Reconsidering Olmec Visual Culture: The Unborn, Women, and Creation

by Carolyn E. Tate

Recently, scholars of Olmec visual culture have identified symbols for umbilical cords, bundles, and cave-wombs, as well as a significant number of women portrayed on monuments and as figurines. In this groundbreaking study, Carolyn Tate demonstrates that these subjects were part of a major emphasis on gestational imagery in Formative Period Mesoamerica. In Reconsidering Olmec Visual Culture , she identifies the presence of women, human embryos, and fetuses in monuments and portable objects dating from 1400 to 400 BC and originating throughout much of Mesoamerica. This highly original study sheds new light on the prominent roles that women and gestational beings played in Early Formative societies, revealing female shamanic practices, the generative concepts that motivated caching and bundling, and the expression of feminine knowledge in the 260-day cycle and related divinatory and ritual activities. Reconsidering Olmec Visual Culture is the first study that situates the unique hollow babies of Formative Mesoamerica within the context of prominent females and the prevalent imagery of gestation and birth. It is also the first major art historical study of La Venta and the first to identify Mesoamerica's earliest creation narrative. It provides a more nuanced understanding of how later societies, including Teotihuacan and West Mexico, as well as the Maya, either rejected certain Formative Period visual forms, rituals, social roles, and concepts or adopted and transformed them into the enduring themes of Mesoamerican symbol systems.

359 pages, Hardcover

First published January 18, 2012

About the author

Carolyn E. Tate is Professor Emerita of Pre-Columbian and Native American Art History at Texas Tech University.

Reviews

[L.J.M. Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book for it's in-depth exploration of the modern western history of interpreting Olmec art, deconstruction of those views, and re-examination of the archaeological record to deliver a richer, more complete and overall more human interpretation of Olmec art. Wish there were more academic works like this one!

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important addition to the body of scholarly literature about Olmec art, especially the figurines often described as "were-jaguars" or dwarfs. Tate makes a compelling case for her theory that these figurines represent fetuses, specifically fetuses about 10 weeks old. She compares medical illustrations of miscarried fetuses to the figurines to show the similarities. She goes on to say that if these people had turned to maize/corn as a major source of nourishment, but the maize was not treated with lime or ash, it would not have released the nutrients necessary for a developing fetus and miscarriage would have been common.
Interestingly, Tate shows that when the Spanish brought corn back to Europe with them, its introduction was followed by terrible outbreaks of pellagra, especially among the poor, who were eating a lot of the inexpensive (and untreated) corn, which did not give them enough nutrients to survive.
It's not known why the Olmec featured these fetuses in so much of their art. Perhaps, like so many modern people who have suffered through the heartache of a miscarriage or stillbirth, they saw these lost children as "angels" - spirit beings that belonged to another world.

Even if you don't agree with all of Tate's points, this book is a well-researched, carefully documented, and fascinating addition to a field that's been bound for too long by opinions given decades ago.

[Charles Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. What's this guy making such a big stink about old library books about lost civilizations? Well, let me give you a hint, junior. Maybe we can live without libraries and stela and sacred spermatic isotopic rubber balls, people like you and me. Maybe. Sure, we're too old to change the world, but what about that kid, sitting down, opening a book, right now, in a branch at the local library and finding drawings of pee-pees and wee-wees on ancient Olmec sites and the stela they decorated with?

Alt review: HELL YEAHS OLMEC INSEMINATION KVLT !

Seriously, fantastic book here that offers a reasonable and plausible and FASCINATING throughway from Formative Olmec to Pre-Classic Maya. And I never bought / saw that whole "were-jaguar" nonsense anyway: it just didn't make sense visually. But this? Embryos and insemination cults? Oh hell yeah!

LUCID ARGUMENT