Institutional Repository of the Ibero-American Institute, Berlin

Vokral, Edita V.

Alvarez, Rafael

Spanish

LAS COPLAS DE CARNAVAL EN LOS CANTONES DE CHAMBO Y RIOBAMBA

Hickmann, Ellen

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF DUALISM
Pre-Columbian Instrum ents  and Sounds as Offerings? 
Ellen H ickm ann
W hen approaching the airport of Guayaqil, my fantasy sometimes deceives 
me. Tired and jet-lagged, I imagine countryside houses and villages to be like 
those west of the two big Rios Daule and Guayas—which provided fertility 
to the region still 30 years ago— to be present close to the border of the capi­
tal of trade and money. But on the east bank, the formerly green marshland 
has been replaced by the cement desert of a the huge centre of m odern com ­
munication— the airport.
Just before the authorities started their plans for the international airport 
“Febres C ordero” by draining the area, Ecuadorian archaeologists quickly 
unearthed pre-Columbian setdements near the swampy fields (Parducci 
1970). They excavated many ceramics, mostly shards, and amidst them 
countless well-preserved small artifacts, including a considerable am ount of 
vessel flutes and variously shaped whistles. Thus they accidentally gained cer­
tainty about the fact that musical instruments were part of the inventory used 
by the settlers. Further, in later archaeological excavations whistles were 
stated to be part of the garbage of settlements, though they were found less 
often in tombs, and only very specially designed ones were discovered at of­
fering places. I will come back to this point.
In the history of Andean archaeology it has rarely occurred that the con­
text of the findings was so reported, that is entered into the records and p u b ­
lished. Besides, musical instruments were— and are—not always identified as 
sounding objects. These facts complicate the work of the music archaeolo­
gist, who aims at reconstructing not only the shapes and sounds bu t also, if 
possible, the former functions and meanings of the instruments. Early socie­
ties of the Andean region do not provide any direct messages about these 
complex problems—what is natural, since they were illiterate. W ritten tradi­
tion began only with the Conquista.
Above any other type of information, iconography appeals first to the re­
searcher. The design of the mere shape appears to be as im portant as that of 
the painted or modelled decoration in helping to understand symbolism or 
even metaphors, if this is at all possible.
Examining the Andean heritage of musical remains, some spectacular o b ­
jects attract our attention, especially when reflecting on the topic of this con­
ference. First of all we can consider a double-headed trum pet (Figure 1) of 
the Moche (200 B.C.-700 A.D.), a two-faced rattle with an animal at one end
124 Ellen Hickmann
and a human head at the other, also Moche (Figure 2 1) (both of these instru­
ments of clay), and a double-sided rattle of wood (Figure 3), probably of the 
Chimu (1100-1400 A.D.) or early colonial. O ur synaesthetically functioning 
mind is spontaneously captivated by imagining a very special sound effect, 
for instance of the trumpet, but its sound resembles that of the one-headed 
animal trumpets of the Moche. The three objects are unparalleled, so no ba­
sic interpretation is possible. W hat remains are speculations: the instruments 
might recall mythological ideas of religious dualism as current in pre-Colum ­
bian regions, and their double shapes would suggest this. Religious dualism 
was already shown to be exemplified by the wooden rattle 25 years ago 
(Zuidema 1967), and the trum pet and the man-animal rattle might have a 
similar meaning that we can vaguely approach, but not more. This has also to 
be accepted for Ecuadorian statuettes of musicians. Fabricated in moulds, 
some of them appear quite often. They are richly dressed and decorated, and 
they hold a big panflute in front of their body that reaches from their m outh 
or chin down to their feet (Figure 4, Jama-Coaque, 500 B.C.-500 A.D.). 
Symmetrically shaped, with the longest tubes at the two ends, they are obvi­
ously not meant to be played at all. The enormous pieces of jewellery fixed to 
the musicians’ faces would prevent sound production. O ther musicians are 
holding or playing two instruments at the same time, some combinations be­
ing traditional for the Andean regions up to recent ages, such as panpipes 
and drums or rattles, or a rattle and a tortoise shell. Do these combinations 
perhaps have a meaning that goes beyond the sound? W ere they designed al­
so referring to mystical dualism (Figure 5)? These remain, for today, unan­
swered questions, as the various interpretations form a puzzle that cannot yet 
be solved. I will confine my paper to two subgroups of sounding objects, 
namely to rattles and whistles.
Rattles are, as we know, American Indian instruments par excellence. 
Double-headed sound boxes, anthropom orphic and zoomorphic, mostly 
owls or felines, were quite common among the Moche and Chimu. Many rat­
tles were formed like drug containers (Figure 6) and are often involved with 
them in literature. Rattling mostly accompanied rituals in which drugs or 
sniffing played a significant role, such as in shamanism, and the ancient 
Peruvians stressed this im portant relationship by designing their rattles in 
this way.
No clay rattle of the types mentioned are to be found in the files of archae­
ologists. O ur interpretation derives from nothing but the iconography of the 
pieces. The deep significance, though, of rattles in ancient Peru and Ecuador 
has been revealed by tombs of so-called “kazikes” or “shamans”2, which con­
tained metallic rattles and rattling devices as headdresses or jewellery person­
ally attributed to the “L ords”, thus seeming to have nothing to do with my­
thology or religious rituals—if their owners were not the representatives of 
the deities on earth. The characteristic of gift-offering is obviously related to
The Iconography of Dualism 125
this material; they were made to be broken after use in ritual contexts of the 
religious practice.
In the large class of whistles there is one group that also permits this inter­
pretation. Before dealing with them, I must consider the larger range of in­
struments.
Whistles were significant instruments of all pre-Columbian cultures. In 
Ecuador they are even “leading fossils” for the classification of objects in 
general, and thus also for a relative chronology.
Four-, three- and double-headed whistles are to be related to early cultures 
such as Chorrera (1200-500 B.C.) and to the earliest phases of internal cul­
tural dynamics, as in Pre- or Chorrera-Bahia (Figure 7). A double m outh­
piece and two wind channels are to be observed in early periods. Fater cul­
tures and horizons seem to prefer small instruments, precise and very high in 
pitch, in form imitating human and animal figures, birds, fish, opossums, 
frogs and the like in Manteño (Figure 8, 500-1400 A.D.), dogs and snails in 
Ica-Chincha (1100-1400 A.D.) or Chimu.
Whisdes have been found in the vicinity of private places, as explained 
earlier, just like vessel flutes. But there are exceptions which involve, for in­
stance, the most spectacular whistle types, such as the Moche instruments 
consisting of a relatively large anthropomorphic relief showing a warrior, a 
priest or a musician with a conical tube fixed horizontally to the flat back of 
the relief (Figure 9). The sound is developed in one or two globular applica­
tions below or beside the tube. These objects are reported to have been de­
posited at offering plateaux near the templo de la luna or the templo del sol of 
the Moche area, together with clay trumpets with animal heads or with 
figures of warriors, prisoners, priests or musicians, all or most of them bro ­
ken (Figure 10). The procedure of breaking musical instruments before they 
were dedicated to the gods or deposited as offerings is well known from 
many other ancient cultures.’ This might prove that the sound simply had to 
be loud, rough and penetrating, which is indeed the fact for the Moche whis­
tles and trumpets. The mere musical possibilities, such as the capability of 
producing a certain num ber of notes or a wide range of different sounds 
were obviously not important.
The iconographical evidence of Ecuadorian rattles and whistles is less clear 
and distinct in terms of a possible former function. But a large group of arti­
facts common in all coastal Peruvian and Ecuadorian cultures show a kind of 
correspondence in iconography with a differing imagination of sound. The 
objects concerned are anthropological, mostly female figurines of clay, about 
15-30 cm high. Peruvian devices of this kind have pebbles inside. They were 
fabricated by the Nazca people (200 B.C.-700 A.D.), as well as by the Moche 
and Chimu. They appeared as the result of real mass production in the m id­
dle coastal region and spread there widely up to the Chankay Empire (Figure 
11, 1100-1400 A.D.). Ecuadorian figurines have attachments so that they can 
function as single or double whistles or as vessel flutes (Figure 12). All coast­
126 Ellen Hickmann
al cultures of the so-called Regional Development horizon (500 B.C.-500 
A.D.) possessed them. A comprehensive typology (Hickmann 1987/1991) re­
veals their many sizes, forms, shapes, decorations and sounds and, above all, 
their variations in organology. Anthropomorphic figures were common also 
in the earliest times of Ecuadorian prehistory, such as Valdivia (ca. 2700- 
1700 B.C.), where they appeared in mass, and also later, just before the Con­
quista, as in Manteño, but at neither time with whisding devices. Many were 
hollow, others solid. All pre-Columbian cultures of Ecuador provided fig­
urines with or without a sound function at obvious places of worship, up to 
now traditionally called “offering places”. Many of them were broken, a large 
amount very well preserved and still sounding. Private environs and places of 
danger contained these objects. Less is known about the contexts of Peruvi­
an rattling figurines.
The human shapes, often showing women with babies, indicate most 
probably devices of fertility cults, the sounds being symbols of life. They 
were not musical instruments in their primary meaning. Compared to the 
sounds of vessel flutes and even whistles, the voices of the figurines are poor, 
thin, not very flexible and sometimes shrill, and thus were obviously not de­
signed to play a part in the everyday music of the societies nor to fit in the 
frame of the soundscape that characterised the regions of pre-Columbian 
peoples.
W e know that unusual sounds were created for extraordinary occasions, 
not only in the Americas. This might have been the case also for these puz­
zling figurines, which were pieces of devotion as much as toys and whistling 
instruments— or all at the same time.
The soundscape of everyday life was quite different— as jingling, rattling 
and whistling attachments adorned most of objects, a soft noise was created
Fig. 1. Double-headed trumpet. Peru, Moche (300 B.C.—700 A.D.), 1 = 27 cm. Birmingham, 
Museum and Art Gallery— Credit: Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham.
The Iconography of Dualism 127
that must never have stopped as long as the persons handling them kept 
moving. Vessel flutes and panpipes, with their gentle continuous sounds, fit­
ted in perfectly. The voices of the offerings were different, as we have seen—  
penetrating, too dark or too light to be recognised as part of the usual envi­
ronmental acoustics. They were apparently meant to be special and to cause 
fear and create a sense of distance from the holy action.
Fig. 2. Two-faced rattle, man and animal. Peru, Lambayeque-Chimu (1100—1400 A.D., 1 = 
18,10 cm. Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Museum—Credit: Royal Scottish Museum.
Fig. 3 a-c. Double-sided rattle (Sun and Moon). Peru, Chimu (1100-1400 A.D.) or early 
colonial period, h = 17 cm. Leiden, Museum voor Volkenkunde— Credit: Museum voor 
Volkenkunde, Leiden.
128 Ellen Hickmann
|V o
Fig. 4. Musician with big panflute. Ecua­
dor, ]ama-Coaque (500 B.C.- 500 A.D.), 
h = 28 cm. Guayaquil, Museo Antro- 
I—Credit: Ellen Hickmann
Fig. 5. Musician with panflute and rattle. 
Ecuador, ]ama-Coaque (500 B.C.-500 A.D.), 
h =23 cm. Quito, Museo arqueológico del 
Banco Central—Credit: Ellen Hickmann; 
drawing from photograph: Boris Eisenberg.
Fig. 6. Rattle, shaped like a drug container. Peru, Chimu (1100-1400 A.D.), I = 13 cm. Lon­
don, Museum o f Mankind—Credit: Ellen Hickmann.
The Iconography of Dualism
Fig. 7 a, b. Double-headed whistle. Ecuador, Chorrera (1200 B.C.—500 A.D.), h — 4.2 cm. 
Guayaquil, Museo Antropológico—Credit: Jorge Massucco, Guayaquil.
130 Ellen Hickmann
Fig. 9 a-d. Four anthropomorphic whistles in shape o f warriors (front and hack), with one or 
two sound generators at the hack. Peru, Moche (300 B.C.—700 A.D.), h = 8-11 cm. Ham­
burg, Museum für Völkerkunde—Credit: Museum für Völkerkunde, Hamburg.
The Iconography of Dualism 131
p&SZiTWV/l
Fig. 10 a, b. Trumpet {front and back) in the shape o f a prisoner with tube broken off. 
Moche (300 B.C.-700 A.D.), h -  130 cm. London, Museum o f Mankind—Credit: Ellen 
Flickmann; drawings from photographs: Boris Eisenberg. ,
Fig. 11 a, b. Rattling figurine with gesture o f adoration. Peru, Chancay (1100-1400 A.D.), h 
= 22 cm. Bonn, Sammlung des Instituts für Völkerkunde der Universität—Credit: Ellen 
Flickmann; drawings from photographs: Boris Eisenberg.
132 Ellen Hickmann
Fig. 12 a—e. Anthropomorphic figurines (front and back [d, b, e]) with two whistles each. 
Ecuador, Bahia (500 B.C.-500 A.D.), h = 11-15 cm. Guayaquil, Museo Antropológico— 
Credit: Jorge Massucco, Guayaquil.
The Iconography of Dualism 133
N o tes
1 T he head-ended  part o f this piece m ight originally have been  a handle, as was typical fo r certain  types of 
M oche vessels; the anim al head o f the  opposite  side looks like it was attached  to  it m uch later, after the 
hand le had  b roken  off. This in terp re ta tion  was offered during  the  discussion following my p ap e r by 
A nnem arie H ocquenghem .
2 Rich graves w ere found  in N o rth  P eru  and excavated by W . Alva in  the  late 1980s (Alva 1988), and  sim i­
larly com prehensive tom bs w ere unearthed  in central E cuador by E strada abou t 1950 (E strada 1957) 
and  F resco  abou t 1970/1980 (Fresco 1984). F o r a descriptive sum m ary o f the buria l sites and  the ir 
m etallic finds see E. H ickm ann  (1990:347-69).
3 E. H ickm ann  1944; see especially the  discussion on the ritual breaking  o f musical instrum ents, p. 328.
R eferences
Alva, W alter
1988 “D iscovering the  N ew  W o rld ’s Richest U nlooted T o m b .” National Geographic 174 (4):510-48.
E strada, Em ilio
1957 Ultimas civilisaciones Pre-Historicos de las Cuencas del Rio Guayas. G uayaquil 1957/1979: P u b li­
caciones A rchivo H istórico  de G uayas.
Fresco, A ntonio
1984 La Arqueologia del Ingapirca (Ecuador). Costumbres Funerarias, Cerámica y Otros Materiales. 
Q uito : Com isión del Castello de Ingapirca.
H ickm ann, Ellen
1987/91 “Instrum entos musicales del M useo A ntropológico del Banco C entral del E cuador, G uayaqu il.” 
II Parte: “Figurines antropom orfos con significado m usical?” Miscelánea Antropológica Ecuato­
riana (M AE) 7 :7-29.
1990 Musik aus dem Altertum der Neuen Welt. Archäologische Dokumente des Musizierens in prä- 
kolumbischen Kulturen Perus, Ekuadors und Kolumbiens. F rank fu rt/B ern /N ew  Y ork/Paris: 
P e te r Lang.
1994 “T rom pettes et cors des A ndes p récolom biennes.” In  K ongreßbericht üb er die 4. A rbeitstagung 
d er S tudy G ro u p  on M usic Archaeology (“La plurid iscip linarité en archéologie m usicale”), 
Saint G erm ain-en-Laye 1990, Paris, vol. II, 325-35 .
P arducci Z., Resfa & Ib rah im
1970 Un sitio arqueológico al norte de la ciudad: Fase G uayquil. G uayaquil: E ditorial Casa de  la C u l­
tu ra  Ecuatoriana, N úcleo del Guayas.
Zuidem a, R. Tom
1967 “T h e  Relationship Between M ountains and C oast in A ncient P e ru .” In  The Wonder of Man’s 
Ingenuity. M ededelingen van H et Rijksm useum voor V olkenkunde N r. 15. Leiden, 156-65.


English

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF DUALISM: Pre-Columbian Instruments and Sounds as Offerings?

Burkard, Hermann

German

AUSWANDERUNG UND DIE SITUATION AN DER NORDGRENZE

Imbusch, Peter

DIE MEXIKANISCHE SOZIALSTRUKTUR

Liehr, Reinhard

La deuda interna y externa de la República Federal de Centroamérica, 1823-1839

Berglund, Susan

The Public Debt of Venezuela: Causes and Effects, 1830-1870

Levy, Maria Barbara

The Brazilian Public Debt - Domestic and Foreign, 1824-191

Cavieres F., Eduardo

La deuda interna y externa de Chile, 1820-1880: actitudes y decisiones en las políticas económicas del siglo XIX

Jiménez , Antonio Narbona

Sintaxis y pragmática en el español coloquial

Gnutzmann, Rita

La relación hombre — ciudad en El amor brujo de Roberto Arlt

Not a member yet