Description:

Pre-Columbian, North Coast Peru, Moche Culture, ca. 100 to 500 CE. A spoon carved from a single piece of hard red-grey stone, made to be used in shamanic rituals to prepare hallucinogenic drugs. Projecting from the wide, shallow bowl is a handle that terminates in a zoomorphic face - probably the head of a jaguar, with elongated ears, drilled eyes, and a blunt snout. Size: 2" W x 4" H (5.1 cm x 10.2 cm)

Snuff trays were part of the elaborate battery of objects carefully manufactured by ancient Andeans in order to ingest a ground drug known as vilca or huilca, found in southern Peru and Bolivia, and obtained from the beans of the tree Anadenanthera colubrina. We know of these trays from burials, where they were placed as offerings and perhaps to provision the dead alongside inhalation tubes and other paraphernalia. Feline heads are some of the most iconographically important, and therefore common, artistic themes on snuff trays from this region. They are associated with the use of psychoactive substances that could "transform" a shaman or priest into a feline.

Provenance: private Hawaii, USA collection; ex-Westermann collection, Germany

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#123600

  • Condition: Chips to rim of bowl and slight scratches to surface.

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May 25, 2017 8:00 AM MDT
Louisville, CO, US

Artemis Fine Arts

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