Sacred Monster! A Zapotec Bat-God.
PRE-COLUMBIAN BAT GOD TERRACOTTA FIGURE [MDL206.700.00]
4.75" (12 cm) high x 2.5” (6.3 cm) wide x 1.25” (3.1 cm) depth.
Zapotec, Monte Alban area, Mexico from the Oaxaca Valley.
400 A.D - 600 A.D. (city of Monte Alban Phase 3 200 A.D-900 A.D.)
Mold-made terracotta standing figure of the Zapotec Bat God.
Perforated eyes, belted loincloth, crest atop head, moderately concave back.
This piece
traces its provenance to the prestigious Sotheby Parke Bernet NYC Galleries. Listed
in auction catalog PB84 Sale Number 523, December 7th, 1976 “Pre-Columbian,
African, Oceanic and American Indian Ethnographic Art and Antiquities. Various
owners including property from the private collection of Helen S. Wilbur”.
Listed as “Item 41. Zapotec Terra Cotta Figure of the Bat God, C./400-600 A.D.
1976.”
The Zapotecs
of the Oaxaca Valleys area of what is now southern Mexico got their start
around 700 B.C. A little afterwards a large settlement called Monte Alban was
constructed above the valleys. The Zapotec called themselves “the cloud people”.
There are still a few hundred-thousand speakers of various Zapotec dialects.
A little
(not yet fully cited) background on this little beast. It’s a bat. Although,
many times Zapotec and Mayan jaguars turn out to be bats. But since there are
indications of blood and sacrificial themes (see below) we’re calling this a
bat. Like 95% sure. Similar items include holes and mouthpieces so the figure
could be used as a whistle—this one is not a whistle. Extremely similar to
Zapotec funerary urns—both there’s no bowl or urn on its back.
WHERE
The
Mesoamerican bat god entity took a few different forms. Of interest to this
piece is the bat god Camazotz (cama-death, zotz-bat in the K’iche’
language). Camazotz is the god of night, death and sacrifice. Kʼicheʼ (or
Quiché) is a Maya language of Guatemala that to this day the second most widely
used language in Guatemala after Spanish. According to Sotheby’s Parke Bernet
Gallery this piece originates a little farther north, from the Monte Alban
area (six miles from modern-day Oaxaca City) of the Oaxaca Central Valleys
region.
SACRIFICE
Although a
Zapotec god, this piece shows later Mayan glyph on its chest denoting “blood”
in the stylized form of a blood droplet. On either side of the mouth are glyphs
that may denote the heart glyph, meaning “sacrifice”, in particular
sacrifice via decapitation and/or the cutting of the victim and the removal of
the still beating heart. In the Oaxaca Valley area of southern Mexico bats are
found on Zapotec funerary urns [Caso & Bernal 1952: 67-68]. Bats of the
divine/sacrificial kind are commonly portrayed with facial designs denoting
sacrifice on their cheeks and/or temples [Thompson 182].
THE
ONE TRUE BAT GOD CAMAZOTZ?
One popular
legend has Camazotz tricking two hero brothers into a journey through the
underworld. While hiding, one brother sticks out his head which is immediately ripped
off by Camazotz and taken to be used in the “ball game” of the gods. Real
humans (generally prisoners of war) were forced to play this ball game, with
the losers being sacrificed and decapitated. Although this bat may have
been a different bat than Camazotz.
NOT ALWAYS
CAMAZOTZ!
Early research
led to any and every bat being identified as a death-bat-god, whereas recent
research suggests that bats can symbolize: messengers (similar to winged
Mercury), vegetation and agricultural fertility, or even personifying diseases [Brady
2016, 227-237]. The proper interpretation of the (single) story of hero twins
portrays the bats as numerous—the underworld (Xibalba) contained a “house of
bats” where the decapitation took place. Bats—plural!
Bats among
the Pre-Columbian Mesoamericans could be just bats; bats symbolizing things;
divine or at least supernatural bats symbolizing things; humans with bat wings
and/or heads; various gods; or even the bat-god himself “Camazotz”. In fact, it
was a messenger bat working on behalf of the god Tohil (a weather and fire
divinity) that demanded bloody sacrifice in exchange for giving fire to mankind—not
Camazotz.
The fourth
month (out of eighteen) in the Mayan calendar is “Zotz”. Twenty-year time periods,
called Katuns, where separated in Mayan calendar writings with an upside-down
bat glyph. This use of the bat glyph appears to have started being used in the
late 700s A.D. [Berlin 1964: 1-7].
BLOOD
God “Q” of
the Maya has been associated with the number 10, bats, death and was the god of
human sacrifice. Bat glyphs appear with the “cauc” symbol of circles or bunches
of grapes, which alone usually stands for storms, rain, gods, the divine. When
used with the bat it may confer divinity (Camazotz himself) or possibly a rain
of blood (very bloody human sacrifice). A harvester of blood? Or maybe agriculture?
The extreme bloodiness
in the form of self-mutilation and blood-letting itself was a specific goal. Mayan
priests/royalty would pierce their tongues or earlobes to draw blood. The bat
god appears on the pyramid of Acanceh twice with symbology mimicking the god of
rain [Blaffer 1972: 60-61]. Again, raining blood? Maybe not, here it could be
the agricultural aspect of the bat—often depicted with a hummingbird—that is being
shown. Ruling elites would practice bloodletting, let the blood fall on bark
paper and then burn it as an offering to the gods, who themselves shed blood to
create man. Men and women are shown piercing themselves or drawing a barbed
rope through their earlobes or tongues to shed their own blood—lots of it!
Bats are commonly
depicted with a prominent leaf-nose that imitates an obsidian sacrificial
dagger. Often the bat is wielding an identical dagger, holding a victim by the
hair or even ripping out a human heart. Generally only prestigious prisoners of
war were used for direct sacrifice via knife. It is said that the armpit-to-waist
area of humans belong to the gods, meaning the area cut open to remove the sacrificial
victim’s heart. Even today, with anesthesia and modern pain killer, a thoracotomy
(for removing portions of cancerous lungs) is considered one of the most severe
medical procedures in terms of post-operative pain. It was a quick, but not at
all pleasant way to die.
RANDOM
The Mayan
metaphor zutz atax I wut reads as “heavy-faced or bat-faced” meaning
someone who is so tired their head is nodding forward, like a bat sleeping hanging
upside-down [Aulie, 1951].
There is the
oft cited story of the Zotzil Mayans living in Chiapas along the modern Mexican-Guatemala border who found a
bat statue and worshiped it as a god, adding it to their other divinities [Ximenez
1929-31: Vol. 2, Ch. 48).
TERRACOTTA AND MAGNETS
So, is this a cast metal statue? Well, if it where are ferric metal like cast iron or steel the magnet would have crushed my fingers against the statue. Also, the statue is way too light in weight to be those. How about aluminum? Well, magnets don't stick to aluminum, but if there are enough impurities (like in some beer cans) and you use a strong enough magnet (like rare earth magnets) you can get the mostly aluminum item to react. However: the statue doesn't feel the correct weight to be aluminum; it has a very glass/pottery like sound when tapping on it; it flakes and powders when an extremely fine blade tip is poked into it. In fact, this is basically how ceramic (non-metallic) magnets are now made in factories every day.
Also, Mesoamericans have been found to use magnetic "lightening stones" in their statues. Some rocks become magnetic after being struck by lightening. I found a citation (but lost it at the moment) that records Mayan clay effigies with small magnetic stones embedded in them. Particularly the facial areas. Where does this bat-god react the most? Right in his cute little snout! Also near the bottom edge of the loincloth. A series of large pot belly head statues made by the earlier Olmec peoples that taken from Monte Alto and moved to the city of La Democracia in Guatemala have been found to contain magnetic areas--a team from Harvard has been mapping out their magnetic fields. Here's a nice link directly to Harvard so you know this isn't a conspiracy theory: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/07/harvard-study-reveals-ancient-mesoamericans-knowledge-about-earths-magnetism/
The magnetism of the pot belly statues is focused around the cheeks and belly. Although, much like our bat-god here, that could just be the sharp edges of the statues being more magnet--rather than a conscious effort to localize magnetic materials by the original makers. Also, it could just be naturally occurring in the original materials.
Later on the Maya were still playing around with magnetic materials in the form of iron-ore mirrors made of lodestone, iron pyrite, etc.
Gamma Spectrometer Fun
Two different sets of gamma spec run. One gave me a spike at the Protactinium line. Protactinium is in soil, loam and clays. So the clay was made from clay. Learned nothing.
The other run with different voltages, calibration and probe showed Manganese. The Central Tlacolula area has clay low in Manganese; the Western Valle Grande area is relatively high. However, my system isn't in the same league (or calibration) so this also tells me nothing.
The hints of cobalt didn't illuminate matters either.
CITATIONS
(NOT COMPLETE-ROUGH DRAFT)
Aulie, E.
& Aulie, W. 1951. Palencano Chol-English Vocabulary. Ms. Mexico: Instituto
Linguistico de Verano.
Berlin, H.
1964. El glifo ‘zotz invertido’. Antrop. Hist. Guatemala 16, 1-7.
Brady, James
E. Bats and the Camazotz: Correcting a Century of Mistaken Identity. Latin
American Antiquity. Volume 27, Issue 2, 2016.
Thompson, J.
Eric S. Maya hieroglyphs of the bat as metaphorgrams.
Ximenez, F.
1929-31. History de la Provincia de San Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala de la Orden
de Predicadores. 3 volumes. Guatemala: Soc. Geog. E History.
Rrrrrr...if I gnaw a couple of my arms off I'll look like a bat too!
