On view
Ocarina in the form of a bird,
900–1600
Ancient Tairona people once directly engaged with each of these three objects through touch. The ceramic whistle in the form of a hybrid serpent-bird would have produced sound by the placement of one’s fingers on the holes of its outstretched wings. The greenstone plaque, which resembles the abstracted body of a bat, would have once been worn on the chest as a pectoral. Research suggests that these plaques also may have functioned as musical instruments; when strung together with cords and hung from a performer’s body, they would have produced clanging sounds as the wearer moved. Other examples of Tairona art showcase maracas, drums, and various instruments that all point to the importance of multisensorial experiences and rituals in the culture, in which vision, sound, and touch collectively produced charged and symbolic meanings.
Eric Mazariegos, PhD candidate, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University
Information
900–1600
South America, Colombia, Magdalena
April 12, 1991, the Merrin Gallery, New York, sold to the Princeton University Art Museum [1].
Notes:
[1] According to an invoice in the curatorial file.
