© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Michael McKelvey

ClassificationsArt of the Americas

Stool in the Shape of a Human-Crocodile

AAT Object Form/FunctionStools (seating furniture)

AAT Object Form/FunctionChairs (furniture forms)

Place CreatedCosta Rica, North America

CultureGreater Nicoya

PeriodPeriod VI

Date1000-1520 CE

MediumAndesite

Credit LineGift of William C. and Carol W. Thibadeau

Dimensions16 1/2 x 18 7/16 x 11 1/4 in. (41.9 x 46.9 x 28.6 cm)

Object number1988.012.011

Label TextIn ancient Central American chiefdoms a person who was elevated on a seat like this one was someone of high status. These societies were organized into groups of several hundred people whose political and spiritual leader was first among equals. In Costa Rican art shamans are often shown sitting on benches with crocodilian head ornaments. Thus, this crocodile-human head seat probably belonged to a spiritual leader. In fact, eighteen similar crocodile head seats were found at the site of Papagayo in northwestern Costa Rica, arranged in two rows for likely use in very important rituals.

The powers of human spiritual intermediaries were closely allied to those of ferocious animals, such as crocodiles. Shamans were believed to transform into animals during trances. Here the seat combines human and crocodile elements: the upright head of a human has ears with large spool-like earrings of a high-status individual, while the long zigzag teeth and round eyes are unmistakably those of a crocodile. The shaman is shown as both human and animal.

When a powerful person sat on the concave upper surface of the seat, his or her leg's would straddle the crocodile's snout as if the person were riding a mighty beast. The human faces of the rider above and the animal below would mirror each other, one more a part of culture, the other of nature. Thus, the duality of the shaman, bridging this world and the next, visible reality and the unseen, are celebrated in this powerful double image.

Exhibition HistorySeeing with New Eyes: Pre-Columbian Art from the Thibideau Collection, Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology, March 4 - October 13, 1992
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, May 11,1993 - April 1995
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 13, 2002 - June 2012
'For I am the Black Jaguar': Shamanic Visionary Experience in Ancient American Art, Michael C. Carlos Museum, September 5, 2012 - January 5, 2013
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, February 9, 2013 - March 18, 2019
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, July 2, 2019 - May 10, 2022
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, August 1, 2022 - Present
Published ReferencesRebecca Stone-Miller, Seeing With New Eyes: Highlights of the Michael C. Carlos Museum Collection of Art of the Ancient Americas (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2002), 136, figure 297.
Rebecca Stone-Miller, "Human-Animal Imagery, Shamanic Visions, and Ancient American Aesthetics," RES 45 (2004): 47-68.
Michael C. Carlos Museum Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 74.
Rebecca Stone, The Jaguar Within: Shamanic Trance in Ancient Central and South American Art (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), 77, figure 4.6.

ProvenanceEx coll. Great Southwest Corporation, Atlanta, Georgia, September 25, 1968-April 6, 1973, purchased from Paul Clifford & Company, Decatur, Georgia, September 23, 1968. Ex coll. William (1920-2002) and Carol (1921-2019) Thibadeau, Atlanta, Georgia, purchased through Blair Trewhitt (1928-2016), April 6, 1973.

Status

On view

Collections