Stirrup-spout vessel in the form of a shaman with jaguar head band curing an ill female,

200–600 CE

A male curer sits, likely in a trance, rigidly upright with eyes wide open while his hands assess his female patient’s abdomen. One of the curer’s key implements, a rattle with a long tassel, is slung around his neck, with the double-chambered rattle resting behind his left shoulder. Traditional healers in the Moche region still use rattles to call guardian spirits and to ward off dangerous ones. We can imagine that rattling may have occurred just before the Moche curer depicted on this vessel placed the instrument aside to use his hands, as a modern Western doctor might do with his or her stethoscope.