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| Keywords: Taino - Cohaba Inhaler in the Form of a Shaman - Walters 2006156.jpg Cohoba a potent hallucinogen made of ground tree seeds was the mind-altering substance of choice for Taino behiques shamans The powder was placed on a special carved pedestal and inhaled through the nose via an inhaler such as this piece This carved stone example depicts a behique in a trace state In New World tropical environments death and rebirth are seen to be closely related and in a process of constant cycling As such the dead and living worlds are both always proximal- it is the behique's special skill and responsibility to mediate these two realms This dual nature of the behique's situation is symbolically expressed in much Taino art through the collusion of fecund and skeletal motifs such as the genetalia and skeletal back of the behique on this Cohoba inhaler The figure's gaping empty eye sockets the grimacing mouth and the impossibly contorted pose also symbolically mark his heightened state of consciousness between the otherworld of ancestor and deity spirits and the physical realm of his clients The bulbous 'hands' at the top of the piece serve as nostril plugs prohibiting air from entering at the sides during inhalation The piece is well suited to use- indentations near the figure's elbows align well with the user's index fingers while the concave lower back provides a stable place to position the thumbs between 1000 1500 stone cm 10 16 accession number 2006 15 6 3244 Warren Lampkin and Nancy Nicola Huntington Harbor CA collected in the 1970's while sailing in the Caribbean Leonard Kalina Fine Arts Los Angeles prior to April 2006 Austen-Stokes Ancient Americas Foundation John Stokes as agent April 2 2006 by purchase Walters Art Museum Gift of the Austen-Stokes Ancient Americas Foundation 2007 place of origin Caribbean Walters Art Museum license Pre-Columbian art in the Walters Art Museum Taíno artefacts Media contributed by the Walters Art Museum needs category review | ||||
