- Museum number
- Am1977,Q.3
- Description
-
Male figure (now known as the 'Anthropomorph'), possibly representing Boinayel the Rain Giver, carved in wood.
- Production date
- c. 1256–1300 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 104 centimetres
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Weight: 45 kilograms
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Width: 52 centimetres
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Depth: 15 centimetres
- Curator's comments
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Stephen Coppel has drawn attention to the poem on this figure that was written by the French poet Blaise Cendrars. The French title of the poem is ‘Les grands fétiches’, and it is dated ‘British Museum/ Londres, février 1916’. It belongs to a group of poems entitled ‘Poèmes nègres’. It is reprinted in the collected anthology 'Blaise Cendrars, Du monde entier: Poésies complètes1912-1924. Suivi de Dix-neuf poèmes élastiques, la Guerre au Luxembourg, Sonnets dénaturés, Poèmes nègres, Documentaires, etc,' published in Paris: Gallimard, 1967. He points out that Cendrars lost an arm in the First World War, and that this might have established a rapport with this 'armless' figure.
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Published in 'Archaeologia', 1803, after being exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries by Isaac Rebello on 11 April 1799 as having been found in a cave in Jamaica in June 1792.
The figures were first fully published by T A Joyce, ‘Prehistoric Antiquities from the Antilles in the British Museum’, in the 'Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland', vol.37 (1907), pp. 402–19, and frequently thereafter. The fundamental modern study is by Joanna Ostapkowicz, ‘The sculptural legacy of the Jamaican Taino’, part 1: The Carpenter’s Mountain carvings’, in ‘Jamaica Journal’ 2015, 35(3), pp.52-59. This emerges from an AHRC funded research project. She publishes the results of scientific analysis at Oxford that indicate a date for the ‘Birdman’ and ‘Canopy’ of circa 1000 to 1150 AD, and for the ‘Anthropomorph’ of circa 1250 to 1300 AD. The figures are carved in guaiacum wood, one of the hardest known woods.
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McEwan 2009, p.27
This imposing Taino sculpture stands in a rigid frontal pose of hallucinogenic possession, signalled by the grimacing teeth and tears streaming down his cheeks. The ostentatious display of the sexual organs, emphasized by the hands resting on the hips, underlines its aggressive marculinity. The bulging calves are an admired manifestation of strength and durability produced by wearing ligatures bound beneath the knees and aroud the ankles.
Like most of the other surviving wooden objects, it is carved from the dense, black tropical hardwood, guayacan (Guaiacum officinale L.). The prepared surface was polished with rounded river pebbles to bring the wood resin to the surface and help achieve an alluring deep black lustre.
On the back, the exposed skeletal vertebrae of the spinal column reinforce its association with the spirit world of revered dead male ancestors imbued with a life force called "cemi" that could assume different forms, invisible as well as visible. In this animate universe the Taino actively sought contact with these potent and influential beings who were capable of performing formidable deeds. Many had names, titles, even genealogies, and with each interaction between object and person the "cemies" added to their biography.
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According to Bercht et al. 1997, p.73 this figure has been identified as the Boinayel the Rain Giver. The tears that stream from his eyes signify the magical tears that created rain.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2000-2001 6 Dec-11 Feb, London, BM Room 35; Human Image
2003 18 Oct-14 Dec, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Treasures of the World's Cultures
2004 17 Jan-28 Mar, Kobe City Museum, Treasures of the World's Cultures
2004 10 Apr-13 Jun, Fukuoka Art Museum, Treasures of the World's Cultures
2004 26 Jun-29 Aug, Niigata Bandaijima Art Museum, Treasures of the World's Cultures
2005 1 Oct-2007 7 Jan, London, Horniman Museum, Amazon to Caribbean: Early Peoples of the Rainforest
2008, Apr-Sept, Barcelona, Museo Barbier-Mueller D'Art Precolombi, 'Caribbean Before Columbus'
2008 Sept -2009 Jan, Santiago de Compostela, Fundacion Caixa Galiciade, 'Caribbean Before Columbus'
2009, Jan-Apr, Madrid, Museo de America, 'Caribbean Before Columbus'
2012 10 Apr-10 Jul, Quai Branly, Paris; Masters of Chaos
2012 19 Jul-25 Nov, London, BM Shakespeare: Staging the World
2017-2018, 10 Nov 2017 - 18 Feb 2018, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai, India, India and the World: A History in Nine Stories
2018, 6 May- 30 June, National Museum, New Delhi, India and the World: A History in Nine Stories
- Acquisition notes
- See under Af1977,Q.1
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Am1977,Q.3
