Symbolisms and medical and social teachings of some pre-columbian masks Simbolismos y enseñanzas médicas y sociales de unas máscaras precolombinas

Abstract

Four pre-Columbian masks are presented, three of which are Ecuadorian and one Colombian. The Ecuadorian masks are made of ceramics and ascribe to the Jama-Coaque culture and the third is made of Spondylus prínceps shell, and does not have any ascription to any particular Ecuadorian pre-Hispanic coastal culture, for no systematic study was conducted in Ecuador on the relationship of those masks and coastal cultures. The Colombian mask is made of copper. The first ceramic mask, for its size, weight and additional elements – a white material that simulates teeth, three green stones that simulate eyes and a lower labial incrustation, “bezote”- makes one recall a death mask of an individual with significant power and high social status; the second ceramic mask, features sixteen facial nodules which refer the observer to the Peruvian wart or bartonellosis, the third mask was possibly created as a volitional or offering element to exhibit power or evoke the force or protection given the great symbolic value of that red shell. The middle Cauca Quimbaya copper mask was most probably used as an ornament for the chest of a powerful or high class person given its material, weight and color. The mask that resembles bartonellosis is compared with other two masks the author had already examined. The shell mask was compared with another made of the same type of shell, the copper mask with a small jadeite stone mask, a masked skull that the author had the opportunity to examine several years ago. Finally, these interpretations suggest that in addition to the uses traditionally assigned to the masks: festive, funerary and as body adornments to portray the power of the wearer, the masks with the multiple nodular lesions must have served a role similar to that of the ceramic and stone miniature statues which depict pathologies, featuring great realism in pre-Hispanic art, as a way of teaching through an analogical empirical medical thought, the same role played by wax molds, photographs and drawings and paintings in modern medicine, also based on analytical empirical thought.