A pre-Columbian Quimbaya gold figural pendant

A pre-Columbian Quimbaya gold figural pendant, modelled as a squatting shaman playing a gourd shape flute, wearing a triple arched bat shaped headdress decorated a pair of 'spiral of life' motifs and a fan shape necklace, the reverse with a later loop, 4.5cm high.

Quimbaya goldsmiths produced their finest work during the Classic Period (circa 400 A.D. - 700 A.D.), gold objects from this era comprising realistic three-dimensional sculpture-like forms, often in the shape of fruits and vegetables, animals and human figures (the latter in both male and female form). The human figures are usually naked, typically have rounded outlines, triangular faces, prominent cheek bones and noses, and half-closed almond-shaped eyes (signifying a coca induced trance-like state). Gold objects from the Late Quimbaya Period (circa 700 A.D. - 1000 A.D.) are of a more simplistic two-dimensional form with stylised decoration. The Quimbaya civilisation went into decline circa 1000 A.D. and by the time the Spanish entered the Cauca Valley region, during the 1540’s, was extinct, the surviving tribal remnants being wiped out during the conquest.

Many of the items produced by Quimbaya goldsmiths were simple decorative pieces. At their finest, however, Quimbaya gold objects, like this shamanic pendant, reference Quimbaya social organisation and cultural and religious practice in a complex interplay of material, form, symbol and usage. Gold had powerful associations with fertility for the Quimbaya, who regarded the alluvial gold nuggets they extracted from the Cauca River as being quite literally the sweat of the sun, their principal male deity and ultimate creative source. The manner in which seeds from ingested fruit germinated apparently miraculously from the guano deposited by bats in the otherwise barren caves in which they roosted, led to bats also being regarded as powerful fertility symbols and givers of life. The shaman’s flute is also relevant in this regard, other known Quimbaya fertility symbols including a variety of pendular shaped fruits and vegetables, pumpkins, marrows and gourds, and the Quimbaya also producing gold boxes in the shape of these symbolic fruits and vegetables in which to store coca leaves for use in their sacred ceremonial rites. The double spiral motif is a symbolic reference to life itself, the act of breathing in and breathing out.

Quimbaya pendants, in addition to being used as talismanic ceremonial ornaments, were regarded as passports to the after-life, and were, after ritual use, interred as funerary offerings, with the intention of guiding the spirit of a deceased Quimbaya to the after-life and re-birth. Other-worldly nocturnal animals, bats, in addition to being fertility symbols, were also associated with the after-life and re-birth, making this a particularly appropriate funerary offering. Quimbaya pendants, like this piece, usually exhibit signs of wear, indicating extensive ceremonial use prior to being interred.

The filling of only the two holes to the front of this pendant provides an important insight into the working practices of the Quimbaya goldsmith who produced it. The finely calculated use of gold in the casting process, prompted by a desire to conserve a scarce resource (alluvial gold was far rarer in the Cauca Valley than in the Pacific slopes of the Andes) resulted in areas of weakness in the lower areas of the casting. When remedying this problem, the goldsmith continued to husband his resources in a practical manner, only the two holes in the front of the pendant, which would have been visible when it was being worn, being filled after casting, whereas the hole to the rear was left unfilled.

Though Quimbaya gold figures are sometimes depicted holding objects, these objects are usually purely symbolic in nature. Depictions of figures playing a musical instrument, shamanic or otherwise, are extremely rare. This pectoral pendant is also perhaps the finest surviving depiction from the Classical Period of a Quimbaya shaman in the act of performing a sacred rite.