Lot 42E
Pre-Columbian, Caribbean/Florida, Taino people, ca. 1000 to 1500 CE. Hand-carved from the bone of a marine mammal, probably a manatee, this is a bone spatula or vomiting stick, a key part of the Cohoba ritual. The spatula is in the form of a leering skeleton with a highly abstract, stylized body, huge empty eye sockets, and a spiked crown. Taino spirituality, which focused on the spirit of the ancestors and the god of cassava, their primary crop, was mediated by a class of priests (bohiques), who often engaged in the taking of hallucinogenic drugs to aid in rituals and ceremonies. The Cohoba ritual required this type of special object, designed to induce vomiting to help a shaman purge themselves - this, coupled with fasting, allowed the shamans to have the most pure high from the Cohoba powder. Many of these vomiting sticks were made from the rib bones of West Indian Manatee. Comes with custom stand. Size: 1.4" W x 5" H (3.6 cm x 12.7 cm); height on stand: 5.65" (14.4 cm)
So what does the skeleton have to do with it? Putting ourselves into the mindset of the Taino, we should understand that death was seen as a transitory period; the boundaries between life and death seem to have felt more porous to the Taino than they do to us today. Shamans, for example, are often depicted as skeletal figures, perhaps because of their requirements to fast and vomit in order to ingest the chemicals that would put them into a spiritual state. This imagery, with its exaggerated, teeth-filled mouth, is probably designed to show a shaman breaching the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Provenance: Whisnant Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, acquired over twenty years ago
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#123401
- Condition: Small loss to top of crown. Dark patina from touch.
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