Chiefs in Costa Rica competed among
themselves for power of all kinds--for
ritual and
supernatural power, but also for power
in the
form of wealth and of trade goods from
distant
lands. Two important kinds of symbolic
power
possessed by chiefs were of jade and
gold. Gold
pieces, such as this magisterial gold
staff head,
were signifiers of political power and
symbols of
supernatural realms from which this
power was
thought to derive. The feline here is
most
probably the jaguar and represents a
particular
chiefdom. This ferocious jaguar appears
dangerous to man with its grisly growl
and
piercing stare, revealing qualities that
are
exclusively worthy of the chief and the
chiefdom
to possess. The erect tail and ears
display an
enduring vigilance of the chief
comparable to that
which only the supernatural powers could
sustain. We can be sure that the chief
who
possessed this magnificent gold piece
had no
difficulty at all in competing with
other chiefs for
power of any kind and was revered
equally by
both human and supernatural realms.
- (FJ.5755)
|
