Visual Language
| Anthropologists believe prehistoric art was used as a way to communicate ideas, beliefs, group affiliation, mythology and cosmology. Accordingly, the decoration of objects would have played an important social role, conveying information. In such a context, prehistoric art would be a type of language. Instead of being oral or written, prehistoric art is essentially a visual language. |
| The Marajoara art is known for its the ceramics, despite the fact that the Amerindian populations may have used other materials, such as wood, bones and fibers to artistically express their ideas. These ideas acquired visual status on geometric designs, which resemble the local fauna. Animals such as snakes, lizards, caimans, scorpions, and turtles were represented as spirals, triangles, rectangles, concentric circles, and waves, among others, in various techniques. The study of these discrete icons and their placement on the design allowed the identification of the zoomorphic themes, possibly supernatural or mythological beings. Schaan characterized it as an iconographic language. |
Iconography and Rituals
Hierarchical, regional societies emerged on Marajo Island around A.D. 400. The
new form of social organization was legitimized through rituals, during which a
shaman built a bridge between the ordinary world and the world of spirits and
ancestors. Over that bridge, symbols and images conceived during hallucinogenic
trances were transported and thus Marajoara art was born.
new form of social organization was legitimized through rituals, during which a
shaman built a bridge between the ordinary world and the world of spirits and
ancestors. Over that bridge, symbols and images conceived during hallucinogenic
trances were transported and thus Marajoara art was born.
| Many Marajoara figurines are found without heads, and several heads are found without bodies. Schaan has suggested that they may have had been ritually broken. |
The Marajoara society and its culture disappeared during the first decades of the
European domination, since those populations did not have resistance to diseases,
and succumbed to wars and missionization. However, they left behind their
ceramics and the ancient mounds where they lived, performed their ceremonies,
and also buried their dead. Due to their use of ceramics in funerary rituals, their art
has survived until the present day. Not by accident, its novelty has been
preserved, since it vehicles are a cosmology built over a circular time, which,
together with the Marajoara designs themselves, teach us that the beginning is
always and inexorably attached to the end. An end that is nothing else but another
starting point.
European domination, since those populations did not have resistance to diseases,
and succumbed to wars and missionization. However, they left behind their
ceramics and the ancient mounds where they lived, performed their ceremonies,
and also buried their dead. Due to their use of ceramics in funerary rituals, their art
has survived until the present day. Not by accident, its novelty has been
preserved, since it vehicles are a cosmology built over a circular time, which,
together with the Marajoara designs themselves, teach us that the beginning is
always and inexorably attached to the end. An end that is nothing else but another
starting point.
The shared meanings were turned visual on designs that resemble
labyrinths, spirals, circles, rectangles, tridents, and faces. With themes
closely related to the local fauna, the designs on the ceramics comprised an
iconographic language where mythical beings were depicted on a logic,
coherent, and harmonious manner, surpassing techniques, shapes and
surfaces. The collective experience legitimized an art that was conceived
from the need to visualize and communicate emotions, feelings, truth,
tradition, social positions, and history. As in any illiterate society, such an
art would have the function of both recording and socializing knowledge.
labyrinths, spirals, circles, rectangles, tridents, and faces. With themes
closely related to the local fauna, the designs on the ceramics comprised an
iconographic language where mythical beings were depicted on a logic,
coherent, and harmonious manner, surpassing techniques, shapes and
surfaces. The collective experience legitimized an art that was conceived
from the need to visualize and communicate emotions, feelings, truth,
tradition, social positions, and history. As in any illiterate society, such an
art would have the function of both recording and socializing knowledge.
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