Return to Escultorpa Llaqtan, the town of sculptors

The author, based on his years of study of the stone sculptures of the Pueblo Escultor (often incorrectly called “Augustinian culture” or “Saint Augustine culture”), delves into the meaning conveyed by the images of the Macizo statuary, and reviews the history of stone sculpture in America – of the myths, patterns and occurrences represented there – seen through the lens offered by the statuary of the Sculpting People. The fundamental meanings encoded within that narrative allow us to follow the historical paths of the images and characters that the sculptures reveal, and link the images to earlier artistic manifestations, ultimately to their origins throughout America. The Statues of the Sculpting People represents an important contribution to the study of great ancient American art, and demonstrates that the American vision captured in stone in the Colombian Massif was unparalleled.

The Statues of the Sculptor People

San Agustín and the Colombian Massif

By David Dellenback, 2012.

San Agustín – Huila — I wanted to give that Quechua linguistic construction as a name to the town of San Agustín-Huila by virtue of its archaeological wealth, inspired by the words of the American scholar and resident of said region, David Dellenback, who has called everyone those ancient remains as Pueblo de Escultores (see interview in Todo lo que hay, 2013). When traveling through a large part of southern Colombia, which includes a vast Andean-Amazonian area rich in biodiversity and the imprint of ancestral peoples everywhere, I somehow feel a certain Quechua influence. For some reason, the old European invaders gave this town the name of Saint Augustine, which refers us to the holy bishop of Hippo – perhaps it is because of Augustine's theological dissertations on images such as in his Questions on the Heptateuch, in which which biblical exegesis does about them: «It is easy to ascribe the various idols to this interpretation. Saint Augustine himself does so, saying that this prohibition extends to any image that fulfills an idolatrous function" (Javier Velásquez-Castellanos, December 31, 2004, p. 149). It is also easy to link the reference of Augustinian theology as an evangelizing mantra on the sculptures, with the presence of the Augustinian friars and, especially the Spanish colonial bishop of Popayán, Fray Agustín Gormaz Velasco (1507-1589), historically of good fame as a protector of the indigenous people, a speaker of Nahuatl from his time in Mexico and who even had problems with the Spanish colonial governments for his defense of the indigenous people. Despite this, with all the good intentions of Catholic or Protestant missionaries, before or now, the purpose of approaching indigenous cosmogonies was not their study and protection, but rather their ontological destruction to impose European cultural ways. The imposition of Christian names throughout the Americas had the clear purpose of erasing or "exorcising" what conquerors and colonizers did not understand, feared and despised.

Both contemporary archeology and anthropology still follow the routes traced by Eurocentrism, which wants to see cultural elements only through the European or – if we use a controversially broad term: Western – epistemological filter. In the Sculptorpa Ilaqtan (I will use this Quechua term to refer to the "Village of Sculptures"), it is possible to see an evident conflict between a diversity of interpretations of the images, among which Western perceptions seek to prevail over the same indigenous cosmogony. The intentions of reading world cultures from the European point of view are as old as the colonial adventure that began with the European encounter with the people of the Americas. The European conquerors (not only the Spanish or Portuguese) saw in the peoples of the other continents empires, kingdoms, royal castes, religions judged on the basis of monotheistic concepts of the Levant, and social and architectural organizations that were compared to medieval Mediterranean cities. This led them, in the success of their dramatic conquests and subjugation of our ancestors, to search, for example, for the Creator God with monotheistic views among our ancient indigenous cosmogonies that would allow them to introduce the Abrahamic God and determine what was "good and evil." "holy and satanic", "civilized and savage", "superior and inferior", "human and animal" and a long etcetera of dualisms and opposites obedient to the convulsive logic of the European Middle Ages.Evidently the statues of Sculptorpa Ilaqtan must have caused in those first Europeans who knew them, far from great admiration and interest, great concern and contempt when seeing anthropomorphic images that are mixed with animal figures. Especially in medieval Europe, the problem of animals is seen through a harshly negative and biblical symbolism: The snake, the wolf, the cat and par excellence the felines (such as the jaguar), the reptiles, the birds of prey and many others had a negative theological representation in contrast to "holy" animals such as doves, the eagle, the horse and others of great importance to the European world. For our ancestors, on the other hand, animals did not have such a dualism of "good - bad", but rather it was a closer, more shared relationship where the jaguar and the condor had an awareness and an active participation in the human and animal world. the gods that were coupled with everyday life and the cycles of life. «In pre-Hispanic Mayan culture the jaguar was associated with various aspects such as power, death, shamanic practices, the night sky, the underworld, but also with agriculture and fertility» (see Balam, the jaguar in Mayan culture). This means that an animal totem can be positive or negative, convenient or inconvenient, a reflection of the soul that seeks wisdom or not, as Jonathan Birdwhisle Tahamí says in his story about the Creation of the World: «The jaguar lives in the heart of the world. manigua "He is neither good nor bad, because he is a hunter and whoever meets a hunter has to be lucky not to look like prey."

It is, then, the indigenous ancestral cosmogony that prevails when attempting to interpret the statues of Sculptorpa Ilaqtan, as well as the rich geography, hydrography, anthropology and archeology of this rich Colombian region that has a cultural, ancestral impact. and spiritual with global reach and the Americas. David Dellenback mentions that the statues of Scultorpa Ilaqtan are actually a payment to Mother Earth for the great water wealth of this Colombian Massif and that possibly the ancient settlers in more than 5 thousand years of habitation, did not live at the top of the mountain. , considered sacred, but in the lowlands, from where they came up to leave the statues as gifts to the Pacha Mama, to bury their most notable leaders and to pay tributes and festivities.Dellenback's words remind me of the explanation that the ancient Khmers of Southeast Asia gave to the idea that they did not live inside the great stone temples, because they said "stone is for the gods, wood is for the people." . In the future, Dellenback warns us, generations that understand this concept of statues as payments to Pacha Mama, will place them inside them, as is the case in Tierradentro.The visit of Sculptorpa Ilaqtan by the indigenous communities of Colombia and the Americas is vital for the enrichment of the interpretations of the different statues and the indigenous cosmogony, which is the connatural cosmogony of the original peoples.The Taitas see the statues from their own spirituality and this does not imply that Western studies should be marginalized, but a diverse and respectful participation must always be opened for all knowledge in what constitutes a heritage of humanity and I would say, a living heritage.

It is important to rescue the images that have been removed from the territory and taken to other countries, of which the best-known case is that of the 35 statues that the German Konrad Preuss irregularly stole from Colombia in the 1930s to enrich his exhibitions in Berlin, fact frustrated by World War II. Fortunately, the total bombings of Berlin did not affect the statues, but they remain hidden in the warehouses of the Ethnological Museum without there being a Colombian political will to request their repatriation after more than 90 years of abandonment in a foreign country. Little by little our country is becoming aware of its ancestral roots and more and more Colombians look with interest at their origins and the legacies that our ancestors left us.

References

• Javier Velásquez-Castellanos, December 31, 2004, About images: Saint Augustine's comments on the first commandment, Publications Service of the University of Navarra.
  

Apu Qun Illa Tiqsi Wiraquchan Pachayachachiq Pachakamaq, known as the God of Light.

Back of the statue of the God of Light, which is found in the Statue Forest.