The mother of all the tigers Margarita Gentile* Resumen Se propone

Revista Electrónica de Arqueología PUCP
Vol. 2 - Nro. 1 - Marzo 2007
The mother of all the tigers
Margarita Gentile *
Resumen
Se propone la aplicación del método de interpretación iconológica al análisis de los dibujos
realizados sobre una pieza de cerámica Mochica V; la escena sería la microsecuencia de un
relato también presente en la iconografía de la cultura La Aguada, del área andina argentina.
El relato, en varias versiones, sobrevivió hasta mediados del siglo XX en las creencias de
los habitantes del piedemonte andino.
Abstract
Here we propose the application of the iconological interpretative method in the analysis of
the drawings found in a Mochica V pottery vessel. This scene could be the microsequence of
a narrative, also presented in the iconography of the La Aguada culture, from the Argentinian
Andean area. The story survived in the beliefs of the inhabitants of the Andean area, through
several generations until the middle XX century.
Introduction
In a previous work, we interpreted the drawings found in pottery vessels from La Aguada
culture 1 as part of a narrative with a course and direction comprehensible in their
microsequences, even if they are analysed in an isolated way (Sempé y Gentile 2004, 2006).
We used the iconological interpretative method, also applied to the study of Rennaisance
scenes, inspired in the inscriptions of the antiquity (Panofsky 1998 [1921-1953], 1998 [19321962]), but replacing that literature for myths compiled in the Andes and in the lowlands
between the XVI and XX centuries 2 .
The story is known in the folklore as “the myth from the divine twins and the origin of the Sun
and the Moon”, and it was about a human female who gave birth to human twins. These
twins were also sons of a god who lived in heaven. The myth also tells how, after some
perils, the woman missed her way and found three tigers 3 that ate her. Meanwhile, a female
tiger hide the little boys who grew up quickly. Some time later, they avenged their mother’s
death by killing the tigers, brought her to life and ran away to the sky, where their father
turned them into the Sun and the Moon.
The limits of the compiled stories
All of the versions of this story were vague towards the outcoming of the main characters:
even when the mother was brought to life by her sons, her fate, after the revenge took place
over the tigers, was not clear. In the other hand, there was no more information about the
father other than he lived in heaven. And about the tigers, all of them were death with the
exception of one tiger who became the ancestor of all the tigers that exists today.
Nevertheless, two tales said the tiger was a female but did not make any reference about her
pregnancy.
A different explanation about the survival of the tigers was in the drawing of a pottery vessel
from La Aguada, in wich it was shown the birth of a puppy with dotted skin 4 from a human
uterus, a trait remarked by the feet presented in the vessel as vertical handles (Alfaro y
*
CONICET y Museo de La Plata, Argentina. E-mail: margagentile@yahoo.com.ar
Revista Electrónica de Arqueología PUCP
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Gentile 1980; Fig. 1). If this corresponds to a microsequence of the story we cited previously,
then the continuity of the tigers would have been reassured by the mating of the last tiger
with a human female.
Another contemporary vessel shows a human character standing, with female features (the
breasts), but with a feline head and holding darts in both hands. There is no way to know
how much of the image of this being was itself and how much corresponded to her clothes,
because, as part of the story sequence, this image was also a sign. If this was a
representation of a female feline, it is possible that the tigers born from a human feline were
male or female, showing their nature (feline or human) totallly or partially. These possibilities
allowed the tiger’s saga to be enriched with sequences that could be adapted to local
circumstances, making easy the movement in space and time of this belief.
We must notice that even if some of the stories included the sequence of the birth of the
tigers from a woman, as shown in La Aguada pottery, this microsequence was carefully
cutted in the compilations from the XVI century, either by the storytellers or the researchers
(Fig. 2 and 3).
In the other hand, the trasncription made by Guallart, around the middle XX century, was an
explanatory story about the origin of the “mountain tigers” without omissions of any
sequence. The story was about a heavenly tiger that descended to earth, invoked by a
person who didn’t know about this kind of rites. The tiger only manifested himself when he
was assaulted. Later, a girl with spotted skin was given to him to keep him calmed and
diminish the damages. The tiger did not eat her but stayed and lived with her and showed
her that he could be human or tiger at will. But, since the tiger continued attacking humans
and even his wife relatives, these ones could not forgave the tiger, even though he kept
“donating” them the preys he hunted.
Then, the girl had a tiger-son, and two drops of his blood fell at the floor and transformed into
tigers. These tigers ran away to the jungle and became the ancestors of the actual tigers. At
the end of the story it was not completely clear if the relatives of the girl burned her, her tigerson or both. Meanwhile, the two tigers who ran away to the jungle were both males and
therefore, it was possible for other girls to have tiger-sons as well. If in this story it may be the
possibility of the tigers being male and female, their descendants could have been only
tigers? Or it could have happen, from time to time, the born of a human tiger like a homage
to the grandmother as the microsequences of La Aguada pottery tell us? Besides, there were
no more words about the tiger that came down to earth from heaven. In sum, in the formation
of believing in the faculty of metamorphosis at will in feline it was neccesary a human and
feline ancester.
The mother of all the tigers
In the Andean story as well as in the folklore, it’s interesting to establish, even in relation to
other better known issues, the antiquity and context of the available data. About the belief we
described before, there is a scene painted in a pottery vessel from San José de Moro
(Mochica V), which can be interpreted as another version of the same theme (Fig. 4).
The piece consists in a globular vessel, stir-up handle and straight everted base, completely
covered with fine line painting. The drawings were made in the whole piece but also in the
handle and the base, where it could be noticed some groups of arms and doble spirals.
All the characters walk over the helicoidal line, from the top to the bottom of the vessel, but
it’s not a continuous row. Instead, there are intercalated scenes that suggest that the whole
representation was organized in perspective. In this way, the artist gathered several
microsequences of one story, and all of them are in horizontal, not vertical, planes.
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Fig. 1. Vasija de cerámica negra bruñida. Procedencia: Ambato, provincia de Catamarca. Altura aproximada: 30 centímetros.
Colección particular de Aroldo D. Rosso. Dibujo de M.A. Sosa (según Gentile 1999: fig. 1-3).
Fig. 2. Mujer-felino con dardos. Cerámica grabada estilo La Aguada (con máscara felínica y cetros, según González). Dibujo en
González y Montes 1998: III-3. Museo de La Plata, colección Barreto Nº 11703.
Fig. 3. Despliegue de una vasija estilo Hualfín gris grabado donde se ven dos personajes, uno femenino y otro masculino, con
azagayas; ambos son o representan tigres. Procedencia: Belén, provincia de Catamarca. Museo Adán Quiroga Nº 2174. Según
González y Montes 1998: fig.108.
Fig. 4. La madre de todos los tigres. Inicio de la microsecuencia narrativa pintada en una vasija Mochica tardía. Dibujo según
Donnan y McClelland 1999: fig. 5-45; Makowski 2001: fig. 8a-b.
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The scene from the beginning is located between both sections of the stir-up handle, at the
upper part of the globular body of the vessel. There lies a woman with the arms open
towards the sky and, between her opened and flexed legs, there lies a dotted puppy
surrounded by two little spirals very similar to the spirals on the base. We think this could
mean that this scene is taking place near the sea, but the drawings near the female and the
puppy could also refer to human fluids. The birth of this puppy must have been of importance
because, there are some people carrying estolicas very close to the woman, besides of the
weapons at the stir-up handle.
The spaces between all the characters are filled with circular drawings (not all fully rounded
in some cases) that may represent the rain, hail or volcanic ash floating as it was in the case
of a kero which enlighten the happening of a cataclism when Amaro Topa Inca was born in
Pomacocha 5 . According to us, in this Late Mochica vessel it is shown the birth of the tiger
son of a woman under dramatic circumstances for the humans, possibly during a climatic
phenomenon.
About the female figure, she wouldn’t be the representation of a deity that existed before to
the circumstances described by the drawings, because in all the colonial compilations it is
implied that their sons will be remembered but not her, just like the case of the Sun and the
Moon. Besides, it’s not yet known the proportion of the presence of the evangelic tale that
can be perceived in the stories and compilations that shaped this discrete female form, but
the intentions of give some morals about the place of the woman was a constant in the tale 6 .
During the times of the Inca Inga Roca, Guaman Poma said in his biography:
“... conquistó todo Ande Suyo. Dizen que se tornaua otorongo él y su hijo. Y ací conquistó
todo Chuncho. ... Este dicho Ynga comensó a comer coca y la prendió en los Andes y ací le
enseñó a otros yndios en este rreyno. ... Y dizen que en los Chunchos tiene hijos y casta
deste dicho Ynga porque más del año rrecidía allá. Y otros dizen que no le conquistó, cino
que hizo amistad y conpañia.” (Guamán Poma [1613] 1987: folio 102).
Besides, this Inca established the offerings to the otorongos, who were feared by the
chunchos because, just like the amaro, they ate people. They were considered as huacas,
calling them achachi, yaya and capac apo amaro, in that order.
After the death of Pachacutec, it was Ynga Achachi who faced the antis, killing before a
yaguarete and going to the battle with a piece of the animal in his teeth; this way, he
captured the chiefs and became Uturungu Achache “por el tigre que dice tigre Achache”
(Betanzos [1551] 1987: 155). With this, the Inca’ son showed that the terrible animals from
the region could not fight against him. This was an essential condition for keeping his
chiefdom, as Mayta Capac did with the amaro (Anello Oliva 1998: 63-64).
If the human mother was necessary, the sequence of the adquisition of this virtue by Inga
Roca would be lacking in this tale. Perhaps Chinbo Ucllo Mama Caua “que tubo mal de
corasón, comía a las gentes” could have been his mother because “parió esta dicha señora
del mal de corasón que le auía dado. Se la comió un hijo y se murió” (Guamán Poma [1613]
1987: folios 100, 128). The verb “to eat” could mean that the chronist gave Inca Roca the
virtue of transforming himself in a feline at will. Besides, in the Andes there are some animals
that could kill human beings but not all of them eat humans like the tiger does.
Among the chunchos from Andesuyo it was said that there were a lot of sons of this Inca,
who inherited from their father this capacity. Then, if the chunchos broke their alliance with
the cusqueños, could they be attacked by male–tigers? The Spanish belief about the
cannibalism of the chunchos could start in this cusqueña belief? 7
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In sum, the people from Cusco took an ancient belief (about a tiger born from a woman who
acts accordingly to one or another nature), manipulated and dispersed it while the
Tahuantinsuyu was expanding itself. This belief survived and became part of some other
latin beliefs about human beings transformed into animals, minerals or plants (compilated by
Ovidio and Apuleyo, among others), brought by the spanish settlers. In the history, the
literature, the folklore and the plastic arts of the XIX and XX centuries we find the capiango 8 ,
runa-uturuncu and yaguareté-abá in many narrations that shared structures with some
minimal regional differences 9 . Through a frightful and true tale, the Aguada, late Mochica,
cuzqueños and Spanish people applied one way to control their sociopolitical organizations.
But, in the prehispanic tales (microsequences Mochica V and La aguada) and in the colonial
and republic compilations, the human female was essential in the formation and
development of the history, although her presence vanishes at the end of each text. Also it is
important to know if the woman was always the couple of the tiger and the mother of her
sons-tigers, whose nature was the same of their parents. Some answer to this question could
be found in a stone found during an excavation in one of the sites from the Alamito culture,
Catamarca province (240 d.C - 480 d.C.; Núñez Regueiro 1998: 49 y siguientes). In the aisle
between the structures and the stone platforms, where the researchers found several burials
and human bones in a dump, it was also found a stelae with 98 centimeters of length,
representing in a realistic way a woman wearing the head of a feline over her head, and the
skin of this animal lying on her back. The hands of this woman were placed upon her belly
(Fig. 5).
We can find the gesture with the hands, among other prehispanic images from the andean
area of Argentina, in the little inca figures of metal and mullu that were found in the
capacochas (Gentile, 1996, 1999), while the skin of the puma (Felis concolor puma) was the
costume used by men during a dance after the puma told the god Cuniraya he was about to
reach his beloved Cavillaca:
“... Tú has de ser muy amado; comerás las llamas de los hombres culpables. Y si te matan,
los hombres se pondrán tu cabeza sobre su cabeza en las grandes fiestas, y te harán
cantar; cada año degollarán una llama, te sacarán afuera y te harán cantar.” (Ávila [1598?]
1966: cap.2; también Ávila en Taylor 1987: 65).
In Alamito, that female figure, according to her shape and location, was probably a huanca
(petrified ancestor), was very different from the passive representation in the Mochica art
and La Aguada pottery. This image is close to the drawings in La aguada pottery where the
female is shown standing, with darts in her hands (stressing the existence of estolicas) and,
at least in one case, she was escorted by another character of her own kind, but it was a
human male.
About the affiliation of the main characters in this last graphic history, can the Alamito stone
represent the mother or the semihuman daughter of the mother of all the tigers? The female
and male figures carved in the La Aguada pottery vessel, are they brothers or are a couple of
human–tigers able to give birth sons of both natures?
Final remarks
The iconological interpretation of the prehispanic microsequence according to the stories that
existed since the XVI century may have some observations due to the geographical and
chronological distances. Nevertheless, in the Andean space, these aspects should be taken
in consideration, having other evidences of cultural traits in space and time.
According to this text we take a look in a more comprehensive way to the theme of the death
of all the tigers after a vengeance, their continuity as species and the existence of some of
them (or all of them?) with two natures, the human and the animal nature, each one showed
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Fig. 5. Dos vistas del lito Alamito (98 centímetros de altura), representando una mujer que tiene sobre su cabeza y espalda una
piel de felino, según Núñez (1971 y 1998).
at will. The explanation given by the two tales may be in the pottery pieces of Alamito, La
Aguada and Mochica V, and could be integrated to an early compilation of the Inca history.
From this point of view, it is interesting to note the way our explanation can work with the
previous works done by Makowski (2001), among others. In his propossal, it was clear that
the Andean graphic history may bring comprehension to the Andean history in general, and
in that sense, this essay is a continuation of that work.
Besides, when Lidia Alfaro grabbed my attention in what we considered to label as “open
vertical handles”, we did not have elements to go beyond its functionality related directly with
the domestic sphere, even though none of the pottery vessels had signs of use and they
were very rare. With the information we have now, it’s possible that these vessels may have
been a late and stylized copy of the piece in the Figura 1. If this is the case, then, in the
andean region of Argentina, during the late period, the history of the woman who gave birth
to a tiger and therefore she was the mother of all tigers, was well known in the puna. This
story was circulating verbally and it was only needed few traits (vessel with globular body,
narrow neck and vertical open handles) to remember it.
Finally, about the rol of the Andean woman in relation to certain ceremonies must be noticed
that, in the La Aguada pottery, she was depicted in a clear way to stress her human and
feline nature. In that situation, she holds darts that implied the existence of estolicas o
tiraderas.
The recent findings made by Regulo Jordan and his team in Cao, have exposed the burial of
a young woman with darts and maces. We will leave here our considerations because our
next ones will bring us to discuss her body covered in cinabrio, just like the capacochas from
Iquique were “powdered”, the boy in Aconcagua was “painted” in red inside and outside and
the Salinas Grandes de Jujuy capacocha was covered by a red poncho. It would be logical if
some new documented findings modify, or not, what we have proposed here.
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References
Alfaro, Lidia C. y Margarita E. Gentile
1980 Un nuevo tipo de asa en la cerámica del Noroeste argentino, Relaciones de la
Sociedad Argentina de Antropología 14(1), 41-47, Buenos Aires.
Anello Oliva, Giovanni
1998 Historia del reino y provincias del Perú y vidas de los varones insignes de la
[1631] Compañía de Jesús, edición, prólogo y notas de Carlos M.Gálvez Peña, Pontificia
Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima.
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1998 El asno de oro, Edicomunicación, Barcelona.
[190 d.C.]
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[1598] Peruanos, Lima.
Betanzos, Juan Diez de
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[1551]
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Janeiro.
Donnan, Christopher B. y Donna McClelland
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History, Los Angeles.
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Indígena, Instituto Nacional Superior del Profesorado de Folklore, Buenos Aires.
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1998 Cultura La Aguada. Arqueología y diseños, Filmediciones Valero, Buenos Aires.
Guallart, José María
1958 Mitos y leyendas de los Aguarunas del Alto Marañón, Perú Indígena VII (15-17), 5898. Lima.
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[1613] Murra, 3 tomos, Siglo XXI, México.
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1926 Información hecha en el Cuzco acerca de las costumbres que tenían los incas del
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siglo XVI, tomo IX, 268-288, Madrid.
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2004 Análisis de microsecuencias narrativas en la alfarería de La Aguada, área andina
argentina, en: XV Congreso Nacional de Arqueología Argentina, Universidad
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Notas
1
La Aguada (540-850 d.C) es la cultura más conocida del valle de Hualfín, provincia de Catamarca,
en el noroeste argentino; fue coetánea del Horizonte Medio del área nuclear andina.
2
Sobre las secuencias narrativas, K. Makowski (2001) publicó un trabajo pionero en el que repasó las
teorías vigentes y analizó los dibujos de la pieza de San José de Moro, la misma que nosotros
comentamos más adelante.
3
Es decir, yaguareté (Pantera onça palustres).
4
Los cachorros de puma nacen con manchas en la piel que desaparecen cuando se hacen adultos,
pero la imagen grabada sobre una vasija de cerámica La Aguada tal vez sea un signo; es decir,
significa que el animal que nace es un yaguareté, un tigre en términos de definiciones folklóricas.
5
De este hijo de Pachacutec se decía que definió el calendario inca, inventó los andenes de cultivo y
las colcas; durante su nacimiento se produjeron erupciones volcánicas en cadena y aparecieron los
amaro que le dieron nombre. La correlación entre este inca y los felinos es consistente en toda su
historia personal, lo mismo que su actividad agropecuaria (Gentile, ms).
6
La creencia de que una mujer humana podía parir un animal fue recogida en su Tercera Annua por
el jesuita Diego de Torres; sucedió en Santiago de Chile, era una culebra y “la india la escondió”
([1611] 1927: 103).
7
Los testigos reunidos en Yucay dijeron que “... los indios de la provinca de los Andes y de la
provincia de los Chunchos comían carne humana y para ello se juntaban los niños y muchachos y
que no saben que lo comiesen en otras provincias ...” (Información ..., [1571] 1935-1942 (II): 132).
8
Capiangos: hombres que pueden convertirse en tigres. En Brasil es voz de origen africano, “Gatuno,
hábil e astuto”; pero también capiongo es “Triste, macambúzio, tristonho; ... Diz-se do indivíduo que
tem defeito em uma das vistas.” (Buarque de Holanda Ferreira, 2da.edición).
9
Que son parte de la Historia y el Folklore del área andina argentina; el general riojano Facundo
Quiroga, apodado “el tigre de los llanos”, hizo correr la voz que tenía cuatrocientos capiangos en sus
filas; en la misma región, la expresión “¡hij´i tigre!” alude a un hombre que se destaca en lo que hace.