Beyond El Dorado

Professor Lisa Trever

Are You My Mother?

The Jalisco ​Rattle ​(Fig. I), currently on display in Gallery 684 of the Metropolitan Museum of

Art, is exhibited alongside the museum’s impressive collection of over 5,000 musical instruments.

Though categorized and displayed by the Met as an instrument, the ​Rattle​ might rather be considered as a

representational work of art; its form depicts a mother breastfeeding her child as if perched on the rattle’s

handle, obscuring the instrument body’s silhouette. The highly illustrative aspects of the work cannot be

considered as mere ornamentation to the instrument’s utility. Unfortunately, if museum visitors find

themselves faced with questions regarding the significance of such representation (particularly alongside

the familiar pianos, trumpets, and string instruments exhibited in the same space), the accompanying

plaque offers no answers, reading: “A large perforated rattle typical of Jalisco rattles of western Mexico is

concealed behind the nursing female figure​1​.” 2,500 miles apart from the Jalisco ​Rattle​, in the Xalapa

Museum of Anthropology, the ​Señor de las Lima​s​ (Fig. III) is on display in Sala 2. Its plaque​2​ states that

it is “considered one of the most important works of the Olmec culture. It shows two figures, one of them

possibly a priest, sitting cross-legged, holding a limp infant in his arms, as if he were dead or asleep​3​.”

The geographic distance between New York’s terracotta ​Rattle​ and Xalapa’s greenstone ​Señor de las

Limas​ ​is matched by their thematic distance from one another, if one is to accept their Museum’s plaques

at face value. Both the ​Rattle​ and ​Las Limas p​ ortray a seated, larger figure cradling an infant in their

arms, but the apparent visual similarity present between the two works seem to end there. The ​Rattle

presents a human mother breastfeeding her child, and its significance is purportedly direct and corporal.

Las Limas,​ despite its earliest interpretation as depicting a Madonna and Child​4​, is now considered to

1
“​Rattle |​ Jalisco | Pre-Columbian | The Met”
2
“Catálogo-Museo de Antropología de Xalapa | Universidad Veracruzana”
3
Original Spanish text reads: “Esta es considerada una de las obras más importantes de la cultura Olmeca. Muestra a
dos personajes, uno de ellos posiblemente un sacerdote, sentado con las piernas cruzadas, que sostiene en sus brazos
a un infante flácido, cual si estuviese muerto o dormido.”
4
Miller, ​The Art of Mesoamerica,​ 43
present Olmec cosmological principles and the origin of Man. Beneath such aesthetic comparisons,

however, the two works might be considered in regards to their makers’ conception of genesis. The

scholarship regarding these two pieces is rhetorically disparate​5​, which makes such a consideration

ambitious; yet rather than compare the rattle and sculpture themselves, whose provenance and scholarship

are respectively debated, one might put the academic treatment of ​Rattle​ and ​Señor de las Lima​s ​in

conversation with one another. Doing so, one might begin to reflect on anthropologists' historical removal

of the Woman from Mesoamerican society’s narratives of origin.

Looking toward what is known and written about the ​Rattle​ presents a case study for this

retrospective removal of the Woman from Mesoamerican genesis narratives. The Met purchased the

terracotta and kaolin instrument from William Siegal Gallery in 2007, whose website describes that the

ceramic artists who worked in present-day Jalisco expressed “their intrinsic relationship with nature and

their cosmology in figurative objects and vessels.” This purportedly essential quality of Jalisco art is

likewise used to describe the Aztec, Chinesco, Maya, Olmec, and other collections of Pre-Columbian

artifacts​6​. The gallery’s owner, Bill Siegal, expresses on his website his mission to collect antiquities “of

the highest historical integrity and quality​7​,” yet one must approach the professed authenticity of ​Rattle

with due caution. The Met provides that the work was created between 100 BCE and 200 CE, dating it

between the Late Formative and Early Classic Periods of Mesoamerica. Its style along with its survival to

the present day suggests that the work was preserved, through millenia, within a shaft tomb. Shaft tomb

artwork, broadly associated with the present West Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit, and Colima has

been abundantly preserved and is thus aesthetically diverse, yet within the field of Ethnoarchaeology its

examples are approached with hesitation: wide-scale looting of West Mexican shaft tombs removed

ceramics from the context so critical to their most basic interpretation. Their provenance, often

established by speculation, looks toward ceramic works’ adherence to the observed visual traditions found

within contemporary geo-political boundaries of West Mexico. Yet Nayarit-style ceramics have been

5
See Note 1
6
“Ancient Objects | Pre-Columbian Mexico”
7
“The William Siegal Gallery | About.”
discovered at the same excavation sites as Colima and Jalisco-style ceramics, and this method of

determining place their origin and cultural heritage is controversial​8​. Given that the Met’s website

references the Rattle’s “provenance” as William Siegal galleries, and that William Siegal galleries offers

only an unsubstantiated claim of commitment to verifying its collection’s authenticity, one should not

assume that the work is certainly from Jalisco. Further, its designation as “Jalisco,” a contemporary state

and aesthetic criterion, does not reflect any verifiable cultural heritage which might elucidate the work’s

meaning. Further, without certain true provenance, one might never gather significance from the rattle’s

placement in relation to the people buried within its shaft tomb, or from its placement alongside other

works.

The indisputable aspects of the work, if it is to be considered genuine, must be gathered through

observation of its present display. The ​Rattle ​depicts a woman breastfeeding the infant she cradles within

her arms. She seems to be simultaneously clothed and naked; while her breasts are anatomically

delineated, suggesting that she is nude, she also appears to be wearing a skirt or dress, whose hem is

visible where her knees bend to wrap around the instrument’s handle. There is no delineation between her

seemingly naked chest and clothed legs, which lends physical ambiguity to the moment being depicted.

Both she and her child wear large, circular earrings painted with black crosshatch. Other examples of

geometric embellishment are abundant: she wears a circular septum ring, stacked bands on her upper

arms, and a tiered collar necklace. Further, her face and body, as well as that of her infant, are painted

with more instances of lines and crosshatch. Raw umber stripes trace the contours of her cheeks, chin,

chest, and exposed calves, while two perpendicular black lines wrap around her child’s belly. The work is

mostly smooth, and photographs show the dim reflection that its polished surface diffuses. The greatest

exception to this reflective quality is found in her hair, whose fine, waving striations produce a matte

finish. In two heavy, paddle-shaped sections, her hair falls down her shoulders. An interesting aspect of

the work, as mentioned by its plaque, is observed in its perforated body. Not only is the rounded back of

8
Pack, “Ancient West Mexican Sculpture: A Formal and Stylistic Analysis of Eleven Figures in the Virginia
Museum of Fine Arts,”11-12
the rattle-- which extends from the mother’s back​9​ like a turtle shell (Fig II)-- perforated to form vertical

lines, but her necklace, bellybutton, and mouth are pierced through to the instrument’s hollow center.

These perforations are presumably present for acoustic reasons, yet their location (used both as

ornamentation and anatomical illustration) raise the question of whether the object is truly a sonical

device decorated by the two figures, or if the “​Rattle,”​really, is a sculpture of two figures who produce

sound​10​.

Such questions, given the scant literature available on the “instruments” of West Mexican shaft

tombs, might begin to seem more as rhetorical exercises than investigations. But without the information

​ ith confidence or authority, it is worth bringing to

conversation with it an equally enigmatic work of Mesoamerican sculpture: the S​eñor de las Lima​s.

Much more scholarship is available on the latter work, whose larger figure, sometimes described

as a human youth and sometimes a priest, cradles an infant in their arms (Figure III). Inscribed glyphs are

found throughout the work (Fig IV), on the seated figure’s face, shoulders, and legs, as well as on the

body of the infant. Like the Jalisco ​Rattle,​ ​Las Limas’ ​form is defined by smooth curves, and its surface

has been smoothed to a polished finish. The labor required to produce this effect from such a large body

of greenstone would have been tremendously laborious and expensive. Its immediately evident material

value and beauty have likely aided in ​Las Limas’ ​elevation to the Mesoamercan art history canon, yet

other qualities of the work may also play a role in its recognizance.

The gender of the priest/youth figure, if one was ever suggested, has yet to be established. Even

more strangely (to those unfamiliar with Olmec sculpture), the face of the infantile figure, upon closer

inspection, is enlarged and squared, with curled lips and slanted eyes. This humanesque child has been

identified by many scholars as emblematic of the cult of the “were-jaguar.” Carolyn Tate, in her book

Reconsidering Olmec Visual Culture: The Unborn, Women, and Creation, ​poses an interesting question

9
See Note 2
10
See Note 3
 ​ esturing toward the ​Kunz
toward the validity of the were-jaguar, as might be instanced in ​Las Limas. G

Axe ​(See Fig. V) she asks​11​:

The overarching claim of Tate’s book closely relates to the connection, however abstract, which might be

found between the Jalisco ​Rattle​ and the canonical ​Señor de las Lima​s. ​The first work, as a simultaneous

depiction of nursing and sound (and thus motherhood, generation, proliferation, and the rhythm of life) is

not given due analysis by the Metropolitan’s description plaque​12​. If even the most terse, overt

interpretation of its status as an instrument can be met with skepticism, then what might this work signify

for the broader treatment of Women and Motherhood in Mesoamerican art history? Returning to the

claims made in Tate’s book, the case of the ​Rattle ​might be considered one instance among an ongoing

pattern of the dismissal of Women, and their power held not only through physical generation, but

spiritual and historical generation, in Mesoamerican history. In ​Heritage of Power​13​, while describing four

pregnant ceramic figures in the San Sebastian style (c.a. 100 CE), Kristi Butterwork suggests that “all four

might depict… an important woman who was pregnant four times-- each birthing figure legitimizing a

future heir to the bloodline.” Her seemingly innocuous proposal reduces the power of the woman or

women depicted (Fig VI) in these figures to her/their ability to provide heirs to the family​14​. As is the case

here, the depictions of Women’s bodies-- particularly during pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding--

have historically been met with literal interpretations which fail to consider possibly spiritual and

metaphysical meaning. In the case of ​Las Limas, c​ onversely,​ ​the lack of evident gender grants an

opportunity to project additional meaning, however quixotic, onto a sculpture that to this day is little

11
Tate, ​Reconsidering Olmec Visual Culture,​ 18
12
See Note 3
13
Butterwick, ​Heritage of Power​, 53
14
See Note 5
understood. In spite of the abundant cave imagery at La Venta, in which many have interpreted as

symbolizing the womb, Olmec Ethnoarchaeologists have in retrospect parsed an origin story which omits

notions of gender. Several of the authors cited in this paper discuss what contemporary Mesoamerican

scholarship might gain when approached through the lens of gender studies. Such a radical reframing of

the field, while perhaps necessary, will require not only significant time, but efforts to reduce those many

systematic barriers which deter Indigenous women from academia.

But at a smaller scale, the Metropolitan Museum of Art would benefit greatly (and immediately)

from the revision of its presentation of the ​Rattle​. Firstly, its authenticity should be proven​15​ for the sake

of determining its scholarly merit. Regardless, its present display in Gallery 684 refuses viewers

knowledge of the shaft tomb setting for which its maker intended it to remain. But rather than merely

relocating the ​Rattle ​to another solitary glass tomb in the company of similar “things,” one might consider

a more radical approach: a replica of the work could be created and displayed instead (while the original

is preserved until advances in forensic technology offer opportunities for further study). If this was done

not only for the ​Rattle, ​but for other ceramics like it, financial incentive for the production of fakes could

be discouraged by systematic devaluation of genuine works. More critically, making replaceable versions

of these ceramics would allow them to be experienced in more meaningful ways than mere viewing. This

Rattle​ replica, alongside others of its genre, could be arranged in a full-scale, dimly lit “tomb” together, so

that they can be seen, touched, and heard. Authenticity, after all, can and should be considered beyond

provenance. The once animated ​Rattle, ​distanced from the body and memory of those it was dedicated to,

has been “buried” in a way it was never intended to be. Trapped behind a glass wall and propped beside

art deco trumpets, the memories, sentiment, and context intrinsic to it are deafened. The ​Rattle o​ nce

contrasted its depiction of recurrent life against a context of death; it and its tomb would have been

revisited by a living family across generations. Yet while the memories and sentiment imbued in it are

lost to time, its context (as we must imagine it) might be returned in some form by departing from

museological convention. The terms of museum “viewer” and “visitor” are often used interchangeably,

15
See Note 6
but to really be a ​visitor ​to a work such as the ​Rattle,​ one must perceive it not only through sight, touch,

and sound. To do so would reanimate the work, inviting the visitor to at least hear-- without ever

comprehending-- what its creator has sung of Women for some two thousand years.
 Images and Figures

Figure I
Frontal View of ​Rattle f​ rom Jalisco
Unknown Provenance, c.a. 100 BCE- 200 CE
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gallery 684
Source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/505630
 Figure II
Profile View of ​Rattle f​ rom Jalisco
Unknown Provenance, c.a. 100 BCE- 200 CE
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gallery 684
Source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/505630
 Figure III
Frontal view of ​Señor de las Lima​s
Recovered from Veracruz, Mexico, c.a. 1000-600BCE
On view at the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology, Room 2
 Figure IV
Magnified Profile View of ​Señor de las Limas​
Recovered from Veracruz, Mexico, c.a. 1000-600BCE
On view at the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology, Room 2
 Figure V.a
Image of ​Kuntz Axe
“Were-Jaguar”
Olmec, c.a. 1200-400 BCE
On view at the American Museum
of Natural History
Source: AMNG.org

Figure V.b
Las Limas, Infant or Were-Jaguar?
Recovered from Veracruz, Mexico, c.a.
1000-600BCE
On view at the Xalapa Museum of
Anthropology, Room 2

Figure VI
San-Sebastian Style Terracotta
Figures Depicting Pregnant
Woman or Women
Source: Butterwick, ​Heritage of
Power​, 53
 Notes

1. “rhetorically disparate…” ​Las Limas i​ s written about frequently and with the treatment expected of
Pre-Columbian canonical works. Its symbolism and significance to Olmec society have been investigated at
length. While the writer was unable to find literature specifically relating to the ​Rattle, t​ he scholarship of
related shaft tomb works typically evade notions of the spiritual and metaphysical, particularly as this
relates to figures of Women.
2. “back like a turtle shell-- perforated…” ​The majority of the ​Rattle​’s perforations are located on this
smooth, rounded back (the Met’s website has no photos from the dorsal perspective, but this can be inferred
from the profile perspective seen in​ Figure II​). The authors of ​Communing with Nature​, in their analysis of
Formative Period Oaxacan instruments, propose that such acoustic directionality could lend important
context for interpretation of direction that observed in ​Rattle​16​. ​In the context of an instrument’s direction of
acoustics versus direction of image, they write: “If anthropomorphic instruments were also social agents,
playing them may have permitted communication with the instrument or with the being the instrument
invoked. Rather than requiring exuberant public events, such ‘conversations’ could be private moments
involving only musician and instrument.” While these authors’ article investigates the ceramic instruments
of another time, culture, and context that that of the ​Rattle, t​ heir argument is interesting to consider. The
majority of sound would emanate from the smooth, non-figurative back of Jalisco work. If the musician
were to direct its sound toward an audience, the image of mother and child would not be seen by that
audience. And if the musician were to show the audience the figural side of the instrument, the sound
would radiate toward the musician. The authors’ claim that Formative ceramic instruments might have been
played in an intimate setting, whether for the musician’s sensorial experience or in the presence of their
ancestor’s spirit(s), seems particularly relevant to figures found in West Mexican shaft tombs. To return to
a question previously posed in this paper, why would an instrument be left alongside the dead?
3. “figures​ ​who produce sound.” ​If one is to approach the ​Rattle​’s provenance with skepticism, would it
then be too radical to doubt even its status as a musical instrument? There are two aspects of ​Rattle​ which
raise questions as to whether it is indeed a rattle at all; firstly, if the work was a tomb offering, then who
would have played it, and when? Secondly, the handle of the “rattle” is obstructed by the mother figure’s
folded feet. It is difficult to imagine how one would hold the object ergonomically, particularly given how
top-heavy it appears. This is not to say that the work does not ​depict​ a rattle, but rather that it may
simultaneously be a representation of music and motherhood. That the woman’s mouth is open, as if she
sings to her nursing child, does not seem to be a mere utilitarian choice in regards to acoustics. The exact
implications of this relationship between music and motherhood are difficult, if not impossible, to discuss
without speculation because of the work’s removal from its original context. However, that a woven
depiction of two particularly animated, living themes-- generation of life, and vibration-- would have
almost certainly been placed among the buried dead, is worth reflection.
4. “Not given due description…” ​If the other instruments which share the same gallery space as ​Rattle ​were
treated with similar descriptions, the author’s concern would not be so severe. Compare the description
given to ​Rattle​: “​A large perforated rattle typical of Jalisco rattles of western Mexico is concealed behind
the nursing female figure” (as quoted in its entirety) versus that given to ​Trumpet in B-Flat ​(c.a. 1934):
“The streamlined and minimalistic form of this trumpet presents a strong American art deco aesthetic and
captures the visual and musical style of the Jaz Age. Particuarly notable are elements such as its
streamlined water keys, valve casings and touches, finger hook and braces. The instrument displays many
decorative surface finishing techniques including…” (The plaque continues for several paragraphs)​17​.

16
Hepp, Barber, and Joyce, “Communing with Nature, the Ancestors and the Neighbors: Ancient Ceramic Musical
Instruments from Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico”
17
“​Trumpet in B-Flat​ | American | The Met”
 Despite the fact that the latter plaque includes several typos, its aesthetics and cultural context are explored
with lush detail. Can the same not be done for ​Rattle?
5. “...ability to provide heirs to her family.” ​The act of placing such figures alongside the deceased would
honor what she was able to ​give​ rather than who she ​was​. Would the family member of the depicted
woman/women-- who would have invested time, land, and labor in the preservation of their ancestor’s body
and memory-- create not one, but four figures of pregnancy for the sake of honoring pregnancy itself? The
authors of ​Communing with Nature ​touch on the theory that the frequent depiction of women and domestic
subjects in the West Mexican ceramic genre indicates that “figurines were mostly produced by and used by
women” (383).​18​ If the figures Butterwork describes were indeed made by a female family member, who
would have almost certainly observed, if not experienced, pregnancy and childbirth in their lifetime, it’s
doubtful they would have made such figures in honor of progeny. Butterwick does touch on the
individuation of the figures, suggesting that the one wearing the turban might depict the elder of a lineage
of four​19​. This might have been explored further: the individuation of the figures (two with protruding
navels and two with inverted navels, for instance) alongside common features across all (such as rain-like
bodypaint and dimpled shoulders) perhaps suggests the connection between subsequent generations of
mothers.
6. “not assume that the work is certainly from Jalisco.” ​The question of not only the ​Rattle​’s authenticity,
but of all West Mexican ceramic figures not recovered through methodical excavation, is one of the most
troubling aspects of this paper’s argument. The authors of Archaeological Interpretations of ​West Mexican
Ceramic Art ​discuss the extent of this issue of authenticity and its implications: “At this point in the
analysis, almost no North American museum collection is considered to be free from replicas, fakes, or
modified figurines. However, it is probable that the oldest collections are less likely to be trained than
recently acquired ones, e.g., anything accessioned after 1960 is suspect​20​.” It is the author’s opinion that the
Metropolitan should be more candid in its disclosure of how the object came to be in the museum. Given
that it was purchased in 2007, well into the timeline of “suspect” acquisition, stating the commercial gallery
from which it was acquired is insufficient. The authenticity of the ​Rattle ​might be investigated by the
methods described in ​Archaeological Interpretations, w ​ hich pursue “nondestructive or minimally
destructive techniques​21​.”

18
Hepp, Barber, and Joyce, 383
19
Butterwick, ​Heritage of Power​, 53
20
Day, Butterwick, and Pickering, “Archaeological Interpretations of West Mexican Ceramic Art from the Late
Preclassic Period,” 157
21
Day, Butterwick, and Pickering, 157
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