A Moche Erotic Vessel By Clifford C.

Richey January 2012

crichey1937@yahoo.com

All Photos Courtesy: Lima Museo Larco Moche male genitalia pottery

Moche Ceramics are known throughout the world for their realistic imagery. Certain of the culture's vessels attract attention due to their explicit sexual imagery. This imagery is often referred to as erotic but one has to wonder why such compositions were placed in burials. In general, Moche ceramics are thought to display scenes from the everyday life and perhaps some ritualistic scenes related to the Moche cosmology. This paper explores the possibility that these vessels were not intended to be erotic but rather were cosmological statements that used imagery based on a written form of Native American Sign Language. This imagery was quite graphic even when not involving sexual material. For example, many animals were depicted in a very realistic manner and some vessels are even thought to be portrayals of the heads of various actual personages in the culture. The Moche, like most Native Americans considered the earth to be female and the sky to be male. The interaction between these entities was conceptualized in sexual terms. Due to the nature of written sign language system the signs used to describe the interaction between the female-earth and the male-sky was depicted in a similarly straight forward manner. Hopefully we can let these vessels speak for themselves by translating their Form, Imagery, and basic Gesture signs. The Imagery of the intercourse between the earth and sky was illustrated as sexual but, as we shall see, held a meaning more in the sense of an interaction or a communion. The signs depicted in this vessel have been found to be quite consistent in meaning among a variety of native American compositions throughout the Americas. The text of this Vessel reads differently depending on its orientation. It was meant to be handled and turned as it was read. It is based on Form, Imagery, and Gesture Signs. The signs are organized by pattern and Position and are read from largest Form and Image to the smaller. Many signs were also compounded. Imagery was composed from gesture signs. The compositional organization is non-linear and multidimensional.

Illustration 2: Initial Form, A Sitting Bird

The Stance of Sitting means, awaiting. A Bird is the sign for, flight. The One Awaiting Flight.

Illustration 1: Meaning of the Signs

From the side view presented in the photograph it depicts a large phallus (a great male or great man) emerging from the Triangular (earth-female) shaped Cup. The Phallus is Positioned on the side of the earth-female (on the side of the earth). The shaft of the Penis is a slightly Curved horizontal-place sign meaning, a place of descent. This meaning is further reinforced by the Imagery of a detumescent penis. The Glans-penis Form is the sign for a male-spirit. The male-spirit is positionally below and on the side of the earth-female. The Gonads are Egg shaped and indicate, the unborn, or the one that will be born. The right hand or side of the signer indicated the direction, west. Experience has shown that the reader's right hand was considered the same as the signer's. The statement parallels the descent of the Sun in the west. The One Awaiting Flight. The great man, On the side, Of The earth-female a place of descent, In the west, His male-spirit, The unborn, One, Below

Illustration 4: Front View of Vessel

Illustration 3: Compounding of Signs to Create Imagery

When the Vessel is viewed from the front we observe that the Initial Form (brown) is in the shape of a pottery vessel a container. Because the Vessel is made of earthen clay the metaphor is one of an earthen container the earth itself. The earth was viewed as a vessel that contained water. The (red) Triangle shaped Cup would read as, an earth-female hole (perhaps a reference to the vagina of the earth-female), The shaft of the penis is a (green) Rectangular, vertical-place sign. The (light blue) Glans-penis would then be positioned, below, and was the sign for a male-spirit. The (dark blue) Eggs, the Gonads, are depicted as Vertical Half Circles indicating, the two sides (of the earth-female). It took only six signs to create the Form and Imagery of this Vessel. 1. The (red) Triangular (the whole sign cannot be viewed from this angle) sign for the Earth-female, 2. A Vertical Rectangle (green) representing a vertical-place or a place with either height or depth. 3. The (light blue) sign for a malespirit that was based on the shape of the glans-penis. 4-5. A Circle (the one or a location) could be divided into an upper (light green) and lower half to indicate the upper-world and the lower-world. The Circle could also be divided vertically to represent its vertical halves or sides. Here the (dark blue) section of the circle indicates the left and right sides. In sign language the left hand of the signer represents the direction, east while the right hand indicates the direction west. The Container. The earth-female, A covered vertical-place, (or possibly) The upper world, the place The great man, His male-spirit, (positionally) Below. On the sides, East and west.

This Vessel was a drinking vessel and probably contained water or perhaps some other liquid that had some quality that would have indicated it carried spirits such as an alcoholic drink. This is probably why we call alcohol spirits to this day. The vessel may have been used by someone participating in a ritual related to the afterlife. The Cup itself represents a hole in the earth where water from the underworld emerges. This would ofter represent a spring or some place where water pools on the surface of the earth. It is quite likely that the Vessel imagery was not intended to be erotic but rather clear signs sending a message related to a cosmology of death and re-birth. The underlying message was one in which the spirit of the deceased plunged into the underworld (female) and was carried by the subterranean streams (depicted as Serpents) that ultimately led to the surface. The spirit then awaited the Sun to evaporate the water (the flying serpents or feathered serpents) thus taking it to the sky and stars, the abode of the ancestors. Springs on mountainsides or hillsides were revered as spirit-portals to the male-sky.

Back view of the Vessel. From this viewpoint the Initial Form is still a container but in terms of its shape it is more Gourd like. (Gourds were used for Vessels before the invention of pottery and even after) There are only Four signs used to create this view. 1. The Concentric Circle with a dark center (a hole). 2. The (light blue) male-spirit Form and 3-4 the Vertical-Halves or the sides of the earth. The male-spirit sign is large (great) and sits between the sides of the earth the center.

It may well be that the great man given prominence in the message was a leader, or a Sun in the culture and like the actual Sun he overcame death (descent in the west was often compared, metaphorically, to old age, darkness, and death) by rising once again on the eastern side of the earthfemale.