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Drawing the Cosmos into Being: Amerindian Beliefs in Pattern and Design Indigenous American arts are part of a complex system in which the finished craft is often as important as the gestures involved in its manufacture. The lecture will explore through examples from Pre-Columbian and historic cultures of the Americas how the production of objects and patterns establishes bridges between different registers of reality and the beings that populate Amerindian cosmologies.

Shipibo-Conibo Indians in Peru say that ‘drawings are spirits’ own melodies’ (Gebhart-Sayer, 1986).

In saying this, they refer to their graphic art known as Kene (Fig example of Kene). Kene is

characterised by extremely complex motifs based on the repetitive combination of cruciform and

circular patterns that have an almost infinite variability. Kene is the visual index of Ronin the cosmic

anaconda’s decorated body. Ronin is Shipibo’s own version of the mythical serpent almost

universally found in the oral histories of the Amazon River basin tribes. Though now popularly

decorating marketable products, the art is traditionally associated with shamanism. In Shipibo-

Conibo thought each human being is enveloped in Ronin’s web of designs that are at once, perfect,

musical, and fragrant. Women that decorate with Kene the large pots that embody Ronin in the clay

coils, draw the patterns while singing (Fig shipibo pots). Each song belongs to a pattern, so knowing

the song means memorizing the designs that they paint. Songs are thus visually remembered via a

simple mnemotechnique whereby each musical phrase is associated with a bend, a crook, a cross or

a straight line part of Kene. Different melodies therefore will generate only specific combinations of

designs.

As an all-enveloping mesh Kene is thought to hold the key to a person’s health. Contrary to

an unhealthy individual, any fit person has a fragrant Kene, which the shaman can see and smell.

Protective drawings that reproduce Ronin’s infinite designs are simultaneously beautiful and

restorative (Fig of painted person). Shamans are the ones that can see individuals’ protective

designs in their mind’s eye and are able to heal an ailing person by mending the breaks and holes

that he perceives in the individual Kene. This requires that the shaman gives the patient a new Kene.

Normally this is done by way of drawings of personal cosmic nets that the shamans see for each

individual. He will draw the kene on a piece of cloth that he returns to the patient after his visions

have taken place. Both healing sessions and vase painting are therefore communicative actions that

establish connections with the spiritual realm. Women and shamans alike thus literally draw, while

singing, a fragrant cosmos into being.

What Shipibo-Conibo Indians do in the Western Amazon is not unique to them, however. For

millennia, indigenous American arts have been storing cosmological knowledge, and through them

moral principles related to mythical themes. Amerindian traditional archives are the very forms of

the objects, the material they are made of, the colours used in their decorations, the texture, feel

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and smell, as well as the patterns and motifs used to finish them. Even manufacturing processes

however were, and still are, as important as the final product and contain important information

without which it would not be effective; as in the songs sung during the painting of the vase that

belong to the pots’ designs among the Shipibo-Conibo. The very act of making an object that

expresses these numinous concepts is in itself a sacred act, one that binds visible and invisible planes

into a relationship between the artist and the object, which ultimately is expressed in the act of

making.

Patterns produced in the Amazon, North American Southwest, Panama, Mexico, pre-

Columbian Peru, and many other places across the hemisphere have masterfully used designs to

express cosmological meanings of great cultural significance, and their visual renditions can today be

studied with confidence through a triangulation between ethnography, archaeology, and art

historical methods and theories. In this lecture will concentrate on geometries, and patterns, only

marginally touching upon realism and verisimilitude. As a result, some mediums and regions will be

left out of the following treatment because of the predominance of realistic idioms that would not

inform this short investigation into sacred Amerindian geometries. Although as we will learn shortly

the division between geometry and realism is difficult to apply to Amerindian contexts, the choice of

material discussed in what follows was essentially guided by geometric principles to show how they

aptly translate beliefs of deep antiquity. Inevitably, I will but scratch the surface of only a minimal

portion of visually impressive Amerindian arts, but apart of from satisfying our intellectual curiosity

and a purely aesthetic yearning, I hope this discussion will reveal the depth and richness of age-old

cultures that continue to thrive today.

Amerindian Worldviews (Fig Amerindian Worldviews)

Irrespective of regional variations, Amerindian arts are expression of philosophies and religious

beliefs shared across the continent since time immemorial. The fundamental concepts at the core of

Amerindian beliefs can be visually conveyed either literally through realist idioms, or very often

metaphorically through the structuring of geometries created by abstract, semi-abstract, and

stylised figures (Fig Nazca). These can be variously organised through the use of repetitions,

rotations, mirror- and glide reflections, symmetries, translations, as well as fractals (Fig fractals).

These designs and patterns help to visually convey the most fundamental concepts shared by

Amerindian peoples which can be summarised in few following points:

1. the notion of an all-permeating dynamic power

2. the interconnectedness of planes of existence

3. the animacy of all things

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4. the repetition of life cycles

5. the notion of transformation

6. the idea that reality is an illusion

These concepts are underpinned by a deep awareness of the place, role, and responsibility that

humans have in maintaining balanced relationships with all that surrounds them, be it visible or

invisible. Visible and invisible registers are two aspects of the same reality for Amerindians who see a

line of continuity between dream and wake, trance, apparitions, visions, ordinary life and altered

states of consciousness. This is also true with regards to the continuity there is between life and

death, which consequently structures a direct links between past and present.

Relationships between beings be it humans and their ancestors, humans and animals, plants,

rocks or spirits, are essentially complementary, symmetrical, dynamic, and transformative. This

means that Amerindian reality is fundamentally unstable. If something is taken it must be put back,

if an entity has taken someone’s spirit, it must be retrieved through human intervention. This often

means practicing rituals in which art plays a highly important role.

In the Americas, humans are considered to be one species among the many that populate

the universe. Human do not hold a privileged position in relation to other beings. In fact, they are

thought to be weaker than certain animal species, spirits, or natural forces, and they need to

harness as much spiritual power as possible in order to face the uncertainties and instability of life’s

predicaments. What is more, one can never be certain of what the senses perceive, and this is

because the essence of beings is not in their appearances, but rather in their capacity to change,

shape-sift, and transform. However complex, these concepts find their way through artistic

expressions, and transformation and shape-shifting are a case in point.

The concept of transformation is particularly evident in the very distinctive use of geometry

made by pre-Columbian peoples that produced textiles under the Huari/Tiwanaku sphere of

influence. Huari and Tiwanaku were two empires that lived side by side for some 500 years in Peru

between 500 AD to year 1000. Peruvian Indian groups before them had developed a complex

iconography in which specific characters such as gods’ staff-bearing helpers consistently reoccur

over time. This important cosmological figure appears as far back as 900 BC in the Chavin civilization

(Fig Chavin staff-bearing) cyclically resurfacing in every new South American civilisation thereafter,

yet in different guises. The Huari-Tiwanaku version of the staff bearing god and its helpers is quite

indicative of the notion of transformation in Amerindian thought because in its development from

realistic figure to a purely abstract motif, we see the clear process of transcendence from tangible

reality to numinous, elusive and purely abstract concept (Fig from stone to textile). Indeed, we

could go as to far as to say that in Amerindian thought, geometric motifs are the best possible

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solution to convey the ineffable, indescribable, and numinous nature of conceptual realities that,

after all, have no correspondence in the tangible world (Fig Lima textile). The same idea is efficiently

expressed in Panamanian arts of the area of Gran Cocle, which make use of visual strategies that aim

at concealing representational figures in highly stylised, geometric motifs (Fig Cocle Panama). As

convincingly put by archaeologist Peter Roe in his studies of Caribbean and South American Indian

arts, fort these peoples: ‘” geometric” and ”representational” or “realistic” do not exist as isolatable

entities. They are our categories, not theirs. All geometry IS representation, all “representation,”

“geometry”’ (Roe 2004: 101).

Like their Central American counterparts, also among pre-Columbian Caribbean peoples

single elements of figurative images are separated out and reassembled in a variety of geometric

combinations that work as metonymic citations. This process of separation and reassembling

forcefully highlights the elusive nature of reality expressed throughout Central and South America. In

Caribbean Taino iconography joints become circles with dots, and birds’ beaks turn into elongated

ogees (fig Taino patterns), among many others. Beings hide in patterns, and only resurface through

synthetic citations by way of highly stylised motifs.

From these examples is therefore quite possible to deduce that in Amerindian thought the

most abstract and geometric a design is, the most cosmologically powerful it becomes. Like Hindu

lingas or yantras, or any aniconic representation in which abstraction, and geometry enable a

connection with the divine, Amerindian geometries embody the transcendent nature of cosmic

beings.

Transformation is such a pervasive metaphor in Amerindian thought that it is found

ubiquitously in indigenous arts throughout the hemisphere. Amerindians’ deep concern with the

ontological instability represented by this idea is given by the extensive correspondences there exist

between natural forms and the geometries that decorate sacred and secular objects, buildings,

textiles and body arts alike. Abstract and geometric symbols simultaneously represent real beings

and their invisible nature. Navajo’s two combinations of double triangles in the hourglass and bow

motifs, for example, literally embody the powers of Born-for-the-Water and Monster-Slayer, the

hero twins of their creation story (Fig Navajo symbols) (Witherspoon 1993). Indeed, as Navajo say,

the intangible expressed in thought has to be brought to life so that creativity can infuse objects

with be’iina the beneficial effect of life force (Walters 1996: 36). Creativity for Amerindians is a

metaphor for life itself and reality is not what we see but a continuous process of revelation. It is

therefore not coincidental that familiar figures discussed in myths, ceremonial formulae, oral

traditions, and stories only emerge from geometries through careful detection, or via the mediation

of spiritual in(sight).

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Northwest Coast Indian arts are a perfect example of how in Amerindian expressive cultures

geometric principles structure not only the visual field, but guide viewers’ perceptions toward and

through unexpected combinations that visualise puns, analogies and rhetorical figures with vigorous,

and captivating attraction (Fig NWC art). Defined by what has been called formline, Northwest Coast

Indian art reveals in visually sophisticated ways structuring ideas at the base of how its makers

understand the world. Reflecting the geographical location of the tribes squeezed between the

ocean front and the forests behind the villages, the cosmological organization of the earthly plane of

Northwest Coast peoples corresponds to a tripartite division in which humans inhabit the central

space between the sea and the forest, and the other two are inhabited by terrestrial animals and

beings of the sea. This idea can be detected by carefully examining a NWC tunic in which the

perfectly symmetrical figure is literally divided into three sections that correspond to the

cosmological earthly domain inhabited by different beings (Fig tripartite division of tunic). Its head

is that of a bear, which corresponds to the forest region behind the village; the body of the figure is

anthropomorphised to represent the central domain inhabited by humans. The clearly

distinguishable human face stands for this concept. And the bottom, only visible flipping the tunic

upside down, or wearing it and looking at it from above, corresponds to sea creatures whose

attributes can be identified via fins at the sides of the face. While this single figure is rather easy to

decipher, more complex and articulate stories are frequently expressed through these designs that

cover most of NWC people’s daily and ceremonial objects. Such complex iconographies can be read

on many levels, and the most esoteric meanings clearly are not intelligible to the un-uninitiated.

What is clear however is the way in which bigger pictures are made by smaller elements and

characters that can be identifiable with careful attention. Faces are made by eyes, beaks, and fins.

Bodies can be composed by feathers, tails and claws, etc. (Fig chilkat) In NWC art figures are always

composite. This idea expresses the multiple and intertwined nature of things and beings, which for

NWC peoples are mutually constitutive and can ultimately transform into each other. Symbols

translate ideas into icons, as such they make visible the transformative process essential for

communicating with intangible realities. It is almost as if geometric motifs infused with spirit and

transcendence objects and bodies alike. There is panoply of instances that demonstrate this notion.

A clear example of the translation of ideas into icons is the use of the stepped scroll in

South, Central, and North America. In North America, where this design seems to have arrived from

Mesoamerica via North of Mexico before year 1000 AD, it was integrated in a rich variety of media:

from basketry to lace, from shell engraving to tapestry, mural paintings, painted fabrics and vase

decoration, and many more (Fig stepped scroll or fret). In Mesoamerica the stepped scroll is directly

derived from the ritual use of conch shells. This life form embodies a multiplicity of concepts that

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turn this mollusc into an efficient natural symbol. Among the ideas conveyed by the conch’s form,

for example, there is the notion of the spiralling cycle of life, most efficiently underscored by the

direct association with water energetic swirls, and air in form of whirlwinds (Fig conch).

Interestingly, the very idea of breath which in some Mesoamerican Native languages is also

translated as spirit, or more loosely word, is visually represented as the so-called speech scroll,

which has clear iconographic resemblance with a cross section of the shell (Fig speech scroll). Among

the Aztecs the scroll is found in many variations that can mean prayer, song, smoke or speech. In

the icon associated with Cimoztoc the birthplace of the god Huitzilopochtli, the scroll is joint to a

mountain (Fig Cicomotzoc). This sign is related to fertility and birth. Its association with the stepped

scroll is rather evident and this ideological compound may be much older than the Aztec glyph that

reached us from 15th c. codices. A similar notion is reproduced on a Tularosa Black on white pot from

the Native SW from the 14th c. (Fig Tularosa Black on white).

The stepped scroll in time became a popular design that found a variety of decorative uses in

many regions coming under the Mesoamerican influence through the slightly modified fret and its

multiple variations (Fig fret Hohokam Tularosa and Anasazi). Mesoamerican interpretations of this

theme include most significantly the squaring of the scroll, which in the Maya area becomes in the

late classic Puuc style a quadrangular composition (Fig Maya Uxmal). Oaxacan friezes at Mitla, still

dating to the classic period, reveal the extent and the variations of this popular design (Fig friezes

Mitla). Additional examples of the stepped scroll, though unrelated to Mesoamerica, come

Paraguayan tribes’ body art (Fig Chamacoco), and archaeological cultures from Argentina where the

motif morphs into mythical beings in La Aguada culture’s famous bronze ritual plaques (Fig bronze

plaques).

The same design is frequently found in other cultures of South America too, but this time, it

means complementarity, an important structuring principle of Andean peoples’ cosmology. The

fundamental economic reciprocity between coastal and mountain populations translated into the

dualist ocean/mountain opposition most clearly simplified in the rock/water pairing among the

Nazca and the northern Peruvian Moche (Fig Nazca double spouted), as well as among the later

Huari (Fig Huari tunic with stepped scroll). The complementary theme translated in the pairing

mountain/water in Chimu period mutates into a pure stepped design in which waves become

mountains and fish are their inhabitants (Fig Chan Chan wall). The same juxtaposition

mountain/water appears again in the later Inca period with a geometric theme dramatically

reproduced in the carved rock itself (Fig spring).

The concept of complementarity can be beautifully synthesized in semi-naturalistic,

chromatically vibrant visualisations of the rich textures of Huari fabrics (Fig Huari semi realistic).

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Here specific designs are lifted from naturalistic representations such as mountains to become

independent decorative elements in their own right. This strategy is very common in American arts.

This metonymic process by which one element stands for the whole figure is often found in Huari

patchwork (Fig huari patchwork). Among the Inca such patterning creates effects of great visual

impact, which apart from being exuberant expressions of a refined use of colour, literally embody

the territories governed by their rulers. Inca imperial tunics such as this one (Fig Inca tunic) were

woven maps of regions under the Inca and the emperor wearing them would metaphorically

embody the empire by appropriating emblems that symbolised the various administrative divisions

giving him tribute.

Equally creative in their purely geometric forms are the judicious juxtapositions of dark and

light colours ordered in mirror reflections, splitting, doubling, translational symmetries of Patagonian

arts (Fig quillango). Here the labyrinthic motifs originally carved in stone, then painted on horse

hides, interlock in four-fold projections or banded translations (Fig Tehuelche painted robes) with

dazzling effects. Though in many respects the meanings of these motifs are still obscure, they

anticipate more modern renditions of the same symbols in the textiles made by the neighbouring

Mapuche Indians of Chile (Fig mapuche ponchos). Among this peoples steps are particularly

significant symbols as they are the metaphorical transposition of the concept of closeness to the

spirits world, which in real life is manifested in the stepped ladders used by the machi women and

transvestite shamans during their divination sessions (Fig machi ladder).

If the endless repetition of motifs generated by the alternation of colours and shapes

resonates with cyclical rhythms of nature, this innate cosmic dynamism appears in more than one

guise throughout the continent. No better example of this idea is more clearly expressed than in the

rich production of pots of North America’s Mimbres peoples. Appearing as culturally homogenous

network of related groups, Mimbrenos inhabited an area that stretches between the Mexican

northwest and the US’s southwest. Mimbres are one of the world’s most enigmatic and artistically

productive societies. Dating around 1100- 1150 AD Mimbres pictorial style condenses most of the

structuring principles that characterise Amerindian world views. Dynamism, symmetry,

complementarity, cyclical repetition and transformation ubiquitously appear in an impressive array

of solutions mostly visualised pictorially on bowls and shallow vases (Fig Mimbres bowls). It is

interesting to note that bowls and pots, among Mimbres’ Pueblo descendants symbolise the

celestial vault, almost as if, the universe would be metaphorically imagined as an immense

container. Both archaeologists and anthropologists agree that this model of the universe conceived

by the Mimbres is the same to that of other Puebloan peoples from the same region, which

continued prehistoric artistic traditions and many old beliefs well into the 21st c. It is not surprising to

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learn that as cosmic vaults, bowls contain most, if not all, Puebloan knowledge condensed in

geometric symbols and designs.

When Mimbres pots are not painted in realistic style to literally illustrate scenes of their epic

narratives, great attention is given to compositions that highlight the central region of the pot (fig

Mimbres geometries). Often this remains blank while the sides and rims are decorated (Fig Mimbres

central blank). There is of course a reason for this choice, and this can be found in the beliefs of the

groups inhabiting this region. Native American anthropologist Alfonso Ortiz reveals that Puebloan

peoples descendants of the Mimbres have ‘a very elaborate conception and symbolization of the

middle centre of the cosmos, represented by the sipapu, an earth navel or the entire village… the

centre is the point of intersection of the six directions, with a seventh being the center itself…All

things are defined and represented by reference to a centre’ (Ortiz 1972; 142-143). This eloquent

explanation epitomises Puebloan people’s preoccupation with spatial ordering of the cosmos, one

that is mirrored in ritual architecture as well as other cultural domains. This appears most

significantly in the subterranean chambers called kiva (Fig kiva) spaces that symbolically represent

the point of emergence of Pueblos’ mythical ancestors and the centre of the their universe. Like

Mimbres bowls, kivas’ walls were heavily decorated with cosmological themes leaving the centre

free for offerings, dances, and ceremonies. The juxtaposition of empty and full spaces clearly refers

to a cosmic balance that Puebloans sought in life and ritual, and the motifs that decorate the rims

and walls of the bowls seem to reinforce the concept of life’s dynamic and cyclical return of seasons

and life painted on kiva walls. The negative space thus becomes the fundamental element that

makes sense of the positive, as such it is essential to the balance. The spellbinding dynamism of

Mimbres and other Puebloan designs forcefully announces the viewer that life is movement, and it

does so by capturing in synthetic strokes the speed of lightning, the spiralling of water swirls, the

convergence of clouds towards a central place, or the sinuosity of water-bringing snakes and

serpents (Fig Gila) (Sekaquaptewa and Washburn 2004).

Serpents, indeed, are an almost universal theme in Amerindian arts. Its multiple associations

with cycles of renewal, water, and rebirth resurface in a variety of fashions all over the continent:

realistically, metaphorically, or in purely geometric style. Among the Maya, serpents can be

represented either realistically, or schematically. A typical example are the geometric translations of

meandering snakes’ movements in the friezes that flank the main arch in Uxmal’s famous corbelled

arch in the so-called Governor’s palace (Fig Uxmal arch). While ophidian iconography in Maya

traditions is very conspicuous, it is generally rather realistic and elaborate as can be appreciated in

this comparison. The introduction of more geometric idioms on the other hand, is result of central

Mexican influences that in some parts of the Maya such as Yucatan world were considerable. A

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similar motif to the one in Uxmal, is also found at Chichen Itza, on of Maya cities most influenced by

central Mexican Toltecs. They may have introduced in Maya’s iconographic repertoire motifs such as

the stepped scroll that some have argued, originated in the central highlands, Toltecs’ traditional

territories (Fig Chichen Itza upper story of Nunnery).

Amerindian visual languages however employed also other strategies to convey the

presence of sacred animals and beings on objects and other expressions. Conventional ways of

depicting scales, rattles and distinctive marks or other characteristics could be independently

employed to evoke the animal without being literal. This can be seen for example in the ovoids used

in Mississippian reptilian iconography to characterise mythical serpents’ marks that frequently are

found decorating bodies of composite or hybrid beings (Fig Mississppian ovoids). A rather similar

convention was equally used among Paquime Indians in the NW of Mexico. Round shapes with a

clearly marked centre were conventionally used to depict snakes, but when found as decorative

elements they function as an index of the being’s presence. Alternatively, when found on human

figures, they may denote a person’s supernatural nature or, possibly, a process of transformation

into a sacred animal or, perhaps, vice-versa (Fig Paquime reptilian iconography).

In Central America the same process is repeated in the geometric marks used by

Panamanian artists to visualise patterns found on the skin of local species such as the boa constrictor

(Fig Panama boa constrictor). In 16th c. North America so-called Mississippian peoples from

Oklahoma used chevrons normally used to visualise rattlesnake’s tails around the mouths of jars

following oral traditions that associated snakes and serpent to the underwater cosmic realms (Fig

Rattlesnake mississippian).

In the Mexican Northwest, 13th c. culture of Paquime amply shows how geometric patterns

originally used to represent specific items appear as separate decorative elements. This technique

greatly expanded original meanings especially if juxtaposed to other features. The metonymic use of

designs thus becomes a shorthand to create complex references that we can only but vaguely

imagine without the aid of linguistic confirmation. The design most commonly used to visualise

maize, or corn among Puebloan peoples of the Mexican NW and US SW is a square that frequently

appears with a dot in the middle (Fig maize) (Washburn 2012; Webster 2006). The use of this motif

as decoration for snakes’ bodies, and as face painting for unidentified individuals on these pots

combine several elements associated with regeneration and fertility originated in southern origins.

Here I specifically refer to the figure of the Aztec Fire-Serpent Xiuhcoatl, an attribute of

Mesoamerican rain god Tlaloc, which interestingly, has been associated with hooked steps, frets,

and stepped scrolls found in ritual centre of Teotihuacan well before the 8th c. AD (Teague 1998:

154). Indeed, it is no coincidence that tall pots such as these ones were considered rain collectors, a

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clear metaphor for fertility of the land among the Puebloan peoples, which can be appreciated in the

several depictions of jagged lightning bolts that decorate the sacred kiva chambers built in New

Mexico in the 14th c. (Fig Awatovi murals). (Sekaquaptewa and Washburn 2004). Both in early and

later Puebloan visual representations stepped triangles can be found as independent motifs that can

either stand for clouds or mountains. These two natural features are symbolically analogous in

Puebloan thought as rain is believed to come from clouds that surround mountain tops (Fig Hemis).

Interestingly, the circles and lines used as decorative motifs on Kachina masks positively resonate

with conventional and highly abstract representation of the Aztec god Tlaloc, whose presence is

announced by goggle shaped forms and banded lines (Fig. Aztec tlaloc). Among the Aztecs too like in

other American civilisations, gods can be announced metonymically, that is by selectively using

elements of their realistic representations to manifest their presence. Like among most peoples

south of the Mexican border Puebloans too think that mountains are the sources of water. These

stepped motifs decorate sashes and ritual kilts in long repetitive sequences. They confirm the

importance of cyclical prayers for rain that priests and ceremonialists deliver by wearing the sacred

kilts (Fig kilt mountains and sashes). Interestingly, the jagged lines once used to represent lightning

in murals and rock art associated with rain gods, continue to be used in modern day geometric

embroideries produced by Pueblo peoples (Fig Tlaloc and kilt border).

Similarly so among the Navajo, whose ‘storm pattern’ rugs represent with energetic

chromatic impact the convergence of lighting from the four directions that delimit their lands (Fig

storm pattern). Navajo arts shows a keen spatial awareness that most clearly emerges in the

ordering of compositional frames, and the strong geometricization of all forms of life, concepts and

mythical landscapes visualised in arts such as the sacred dry or sand paintings. This ceremonial

expressive form provide the templates of Navajo’s artistic languages, as in them is contained

knowledge of all that exists in the Navajo cosmos. As such sand paintings are the authoritative

source of inspiration even for secular arts. Dry paintings are used to heal. Sacred landscapes based

on ancient templates (fig pipette as the tiered cosmos), and ancestral beings are evoked and

conjured up in drawings, made by ritual specialists called chanters, to infuse with their presence and

beneficial powers the ill patient. Images in dry paintings are usually geometric except when animals

are represented (Fig drypainting). A synthesis of a geometrically ordered world view is evident in the

impressive production of Navajo textiles, whose design though not necessarily symbolic, nonetheless

integrate in the woven product a visual language derived from sacred geometries employed in sand

or dry paintings (Fig sandpainting motifs in Navajo art). Today, most of the textiles and other artistic

productions made by Southwestern Indian peoples, do not relate to religious or cosmological

symbols, but rather reference the motifs and designs developed in the past that were widely shared

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by many groups across the Americas. This may include among others stepped frets combined in

radically different ways from past visual traditions. Examples are the centrally positioned stepped

diamonds surrounded by square scrolls (Fig Ganado and klagetoh).

Conclusions

Amerindians’ ontological instability, or in other words beings’ ability and to change, mutate,

transform or otherwise shape-shift is reflected in a preoccupation with the place that humans have

in creation. This preoccupation is most clearly exemplified in the art made by Amerindians who

notably put order into chaos by finding patters and connections that, though not necessarily visible

by all, exist in some form in the refined analogies American peoples find between humans and other

beings, their movement in space, the place they temporarily occupy in their various incarnations,

and the metaphors they evoke.

Spatial representations frequently employed by Amerindians in their arts describe these

complex relationships and concepts. Often, notions such as complementarity or transformation can

be personified into mythical figures that represent the concept through their actions, or can be

conveyed to the equal visual importance given to the production of positive and negative space; a

sophisticated use of visual strategies that underscores the importance of the relationship between

what is visible and what is invisible to the human eye.

These important concepts are embedded in the material production of all indigenous

peoples of the Americas, which irrespective of regional variations and the development of

idiosyncratic styles, are more generally shared across the hemisphere. Whether in the Arctic or

Patagonia, the very act of making visual statements through what we understand as art establishes

relationships with different registers of reality that compose the multi-layered universes of

indigenous American peoples. Art-making in this hemisphere becomes an act of revelation that

discloses invisible dimensions to the human eye. It becomes a funding act aimed at re-producing the

world with order and beauty. Art here emerges a technology of the intangible, one that guides

human action in the world while imagining, moulding, sculpting and drawing the cosmos into being.

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