This work synthesizes art-historical and anthropological methods in the analysis of a large corpus of indigenous figure pendants, commonly called “amulets,” from the Greater Antilles and Bahamas. Figure pendants, ubiquitous in Caribbean collections, are small carvings of spirit beings perforated for suspension against the body. The data are drawn from new photographs, measurements, and observations of 535 specimens compiled by the author during 2011-2018 in research visits to 34 museums and private collections in the Caribbean, the United States, and Europe.In analyzing this corpus, the author documents high stylistic diversity within the region, naming nine new figure pendant styles and situating these in space and time. This high diversity of local styles and subject matter suggests a previously undocumented religious pluralism in the ancient Caribbean, in accord with emergent understandings of cultural and political diversity within the region. The author finds that the subject matter of figure pendants is unconnected with elite cohoba spiritualism as documented ethnohistorically, which leads to a search for what the phenomenon represents socially and religiously. Figure pendants generally are far more common than the paraphernalia of cohoba, probably documenting the existence of a religious institution existing at the village level. The author hypothesizes that they were commissioned from pendant carvers by initiates of secret societies dedicated to healing or warfare. In this scenario, the supernatural subjects of the pendants were the patrons of regional sodalities with distinct histories.The book is intended for readers with interests in the indigenous art, religion and society of the ancient Caribbean and more broadly, Latin America.
Les mer
This is the first major study of indigenous Caribbean figure pendants, an artistic genre of small carvings of spirit beings worn on the body.
List of Figures     List of Tables Acknowledgments Abbreviations 1. Orientation 2. The Puerto Plata Style 3. Sequencing the Puerto Plata Style 4. The Yaguajay Style 5. The Madre Vieja Style 6. The Comendador Style 7. The Cibao Style 8. The Luquillo Style 9. Imbert and Related Styles 10. Miniatures: La Caleta, Altagracia, and Other Styles 11. Same Subjects, Additional Styles 12. Comparisons 13. Conclusions Bibliography Appendix: Figure Pendants in the Database and in the Sala de Arte Pre-Hispánico
Les mer
Research based on over 500 indigenous figure pendants from the Greater Antilles and Bahamas

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9789088908705
Publisert
2020-05-19
Utgiver
Vendor
Sidestone Press
Høyde
254 mm
Bredde
178 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
240

Om bidragsyterne

Vernon James Knight is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Curator Emeritus of American Archaeology at the University of Alabama and the Alabama Museum of Natural History. He is an archaeologist specializing in the North American Southeast and the Caribbean. His books include Mound Excavations at Moundville: Architecture, Elites, and Social Order (University of Alabama Press, 2010, winner of the 2011 Society for American Archaeology academic book prize), Archaeology of the Moundville Chiefdom (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998), and Iconographic Method in New World Prehistory (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Knight is the author of a variety of published theoretical and substantive papers on archaeological style and iconography.