The figures, carved from guayacán and ebony, were created between the 13th and 17th centuries
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 26 October 2024 — It took almost 30 years for more than 150 pieces of indigenous art from the Los Buchillones site, in Ciego de Ávila, to be described and dated correctly by archaeologists. The merit, however, does not really go to the historians of the Island but to the University of Toronto, Canada, and the Royal Ontario Museum, who were in charge of the scientific study of the figures.
Despite the importance of the discovery, which greatly enriches the vision of pre-Columbian Cuba, the official press has hardly mentioned it. Last Thursday, however, ’Invasor’ explained the controversy over the pieces found in 1995 in Los Buchillones, which had been incorrectly attributed to “groups of farmers and ceramicists.”
Thanks to the scientists of the Isotrace university laboratory, it is now known that the figures, crafted in guayacán [lancewood] and ebony, were created between the 13th and 17th centuries of our era, more precisely between 1220 and 1690; the community remained there after the Spanish Conquest. That, the specialists add, was the “peak moment for ceramics.”
Nor were they created, as was thought, in Los Buchillones, but rather in another settlement located 500 meters from there, in an old salt flat known as La Laguna. This was suspected by Cuban scholars and fans of archeology, explains ’Invasor,’ since many of the pieces had marks that showed that they had been taken from the bottom of the sea or a river.
As for the typology of the figures, they correspond to the artistic forms that are known from the Tainos. They are ’cemíes’ – gods, ’dujos’ or ceremonial stools, spatulas and trays. Few of the Greater Antilles have so many representative pieces of indigenous art, and in the Cuban context, it also marks a milestone: Los Buchillones is the most significant archaeological site of Indo-Cuban art.
Of the sculptures, eight stand out, whose characteristics help to better understand the imaginary and everyday life of the Tainos. They are dark in color, carved in guayacán and ebony wood, whose height ranges between 10.5 (4.1 inches) and 34 centimeters (13.4 inches). You can see in some of them the head and limbs – with emphasis on the male and female genitals – of a divinity, and others are in the form of sexless animals.
They are, judging by their shape and careful symmetry, idols linked to fertility, and that is the name that the most remarkable sculpture has received, 18 centimeters (7.1 inches) high, and of which ’Invasor’ provided a sketch. In addition to sexual symbolism, it contains elements – the representation of a skeleton and a kind of halo, in the manner of Catholic saints – that refer to the passage from life to death and to the notion of time that the Taínos possessed.
It is believed that the vases and bowls also have a ritual character and were used by the Taínos in their religious ceremonies. According to ’Invasor,’ the Canadian specialists recommended “developing a stylistic study of these objects” and continuing the investigation, headed by Cuban archaeologist Jorge A. Calvera Rosés.
Only fragments of Cuba’s indigenous past remain. The few archaeological studies that have been published in the country have given little clarity about the different groups that formed the Indo-Cuban area, and most Cubans have erroneous or outdated notions about their lives, customs and rituals.
A decisive step to understand the religion of the Taínos was taken, in 1947, by the Cuban ethnologist and polygrapher Fernando Ortiz with his book, ’El huracán, su mitología y sus símbolos (The Hurricane, its Mythology and Symbols). Published by the Economic Culture Fund and impossible to obtain in the the Island’s bookstores – it is rare, even in the libraries – Ortiz’s meticulous study of several pieces similar to those found in Los Buchillones allowed us to understand the sacred universe of the Taínos.
Ortiz focused his research on a set of enigmatic sculptures, formed by a human trunk with a head and another creature in its chest with arms crossed in an X. Although the shapes of the “curious figurines” were variable, these elements were the common factor and pointed to a sacred conception of the hurricane, the Father of Winds for the Taínos.
His conclusion was that the idol of the hurricane was “the most typical figure in Cuba,” since he had not found specimens on any other Caribbean island. To explain it, he composed a work that seeks the traces of the cult of the hurricane from Hindu swastikas to Andalusian dances, describing a mythical itinerary practically virgin in Cuban historical studies.
Despite the shortcomings, the field of Indo-Cuban studies offers the researcher a terrain full of novelties and a whole bibliography of pioneers such as Ortiz, who in his time reached the height of classical mythological studies like James Frazer and Joseph Campbell. His personal collection, absorbed – with little care – by the National Library and other state institutions, is a good starting point for the researcher.
“Every archaeological object is in itself a search for an intelligible expression. It is a dead and unearthed being to which its name and life must be returned,” Ortiz then said, before, effectively, giving meaning to his discovery. The more than 150 pieces of Los Buchillones continue, as predicted 100 years ago by Ortiz, in search of someone who knows how to speak in their “own language.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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