike in terms of environment, and this similarity—the fact

that these different statue-making peoples lived in such

strikingly similar locations—helps us to see them, in a certain

way, as a unit. The ‘alternative’ areas—as opposed to the

valley of San Agustín—may have been colonies of the center, or
unrelated co-religionists, or blood-related groups, or unrelated

political allies, or something quite different from all of the

above. But all of the Pueblo Escultor centers are found in the

zone between 1500 and 2000 meters in altitude above sea level,

with temperature in the 18-to-20 degree centigrade range; the

rainfall is “abundant but intermittent,” there is a wealth of

creeks, rivers and water in general, and the clothing of the

land is verdant and vibrant. The soil is fertile though perhaps

not exceptional: the black cap of humus above sterile red clay

is usually less than 50 cm. deep, but combined with the

otherwise positive environmental factors and the warm and

moderate equatorial climate, the land produces thick tropical

vegetation.

Another characteristic which unites the different Pueblo

Escultor zones, and which helps to explain why these lands would

have been settled and populated, is this: these middle-altitude

zones are all very close to, and have easy access to, both the

higher-altitude areas toward the páramos, and the lower, hotter

regions downriver in the valleys. This easy access to vertical

cultivation and vertical exploitation must have been a great

factor in the lives of the ancient people and their economy, in

many ways: different foodstuffs and other materials, different

types of wood, fish, fruits, medicinal plants, different

elements to work and construct and make tools with, and so on,
are found in each altitude zone, and many of those up above and

down below are not produced in the central-altitude zone. In

addition, simply as example, the pineapples from the hot lower

valleys are different in quality from those in the mid-levels,

the cane and wood used to build with or the thatch to roof with

will always differ in use depending on the production-zone, the

honey from each zone will differ because the wild-flowers will

be distinct, and so on, and these types of values will always be

factors in the use that people have for their products.

With few exceptions the statues and other material vestiges

of the ancient sculptors are only found in these analogous

pockets in the mountains, with altitudes and landforms and

environmental conditions that vary but little. When one is in

the statue-areas, this fact can be surprising, because the other

altitude zones are so close. Both the upper zones, and the

regions down-river below, are often but a few hours walk away,

and visible, and yet in those other altitude-zones there is no

evidence of the villages, statues, ceramics, tombs and

earthworks of the ancient stone-sculpting people.

the Pueblo Escultor

 The first-known and principal sites of the Pueblo Escultor,

ranged about the town of San Agustín, are located in an isolated

valley near the headwaters of the Magdalena River on the eastern

side of the Cordillera Central. San Agustín’s valley is unique

among the mid-level zones inhabited by the ancient sculptors in

the sense that it is very large, some 1300 square kilometers in

size—the other statue-areas are relatively small pockets of

valley—and thus allowed for the development of a much larger

center than would or could develop elsewhere. As the Magdalena

rushes from the páramo down the steep mountain heights heading

east, it comes quite suddenly to this plateau-like meseta or

valley, 1700-to-1800 meters above sea level, triangular in

shape, and while not flat, yet less precipitous than in the

upper course of the river. San Agustín’s valley, embracing all

the main statue sites, is an intermediate step in the river’s

descent to the main valley floor, and just as it arrives

coursing off the Macizo slopes to the valley of the statues, so

at the western edge of the irregular triangle the river once

again drops off steeply and wildly, and continues westward

toward the valley below. The meseta is cut in half by the deep

canyon of the turbulent river rushing from northwest to

southeast, with the town of San Agustín on the southwest side

and the town of San José de Isnos on the northeast.

 A handful of numbers will help us appreciate the extent to

which the lithic works in the San Agustín statue-area

predominate in the study of the monuments of the Pueblo

Escultor. The present survey includes some 460 total statues

from all the statue-areas. About 310 of these are from the

valley of San Agustín, which makes for some 67% or 2/3 of the

total. However, as mentioned, the statues from the Nariño zone

and the Popayán zone can be grouped as often rougher and/or less

nuanced than the others, and these two areas are in addition the

two most distant statue-areas from the ‘core’ valley. If we

take away the 31 pieces in the present study which were found in

those two areas—and such a judgment may well be a valid one—we

then have a total of some 310 San Agustín-area statues out of a

total of 426, and the percentage in the core area then jumps to

73%, very close to ¾ of the total. These stone sculptures in

the valley of San Agustín have been found in perhaps 50 separate

sites—without mentioning the innumerable tomb-sites and other

ancient vestiges which did not produce statues—and are located

on both sides of the Magdalena river, in the lands of both

municipalities.

Past the northern edge of the San Agustín zone another

river, the Bordones, flows down from the cordillera heights,

eventually to join the Magdalena. Before this union, the

Bordones is augmented by the waters of the Granates River at an
altitude commensurate with those of the various other Pueblo

Escultor areas. Near the banks of the Granates is the statue

site called Morelia, which is also known as Saladoblanco,

although this latter name more correctly is that of the small

town nearby, some 10 kilometers to the southeast of the statue

site and north of the Bordones, nearer to the Magdalena. At

least one other statue site is known nearby; the Saladoblanco

area is about 25 kilometers to the northeast of San Agustín.

Some 7 statues in the present survey were discovered in this

zone.

A number of Pueblo Escultor centers are located further

north, in the foothills of the eastern slopes of the Cordillera

Central; the waters of these sites all flow down to join the

Magdalena. Two river-systems in particular are key. One is

that of the La Plata River which is born from the conjunction of

a number of upper-course rivers descending from the slopes of

the Puracé Volcano, atop the cordillera and astride the Huila-

Cauca border. The La Plata River valley contains several

important sites of the Pueblo Escultor, located some 50 or 60

kilometers from San Agustín toward the north and northeast. The

Páez River, flowing south off the slopes of the Páramo de Santo

Domingo on the western edge of the Nevado (or Snow-Peak) del

Huila, turns eastward and then meets the La Plata River very
near the town of La Plata; the united river, carrying the name
of Páez, then continues toward the east and eventually issues

into the Magdalena in the main valley below. In the valley of

the Páez, too, statues and other traces of the Pueblo Escultor

are evident in quantity.

The La Plata valley sites of the Pueblo Escultor have yet

to be adequately studied, but at least three important statue

areas have been identified. The westernmost of the three, known

as Moscopán, includes a number of different sites on the banks

of the Bedón or Aguacatal River as it descends toward the La

Plata. This series of sites is relatively close to the present-

day town of Santa Leticia, and while the town is in a slightly

higher zone, closer to the conditions of the páramo, the various

statue-sites are well below the town, down under the canyon

walls and located in small vegas or pockets by the shores of the

dark, wildly rushing river, where ecological and climatological

conditions are closer to those in the other statue areas. At

least 25 statues have been reported from the Moscopán sites, of

which 20 were available for inclusion in the present survey.

Not far to the north of Moscopán and still on the western

or cordillera side of the La Plata River is another nucleus of

the Pueblo Escultor, located on the banks of the Moscopán River

before its union with the La Plata. In 1918 this site, known as

Aguabonita, became the first ‘alternative’ statue-area—that is,

outside of the San Agustín valley—to be detailed in print; since
that time, however, very little investigative work has been

carried out, and virtually nothing published on this ancient

site. There are only four statues to be seen at Aguabonita, but

in addition to the obvious similarities in style and iconography

that link these statues to the other Pueblo Escultor work, the

location once again shares altitude and environmental conditions

with the other statue areas.

The third statue nucleus in the La Plata valley, named

Platavieja and located in the vicinity of the town of La

Argentina, Huila, is on the eastern side of the river—still

known there as the Loro, but very soon to become the La Plata—

and slightly to the south of the Moscopán and Aguabonita areas.

Platavieja lies some 40 kilometers or so northeast of San

Agustín, which puts it only some 20 kilometers or so north of

Saladoblanco and Oporapa (a nearby petroglyph site), separated

from these two centers of lithic sculpture by a single narrow

branch running off the main cordillera, known as the Cuchilla de

las Minas. Platavieja, so-named because it was the original

seat in the 1600’s of the town of La Plata, was in a position

for easy communication both with Moscopán area not far away to

the northwest and with the Saladoblanco area (en route to San

Agustín’s valley) over this single, thickly jungle-covered range

to the south. Some 20 statues may be seen today in the

Platavieja region, in addition to a good number of petroglyph

designs carved on large live-rock boulders.

The other important river in this part of the Pueblo

Escultor region, the Páez, rolls down from the slopes of the

Nevado del Huila and continues on north-to-south, traversing

nearly the entire territory of the Páez Indians before joining

waters with the La Plata River not far from its eventual

juncture with the Madgalena. Within the extensive Páez lands a

good number of sites—probably at least a score—have produced

statues and other remains of the Pueblo Escultor, the principal

such group of sites near the Páez Indian aldea (or village) of

San Andrés de Pisimbalá having taken to itself the name of

Tierradentro. Almost 80 statues from Tierradentro have, over

the years, been published, and 67 of them appear in this survey;

the area is some 80 kilometers from San Agustín toward the

northeast.

Many of the total of Tierradentro statues were found in a

series of sites near the aldea of San Andrés, but in addition

another set of cultural remains, consisting of painted dome-

shaped subterranean tombs supported by square pillars and cut

down into the solid rock, are to be seen in the same small

valley, and in fact have proven to be of greater interest, both

to visitors and to students, than the Tierradentro statues and

their makers. These tombs—called hipogeos—were apparently
created by a people who came some time after the statue-makers,

although certain iconographical and other types of relationships

will have to be more carefully studied, and eventually may bring

new revelations. As well, the question of relationship and

descent in the vector ‘Pueblo Escultor--makers of hipogeos-—

present-day Páez Indians’ has yet to be fully addressed.

The last two statue-area included in this study are those

of Popayán northwest of the Macizo between the Cordilleras

Central and Occidental and pertaining to the state of Cauca, and

those of the state of Nariño to the south. The case for

including these two groups of sculptures in our denominated

Pueblo Escultor—a speculative grouping, in some ways—is weaker

than in the cases of all the other statue-areas just detailed.

Little study has been afforded these ‘marginal’ groups of

statues, and the numbers are in any case fairly limited: 17

pieces from Popayán and 14 from Nariño will be found in this

survey. And the statues are rougher and simpler, in the latter

case, and less nuanced and often damaged, if not disappeared, in

both cases. Nonetheless, they seem to me to be of interest, and

display sufficient diagnostic connections to make their

inclusion worthwhile. Both statue areas are about 100

kilometers distant from San Agustín, in the case of the Cauca

stones toward the northwest and in that of Nariño, to the

southwest.
 There is much reason to believe that the most

congenial and useful parts of the Macizo Colombiano were

utilized and inhabited by human groups from a very early period,

that the Pueblo Escultor enclaves were active and flourishing

early on in the pre-classic epoch, and that these enclaves

experienced a remarkably long-lasting continuity of culture and

tradition which may have endured for two thousand years, or even

more. For the first of these assertions—if we are not already

convinced by the well-documented evidence of human groups in

many places along the andean cordilleras for many thousands of

years before the present era, and the appealing living

conditions of these middle-range altitudes of the Macizo

Colombiano—we have a C-14 date of 3300 B.C., the initial date of

the San Agustín sequence, and referent not to sedentary

sculptors and agriculturalists but more likely to small nomadic

groups searching out their needed resources.

The second point, that the Pueblo Escultor were

established in their lands and were creating their art from

early pre-classic times, is generally accepted today—the first

C-14 date from this sequence, 555 B.C., was taken from the

shards of a wooden sarcophagus found in the central tomb areas

of San Agustín’s Parque Arqueológico--and is supported as well

by a careful study of this catalogue whose drawings, I believe,

can be used to illustrate the development from roots both of the
Olmec and Mesoamerica to the north, and of Chavín de Huántar and

its sequels to the south. And the suggestion that we view the

Pueblo Escultor as remarkably undisturbed in their dominion over

their lands and their cultural and artistic continuity is made

by most modern students in the field; the statues may have been

created over a period of up to, or even more than, one thousand

years.

post-Pueblo Escultor

It may not be simply historical chance, then, that the

Incas in the path of their wars of conquest to the north, came

just to the Ancasmayo River in the land of the Quillasingas,

near Pasto in southern Colombia, which is to say just as far as

the southernmost reaches of the Macizo Colombiano, but no

further. It may be that they recognized that they had indeed

come to the end of the ‘Four Quarters’ and that beyond lay a

land which did not form part of their world, would not be under

their dominion. However the case, the lands of the Macizo were

never directly touched by the conquests of the Incas, nor

apparently were they invaded by the purveyors of earlier

horizons of andean history, during Chavín or Tiwanaku/Wari

periods. Neither at the time of the Inca, nor in the earlier

age of the Pueblo Escultor, did Tawantinsuyu extend this far

north.

By the time of the arrival of the europeans, the Pueblo

Escultor were long gone, had faded into the distant past: at a

guess, it may by then have been five centuries, or more, since

statues were being designed and hewn out of the rock in these

Macizo enclaves. Before that time--the close of the classic

period--great works of stone sculpture were created in many

places in Perú and Bolivia, as far south as northern Argentina,

in Central America and in Mesoamerica, and, it is reasonable to

suppose, in the Macizo Colombiano; after about the year 1000

A.D., the situation was quite different, and for the most part

the greatest ages of american stone sculpture had now passed.

Those approximately five centuries had clothed the one-time

lands of the Pueblo Escultor with vast virgin rainforests, from

one side of the cordillera to the other, in which humankind was

no longer a large sedentary force working and transforming the

land, but rather a much smaller presence, laboring within the

context that the great tropical forests offered. No longer were

statues being carved, great earth-working projects being carried

out, underground tomb-and-ceremony centers being built, in

efforts taken on by large and organized communities. However,

we have ample evidence of the fact that the San Agustín region,
at least, was inhabited at the time of the europeans’ arrival.
The Pueblo Escultor no longer existed; the land was covered with

great ancient forests; but there were Indian tribes as permanent

inhabitants, as study of the available documents makes clear.

It would and hopefully will be fascinating to read the future

studies that will illuminate the cultural changes that lay

behind these transitions from the statue-makers to their

successors.

Once, during my time in San Agustín, I was shown—by

‘reliable’ local huaqueros, through whom I had previously seen

many authentic Pueblo Escultor articles—some very interesting

just-disinterred items, which had come from tombs that they

judged to be very similar to many other Pueblo Escultor tombs

they had ravaged. The items were strings of beads: most of the

beads I was able to identify as recognizable Pueblo Escultor

articles, but several of them proved to be european glass trade

beads, which were very similar to others of the type that I have

seen in tombs from the north coast of Perú. Admittedly this is

merely hearsay evidence, but for what it is worth it would

support the proposition that some traces of Pueblo Escultor

tradition and belief may have survived, amid the forests of the

Macizo, up to and even after the european conquest.

The first europeans to set foot in the lands of the Pueblo

Escultor—to set the stamp of History on the region and its

people, and begin the process that would lead to written
versions of events and observations—came in the year 1538, in

the form of spaniards heading northward after the sacking of the

lands of the Inca, searching for further empires of gold to

despoil. It was a fateful year for the lands that would become

Colombia, and for the Chibcha of the central plateau where

Bogotá (originally Bacatá) now stands: Jiménez de Quesada

approached with his motley army up the Magdalena River from the

Caribbean to the north, while Federman and his ragged german

Welser from Venezuela would soon cross the mountains westward

from the trackless forests of the Amazon basin.

And Sebastián de Belalcázar, Pizarro’s disloyal lieutenant,

awash in the gold won in the conquest of Perú, came northward

from Ecuador moving into Colombia with his well-appointed troops

draped in perfumed silks. In control of the region of Popayán,

and searching for the way across the mountains eastward that

would bring them to roads heading north to the future site of

Neiva and on toward the lands of the Chibcha, Belalcázar and his

vanguard must have come into possession of information leading

them up onto the slopes of the Puracé Volcano. None of these

early invaders would ever see or have reason to know of the

monuments and remains of the Pueblo Escultor; the great tropical

forests and wild solitary páramos may have made them feel like

they moved through lands where humankind’s impress had been

almost insignificant. Nonetheless, forming the vanguard of
Belalcázar’s army that soon would cross the cordillera and

continue on northwards, his lieutenants Juan de Ampudia and

Pedro de Añasco and their soldiers are supposed to have been the

first westerners to cross the lands of the Statue-Makers. It is

thought that they went up the slopes of Puracé, traversed the

Páramo del Buey and then descended the canyon of the Mazamorras

River, crossing the valley of San Agustín on the northern shore

of the Madgalena, the side where today San José de Isnos is

located, before leaving the great empty forests and the onetime

nucleus of the ancient sculptors behind them and heading

downriver.

By the following year, 1539, near present-day Timaná, the

spaniards had established the colony of Guacacallo, which name—

meaning ‘River of Tombs’ in quechua--was also the original title

they gave to the Magdalena River. By 1609 a contemporary map

shows an already-destroyed spanish town named Laculata Destruida

in San Agustín’s valley. Records from the time give us a list

of names of Indian groups whose lands were in this area, and we

read that the Laculata, Quinchana, Isnos, Matanza and Mulales

Indians, among others, lived in the lands immediately

surrounding San Agustín. Even earlier—in 1559 and 1574—we have

reports telling us that fierce resistance and warfare is being

offered by an enclave of Indians situated, Juan Friede tells us,

in the vicinity of San Agustín: the place is named as ‘Laculata’
in the former account and the ‘Rincón de Timaná’ in the latter.

There are said to be two or three thousand of these warriors,

and they are fierce and bloodthirsty, we read, cannibals in

fact. What might these people have thought of the europeans?

But the number of natives continued to diminish in alarming

fashion—Friede’s data and statistics are heartbreaking. The

continuity of the ancient ways of life was forever shattered,

the population nearly extinguished, and now, in fact, the great

forests on the slopes of the Macizo saw the precolumbian cycle

come to a silent end.

PAGE

PAGE 39
 studies of the Pueblo Escultor

By 1609, then, an attempt at the establishment of a pueblo

in the valley of San Agustín whose foundation date is unknown—-

Laculata Destruida—has been destroyed in some violent fashion.

Eventually the ineluctable process of colonization is resumed,

Indians and mestizos once again form a pueblo, priests and

mayors and military officers pass across the stage, and then in

the second quarter of the eighteenth century the town is

attacked by Indians and again destroyed. The rebuilding and re-

founding commence immediately.

We may logically presume that at some point during this

process, the major and most visible mound-tombs in what is today

the Parque Arqueológico a few kilometers from the town of San

Agustín have been sacked and looted, with anything golden or

precious taken, and as a byproduct, the first of the stone

statues (buried in those tombs by the Pueblo Escultor centuries

earlier) are now left lying about, open to view. This immediate

looting was among the first acts of the new conquerors

everywhere in America, and the great mound-tombs on the mesitas

of the Parque Arqueológico surely would not have escaped their

attention for long.

 Yet halfway through the eighteenth century we still have no

written record of the statues, although such a record may in

time appear: our first mention of the antiquities of the Pueblo

Escultor, from the pen of the franciscan friar Fray Juan de

Santa Gertrudis, was only found in the library of his home town

(Palma de Mallorca in Spain) in the year 1956, two hundred years

after his visit to the tiny collection of huts that constituted

San Agustín at that time.

The year was 1757 (or 1756 or 1758)9, and Fray Juan,

traveling from the Amazon headwaters east of the Macizo toward

Bogotá, happened to spend a night in San Agustín. There he met

another itinerant priest, from Popayán, whose interest in

treasure-hunting had brought him across the Macizo; he had

established himself in San Agustín and was at work—or at least

the Indian laborers he had brought with him were at work—once

again looting the previously-known tombs, and opening up

anything else that he was able to find.

Fray Juan spent the morning after his arrival touring the

tomb-areas his new friend had indicated, and a reading of his

report suggests that he saw about 10 statues, as well as a

monolithic stone sarcophagus. Not surprisingly, he interpreted

them in terms of his biblically-based belief system, and in

apocalyptic terms at that. Eventually he would write of his

experiences, and then deposit his writings in his local library
in Spain, where they would lie, unnoticed, for almost two

centuries.

What had seemed, until the discovery of Fray Juan’s

history, to be the first mention of these Macizo monuments was

written in 1808 by one of the most noteworthy figures of the age

in Colombia, the scientist-martyr Francisco José de Caldas; it

appeared in the weekly scientific and cultural journal he

published in Bogotá. He had visited San Agustín and its valley

in 1797, and while his article is not lengthy, he opens the

historical view of the Pueblo Escultor in a thoughtful and

clear-headed tone. These were chaotic years in Nueva Granada,

leading up to the Wars of Independence—Caldas, patriot hero,

would be executed by the spaniards in 1816--and the times were

not propitious for travel, study, intellectual pursuit. Many

years would pass with little notice given to the statues in the

isolated upriver valley of the Magdalena River.

In 1825 the peruvian mining engineer and naturalist Mariano

Eduardo de Rivera y Ustariz traveled up the Magdalena as far as

San Agustín; in 1851 he and the austrian Johann Jakob von

Tschudi would publish the account of their travels and studies

in the Andes, which deals principally with antiquities in Perú;

it was in fact the first published manual of andean archaeology.

But their book also includes the first illustrations, curious

ones at that, of the statues of the Pueblo Escultor, and it gave
Europe and the world of academia its first glimpse of this

previously undisclosed ancient culture. The door opened by de

Rivera would soon enough draw others to follow him; first,

though, another process would have to bring its actors onto the

scene. Caldas, and then de Rivera, had probably seen very few

more statues than those observed by Fray Juan; almost all of the

Pueblo Escultor statues were still underground.

In 1857, the italian geographer and cartographer General

Agustín Codazzi came to the Upper Magdalena, engaged in travels

which would lead to the elaboration of the first complete map of

Colombia’s territory. The results of his explorations would

appear in print in 1863, and would contain a detailed

description and report on the San Agustín area and its ancient

monuments and vestiges which may be fairly said to open the book

on serious study of the ancient statue-makers of the Macizo

Colombiano. The statues would continue to be mentioned

occasionally in print as the century wore on, and to gather a

certain momentum of visibility, but up until the 1890’s all

published reports with one exception would be brief ones made by

visitors who had passed through San Agustín and whose

observations were buried within extensive narratives. The one

exception is Codazzi’s study, which is accompanied by drawings

modeled on watercolors made by his traveling companion, the

colombian painter Manuel María Paz.
 Codazzi’s analysis of the statues, though, strikes us as

odd and arbitrary today: he felt that they traced a mystic path

of initiation to be trod by the initiate during a course of

revelations whose essence Codazzi is in fact able to indicate to

the reader. His frame of reference was quite different than

ours, though; he saw only thirty-some statues, compared to the

many hundreds we now know to exist. But the thirty-plus pieces

he registered were a good number more than had been seen by our

first informants, and an understanding of the reasons behind the

process then underway is valuable in helping us to gain a better

view of the discovery of these Macizo lithic monuments.

Eventually, homesteading land would come to be at the heart

of the process which would lead to the discovery of statues:

when land is cleared, worked and planted, then as now, the

telltale signs of underground tombs are discovered, and in

certain cases the tombs, when dug, will prove to contain statues

among the constellation of possible grave elements. But in the

early days of the colonization of this area, more than a century

and a half ago, there was scant habitation of the heavily

forested areas where, nonetheless, statues had begun to appear.

Most probably, we have said, the first statues were

unearthed by spaniards and early huaqueros searching for gold in

precolumbian tombs; they may have found small amounts of gold,

but the statues probably meant little to them. In this way the
handful of statues seen by Fray Juan de Santa Gertrudis in 1757

were discovered. But Codazzi reports a significantly greater

number in 1857, and it may be that some of them were, at that

time, recently discovered, because his visit came just as the

quina boom began.

Quina, also called Peruvian Bark and cinchona, is the raw

material from which quinine, used in the treatment of malaria,

is extracted. When its properties became known, the search for

quina spread throughout the forests of the Macizo, and spawned a

period of bonanza, with far-reaching social consequences, as

employment soared, and the jungles and mountains were

systematically searched. We read that “San Agustín and its

vicinity achieved a notable development in the era called the

‘quina epoch,’”10 which began, another author writes in 1937, “…

during the third quarter of the last century…”. Yet another

student explains in 1946 that the exploitation of quina, “which

abounds in the mountains of the Macizo Colombiano,” has

continued through the turn of the century and World War I, and

that traces of the trade in quina still exist. The thirty-some

statues of 1857 had become 110 by the time of Preuss in 1913,

the great majority of them not the products of his excavations

but rather found already discarded by huaueros.

The suggestion would be that some of these early huaqueros,

almost certainly, are the same quina workers: young, often
unmarried men, some of them travelers in search of work,

individuals who in moving about have had the chance to learn

about huaqueo in other parts of Colombia and South America where

already in earlier periods tombs were being sacked and treasure

discovered. The quina boom, the ‘age of quina,’ is directly

reflected in the quantity of statues which came to light.

During the decades on both sides of the year 1900, scores of

statues would ‘appear’ aboveground in forested or slightly-

developed areas.

Today we are in a position to confirm the opinion of

Lunardi, who opened his 1934 book with these words: “In the

middle of the past century, workers employed in the extraction

of quina near the headwaters of the Magdalena River brought out,

from the vegetation of the thick jungles, stone statues, buried

in ancient tombs near the pueblo of San Agustín.” It now seems

clear that the boom in quina was essentially responsible for the

discovery of the statues of the Pueblo Escultor.

By the period between the world wars, quina exploitation is

dying in the region, but huaqueo and huaqueros have become

endemic, have become a part of the local situation, in San

Agustín and other areas of the Macizo Colombiano. Now,

colonization and land-clearing lead the process of the discovery

of the statues.
 The news, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, was

spreading; quina workers and huaqueros exchanged stories, told

of their adventures, and local San Agustín folk chipped in with

information about their discoveries. Codazzi’s report, and then

de Rivera and Tschudi’s book in Europe, began to reach an

interested audience. An increasing number of foreign traveler’s

and students would bend their journeys to pass through San

Agustín for the opportunity to observe the strange stone

monoliths standing in small clearings cut from the jungle where,

as we can appreciate today, their ‘discoverers,’ the huaqueros,

had shouldered them aside as they dug, and left them.

In 1869 the german vulcanologist Alfonso Stϋbel, during his

study of colombian volcanoes, came to San Agustín; drawings and

a few photographs from his visit were said (in 1920) to be in

the museum of cartography in Leipzig. French explorer Eduardo

André was in the area in 1876, and we read that two statue-molds

and some photographs from his journey were left with the

Trocadero Museum in Paris. Frenchman Jean Chaffanjon passed

through in 1885, and his photograph, published in Élisée Reclus’

Nouvelle Géographie Universelle, would be the first photographic

image of the Pueblo Escultor seen by most europeans. And in

1889 San Agustín would host the spaniard José María Gutiérrez de

Alba, whose article was soon thereafter published in a

scientific periodical in Madrid. “All occasional travelers or
explorers who visited the region at the turn of the century,” we

are reminded, “spoke of the dense forest that covered the

prehistoric monuments and of the tangled masses of vines,

underbush, and gigantic fallen trees under which lay half-buried

statues and mounds…..No wonder then that the hidden valley of

San Agustín remained unexplored and shrouded in legend.”

The second serious, detailed resumé (after that of

Codazzi), and the first real investigative effort into these

antiquities carried out by a colombian, would appear in 1893,

from the pen of naturalist/historian and general Carlos Cuervo

Márquez. He had been to the San Agustín region in the previous

year, 1892, and was able to publish a register of statues going

somewhat beyond what Codazzi had seen. Cuervo Márquez also

breaks new ground by carrying out a number of small-scale

excavations, and in his analysis he suggests connections between

the iconography seen in the Pueblo Escultor monoliths and those

of certain central-american and andean cultures.

Two most important points that emerge from Cuervo Márquez’

studies are the following: in 1887 he had traveled in the

Tierradentro region to the north of San Agustín, which today we

understand to have been a separate nucleus of the Pueblo

Escultor, and his Tierradentro investigations are published

alongside those from San Agustín in his book: he was the first
to recognize and comment on the fact that these antiquities, and
these statue-making people, were not restricted to San Agustín

and environs. And second, Cuervo Márquez was the first to use

the name Pueblo Escultor in his writings. Earlier investigators

had found no adequate way to refer to the Statue-Makers and

their monuments, calling them by names which clearly did not

satisfy or apply.

The author of the definitive study of this ‘Prehistoric

Monumental Art’ would not be long in arriving. Before he would

do so, two more expeditions would make their way to the valley

of the statues of the Upper Madgalena. In 1899 the British

Museum would weigh in with an effort doomed to failure: they

managed to remove one major statue from its San Agustín location

and transport it to London—it is on exhibit in the museum today—

but unfortunately the rest of the Pueblo Escultor spoils from

this expedition were loaded on a boat which promptly sank in the

Patía River west of the Macizo. Everything was lost; the

‘scientific report’ of the expedition’s results is less than a

page long.

Karl Theodor Stöpel, german geologist and cartographer,

came to Ecuador and southern Colombia in 1911 and took

photographs and made 18 statue-molds, which were left in a

private aristocratic museum in Munich. His presentation to the

International Congress of Americanists in London the following

year was fundamental in the opening of the world’s eye to the
Macizo monoliths. In Stöpel’s publication we read that his

discourse helped to bring about the first major expedition, that

of Konrad Theodor Preuss, in 1913-14; Preuss, however, puts the

shoe on the other foot, telling us that he himself had informed

and helped guide his countryman toward the ruins of San Agustín

before the geologist’s visit to South America.

Whichever the case, Preuss’ investigations in the lands of

the Pueblo Escultor would lead to the fundamental study of this

ancient culture (which he called “the civilization of sculptors

of San Agustín,” “a remote and enigmatic civilization,” “a

strange culture,” “the artists,” “that ancient people,” “the

pueblo escultor” [one time], and eventually “the San Agustín

culture” and “the San Agustín civilization”), and his volume to

a large degree still holds that key position today. Preuss,

curator of the Museum für Volkerkunde in Berlin and an important

figure in the archeological hierarchy of Europe in his day, came

to Colombia in 1913, and visited San Agustín and the Macizo

Colombiano during the end of that year and the beginning of

1914. Certainly his plan had been to quickly return to Europe

with his statues, photos, molds and reports and measurements,

but he had calculated poorly, because the beginning of WWI found

him in Colombia, and he would not be able to cross the Atlantic

homeward until he had spent six long years in the country he had
only come to visit. But when he was finally able to return
home, his museum show (in 1923) featuring statues and statue-

molds, and the publication in 1929 of his Monumentale

Vorgeschichtliche Kunst (appearing in Colombia in 1931 as Arte

Monumental Prehistórico in spanish translation) created a grand

sensation. The news of this “remote and enigmatic

civilization,” with Preuss’ study and analysis, would be spread

far and wide.

Preuss was able to report some 112 Pueblo Escultor statues,

and he took with him those he could carry back to Berlin, a

place he must have conceived of as a safe haven compared to the

trackless jungles of the Macizo Colombiano; but it was a spot

which would be in the center of the hurricane of the new

century’s great armed conflicts. In fact, the Berlin to which

he returned, post-WWI, was not the glittering city which he had

left years before. Of the 21 San Agustín-area statues Preuss

took with him to Berlin, I was able, in 1992, to locate 17. In

addition, the Berlin museum has 14 small statues from Nariño to

the south of the Macizo which he carried back to Europe but

never published; they are represented in the present catalogue.

So Preuss too, as had Cuervo Márquez, extended the realm of the

makers of the Macizo statues to a further, separate nucleus in

these same mountains.

Preuss’ volume is the seminal study of the Statue-Makers.

His descriptions of the statue sites, and of his own
excavations, are essential in tracing the origins and changes of

location of these so-moveable monuments. He brought the focus

and context of a trained and practiced archaeologist to his

studies; his published results will always be of great value.

The many decades which have passed since his time, however, have

so enriched the context of precolumbian history and archaeology

that many of his analyses and conclusions are now outdated and

unfounded. But he brought the world’s attention to this ancient

people in a new and permanent way.

In a sense, Preuss’ departure from Colombia coincided with

a widening of the focus on the ancient Macizo ruins, a departure

from looking just at the San Agustín-area sites, a new view of

the similarities between the lithic vestiges found in the

different nuclei of statues. We have seen that Cuervo Márquez

had already visited the Páez lands where the Tierradentro ruins

are found, and had mentioned the existence of these ruins in his

publication in 1893; “It is certain,” he writes, “that when this

entire semi-savage region has been explored, new and important

discoveries will be made which, without doubt, will afford us

great revelations regarding american prehistory. There are

probably many more [statues] which are still buried underground,

and this probability becomes almost a certainty if we consider

how unexplored this land is and …… the strange subterranean

constructions …… made by the people who lived there.” Later,
Preuss visits and makes mention of sites in Nariño where other

statues are found. He also passed through the Tierradentro

lands, and mentions having seen a San Agustín-like statue there.

Cuervo Márquez, in his 1920 re-publication, adds as an

appendix a recently-written report, which had led to a brief

article chronicling the discovery of statues at the Aguabonita

site in the valley of the La Plata River. This report (which is

a letter penned by Victor Trujillo and Bernardo Montealegre)

will be noted and cited by others in the coming years, as

similar discoveries recur, and most succeeding writers will

point to the aggregate of new finds and the new focus on the

Pueblo Escultor as statue-makers not just in San Agustín’s

valley, but in different Macizo localities. Quina is still

being extracted from the Macizo during WWI and the following

decade, as we have seen, and new tombs and occasional statues

are still being found by huaqueros during these years. The door

of perception, already open a crack, will begin to swing wide by

the beginning of the 1930’s.

The new phase of discovery will be spearheaded by a

series of men whom the official archaeologists will look on as

mavericks, and amateurs; passionate travelers and students of

archaeology and prehistory, foreigners without portfolio, whose

searches and publications will offer tantalizing new

information. The first of them, one of the stranger figures to
weigh in on the Pueblo Escultor, is the Papal Representative in

Bogotá, Mons. Federico Lunardi, who visits San Agustín in August

of 1931. We have seen that Lunardi seems to be the first to

report that the discoveries of statues are related to the quina

boom and the resulting search of the Macizo forests. He also

mentions that he has heard of discoveries which he relates to

the Pueblo Escultor in the La Plata region, in Nariño, and

elsewhere, and his reference to discoveries of antiquities in

the Saladoblanco region effectively opens to view this Pueblo

Escultor nucleus, until then unknown.

Lunardi had just left the San Agustín region in 1931 when

the next maverick investigator arrived: he was the Belgian

Marquis de Wavrin Villiers-au-Tertre, whose travels had taken

him through Ecuador and Perú as well as Colombia. His theories

are bizarre indeed, but his explorations in the alternative

Pueblo Escultor statue-areas are clearly important: Wavrin is to

a large degree responsible for the early knowledge of statues

and sites—going well beyond the mere mention vouchsafed us by

Preuss--in the state of Nariño. His information on both the

Pueblo Escultor statues (which he recognized as such) and the

stone-cut hipogeo tombs of Tierradentro are the first detailed

published accounts; and he was the first to allude to statues in

the vicinity of Popayán in Cauca, which have really only been

re-included into the Pueblo Escultor study since the late

1980’s.

The third in this series of independent investigators

reached San Agustín in 1932, presenting himself, too, as a

titled member of european nobility: this was the german Baron

Hermann von Walde-Waldegg, who had translated Preuss’ monumental

work into spanish in 1931, and had looked forward to his own

principal ‘expedition’ to the valley of the statues, which would

take place in 1936. His research has been qualified as

“pretentious and useless”, and we might add that his writings

often seem absurd, and ridiculously vain and boastful; it is, I

think, the weirdest edge to have been achieved in the literature

on the Pueblo Escultor. We may thank him, however, for his 1931

mention, in his prologue to Preuss’ work, of statues in the

Platavieja zone, certainly one of, if not the first, reference

to this important statue nucleus. And he publishes21, apparently

without even realizing it, the first details and photographs of

the Saladoblanco statues, which would only be carefully re-

inspected in the early 1980’s.

By the latter half of the 1930’s, the colombian government

was ready to build on the advances of Preuss and others by

organizing its own efforts at study and excavation of the Macizo

cultures. In 1937 two archaeologists, colombian Gregorio

Hernández de Alba and spaniard José Pérez de Barradas, would
lead government-commissioned investigations in San Agustín. Both

men had, independently, worked the previous year leading

expeditions in the Tierradentro region. In fact an earlier

Tierradentro effort, that of the german geologist Georg Burg,

preceded them that same year, 1936. It seems to have been an

uneasy triumvirate; all three men published in some form the

results of their studies. Burg, the geologist, was out of his

league; his article would be brief. Hernández de Alba’s work

was the most extensive of the three, and he would eventually

publish in both english and spanish; but Pérez de Barradas would

reach print first, and his 1937 publication on the land he

called Tierra Dentro would become the most important work on

this statue-area until the studies of Cháves and Puerta in the

1970’s and 1980’s.

Hernández de Alba makes reference, in his studies, to the

statues of Moscopán and Platavieja, and these mentions of

connections to alternative statue-sites come early in the

expanding sequence. Perhaps even more important, he makes them

in english, in the 1946 edition of the Handbook of South

American Indians, thus bringing these matters to a new audience.

Pérez de Barradas, in the same year (1937) that his

Tierradentro volume was published, would move on to his main

task, study and excavation in San Agustín under the aegis of the
government of Colombia. His work from this expedition,
published in 1943, would become the most important work on the

principal Pueblo Escultor statue-area since Preuss. Hernández

de Alba, on the other hand, while he would manage to arrange and

conclude his major study on the Pueblo Escultor of San Agustín,

would never publish it; only in 1979, posthumously, would it

appear in print. These were the two most comprehensive studies

of the San Agustín-area culture in the period between that of

Preuss, on the one hand, and those of Duque Gómez and Reichel-

Dolmatoff several decades later.

With several expeditions having detailed the remains of the

Tierradentro region in the late 1930’s, the stage was set for a

closer look at the sites in the La Plata valley, about which

places hints had been aired since Preuss’ time in Colombia. The

University of Cauca in the city of Popayán, in 1942, would

organize the first such investigation, headed by Gregorio

Hernández de Alba and his colleague Eliecer Silva Célis; they

carried out the first careful survey of the Aguabonita,

Moscopán, and Platavieja sites (as well as Tierradentro), which

were now mapped, measured and photographed for the first time.

Their publications, in scientific journals in Colombia, have not

been reprinted.

Six months later, in 1943, a second University of Cauca

expedition, this one headed by french archaeologist Henri

Lehman, conducted a continuation of Hernández de Alba and Silva
Célis’ work; Lehman would also publish his results. He was able

to disentangle ‘Aguabonita’ and ‘Moscopán,’ which areas had been

somewhat confused in the literature. He also reports statues in

the Popayán region, with some detail, and in fact some of these

statues, and other artifacts, helped form the basis for the

fledgling Archaeological Museum of the University of Cauca,

founded in Lehman’s time.

But by the end of WWII, the ‘golden age’ of investigations

and independent studies into the alternative Pueblo Escultor

statue-areas—which had begun around 1931, the year of the

publication of Preuss’ book in spanish and the visits of Lunardi

and Wavrin to the Macizo Colombiano—drew to a close. Valuable

studies like that of Nachtigall in 1955, which was published in

Germany and has never been translated into spanish, focused on

the alternative Pueblo Escultor sites, but apparently resonated

little with the archaeological authorities in Colombia.

In 1935 the colombian government had purchased land for an

Archaeological Park near San Agustín, and by 1940 the land had

been fenced and the collection established. In 1938 the

celebrated french anthropologist Paul Rivet visited San Agustín,

and during the war years he established his residence in

Colombia. Rivet, the Director of the Musee de l’Homme in Paris,

became the ‘spiritual rector’ of colombian archaeology and

anthropology and played a key role in choosing and training the
future ruling elite in those fields in Colombia. The forerunner

of the Institute of Anthropology was formed in 1941, under

Rivet’s care, and in 1945 the first issue of the Boletín de

Arqueología, destined to become the official organ of

publications in the field, appeared. In this same year, land was

obtained for the future Parque Arqueológico of Tierradentro.

The archaeological superstructure in Colombia had coalesced by

the beginning of the period after the war.

During this period in which investigations into the other

statue-nuclei in the valleys of the Macizo had flourished, a

growing number of books and articles were published which

brought the San Agustín-area monuments and culture into the

public view. Just since the beginning of the war years,

publications by Schottelius in 1939, Arciniegas in the same

year, Acuña in 1942 and Arango in that year as well, and Tiberio

López in 1946, as well as works abovementioned by Pérez de

Barradas (1943), Hernández de Alba (1943 and 1946), Lehmann

(1943 and 1945) and Silva Célis (1943) had appeared. And in

english, Walde-Waldegg in 1936 and 1940, Arciniegas in 1939,

Hernández de Alba in 1946 and Bennett in that same year had

enriched a bibliography in that language which until then had

been nearly nonexistent.

The following years, surprisingly, would change and in

a certain sense reverse the current: Not until the dawn of the
1980’s would the alternative, non-San Agustín statue-areas of

the Pueblo Escultor be once again taken up, studied, and re-

assessed, and attain the full stride that had seemed to be

imminent 40 years earlier. Only a handful of brief articles on

the Tierradentro sites would appear, half of them published in

foreign countries and languages. The Moscopán, Aguabonita,

Platavieja, Saladoblanco and Popayán area sites, as well as

those in the state of Nariño, would virtually disappear from

consideration during this period.

In 1943 Luis Duque Gómez was commissioned by the National

Ministry of Education to begin a series of explorations in San

Agustín’s archaeological sites. Along with his assistants he

began to systematically excavate the area’s sites, beginning

with the principal sites of the Parque Arqueológico, the most

concentrated archaeological zone of the valley. Within two

years Duque Gómez had become the Director of the entire

colombian archaeological superstructure; he continued his yearly

excavations almost without interruption into the 1960’s,

continuing on through almost all of the sites available to him

in the valley of San Agustín. No work was done outside of the

bounds of San Agustín’s region. By 1964 Duque Gómez was ready

to publish his major work on San Agustín. In the early 1970’s

he was at work again, in further San Agustín’s sites, and

through that and the following decade books on the statue-makers
of San Agustín, authored mostly by Duque Gómez and by his

colleague Julio César Cubillos, would continue to be released.

Duque Gómez concentrated not only his own efforts, but

virtually all efforts of archaeological investigation in the

Macizo Colombiano area, for almost 40 years, exclusively upon

the San Agustín-area sites. By the mid-1940’s, as we have seen,

all of the alternative Pueblo Escultor statue-area now known had

been identified, and work in these different areas, to some

degree, had begun. From 1945 through the 1970’s, with few

exceptions, the other areas were to remain unstudied and

essentially abandoned, aside from the ceaseless efforts of the

grave-robbing huaqueros.

In his principal work on San Agustín, Duque Gómez has given

us a book which is a huge welter of information: a compilation

of much of the raw, unfiltered data from his digs, mixed with

many pages of sometimes confusing analysis. Hopefully, future

investigators will be able to find much of value in the data

from his excavations. There is little mention of any of the

other Pueblo Escultor statue-areas, and little use made of them,

though Duque was well aware of the history of their discoveries.

Stratigraphy has little emphasis here; Duque is mostly

interested in a funerary view of the Pueblo Escultor.

The other major study to reach print in these years also

spends no great amount of time on the other, non-San Agustín
nuclei of the Pueblo Escultor: Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff’s 1972

publication is titled San Agustín. But, that criticism aside,

it is by all accounts the best book so far published on this

subject. The only downside is that we are referring to a book

now more than 30 years old, and that other, newer studies have

not superseded it. Readers of english are fortunate that the

austrian scholar’s book was written in that language, and

spanish readers unfortunate that it has never appeared in their

idiom.

Reichel-Dolmatoff’s careful study of the makers of these

monumental statues is detailed and descriptive, and takes a very

even-handed look at these people who only too often have been

considered merely to be death-oriented tomb-makers, interested

in little besides their cycle of funerary structures and rituals

and symbols. His 1975 book22 on stratigraphical digs in trash

middens near San Agustín with evidences of heavy population

through long periods of time is fundamental in shining a new

light on the life-cycle of the Pueblo Escultor, and showing the

way to a new form of understanding that had been little utilized

in the history of Pueblo Escultor studies.

Since Reichel-Dolmatoff’s 1972 publication, the last major

reappraisal of the Statue-Makers, several other works have been

published which represent important advances in the study of the

ancient inhabitants of the Macizo. The series of collaborative
efforts by colombians Álvaro Cháves Mendoza and his onetime

student Mauricio Puerta Restrepo which study the ruins of

Tierradentro have allowed us a valuable new approximation.

Starting in the late 1970’s and continuing on through the decade

of the 1980’s, these books have essentially established the

literature on this statue-area. Stratigraphic excavation of

refuse-heaps and house-sites plays an important part in Cháves

and Puerta’s analyses, and “…the tombs are yet another source of

information…”, which is to say, not the only source of our

vision and understanding.

The work and excavations of colombian archaeologist Hector

Llanos Vargas have also represented an advance; his 1988 study

of the “Patterns of Settlement” in the Granates River canyon of

the Saladoblanco statue-area, as the title indicates, is a look

at the history of human habitation in a chosen area, rather than

an effort to extract and study only the remains of the Statue-

Makers and their time period. This type of work, along the

lines suggested by Reichel-Dolmatoff in his 1975 book,

represents vanguard work in this area, an attempt to find out

where the Pueblo Escultor fits in the overall scheme of human

history in the valleys of the Macizo, and hopefully to

understand the connections that bind them to the history that

precedes and succeeds their extensive period in the region.

 Another project, initiated in 1984, chose the valley of the

La Plata River as the area for a study that would seek “…

information on patterns of organization at the regional level,”

and this investigation too would have the Pueblo Escultor as

only one of the actors in the history it seeks to establish.

Robert Drennan, an archaeologist from the United States, headed

this effort to look not at a group of supposedly death-obsessed

tomb-builders, but rather to gather all information possible on

the history of the different groups who called this area home

during the periods of precolumbian history; the Pueblo Escultor

would not be the end-all and be-all of this study, which would

hopefully allow the Statue-Makers to assume whatever position

they really held in the history of the area.

“Despite the dedicated (and in some cases lifetime) efforts

of a few scholars,” Drennan writes, “the Upper Magdalena…is in

no immediate danger of becoming one of the world’s most-studied

archaeological regions……[and] it will take a sustained long-term

effort to make a significant contribution…”. Hopefully the

present initiative will be seen, too, as just such a

contribution to our understanding of the ancient peoples of the

Macizo Colombiano.
PAGE

PAGE 42
 the pueblo escultor and
american traditions

I would like to give some indication of what the value of

the present catalogue might be, what application it might have

for those whose studies border or overlap this one. Hopefully

the relevance to other research will not be the only use that my

efforts might end up having; that is, I would hope that some

folks might simply enjoy looking at these images left us many

centuries ago by a long-forgotten people not so different from

ourselves; or that people interested in sculpture, or art, or

human clothing and ornament, or philosophy and religion, or the

history of the uses of stone, or animals and their depictions,

and so on, would find a point of application and an interest in

looking at these images, these approximations of the feeling and

meaning poured into this amazing statuary high up in the Macizo

Colombiano so long ago. If any such interest were to be

encouraged, so much the better.

But in the present chapter we will consider the purpose and

use this catalogue might have for people specifically interested

in the particular field, in precolumbian art and archaeology and

iconography, and the history of stone sculpture in America. I

would begin by asserting that the statues of the Pueblo Escultor

make up the greatest lithic library known from precolumbian
America. Stone images were created for thousands of years in

America, from earliest formative times onward and up to the time

of the arrival of the european invaders, as far north as what is

today the United States, and as far south as northern Argentina.

But nowhere else, from one people or cultural group and in a

reasonably similar geographical space, do we see such a quantity

of expressive stone sculpture, or, more importantly, such a

wealth of different images. This last comment refers to the

fact that certain bodies of sculpture are relatively monotonous

in that their images are very repetitive, and so the quantity of

images will not be great relative to the number of statues under

consideration.

The Pueblo Escultor statuary is not only great, numerically

speaking: there are 460 statues in this survey seen and drawn

by me, and 586 registered as having at some time been published

and documented, and I imagine that at least several hundred more

have been destroyed or disappeared into the black market without

documentation, or still remain in tombs underneath the earth of

the Macizo. Pueblo Escultor statues are also extremely rich in

imagery, because essentially each statue presents us with a new

and unique figure. Only rarely is any particular image

repeated, and even then usually the style in which it is carried

out differs so greatly that it becomes a quite new version of

the image. So we have, in the Pueblo Escultor statuary, not
only the largest lithic library of ancient America, but also a

body of imagery in stone that is especially and exceedingly rich

and varied.

When looking at the cultural history of ancient America, a

basic division is usually made between the lands in Mexico and

northern Central America which were constellated around that

center, Mesoamerica, and the lands arranged around and related

to the other center, in South America’s Andes. A section in the

middle, stretching from the central parts of Central America

down through Venezuela and Colombia, is usually designated the

Intermediate Zone. Neither Anahuac in the north nor

Tawantinsuyu in the south constituted the unitary source for the

culture and tradition of this Intermediate Zone. In many

respects, we are able to see in this center zone the mix of

influences come from the south and the north which contributed

to the formation of the world inhabited by these people not

ruled by, but cognizant of and influenced by the two nuclear-

culture areas on their borders.

The statuary of the Pueblo Escultor exemplifies the

archaeology and culture of the Intermediate Zone in that it

shows this mix of elements which ultimately might be traced to

one (or perhaps in certain cases both) of the two nuclear areas.

And we can not only see the mix of elements from the north and
south, but in some cases are able to determine which of the two
traditions, and what content, is portrayed in certain statues of

the Pueblo Escultor. The point is worth emphasizing because

many studies have situated the work of the Pueblo Escultor in a

kind of limbo, without much relationship to other american stone

sculpture, almost in some kind of strange isolation. The truth

is that, far from being isolated, the Pueblo Escultor show

themselves to be related, at the most profound levels, to the

two traditions, mesoamerican and andean, both of which are

strongly represented here.

In Mesoamerica and the Andes, the two basic mother

traditions—in this standard framework—would be that first

expressed by the Olmec of Mexico’s Gulf Coast region, and that

of the Chavín culture in northern highland Perú, both beginning

to flourish perhaps by 1800 B.C., perhaps by a few centuries

earlier or later. There is no reason to believe that the Pueblo

Escultor at this early date are creating stone statues and etc.,

and every reason to think instead that they would eventually be

doing so not at points early in the Olmec/Chavín sequences, but

rather during later phases of those sequences, when Olmec and

Chavín are becoming/have become manifest in successor cultures

throughout their areas. Our ‘first’ C-14 date for the Pueblo

Escultor, 555 B.C., is taken from a piece of a wooden

sarcophagus found in a tomb-set construction, and tells us

something, at least, about the art of carving and about the

ceremonial/religious and architectonic complexes of that time.

There are Pueblo Escultor radiocarbon dates from the early

centuries B.C., and others cluster around the 0 B.C./A.D. time

period. Few are specifically tied to carefully controlled finds

of statues, which almost always are discovered by huaqueros

digging illegally and clandestinely. So the tentative

suggestion would be that the Pueblo Escultor, coming late in the

mentioned sequences, would at the beginning have been more

directly influenced by Pukara in the Titicaca Basin rather than

Chavín itself, and by Izapa and Monte Albán, rather than the

Olmec, in México. In Olmec and Chavín, though, were born, or

awakened, or coalesced, the traditions, the patrones, and these

almost living entities do not die with cultures or peoples or

cities; they stare out at us from the eyes of the figures in the

statues of the Pueblo Escultor.

Before we take a look at the type of information and

knowledge that can be drawn from an analysis of these statues,

it would be worthwhile to briefly indicate several original,

germinal currents which are in evidence from the very beginning

of the stone-sculpting horizon and which help constitute the

earliest and most important traditions of precolumbian America’s

iconography in stone. I mention several here, with no intent to

suggest that this list would be definitive; certainly others

could be included.

First of all, we can see from the iconography and the very

form of these lithic american expressions that the ‘mythological

happenings’ referred to are, very often, played out underground;

or, we may say, in an underworld which is in some senses

supernaturally located, but in another sense is underneath the

ground that we live upon. “In ancient America the divinely

inhabited underworld was more important than the surface, where

human life takes place…”26. We are reminded by Eliade that “The

place where communication could be made between the world of the

dead and that of the gods of the underworld was consecrated as a

connecting link between the different levels of the universe,

and such a place could only be situated in a ‘centre’.”27

Many of the most important ‘mythological settings’

constructed or arranged by the various american peoples as the

location of the ‘mythological happenings’ are attempts to

approximate this mythological underground otherworld: the

interior and subterranean galleries of the Chavín temples, the

‘subterranean plaza’ spaces at the center of Chavín de Huántar

and later of Tiwanaku, the ‘niches’ out of which lean human

figures on the Olmec ‘altars’—to which we would add the cave-

relief #1 art Chalcatzingo and the entire setting and symbolism

of the Juxtlahuaca cave-paintings, among others—in all of these
manifestations, and in many more, such as the secret tombs deep

inside pyramids at Palenque, Teotihuacán, and other mesoamerican

sites, where “The dead man was symbolically returned to the

ancient home of the gods, and the ancestors who had become gods,

in the womb of the earth, the source of all creation,”, in the

kivas that served as sacred buildings for the Pueblo Indians of

the southwest of North America, in the Aztec cave-temple of

Malinalco, and so on, we see a recreation of the primal

subterranean place, linked as well to the homeland and origin of

peoples. The full list of analogs would be hopelessly long. We

read that the Aztecs came originally from a place called

Chicomoztoc (‘Seven Caves’), while the Incas first issued forth

from their birthplace in four caves at Pacaritambo (‘Origin

Lodge’). Looking at the Pueblo Escultor constructions, we see

that the underground and mounded-earth-covered stone

configurations are yet another version of the same mythical

underground setting.

“Every expression of life, we read, “is the result of the

fertility of the earth; every form is born of it, living, and

returns to it the moment its share of life is exhausted; returns

to it to be reborn; but before being reborn, to rest, to be

purified, to be regenerated…; there is no…break between the

earth and the forms engendered by it; these forms remain bound
to their source, from which they are in any case separated only
for a time, and to which they will return to rest, to be

strengthened, and one day to reappear. That is why there is a

magic, sympathetic bond between the earth and the organic forms

it has engendered. Together they form a whole.”

The preceding thought leads us to our second connecting

current: the material used to create this particular style and

corpus of iconography is, precisely, stone. A discussion of the

very ancient history of work in stone—the primary, original

material—in America would give an idea as to why the very act of

working in stone and the very material involved must have in a

deep sense been regarded as ‘sacred,’ whether the practical

point was to make weapons, grind food or carve images. Those

master stone-carvers, the Incas, would basically restrict

themselves to architectonic work, albeit incredibly expressive

and fantastic, producing almost nothing in the realm of lithic

iconographic imagery, while those other master stone-workers,

the Pueblo Escultor, would build no stone buildings or other

above-ground works, and would live in perishable habitations,

using stone basically only to carve their statues and the

structures that would house them.

Surely an important element in this ‘sacredness’ must have

been the fact that stone makes up the interior, and the finest,

densest part thereof, the essential structure, of the earth

itself, which sustains us—that is, in andean terms, the
Pachamama, the ‘earth-herself-our-mother,’ place of origin of

every race, every species, and home, undoubtedly, to our

forebears and originators now passed away. Stones are the

bones, the skeleton of our Pachamama, and, I would suppose, were

to be treated as such, with respect and much more than respect.

It was not just a quotidian, thoughtless act to be working with,

to be carving stone. To work in stone demanded a certain

understanding and a certain context, and for many peoples it

represented the supreme form of expression.

The third point seems perhaps more of a stretch, more

unlikely, to some, and so I will just state it as my opinion,

the fruit of my survey of american stone sculpture: the

supernatural anthro-animal, and the dominant spirit shown in

many precolumbian works of art, which at times seems to obsess

and animate such art, is a supernatural mix of serpent and

feline elements. Many analyses of precolumbian art, and

specifically of the Pueblo Escultor art, have taken a

supernatural feline to be the guiding and principal spirit. But

the early traditions, and also some later expressions of what we

might consider the original traditions—and certainly,

powerfully, the Pueblo Escultor statues--show us repeatedly this

mix of serpent and feline attributes, often at what would seem

to be the heart of much basic mythology and belief. “God

sometimes comes also in the body of a lion or a snake, and it is
in that form he walks about among men to behold their doings,”

Frazer has written, and while he was not speaking of

precolumbian art, his comment accords perfectly with this

vision.

The fourth suggestion will be very familiar to many

students of ancient America: There is a ‘Double Sense,’ a way

of showing that the basic and important and even supreme

realities manifest themselves, and may be represented, in a

double way. It may be quite impossible for us to grasp exactly

what is being defined, or to describe the impression, but this

‘Double Sense,’ this duality, was deeply ingrained in the

american art and belief and, no doubt, experience. The double,

or ‘Doble’ as a certain manifestation of this idea is termed,

has long been remarked in the lithic art of the Pueblo Escultor,

and ‘Double Sense’ is eloquently evident in the art of the

earliest american high cultures. We read that “Dualism is the

essential principle of the pre-cortesian world [and, we may add,

the pre-columbian world in general], governing its conceptions

of the gods, of nature, and of art.” Below, we will take a more

detailed look at this panamerican trait.

Two final points, on patterns that emerged from this look

at the Pueblo Escultor statuary with the history of all of

America’s art as a background: First, the sculptors of the

Pueblo Escultor reflect very truly in their work the basic
american lithic traditions, not only in a ‘pure’ and loyal way,

but in expressive, effective and individual, local, creative

manners. These sculptors were in touch with the deepest

currents of tradition, from the Andes, from Mesoamerica, and

elsewhere.

Second, I get the sense that the Pueblo Escultor sites were

essentially in some way very liberal centers, where many and

perhaps even all different cults, traditions, beliefs and

personages are represented; and, at the same time, to a greater

degree perhaps than in other great lithic centers, no single

cult or cults seem to be dominant and all-inclusive. Many

mythological currents seem to be present, and what elsewhere is

supreme seems here to be part of a larger whole.

**************************************************

The ‘lithic library’ represented by the stone-sculptures of

the Pueblo Escultor will prove to be, at a future time when the

entire context of precolumbian life and belief is far more fully

understood, a great, deep well of new understanding and insight,

and a lens through which this new wealth of knowledge will stand
forth, illuminated. To give a hint of the possible fruits of
analysis of these statues, I would like to take a careful look

at a single image, shown us in a pair of Pueblo Escultor stones.

Even with only the fragmentary studies and techniques to which

we today have access, we can sketch in several important facets

and details in answer to our question: what does this figure

mean, and what can we discern in this fabulous, exotic

character?

After this look at the single image in question, the rest

of the present chapter will consist of brief comments regarding

some of the worthwhile points of comparison (between the statues

of the Pueblo Escultor and the stone-carvings made by other

precolumbian peoples) which have been suggested by a survey of

the stone statuary of America. These comments should at the

least paint a picture of a Pueblo Escultor very much in touch

with the great stream of American traditions, and nurtured and

oriented by them, rather than suggesting any kind of isolation.

Hopefully, they may help point the way toward future

investigations which will cut much more deeply.

The image under study here reveals itself in two

different statues, both found in the valley of San Agustín, both

known since early in the past century. PMAL2 is located atop

the Alto de Lavapatas, the highest location, the culminating

step, in the Parque Arqueológico several kilometers uphill from

the pueblo. AP1, the second version of this single vision, is
near the valley’s eastern extreme, at the site known as Alto de

las Piedras. Both are first reported by Preuss, who saw them

during his visit in 1913; Codazzi in 1857, and Cuervo Márquez in

1892, had not seen them.

The german archaeologist in describing PMAL2 calls it a

‘double,’ and after bringing AP1 into the picture, calls the

figure ‘Das zweite Ich’ in german, which is to say ‘Segundo Yo’

in spanish and ‘Second I’ in english. In the literature, and in

local parlance, this quickly became ‘Doble Yo’ or ‘Double I,’

and such has remained the case down to the present day. Echoes

of these two most famous Dobles abound throughout the statuary

of the Pueblo Escultor (see Chapter Five—Doble Yo section) and a

small group of statues in the Parque Arqueológico may be said to

form a strict group with them, and to clearly show us versions

of the same image: PMA1 and PMA2, PMA7 and PMA8, and PMB9 and

PMB10. Curiously, in each of these cases, as a glance at the

drawings will show, this Doble image is itself doubled, for

reasons that we perhaps don’t fully understand. And a survey of

a range of different sculptures—for instance PMAL3, PMC8, LA1,

PE7, PA6, PMC14, M2, PMC3—will show how this seminal image has

threaded itself throughout the entire Pueblo Escultor tapestry.

There are some fascinating similarities to the Doble Yo

figures among the stone statues elsewhere in America; among the

closest analogs in form would be the Chorotega stone-sculptures
from Nicaragua (especially Zapatera and Ometepe Islands in lake

Nicaragua) and from Nicoya in Costa Rica, and the statues from

the Barriles site in Panamá. But the traces would lead us back

through many other stone-carving cultures, and we would find

them as well near the beginning, in Olmec, and in Chavín.

Preuss, seeing the profound ‘Double Sense’ with which the

two Doble Yo statues are imbued, called them by the term ‘Second

I’ for a specific reason: because he could see that in each

case a second, supernatural being hovers above the ‘principal’

human figure. Preuss interpreted this as representing a ‘Second

I’ looming over the first, and in this sense the statue showed a

‘double’ figure. This view of the ‘Double Sense’ in these two

statues (and in many more as well) has been adopted and affirmed

by most of the literature on the Pueblo Escultor. But we will

see that the double-nature of these two statues takes a series

of different forms, and by bringing our attention to them we

will be able to illustrate the type of investigation that this

catalogue, used in context, will hopefully allow.

1. To begin with, the image on which we are concentrating

appears in not one, but two different statues in the valley of

San Agustín, and while in some measure the two versions are

different, in a more important way we can have no doubt that the

two make the same statement and show us the same ‘moment’ or
‘being’ in the mythos. It is certainly true that this may be

the merest coincidence—the third and fourth copies may be

disinterred tomorrow. But at the same time we don’t want to

ignore that fact that that these valleys have been extensively

worked by huaqueros for a century and a half, and that while we

may now look at close 500 statues, we nonetheless have no exact

peers for these two mirror images. Add to this the fact that

they were found in the two greatest concentrations of statuary,

one in each of the twin centers of the Pueblo Escultor in San

Agustín’s valley: the Parque Arqueológico on the one hand and

the area near Alto de los Idolos on the other. It may not be

coincidence at all.

2. Each of the two statues is double in that a ‘principal

figure’ which is a human being is surmounted by a second,

supernatural (or monstrous or divine) being. This is the

meaning that Preuss had in mind when he called these pieces

‘Double.’ The lower figure is male in both cases, and human

except for bearing fangs, which detail I presume suggests the

nature of the supernatural blood flowing in his veins; both

examples are notable in that the proportions of the man’s body

are much closer to nature than is the case in the vast majority

of the Pueblo Escultor statues. The second figure, looming up

above the first, grasps the human with both hands on or just
above the head, seeming to ‘control’ the man’s head. A study of

the list of analogs given several paragraphs ago—including the

pairs of Mesitas ‘guardians,’ PMA1 & PMA2, etc. as well as a

number of other stones, PMAL3, PMC8 and so on—will help us to

elicit the sense, to perhaps feel something of the message, of

our two subject statues. And we must also take a look at the

‘Feline Procreator’ group, and stones such as U4, PA6, M2 and

OU90.

A slight digression into the essence of the ‘Double Sense’

being exhibited in these sculptures is important here. I would

like to distinguish between, on the one hand, a Doble-figure,

like the image under discussion, in which one great (and

probably supernatural) being stands above a lower, usually more

human, personage; as opposed to a Double-figure, in which we see

a ‘doubling,’ usually fairly precise and faithful, of a given

figure. The AP1 and PMAL2 statues are perfect examples of the

Doble, whose origin lies to the north, in the world of

Mesoamerica. The image is born in Olmec stones like the San

Martín Pajapán statue, and the Chalcatzingo relief #1 of a human

figure inside the gaping mouth of a great serpent-creature, and

Mopnument #19 from La Venta, and the ‘altars’ or ‘thrones’ where

human figures lean forward from ‘niches’ or ‘caves’ which are

also the maws of supernatural animals. We see the image pass

down through, for example, the statues on the islands of Lake
Nicaragua, to the Aztec and Huastec sculptures whose faces

emerge from encompassing masks. This is the path which brought

the Doble image to figure in the mythos of the Pueblo Escultor.

The ‘Double,’ on the other hand, the principle of duality

which permeates the art of ancient America, shows us twin halves

of a ‘doubled’ vision. The formative ceramic figurines of

Tlatilco in México show us that this concept is of great

importance from earliest times in Mesoamerica, and it is never

absent thereafter, as a survey of pre-cortesian art will

testify. But the manifestation of the Double in the art of

stone-carving comes, I think, essentially from the world of the

Andes, where we see it everywhere in Chavín de Huántar: the

‘Cornisa de los Felinos,’ the ‘Dintel de los Jaguares,’ the

etchings on the ‘Portal de los Halcones,’ the black-and-white

stairway, the twin staffs in the hands of the Staff-God all

bespeak this primal duality.; we will see echoes of this mirror-

imagery in the ‘Sun-Door’ figures at Tiwanaku, and among the

statues of the Callejón de Huaylas, and recognize the trait in

the double-parade of ‘victims’ on the stone-carvings of Sechín.

In the Pueblo Escultor statuary, this effect is also constantly

present, as we see in such stones as U4, LB2, PMB6, PMB14, and

PMB20, PMB27, PMC9, (1)P1, (2)PV1, (4)A4. The same analysis

applies to the pairs of ‘guardian’ figures of the Mesitas: the

pairs of nearly-mirrored statues, PMA1 & PMA2 and so on. These
‘guardian’ statues, as we have seen, are the closest analogs of

the two statues that we are studying; and are thus, themselves,

representatives of both the mesoamerican-derived Doble and the

andean-origin Double.

3. The top figure of the two in our chosen image, the

‘Supernatural Figure,’ is also itself Double, in that it is

formed of two different beings, one which is oriented upward and

is alive, and a second which flows downward and is not ‘alive’

in any normal sense. A look at the drawings will make this

clear. In both cases, the upward-flowing creature emanates

energy and vitality, seems terrorific and awe-inspiring, and the

creature’s hands are upraised, engaged in an action of control.

In comparison, the downward-hanging half of this composite being

seems flat and lifeless. The mouth seems like a caricature

compared to that of the ‘living’ creature, and contrasts starkly

with the rounded, vital form of the ‘upward’ half’s mouth. On

the Mesitas statues PMA1 and PMA2 we see another version of this

same Doble creature; the upper, ‘living’ half is something like

a fanged, puffy-faced baby, while the serpentine body of the

‘lower’ half, curling down the statue’s side, shows this same

caricature-being with the grinning, lifeless mouth. Another

version appears on AP4.

 In fact, one aspect of what is being presented here is that

the hanging, ‘lifeless’ part of the Doble is (or is represented

by) a skin, the skin of a monstrous/divine personage. In our

natural world, the world of human beings, the skin is that of a

feline, and we can see that essence in the animals flowing

downward as the lower part of the Doble being. The image, with

its ‘N’-tooth design shown in profile, is reminiscent of the

Huaca del Dragón and other similar Moche depictions from

northern Perú, and of Pashash stone monoliths and related Recuay

ceramic representations, where similar figures appear.

The Doble, then, is in a certain sense represented by the

skin of a feline draped over the back of another, human figure.

This is an image that we will find throughout a great range of

precolumbian art, in much of America and from the earliest

times. Among the statues of the Pueblo Escultor, a number of

different figures are worth looking at in this light—starting

with PMB22, R3 and (6)I2, the latter from Popayán, to the west

across the Macizo Colombian from San Agustín. Others may be of

interest as well: OU4, (1)TI9 and (6)SF1 all carry not skins,

but human-like figures on their backs.

4. There is a fourth way in which these two statues

exhibit this Double Sense: the ‘Supernatural Personage’ is also

Double because the Doble by its nature is a blend of two
different essences, that of the feline and that of the serpent,

and it is in the guise of these two animals that our Personage

appears. PMAL2 and AP1 are marked with the symbols and the

shapes of both. The fangs, it would seem, could be an aspect of

either of these two animals, or of both.

Glancing again at the drawings, those so disposed will see

that the lower half of the Doble-creature, that which I have

suggested is a skin, is in the shape of a feline. The case is

made clearer by a look at the other statues just mentioned with

skins on their backs; there is no doubt, for instance, that

PMB22 shows a feline draped over the back of the human figure.

The two anthropomorphs in the statues under study here,

analogously bear feline skins (which are much more than feline

skins) on their backs.

The serpent essence inherent in the two ‘Supernatural

Figures’ shows itself most precisely in the shape of the Doble,

which flows up-and-backward and then over and downward; seen in

profile, this shape, doubtlessly extremely significant for the

Pueblo Escultor, proclaims itself in each of the many analogous

statues that carry it. Aside from the two estatuas under study,

we would look first at PMA1 and PMA2, because in these Doble-

stones too the flowing-back creature most certainly is a type of

serpent-being, who writhes in duo down both sides of the column.

The others of the six ‘guardian’ stones referred to above also
share this shape, and the whole figure occurs at another spot in

the Mesitas, once again in tandem images: see PMB14 and PMB20.

It is then but a step to similarly-shaped statues like LA1 and

PMC8, and AP5 offers yet another depiction of the same idea. In

all of them, the germ of the shape given this idea comes from

the serpent.

If we were to miss the feline-skins on the sides of our two

statues and the serpent-shape down the back, we would still be

left with yet another reference to the other-than-human nature

of the stone’s protagonist, because both statues are marked with

symbols that carry this meaning. First of all, both statues,

all down the serpent-curve of the back, are etched with a series

of parallel lines that are ‘writing’ a certain message. In the

case of PMAL2 the lines slant parallel, and on AP1 they take the

form of parallel ‘V’-shapes. They are both variant forms of

what would more usually be crosshatching, which is to say, the

symbol, for the Pueblo Escultor, of the serpent and the serpent-

energy. The lines on our two statues etch them with serpent-

being.

This symbolism, and its function in the art of the Macizo,

is the subject of the Serpent section of the following chapter.

But we can shortcut that detailed discovery by taking a look,

first, at PE1 and CA2, a pair of stones in which respectively a

bird and then a monstrous anthropomorphic figure grasp twisting
serpents in their beak and talons, in the one case, and hands in

the other. Both are among the best ‘natural’ representations of

serpents among the Macizo stones, and both are etched with lines

that give us the clue as to the meaning of the lines we see on

our two sculptures. The serpents held by each of the two, PE1

and CA2, are marked with symbolic lines that proclaim their

essence, the serpent-current which animates many other Pueblo

Escultor figures as well.

In each case, curiously enough, we see three different

kinds of line-patterns. There are crosshatched lines, which

create diamond-shapes, and there are what I have called squared

crosshatching, creating squares; the third lines I refer to as

half-crosshatching, and they really consist of parallel lines.

These two statues of beings-carrying-serpents are showing us the

symbols that mark them to be just that, and these symbols then

reoccur in the Macizo statuary in ways that are consistent with

the expression of this serpent-energy, as the Serpent section

attempts to illustrate.

If we look at PMA1 and PMA2, previously cited, we will see

that the serpent-bodies running across the top and down the

sides of the column are elegantly cross-hatched. And two of the

etched tomb-construction slabs, PMB(G)6 and OU(G)1, also show us

this same graphic connection of crossed lines over the shape of

the serpent. And PE7, taken by Preuss to Berlin, is another
‘classic’ Doble stone; its flowing serpent shape is lined with

the half-crosshatching, or parallel lines. We can now see that

the serpentine backs of the two original Doble Yo stones which

we are considering are marked with lines whose meaning is a

reference to the serpent and the current of serpent-energy.

One of our two statues—AP1—is also marked with circles.

Although the other is not, it not only is weathered, but we now

know that a great number of the statues were painted with other

designs over the sculptural work; PMA7 and PMA8, for instance,

seem to show us blank-column Dobles, when in fact they were

originally painted with crossed-line serpent markings, as we can

still just barely make out. In any case the circles of AP1, I

would argue, are the corresponding symbols for the feline. We

can leave the point as opinion, because I do not find it backed

up by other Pueblo Escultor stone-carvings. Nonetheless,

circles as markings on depictions of felines are well known in

America, and specifically the art of Chavín uses the convention

repeatedly. Chavín de Huántar is replete with this image,

beginning with the stones of the Sunken Plaza of the Early

Temple. And the slabs of tomb-constructions in the Mesitas

sites near San Agustín—the equivalent there, we might say, of

Chavín’s Sunken Plaza--were painted with both crossed-line and

circle designs.
 There is a variation to the circles found on Chavín felines

which consists of balanced crosses where the circles would

otherwise be, spotting the feline. For what it might be worth,

these balanced and other similar crosses are shown several times

in the Macizo etched stones; one of them, PMA(G)1, gives us the

symbol combined with an elongated crosshatched figure.

5. As a corollary to the preceding discussion, there is

yet another manner in which our two subject stones reveal to us

the duality of their nature. The symbols graven into the

Personage we are analyzing indicate also the gender of each half

of this dual being, and the Male/Female union that it must,

ultimately, be. Specifically, the ‘X’-shapes symbolize the

female as well as the serpent, while the circles, which refer to

the feline, also stand for the male.

The Serpent section of the following chapter illustrates

the method by which we come to understand that crosshatching,

for the Pueblo Escultor, symbolizes in the first place the

earth-dwelling serpent, and logically becomes the emblem of the

earth-mother, the divine female. A reading of that text will

introduce the reasoning.

The circles are male because the felines indicated by them

are indisputably male in this statuary. The ‘Feline Procreator’

group listed in the Feline section of chapter five would be the
clearest indication of this; in the case of U4 and PA6, we see a

great feline mounted on, and presumably copulating with, a human

woman. And a human-like figure draped with a feline or feline-

skin will be a male: see R3 (with male genitals) and PMB22

(wearing a loincloth) again, as well as the two statues that we

are taking as our focus.

6. There are at least two further ways in which the AP1

and PMAL2 stones reveal their Double nature. One of these ways

is again a corollary of the recognition that the parallel lines

and the circles etched on the flowing back of the Doble creature

are symbolic markings applied to convey specific, identificatory

information. We have already seen that this information

indicates the serpent-feline nature of the Doble, and also the

male-female union which this being embodies. But in these

etched decorations, I would argue, we are also given an insight

into the ultimate origins of these symbols.

Of course, in perhaps a deeper sense the symbols are simply

lifted from nature. It isn’t much of a stretch of the

imagination to see the scales and the patterns on a serpent as

crosshatching, or spots/circles as indicative of a feline. The

fact is that these animals are, not infrequently, naturally

patterned this way, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that

serpents and felines were decorated (and identified) in a

similar way in the art of people outside of America as well.

Certainly, though, these specific diagnostic markings have

been used to identify these animals in precolumbian art, and

specifically lithic art, from the time of the advent of high

culture in America. Where, then, did this usage come from, and

under whose influence did these symbols enter the image-language

of the Pueblo Escultor?

As for the crosshatch-pattern, there can be little doubt

that the genesis lies in Mesoamerica, to the north; the use of

the symbol is consistent in meaning in both spheres, where

serpents, serpent-energy, women and vital creation-energy are

immediately evoked. The serpent on Olmec Monument #19 comes

with crosshatching attached, and the underground serpentine

mosaic of La Venta has a fringe of diamonds that is extremely

reminiscent of the crosshatch-turbans of the Pueblo Escultor

female figures; and the eyes of a number of earth-monsters on

the altars and at Chalcatzingo are carved with ‘X’-shapes.

Crosshatching will thereafter not be absent in the art of

Mesoamerica, and in the final days of the precolumbian world the

Great Coatliocue of the Aztecs, whose head is a double-serpent,

will wear skirts whose crosshatching consists of live, writhing

serpents; and the serpents are as well etched deeply with

crosshatching.
 The serpents of Chavín, and of the andean tradition, are

quite different in style and in use. The complex of meanings we

have described above certainly came into the art of the Pueblo

Escultor from the mesoamerican world to the north.

The circles that we see on AP1, and the feline meaning they

encapsulate, are, I think, from the Andes, and from Chavín,

where, to all appearances, they originated. Above we have

considered the slabs of the Sunken Temple of Chavín de Huántar;

that is only the beginning, and the student who studies the

stone-carvings from this seminal culture will see the extensive

use which this symbol is given. The circles come from the world

of Tawantinsuyu to the south, then, while the crossed-lines are

from the Anahuac and the north: another measure of the duality

inherent in this Pueblo Escultor image, and one that the ancient

sculptors may or may not have themselves realized.

7. The final Doubling of the image we are studying is

this: in addition to pointing both north and south and

indicating a geographic double-origin, we will now see that

these statues pose for us a vision which directs our view both

backwards chronologically, to the origins of high culture (and

lithic sculpture) in America, as well as forwards, to the final

phase of precolumbian history. The links with the beginnings,

and specifically with the symbols and images—and no doubt the
mythology and spiritual beliefs—of the Olmec culture of

Mesoamerica and the Chavín people of Perú’s central Andes, have

already been suggested above; they are extensive and wide-

ranging, and elsewhere I have attempted to develop them at

length.

The task here, then, will be to illustrate the strict

relationship that the mute images left us by the people we call

the Pueblo Escultor hold with the evidence we have of the

cosmology of the conquest-era americans, which of course is

backed by a much greater breadth and volume of testimony. A

single instance, I think, will illuminate the point: that the

meaning within the confusing and complex images of the statues

of the Pueblo Escultor, and even the specific representations we

see in the statues, were not restricted merely to the time and

place of this culture of the Macizo Colombiano, but rather were

panamerican, were developed by the creators of the original,

seminal cultures, and were still valid and infused with life and

significance during the final days of the precolumbian cosmos.

The illustration is taken from the chronicle written by

Cristóbal de Molina, “el cuzqueño,” during the latter half of

the 16th century. De Molina was a spanish priest who came early

to America and spent three decades in charge of the parish of

Cuzco, Perú, which city had been the center, the ‘navel,’ of the
empire of the Inca. He was not only fluent in quechua, the
language of the Incas, but was a famous orator in that language;

his work is said by some specialists to be the best existing

synthesis of prehispanic andean religion.

De Molina relates how the Inca Pachacuti, the ‘Earthshaker’

or ‘Renovator,’ received the vision that proved to be germinal

in the establishment of the Inca empire; for Pachacuti, still

known at this time (during the reign of his father Viracocha

Inca) as Inca Yupanqui, was essentially the founder and the

driving force of the empire. His career of conquest came after

he had his famous vision, due to which he would thereafter

establish Temples of the Sun, along with Inca power, throughout

the breadth of his andean world. De Molina relates the story as

follows:

“It is said that before [Pachacuti] was the Lord Inca, and

when he was on his way to visit his father Viracocha Inca who

was at Sacsahuana, five leagues from Cuzco, he came to a spring

called Susurpuquio just at the moment that he saw a crystal

mirror fall into the spring, within which he could see the

figure of an Indian in the following form: From the top of the

back of his head, flashing upward, emanated three dazzling rays

of light, like rays of sunlight; and where his arms joined his

shoulders there were coiled serpents…He had the head of a lion

between his legs, and on his back was another lion, whose arms
seemed to embrace both his shoulders, and a type of serpent

which grasped him from the top of his shoulders all down the

back. And when he saw this figure, the Inca [Pachacuti] began

to flee, and the statue-shape called him by his name from within

the spring, saying to him: ‘Come here, my son, do not fear, I am

the Sun your father, and I know that you are destined to conquer

many nations; take great care to venerate and revere me, and

remember me in your sacrifices.’ And then the shape

disappeared, but the crystal mirror remained behind in the

spring, and the Inca took and kept it; and it is said that he

was afterward able to see within it everything that he desired.

And with respect to this—he being the Lord Inca, for whom

everything is possible—he ordered that a statue be made of the

figure of the Sun, which was neither more nor less than that

figure he had seen in the mirror…”

A look at the statues we are scrutinizing, PMAL2 and AP1

(and also PMA1 & PMA2 and the others previously mentioned), will

reveal that the vision of the Divine Presence which Pachacuti

Inca saw and later ordered immortalized as a statue—a human

figure with a great feline crouched on his back and embracing

his head and shoulders, and coiled serpents where his arms met

his body and a great serpent cascading down behind him from the
top of his back—already existed and had already been carved in
stone many centuries before, in the Macizo Colombiano, by the

sculptors of the Pueblo Escultor.

************************************************

With this preceding discussion in mind, the following

comments are meant to aid in furthering the investigation of the

statues of the Pueblo Escultor and the elements and symbols that

they display. Some of the following references are more

specifically considered elsewhere in this text. The

relationships to the sculptural traditions evident in Olmec and

Chavín stone-carving are important precisely because in these

seminal cultures the most essential and basic, original american

symbols and beliefs were worked out and displayed for the first

time. That the wide range of Pueblo Escultor iconography stems

so directly and faithfully from these original formulations is

eloquent testimony to the key position of the statuary of the

Macizo Colombiano in terms of the dissemination and revelation

of these powerful images.

*****************************************

To begin with Mesoamerica, there is a whole range of

meaning shared by the stone-carvings of the Pueblo Escultor and
those of the Olmecs, going well beyond essential pan-american

beliefs such as the use of stone as ‘primal material,’ the omni-

presence of serpent and feline energy, and the mythic

underground location that is constantly being illustrated. This

last trait, shown by the Olmecs in the form of the ‘altar-

niches’ that human figures lean out of, the ‘earth-monsters’

with human figures inside them (that surround the ‘niches’ and

appear in rock-carving and in cave-painting), the extensive

underground galleries and painted caves, and so on, is portrayed

in the Pueblo Escultor art by the subterranean tomb-

constructions which are, as well, the theater of the statue-

personages.

The goddess-figure of La Venta is the beginning stage of

the exalted representation of Woman in the art of Mesoamerica,

and the image will never be absent thereafter in America’s

northern sector. At around the same time, in central México,

Tlatilco’s artists are creating in ceramic a whole set of

feminine figurines. The Pueblo Escultor statues include an

extensive series of female figures, most certainly linked to

this northern current of beliefs—see the Woman Signs section.

The ‘X’-pattern as a symbol and adornment for the serpent,

linked in turn to the earth and mankind’s genesis, is a

recurring theme of Olmec iconography, and as we have seen it is

equally central to the symbolism of the Pueblo Escultor stones—

see the Serpent and Woman Signs sections.

The image of a supernatural being hovering up above a human

figure, in some sort of guiding or controlling role, is given

its first formulation in Olmec art. Olmec statues—the figure

from San Martín Pajapán would be an example—often convey this

meaning by showing, up above the human being’s head, a looming

supernatural mask. In Pueblo Escltor terms, this becomes the

root of the Doble Yo complex and the Doble figure—see Doble Yo

section—in which a great feline-serpent being hunches on the

shoulders and back of the human figure. That type of

formulation is also present in, for instance, a relief-carving

at the Chalcatzingo Olmec site.

Related to the previous group are the Olmec ‘were-babies’

or ‘were-jaguars,’ which are childlike, puffy-faced creatures.

They are clearly very important in the Olmec mythos, and are no

less so for the Pueblo Escultor, where they appear as the

‘doble-spirits’ hovering up above human beings, essentially

replacing the Doble Yo creature just mentioned—see PMA1 & PMA2,

PMB9 & PMB10, PMB14 & PMB20, and so on. In both cases, Olmec

and Pueblo Escultor, there is a curious element which is

involved here somehow: a notch in the head. All the just-

mentioned Pueblo Escultor stones, as well as others, have

notched heads, and the trait has often been mentioned in the

literature on a range of Olmec monuments.

Childlike figures—whether related or not to the beings just

considered—appear in still another way in both Olmec and Pueblo

Escultor. The human beings leaning out of niches in the Olmec

‘altars’ (or ‘thrones’) sometimes hold these ‘children’

horizontally in their arms, as if in offering. In the Pueblo

Escultor case, we have a series of images (see Sacrifice

Figures-A & -B) in which a human figure holds a small human-like

being upright in his/her arms; the small person is always marked

with distinctive head appendages called ‘cuernos.’ It may be

germane to note the evidence for child-burial and possible

child-sacrifice in both cultures; in the case of the Pueblo

Escultor these suggestions have been made with regard to the

tiny graves in the Quinchana site.

The ‘feline procreator’ figure seen numerous times in the

Pueblo Escultor statuary (see Feline Figures-A group) is

supposed by many to be related to the much-discussed Olmec

stones from Río Chiquito first reported by Stirling; in both

cases a supernatural feline looms over a human (and seemingly

female) being, and from what we can see, copulates with her.

The mythic moment revealed by these statues may be a matter of

the utmost importance; conceivably, the genesis of the Pueblo

Escultor race is being reenacted here, in the coupling of the
otherworldly feline male with the super-earthly (and thus

serpentine) female being, which leads to the fangs and the

‘supernaturalization’ of many of the statues.

The horizontal-axis creatures resembling caimans from such

sites as La Venta and Tres Zapotes have their counterparts in

Pueblo Escultor—see AI8, AI21, (1)HM8, (1)HM9, (5)M2 and etc.

There are numerous other traits shared by these two

peoples. In Olmec (and mirrored in Pueblo Escultor) we observe

figures with one hand down and the other upraised; figures with

staffs held diagonally across the body; figures holding a

serpent or serpents, or a double serpent; and figures with the

arms across the torso one above the other and wearing a rounded

hat. These may seem like small details, but in fact the

confluence of elements across space and time suggests that the

relationship may in each case be a strict and meaningful one.

We will revisit all of these images in the course of these

comments. The figure holding one hand upraised, for instance,

appears exceptionally in the Olmec work, but as we shall see,

this is an essential image from the andean tradition, momentous

in that world. What, then, is the meaning of its appearance at

such an early date in Mesoamerica? The Pueblo Escultor analog,

PMC1, is from the epicenter of San Agustín’s archaeological

vestiges.
 The staff-across-torso figure too seems to be principally

important in zones of south-american influence, so once again,

what do we say of its appearance in an Olmec site? There are a

number of Macizo examples: AP5, (4)A2, (3)Y1, (3)SJ3, (3)SJ7,

and (2)LG1. And the personage with arms arranged asymmetrically

across the body, too, eventually takes on great importance far

to the south in the Titicaca Basin, but we see it in sites both

of the Olmec and of the Pueblo Escultor (PMA4).

The figure holding a writhing serpent occurs twice in the

Pueblo Escultor statuary (CA2 and PMB2), and in doing so seems

to show roots come from Mesoamerica, and from the first Olmec

examples. The image will still live, will still be created from

stone, during Aztec times on the eve of the european invasion.

******************************************

Elsewhere in Mesoamerica, during later periods of

stonework, appear many more elements shared with the sculptors

of the Macizo Colombiano.

Certain post-Olmec sites on the Pacific slope and highlands

of southern México and Guatemala, such as Izapa, Kaminaljuyú and

Cerro de las Mesas, are well-known for stone sculptures, among

which the echoes of the Pueblo Escultor are clear. The dates of
the development of this mesoamerican complex may coincide with
the dates of the early monuments in the Macizo Colombiano. The

‘toads’ that we see in several of the Pacific-slope sites, for

instance, bear comparison with such Macizo ‘ranas’ or ‘caymanes’

as M1, (1)HM4, (1)HM5 and others of the Cayman/Rana/Lagarto

group.

At Izapa we note such elements as beheading; figures

holding serpents; figures bearing small figures on the back; and

something appearing on an extended mouth or tongue. For the

first, Pueblo Escultor offers for comparison PMB11, QC4 and the

Sacrifice Figure-E and –G groupings; for the second, CA2 and

PMB2. As for small figures borne on the backs of others, Pueblo

Escultor has as extensive series (see Sacrifice Figure-J

section). The something-on-the-tongue category enters a

labyrinth of groupings, not at all transparent, which appears to

have come from, or to have originally been important in, South

America; Pueblo Escultor group Lengua/Cinta/Cabeza is a listing

of such figures.

The classic-age city of Teotihuacán, the center of the

mesoamerican world, must be contemporary with an era of

sculptural greatness in the lands of the Pueblo Escultor. It is

no coincidence that the conception of carving rounded

anthropomorphic figures in stone comes to fruition in both

places at once, at the same time, basically, in which this form

of stone-sculpture also is mastered in the Andes. The stone-
carving art of the Olmec, like that of formative Chavín in South

America, is mostly an art of relief-carving, or figures only

partially freeing themselves from the background slab. The

first steps toward this new method are taken at the Pacific

Coast post-Olmec sites and at the contemporary Titicaca Basin

sites in Bolivia and Perú. At Teotihuacán, and in the Macizo

Colombiano, bulky, blocky upright anthropomorphs achieve a new

independence in stone.

The massive figure of Chalchiuhtlicue is an example of this

new presence, all the more interesting because here again we see

the figure of the goddess, complete with a skirt of ‘X’-

markings, just as we do in the Pueblo Escultor series of female

statues (see Woman Signs section). Also at Teotihuacán, the

image of the feathered serpent takes memorable shape, prefigured

already by Olmec examples, and paralleled too by such Pueblo

Escultor bird-and-serpent stones as PMB6 and PE1. Double-

serpents are present in both cultures, as will be common

henceforth in Mesoamerica: in Pueblo Escultor we have PMB27 and

LT4 and Doble stones such as PMA1 and the back side of AP5.

Skulls, another Teotihuacán element, are listed for Pueblo

Escultor in the Sacrifice Figures-E, -F and –G groups.

The art of the Maya seems at the far end of the spectrum

stylistically from the work of the Pueblo Escultor, engaged in a

very different direction. Nonetheless, themes that fascinated
many cultures in the northern world, and figure in that of the

Maya, resonate in the statues of the Macizo: we see in both

cases the skirts of females marked with patterns of ‘X’-shapes

and diamonds, and Doble-masks above principal figures. Double-

headed serpents are notably present. Another mayan symbol, a

‘T’-shape known from a number of sites (see ‘T-Shaped Pectoral’

text of following chapter), occurs in the iconography of both

cultures; among the stones of the Pueblo Escultor it appears as

a pectoral, and that same usage is known in mayan pieces as

well.

The mounds of skulls at sites in northern Toltec-influenced

Yucatán recall (1)HM1 and so on. The ‘telemones’ of Tula

represent a step along the line of development of the

freestanding statue; they hold unusual shield-shaped objects

that may be worth comparing to PMA7 & PMA8, and OU2.

On México’s Gulf Coast, even hatchet-shaped ball-game

hachas sometimes have Doble-masks above the faces, and there is

a stelae on which the female figure’s skirt is crosshatched with

‘X’s, and from the decapitated head gush serpents (as blood)

plaiting themselves into a pattern of ‘X’-shapes.

Turning our attention now to the stone sculptures of the

Huastec, we will see that although stylistically speaking there

is a relatively narrow range of form, in terms of the elements

involved there are numerous parallels to the statuary of the
Pueblo Escultor. There are an overwhelming percentage of female

statues—not a surprise, perhaps, due to the mesoamerican

orientation—and they dress in skirts and at times turbans, as do

the Macizo female figures. And we will find masks above the

faces of principal figures, indicating some type of Doble

creature, and even cases of Doble-animals on the backs of the

statues. Related here are small figures carried on the backs of

the principal statue personages, found both in Huastec sculpture

and among the Pueblo Escultor (see Sacrifice Figures-J group).

Certain Huastec characters hold with both hands a staff

that seems like a walking-stick under (but not quite touching)

the chin; the shape thus closely approximates an element titled

‘Staff-&-Mask’ in the present study, in which the staff, grasped

before the body by both hands, touches the chin of, or more

precisely, touches (and sustains) the bottom of the mask that in

reality covers the face of the main figure. It is an element of

stone sculpture that seems to originate in post-Chavín times in

South America, occurs repeatedly (as we will see) in Central

America, and is recognizable here in these Huastec stones.

There is an important series of these images among the sculpture

of the Pueblo Escultor—see the Masked Figures grouping.

The flat, rounded-top background typical of the Huastec

statuary is uncommon trait which finds its echo among the Macizo
statues; PMC3 (and its neighboring stones on Mesita C in the
Parque Arqueológico), perhaps (1)TI4, and especially C1 are

worth comparing. And the conical hats, so typical of the

Huastec statues, deserve a mention: such Pueblo Escultor figures

as PMA4, (1)TI26, PMAL9 and even PMB8 carry a hint of this

distinctive form.

******************************************

While by far most of the stone sculpture of ancient America

was created before 1000 A.D., this venerable art, with the

Aztecs and on the eve of the european conquest, would live one

final glorious era. Many centuries had passed since the

creation of the monuments of the Pueblo Escultor, and many more

since the beginnings of the stone-carving tradition; the Aztec

sculpture features numerous images which had long been known and

recreated. Skulls, for instance, are now a prominent element,

and we have seen that some of the Macizo stones carry this

image. And serpents are, as always, abundant: some are double

(as is Pueblo Escultor PMB27), some are held in the hands of

humans (see, for Pueblo Escultor, CA2 and PMB2), and a stone in

México’s Museo de Antropología shows a person holding two

serpents in his hands.

The ‘Plumed Serpent’ is one of the most recognizable Aztec

images (surviving today as the emblem of México), and the
examples in this statuary are many, and of greatly varying

styles; we have seen that the roots lie in earlier mesoamerican

cultures. The examples from the Pueblo Escultor (PMB6 and PE1),

though much older, are perhaps truer to the image on Mexico’s

flag and coins than anything still existing that was carved in

stone by the Aztecs themselves. And when we look at the Aztec

temple of Malinalco, with serpent entrance and feline and bird

figures carved in the cave-like interior, we remember that all

three of these animals are also repeatedly evoked by the

sculptors of the Pueblo Escultor (see the respective sections on

all three).

The serpent skirts with ‘X’-patterns and their relationship

with female figures have been touched on a number of times, but

the great Aztec figure of Coatlicue may be the greatest

apotheosis of this idea: her head replaced by a tremendous

double-serpent and her skirts plaited in writhing serpents,

wearing a necklace of human hearts and hands. Principal

examples of the Pueblo Escultor ‘serpent-skirt-lady’ include T5,

T1, AP7 and AI1—see Woman Signs category.

We have also already considered the fact that the Doble,

which begins with Olmec mask-above-face figures and in Pueblo

Escultor takes the form of supernatural animals perched on the

shoulders of human beings (see Doble Yo groups), is represented

in Aztec sculpture by masks that envelope the face of the
principal figure: the human being emerges from the mask, in

effect, and at the extreme edge of this idea the ‘mask’ is the

flayed skin which is sewed on to the entire body of a now-

invisible person.

There is one more entry in the list of relevant stone-

carvings which should be mentioned here: these statues are found

in Manabí on the Pacific coast of Ecuador in South America, and

while their makers may have been inhabitants of the southern

continent, their culture, and their symbols and artistic

expressions, are clearly in the tradition of Mesoamerica to the

north. It may well be that an analysis of the ceramics would

illustrate this more fully, but a series of flat stone slabs are

illustrative in just the same way. Certain of these slabs show

females, and as we have seen, the lithic complex of female

images comes from México and the north: in fact, these Manabí

examples seem to be virtually the only south-american stone-

carvings of women, apart from those of the Pueblo Escultor

(listed in the Woman Signs section). Yet more unusual is the

fact that the Manabí sculptures show the women opening their

legs to expose their genitals; the Pueblo Escultor stone OB4—

unique in the Macizo area—is an analog of these mesoamerican

stone-carvings from Ecuador.

There is another series of stone sculptures from the Manabí

sites which merit attention. They are called sillas or ‘seats’
and are in fact strange ‘U’-shaped carvings often supported on

anthropomorphic or zoomorphic bases which may or may not have

ever actually been seats. But the idea is not at all out of

context: certain other american stone-carvings have also been

called seats, such as the ‘thrones’ (if not ‘altars’) of the

Olmec, and the ‘tables’ (if not ‘seats’) of the central-american

sculptors. The relevant Pueblo Escultor piece is completely

unique among the Macizo ruins; neighbors of the distant isolated

hillside in the Moscopán statue-area where it stands have long

called (3)LC9 ‘la silla.’

****************************************

When we shift our gaze further to the south, beyond

Mesoamerica and deeper into Central America, we come to an area

in which the genesis of the symbols of iconography is a complex

question, in which both andean as well as northern (and perhaps

other) languages of symbol leave their marks on the stone

sculptures. This Intermediate Zone covers lower Central America

as well as Venezuela and Colombia in the southern continent: the

Pueblo Escultor pertain to this same bridge of culture, and

share and exhibit the cross-currents that leave their traces

throughout the isthmus to the north.

 Much of the stonework from Nicaragua and Costa Rica

apparently dates to periods of time which come after the great

ages of sculpture in the Macizo Colombiano. The relationships

that are revealed by our survey, then, would indicate influences

moving through Pueblo Escultor toward the central-american

traditions in this art.

The group of statues known as Chontales, from the

Cordillera Amerrisque to the east of the lakes in Nicaragua,

display a whole range of elements shared with the stone-carvings

we are studying here; we begin to feel something of the presence

inherent in the Pueblo Escultor world. There are many females

in the Chontales art, and they wear crosshatched skirts and

turbans, and numerous figures carry miniature animals (which we

recognize as Dobles) above their heads; both of these ideas

come, as we have seen, from Mesoamerica.

One figure we see repeatedly is a female personage with

arms non-symmetrically arranged, one above the other, across the

torso. The Pueblo Escultor PMA4 is female (wears a skirt),

lacks fangs as is the case with many figures of women, and has

her arms folded in like manner across her body. While there is

an Olmec version of this figure who wears a rounded hat just

like that of PMA4, it is very possible that this figure has come

to Central America (and to the Pueblo Escultor) not from the

north but from South America, where, in the Titicaca Basin,
there are a good numbers of statues with just this image which

considerably predate these central-american stones, and perhaps

the Pueblo Escultor example as well.

There are a series of Chontales figures who hold a spear

or scepter diagonally across the body, with the tip across one

shoulder. This is a familiar figure to the student of the

Pueblo Escultor, in statues such as AP5, (2)LG1, (3)Y1, (3)SJ3,

(3)SJ7, and (4)A2. Although there is an analogous Olmec

monument, and perhaps other examples elsewhere, it would seem

that the two most important series displaying this particular

image are those of Chontales and of the Pueblo Escultor.

Other symbols relate the two cultures: one figure seen in

Chontales holds, on a necklace or held in hands or with mouth, a

vertical device that looks something like a musical instrument.

Pueblo Escultor statues like C1, OB3 and J4 are worth comparing.

These figures can also look much like the Huastec statue

previously discussed which holds a long vertical staff

sustaining a face-covering mask. The Masked Figures category

groups a number of statues from the Macizo showing this symbol,

which is probably of south-american derivation.

Ultimately, the personage with something in his mouth or on

his tongue becomes a figure whose tongue extends downward and

then transforms into some other thing; often that new thing is a
face or head, and the hands of the main figure may grasp the
vertical tongue. The image is difficult to understand; it

borders on those just mentioned who hold staffs or ‘musical

instruments.’ But this important personage occurs repeatedly in

the Chontales statues and in those of the Pueblo Escultor: see

the Lengua/Cinta/Cabeza group. This image too has come north

from the Andes, where we observe it among the Titicaca Basin

statues of pre-Tiwanaku times.

The Chorotega statues from Nicaragua are probabaly, as is

the case with Chontales, post-Pueblo Escultor, but they differ

in that they predominantly show mesoamerican-derived imagery.

These monumental statues were found principally on Zapatera and

Omotepe Islands in Lake Nicaragua and in the Nicoya region of

neighboring Costa Rica; they are among the statues most closely

related to the sculptures of the Pueblo Escultor, as has been

suggested in the literature for many years. All three principal

forms of the Doble Yo are to be seen in Chorotega: the huge

creature perched on the shoulders and back, the smaller animal

or mask up above the head, and the enveloping mask from which

the head and face emerge. The first of these three, the huge

supernatural being, is the style that we see in the statuary of

the Pueblo Escultor, and a study of the related statues—see the

Doble Yo groupings—will illustrate the extensive connections.

The relationships with the many stone figures from Costa

Rica are difficult to group because peoples in so many parts of
the country left statues and other sculptures in stone, and

because much of these antiquities were collected carelessly with

no thought to preservation of the data related to the finds; and

perhaps most of all because so many different cultural currents

at different times crossed and re-crossed the isthmus. But

there can be no doubt as to the extensive range of elements

shared between the different stone-carving peoples of Costa Rica

and the sculptors of the Pueblo Escultor. Many of these

elements have already been discussed. The majority of the

costa-rican lithic sculpture probably dates to the end of, and

posterior to, the Pueblo Escultor sequence; once again the

shared iconography, whatever its ultimate origin, was passing

from south to north.

Many personages in the stones from Costa Rica bear

tremendous fangs, as do those of San Agustín. There are large

numbers of females in the statuary, many showing their breasts

(see Woman Signs-B), and there are serpents with crosshatching

and diamond patterns: symbols whose origin lies in Mesoamerica.

The same may be true of statues in which the principal personage

carries a smaller person, or a trophy head, on his back

(Sacrifice Figures-J group).

There are other motifs common in Costa Rica which we have

already observed in other areas, and which are known in the

Pueblo Escultor work: figures holding trophy heads or skulls, or
carrying them as a pendant (see Sacrifice Figures-E) for

instance, or figures holding the staff-and-mask device (see

Masked Figures). Another image seen in both culture areas that

has appeared centuries earlier in South America is the Lengua/

Cinta/Cabeza figure whose tongue descends and turns into

something else or bifurcates. And we may see, in both our

subject areas, statues with not two but three superimposed

figures (see (1)HM2, (1)HM10 and Doble-Yo-C group).

There are also versions in Costa Rica of images derived

from Chavín by way of cultures such as Pueblo Escultor. One

such would be the Staff-God of Chavín, which image appears in

Costa Rica and in Pueblo Escultor is represented by PMC2. And a

costa-rican figure of a person who holds two objects, one in

each hand, recalls the ‘Personage Holding Two Objects,’ the

descendant of the Staff-God, frequent in numerous versions in

later Chavín art and present in the Pueblo Escultor sculpture

(there are many examples, starting with PMA3 and (3)LC2 and so

on, and the Coqueros such as PMA9, QC5, (1)VP1, etc.).

Several more devices common to Central America and the

Macizo Colombiano are best known from the eastern or Atlantic

watershed. One would be the round altar or table with a ring of

faces around the rim or outer side; in the Pueblo Escultor area

we would look at AI9 and (1)SA2. There is an analogous Olmec

stone from Chalcatzingo; on the eastern watershed of Costa Rica
and Nicaragua, the image usually takes the form of a flattened

table-like grinding stone with faces hanging from the rim.

Another eastern-side image is one in which a woman holds or

strokes her own breasts. The related Pueblo Escultor statue,

AI16, is a striking piece of sculpture. In México’s

Anthropological Museum may be seen an Aztec version of this

figure, which was thus still alive in the american mythos up to

the time of the euoropean invasion.

Yet one step closer to South America, on the panamanian

side of the border with Costa Rica, there is a final site which

deserves consideration in any discussion of the stone statues of

the Pueblo Escultor. The site is Barriles, and the stone tables

with rings of faces that we have just considered appear there,

as do figures with trophy-heads, and we have seen that there are

echoes of both these complexes in the Pueblo Escultor canons.

But the Barriles site is best known for a set of statues which

have been called ‘Man-on-Slave,’ and the apparent relationship

of this group to the Doble Yo figures from the San Agustín area

(see the Doble Yo grouping) has been mentioned and commented

upon a number of times.

In the ‘Man-on-Slave’ image, a standing human being

carries, sitting on his shoulders, another, similarly-shaped and

–sized, human being. Neither is overtly supernaturalized, they

are not fanged, and both seem very human, although the upper
figure is distinguished by wearing a certain type of conical

hat; it is somewhat similar to the Huastec conical hats, and

PMB8 and PMB13 are worth comparing. But the implication which

follows identifying these Barriles statues with the Pueblo

Escultor Doble Yo stones is that the upper Barriles figure is

not just another human being, but a version of the Doble

creature. I too suspect that this is the case, and it is

important to remember that the dates of Barriles are not, like

much of the central-american statuary that we have been

studying, late in the pre-Columbian sequence, but rather are

said to fall in the early centuries of our present era, which is

to say, relatively early in the Pueblo Escultor sequence.

***********************************************

The ancient south-american culture of Chavín, centered on

the site of Chavín de Huántar in the northern sierra of Perú, is

to the Andes what Olmec is to Mesoamerica: not necessarily the

beginning, but rather the first full florescence, the first

grand statement of the tradition; the place where for the first

time all the formative strands are woven together, and the

weaving begins to reveal itself. Like those come southward from

Mesoamerica, many of the key threads from the Andean tapestry

will run to the north and clothe the statues of the Pueblo
Escultor, and among them we may identify a good number which

originated in Chavín during this first horizon.

Briefly, we must take a look at the pre-Chavín site of

Sechín on the north peruvian coast, where carved relief-slabs

adorn the walls of a small temple which is clearly a precursor

to Chavín, though the relationship continues to be very

difficult to address with any precision. Among the dismembered

bodies shown at Sechín, we see decapitated heads, which recall

the Sacrifice Figures groups showing skulls from the Macizo, and

the trapezoidal or truncated hats of the ‘victors’ who parade

among the holocaust are slightly reminiscent of those worn by

PMB8 and PMB13. But the most striking connection between Pueblo

Escultor and these stone slabs lies in the essential position of

the ‘Double Sense’ which is exhibited so strongly in both cases.

The Double Sense, unlike the Doble image in which a supernatural

figure hovers up above a human-like being, is a mirroring, a

true doubling, of an essential image. It is fundamental to the

stone imagery of America, and may have its most important roots

in Chavín and Sechín. In the latter case, the parade we see is

actually a double parade, echoing itself around both sides of

the temple, winding from both directions toward the entrance.

This type of Double Sense is overwhelmingly present at the

Chavín site and elsewhere in the related artwork, which is

animated, in fact, by this essential mirrored duality. At the
beginning of this chapter there is an illustration of the

extension of these double-elements, and we need not go into them

here. But the importance of this doubling never flags during

the centuries of precolumbian history, is amply presented in

mesoamerican art as well in later phases, and is a vital

principle in Pueblo Escultor creation: see such stones as (4)A4,

(2)PV1, (1)P1, PMC9, AP5, PMA1 & PMA2, PMB14 & PMB20, and many

more.

There is a central fact enclosed within the sharing of

beliefs between Chavín and Pueblo Escultor, and that fact is

revealed by two statues from the Parque Arqueológico near San

Agustín, and a pair of related Chavín images. But these are not

just any images, they are considered to be the Principal Images

of this andean ‘mother-culture,’ of inestimable importance to

the people of Chavín and of many other places and cultures after

that, to judge by the geographical propagation of these two

motifs. The two stones are the Lanzón, Chavín’s first Principal

Personage, still embedded today in its tiny underground chamber

in the Chavín temple, and its successor as the Principal Image,

the Staff-God, now in the National Archaeological Museum in

Lima. Their importance for the Chavín culture is not in

question, and so it is of great significance that we find

cognates of the two, buried next to each other, in a highly

exalted and very unique site named Mesita C in San Agustín’s

Parque Arqueológico.

The Lanzón is a ‘Lance,’ a knife-blade, and it is shaped as

such, with the blade thrust down into the ground. The Pueblo

Escultor analog in question, PMC1, has a strange shape in that

the statue has a rounded top, and the same is true of the Staff-

God analog (PMC2) and two other statues which form a line on

Mesita C; they are the only Pueblo Escultor stones known which

have this shape. By a glance at the shape of both these stones

we can see that they are formed like tumis, which are ceremonial

blades; by their very shape the statues themselves, like the

Lanzón, represent knife-blades. Tumis appear repeatedly in the

iconography of the Macizo—see PMA3, OU53, Q2, and (3)LC2.

The Chavín Lanzón is a fanged creature with right hand

upraised and left hand down at the side. PMC1 is similarly

fanged, and the most outstanding feature of the figure is that

the right hand was upraised, with the left folded across the

torso: it is the only statue of the entire survey with one arm

upraised outside the body, in a Lanzón-like posture. The right

arm of PMC1 was long ago broken off, but a close inspection of

the statue will confirm that this arm was originally raised up

toward the shoulder. Lanzón-like figures may be seen as a

relief-carving in Olmec Chalcaztzingo, as an earth-glyph on the

Pampa of Nazca (under the name of ‘the Astronaut’), among the
petroglyphs of Toro Muerto near Arequipa in southern Perú, and

carved on rocks as far south as Santa Rosa de Tastíl near Salta

in the northwest of Argentina.

The Staff-God was, if anything, yet more important, was

carried farther afield: most famously, the central figure in the

‘Door of the Sun’ at Tiwanaku is an analog of the Chavín figure,

and is reproduced endlessly in the art of the era. All examples

carry two large staffs, one in each hand, as is the case with

the Pueblo Escultor PMC2; the measurements of the Chavín piece

and the Macizo slab are very similar. The Staff-God, though,

has an elaborate tower of images up above the head, almost

reminiscent of (1)HM2 and (1)HM10 from the Tierradentro area.

A third important Chavín figure, derived perhaps in some

way from the Lanzón and the Staff-God, and also to be widely

disseminated in the art of successor cultures, is known as the

‘Smiling God,’ and might also be considered the ‘Personage

Holding Two Objects,’ because this aspect of the figure is

probably more important than the ‘smile.’ This Personage will

appear in a supremely important position in the statuary of

Tiwanaku, and we see repeated versions in the art of the Pueblo

Escultor—see PMA3, LM4, and (3)LC2, as well as PMA9, AI4, etc.

Several other motifs which appear in the Macizo statues are

given beginning forms by the sculptors of Chavín. The carrying

of trophy-heads, which appears in the Macizo (see PMB11, PMB8,
(2)L2 and QC4), first shows up in Chavín relief-carving; there

may be a hint of this complex in the stones of Sechín. And the

Chavín Tello Obelisk and Yauya Stela are both said to represent

caymanes, which animal (see Cayman/Rana/Lagarto-A listing) is

certainly present in Pueblo Escultor stonework, though the

similarity in form might seem closer to somewhat later

mesoamerican sculptures.

Two other important images first surface on Chavín

monoliths at sites far from Chavín de Huántar. One is from

Pacopampa, far to the north: the Lengua/Cinta/Cabeza figure,

whose tongue extends downward and then is transformed into

something else, often a face, would seem to begin here in the

Chavín horizon in South America, appear among the Pueblo

Escultor in the series just named, and only later penetrate into

Central America and the northern continent.

And at Kuntur Wasi appears what may be the earliest

representation of the ‘Staff-and-Mask’ personage, which is

illustrated in the Pueblo Escultor work by such stones as Q4,

Q1, U1, PMC4, (4)A1 and other Masked Figures. Unlike the

‘Lengua’ figure, this ‘Staff-and-Mask’ image does not become a

widespread one in precolumbian America, only appearing a limited

number of times, and so the Pueblo Escultor series is perhaps

the most extensive known.

 The Kuntur Wasi stones are also notable in that they have

departed from the Chavín norm (also coincidentally the Olmec

norm) and taken a step toward becoming freestanding rounded

statues. It is a new development in technique, and in the phase

that comes next—represented by the post-Olmec Gulf Coast sites

in Mesoamerica, the Pueblo Escultor sites, and the post-Chavín

sites in the Titicaca Basin—it will step to the forefront and be

extensively explored and utilized. Sites such as Kuntur Wasi

represent the awakening of this new concept.

****************************************

As Chavín fades, and disseminates its seeds into the many

cultures which have come under its influence during the years of

this horizon, the impetus for sculpture in stone moves to the

Titicaca Basin. During the Basin’s pre-Tiwanaku phase, stone

sculpture is produced in many sites around the lake, of which

Pukara, to the north, is perhaps the best known, along with

Taraco, on the northern side, and Pokotía and Chiripa on the

south. The Tiwanaku site itself, to the south of the lake, also

has its roots in this period, but in the succeeding Tiwanaku era

takes on a predominant position. The Pueblo Escultor were

probably contemporary with both of these phases, although the

precise periods in which the different Macizo statues were
created is not known with any certainty. During both phases

there are evidences of relationship in the stone-sculptures of

these distant cousins.

One set of relief-stones, notable at Pukara and Taraco,

carry complexes of images which include frogs, lizards and

serpents, including double-headed serpents. The lizards have a

certain resemblance to such stones as PML2, PMB18, PMB19 and

(3)LC5, and while both frog-like animals (PML1, M1, (3)LC7 and

J8) and fish (AI19 and PMB3) are present in the Pueblo Escultor

stones, in the Titicaca statues they have taken on great

importance. There is a double-serpent stone from the Parque

Arqueológico (PMB27), but more striking is the ‘banding’ or

‘striping’ we see on Titicaca serpents—we recall the ‘half-

crosshatching’ on PMAL2, AP1 and T5.

Found close to the lake on the southern side are a group of

statues which have been named ‘Yaya-Mama’ stones, and they

convey a compelling link to the Pueblo Escultor imagery. The

classic Yaya-Mama statue is carved on multiple faces of the

stone and shows matched pairs of standing human beings balanced

off against pairs of undulating (and sometimes double-headed)

serpents. The Double-Sense is patent, and reminds us again of

the many Double-Images of the Pueblo Escultor.

Beyond this, though, the Yaya-Mama figures have their hands

asymmetrically placed across the torso, which recalls PMA4 from
near San Agustín. We recall that this latter figure wears a

skirt and a rounded hat, has no fangs, and is almost certainly

female. The Yaya-Mama stones, with their accompanying serpents,

hint at being females as well: at least according to the meaning

that this symbol had for the Pueblo Escultor and certain other

American peoples. One Yaya-Mama figure in the Pukara Museum has

a skirt and a rounded hat (like PMA4) marked with something like

crosshatching. The ‘Bearded Personage’ of the Tiwanaku plaza,

who is accompanied by serpent and feline imagery, represents an

early Yaya-Mama figure.

Rounded, freestanding figures, we have seen, are being

explored by the time of the creation of these Titicaca Basin

statues, and several of them offer clues to the origin of motifs

seen in the Pueblo Escultor stone-work. One such example is an

image of the ‘Lengua’ class of statuary we have looked at, in

which the tongue descends and then is transformed: there is such

a figure in the Pukara museum, and another associated image in a

statue from Pokotía. The former figure’s tongue-object is an

upside-down humanoid, and while the latter has been called a

‘flute player,’ the ‘flute’ is in reality something similar to

the small humanoid. Among the Pueblo Escultor work, we would

first reference PMB13, who holds just such an upside-down human

creature, and also the Lengua/Cinta/Cabeza group including PMC7,

U2, and PMB1. Associated are such stones as LM3, OB3, J4, OU48
and C1, the latter being the San Agustín-area stone known for

many years as the ‘Flute Player.’

There is another Titicaca Basin freestanding figure named

the ‘Degollador’ or ‘Decapitator,’ also known as the

‘Sacrificer’; a well-known example is from Pukara. The

‘Sacrificer’ is a supernaturalized anthropomorph with tremendous

fangs who holds a decapitated head in one hand and a sacrificial

knife in the other. The fangs would fit well in the San Agustín

area, of course, and there are decapitated heads held in hands

(PA2, PMB8 and (1)ED1) and strung on necklaces (PMB11, QC4 and

U2), as well as sacrificial tumi-knives (PMA3, Q2, OU53, and

PMB(G)15). Statues like the ‘Degollador’ and the ‘Flute Player’

are, we should remember, very close in form to the freestanding

anthropomorphs of the Pueblo Escultor.

A final note brings us forward in time to the Tiwanaco

epoch, for statues like the ‘Bearded Personage’ of the plaza or

the two kneeling ‘bulky’ figures in front of the church in the

pueblo of Tiwanaku probably date from pre-Tiwanaku times and yet

may still have been standing during the classic era as well.

Two statues from Taraco are very similar to these ‘bulky’

church-door statues, and one from each site holds up in one hand

a stone or round object as if in aggression or defense. Figures

with similar appurtenances from the Pueblo Escultor are PMA7,

PMA8 and PMB10.
 Before taking a look at Tiwanaku, however, we should

briefly consider a set of small, rough stones from the

Cochabamba area of Bolivia, which may be from this Titicaca

Basin time-period. There is a human figure with a second human

face on the chest, similar to PMB8, PMB11 and (1)HM2, and to the

‘Degollador’ of Pukara. Another stone has a twin-figure of

side-by-side humans sharing a single pair of arms, reminiscent

of (4)A4, and yet another is similar except that in this case we

are presented with a trio of horizontally-arranged persons

sharing but one pair of arms; not only (4)A4, but the ‘triple-

figures’ (1)HM2 and (1)HM10 come to mind. The statuary of the

Pueblo Escultor has been specifically referenced by students

seeking to analyze these Cochabamba sculptures.

***************************************

Tiwanaku, close to the southern shore of Lake Titicaca and

near the present-day border between Perú and Bolivia, was the

greatest and most influential city ever built on the southern

continent. This powerful center radiated its culture throughout

the known world, and most closely approximated the american

archetype of being the ‘navel,’ the genesis and summation. It

was also a great center of stone-work and sculpture, and given

these facts it is to be expected that the relationship and
elements shared with its contemporary culture, the Pueblo

Escultor, would be evident.

As mentioned, there are pieces of the Tiwanaku stone

display which represent an earlier (Titicaca Basin) era: the

‘bulky’ statues from Taraco and from the church in Tiwanaku

pueblo, for instance (see above), and the ‘Bearded’ statue from

the sunken Tiwanaku plaza who pertains to the ‘Yaya-Mama’ class

of statues and is analogous to Pueblo Escultor PMA4.

But the analysis of the shared heritage of Tiwanaku and

Pueblo Escultor must begin with a searching look at the central

figure of the ‘Puerta del Sol’ or ‘Sun-Door,’ which still stands

at its original location on the bolivian altiplano. We read

that at the time of the conquest this figure was referred to as

Viracocha, which is to say, the Creating and Sustaining Divinity

of andean belief. There can be no doubt that the Tiwanaku Sun-

Door entity, which was reproduced far and wide during the

centuries of Tiwanaku’s power, is a reincarnation, 1000 years

later, of the Staff-God of Chavín, the divinity that we know to

have been the Principal Personage during his era for the people

of that ‘First Horizon.’ And I think that that certainty

extends to the Pueblo Escultor statue PMC2, which was buried in

the most exalted burial area next to the day’s analog (PMC1) of

the original Chavín Personage, the Lanzón. This should

definitely inform our search for the meaning of the sculptures

of the Pueblo Escultor.

The suggestion has been made that after the Lanzón and the

Staff-God, a new divinity appeared in the Chavín iconography as

a Principal Being: the ‘Personage Holding Two Objects’ (referred

to as the ‘Smiling God’), a standing anthropomorphic figure with

an object in each hand held across the torso. This Personage

takes on great importance at Tiwanaku as well; three of the

statues found in Tiwanaku’s central precinct--in the Sunken

Plaza and the Kalasasaya--represent different versions of this

figure, holding a cup or vessel (a kero) in one hand and a

different object in the other. The ‘Two Objects’ Being occurs

repeatedly in the art of the Pueblo Escultor, and we could begin

by looking at PMA3 and (3)LC2, and the Coqueros group of coca-

chewers, along with certain statues of the Other Implements

category. Interestingly, two Pueblo Escultor female figures

(AI1 and AP11) hold rounded cups in their hands.

It may not be a mere detail that one of the Kalasasaya

stones, the ‘Ponce Monolith,’ has the ankle-bone-knobs on the

outside of the ankles detailed in the stone. The other two

statues referred to above as also being from the central

precinct of Tiwanaku are very similar in form to the Ponce

stone, but are too damaged around the ankles to show if they
might have been detailed in the same way; in any case, at least
one other Tiwanaku-age stone shows this same element. There is

a connection with a set of Pueblo Escultor statues, all from the

principal Tierradentro site and all similar in form to these

Tiwanaku stones in terms of being monumental block-like,

squarish anthropomorphic figures. The ankles of (1)T1, (1)T2 and

(1)T3 all show this same peculiarity, and nearby (1)T4 and

(1)T11 may have once done so, but are damaged like the Tiwanaku

figures. I find this very curious and have not seen the same

detail elsewhere; the two groups of statues are thought to share

similar dates.

The ‘Degollador’ of the Titicaca period has metamorphosed

into the ‘Chachapuma’ of Tiwanaku, and instead of being a fanged

anthropomorph has become fully feline; in both cases this

‘Sacrificer’ holds a severed head in one hand and a sacrificial

knife in the other. As related, the Pueblo Escultor work has

numerous examples of severed heads held by what could be

‘Sacrificers’ (beginning with PA2, PMB8, and (1)ED1) and of

sacrificial tumi-knives (such as PMA3, Q2, OU53 and PMB(G)15).

There are also Feline Figures (see R1, T2, PMB22 and that group)

which may be compared. The ‘Chachapuma’ when looming over a

human being (or even a human face) can also seem much like a

Doble Yo image.

The cabezas clavas or tenon-heads that line the inner walls

of Tiwanaku’s sunken plaza are clearly descended from the tenon-
heads sunk into the outer walls of the Chavín temple. There is

no such architectonic feature in the Pueblo Escultor tomb

complexes, but inasmuch as the image refers to trophy- or

sacrifice-heads, we may look at such images in stones as PMB11,

QC4, (1)ED1 and the Implements-C group, and also such statues as

AI9, (1)SI1 and the Sacrifice-G class.

There are a set of strange Tiwanaku stones, called

‘Anticéfalas,’ in which a stubby-bodied human being with a

large, elaborate headpiece emerges half-modeled from the stone,

and above his head is an equivalent figure, but positioned

upside-down. The ‘Double Sense’ of which we have often spoken is

patent here, but as well there is a hint of the Doble, of one

figure up above the other. There is no surprise in finding the

Double Sense here in the andean ‘navel’: at the center of the

Tiwanaku cosmos, the Sun-Door figure holds vertical staffs in

each hand and is flanked by two symmetric corps of bird-figures,

and the Door itself is carved in radically different fashions on

its two sides (see the two sides of PMAL3 or G3 for a suggestion

of this last concept).

The ‘Anticéfalas’ would provide another view of the Double

Sense, and we may adduce as well a pair of statues of kneeling

human beings from Pokotía, somewhat reminiscent of the Tiwanaku

‘Chachapumas.’ The Double Sense inherent in this pair reminds us

of the pairs of ‘Guardian’ stones near San Agustín: PMA1 & PMA2,
PMA7 & PMA8, etc. The Pokotía figure wears a necklace which

turns into a bicephalic serpent on the back, looking very

similar to AP5 of the Pueblo Escultor.

******************************************

This may be the appropriate place to introduce a reflection

on one consummate example of the Pueblo Escultor lithic art: the

magnificent tableaux of the creek-bed known as the Fuente de

Lavapatas (PML2), some 12 meters by 15 meters in area and carved

across its length with more than 30 figures. There are many

serpents and lizard-like ‘water-animals’ among them, and we have

noted similarities in that regard to certain other american

cultures, but in truth little has been suggested that links this

unique stone-carving to much of anything in America. (It should

be noted that there was once [before its destruction] a ‘second

Lavapatas’ at the Las Moyas site near San Agustín, though the

carved channels and pools there were not augmented, as is the

Fuente de Lavapatas, with a set of life-like figures; and I have

seen, in the Platavieja area in the La Plata Valley, yet another

channeled and grooved creek-bed, again without all the living

images.)

Nonetheless, if we pursue the search for analogs to the

Fuente de Lavapatas, we must come to consider several mysterious
complexes of stone-carving far to the south in the Andes. The

first would be the hill named Samaipata (near the town of the

same name and not overly distant from Santa Cruz, in Bolivia)

where the crown of the hillside was stripped to the stone and

carved integrally. Another would be a set of carvings named

Khopakati, near Copacabana on the bolivian shore of Lake

Titicaca. At all three sites water, and the flow of water, is

essential to whatever the meaning and the function of the

stonework must have been. And—stepping forward in time, to the

eve of the european invasion—there are several other carved

stones, attributed to the Inca, which merit a look with regard

to the Pueblo Escultor because of the panoply of figures

displayed in a single lithic scene. One such would be the

principal Saywite stone, between Cuzco and Abancay in Perú, and

another the K’enko stone not far from Cuzco.

A final search will complete this survey of relationships

drawn between the sculptors of the Pueblo Escultor and those of

other american peoples. Upon the decline of Tiwanaku, the

principal impetus for the stone-carving art moves northward into

the mountains of northern Perú. The dates are relatively late,

and Pallasca and Aija, and the Callejón de Huaylas and the area

of Huaráz, give us a certain orientation in this search; we are

back in what had once been the homeland of Chavín. These stone
sculptures of northern Perú recall, in a certain sense, some of
the work we may see from Chontales in Nicaragua and from Costa

Rica: to a large degree they represent a post-classic age, and

they are moderate in size, with few truly monumental sculptures

such as we see abundantly in earlier ages. The elements and

motifs are limited and repeated, and we do not always have the

sense of cosmic import we have come to feel in earlier times.

Certain elements even seem to link the two far-flung bodies

of stone-sculpture; and the statues of the Pueblo Escultor,

geographically intermediate, help us to reveal the outline of

these links. For instance, there are in all three areas stone

images formed of a combination of three figures, the two on the

outside similar or equal to each other, flanking a fundamentally

different central character. In Central America the triple-

figures were hanging side-panels of flattish grinding-tables;

now, in the stone-work of northern Perú, they are architectonic

relief-slabs, often showing an anthropomorphic figure between

two felines. The Pueblo Escultor sculptures to compare would be

the pairs of San Agustín Mesitas ‘Guardian’ stones, PMA1 & PMA2

and PMB9 & PMB10, etc., along with the central figures of the

tombs: they function as trios today, supporting the great roof-

slabs of the tombs, and supposedly did so in earlier times as

well.

Besides the reliefs, the statuary of northern Perú includes

numbers of isolated and freestanding and tenon heads, as well as
many rounded stone figures. The heads recall Pueblo Escultor

stones: the Sacrifice-E group and such stones as PMB11, AI9 and

QC4 may be relevant, as well as isolated heads like LE3 and

AI26.

The freestanding statues and the reliefs display many

elements we have come to recognize. Trophy heads are abundant.

Staffs and clubs and lances are carried, reminiscent of the

Implements-A and –B classes. Human beings have shields strapped

to their arms (PMA7 & PMA8, and OU2), or bags hanging on cords

at their sides, as with (3)Y3 and (1)T10, and the bag (or

headband, etc.) may be marked with an ‘X,’ a symbol ever-present

in mesoamerican art and common in that of the Pueblo Escultor.

They may have small animals on headbands or as coronets—a

representative of some type of Doble creature, perhaps, which

would also be of mesoamerican origin, and related to the Dobles

of the Macizo Colombiano.

There are also serpents with bifurcating- or feline-heads,

and the reliefs show pairs of felines, or serpent-feline

creatures. The entire complex has shown itself to be

omnipresent in precolumbian art, and emblematic of the Pueblo

Escultor stone sculpture. The Pashash region developed a

certain type of serpent-feline image which shows up in its

stonework, recalls Recuay ceramic designs from the same zone,

and appears in the sculpture of the Macizo in the form of the
Doble-animal we have chronicled at the beginning of this

chapter, depicted on our AP1 and PMAL2 subject statues; all

versions show the ‘N’-tooth design which characterizes this

particular being.

But perhaps the typical and most emblematic form that

stone-sculpture took under the hand of the sculptors from these

northern mountains of Perú is that of the ‘stone mummy,’ which

presumably represents not a god or a supernatural entity, but

rather a dead human being, the deceased, the ancestor. The

figure takes on a bundle-like shape, sitting or with the legs

drawn up, and he may carry objects (especially those already

mentioned) with him to the underworld. The Pueblo Escultor

category named Death Posture groups many examples of this type

of figure, most in similar postures, which may also represent

the deceased and the ancestors. It is not inconceivable that in

both cases representations of ‘stone mummies’ are late examples

of the stone-carving tradition dating to the final period of

this millennial art.

The final actors on our stage, the Incas of Cuzco, put full

energy into construction in stone, into carving and fitting and

designing stone-works and stone structures, and relatively

little into the art of representational stone sculpture. There

are, to be sure, exceptions. Most of them seem to be the

portrayal of animals. In architectural contexts, a number of
building wall-blocks have, as design, sculpted relief figures of

animals. Both twin-serpent designs and feline motifs may still

be seen on the ancient wall-stones of Cuzco, and the Inca site

of Huánuco Viejo near the town of La Unión in the peruvian

sierra is famous for the twin felines sculpted over a principal

doorway. The road from Chavín (and Olmec) to Inca (and Aztec)

has been a long one, accompanied at the end as at the beginning

by these two most important iconic spirits.

****************************************************

****************************************

********************

PAGE
PAGE 131
 categories

Part One: THE SERPENT

Why choose the image of the serpent to open the discussion

of the sculptural iconography of the Pueblo Escultor? Well, we

must begin somewhere. In precolumbian America the serpent

represents—inhabits, is one with—the mother earth, the base-

line, the place/being on which we stand and which gives us life.

And at the least, the numbers are impressive: there are about

40 stones showing in some context the figure of a serpent, and

we can add to these another 20 which display the crosshatch

markings that in this cultural nexus function as the symbol of

the serpent. Sixty statues equal approximately 13% of the total

considered in this study.

The idea here is not to suggest that this one image held a

predominant place in the thought or the religion of these people

who have often been considered one of a number of early American

cultures identifiable as a ‘people of the jaguar.’ Our

appreciation of their realities, and of their spiritual beliefs,

is just too thin, and therefore too easy to generalize and

compartmentalize.

But we can say that among other images the serpent, for the
Pueblo Escultor, played an extremely important role, and
certainly no picture of their beliefs would be complete without

a serious consideration of the role of this animal, so primal in

our human experience, and in symbol–systems everywhere in the

world.36

In America, the serpent is a key player in the drama

suggested by a study of ancient art, in virtually every region,

and from the beginnings of high culture. Among the Olmec

monuments in the Gulf Coast and highlands regions of southern

Mexico the serpent is consistently present in a dramatic role.

In the highlands of northern Perú, in the germinal culture and

tradition which we name Chavín after the central site of Chavín

de Huántar, the serpent is, if anything, yet more important.

All the principal monuments display serpents; in other Chavín

sites we see the same image repeated continually.

We need not follow the serpent image, stage by stage, down

through the different american cultures––the list would be

nearly all–inclusive. Given this perspective, there is no

surprise in finding the serpent time after time in the different

Pueblo Escultor monuments.

In a number of cases we are shown a natural version of a

serpent. One stone, PMB27, stands out because there are two

serpents writhing about this flat slab; and the double, or

double–headed, serpent was an archetypal image of ancient

America which can be seen, repeatedly, in the art of many
peoples. Some stones––see PMC12, (1)T13 and others in the

Serpent–D section––show what we may describe as a `natural'

serpent image, while others––PMB18, (3)LC5 and the Serpent–E

group––show one or more serpents accompanied by additional

animals.

The section B statues––PMB6 and PE1––are two different

versions of an image in which a bird grasps a serpent in its

beak and talons. This image, well–known to most students of

ancient american symbols, was certainly current throughout long

epochs of precolumbian life, and is especially familiar to us

for having led the Aztecs of Mexico to found their capital of

Tenochtitlán on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco; today

the scene is pictured on the mexican flag and currency. It

would be difficult at this remove to try and flesh out the

Pueblo Escultor image as we have it, embodied in two blocks of

stone. But it appears that here we have evidence for the

sharing of this important american symbol and archetype, in some

fashion, by the ancient Pueblo Escultor. Throughout the history

of world mythology, too, the interplay of these two animals has

been a familiar image.

The serpents in section C are grasped with the hands of the

fanged anthropomorphic principal figures of their respective

stones (CA2 and PMB2). It would seem clear that the writhing,
curling serpents depicted here are meant to be seen as alive, as
is also true of those in section B. What, though, one is driven

to ask, is the sense? What exactly are those two men doing with

these writhing serpents?

Among the stones carved with the technique known as

`grabado,' or etching––which stones usually formed tomb–walls or

–roofs and were otherwise not sculpted––the serpent is also

apparent, as we see from the section F stones, such as PMB(G)6,

OU(G)1, and LB(G)1. In section G are listed several petroglyph–

carved boulders which also, in that live–rock technique, depict

serpents in a number of different styles. Only a handful of

petroglyph stones have been included in this present study, and

yet in that handful, images of serpents are abundant––see AS1,

AS2, CO2, and (2)VC4.

Leaving the realm of what we have called `natural'

serpents, which are attempts to draw in stone the animal known

from nature, we will still find many more examples of serpent

symbols in the stones of the Pueblo Escultor.

Among the most important and most often–repeated of the

`serpent–in–a–supernatural–state' images is one referred to here

as the `Serpent–Doble' or `Doble–Spirit,' listed in section A.

The word Doble, spanish for `double,' has been specifically

applied to certain statues of the Pueblo Escultor when dealing

with stones [traditionally known as the `Doble Yo' (or `Double

I') statues] which show a supernatural feline–serpent personage
perched atop a human figure; the label has especially been used

to refer to the two Doble Yo stones, PMAL2 and AP1.

In this study, the concept of the Doble is considered in a

wider context: a good number of statues aside from those two

just mentioned seem to show this same double–figure. It is

composed of two distinct personages, the human being below and

the `Doble–Spirit' above.

Certain other stones (such as PMA1, PMA8, PMB9, PMC8, PMC3

and AP5) show a similar pair of human and supernatural/

zoomorphic figures; yet other statues show the `Doble–Spirit' in

characteristic position, but now hanging over a blank space

instead of over a human being; examples such as PMB14, (2)PV1

and (1)HM4 show variations on this image.

One constant in the different figures denominated `Doble–

Spirits' or `Serpent–Dobles' is the fact that all of them

partake of the serpent essence. Perhaps PMA1 and PMA2, with

their coiled–serpent bodies, will show this best; but it is

important to recognize that PMB9, PMC3, PMC8, and LA1 also have

serpent–shaped bodies. The same was true of PMA7 in painted

form, and in yet another manner in AP5 and OU28. This serpent

form––here designated ‘flowing–back–shape’ or ‘serpent–body’––is

an essential, identifying trait of this particular supernatural

personage, the `Doble–Spirit,' so persistently present among the

works of the Pueblo Escultor.
 [A further step would be to identify the `Doble–Spirit,'

here considered in its serpent aspect, as a creature usually

partaking of both serpent and feline characteristics.]

Crosshatching:

As mentioned, a certain number of stones marked with

crosshatching are showing us a symbol referring to serpents.

Elsewhere I discuss the fact that crosshatching, in the images

of the Pueblo Escultor, marks a figure as female. Here we may

more fully illustrate the use and function of this symbol.

Crosshatching in the Pueblo Escultor statuary is, in its

simplest form, a reference to serpents, and the symbol was born

of nature: many snakes commonly show characteristic patterns

formed of X's, in effect being themselves, in numerous different

variations, crosshatched. It follows that shaped, carved, and

painted serpents should have come to be marked with, and

eventually symbolized by, an X–design or crosshatching, in the

different ancient american cultures.

Among these many cultures we find the Pueblo Escultor.

Several of the `natural' serpents in this art are marked with

the crossed–X pattern––see PE1, PMB(G)6, OU(G)1 and the crossing

lines on PMB27. Beyond these specific stones where the symbol

is made explicit, though, are a whole series of stones in which

the crosshatching has been used as a device in different forms.
They fall into several groups, and may seem confusing or even

meaningless at first. But a serial look at a selection of

different uses of this design will allow us to find a vector of

meaning for the crosshatch symbol.

At first it is a symbol of serpent, accompanying and

marking the serpent, as in those stones mentioned above, as well

as the PMA1 stone with its `supernaturalized' serpent. PE1

especially is useful, showing us three different forms of

crosshatching: one shows standard slanting lines; a second with

lines squared to the main axis, forming squares instead of

diamonds, helps us recognize the crossing lines in PMB27; a

third type, which slants but does not really cross, we might

refer to as half–crosshatching—see T5 for instance--carrying the

same essential meaning.

The next step is to follow the serpent's X–design as it

moves off the serpent itself and into other contexts,

specifically the items of women's clothing. Remembering that

only one case contradicts this relation––no male figures among

the entire Pueblo Escultor corpus of statues are marked with

crosshatching save, apparently, QC5––we can be sure that it is

not a vague or vain connection. AI1 is an excellent case in

point: a woman, as we can see from her breasts, and wearing a

crosshatched turban.
 Numerous other stones confirm this figure: AP11, cup in

hand and all, is the same personage, while AP7, who is pregnant,

and her near–twin AP8, also both show the same crosshatched

turban; and AI10 is an analogous etched version. Other statues,

like T1, have crosshatched skirts instead of turbans, and below

we will see that skirts seem conclusively to indicate female sex

in the art of the Pueblo Escultor. Nearby T1 on the El Tablón

hillside is its own etched version T3, also with crosshatched

skirt; the same design is shown on SA3 and, apparently, on OU35.

Another stone, from the area of Tierradentro, has both a

crosshatched turban and a nose-ring, another well-known lunar

symbol which, we may conclude, indicates that the wearer is

female. With that stone, (1)T9, and the others just mentioned

in mind, if we look at T5 we will be able to recognize this

figure with turban, nose-ring, and elaborate skirt, as a female.

Her turban, however, is marked with the half–crosshatch design

seen before on the serpent in PE1, all of which is a

confirmation that we may accept this half–crosshatch marking, as

well, as a serpent symbol of equal magnitude with the full

crosshatch.

With a final step, we may complete this look at the vector

of use of this design. The two statues known by the name of

Doble Yo––AP1 and PMAL2––are both marked with this half–

crosshatch design down the length of their `flowing–back'
bodies. As suggested, the `Doble–Spirit' `supernaturalized'

animals are both feline and serpent (see PMA1, PMB14, etc.) and

the idea here would be to see, in the half–crosshatch on the

Doble Yo serpent bodies, the serpent–symbol marking which

pertains to that part of their being. PMA1, with crosshatched

serpent body, works as a strong confirmation. It would seem,

too, that the circles intermixed with the half–crosshatching on

the AP1 creature represent the feline side of this fused being.

Since the Doble Yo creatures are hardly pure serpents, but

rather are complex mixed beings, the crossed lines with which

they are marked may be said to have come full circle: from the

marking of a serpent, to the various ways of marking a female

anthropomorphic figure, to the symbol of a strange supernatural

creature, part feline and part serpent, and even sometimes part

human, to judge by such stones as PMAL3.

Let us now adjust the focus of the micro–glance and

recognize that what we are being shown may not be so tiny and

compartmentalized. Perhaps it is something more general, a

broad sense, a drive or feeling, that is being expressed by the

crossed–line X's. In this vision it would not be that the

serpent is something, but rather that it has something, an

electric current, we might say, just to make the image concrete,

and that others too share this current. And the others are,
specifically, 1) human (and/or `supernaturalized') women, and 2)

the feline–serpent `Doble–Spirit.'

If AP7 is a specifically important clue, then the current,

whatever else it may be, is a current of life, and the women

marked with the sign of that current are being celebrated for

being, in our human world, those who carry, share, and reproduce

it. That current brings into being our reality; at this point

the woman so marked is virtually divine, yet still here among us

in our human scene.

The animal, the serpent itself, among the Pueblo Escultor,

must have partaken, on a somewhat more earthly level, of the

same ‘current.’ And on a yet more elevated, otherworldly level

the being here called the `Doble–Spirit,' shown in a variety of

different statues and modes, must have been a powerful fountain

and repository of that sacred essence.

Part Two: WOMAN

A personage in the mythic world of the Pueblo Escultor may

be shown to be a female in a number of different ways. It is

fair to say that we do not understand the fullness of what being

so marked must have meant for those people in the spheres of

daily life, of ceremony and office, of legendary and mythic

life, and so on. The intent of this category is simply to bring

together all those statues marked in different ways as female.
I find 32 statues which seem clearly to be marked as female;

this is 7% of the total Macizo statuary, although it is

important to keep in mind that there may be quite a few more

statues which indeed are female, but whose clues as to their

femininity we have not yet learned to discern. Thirty of the 32

are from the San Agustín area (about 10% of the total there),

and the other two are from the Tierradentro area, and show women

with their breasts exposed. Among the statues of the other

Pueblo Escultor areas, we cannot point to one certain female

image.

It will be worthwhile to give this category some context.

Stone statues portraying women may not be uncommon in

precolumbian America; but when we take a look at the specific

circumstances involved, the truth of that blanket statement is

revealed in striking ways. We may begin by affirming that in

all of the vast corpus of stone statuary in South America—apart

from the statues of the Pueblo Escultor—there are virtually no

statues of women, whatsoever [with the exception of the female

figures of Manabí on Ecuador’s mesoamericanized coast]. The

tremendous series of images of women we see in these stones from

the Macizo Colombiano are unique on the southern continent.

The connect, however, is as powerful as the disconnect. In

Mesoamerica, to the north, we find the analogs of the Pueblo

Escultor statues, and from earliest times, beginning with the
Olmec, the ‘Mother Culture’: we can hardly help being struck by

Stela 1 from La Venta. This monolith, over two-and-a-half

meters tall, depicts, within the cave-like mouth of a

crosshatched earth-serpent, a standing female figure wearing a

skirt, and with a turban covering her head. We will soon see

the significance of these details.

In that same time period in the Valley of Mexico, in

Tlatilco, ancient sculptors in clay are already creating a whole

world of female figurines. It must then be no coincidence that

by the time of the classic period, the people of the central

plateau, already accomplished stone sculptors, fashion a series

of female figures which lay down the patrón that we see in the

statues of the Pueblo Escultor. The enduring image, some three

meters tall, from Teotihuacán, is the great statue of

Chalchiutlicue, the ‘Lady of the Jade Skirts’ or ‘Lady of the

Living Water,’ who sums up the complex revolving around Earth/

Water/Fertility/Moon/Woman.

This tradition, which accords to women an important place

in the lithic mythos, will continue to flourish in Mesoamerica

throughout later periods. The Aztec, in the latest era of

precolumbian history, will again give us a series of female

images, and ultimately we can have no doubt that the ties that

bind and inform the Pueblo Escultor statues portraying women

come from the north, from Mesoamerica. The famous statue of
Coatlicue, ‘Lady of the Serpent Skirts,’ in Mexico’s

Anthropological Museum is another, fantastic formulation of this

image in stone.

To return to the statues of the Macizo Colombiano: section

B has a list of nine different statues which show figures with

female anatomy: they are the basic pieces in this

investigation, and their analysis will lead us to further clues

that will help identify which statues show female personages.

Most show us the women’s breasts. A most unusual lithic piece,

the fragmented statue OB4, however, shows us the female figure’s

genitals—unique here, and very exceptional in America. (2)LG1

may or not be related: the vertical furrow shown within the

image of male genitalia may or may not be showing us another

female image. And the striking AI16 is quite unusual, caressing

her own breasts, but bearing no other identifying female traits.

A look at a series of these female images—starting with one

of the nine statues just cited—will illustrate the range of

elements which indicate the sex of the statues we are

considering. That statue, AI1, whose breasts make clear her

sex, also resumes much of the essential female imagery: she

wears a skirt, and a turban marked with a repetitive ‘X’ design,

and both these elements will be seen to be definitive female

symbolism which is nowhere contradicted in the statuary of the

Pueblo Escultor. And she carries a cup in her hand (something
we see again in the AP11 stone). AI1 also sports a specific

type of necklace composed of many strings and a central section

of squarish plates, as well as thick striated bracelets on both

wrists; and while these decorations are not restricted to female

use—see the male statues AI4 and PMA9, for instance, both coca-

chewers and both males—they are more usually female

accoutrements which figure prominently in the series of female-

statue figures.

Following the sequence, we will see X-marked turban in such

statues as T5, AI15, AP7, AP8 and AP11, and T1 and T3 have the

X-markings on skirts rather than turbans. In the Tierradentro

region we find turbans etched similarly with the X-symbolism on

(1)T6 and (1)T9. The T5 figure, a high-water mark of Pueblo

Escultor stonework, adds that familiar lunar symbol, a nose-

ring, to the skirt (long and flowing in this case), the turban

etched with a variant of the X-marking, the platelet-necklace

and the puffy wrist bracelets. The list of these essential

female figures that wear both necklaces and bracelets includes

AI1, AI5, AP7, AP8, AP11, (1)T2, (1)T4, (1)T6 and (1)T11.

Now, with these clues, many other statues reveal their

feminine nature. A statue like PMA12, with her breasts, skirt

and turban, shows us the design carved to display a turban—a

specifically female attribute—which we may then in turn discover

on AI18, otherwise unadorned, but clearly female, and (1)T4,
(1)T11, and many others. AG1, with her skirt and breasts,

likewise puts us in a position to see such skirt-wearing figures

as C1, CA1, PMA4 and PMC5 as women. PE2 wears skirt and turban;

and so on. And then, when the stone sculptor is satisfying the

fancy of the artistry, the X-decorated turban on PMB17 will be

unorthodox, although quite clearly identifiable.

It is notable, too, that most of these statues which

clearly show women do not have the fangs so common to other

Pueblo Escultor monuments, or to be more precise, the monuments

in the San Agustín region. But this trait is not diagnostic,

because some do have fangs: see AI5, AI15, T1 and T3.

In section C are noted all the figures which in my judgment

may be said to wear skirts. Such a determination is not always

completely evident and there are a number of other statues, not

on this list, which perhaps should be there. The reader may

make his or her own determinations. A key fact is that there

seem to be no contradictions in judging these figures to be

female: skirt-wearing figures show no male activities or

implements, and there are plenty of backup female details on

skirt wearers, such as turbans, crosshatching, and nose-rings.

The three known monuments with nose-rings––T5, Q2 and

(1)T9––form section D. Statue T5 has already been described.

Q2, though, is fanged, and sustains two large `tumi'–knives

(which mimic breasts) in her hands. All three of these

personages must be female.

A list appears, in section A, of figures who by virtue of

the crosshatch symbol seem to be marked as female. All of these

statues appear in the serpent lists, too, because they are

figures with crosshatched turbans and skirts, as we have seen.

In contrast is section E, which shows all instances of

crosshatching in any context apart from that of section A, i.e.,

apart from figures of women. Virtually all are already clear:

they are serpents, `Serpent–Dobles,' or simply incised

crosshatching devoid of specific form––pure `current,' perhaps––

apart from three statues. (1)T10 has crosshatching as

decoration on a coca–`poporo' (or lime–carrying–gourd); and

(5)M2 is enigmatically marked with crosshatching on the arms of

a `supernaturalized' figure. QC5, as we have seen, is the

aberrant, confusing exception to our ‘crosshatch=female’ rule.

Part Three: MALE SIGNS

This section deals with the statues which can be

distinguished as males. There are only two sure ways considered

here to judge a figure as male, but probably one could go much

further: figures carrying coca apparatus (see Part Ten:

Coqueros), for instance, and almost certainly those sustaining

war implements and staffs and other large instruments in their
hands (see Part Thirteen: Other Implements) could be judged to

be exclusively male. We would find many of these figures to

adhere to the second of our two ‘certain’ criteria—the wearing

of loincloths—and essentially none that would contradict them

Section A lists statues which display male genitals. There

are 38 of them, which is considerably more than the nine stones

showing female anatomy, or even than the 30 statues established

as female by the four different methods explained above. The 38

masculine stones alone account for over 8% of the total

statuary.

The number of male figures more than doubles to 89 (which

equals almost 20% of the total—close to three times the

corresponding female number) when we take into account the 51

statues showing figures wearing loincloths. This item of dress

can be seen to be clearly a male indicator; no figure clad in a

loincloth has breasts demarked, or a nose-ring or turban, or

crosshatching in any context if we except the aberrant QC5.

Although the wearing of a loincloth shows us clearly that a

figure is male, we are not lacking the contradictory exception,

or seeming exception, and in this case the story is also a

compelling one: the statue in question is PMB15, whose original

situation on Mesita B in the Parque Arqueológico near San

Agustín places it squarely among the greatest concentration of

elaborate, important Pueblo Escultor sculptures. This
sarcophagus cover depicts a full-length human being who wears a

loincloth—we would thus think we were unquestionably observing a

male, but for the fact that the breasts are very obviously

outlined, are in fact emphasized.

How unfortunate that this extraordinary statue was

carelessly and needlessly destroyed. Preuss saw it in the plaza

of the little pueblo in 1914, brought there from the Mesitas

where the Parque Arqueológico now stands. The statue had

already been broken in two when Lunardi saw the bottom half in

1931; the other part was missing. Pérez de Barradas visited the

area in 1937 and remarks “I don’t know why the upper part was

lost, nor how to explain why the bottom half was crushed for

rock to build the nearest bridge on the road to Pitalito. I

can’t find any way to understand and justify the loss of this

first-class archaeological monument.”37

The fangless mouth, the large round ear-pendants, the

ligatures on the legs are all interesting, but not enlightening

as to gender. We can’t negate our entire diagnostic scheme due

to this one misunderstanding, but we are justified in wondering:

what is being portrayed here? And we may then puzzle over J1,

which figure wears a skirt that almost seems to be marked, as

well, as a loincloth.

Nonetheless, the many figures wearing loincloths and yet

having no other sure indicator of maleness (such as a weapon in
hand) occur across the board in the different statue-areas—see

the Male Signs-B list—and we can safely conclude that they are

all male.

Part Four: SACRIFICE FIGURES

When we decide to group together certain lithic works and

call them `Sacrifice Figures' we have immediately created a

problem. The practice of sacrifice, especially of human

sacrifice, is an image that sparks us, jolts our consciousness,

causes our passions to rise. The concept, and the vision, are

muddied, both down within our deepest psyche as well as on the

modern pop-culture veneer.

When we have stirred the waters in this way, the search

through the evidence becomes difficult. An inquiry into the

role and the act of sacrifice, and of human sacrifice, among the

ancient peoples of America, is no easy matter.

That other ‘charged’ subject—sex—is here connected in a

fascinating, but not precisely defined, manner. One key insight

into this subject rests perhaps on the interpretation of one

image, shown in two different sculptures (PA6 and U4).

These two stones are specifically linked to the question of

sacrifice. They demonstrate images in which a large animal

stands or perches over another being, and even seems to grip or

control the second being; they bear a relationship to a group of
some seven statues, here listed as section A, in which a larger,

principal anthropomorphic figure grips with its hands a smaller

anthropomorph which may be a child. Statues PMB13, PMB21, C2

and PE10 exemplify most typically this figure.

Similar, as well, are another group [the next section, on

the Doble Yo, will deal with these statues] in which a

supernatural/zoomorphic figure, often with a face resembling

that of a young child, stands above, perhaps descends upon, a

standing human figure. Here too the upper figure often seems to

grip or control the head of the lower, human figure. Such

statues as PMAL2, AP1, PMA1 and PMB10 will most clearly convey

this figure.

These three statuary groups are surely related, and in fact

the lines between the three sets are considerably blurred. All

three may in some way have something to do with sacrifice. The

section A group, larger anthropomorphs holding small human

beings in the hands, will be considered here separately as the

beginning step in this study of possible sacrifice symbols in

the stones of the Pueblo Escultor.

The attempt here is to consider the act, and the meaning,

of sacrifice in the widest possible sense possible; that is, as

an offering, something of value which is being presented, in

accord with both the cultural norms and the understood compact
with the powers in question, in the hopes and expectations that
a corresponding benefit will flow from those powers to the needy

human community, the sacrificers. A child held in the hands

(section A) may or may not be such a sacrifice, and we may say

the same of the cups held by the section K figures, the heads or

skulls sustained by the figures in section E, the sacrificial

tumi–knives of section I, or the animals held in the hands of

the section D figures.

We are simply not in a position to definitely confirm or

deny these different possibilities. I have tried to group, in

this section, all those images which suggest that they might

speak of the act of sacrifice or offering. Some are probably

correct; others may be wrong. The reader will have to satisfy

him– or herself in deciding.

*******************************************************

The section A statues may be the base line in this

question. If indeed the reference is to human sacrifice, then

we would say that the large, fanged human beings hold in their

hands small figures, who would be child sacrifice figures.

PMB13, universally hailed as `terrorífico' and `bestiál,' and

known popularly in the region as ‘the Bishop,’ holds its child

upside–down. PE9, weirdly, rather than holding a child in its

hands, has a child which passes through a wound in its left arm.

Related here are the already-mentioned stones denominated

`Feline Procreators' (PA6 and U4) [to be dealt with in a
separate chapter]. We seem to witness the sexual act, with a

large quadruped male animal perched over, and apparently engaged

in sex with, the human woman below him. The 1969 discovery of

PA6 made it clear that the large animal above is in fact a

feline, and this time a third figure is involved: the large

feline holds a small childlike figure in his front paws, and he

grips the child weirdly, almost savagely, around the neck; the

child's body is splayed out strangely. At this point we have

nearly returned to the statues of section A.

In the monuments of section A, all showing a larger figure

sustaining a small human being (except for OU83, and OU91, where

in each case three such smaller figures stand isolated in a

row), the most pertinent detail to be noted is the fact that all

of the secondary figures or `children,' without exception, are

endowed with a pair of small curving devices to be seen

extending outward from both sides of their heads. These

ornaments are known as `cuernos,' the spanish word for `horns,'

and while this title is gratuitous, because there is no reason

to believe that they really have anything to do with horns, yet

the small curving devices themselves are far from meaningless,

in fact are clearly of great importance. No other figures in

the Pueblo Escultor statuary are so endowed, beyond those listed

in section A, and yet always when a child is held in a larger

figure's hands, the small figure is marked with ‘cuernos.’
 It is a detail, an eloquent symbol, which must be telling

us a great secret. Unfortunately, we cannot read the meaning,

however clearly it has been expressed.

The seven statues of section A form a tight picture of the

‘cuernos’ symbol, and are similar with the excepted details that

the OU83 and OU91 figures stand alone, rather than sustained in

hands; the child in PE9 passes through a wound in the arm; PMB13

holds its small figure upside–down; and the child in U6 lacks a

body. In section B are listed the only two examples among the

remaining stones of the Macizo Colombiano in which we are shown

the symbol of the ‘cuernos’: AP12 is familiar, the small figure

is nearly identical to that of U6, with only the exception that

the bodiless `child' is sustained, not in the principal figure's

hands, but as a pectoral on a necklace.

PMAL3, however, is something quite different, and also,

perhaps, debatable. This appears to be one of the most

revelatory statues known and is quite complex, but a full

exposition is not available to us. Among other details a

secondary human–shaped figure stands on top of the shoulders of

a fanged, staff–bearing human being. The upper figure is,

unfortunately, cracked and partly missing at the top of the

head. We seem to see a face, or maybe instead a mask, and the

headpiece at forehead level of this mask, half cracked away,

appears to bear a round object with one remaining ‘cuerno’

curving familiarly downward.

But it is hard to tell. Some people do not see this half–

broken, partially–erased detail at all. The upper, masked

figure, though, is not just any personage, but represents a very

valuable alternative view of the controlling being we see in

many statues, including AP1, PMAL2, U4, PA6, PMA1 and so on.

This is, furthermore, the only frontal and anthropomorphic view

that we have of this Personage. If such a being is indeed

marked on the forehead with an approximation of the section A

head–and–‘cuernos’ symbol, then that symbol, and the reality to

which it referred, must necessarily be greatly enhanced in our

view.

*******************************************************

Beyond the figures with ‘cuernos’ held in the hands of

fanged adults, it is possible to identify a fair number of

different sets of statues which may possibly refer to the act of

sacrifice. To begin with, many figures among the statuary carry

objects in their hands. Several categories may be set up

listing figures holding objects with uses and meanings that we

recognize. When we except these examples as not necessarily

referring principally to sacrifice––without ruling out such a

function––we are still left with a good number of object–

holders, and most of them are included here under different

headings because they may perhaps be some type of offering.

Excepted, for example, are figures holding coca apparatus:

it would be too narrow to exclude the possibility of some

sacrifice angle to the use and ritual of this supremely sacred

substance; but in the foreground view what we have here is a

coca user. Also not included as sacrifice symbols are figures

who hold war apparatus, clubs and stones, in aggressive

attitudes (PMA1, PMA7, PMAL5, etc.), or those who carry staffs

in their hands, an image which has a long history of use in

America involving meanings often not related principally to

sacrifice, but rather to command, hierarchy, and so on.

In section D, then, are the five Pueblo Escultor statues in

which a human being sustains an animal in his/her hands. Two

figures hold serpents (CA2 and PMB2), two hold fish (PMB3 and

AI19), and one holds an unidentified mammal (AI12).

Section K, as mentioned, lists two statues (found

relatively near each other, though in different sites) in which

a female figure holds in her right hand a cup: AI1 and AP11.

What would be the intent of these cupbearers?

In section I are mentioned eight lithic pieces which show

us the shape of the tumi–knife in different contexts. The tumi

is a well–known ancient south-american shape and article, and is
specifically related to the northern coast and sierra of Perú

and to Ecuador. Students interested in archaeology are familiar

with the tumi––which may be a tweezers, for instance, or a

`topo' (a shawl–pin)––as a knife, and south-american museums,

especially in the indicated areas, show many examples of tumi–

knives. Investigating the meaning of the eight tumis under

study here, we must consider the possibility that in some way

the symbol relates to sacrifice.

Three statues (Q2, OU53, PMA3) hold tumi–knives in their

hands––these are the most suggestive. Three more have tumis on

necklaces around their necks––(1)HM7, (1)TI10, and (3)LC4––and

all three are from Pueblo Escultor centers other than San

Agustín. One figure––(3)LC2––grasps a tumi–shape in his right

hand, but the tumi is, at the same time, the head and beak of a

bird. The final example––PMB(G)15––is an abstract etching: a

fine tumi–form appears amidst other designs.

This final, etched tumi may serve to remind us of another

set of statues, all found on Mesita C of the San Agustín

archaeological park. Simply put, it would seem that these

statues––PMC1, PMC2, PMC3 and PMC4––themselves represent tumis,

not with some sculptural detail, but in the form of the stones

themselves—and it is a form that we see virtually nowhere else

among the Pueblo Escultor statues. A look at the tumi incision

of PMB(G)15 or the tumi grasped by PMA3, compared with the shape

of statue PMC1 or PMC2, will illustrate this idea.

Continuing on to section E, we will find an extensive and

very important list of those figures who hold or somehow sustain

a skull, head, or some similar object. The possible connection

to sacrifice is obvious, but the individual interpretation of

what is seen in each image, perhaps, is not so clear.

Such stones as PMB11, QC4 and (2)B2 are the home point

here, sustaining not just heads, but heads recognizable as

skulls. A slight step away are (1)ED1, AP12, PMB26, PMB8 and

PA2, and others; in looking at them it is difficult to avoid

classifying them with the first three named. When we then look

at PMC8, LM3, (2)L2, PMC7 or PMC14, we seem to be seeing a

further symbolization of what must be something very similar.

Other stones seem related for other reasons. CH3, PMB18,

(2)LG3 and others show us an image in which one head is tucked

under, or appended to, another, while (3)Y3 carries what may or

may not be a head on a cord slung over one shoulder, and (5)S2,

uniquely, has a head, which is furthermore a skull, between its

folded legs. And another group––(1)HM2, (1)HM3 and (1)HM10––all

from the same site, present rather a column of faces, one under

another.

In section F are mentioned seven stones which seem to be

not sustained skulls, but rather simply figures of skulls. The
group is varied in that some cases seem to be more certain than

others. (1)HM1, for instance, is clearly a carving of a skull,

stylized in its own way, and the same is true of (1)SA5, carved

upside–down on a large live–rock boulder, and (2)B3: in all

cases the triangle or `absent' nose is an indication that this

head is deceased. PMB7, which is a well–known stone often

interpreted as the image of the sun, and LE3 and Q4, seem to me

very suggestive of skull–images, in large part because of the

treatment given to the cheeks; perhaps they will not seem so to

everyone. The same is true of EQ2, which also seems marginally

skull–like.

A list will be found in section G of a number of lithic

pieces which portray a row or set of heads or skulls rather than

just one; the image lends itself easily to thoughts of

sacrifice. Especially notable are AI9 and (1)SA2, stones from

two widely separated places which seem to show the same image,

and even to have had the same function. Both are round and are

flat on top, although the San Agustín–area stone is like a table

on a pedestal, while the Tierradentro–area piece has a jointed

hole part–way through its center. Both show traces of having

had rows of faces all the way around the outside; apparently

those on AI9 originally numbered 16, and those on (1)SA2 totaled

eight. Another stone from the Tierradentro area, (1)P1, is

similar. Of the others, several show pairs of faces: LF1,
(2)PV1, and PMB(G)16. We have already considered OU83 and OU91

as rows of small figures with ‘cuernos.’

Section H stones have already been cited and will be

considered more fully as `Felines'; here they are seen hanging

or standing atop secondary figures: M2, U4 and PA6.

Section J has a list of five interesting stones with the

trait in common that each one carries on its back a smaller,

apparently anthropomorphic figure. Four of the five are from

alternative Pueblo Escultor areas, and the fifth is from an

Origin–Unknown within the San Agustín area. Three of the four

alternative–area stones––(1)TI9, (1)TI26 and (6)SF1––are very

similar, and the San Agustín–area stone is definitely related,

although here the posterior figure is askew and also seems to be

oddly strapped on with a belt across its neck. The fifth

section-J statue, with a pair of arms on its back, is frankly

baffling.

The final section of the Sacrifice Figures category,

section C, is labeled ‘sustaining strange figures,’ and here are

all the stones which were impossible to classify, whose

`objects' were indefinable, but which still seemed suggestive.

See, for instance, (3)LC3, (2)PV3, (1)TI20 or PA5. It is

difficult to define the beginning edges of the subject of

sacrifice for this long–disappeared, little–understood people;

and here on the outer limits we are yet further removed from any
certainty, left with little more than a handful of odd

characters with strange, unknown objects in their hands.

Part Five: DOBLE YO

The Doble Yo, when christened, referred to just one

particular image seen on a statue at a San Agustín–area site.

This image is shown on PMAL2, and is repeated in AP1, so

actually it turns out to be a double–image. The german

archaeologist Preuss began this line of inquiry when he saw the

first of the two stones, PMAL2, and referred to the upper figure

as a "double". He reports on AP1 without qualifying it as a

"double," but then in his analysis devotes a section to what he

calls the `Segundo Yo,' the `Second I,' or `Das zweite Ich' in

the original german; apparently he is commenting on both stones,

as well as PMA1 and PMA2, to which he has already called our

attention.

Preuss’ Segundo Yo became, in both the literature and the

popular designation, the `Doble Yo’ or `Double I.’ Today, as

well as the four cited statues, we would include PMB9, PMB10,

PMA7 and PMA8. These four, along with the second pair cited by

Preuss (PMA1 and PMA2) form a special class, which here are

referred to as `Guardians,' and were called by Preuss and others

`caryatids' because each pair serve as the two side–figures in

the three most elaborate mound–tombs of the San Agustín
archaeological park, surrounding in each of the three cases a

larger, more elaborate, unique central statue. All six statues,

though, have a very strict relationship with the two original

Doble Yos: they show the same figures and the same mythic

situation.

In the present study the idea and the image of the Doble Yo

are going to be considered much more broadly. Following

directly the path signaled by Preuss and by subsequent

investigators, we find that the double–figure, one being

hovering over and perhaps in control of another being, is an

important element in this statuary, and probably a vital key to

the thought and belief of the ancients. But the double–element,

the divided figure or sense of double–being––here labeled the

`Double Sense'––is much more than an isolated personage or set

of figures; it is an element which proves to be widely

represented in different forms throughout the statuary, and in

fact to some degree becomes the spirit which informs, unites,

and breathes life into the entire picture that, in fragmentary

form, we are being presented. Moreover, the Double Sense is a

germinal and integral element of american art since its very

inception––in Mesoamerica, in South America, in the entire

precolumbian world––and as such works as one of the most

essential links that bind the art and thought of the Pueblo
Escultor to the principal, formative american traditions.
 Most of the total of statues included in this Doble Yo

category form part of section A, the Definite Doble, statues

which without doubt exhibit an aspect of the Doble, of the

essential Double Sense. Section B is devoted to the Possible

Doble, the sculpture which seems, not without an element of

doubt, to be suggesting the Doble nature. Section C consists of

a short list of extraordinary stones that present a triple image

or a triple series of personages; and in section D are a number

of stones that seem to imply a glimpse at the Doble spirit, but

only in an unusual way, one that in many cases depends on

‘knowing the rules.’ To some readers these last examples will

not seem convincing.

To begin with section A: all of the above–named eight

statues, the Dobles in a very strict sense, are here in this

section. Here also are many other figures which derive, in one

way or another, from these eight. PMAL3, too, is at least as

important, and the other eight statues may in a sense derive

from it.

A good number of statues can be seen to be, without doubt,

other representatives of the ‘classic’ Doble Yo when we compare

them with the above–named pieces. A look at PMC8 and PMC14, for

instance, will show their essential unity with the full,

elaborate image as seen in PMAL2 and AP1; and LM3 is only a

slight step away.
 PMC3 is another Doble Yo variant, and here we see that the

`Doble Spirits,' themselves double, are over the heads of the

main figures and descend near the shoulders; but they are easily

recognizable, with their serpent body, descending form and

curious, childlike faces. AP5 is another stone where the

simplified elements are identifiable; the `warrior' figure is

unchanged, and the `Doble Spirit' now descends the main figure's

back and then bifurcates into two serpent figures. And OU28 is

just a small step beyond.

PMAL9 is also a Doble figure with one being, unfortunately

now destroyed, above a second, human figure. And (1)HM3,

created in a totally different style than most San Agustín–area

stones, is still quite recognizable, with its head–above–head

formation, as a Doble. (1)HM3 should also be compared with the

two `Triples'––(1)HM2 and (1)HM10––found nearby it in a

Tierradentro site.

Turning to another style of Doble statue, let us look again

at the two stones called here `Feline Procreators' (U4 and PA6)

which show us, as interpreted in this study, a supernatural

feline male copulating with a human female. The connection

between these two stones and the ‘classic’ Doble Yo has already

been commented upon: in both cases supernatural feline beings

stand above, and even grip the head in control of, a lower and
more fully human being.
 If we now look at M2, for instance, we will see another

analogous image, and PML1, with the second, lower figure barely

outlined, is also very similar. This last–named stone should

serve as a bridge to help us be able to see such stones as OU14,

M1, G1, CH6 and so on as being essentially representations of

the same `Feline Procreator,' but with the feline alone made

visible; the lower figure is now `understood,' with only the

proper empty space being left.

In the same way, certain stones show the ‘classic’ Doble Yo

with only the upper figure, the `Doble Spirit,' visible––the

human element is again left out, is `understood' by the space

left in place of it. PMB14 and PMB20 are excellent examples,

and were twin caryatids of an elaborate Mesita B mound–tomb,

identical in function to PMA1, PMB9, and so on. Another

interesting example (from the Platavieja statue–area) of the

`Doble Spirits' being portrayed alone, hanging with outstretched

arms over an empty, uncarved space, may be seen in (2)PV1. Here

the `Doble Spirits' descend not over one human being, but over a

`lodge' which we might presume is full of human beings; perhaps

the meaning is analogous.

Another set of figures which must be related to the Doble

Yo beliefs––PMB22, R3 and (6)I2––show their affinity with the

`Feline Procreator' statues by dint of having, draped over their

back and shoulders, something akin to both a feline–skin and a
live feline. It is valuable to recall here the PMAL2 and AP1

Doble Yo statues, whose supernatural feline standing above the

human figure is a live creature in the upper part, but at the

same time apparently only a lifeless skin hanging downward, as

indicated by the stylized faces and in one case by the forelegs

stripped of paws.

While two of these three statues wearing skins are clearly

human beings topped by `natural' feline figures, the third––

(6)I2 from the Popayán statue–area––is more ambiguous. The

suggestion is that the round head and characteristic rounded

ears (compare PA6 or PMB22) indicate a feline skin–and–mask

draped over this figure, albeit in a shadowy way, which is the

essence, at times, of the `Doble Spirit.'

The group of statues already considered as section J of

Sacrifice Figures––all of whom have small anthropomorphic beings

on their backs––comes into the picture here, because their

resemblance to the three feline–skin figures indicates again the

relationship, which we do not understand well, between the

sacrifice–oriented statues, and those of the Doble Yo.

All of these figures are descended from or related to the

original, ‘classic’ Doble image. In continuation we will see

some other forms of the essential `Doble Spirit' that we can

perhaps best understand as yet–more–variant images of something

closely related to the complex here under study.
 One group––PMB13, PMC9, G3, (1)P1 and (4)A4––presents us

with images that are divided forms, with one image melded to its

mirror and thus of necessity double; see the double–simian in

PMC9, for example, or the two `warriors' of (4)A4. This latter

statue, of two `guardians' with upraised clubs, is clearly also

an analog of the ‘classic’ Doble caryatid `guardians' of the

Mesitas in San Agustín's archaeological park. G3 provides us

with two stylized faces, one on each side of a slab; (1)P1 has

already been discussed. PMB13, considered above as an essential

Sacrifice Figure, is also fascinating for the way in which the

two mirrored aspects, upper and lower, differ in numerous

details; they must surely give insight into the upper and lower

spheres of the Double–World perceived by the ancients.

Another group––LB1, LB2, CH3 and (2)L6––shows images in

which one lesser figure is suspended below an upper, more

clearly defined figure. There is a reference here (and in

PMB18) to the Sacrifice Figures–E group which sustain skulls as

pendants, such as AP12, (2)B2 and PMB11. The similarity between

(2)L6 and LB2, far away from each other geographically, is

notable.

Another trio of related stones which may have a Doble

reference is composed of (2)L2, (2)G3 and (2)PV1. All three are

from the Platavieja statue area, so this may be a certain local

way of conveying this image. There is a similarity between the

different treatments of the pair of sustained heads.

PMB(G)3 and AS1 give evidence of Doble themes presented in

the techniques of `grabado' incising and of live–rock petroglyph

carving.

The line between section A and the following section B is

not at all firm. In the latter the image is a bit more subtle,

or simple, the doubts somewhat greater. PMC12, for instance,

may be a single serpent, or may perhaps be double. PMC14, LF1

and OU28 are all similar to Definite Doble stones discussed

above, and difficult, ultimately, to distinguish from those

statues. The sub-categories are arbitrary.

PMB25 is much like PMC3; only the faces are missing. AI5

is certainly similar to PMB13. And PMB27 and PMB(G)6 themselves

form a pair; the meaning, though, is hardly clear.

In section C are listed five lithic monuments which take on

particular interest for displaying not a double–, but a triple–

faceted being. One begins as a matter of course by assuming

that a `Triple' is much like a Doble, is a more–elevated Doble;

perhaps, though, this is not the case, and something quite

different may be the point. (1)HM2 and (1)HM10 are very

analogous stones and were found in the same site; the nature of

the rock, the style employed, and the figure displayed are all
very similar: the effect is a tall, thin column of three
different human faces, one above the other. The similarity to

(1)HM3 is also great; the latter stone has only two faces

visible, but once may have had three.

AI26 is a rounded stone, crudely carved with three

different faces around the outside––vaguely recalling AI9 and

(1)SA2. The huge La Chaquira boulder on which are carved

figures CH1, CH2 and CH4 has an odd similarity to the small Alto

de los Idolos stone with its three faces. The La Chaquira

boulder shows three full human figures carved on the north, east

and south sides of the rock which is perched on the edge of the

Magdalena canyon; clearly they are linked among themselves in

style as well as function. A strange detail here is that a

fourth figure (CH5), small and unusual, and also exceptional for

being a profile image, can be seen tucked down between the south

and east images of the La Chaquira boulder.

PA6 is the final statue to be discussed here as a possible

`Triple.' We have already met this supernatural feline,

standing atop a human woman and grasping by the neck, just above

the woman's head, a small figure, a child who is splayed out

sideways. Three figures, caught and pictured at the moment of

revelation: what precisely is happening here, in this mythical

everpresent other–now?

In section E are found the statues (G2 for example, or

LT4's double–headed serpent) which are different from those in
section B in that they imply, simply by a suggestive shape or a

subtle detail, that they carry a Doble–message. These Doble–

shaped stones can be divided into two main groups.

The first group shows images which seem to mirror the

`Feline Procreator' of U4 and PA6, with the difference that now

the lower figure is absent, and the feline hovers or stands

alone over blank rock. G1, OU14 and CH6 will all fit this

description. A slightly different group are from the

Tierradentro site known as Hato–Marne: (1)HM4, (1)HM5, (1)HM6

and (1)HM9, the first three of which are still to be seen on the

original site. All of these statues, in a style quite different

from the several San Agustín–area styles, seem to show a version

of the feline.

In the second group are statues which may be considered to

exhibit the Doble–trait of the ‘flowing–back’ shape seen in the

serpent–bodies of the ‘classic’ Doble Yos (i.e., PMAL2, AP1,

PMA1, PMB9, etc.) This diverse group of anthropomorphic figures

consists of LA1, AI25, QC3, OU53 and (1)A1; the first especially

shows its relationship to the Doble Yos of the Mesitas, while

the last is a Tierradentro–area version of this suggestive

shape.

Part Six: THE FELINE

 To come this late and by such a roundabout way to the

`Feline Personage' will not, hopefully, be interpreted as a sign

of disregard for this figure of maximum importance due to whom

the Pueblo Escultor have sometimes been said to belong to the

`Age of the Feline' and to be a `People of the Jaguar.'

In fact, if we assume the famous `colmillos' or fangs to be

a feline trait and then count up the numbers, we will surely be

in agreement with that assessment: perhaps some 127 out of 460

total lithic pieces in this study are seen to display fangs, and

without tabulating those statues, once fanged, that time and

weather have erased, we thus have an impressive figure of about

28% of the total; but (since there are very few fanged figures

among the statues outside of the San Agustín area) the number of

fanged figures within the San Agustín sculpture jumps to

something like 120 of 317, or 38%. No other personage, no other

animal or image or idea or complex of ideas, no other form more

precise than `anthropomorphic' will compare with this

percentage.

There is no doubt, then, that if the fangs indicate that

the bearer is feline or `felinized,' we must conclude that the

jaguar is the prime personage here, and that the Pueblo

Escultor, apparently among others, were his people. But we

don’t really know, to a convincing certainty, that this is the

case.
 Without counting the specific trait of being fanged, then,

we may ask: How often is the feline represented in the

statuary, and what are the forms in which he is presented to us?

Unfortunately, our categories are not completely airtight, and

the feline figures are not all easy to pin down. In particular

they tend to blend into the images discussed in the next chapter

(called in this study `Cayman/Rana/Lagarto.') Within the

necessary limitations, though, the feline figures in the

statuary may be arranged into three groups.

In section A are those felines seen in the role of the

`Feline Procreator' already mentioned above. The archetypal

images left to us are U4 and PA6; with the discovery of the

latter, less–damaged stone, it became clear that, rather than a

pair of monkeys and/or a ‘maternal love’ image (as had

previously been suggested), what we are shown is a large,

supernatural feline standing over, and apparently copulating

with, a human female.

U4 was known to Codazzi (1857) and Cuervo Márquez (1892)

before Preuss (1913) saw it; the usually perspicacious german

professor concurred with both his predecessors, saying that "The

principal figure of this sculpture is without doubt a monkey."

He felt, however, that the lower figure "...seems more like a

human being than an animal."

 In the mid–1940's the north-american archaeologist

Stirling, during investigations of the most important Olmec

sites on Mexico's Gulf Coast, made several discoveries of stone

monuments which were to have a great impact on the

interpretation of the two San Agustín–area statues in question.

In effect, he discovered two Olmec versions of the previously

known San Agustín statue. One, he writes, "...apparently

represents an anthropomorphic jaguar seated on a human figure

lying on the back cross–legged. Presumably the lower figure is

that of a woman, and the act of copulation is depicted."

Stirling goes on to describe a situation that was to be

played out in San Agustín as well: "This identification would

be much less certain were it not for the fact that we later

found a much more realistically carved monument representing the

same subject." In another site in the same zone, Stirling found

a statue "...similar to [the first] monument," which

"...apparently represented copulation between a jaguar and a

woman...Although badly broken, enough remains to indicate that

in its complete form [this monument] must have been a strongly

carved and striking piece of sculpture"––as the second San

Agustín–area statue, PA6, certainly is.

David Grove writes that "Both Matthew Stirling and Michael

Coe have suggested that this may have represented the

mythological creation of were–jaguar individuals…" so often
noted in the Olmec statuary; and if such is the case among the

Pueblos Escultores, then certainly this role of child–like were–

jaguars is represented by the `Doble Spirits' of PMA1, PMB9,

PMB14, AP5, (2)PV1 and so on.

When Gerardo Reichel–Dolmatoff and others turned their gaze

on the statues of San Agustín in the mid–1960's, then, one

supposes that they were not completely surprised to come across

the feline–over–woman image. Stirling's Olmec stones had been

known for a long time, and other early american high–cultures

were seen to be intimately linked to the Feline. The 1969

discovery of PA6 served to confirm what Reichel–Dolmatoff had

realized; he wrote that it "represents, beyond any doubt, a

jaguar that is overpowering a smaller, human figure with marked

female characteristics.".

It is only fair to say that there is another hypothesis as

to the import of this figure, this scene, which would suggest a

very different meaning and image. Essentially, the figure has

been seen, in this alternative view, as a feline attacking and

mauling, or killing (rather than copulating with), a human being

who may be of either sex—Olmec monument #31 at Chalcatzingo,

which undoubtedly shows “…two stylized felines pouncing on two

prone human figures…” would be an early example. And such may

be the case; or, in fact, there may be several different images

involved here which we ourselves have blurred or misunderstood.
But for the purposes of the present study we will continue to

investigate our original suggestion.

The `Feline Procreators' of section A can be broken down

into four groups; most of them we have seen before in other

contexts. First there are the `archetypes': PA6 and U4, to

which may be added the simpler copy seen in M2.

The statues where a feline, often very vague, hangs in

typical fashion over not a carved human figure, but simply over

the blank stone, are M1, G1, CH6, OU14 and their Tierradentro–

area analogs (1)HM4, (1)HM5 and (1)HM9.

The statues of an anthropomorphic figure with a jaguar skin

and/or live feline draped over its back are PMB22, R3 and (6)I2.

And the Doble Yo statues are PMAL2 and AP1.

In section B of the Feline category are listed the statues

in which a supernatural being, part serpent and part feline, is

seen above a human figure. These sculptures form, as mentioned,

a list of the ‘classic’ Doble Yo statues: PMA1, PMA2, PMAL2,

AP1, AP5, PMB9, PMB10, PMB14 and PMB20. Other stones suggest

the same combined being, but this section lists examples where

both the serpent and the feline natures are unequivocally

exhibited.

Section C is an attempt to group together the statues which

show us what we can interpret as a `natural' figure of a jaguar,

aside from those already considered in the `Feline Procreator'
and `feline–serpent' groups. These are felines, then, without

specific function, simply identifiable as such.

R1 has the characteristic shape of a feline head––as we

see, for instance, in PMB22––and it is interesting to compare

the row of heads in AI9. Another stone with a comparable head

is LB2, this time shown without a body. CA2 has a head that is

somewhat similar, and with PA7 helps to form a series of

variously stylized feline heads.

PMAL4, like PA7, is only a bodiless head, which may be

feline; the same is true of LE5. But T2 is quite a different

case: this statue is popularly known as ‘El Jaguar’ and the

tremendous claws on his hands and feet leave a memorable

impression, and little doubt as to his feline spirit.

(1)HM8 and (1)HM6 are, like the other three similar stones

in the Hato–Marne series, difficult to define. Any or all might

be felines; the former is headless. There is perhaps less doubt

about the feline nature of (1)HM4, (1)HM5 and (1)HM9.

The final statue to be considered here is (2)LG2 from the

Platavieja statue–area, a very curious stone, difficult to

categorize. Because of the tail, though, we have good reason to

suspect that this figure shares a feline nature––compare U4 and

PA6. The head is, unfortunately, missing; and the male genitals

on the figure's front are split by a vertical groove which, some

observers have guessed, might suggest as well female sex.
Part Seven: CAYMAN/RANA/LAGARTO

This is a category of statues which at some points border

the Feline grouping, but at other points are so distant from

that category that, it would seem, these statues must be meant

to represent something quite different, some other animal or

animals entirely. We are reminded of "...the problem of the

divinity which Carrión Cachot has quite appropriately called the

`felinic dragon,' [also] designated, following Rowe, as the

cayman figure. The cayman shares traits with the feline and as

far as the Chavín artist was concerned, undoubtedly partook of

its essence. The fact that the sculptor went to the trouble to

portray it, using canons different from those applied to the

feline...indicate[s] that on at least one level it was

conceptually separate from the feline." And in our search for

analogs we should certainly not overlook the series of Olmec

stones, such as Monument 20 from La Venta, nearly two meters in

length along its vertical axis, which portray creatures arguably

similar to those in this Pueblo Escultor category.

The title of this section is based on the Spanish names for

the three animals which, in local popular San Agustín lore, are

represented in these statues. A `lagarto' is a lizard, a `rana'

is a frog, and a `cayman' is simply a cayman, the tropical
american river animal analogous to an alligator or a crocodile.

All three are reptiles/amphibians, and are easier to separate

from felines in nature than in sculpture.

It is very difficult, at such distance, to identify the

parts played by these creatures in the iconography of the Pueblo

Escultor, or in the beliefs which inspired these sculptural

representations. Those which we are not confusing with felines,

it is probably fair to say, are most likely related to the

water, are `water creatures' both by nature and function––as far

as we may be from divining that function. (The interested

student should be sure to study the display of what are for the

most part water creatures––with many serpents, etc., included––

represented by PML2, the extraordinary `Fuente de Lavapatas'

carved creek-bed near San Agustín, adorned with more than 30

anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images.)

Most of the figures which seem to fit into this hybrid

grouping of several animals are given here in section A. The

lines dividing the animals are difficult to define, but we may

suggest some different possibilities.

PMAL1, AI8 and AI21 form a type of core group, surrounded

in different directions by lines of analogs. Are these three

animals felines or are they something like caymanes? In this

case, frogs and lizards do not seem reasonable alternatives.

The importance of the feline in the iconography of the Macizo
Colombiano monuments, and the unsure stature for the cayman,

argue in favor of the former; but the lines of the three stones

here under view may arguably be more similar to those of a

cayman than of a jaguar. PMAL1 was called a `perro echado' by

Preuss, that is, a `dog rushing forward' or `attacking.'

PMA13 is another figure, now deteriorated to the point of

having no details left, which must have been a similar, cayman–

shaped figure. PMAL4, when considered alongside AI8 and AI21,

seems to exhibit a very similar animal–head (although we have

already considered this statue as a possible `feline figure' in

the Feline–C class). All four of these statues display animals

with large fangs, which has traditionally been considered a

feline trait.

If we now look at M1, known since the 19th century as the

`Rana of Matanzas,' we will see that the choice here seems to

exclude the cayman, and rest instead between feline and frog.

This statue, a carved live–rock boulder, was clearer in earlier

days, and today is much erased––analysis is now extremely

tenuous.

Another figure, carved into a live–rock outcropping near

the Fuente de Lavapatas, has been known as the `Rana of

Lavapatas' since the middle of the 19th century. This stone

(PML1) has a vague shadow–double carved below it and may for

that reason be a `Feline Procreator,' as we have seen above.
But perhaps the folk–name that this statue has long carried has

some truth to it, and the animal may be more similar to a frog––

and to (3)LC7. This latter statue seems also to straddle a

line, looking perhaps most like PMAL1 but at the same time being

closer, it would seem, to a frog than a feline. (3)LC7 should

also be compared with M1 and (1)HM6. Another stone, small and

from the Tierradentro area––(1)SA6––is known there as a `sapo,'

another way of naming a toad or frog.

Another group bearing relations to the Cayman/Rana/Lagarto

group is the series of five stones which we have already looked

at from Tierradentro's Hato–Marne site: (1)HM4, (1)HM5, (1)HM6,

(1)HM8 and (1)HM9. All, as stated, may be felines; the first

two listed, together with the last, especially seem to fit this

role, but they may, as well, be caymanes. (1)HM6, for its part,

seems more like a frog, and (1)HM8, which is headless, seems

very like the San Agustín–area caymanes depicted in AI8, AI21,

and PMAL1.

A final stone, little known and of great interest, should

be looked at while considering this context: (5)M2 from the

Saladoblanco statue area is quite a unique statue, a flat slab,

perhaps a sarcophagus–cover, carved on both principal surfaces

and on several of the edges. On the `main' surface we see an

anthropomorphic creature whose hands and mouth (and fangs) are

folded down onto an edge––a unique sculptural treatment in the
Macizo statuary. With its horizontal axis, this creature is

apparently an analog to such Cayman/Rana/Lagarto stones as M1,

PMAL1 and so on. But at the same time we must consider the

possibility that this may be a feline: both the unusual arm

position and the tremendous fanged mouth argue for a

relationship to such feline images as T2 and R1.

Section B presents a list of animals which, belonging to

this amphibian/reptile class, seem to be definable, first of

all, as not being felines, and second, due to their long tails,

as something akin to lizards or salamanders. This group is

useful because these animals convince us that under no

circumstances are we seeing only felines in many eccentric

guises.

A look at PMB19, for instance, will show us two animals

which surely are not felines. They also seem neither to be

frogs nor caymanes, nor even similar among themselves. But if

we establish a class of `water animals,' then certainly these

two will help conform that group. PMB18, found close by, adds

to this grouping, displaying a long–tailed lagarto along with

several other animals, including a serpent, a human head, and a

small unidentifiable animal.

PMB18 is another example of a stone with one true analog,

that is, another statue which seems to carry almost exactly the
same image: (3)LC5 from the far–distant Platavieja statue–area.
Here we see again, in nearly the same configuration, a long–

tailed lagarto who has an almost human face, grouped with a

human head, a serpent, and some small unidentifiable shapes.

To complete this lagarto section it is necessary to look

carefully at the Fuente de Lavapatas, PML2, where so many `water

animals' are grouped in one great scene. There are human

beings, to be sure, and many different serpents, along with what

seems to be a mammal standing next to the main human figure, and

two superimposed possible–mammals on the left side, near the

secondary pool.

But at least five or six animals here have forelegs and

long tails and seem, rather than serpents, frogs, caymanes or

felines, to be part of our class of lagartos. Especially

notable are three large animals descending from three sides into

the main pool: all have long bodies and tails, all have (or

had) forelegs, while the main and central lagarto has a long,

bifurcated tail enclosing within it the head of a human being.

Apparently these animals descend to `drink' water when the pool

fills; in doing so, they resemble the `Doble Spirits' discussed

above (see PMA1, PMB9, PMB14, etc.).

The final section, labeled C, lists three stones on which

are carved a particular image, here called lagarto, but widely

known and usually suggestive of both a humanoid and a zoomorphic

figure. This shape is not known solely from the Macizo
Colombiano; similar forms may be seen––often in petroglyphs––in

many places throughout America, and perhaps around the world.

Here we see several petroglyph versions which include (2)VC4 and

CO2, and a rarer slab–stone version from the Tierradentro area,

(1)AS1. As regards this latter, it is worth noting that the

nearby `hipogeos' or stone–cut subterranean tombs are painted

with a number of designs, among which may be found identical

lagartos.

Part Eight: BIRD FIGURES

In this section are gathered together all the statues which

display the different images of birds left to us by the Pueblo

Escultor.

The true or `natural' images of birds are reserved for

sections A and B. In section C are the statues in which some

figure is decorated with the specific adornment which has

usually in the literature been referred to as a `bird'––a

symbol, that is, rather than a `natural' figure. As for the

statues in section D, it is questionable as to whether they

carry any bird–reference at all, although the possibility does

exist.

We are left, then, in sections A and B, with a total of

nine statues (out of the 460 or so in this survey) which seem to

display an ornithomorphic image. Of these nine, two or three
seem somewhat questionable, so a `sure' count might be even

lower. This does not seem a large total for an animal which is

such an important image of art, and personage of myth, among

numerous ancient american peoples. In the present grouping we

see the degree to which the ornithomorphic figure was a presence

in the mythic/lithic scene of the Pueblo Escultor.

The two most elaborate examples of this image that we may

look at, here grouped in section B, are those twin stones to

which we have already referred: PMB6 and PE1, where an upright

bird grasps a serpent in its beak and talons. PMB6 is somewhat

more realistic and is one of the best–known pieces of sculpture

in the Pueblo Escultor catalogue. PE1, flatter and more

stylized, is as we have seen a particularly valuable stone due

to the crosshatched designs etched on the body of the serpent.

In the literature on this corner of American archaeology, a

long and greatly disputed battle of words has attempted to

determine just what class of bird is represented in these two

sculptures. Authors who believe that the image is that of an

owl (including Codazzi, Preuss, and Pérez de Barradas) and

investigators who think that an eagle is portrayed (such as

Cuervo Márquez, Duque Gómez, and Hernández de Alba) have

published their views. Local opinion in San Agustín is

similarly divided. Other suggestions too have been made;

Reichel–Dolmatoff mentions that a crane–hawk may be the correct

interpretation.

My own feelings are that 1) the symbolic function of the

bird, rather than his particular identification, is of greater

importance here, and is laid out expressly in these bird–with–

serpent images, where the celestial/terrestrial, light/dark, up/

down, life/death dichotomies that must have so fascinated these

Double–obsessed people––and which were firmly rooted in

widespread ancient american beliefs––are certainly of the

essence. And 2) given these facts, a corollary conclusion might

be that a bird like an eagle, as a high–flying solar emblem,

would be much more apropos to symbolize the essence at play here

than a low–flying night–dweller like the owl.

Whatever the case, PMB6 and PE1 are the best images that we

have of the bird as portrayed by the ancient sculptors. Next

would come BA1, a seated bird with its wings neatly folded up

over its tail. AI20 is still a very interesting little figure

although its missing or destroyed face and beak detract somewhat

from the effect. (3)LC8 from the Moscopán statue area, known

there popularly as a `loro' or parrot, seems to resemble the

latter stone, but the resemblance is not totally satisfactory:

(3)LC8 is a very strange image which, birdlike or not, does not

completely resolve in the eye of the viewer.

 R4, an adornment at the end of a sarcophagus, seems to be a

bird reference, though nearly without detail. (3)LC2 shows a

human figure holding in his left hand an object already referred

to as a tumi–knife, but which is also, it would seem, the head

and beak of a bird. With this we come to the end of the

`natural' bird images, although two more stones, both low–relief

designs on flat slab–stones, are worth mentioning here. (2)L4

seems to show a bird–face or a bird–mask, while AI14, which has

been said to depict, on a sarcophagus–cover fragment, the talon

of a bird, might instead display something else.

One more statue is worth considering before leaving this

section. The back of PMC2 is carved in low relief with a

curious abstract design so striking that it has been adopted as

the official seal of the Municipality of San Agustín, and is

also displayed on the back of the ‘Monument to Simón Bolivar’ in

the `Parque Bolivar' in the center of the pueblo. The design is

not well understood, although there may be a relationship with

certain other statues (see Winged Figures group), and the

element in the center has long been seen to be similar to a

series of exemplary chalices or cups found in the tombs. But in

recent years a new interpretation has been suggested in which we

are looking from the back at a bird in flight: the central

element is the bird's neck and head seen from behind; the
rounded outer `heart' shows us in one sense the bird's wings,
while encompassing at the same time a separated view of the

bird's wings flashing downward in flight and the flaring bird's–

tail at the bottom.

Whatever the truth of this interpretation, it is a bold and

original conception of the manner of vision of the ancients, and

has become an important component of the local popular view.

Section C deals with the `bird emblem,' as the device has

been called. The nine figures listed here, all from the San

Agustín statue area, are the only known Pueblo Escultor

personages adorned with a specific ornament that is shaped, it

has been suggested, like a bird hanging beak–downward. To be

decorated with such `aves' must have denoted a special station

accorded only to a few, whatever its actual meaning might be.

The device occurs as a forehead ornament in eight of the nine

cases, and in the other––PE11, the most questionable among

them––is a pectoral on a necklace.

Five of the nine figures have five ‘aves’ arranged across

the forehead: PMB10 (a `guardian' and warrior with club and

stone grasped in his hands), PMB22 (with another ‘ave,’ it would

seem, upright and suspended from a necklace), T8 (without fangs,

like the other two cited), J3 (which is only a bodyless head)

and Q2 (fanged, apparently a woman to judge by the nose-ring,

skirt and turban, and with her five ‘aves’ arranged, unlike the
others, in two rows).
 Another statue––PMB26––is a fanged figure sustaining what

appears to be a skull, with three ‘aves’ on his forehead. PE10,

one of the two painted statues from La Pelota, is also unique in

the respect that no less than nine ‘aves’ are suspended in a

line across the forehead of this figure––the fifth male of the

group, as opposed to one female and three (T8, J3 and PE11)

whose sex is undetermined. This last–named statue differs from

all the others in that here the ‘ave’ is not portrayed on the

forehead, but rather hangs from a necklace, and in that way is

similar to PMB22. And AP4 not only shows the greatest number of

‘bird emblems,’ with ten, but stands alone in being the only

figure with an even number of these symbols: all the others,

strangely enough, are decorated with an odd number.

Section D of the Bird Figures category is devoted to

statues with a series of etched, vertical parallel lines across

the forehead or head. This particular form of decoration has

been called `feathers,' although there is no strong reason to so

consider it. The decision is arbitrary and those who do not

agree are welcome to disregard such a denomination and simply

accept the fact that all so–marked statues, whatever the meaning

of the etched markings may be, are listed here.

In fairness to the possibility, though, it should be borne

in mind that feathers were a very popular and well–known art

material used in decoration, dress and personal ornamentation
and often documented as relating to status, office and position

in many places across America, from North America to the central

Andes, the southern Andes, and the Amazon forest. They were

very possibly used among the Pueblo Escultor and there is no

reason why such a device could not occur in the statuary.

All of the 17 examples are relatively similar; PMC1 and

PMA9 are on the elaborate, and perhaps convincing, side. AI12

is different from the rest in having the etched parallel

markings on what will here be called `wings'––but the

significance would be difficult to judge.

Part Nine: OTHER ANIMALS

This chapter will complete the list of animals present in

the statuary of the Macizo Colombiano, and perhaps help us to

gain a glimpse of their relative importance in the scheme of

beliefs of the ancients. First we must take into account the

fact that we have already considered most of the animals that

are present: serpents and felines, we have seen, ranked high in

importance in the iconography of the statues, while both birds

and a range of animals that we have called caymanes, frogs,

lizards and `water animals' are present in significant numbers.

Several other animals are represented somewhere among the

vast scene conjured up by the many statues. The first to be

named, listed here in section A, are the monkeys. The list will
show five statues, of which one is certainly a monkey, two are

very convincing, and two others are more equivocal.

CH7 shows a `natural' figure of a monkey that is probably

as true-to-life as any figure among the statues. PMC9 and PMAL7

too must surely be showing us images of the monkeys the ancient

people were familiar with in the forest around them. EQ3 might

perhaps be meant to represent a monkey, while PMAL4 is a

different image which we have before considered both as a feline

and as a cayman; its profile is also reminiscent of a simian.

Section B is composed of but one statue, which presents a

singular figure unique among the ancient Macizo Colombiano

sculptures and at the same time completely recognizable. AP2 is

clearly a rodent, which word translates in spanish as `roedor,'

and except for the bifurcated tail is quite realistic to the

modern eye. This statue, exhibited in erect position today, is

flat on the `bottom' (below the four feet) and may have been

originally intended to serve as the cover to a sarcophagus or a

slab–box tomb.

Two statues, listed in section D, bear images of fish,

which animals are in both cases held in the hands of the

principal anthropomorphic figure. PMB3 carries one large fish

horizontally in both hands; AI19 has a smaller vertically–held

fish in each hand. A third figure (OU35) has in its hands an

object that might be a fish.
 Section C resumes the few animals left unconsidered, all of

which are difficult to identify, and all of which may be

mammals. On the PMB18 stone, between the serpent and the

lizard, is a small undeterminable animal. And on the fantastic

composite of PML2, the Fuente de Lavapatas, are a great number

of animals. Almost all are serpents, humans, and different

versions of what we have called `water animals.' But on the far

right, just to the right of the human being on the back wall of

the principal pool, is an animal with upright tail which may be

a mammal: in popular local lore this animal is an `ardilla' or

squirrel. And on the far left of the Fuente, in middle view on

the back wall of the secondary pool, are two superimposed,

similar animals, the smaller of the two with a curling tail

above the back. They appear to be mammals, and in fact all

three of these mentioned animals have the curling tail which

reminds us of the felines of U4 and PA6, leaving the borders of

our definitions once again somewhat blurred.

Part Ten: COQUEROS

The coca plant and its product the coca leaf, as is well

known, played such an important part in the ancient Andean world

that it becomes impossible to consider the phenomenon of coca

without emphasizing the magical, spiritual, and eventually

religious aspect of this marvelous bush. Economy, utility,
political and geographical considerations all must have

eventually been reinterpreted in light of the realization that

coca was in fact a divine substance.

In the precolumbian world of the Andes––and since that

world has never completely died, to a lesser extent in today's

andean world––coca, beginning at some point in the very distant

past, became entwined with, identified with, became a part of

and then a very important element in, that world of archetypes

in which the divinely archetypal actions take place: the world

where the divine personages live and which the ancestors also

somehow inhabit, a place that human beings may at times, under

special circumstances, penetrate.

In that timeless, archetypal world, coca became an element

of grace and power. So, not surprisingly, in our world coca

became a plant endowed with special, magical virtue. Hunger is

eased aside, sleep and fatigue are banished, strength and

endurance are increased; and all of this is only prelude to a

greater virtue, for coca, like any true sacrament, gives the

initiate entrance to the sacred place, to the divine presence.

We must look at coca in this light in order to understand

its place among the tableaux of these ancient statues. It is

because of this sacramental essence that coca would come to play

the roles we see it playing in the archaeological and

ethnographical sources available to us: supposedly restricted
in use to certain elites and certain honored or victorious

individuals; agent of divination, of knowledge of the wisdom and

future plans designed for us by the divine beings; key element

in rituals, ceremonies and ordeals; and so on.

Given the exalted position of coca in the prehispanic

andean world, its magical and life–giving properties, and its

close identification with both the ruling elites and the `divine

personages,' we are hardly surprised to find the elements

associated with the use of coca present in the statues of the

Pueblo Escultor.

The apparatus of the `coqueros'––as the users of coca leaf

are known in spanish––among the inhabitants of the Macizo

Colombiano region consisted of three separate items. The

coqueros here listed are those figures who carry in their hands

any of the three articles. Although somewhere near 11 statues

show the use of each item, only two statues are of figures

carrying all three.

The first item is a `palo' or stick, with which the coquero

will dip out of a container the catalytic agent which looses the

active alkaloids from the coca leaf into his system. The second

item is a `poporo,’ a gourd or some similar vessel that contains

this activating substance. A `bolsa' or bag, used to contain

the dried coca leaves, completes the list of instruments.

 U7 and QC5, the two stones holding all three objects, show

us the ‘complete’ coquero: the ‘palo’ gripped in the right

hand, dipping into––or near to dipping into––the ‘poporo’ held

in the left hand, while the ‘bolsa’ is strung on a cord around

the left wrist.

There are 12 statues in section A which have been classed

as holding coca ‘palos’ in their hands. Of these, six have

‘poporos’ in the other hand, and we can use that as a

confirmation that the figures are surely coqueros. The others––

PMAL7, PE9, OU39, AI17 and ES1––hold what may or may not be

‘palos’; these figures may or may not be coqueros.

Four statues––PE9, QC5, (1)VP1 and (4)A3––hold similar

eccentric, over–large ‘palos.’ The fact that the latter two are

surely coqueros makes us suspect that PE9, too, with its over–

large ‘palo,’ would be a coquero, although in this case the

‘palo’ has an eccentric cross shape at its narrow lower end.

The fourth statue, (4)A3, holds the large ‘palo’ in his right

hand and another object in the left. This latter item may

perhaps be an eccentric ‘poporo,’ but appears more to be a

`vara' or scepter––compare with PMA3 and (3)LC2.

Four coqueros hold their ‘palos’ in an eccentric grip, and

in three of the cases the grip is the same. PMA9, U7 and AI4

all hold the ‘palo’ so that it passes over the thumb, under the
first two fingers and over the last two. Certainly there is
some special meaning involved here. The fourth figure (AI17)

seems to pass his ‘palo’ under three fingers and over the last;

the other three have ‘poporos’ while AI17 does not, so the

shared grip reinforces the idea that this fourth statue would

indeed be a coquero.

AI17 is also notable for another reason: of the 11 ‘palo’–

holders, only this statue sustains his instrument with the left

rather than the right hand. One out of 11; is this near to the

percentage of left–handed persons found in the population at

large today? Could this be the one–in–eleven left–handed

coquero?

Twelve statues, all holding ‘poporos’ in their hands,

compose section B. Six of the twelve also carry ‘palos,’ as we

have seen. Only three of these ‘poporo’–holders carry ‘bolsas’

for coca–leaves: U7 and QC5, already discussed, being joined by

(1)T10. Whereas only one of the eleven ‘palo’–holders is from

an alternative statue area, three of the twelve ‘poporo’–holders

are from non–San Agustín–area sites.

It would appear that in the time of the Pueblo Escultor,

shells were the typical containers for the catalyst, unlike what

is suggested by the name ‘poporo’ (or gourd) used today to

designate all such containers. Five of these twelve statues

seem to hold shells in their hands––PMA9, U7, AI4, PA8 and

(5)M1. A number of the others may well be shells, although the

case is not clear.

One statue, from the Tierradentro statue area––(1)T10––is

unique. This statue was at some unknown point intentionally,

and nearly completely, destroyed. On the left hip, however, we

can still see what seems to be the image of a gourd, complete

with a cross–section view of the entrance–canal down the neck of

the vessel. The ‘bolsa’ or leaf–carrying–bag on the left hip

combines with the ‘poporo’ to ascertain the identification of

this figure as a coquero––both bag and gourd are crosshatch–

decorated, and the bag in particular is almost identical to

those made and used today by the inhabitants of Tierradentro,

the Páez Indians, to carry their coca leaves.

In section C are listed the ten statues which hold or carry

bags. Naturally, a bag could be put to many uses, and some of

these ‘bolsa’–carriers might not be coqueros. But all of the

bags, it is worth noting, are very similar. In addition, they

break down into four different groups, four different ways of

carrying the ‘bolsas.’

We have seen that U7 and QC5 form the base–line group:

they are surely coqueros, carrying all three items necessary.

Both these figures have their ‘bolsas’ strung around the left

wrist by a cord. A third statue, OU3, is similar in that the

strap or neck of the ‘bolsa,’ held in the left hand, is draped

suggestively over the left wrist.

Another three statues––OU81, OU4 and T7––carry very similar

small round bags on necklaces around their necks. A third

group––LE4 and PMC6––hold their bags over their chests with both

hands.

The final group includes exclusively the two ‘bolsa’–

carrying statues not from the San Agustín area. Both (1)T10 and

(3)Y3 have their ‘bolsas’ strapped over the right hip. Given

the proven coca–association of (1)T10 discussed above, we might

consider this as evidence of the coquero–nature of (3)Y3, and

perhaps of the existence here of a non–San Agustín–area style of

coca–bag use.

If we now group the 23 figures identified as certain or

probable coqueros according to sex, we are faced with a

convincing statistic: not one statue is female, whereas eleven

are male and twelve are undetermined. In other words, whereas

20% of the total statuary appear to be male, here among the

coqueros nearly 50% are; and instead of the 7% verifiable female

figures out of the total, here we have not one. These

statistics strongly suggest that here coca was indeed in

precolumbian times a male prerogative, as is the case in today

among coca-users in much of the Andes.

Part Eleven: MASKED FIGURES

Certain of the San Agustín–area statues represent masked

anthropomorphic figures; PMC4 is an excellent example. A large

flat slab almost two meters high and only 20 centimeters thick,

this stone depicts a figure grasping with both hands over the

chest a long vertical staff which comes up to the figure's chin

and sustains a large mask covering his/her face. The mask in

this case includes different elements shielding the mouth, the

nose and, with a stepped–fret design, the sides of the face.

Only the eyes of the PMC4 figure are visible.

Two other statues––Q1 and U1––copy the structure of this

figure precisely. Both grasp with two hands a staff which

supports a large, face–covering mask. In addition, these two

figures are so similar to each other that they cause us to

wonder if they might not represent a specific personage known to

the ancients. Both masks have only three rectangular slots for

the eyes and mouth; the slots seem to be empty, and we see no

features behind the blank spaces.

When the staff–and–mask design is recognized, we are in a

position to identify other such figures which might not

initially be as obvious as those mentioned above. PMC2 for

example, a statue similar to PMC4 in shape and discovered in the

same site only a few meters away, holds two staffs in its
hands––note that the staff of PMC4 is also divided in two by a

vertical etched line––and the mask here is also very similar,

rounded and with stepped designs, with only the eyes looking out

from behind the staff–supported structure.

Three other statues also fall neatly into a group in that

all grasp with both hands a staff which comes up to the chin.

The face may look `normal' but we are in a position to see that

a staff–and–mask structure is indicated. Q4, found in the same

site with and only several meters from Q1, holds in front of the

face a fanged mask appearing somewhat like a skull. (4)A1 from

the Aguabonita area and (1)SI3 from Tierradentro are important

in that they extend to the alternative statue areas this staff–

and–mask design known otherwise only from the San Agustín area.

(4)A1 holds an animal–head mask, while that of (1)SI3 is,

somewhat surprisingly, quite a normal anthropomorphic face.

Another three statues are listed here as resembling masked

figures without carrying staff–and–mask structures. LM1 as a

`face' is quite eccentric, but as a mask is similar to the

Mesita C figures and especially to PMC4, with which it shares

the curving lines around the face, the round/square ear–covering

elements, and the rectangular mouth block. And a consideration

of (2)LG3 and PMB(G)17 will show the face already known from U1

and Q1, with rectangular eye– and mouth–slots; the former,

though, is from the Platavieja statue area, while the latter
shows us the same element in the etched `grabado' stones of the

archaeological park near San Agustín.

The recently discovered PE12 enriches our store of Pueblo

Escultor staff-and-mask figures by adding a new flourish: the

staff is not a coherent unity, but rather is suggested by

mushroom-like tumi-shapes held in each hand. And yet the

overall effect, and the way that the upper tumi supports the

face from below, leaves little doubt that here we have another

staff-bearing figure.

Part Twelve: LENGUA/CINTA/CABEZA

There are several unusual San Agustín–area statues, similar

among themselves, which may refer to a personage or perhaps to a

practice or a ceremony; they are very interesting, but are

difficult to understand. This group is called in the present

study Lengua/Cinta/Cabeza; `lengua' is the spanish word for

tongue, `cinta' the word for ribbon or band, suggesting a belt

or long cloth, and `cabeza' designates the head. Call it, if

you wish, Tongue/Band/Head.

The statues in this group are all anthropomorphic figures;

in each case the tongue, or something like a ribbon or a belt

coming out of the mouth, extends downward and terminates in

either a head or an object reminiscent of a head. As we will

see, only three of the eight stones listed in this category
actually are ‘complete’ in that they perfectly meet this

description; the others bear a tangential relationship to these

three.

This figure in its ‘classic’ form is suggestive, yet

remains a mystery. A careful and systematic survey of

precolumbian art would shed a fair amount of light on this

enigmatic personage. Apparently related images are found among

the artifacts of many different cultures.

In South America there are strong links to the art of the

Paracas and Nazca cultures of the southern peruvian coast: the

cloths of the former people and the painted pottery of the

latter show us many figures very similar to the San Agustín–area

Lengua statues. The meaning, in the peruvian context, is

usually said to have to do with `trophy–heads,' the heads of

enemies taken as prizes and as evidence of conquest in war. A

secondary meaning, having to do with sacrifice, is often

suggested as well. The image, though, is hardly restricted to

these peoples, but instead is widespread.

In Mesoamerica to the north of the Pueblo Escultor similar

images may be seen, although not perhaps as strictly related,

suggesting that this motif may in essence be south-american.

The central figure of the Aztec `calendar stone,' the stone of

Tizoc, may be taken as an example: the `tongue' of this

personage extends downward and proves to be a stone sacrifice
knife, marked with a number of details. Such knives were used

in Mexico to remove the hearts of sacrificial victims; at the

same time the meaning is redoubled in that the bleeding, or

self–sacrifice of letting blood from the tongue, is known to

have been an ancient mesoamerican custom.

Another set of related mesoamerican images are those in

which one face emerges from another face or mask through the

mouth, an image known from both archaeological pieces and

ethnographical reports. Significantly, this image also occurs

among the Chorotega statues of Nicaragua, which are perhaps the

closest lithic analogs to the Pueblo Escultor statues.

In this last case, as well as in other cases from both

South America and Mesoamerica, the interpretation most probably

has some relation to the complex of meanings known in this study

as Doble Yo. In the statues of San Agustín as well it would

seem that there is certainly some connection, difficult to pin

down, between these Lengua/Cinta/Cabeza statues and the images,

already discussed, of the Doble Yo. A glance at LM3 will

illustrate the connection, as well as the difficulty: is this a

version of the Doble Yo (see PMA1, PMB9, PMAL2, etc.) or is the

lower face a ‘cabeza’ hanging on a ‘cinta’ from the featureless

upper figure? (see U2, PMB1, PMC7, for example) Apparently it

is both.
 This last named trio of statues are those here considered

‘classic’ Lengua/Cinta/Cabeza images. All three figures are

very similar: they are fanged anthropomorphs, each with

different detailed forehead ornaments, grasping the ‘cinta’ with

both hands. The object depending from the ‘cinta’ in the cases

of U2 and PMB1 is most definitely an anthropomorphic head, while

the PMC7 object is very similar to a head, though not

indisputably so.

The three statues which must now be considered––C1, OB3,

and J4––are different from the ‘classic’ trio, and yet they have

a tantalizing similarity. All three have an elongated object

depending from near the mouths of the principal figures, and

both C1 and OB3 grasp their objects in a manner similar to the

above–mentioned stones.

These three figures are, in the popular interpretation,

said to be musicians playing musical instruments; the pattern

for this analysis was set by the discovery of C1 in the past

century. This apparently female figure has since that time been

known as the `Tañedora de Flauta' or `Flute Player,' although

that name was based on a careless appraisal: the `flute' in

question descends not from the figure's mouth, as was originally

assumed, but from her nose. The similarity to the ‘classic’

Lengua/Cinta/Cabeza statues, though, should be apparent.

 OB1 is equally similar to the ‘classic’ figures, and bears

a greater resemblance to a flute player. J4 is more unusual,

but still seems related to the other stones in this category.

The final stone to be considered here, OU48, is not properly a

Lengua image at all, but should be looked at for its

relationship to J4 and OB1. The object carried by OU48, though,

is even more similar to that held by PMC1.

Part Thirteen: OTHER IMPLEMENTS IN HANDS

The typical anthropomorphic figure in the statues of the

Pueblo Escultor may be simply and generally described: he or

she stands erect in a block–like form, upper body and head

emphasized, lower body correspondingly de–emphasized, and with

both arms symmetrically folded over the chest or stomach. About

86% of the total statuary (395 of some 460 lithic pieces) show

anthropomorphic figures, and of this lesser number (of 395

reasonably anthropomorphic pieces) 219, or 56%, correspond in

general terms to this stricter definition, of erect human-shaped

figures with arms across the body.

The intent of the present chapter is to focus on the

statues not yet considered which carry objects of some type in

their hands––some 91 of the total of 219 upright human-like

figures do hold some object or objects, while the other 128 do
not, their hands being folded in some version of this `standard'

position, but empty. The 91 object-grasping figures thus form

31% of this human-shaped group, and 20% of the total statuary of

the Macizo. None of the Nariño or Popayán statues hold anything

in their hands.

First we have to take into account the fact that the

majority of the statues which hold objects in their hands have

already been classed, interpreted inasmuch as is possible, and

discussed. This present chapter will deal with the remainder,

those whose objects have not yet been analyzed. Already

considered have been the following groups: those who carry

small figures with ‘cuernos’ or horns; those who hold skulls,

heads or seemingly related objects; those who sustain animals

(in the form of serpents, fish or mammals); those who grasp

‘tumi’–knives; the two female statues gripping cups in their

right hands; coqueros with ‘palos,’ ‘poporos’ and/or ‘bolsas’ in

their hands; Doble Yo upper figures who seem to clutch or

control the head of the lower figures; masked figures who hold

with their hands the staff or pole which sustains the mask; and

the Lengua/Cinta/Cabeza group of figures whose hands grasp the

tongues or tongue–like ribbons issuing from their mouths or, in

some cases, objects which appear to be musical instruments.

Most of the remaining object-holders are figures who hold

staffs, clubs, sticks or scepters, although certainly the
attempt to differentiate between these groups is difficult and

not at all certain; the lines are considerably blurred.

Section A is an attempt to list all those statues which

hold objects that may likely be war apparatus. In practice such

gear consist of 1) clubs or staffs, 2) lances, 3) round objects

that seem to be rocks hefted for throwing, and 4) shields. Many

of these figures are the `guardians' of the large mound–tombs in

the San Agustín archaeological park.

PMA1 and PMA2 are figures who hold clubs upraised over one

shoulder in such an aggressive, menacing fashion that the

observer is swayed from judging them to be scepters or

ceremonial objects and is obliged to see them as instruments of

war, objects intended for use in fighting. PMAL5 and PMB9 are

virtually identical in this sense, and the companion of the

latter stone, PMB10, holding a club in one hand and a rock in

the other, must surely be a warrior image too. This typical

finding of the `guardian' stones in pairs leads one to

conjecture that PMAL5 as well may be one of a matched set of

statues whose twin has not yet been discovered, and the same

comment applies to the statue on exhibit in the British Museum

(OU2).

Three statues, PMB10, PMA7 and PMA8, all hold rocks (or

round objects) upraised in one hand in what clearly appears to

be a threatening, warlike gesture. The first–named holds the
rock in his left hand and, as mentioned, a half–raised club in

the right. The latter pair of statues each hold the rock in the

shoulder–level right hand while the left, at belt level, is out

of sight, gripping a slanting, pointed lance and a polygonal

flat object which perhaps may be some kind of shield. A look at

the British Museum statue (OU2), which is from the San Agustín

area, will disclose a figure with a staff grasped in the right

hand and a very similar shield strapped on to the left arm.

The elaborate Doble Yo figure of PMAL3 is similar to the

British Museum statue in the way that his right hand grasps a

large, vertical staff. The warrior persona of the British

Museum stone, with shield and staff, suggests that PMAL3 too is

a warrior, carrying not a ceremonial, but rather a war,

instrument.

The rest of the section A statues belong to a separate

group from those considered so far, and all seem to be

`guerreros' or warriors. But the following six figures are not

so easy to decipher. Interestingly, five of the six are from

alternative Pueblo Escultor sites, suggesting that they display

a form best-known outside the Magdalena headwaters. The one San

Agustín–area stone (AP5), which is from the northernmost site on

the edge of the principal statue area, is also interesting in

that it seems to straddle the line between ‘guerreros’ and

staff–bearers; that is, the figure seems both to be lifting a
weapon threateningly, and simply holding at his chest a staff—it

is hard to tell.

The rest of this group are not fanged, seem perhaps

consequently less passionate, and one tends toward judging them

as staff-bearers without aggressive intent. They may however be

warriors, and are in essence identical to AP5. The differences

between these other five are minimal, the most visible

discrepancy being that while all their staffs are held

diagonally across their bodies, the Moscopán stones from the San

José site––(3)SJ3 and (3)SJ7––have the top point of the staff on

the left shoulder, while the Aguabonita, Platavieja and

Moscopán–Yarumalito stones––(4)A2, (2)LG1 and (3)Y1,

respectively––have it on the right. It may be worth adding that

this particular Platavieja statue––(2)LG1––is the most finely–

carved and most elaborate stone from that statue area; the staff

this figure carries is ornamented with a round device near the

bottom, which motif is matched closely by (4)A2 from the

Aguabonita area.

This complex of stone figures grasping diagonally–held

staffs is also notably present among the Chontales statues of

Nicaragua.

Section B statues are those which seem to be carrying a

staff, a `vara,' or a ceremonial article of some kind. The

‘vara’ represents an andean concept with roots deep in
precolumbian history; it was noted at the time of the conquest,

is chronicled among the andean communities throughout the

colonial era, and exists and may be seen today, in a more

ceremonial aspect perhaps, at the types of local community

fiestas and ceremonies which many of today's travelers have

witnessed. Basically, it is a `bastón de mando' or a `staff of

command,' essentially a scepter: the ceremonial item, at once

symbolic of his/her power and the right to exercise it, which a

ruler holds at any public, official or sacred event, and through

which, on the magical level, that power is effected.

The evidence of the great importance of the ‘vara’

throughout andean history is a strong argument to support the

idea that at least some of these stones represent persons of

rank and position holding the emblems of their power. (2)LG1,

for instance, could be interpreted in this way.

Section B, then, begins with the six stones already cited

as being line–straddlers from section A, as well as PMAL3, which

also is listed in section A. Of the other seven stones here,

three of them––PE9, OU39 and (4)A3––have already been referenced

as possible coqueros, although all three bear eccentric ‘palos.’

Another, PMC2, one of the most beautiful and celebrated of the

Pueblo Escultor stones, has been previously noted as possibly

holding a staff–and–mask apparatus. This figure holds two

staffs, though, and they may also simply be that. A fourth

statue (PA5) holds two eccentric objects in a like manner.

Of the remaining two stones, one (OB1) would find its most

similar analog in PMAL3. The final piece, PMA3, is perhaps one

which most convinces us that the item, here held in the left

hand, is a ‘vara’ of some sort; the right hand grasps a ‘tumi’–

knife. The ‘vara’ held by PMA3 is also very similar to that

held by (4)A3.

There must be great significance in the fact that of all

the 20 stones in sections A and B, which is to say of all of the

`warriors' and staff bearers, an overwhelming 16, or 80%, are

certainly male, while four are undetermined and not a single one

can be said to be female.

Section C has already been dealt with: these are the

figures who hold skulls or heads in their hands, and are

differentiated from those of the Sacrifice Figures–E group

simply in that here such objects are held strictly in the hands,

while among the former group they are sustained by any means––on

a necklace or strap, for instance.

Section D is a catchall grouping––having attempted to

categorize all the objects seen to be displayed in the hands of

the various figures, we still find ourselves with several which

do not come clear; the items they hold refuse to fall neatly
into any group. Many of these statues have already been
discussed, and suggestions advanced as to the identity of the

objects they hold. Q2, for example, holds two large ‘tumi’–

knives, but they are eccentric enough that there may be more to

it than that. OB3 and C1 seem to be playing musical

instruments, but one can hardly be sure of that. ES1 holds what

may be a coca ‘palo,’ but it is of an eccentric shape. PMC14 is

clearly a familiar character, but one still wonders at the round

object or lower figure, and the same may be said of the object

in the hands of another Doble Yo lower figure, PMAL9.

LM4 and PA5 are figures which are similar to each other and

bear a resemblance to stones like PMC2 and (2)L2, but the actual

identification of the objects they bear is elusive. Some other

statues are simply unclear, like LT1, PMD1 and (2)LG3, whose

`objects' are rectangular indentations. OU35, on the other

hand, holds an item that looks somewhat like a fish.

One group of three San Agustín–area statues seems to hold

the key to one intriguing detail of the Pueblo Escultor

mythology. QC1, one of the most `natural' of the human figures

carved by the ancient craftsmen, and CH7, the most `natural'

figure in the area of a monkey and perhaps of any animal, both

hold the left hand partly outstretched and in a position of

gripping something. An actual void or hole is carved out of the

stone and is cradled by the hand, and the implication is clear

that this hole was meant as a way for the hand to hold
something, some object now missing, apart from the stone statue

itself. The third statue, AI13, also a notably `natural' human

figure, offers a clue: he or she sits identically to QC1, with

similar eyes, similar fangless mouth, and with hands identically

folded over the knees. But AI13 is carved in stone holding an

arrow in the left hand. QC1, incidentally, has an upward–

pointed arrow–like motif carved on the chest. The object once

held by QC1, and possibly even by CH7, may have borne some

relation to AI13's arrow.

The four other stones in the D-section (all from the

alternative Pueblo Escultor areas) are interesting, but

difficult to understand. What is the shield–like object held by

(1)TI20, or those in the hands of (2)PV3 and (3)LC3? And

(3)LC2, as we have seen, holds a bird's–head that at the same

time looks like a ‘tumi’ object in his left hand, while gripping

what appears to be a hatchet in his right.

The final stone on the section D list, PMC1, is certainly

one of the most fascinating, and perhaps important, of the known

monuments. One of the very first to be discovered, seen by Fray

Juan de Santa Gertrudis in 1756, this fanged, ‘tumi’–shaped

figure lacks a right arm. The left is held in `standard'

position across the body, but the fingers are rather claws,

perhaps indicating `felinization,' and furthermore are inside a

glove–like shape. Beyond this, an elaborately knotted ribbon–
like object, unique among the Pueblo Escultor statues, is draped

carefully over the left wrist.

The classification of object–holding figures is with PMC1

completed, but two more groups, listed in sections E and F, are

worth looking at: both are classes of statues which hold their

arms, with hands empty, in certain eccentric positions that

contrast with the great majority of figures whose arms, we have

seen, conform to something like a `standard' position, folded

symmetrically across the chest or midsection. The following

chapter 14 will complete this look at arm positions.

Section E comprises a significant list, that of those

figures whose arms are upraised toward their shoulders as if

`reaching for the sky.' There are nine true statues on this

list, because three cited stones (AS1, AS2 and PMB(G)13)

basically show us shadows of this image translated into the

media of petroglyphs and etched `grabado,' while the secondary

figure of PMB13, held upside–down, should probably be

discounted. But these nine form an interesting set.

Taken as a group they are very similar in general figure,

with almost no functional variations. All are fanged, save for

two of the La Chaquira faces (CH2 and CH4).

Many of this group, it is worth noting, are beautiful pieces of

art, admirably designed and skillfully worked. They were almost

all products, then, of master stoneworkers, the best in this
area at their craft. The three La Chaquira faces are carved

into a trio of compass–oriented faces on a massive boulder set

in a magnificent location looking out over the Magdalena canyon

from the very edge of the precipice. This must have been a very

important place to the ancient San Agustín–area people, and

still is so today. The fanged figure (CH1) is in the center,

facing east, flanked by CH2 and CH4. A fourth, smaller figure

(CH5) faces south–east and is seen in profile, and seems also to

have arms upraised; see AG3 as well for something close to this

profile view.

The five remaining stones offer us our best insights into

this group. All are `felinized,' as suggested by their fangs,

but in addition several are actually felines. R1, we know from

the shape of the head, is indicated as a feline, while T2 is

even known popularly in San Agustín as `El Jaguar.' (1)TI4

seems to suggest a feline while at the same time it hints at a

skull, and it is one of the only fanged stones in the

Tierradentro area. (5)M2, difficult to fathom, does not seem

wholly human. T4, on the other hand, is a quite `natural' human

figure. AI7, it should be noted, holds his hands in a unique

position, upraised inside the trunk of his body, rather than

outside the shoulders.

Section F stones––C3, (2)B2 and PMB25––are those which hold

their arms down at their sides, quite unlike the usual positions
and opposite to the `arms upraised' stones. No strict

similarity seems to unite them.

In section H, to complete this hand/arm inventory, are

three stones which seem to deal with hands as a prime element.

OU63, apparently a fragment of a sarcophagus cover, shows a

single anthropomorphic hand. The curious (1)TI20 shows a stray

pair of arms on the back of the statue. VE1 is quite a

mysterious stone, a live rock boulder hidden away in a thick

forest and virtually unknown and unvisited; here we see, in a

curious form of indented petroglyph carving, at least a dozen

human hands. Some, to cap the mystery, have six fingers, while

others have only four, and yet others the normal number of five.

Part Fourteen: DEATH POSTURE

It has often been suggested that while some of the Pueblo

Escultor statues may represent gods and divine personages and

figures of myth, others are images of the dead, the ancestors,

the figures of the underworld.

It is difficult to see any way of knowing whether or not

this is true. A stone like AI7, for example––a sarcophagus–

cover slab which was found over a sarcophagus, and is carved

with an image that seems very much to be a portrait of the dead

man––this, in short, is exactly what we are looking for. U3 is

another stone which looks like a death image, and the figure on
the back of OU4, being carved so oddly, might also be taken as

something in the way of confirmation.

Most of the others, though, are of a piece: the section A

statues are those whose hands are not `standard' (clutched

horizontally across the belly or chest), not upraised or down-

thrust, and not holding anything (with the exception of PMB33

who meets the other criteria but grasps a small ‘poporo’ shell

in both hands). Instead, the arms of all these section A

statues are slanted upward, above the horizontal, and laid

across the chest––AI7 would be the prototype. Do we understand

this grouping? It is difficult to say. Whatever the

significance of this arm–position, here are gathered together

all such statues. Only a few stand out from the norm.

These are in general inferior carvings, less detailed and

at the same time less well crafted. One hand of PMB32 grasps

another. The arms of (1)LC1 and (1)SI5 are out of kilter.

(6)SF1 has the proper position but, unusually and like OU4,

carries a small figure on his back. The PMB12 series of some

25–plus carvings, all basically identical and with one arm

grasping the other (which is down-thrust) at the elbow, are also

included here, although it is hard to say with what

justification. These PMB12 stones are from one single find on

Mesita B, and are difficult to interpret, although their

original architectonic position may have been similar to the
uncarved stones which circle (and contain) another mound–tomb on

Mesita B, only some 20 meters away. For what it is worth, of

the 26 drawn here, 15 grasp with right hand the left elbow, and

11 are the opposite, grasping the right elbow with the left

hand.

Section B lists ten statues that show a different position,

one which with even more justice might be viewed as a funerary

position. These figures are seated and either grasp their

knees––like LT3, R2 and N3––or rest their hands on top of the

folded knees in a similar way. (2)LG3 is more eccentric, but

still may be grasping his knees.

This position is a well known burial position, evidenced by

many different american cultures, and is given a name––

`flexed'––in the archaeological lexicon. These flexed figures

thus even more strongly suggest themselves as images of dead

human beings––we have seen that none of them have special

attributes or carry objects. They are just plain, simple human

figures.

There is a group of closely analogous statues from the

Recuay and Huaylas cultures of the Callejón de Huaylas in

northern highland Perú. Though found in the general zone of the

central site of the earlier Chavín culture, they apparently

range in date from post–Chavín through Tiwanaku and post–

Tiwanaku times—roughly the same time period as that of the
Pueblo Escultor. We see seated figures grasping their folded

knees, sometimes bearing other articles, and closely resembling

peruvian mummy bundles in shape. These pieces too are found in

funerary contexts, and have been called "...representations of

mummified persons, to judge by their seated positions," and

"...mummified warriors...shown with flexed legs.".

Only one stone––AI24––forms section C. Here we clearly see

a human rib–cage, but the stone lacks both head and legs, so

that any inference is of necessity indirect.

Part Fifteen: SEVERAL OTHER CATEGORIES:

T–SHAPED PECTORALS:

The T–Shaped pectoral is a specific ornamental and perhaps

ceremonial device which is found, among the Pueblo Escultor

statues, exclusively in the Tierradentro area. There are nine

statues that wear the T–shaped ornament, which when taken

against the total of 67 statues in the Tierradentro zone equals

a substantial 13.5%. In every case (although (1)SI4 is

questionable) the T–shaped object appears as a pectoral on the

figure's chest. None of these statues are fanged, which is to

be expected at Tierradentro. Three of the nine––(1)T3, (1)TI11

and (1)TI27––are male, while the other six are undetermined;

none seem female by any criterion.
 Three of the statue figures depicted wear their T–shaped

pectorals suspended on necklaces running back around the neck:

(1)T5, (1)HM7 and (1)TI10. Another three have the emblem placed

on their chests, with no neck–cord, but in the same position:

(1)T3, (1)TI25 and (1)TI27. The final trio are varied. (1)SI4

is too fragmentary to be of much use, but seems to be a chest––

with vestiges of chin above and arms below––on which we see an

elegant T–shape. In the case of (1)TI11 we cannot quite tell––

we see the T–shape, but the statue is broken vertically across

it, and across the figure's chest; but compare the fragment to

(1)T3, (1)B4, (1)SI4, etc. The final stone, (1)B4, is the most

unusual of the series, with two T–shaped pectorals, one on each

side of the chest, instead of a single device in the center.

The shape of (1)T5 is the most unusual; and (1)TI25 shows a

similar figure. (1)B4 and (1)TI27 have nearly identical

pectorals. Two of the devices––(1)HM7 and (1)TI10, both with

their objects strung around the neck––seem intended to serve as

‘tumi’–knives, while a third––(1)SI4––is somewhat suggestive of

the ‘tumi’ shape.

We also need to look at this T-shaped device in the light

of two statues from the San Agustín area. The first is a large,

impressive stone at the Mesita B site, where the headband of the

huge triangular PMB7 is composed of interlocking ‘T’ shapes.

And at Alto de las Piedras there is a large tomb-slab (AP(G)1)
deeply engraved with this same Pueblo Escultor symbol. It may

also be worth noting that similar T-shapes, as well as T-shaped

pectorals, are reported from a number of different Mayan sites

and other places as well in southern Mexico and Central America:

we are told, in reference to this symbol, that “It is the

identifying element of the day-sign ‘Ik,’ a term meaning ‘wind,’

‘breath,’ ‘spirit,’ and, by extension, ‘life.’”

`WINGED' FIGURES:

The word `winged' is between apostrophes to indicate that

it is not necessarily meant to be taken literally. There are a

series of some seven statues which show variations of a similar

shape on their backs, and since it is vaguely suggestive of

wings, the category has been given that name. The shape is also

sometimes reminiscent of a conventional `heart,' and could as

well have been so labeled.

The two most elaborate examples are PMC2 and AI12, both

standout examples of the San Agustín stone-carving art. The

latter, unfortunately broken, is carved in an elaborate shape

and is etched on top of that. PMC2, an oft–noted stone, has a

low–relief version of the heart–shaped `wings' which envelopes a

design said by some to resemble a bird in flight.

The other two San Agustín–area stones, J7 and OU27, are

similar to each other, taking into account that OU27 is broken.
OU27, like AI12 and (1)TI4, is male, while the other four show

no sure signs of their sex; none are clearly female.

The three stones from alternative Pueblo Escultor areas

which have versions of `wing' shapes on their backs are all

slightly less convincing. (1)VP1 has something like the

rounded, pointed–at–bottom `wings' shape, but here it can be

seen to be very similar to a common back–device, usually formed

of two parallel columns connected at the top, which may be seen

on the backs of many statues from the San Agustín area as well

as from outside the valley. (1)TI4 is backed by a flat `heart'–

shape, but it looks almost as if the shape were casual, and the

intent lay more in the function as a backing, as for example in

C1. The final statue, (6)CO1, from the Popayán statue area, has

only vaguely a `wings' shape, seeming more to be a `shadow' of

the arms seen on the front of the statue.

`FURNITURE' STONES:

This class could just as well be called `Functional

Stones,’ the purpose being to list all the large–scale stone

carvings which seem likely to have been used to do something

functional in an every-day manner.

AI9, for instance, in addition to bearing a circle of 16

faces, is called an altar, and could as easily be considered a

table or a seat. Another stone, a Tierradentro feline––(1)HM6––
is also very similar to a table or an Olmec-style ‘throne.’ And

(1)SA2, the round face–ringed stone most similar in both essence

and form to AI9, also has a circular hole of very curious shape

which passes part way through its center. The meaning seems to

be that this stone is a `joint,' a stone which when coupled with

the properly–shaped projecting object could form a useful

junction, for some reason which is no longer evident.

There are two other stones, PMB19 and AG2, both from the

San Agustín statue area, which also seem to have jointed holes

through the center. In each case the actual shape of the joint–

hole is different. PMB19 has a hole which reduces in size

passing from the front to the back; one edge is flat rather than

rounded. AG2 is similar to PMB19 but has no design carving and

the center hole is jointed but square.

Another pair of stones, (5)M3 in the Saladoblanco area and

(3)LC9 in the Moscopán zone, are among the most provocative

monuments that we know. Both were found in the context of

numerous other, more conventional stone-carvings––

anthropomorphic statues, animal figures, and so on––but both

seem to be pieces of furniture, of a style with which the modern

eye can readily identify. The Saladoblanco stone, square and

with an elevated basin, seems intended to hold liquid and/or

other things, is virtually a `sink' or `washbasin' to the modern

observer. And (3)LC9 is not only seemingly a modern shape but
is carved as a beautiful, curving form which really breaks with

all the other known Pueblo Escultor work. This sculpture, one

concludes, simply had to be a chair. Today in its remote site–

area it is called just that: `La Silla.'

A final stone, listed here, is not really a `furniture'

stone, being itself a flat slab with, as is customary, an etched

`grabado' design: this stone would have been a wall or roof in

a tomb–structure. But the patterns incised on LB(G)1 seem to

suggest some construct, and perhaps, as has been suggested

locally, these are pictures of looms used for weaving, or house–

plan sketches. They could as well be something else.

DECORATED SARCOPHAGI:

Monolithic stone sarcophagi were perhaps not a common

element among the ruins left by many ancient American peoples;

nevertheless, there were a number of cultures for whom such

sarcophagi are registered, beginning at least as early as the

Formative-age Olmecs of Mexico. In the San Agustín area more

than 30 monolithic sarcophagi were found, and quite a few may be

seen today both in the archaeological park and in the second

park, Alto de los Idolos, and in other sites as well. Almost

all are impressive and massive; they are carved in several

different manners.
 Among them, though, only three have been found which are

carved with any type of ornamental design (here we are not

considering the pairs of `arms' or `handles' carved at the two

ends of several other stone sarcophagi in the zone, as if to

carry them thereby). None of the three come from either of the

two centers, the archaeological parks, and curiously two of the

three are from (and still may be seen at) sites on the far side

of the Sombrerillos River, at the southern edge of the statue

zone and in an area where relatively few sculptures have been

found. Both of these stones, in fact, are not only beyond the

river but on the far side of the El Pilón mountain to the south.

All three are alike in being carved with figures only at

one end. R4 is near the top of El Pilón; there, along with

several statues, is this sarcophagus carved with the form of a

bird's face, beak and wings. Yet further to the south is the La

Florida site where one (LF1) among several sarcophagi has two

human faces at one end, looking much like the pairs of

sarcophagus–end `handles' already referred to.

The third of the decorated sarcophagi is in the center of

the main statue zone, to the north of the Magdalena River. This

sarcophagus, B1, has a single human face at one end.

`LODGES':
 The final two pieces to be considered in this study––(1)SA3

from the Tierradentro area and (2)PV1 from the Platavieja area––

are monolithic images of buildings of the ancient new-world

inhabitants, and they may well be unique objects from the

precolumbian world. They seem so far outside the canon of the

sculpture under study here that one is moved to ask: who were

the individuals, inheritors of a grand sculptural heritage, who

created these two lithic works? What was their purpose for

wanting copies in stone of their buildings? Since they were

found buried in the usual funerary context, they must have

played a role in the legendary, mythical scene which, were all

the parts assembled, would be played out before our eyes.

(1)SA3 seems to be an extremely realistic portrayal of a

lodge or some type of building built also in the `real' world by

the ancients. Looking at the striation–lines on the roof of the

lodge and the soft, rounded form time has given the stone, one

can almost see the thatched roof that surely is intended. The

ends of the roof are realistically marked, and on one long side

at ground level may be seen the entrance–way into the building.

(2)PV1, the stone called `El Rancho' in the Platavieja

area, is a direct analog of the Tierradentro stone; here we have

another lodge, complete with identical entrance–way in the

middle of one long side. There are arcs as ornament–marks over

this door, and stepped decoration all along both long sides of
the roof. And we see at both ends of the roof, with smiling

`baby'–face and hanging, outstretched arms, a pair of very

familiar figures: these two are once again the `Doble Spirits,'

the `Guardians,' the combined supernatural serpent–feline

figures who are in some way representative of the Doble-Yo.

*************************************************

********************************

*****************

LISTS OF CATEGORIES

SERPENTS:

A) Serpent Doble

PMA1 AP1
PMA2 AP5
PMA7 (paint) PMC3
PMA8 (paint) PMC8
PMB9 OU28
PMB10 LA1
PMB14 (1)HM4
PMB20 (2)PV1
PMAL2

B) Bird with Serpent

 PMB6
PE1

C) Serpent in Hands

CA2
PMB2

D) Serpent Stone

PMB27 LT4
PMC12 N2
PML2 (1)T13

E) with Many Creatures

PMB18 PML22
PMB19 (3)LC5

F) Serpent `Grabado'

PMB(G)6 OU(G)1
PMB(G)7 AC2
LB(G)1

G) Petroglyph Serpents

AS1 (5)CO1
AS2 (5)CO2
(2)VC4

H) Crosshatch Turban

AI1 PMAL8
AI5 T5
AI10 SA3
AP7 Q2
AP8 QC5
AP11 (1)T6
 (1)T9
I) Crosshatch Skirt

T1 SA3
T3 OU35

J) Crosshatch Incision

PMA(G)1 OU35
PMB(G)3 (1)T10
PMB(G)14 (2)VC1
PE1 (5)M2

WOMAN SIGNS:

A) Crosshatch on Woman

AI1 T1
AI5 T3
AI10 T5
AP7 SA3
AP8 OU35
AP11 (1)T6
PMAL8 (1)T9
PMB17 Q2

B) Breasts or Genitals

AI1 OU40
AI16 (1)TI2
LT3
AG1 (1)TI9
PMA12 (2)LG2
OB4

C) Wears Skirt

AI1 T1
AP7 T3
 AP8 T5
AG1 C1
PMA4 CA1
PMC5 (1)T2
PE2 (1)T4
SA3 (1)T11
PMB17 J1
PMAL6 AP10

D) Nosering

T5
Q2
(1)T9

E) Crosshatch in Other Context

PMA1 PMA(G)1
PMA2 PMB(G)3
PMAL2 PMB(G)6
AP1 PMB(G)14
PE1 OU(G)1
CA2 (1)T10
*QC5 (2)VC1
(5)M2

MALE SIGNS:

A) Genitals

PMA9 (1)TI3
PMAL2 (1)TI4
AC1 (1)TI13
AI7 (1)TI15
AI12 (1)TI18
AI25 (1)TI22
AP12 (1)TI27
CH2 (2)B1
PE5 (2)B2
 PE9 (secondary figure)
OB1 (2)BP1 (on side)
R3 (2)L3
LT2 (2)LG2
S4 (2)VC3
N3 (3)M1
OU29 (3)M2
OU39 (3)LC1
OU81 (3)LC5 (on side)
AP4 (3)Y6
ET1

B) Loincloth

PMA1 LA1
PMA2 LM7
PMA5 J2
PMA7 (appar– QC4
PMA8 ently) QC5
PMA10 OU16
PMB11 OU27
PMB22 OU37
PMB26 OU53
PMC3 (1)T1
PMC7 (1)T3
PMD2 (1)T11
PMAL3 (twice) (1)TI23
PMAL5 (1)EP1
PMAL7 (2)L5
AI4 (2)PV3
AI17 (2)LG1
AI22 (3)Y1
AP1 (3)Y3
AP5 (3)LC2
CH1 (3)LC4
PA2 (3)SJ3
PE10 (4)A2
U7 (4)A3
BA2 J1 (?)
J5
SACRIFICE FIGURES:

A) Sustaining Small Figure with `Cuernos'

PMB13 PE9 (through wound in arm)

PMB21 PE10
U6 OU83 (not sustained)
C2

B) `Cuernos'

AP12
PMAL3

C) Sustaining Strange Figure

PMAL9 (1)TI20
PMC14 (2)PV3
AI10 (3)LC2
PA5 (3)LC3
OU35

D) Sustaining Animal

PMB2 (serpent)
CA2 (serpent)
PMB3 (fish)
AI19 (two fish)
AI12 (mammal)

E) Sustaining Skull, Head, etc.

PMB1 AP12
PMB8 LB1
PMB11 LM3
PMB18 OU90
PMB26 (1)HM2
PMC3 (1)HM3
 PMC7 (1)HM10
PMC8 (1)ED1
PMC10 (2)L2
U2 (2)B2
U4 (2)LG3
PA2 (3)LC2
PA6 (3)Y3
CH3 (5)S2 (between legs)
QC4

F) Skull Figure

PMB7 (1)HM1
Q4 (1)SA5
EQ2 (2)B3
LE3

G) Row of Heads or Faces

PMB(G)16 (1)SA2
AI9 (1)P1
LF1 (2)PV1
OU83 ES2

H) Feline Over Smaller Figure

U4 PA6
M2 OU90

I) Sustaining `Tumi' Sacrifice Knife

PMA3 (1)HM7
PMB(G)15 (not sustained)
Q2 (1)TI10
OU53 (3)LC2
AP4 (3)LC4

J) Small Figure on Back

(1)TI9 OU4
 (1)TI20 (just arms)
(1)TI26 (6)SF1
(7)I2 (7)B2

K) Sustaining Cup

AI1
AP11

`COQUEROS':

A) `Palo'

PMA9 AI4
PMAL7 AI17 (left–handed)
*U7 AI22
PE9 OU39
*QC5 (1)VP1
ES1 (4)A3

B) `Poporo'

PMA9 AI4
PMB29 AI22
PMB33 PA8
PMAL7 (1)T10
*U7 (1)VP1
*QC5 (5)M1

C) `Bolsa'

PMC6 OU3
*U7 OU4
*QC5 OU81
T7 (1)T10
LE4 (3)Y3

OTHER IMPLEMENTS IN HANDS:

A) War Apparatus

PMA1 AP5
PMA2 (2)LG1
PMA7 (3)Y1
PMA8 (3)SJ3
PMB9 (3)SJ7
PMB10 (4)A2
PMAL3 PMAL5
OU2

B) `Vara' or Staff

PMA3 OU39
PMC2 (2)LG1
PMAL3 (3)Y1
PA5 (3)SJ3
PE9 (3)SJ7
OB1 (4)A2
AP4 (4)A3
AP5 OU2

C) Skull or Head

PMB1 PA2
PMB8 QC4
PMB11 (1)ED1
PMB26 (2)L2
U2 (3)LC2

D) Other Object

PMAL9 ES1
PMC1 LM4
PMC14 LT1
PMD1 OU35
AI10 OU88
AI13 (1)TI20
PA5 (2)PV3
 CH7 (2)LG3
Q2 (3)LC2
QC1 (3)LC3
C1 (4)A3
OB3

E) Arms Upraised Towards Shoulders

CH1 PMB13 (secondary figure)

CH2 PMB(G)13
CH4 PML2
CH5 AS1
T2 AS2
T4 (1)TI4
R1 (5)M2

F) Arms Down at Sides

PMB25
C3
(2)B1

G) Staff Held Diagonally

AP5 (3)Y1
(2)LG1 (3)SJ3
(4)A2 (3)SJ7

H) Just Hands

VE1
OU63
(1)TI20 (on back)

Arms in Eccentric Pose

LA1 (1)TI14
OU9 (1)TI20
PMA4 (1)SI5
PMC1 (1)LC1
 PMB12 (3)Y3
S3 OB5

`DOBLE YO':

A) Definite `Doble'

PMA1 AP1
PMA2 AP5
PMA7 LB1
PMA8 LB2
PMB9 LB3
PMB10 LM3
PMB13 G3
PMB14 R3
PMB20 AS1
PMB22 OU4
PMB(G)3 OU90
PMC3 (1)P1
PMC8 (1)HM3
PMC9 (1)TI9
PMC14 (1)TI26
PML1 (2)L2
PMAL2 (2)L6
PMAL3 (2)LG3
PMAL9 (2)PV1
U4 (4)A4
M2 (6)I2
PA6 (6)P1
CH3 OU9

B) Possible `Doble'

PMB18 AI5
PMB25 LE5
PMB27 LF1
PMC7 OU28
PMC12 (1)TI20
PMC14
 PMB(G)6
PMB(G)16

C) Triple

AI26 (1)HM2
PA6 (1)HM10
CH1/CH2/CH4

D) Bird–Serpent

PMB6
PE1

E) `Doble'–Implying Shape

AI25 OU14
LA1 OU53
G1 (1)A1
G2 (1)HM4
CH6 (1)HM5
LT4 (1)HM6
QC3 (1)HM9
LE1 PE7

BIRD FIGURES:

A) `Natural' Bird

AI14 (2)L4
AI20 (3)LC2 (secondary figure)
R4 (3)LC8
BA1 LE1

B) Bird–Serpent

PMB6
PE1
 C) `Bird' Emblem

PMB10 (five)
PMB22 (five)
PMB26 (three)
T8 (five)
Q2 (five)
J3 (five)
PE10 (nine)
PE11 (one)
AP4 (ten)

D) `Feathers'

PMA9 CH2
PMB29 CH5
PMC1 (1)HM7
PMD2 (1)SI5
PML2 (1)P1
AI12 (1)B4
PE11 (1)TI19
Q2 (3)M1
AP3

FELINE FIGURES:

A) Feline Procreator

PMB22 AP1
PMAL2 G1
M1 OU14
M2 OU90
U4 (1)HM4
PA6 (1)HM5
CH6 (1)HM9
R3 (6)I2

B) Feline–Serpent
 PMA1 PMB9
PMA2 PMB10
PMAL2 PMB14
AP1 PMB20
AP5

C) `Natural' Feline

PMAL4 (1)HM6
R1 (1)HM8
T2 (2)LG2
PA7 (4)A1
CA2
LB2
LE5

`CAYMAN/RANA/LAGARTO':

A) `Cayman' or `Rana'

PMA13 (1)SA6
PML1 (1)HM4
PML2 (1)HM5
PMAL1 (1)HM6
PMAL4 (1)HM8
AI8 (1)HM9
AI21 (3)LC7
M1 (4)A1
J8 (5)M2

B) Relief `Lagarto'

PMB18 PML2
PMB19 (3)LC5

C) Petroglyph `Lagarto'

(5)CO1
(5)CO2
 (1)AS1
(2)VC4

OTHER ANIMALS:

A) Monkey

PMC9 CH7
PMAL4 EQ3
PMAL7

B) Rodent

AI2

C) Various Animals

PML2
PMB18

D) Fish

PMB3
AI19

`LENGUA/CINTA/CABEZA':

PMB1 J4
PMC7 OB3
U2 LM3
C1 OU4

MASKED FIGURES:

PMC2 Q1
PMC4 Q4
PMB(G)17 (1)SI3
 U1 (2)LG3
LM1 (4)A1
PE12

DEATH POSTURE:

A) Death Posture

PMA14 OU7
PMB4 OU8
PMB12 OU16
PMB16 OU19
PMB28 OU21
PMB31 OU37
PMB32 OU43
PMB33 OU62
PMB(G)13 OU85
PMB(G)17 OU89
PMC13 (1)T6
U3 (1)T12
U8 (1)T14
AI7 (1)B3
PE5 (1)B5
PA9 (1)B7
OB2 (1)LC1
OB4 (1)SI5
S4 (1)TI1
G3 (1)TI3
AG3 (1)TI13
CA1 (3)M2
LT2 (3)Y6
LT5 (3)LC1
LF2 (3)SJ4
LM7 (6)SF1
E2 (6)CO1
OU4 (on back) E3

B) Holding Knees
 PMC6 AI13
S2 LT3
R2 OU32
N3 (2)LG2
QC1 (5)S2

C) Ribs

AI24

T–SHAPED PECTORALS:

(1)T3 (1)TI10 (tumi)

(1)T5 (1)TI11
(1)HM7 (tumi) (1)TI25
(1)B4 (1)TI27
(1)SI4 (tumi)

`WINGED' FIGURES:

PMC2 (1)VP1
AI12 (1)TI4
J7 (6)CO1
OU27 (7)B3

`FURNITURE' STONES:

PMB19 (1)HM4
AI9 (1)HM6
AG2 (1)SA2
LB(G)1 (3)LC9
(5)M3

DECORATED SARCOPHAGI:

B1
R4
 LF1

`LODGES':

(1)SA3
(2)PV1

*******************************************************

****************

*****

PAGE
PAGE 234
 the creation of this catalogue

When I first came upon San Agustín in the early 1970’s, I

knew very little about precolumbian history or ancient history

of any kind. I knew even less about drawing. I had seen enough

during my travels in southern Mexico and Guatemala to realize

that I wanted to come to know more such ruins sites, and I had

heard, on the road, about San Agustín, enough to get me there.

My first glimpse was a very powerful experience, in some ways

determinative. A year or so later, when I was able to find my

way back to the valley of the statues, and to begin to put down

my roots, my interest in the archaeology of the zone and the

statues was only one of a set of reasons and factors for

settling there. Over the course of the next several years this

interest and feeling of connection deepened greatly, and by 1977

I was attempting to systematically continue the notes I was by

then taking, site by site and statue by statue, and to get them

to evolve into something more comprehensive.

By this time, too, I had been able to do some reading on

subjects that would underlie and help me to gain an

understanding of the archaeology of San Agustín and its region:

of what I would eventually come to comprehend to be the vestiges

of the Pueblo Escultor. The reading was spontaneous and never

very formally directed, and waylaid with disturbing gaps. I
rarely lacked for fuel, however, and was always appreciative of

whatever chance might bring into my path; time invested in the

district of book kiosks along ‘la 19’ in Bogotá, for instance,

or among the vast warrens of booksellers surrounding Lima’s

Plaza Grau, or browsing through the kiosks sprawled along

Quito’s ‘24 de Mayo’ or the Avenida Montes in La Paz, could

unveil rich and unexpected veins indeed.

By the late 1970’s I had also been able to take the

opportunity to travel extensively in the Andes and had visited a

great number of archaeological sites in Ecuador, Perú and

Bolivia, as well as many museums housing precolumbian

collections. My eye was always open and searching for whatever

might help me to illuminate the archaeology and statuary of San

Agustín and the Macizo Colombiano.

In about 1978 I began anew with my notes on the statues in

the valley of San Agustín. Taking into account whatever I had

been able to read about the Pueblo Escultor and about

precolumbian history and statuary in general, and perhaps even

more importantly, reordering and collating in my mind all that I

had been able to learn by my growing familiarity with most of

the sites in the valley of San Agustín, and with hundreds of

statues, I began another, more focused, statue-by-statue

description. This draft was carried far enough for it to become

a valuable tool, but was ultimately frustrated by something that
would herald a change in my method of attempting to come to

grips with my own, personal interpretation of these statues. As

I wrote, in words, my description of any given piece (in order

then to be able to discuss it), small drawings began to creep

onto the page, into my flow. Description in mere words seemed

inadequate: here an eye would appear, there a headpiece

ornament, soon after a loincloth or a bracelet, all easier to

attempt to draw than endlessly and fruitlessly describe. By the

end of that stage of the project, I had many pages of text

interrupted by many more detail-drawings, and a dawning idea

that I would have to start again and draw the statues one by

one. I didn’t much like the idea because I had never really

drawn much of anything.

Early on, I had recognized and felt the lack of a

comprehensive catalogue of the statues I was attempting to

study. Had one been available, I would have been glad to buy it

and to be able to get on with what I aimed at: study, analysis

and conclusions leading, hopefully, to some form of

understanding. I had little desire to put myself to the trouble

of drawing them all; it was more than enough work to visit and

observe them all. But the reality was that, even taking notes,

I couldn’t possibly retain enough content and detail to be able

to then sit in my house with memory and notes and other texts
and fruitfully analyze what I had seen hours or days previously.
A catalogue for sale, hopefully with drawings by someone more

talented and experienced than myself, was not available.

Preuss’ seminal (and difficult to obtain) volume, the result of

his 1913-1914 visit to the area, was badly out of date; I had by

now seen great numbers of statues beyond the 110 or so that he

saw and attempted to explain. I reluctantly felt that, if I

wanted to continue this work, I was going to have to take the

next step, and draw the statues myself.

And so I started again, and made drawings of all the

statues that I could find in the valley of San Agustín, where I

lived. I gave little thought to the material I used, acid-free

paper and so on; I simply bought whatever notebooks were

available in the stores in town, measured the statues with my

eyeball, and went at it. By the time I had finished this round

of drawings, in 1980 or soon thereafter, various factors already

made them obsolete, chief among them the need to make better

drawings.

For the next, and final, stage of this project, I now had

the proper materials, as well as some experience in carrying out

my aims. For the most part I worked steadily at this project

through the following years and by decade’s end had basically

finished it to my satisfaction. But several new factors which

entered into play in the 1980’s were essential in shaping the

project, and even moreso my grasp of the context and meaning

behind the statuary.

First, during this decade I became more fully aware of the

literature that existed, the studies of the Pueblo Escultor, and

slowly I was able to ferret out and beg, borrow or buy most of

what had been published, including (although not restricted to)

the important studies carried out by Codazzi, Cuervo Márquez,

Preuss, Hernández de Alba, Pérez de Barradas, Duque Gómez, and

Reichel-Dolmatoff. These volumes would orient both my search,

piece by piece, for the statues themselves, and my path to a

worthwhile analysis of what I was seeing. With these studies in

mind, the concept of a ‘catalogue-plus-key-data’ took on ever

greater and clearer form in my mind.

Second, in the years of this decade I was fortunate enough

to be able to travel much more extensively throughout South

America, and to observe a great number of archaeological sites

and elements in almost all the countries of the continent.

Together, these studies and journeys made possible at least an

attempt at a vision of the overall tableaux of stone sculpture

in precolumbian America, and it is with this essential vision as

a backdrop that I have been able to progress in the study whose

axis is this series of drawings.

A third new factor has had a much more immediate effect in

influencing, and in fact altering in a most basic way, this
catalogue of images. During the previous phases, I was still

drawing what I thought of as the statues of San Agustín. Only

slowly did I come to understand that the statues in the valley

of San Agustín constitute only one---albeit the principal---of a

series of similar nuclei scattered among the mountain-folds

surrounding the Macizo Colombiano in the south of Colombia.

Inevitably the realization came that the monuments in the sites

of these other statue-areas formed part of the same study upon

which I was engaged: I would eventually see that they were all

products of the Pueblo Escultor, living in a series of different

settlements in the Macizo. This being the case, I had no choice

but to begin to draw them all.

In fact, I had been to Tierradentro in the Páez lands years

before, in the mid-1970’s, but at that time I didn’t have the

focus to appreciate the significance of the statues there.

Eventually I would draw more than 65 Tierradentro statues.

Before I had begun to do so, however, in 1980 or soon

thereafter, I had a chance encounter in San Agustín with a

friend from the pueblo (7 hours away by motor vehicle) of La

Argentina, Huila. This led to a visit to that pueblo, my

subsequent awareness of the existence of the Platavieja group of

statues in the area, the first attempts at of drawing those

statues, and finally, the growing understanding that there were

a series of Pueblo Escultor nuclei in these southern colombian
mountains: San Agustín, Tierradentro and now Platavieja were

three such, and they would all have to be reflected in the

catalogue I envisioned.

Thus it was that in the ensuing years I tracked down

subjects for my portraits in the different Moscopán sites as

well as Aguabonita in the La Plata valley, and in Saladoblanco

not far northeast of San Agustín, in addition to the areas

mentioned above. I have also sought out and drawn as many as I

have been able, a sampling in any case, of the statues from the

Popayán area to the west of the Macizo, and from the Nariño area

to the south of the massif. The statues from these last two

areas are substantially different, but in the purview of the

present study, all these separate areas qualify as centers of

statuary of the Pueblo Escultor.

By decade’s end I had done what I could with the drawings

of the statues, both in the valley of San Agustín and in the

other statue areas. No survey like this can ever be complete,

because too much has been lost along the way or is yet to be

uncovered; but this effort, certainly, is substantial, and goes

a long way toward presenting a large body of most important

images. In any case, I had what I needed: with the drawings as

a base, I was able to arrange categories and cross-references,

and to delve into what I felt were the meanings behind them. A
considerable bibliography also came together as a kind of

framework around the study.

By 1990, then, I felt that the work was fairly well

concluded, although one major task still remained; finally, when

I took it seriously enough, I realized that I really couldn’t

avoid it. Preuss, during his WWI-era visit to San Agustín,

carried away a major stash of statues—more than 30—from the

valley, and eventually brought them back to Germany with him.

In addition, a previous British Museum expedition had at the

turn of the century taken a single statue back to London.

Certainly many more statues have over the years been spirited

off to collections in Europe and elsewhere, but these two

removals, at least, had been published and thus were traceable.

My final stone, still-unturned at this point, was to travel to

Europe—my first such trip—and search out these statues,

unmentioned now for decades. I was able to do so in 1992, and

to draw them, thereby essentially completing my version of this

catalogue.

I need to emphasize that from the start I envisioned the

catalogue of Pueblo Escultor images as something that would come

with few strings attached; in other words, my point is not that

I will explain these symbols and images, and that my version is

the one true guide to their understanding. Rather, I wanted to

present them, and to make them as intelligible as possible, so
that each student, bringing whatever he/she may bring to the

table, may understand them in his/her own way, and use this

knowledge accordingly.

I struggle with my own understanding of what lies behind

these statues, and of who the Pueblo Escultor were, and of how

they lived their lives. Hopefully, others will continue to

further enlighten me. I have collected some valuable

information relating to observing and interpreting and cross-

referencing these images, though, and want here to present my

version of this basic data. As far as the accompanying text

goes, I hope that any interested student would take it with as

many grains of salt as necessary: take it, that is, as my best

attempt, with whatever knowledge I’ve been able to marshal, to

illuminate the background and meaning of these astounding

statues. If the reader is knowledgeable to the point where my

discourse seems limited, or erroneous, lay it aside; I would

hope that the real value lies in the images.

It is disappointing to recall the apathy with which the

colombian archaeological authorities responded to my project

over the course of many years—certainly not due to any lack of

knowledge of my efforts, for I tried without success for decades

to penetrate the lassitude and obfuscation that seemed to

dominate the terrain.

 But the bureaucratic offices of Bogotá are a world away

from the valley of San Agustín and its inhabitants, and I am

happy to say that the workers and guards in the Parque

Arqueológico never ceased to be of great assistance to me; they

are also my friends and neighbors, and I thank them for that.

The people of San Agustín are remarkable repositories of the

knowledge and history of their valley and its archaeological

treasures. The value of the aid and information and

understanding shared with me by people for whom the valley is

home, as opposed to the sum total of help proffered by the jefes

and doctores in Bogotá, were at opposite extremes of the scale.

The only previous attempt (post-Preuss) to publish a

catalogue of the statuary of the Macizo Colombiano was an effort

published under the auspices of the Instituto de Antropología in

198754, and subsequently savagely criticized in a review55

representing the views of the same archaeological establishment

which had nurtured the effort in the first place. The

criticisms therein run broad and deep, but I would like to focus

here on one essential element: the authors sketched many of

their outlines not from an actual acquaintance with the statues

themselves, but from previously published photographs and

drawings, which, as method, simply isn’t adequate. The effort

was rushed, and its creators didn’t take the time to master and
become truly enthused by their subject matter.
 The present catalogue took so long to complete precisely

because I have seen, analyzed and personally drawn while

studying it, each statue. The material was gathered together

slowly and painstakingly over the course of many years.

Responsibility for these images, for their veracity and for

their defects, is of course mine alone.

A dozen years before the 2004 re-disinterring of this

project, the director of the Museum für Volkerkunde in Berlin,

Manuela Fischer, and her assistant María Gaida, were of great

assistance as I researched the statues taken there by Preuss; my

thanks to them for that and for their friendship as well. In

the cited year I decided on a whim to get in touch with

Dumbarton Oaks in Washington D.C.—faminliar to me since my

visits there in the 1960’s—and was rewarded with the opportunity

to saborear the impressive library of that institution; director

Jeffrey Quilter interested himself in my project and shared

valuable suggestions with me, which I appreciate, as I do the

help given me there by his assistant Juan Antonio Murro and by

librarian Bridget Gazzo. Even moreso do I appreciate the fact

that I was able to store my drawings there, in the type of

facility I had always hoped would house them; perhaps they will

be discovered and utilized by future researchers.

Many friends, far too numerous to mention comprehensively,

helped me along the path of understanding that led to the
completion of this catalogue, and I would be honored to formally

give them my heartfelt thanks. My mother and father, Mary Jane

and John Dellenback, gave me support which no amount of words

could indicate, starting with limitless quantities of love and

affirmation. My brother Richard Dellenback was from the start

my beloved traveling companion, and always had my back; my

sister Barbara Dellenback accompanied me on my journey and was

my never-failing lifeline home, and never let me forget the

things that most matter.

Randy (René) Scott helped me find the way to the road in

the first place, and has been there anew at many turns in the

path. My brother (in-law) Dave Ouellette and his steady hand

and smile have always provided inspiration, and if this project

were handed on to anyone, it would be to my nephews Cy and Van

Dellenback-Ouellette and Jess Martinetti. It was not always

easy going on (and off) the roads and caminos in the mountains

and valleys of the Macizo Colombiano, and the hardships and

frustrations were many; the company of friends such as Christian

Schmalbach, Eleazar Morad, Francisco Maffei, Matu Neira and

Germán Galeano on those caminos made them even at worst a

pleasure and a privilege, and my memories treasures. And

there’s no overstating my debt to my fabled horse, El Viejo, who

accompanied me on all my adventures: bloodline of champions,

legendary in San Agustín, never a misstep. My casa in San
Agustín was home to Ignacio (Nacho) Brahim and his visits were

greatly anticipated, and I was thankful and honored that he made

his (and his brothers’) home in Bogotá mine, as have Matu

(abovementioned) and Luis Enrique (Chacho) Martínez with their

home in Sopó, Cundinamarca.

To many more brothers and sisters, as well, I offer my

greatest most abundant thanks, beyond what I could adequately

express, for the aid and support, for the shared days and years

and intense moments and times, for the ever-open door and the

ever-helping hand, for the mágia of la familia agustiniana:

Carlos (Compadre) Valero, Arturo Mosquera and Helena Fernández

(who shared their house with me and never allowed me to go to

bed hungry), Jano Pinillos, Julio Vargas, Tulio Salcedo, Andrés

Enciso, Gildardo Arboleda, Bolívar and Mayer Ledesma, Luis

(Lucho) and Alex Brahim, Eliecer Ordóñez (the man and the

legend), Carolina Peña, Germán Zuluaga, Bertha Molina, Germán

Vargas, Pedro Martínez, José María Mosquera, Jaime Forero,

Roberto Freeman, Roland Siverson, Blanca Bustos, Elsy Sabogal,

María Teresa Carrasquilla, Lulú Ayda Roberts, Liliana Zapata,

Nelly Schmalbach, Joaquín García, James López, Milena Calderón,

Milciades Martínez, Sidartha and Arturo Andrés and Belisa

Mosquera, and three friends from Platavieja, José Castillo,

Carlos Hernández and Jairo William Gutiérrez. I would also like

to thank Susie Dexter, whose aid and support were beyond the
call; Luz Omayra González, who provided beyond-unusual

connections to other worlds; Mery Wiede, whose care and

comprehension of the aims and purpose, and whose magnificent

archaeological collection, were essential; Conchita Muñoz for

the sharpest intellect and clearest understanding, and for

showing me how (and why) to live in the campo of San Agustín;

Kwaah Lirios for the heart’s inspiration without this catalogue

never would have come to exist; and most importantly to Martha

Gil, who frankly did most of the heavy lifting when this present

computerized version became possible, and for sharing my love

and my life and helping me to make this project live again.

PAGE

PAGE 249
 footnotes to text

1. Reichel-Dolmatoff, San Agustín: A Culture of Colombia, p 9.

2. T. López, Compilación de Apuntes, pp. 208-9.

3. Reichel-Dolmatoff, San Agustín: A Culture of Colombia, p 13.

4. see Friede, Los Andakí, pp 35-38, 50-51, 54-56, 66-67 and

map 2.

5. Friede, Los Andakí, p 80.

6. Friede, Los Andakí, pp 56-57, 39-43 and map 2.

7. Friede, Los Andakí, p 50.

8. see Friede, Los Andakí, pp 67-8.

Friede’s sources’ estimates (of number of “indios hombres

adultos” or “male adult indians”) for the San Agustín area

are:

conquest (1538) 5 to 7 thousand

3500 to 4500

1597 2000

1613 600

1628 430
1642 250

1669 60
9. see Duque, San Agustín: Reseña Arqueológica, pp 18-19 for
year 1756; Repizo Cabrera, Historia Sintetica del Pueblo de
San Agustín, p 10 for year 1757; and Reichel-Dolmatoff, San
Agustín: A Culture of Colombia, p 21 for year 1758.

10. Hernández de Alba, La Cultura Arqueológica de San Agustín, p

23.

11. Walde-Waldegg, Preliminary Report on the Expedition to San

Agustín (Colombia), p 37.

12. Duque, “Los Últimos Hallazgos Arqueológicos de San Agustín:

Quinchana,” pp 5-6.

13. Lunardi, El Macizo Colombiano en la Prehistoria de

Suramérica, p 5.

14. for references in this paragraph, see Preuss, Arte

Monumental Prehistórico, pp 33-34; and Duque, San Agustín:
Reseña Arqueológica, p 18.

15. Reclus, Nouvelle Géographie Universelle (1893) Vol. XVIII,

Plate XXIII by p 318.

16. Reichel-Dolmatoff, San Agustín: A Culture of Colombia, p

27.

17. Cuervo Márquez, Estudios Arqueológicos y Etnográficos, p

159.

18. Preuss, Arte Monumental Prehistórico, p 199.

19. Cuervo Márquez, Estudios Arqueológicos y Etnográficos, pp

180-183, for: Trujillo, Victor and Bernardo Montealegre,
“Valle de Moscopán—Ciudad Desconocida para los
Conquistadores.”

20. Pérez de Barradas, Arqueología Agustiniana, p 6.

21. Walde-Waldegg, “Stone Idols of the Andes Reveal a Vanished
People” in National Geographic, May 1940, pp 627-647.

22. Reichel-Dolmatoff, Estratigrafía Cerámica de San Agustín.

23. Cháves, Álvaro and Mauricio Puerta, Tierradentro, p 10.

24. Drennan, Robert, ed., Regional Archaeology in the Valle de

La Plata, Colombia.

25. Drennan, Robert, ed., Regional Archaeology in the Valle de

La Plata, p 1.

26. Grieder, The Art and Archaeology of Pashash, p 186.

27. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, p 232.

28. Grieder, Origins of Pre-Columbian Art, p 132.

29. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, pp 254-55.

30. Frazer, The Worship of Nature, p 189.

31. Westheim, The Art of Ancient México, p 4.

32. see Pérez de Barradas, Arqueología Agustiniana, pp 44-54.

33. Relación de las Fábulas y Ritos de los Incas by Cristóbal de

Molina, called “el cuzqueño” to distinguish him from
another Cristóbal de Molina known as “el almagrista” or “el
chileno”.

34. see, for example, Raúl Porras Berrenechea, Los Cronistas del
Perú (1528-1650).

35. Original reads:

“Dicen que antes que fuese Señor, yendo a visitar a su
padre Viracocha Inca que estaba en Sacsahuana, cinco leguas
de Cuzco, al tiempo que llegó a una fuente llamada
 Susurpuquio, vió caer una tabla de cristal en la misma
fuente, dentro de la cual vió una figura de indio en la
forma siguiente: en la cabeza del colodrillo de ella, a lo
alto, le salían tres rayos muy resplandecientes, a manera
de rayos del Sol los unos y los otros; y en los encuentros
de brazos unas culebras enroscadas…Salíale la cabeza de un
león por entre las piernas, y en las espaldas otro león,
los brazos del cual parecían abrazar el un hombro y el
otro; y una manera de culebra que le tomaba de lo alto de
las espaldas a abajo. Y que así visto el dicho bulto y
figura, echó a huir Inca [Pachacuti], y el bulto de la
estatua le llamó por su nombre de dentro de la fuente,
diciéndole: ‘Venid acá, hijo mío, no tengáis temor, que yo
soy el Sol vuestro padre, y sé que habéis de sujetar muchas
naciones; tened muy gran cuenta conmigo de me reverenciar,
y acordaos en vuestros sacrificios de mí.’ Y así
desapareció el bulto, y quedó el espejo de cristal en la
fuente, y el Inca le tomó y guardó; en el cual, dicen,
después veía todas las cosas que quería. Y respecto de
esto mando hacer, en siendo Señor y teniendo possible, una
estatua figura del Sol, ni más ni menos de la que en el
espejo había visto…”
--[translation by author]

36. see for instance Eliade, Mircea: Patterns in

Comparative Religion, and Campbell, Joseph: Creative Mythology.

37. see Preuss, Arte Monumental Prehistórico, p 80, Plates 30#2

and 33#1; Lunardi, La Vida en las Tumbas, p 110; Pérez de
Barradas, Arqueología Agustiniana, p 68 and Lámina 87.

38. Preuss, Arte Monumental Prehistórico, p 93.

39. Preuss, Arte Monumental Prehistórico, p 118-119.

40. Preuss, Arte Monumental Prehistórico, p 164-166.

41. Preuss, Arte Monumental Prehistórico, p 57.

42. Stirling, Stone Monuments of the Río Chiquito, Veracruz,
México, p 8.

43. Stirling, Stone Monuments of the Río Chiquito, Veracruz,

México, p 19.

44. Grove, The Olmec Paintings of Oxtotitlan Cave, Guerrero,

Mexico, p 6.

45. Reichel-Dolmatoff, San Agustín: A Culture of Colombia, p 84.

46. see Grove, Chalcatzingo, p 113.

47. Roe, A Further Exploration of the Rowe Chavín Seriation, p

23.

48. see Reichel-Dolmatoff, San Agustín, p 111.

49. see note 31, p 136 of Preuss' Arte Monumental Prehistórico;

note is by E. Barney Cabrera who suggests a "stylized eagle,"
while co–editor P. Gamboa Hinestrosa argues for "eagle and
serpents".

50. The reader interested in the beneficent properties of the

coca leaf will find them extolled in the section of Mama Coca
(by Anthony Henman) entitled "the effects of coca chewing" on pp
128–141.

51. Kauffmann-Doig, Manual de Arqueología Peruana, p 418.

52. Sharp, Chacs and Chiefs, pp 5-6.

53. see Reichel–Dolmatoff, San Agustín, p 49.

54. Sotomayor, María Lucía and María Victoria Uribe, Estatuaría

del Macizo Colombiano, 1987.

55. review by Roberto Lleras Pérez in Revista Colombiana de

Antropología, Volume XXVI Years 1986-1988, pp 246-248.
PAGE

PAGE 255