Jaguar Fur, Snake Skin, Woven Baskets, and the Milky Way: The Dot-Grid Pattern from Nicaragua to Ecuador

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Precolumbian Dotted-Diamond-Grid Pattern: References and Techniques" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Dotted grids abound in art of Pacific Nicaragua southward through Costa Rica and Panama to Ecuador, whether on painted and incised ceramic vessels or chiseled stone sculptures. These images reflect ancient fiber arts now lost to the elements in these tropical lands. The designs, recorded on clay and stone, appear to detail long-held beliefs—holes in basketry weaves as jaguar spots, according to the Yaminahua of Amazonia. Variations on the dot-grid pattern seem to reflect Ecuadorian ideas of a powerful sacred serpent associated with the Milky Way who traverses the realms of the living and the dead. Some figurines show both jaguar and serpent variants in alternating quadrants. Could these patterns refer to the Rainbow Serpent and to Grandmother Wildcat, an ancient Central American spirit and life-giver? Are we seeing in these terse designs shorthand for the creation stories of the peoples at the center of the Americas? In this paper I will explore variations on the dotted-diamond-grid design not only from a technical exploration of worked fibers (made permanent in clay and stone) but also from an iconographic viewpoint as relates to the varying yet related cultures of the tropical lowlands of Nicaragua to Ecuador.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• The Precolumbian Dotted-Diamond-Grid Pattern: References and Techniques

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32015