Recommended listening: Amazonian shamanic songs
Story
Somewhere near Santarém, in the interior of the Amazon rainforest, a matriarchal society thrived. Known to their neighbours upriver as "Coniupuyara", or "the grand mistresses", these women ruled over a powerful urban civilization. Acres upon acres of lush rainforest were cleared to make way for miles of dense housing that spread around the grand earthen mounds upon which sat their gleaming temples. Plastered white stone walls supported roofs thatched with the feathers of parrots and macaws. It was these women who would earn the rainforest its European name, for when Friar Gaspar de Carvajal journeyed along the river in the 1540s, the stories he heard of these women and the way he witnessed them leading men in battle only made sense to him when he framed them in ancient Greek myths of Amazon warriors. Although Carvajal never saw their capital city himself, a captive from one of their subject kindgoms described the five great temples ("caranain", or temples of the Sun), the gold and silver utensils, the statues of goddesses, and the fine clothing of the Coniupuyara. The women wore their hair to their feet and dressed in blankets of the finest alpaca wool. In one of their subject villages, Carvajal and his fellow travellers were amazed to find the following spectacle:
In this village there was a very large public square, and in the center of the square was a hewn tree trunk ten feet in girth, there being represented and carved in relief thereon a walled city with its enclosure and with a gate [...] and this entire structure [...] rested upon two very fierce lions, which turned their glances backward as if suspicious of each other, holding between their forepaws and claws the entire structure, in the middle of which there was a hole through which they offered and poured out chicha for the Sun, for this is the wine which they drink, and the Sun is the one whom they worship and consider as their god.
In short, the construction was a thing well worth seeing, and the Captain and all of us, marvelling at such a great thing, asked an Indian who was seized here by us what that was [...] and the Indian answered that they were subjects and tributaries of the Amazons and that the only service which they rendered them consisted in supplying them with plumes of parrots and macaws for the linings of the roofs of the buildings which constitute their places of worship, and that all the villages which they had were of that kind, and that they had that thing as a reminder, that they worshipped it as a thing which was the emblem of their mistress, who is the one who rules over all the land of the aforesaid women.
What Carvajal interpreted as lions were undoubtedly jaguars, widely revered throughout the Amazon and beyond. Carvajal's account of the countless sprawling cities he passed on the river and the matriarchs who commanded their resources has been dismissed for centuries as a complete fantasy. Later European incomers found no cities in the rainforest, the native population of the rainforest was found to be much smaller than he'd claimed, and Carvajal's status as a Catholic friar writing of intelligent and sophisticated natives whose art rivalled that of Ancient Rome did little to endear him to the British and American writers of history books. The idea of wealthy lost cities in the jungle survived only in legends of El Dorado.
But in the past few decades, archaeology has begun to reveal that Carvajal's account is of great value to historians, for the rainforest is full of signs that it once underwent large-scale landscaping at the hands of urbanized native inhabitants. From soil engineering to turtle ranching, the pre-Columbian people of the rainforest employed many strategies to harness the environment's abundance of natural resources for their own use. Furthermore, pottery from the area between Santarém and Marajó reveals an overwhelming preponderance of female figurines, some of whom appear to be shamans under the influence of ayahuasca; this tradition is possibly reflected in the belief of many of today's Amazonian tribes that they are descended from powerful female ancestors. In such concentrated urban environments as those Carvajal described, disease decimated the cities of the rainforest so that by the time Europeans penetrated further into the forest, the pre-contact political structures had collapsed and the surviving population dispersed. The forest reclaimed much of what was lost, and the Amazon was rewritten as a wilderness untouched by human hands when in reality it had been extensively cultivated for hundreds, even thousands of years before the Spanish and Portuguese ever arrived.
In this village there was a very large public square, and in the center of the square was a hewn tree trunk ten feet in girth, there being represented and carved in relief thereon a walled city with its enclosure and with a gate [...] and this entire structure [...] rested upon two very fierce lions, which turned their glances backward as if suspicious of each other, holding between their forepaws and claws the entire structure, in the middle of which there was a hole through which they offered and poured out chicha for the Sun, for this is the wine which they drink, and the Sun is the one whom they worship and consider as their god.
In short, the construction was a thing well worth seeing, and the Captain and all of us, marvelling at such a great thing, asked an Indian who was seized here by us what that was [...] and the Indian answered that they were subjects and tributaries of the Amazons and that the only service which they rendered them consisted in supplying them with plumes of parrots and macaws for the linings of the roofs of the buildings which constitute their places of worship, and that all the villages which they had were of that kind, and that they had that thing as a reminder, that they worshipped it as a thing which was the emblem of their mistress, who is the one who rules over all the land of the aforesaid women.
What Carvajal interpreted as lions were undoubtedly jaguars, widely revered throughout the Amazon and beyond. Carvajal's account of the countless sprawling cities he passed on the river and the matriarchs who commanded their resources has been dismissed for centuries as a complete fantasy. Later European incomers found no cities in the rainforest, the native population of the rainforest was found to be much smaller than he'd claimed, and Carvajal's status as a Catholic friar writing of intelligent and sophisticated natives whose art rivalled that of Ancient Rome did little to endear him to the British and American writers of history books. The idea of wealthy lost cities in the jungle survived only in legends of El Dorado.
But in the past few decades, archaeology has begun to reveal that Carvajal's account is of great value to historians, for the rainforest is full of signs that it once underwent large-scale landscaping at the hands of urbanized native inhabitants. From soil engineering to turtle ranching, the pre-Columbian people of the rainforest employed many strategies to harness the environment's abundance of natural resources for their own use. Furthermore, pottery from the area between Santarém and Marajó reveals an overwhelming preponderance of female figurines, some of whom appear to be shamans under the influence of ayahuasca; this tradition is possibly reflected in the belief of many of today's Amazonian tribes that they are descended from powerful female ancestors. In such concentrated urban environments as those Carvajal described, disease decimated the cities of the rainforest so that by the time Europeans penetrated further into the forest, the pre-contact political structures had collapsed and the surviving population dispersed. The forest reclaimed much of what was lost, and the Amazon was rewritten as a wilderness untouched by human hands when in reality it had been extensively cultivated for hundreds, even thousands of years before the Spanish and Portuguese ever arrived.
Artist's Comments
Drawing this picture for my Women of 1000 AD series has been an incredible experience. Carvajal's account is completely absorbing, a flawed but precious glimpse into the vanished world of the urban rainforest. Learning about the cities of the Amazon was really important for expanding my understanding of the pre-Columbian Americas - it was for me a missing link between the Incas and Mesoamerica, and has fascinating architectural parallels with both Mesoamerican and Mississippian civilizations. Given the cataclysmic changes that Amazonian populations have undergone since 1000 AD, when the female figurines I used as models for this drawing flourished, I had to cast a wide net for references for this picture. For example, alpacas are no longer raised in the Amazon meaning there is no woolen clothing extant in Amazonian styles; people in the rainforest no longer live among large earthworks; and I could not find any art that matched Carvajal's description of how the native people might draw a walled city. I did my best, referencing everything from Chavín depictions of jaguars (the earliest Andeans appear to have venerated jaguars, but must have derived this from their influential Amazonian neighbours because there are no jaguars in the Andes) to reconstructions of Cahokia, the greatest mound-builder city in North America.
The patterns on her clothing are inspired by the woven mats of the Urarina people. The jade pendants she wears are muiraquitã in the shape of frogs, which can be seen in ceramic depictions of women from circa 1000 AD. Jade was imported from Guatemala, another indication of the privileged status of these women in a vast economic network. Her body paint is also directly inspired by figurines from the period, as are her perforated and elongated earlobes. This depiction of one of the Coniupuyara offering chicha before the imperial kapok tree can only ever be an imaginative reconstruction, but I poured my heart and soul into making it as plausible as possible.
The scanner messed up some of the colours but overall I'm pleased with the scan, and I'm really proud of this picture. SenshiStock's stock image was very helpful for the pose. Most of all I'd like to thank my mother for always inspiring me to learn more about South America. She's always believed there was more to Carvajal's account than most people acknowledged, and it's been really special sharing with her my own discoveries while researching this picture. ~ April 7, 2018
The patterns on her clothing are inspired by the woven mats of the Urarina people. The jade pendants she wears are muiraquitã in the shape of frogs, which can be seen in ceramic depictions of women from circa 1000 AD. Jade was imported from Guatemala, another indication of the privileged status of these women in a vast economic network. Her body paint is also directly inspired by figurines from the period, as are her perforated and elongated earlobes. This depiction of one of the Coniupuyara offering chicha before the imperial kapok tree can only ever be an imaginative reconstruction, but I poured my heart and soul into making it as plausible as possible.
The scanner messed up some of the colours but overall I'm pleased with the scan, and I'm really proud of this picture. SenshiStock's stock image was very helpful for the pose. Most of all I'd like to thank my mother for always inspiring me to learn more about South America. She's always believed there was more to Carvajal's account than most people acknowledged, and it's been really special sharing with her my own discoveries while researching this picture. ~ April 7, 2018
Resources
Want to learn more about the Coniupuyara and other women of the Amazon? Here are some recommended resources.
The Discovery of the Amazon According to the Account of Friar Gaspar de Carvajal and Other Documents
Experience for yourself Carvajal's wonder as he passes through city after city of artistically sophisticated and militarily powerful people along the Amazon River.
"Santarém Culture" on Encyclopedia.com
Introduction to the archaeological category called the "Santarém culture".
"Figurine Traditions from the Amazon" by Cristiana Barreto
Academic article investigating the spread of the Amazonian Polychrome Tradition throughout the Central and Upper Amazon around 1000 AD. The author provides an excellent analysis of what the figurines tell us about the role of female shamans in the lives of women from this period in the same area that Carvajal would later be told was the home of the Coniupuyara. There are excellent images which I used as references for this illustration.
Indian Tribes and Languages of the Amazon
An index about the different tribes of the Amazon Rainforest today, with information about individual languages and cultures and a list of recommended books about the Amazonian tribes in general.
"The Forest of Marvels - Travel Writing on Amazonia" by Neil L. Whitehead
Insightful treatment of how much the colonial attitudes of travel writers have influenced our understanding of the human populations of the Amazon Rainforest. Written by an academic expert but accessible to a general audience.
The Discovery of the Amazon According to the Account of Friar Gaspar de Carvajal and Other Documents
Experience for yourself Carvajal's wonder as he passes through city after city of artistically sophisticated and militarily powerful people along the Amazon River.
"Santarém Culture" on Encyclopedia.com
Introduction to the archaeological category called the "Santarém culture".
"Figurine Traditions from the Amazon" by Cristiana Barreto
Academic article investigating the spread of the Amazonian Polychrome Tradition throughout the Central and Upper Amazon around 1000 AD. The author provides an excellent analysis of what the figurines tell us about the role of female shamans in the lives of women from this period in the same area that Carvajal would later be told was the home of the Coniupuyara. There are excellent images which I used as references for this illustration.
Indian Tribes and Languages of the Amazon
An index about the different tribes of the Amazon Rainforest today, with information about individual languages and cultures and a list of recommended books about the Amazonian tribes in general.
"The Forest of Marvels - Travel Writing on Amazonia" by Neil L. Whitehead
Insightful treatment of how much the colonial attitudes of travel writers have influenced our understanding of the human populations of the Amazon Rainforest. Written by an academic expert but accessible to a general audience.