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Gender, Art, and Tools in Ancient Costa Rica

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Gender, Art, and Tools in Ancient Costa Rica 4 Breaking Down Binaries: Gender, Art, and Tools in Ancient Costa Rica Theresa Preston-Werner Northwestern University ABSTRACT Giant metate-like stone sculptures, found in all regions of Costa Rica, though in various forms, continue to fascinate researchers. Archaeologists contrast these sculptures with other, more utilitarian metates in order to determine their purpose and meaning. They create two groups—metates used by women for grinding subsistence foods and elaborate metates used by men for ritual purposes. This chapter challenges the binaries of tool/art, utilitarian/elaborate, and female/male that essentialize gender and homogenize historical variability. Figurine and burial data demonstrate women’s connection to elaborate metates and ritual. In addition, ceramic figurines depict flexibility in gender roles at least within the stratum of ancient Costa Rican society that they depicted. This instance of stereotyped gender attribution and the absence of attention to the possible dynamism of women’s lives shows the importance of a feminist approach to archaeology and the need to draw on multiple lines of evidence to answer archaeological questions. Keywords: figurines, metates, social status, gender, Costa Rica aried in form and found in all regions of Costa Rica, a source of male power and that they demonstrate an appro- Vgiant metate-like stone sculptures have fascinated ar- priation of a female-associated tool for higher purposes. chaeologists for decades. Elaborate metates have been inter- In this study, I challenge the stereotypical gender at- preted as having had functions that include grinding human tribution present in the archaeological literature regarding flesh (Graham 1992), grinding ritual foods (Lange 1971), Costa Rica’s elaborate metates in order to show the impor- use in ritual performance to maintain control of productive tance of a feminist approach to archaeology. By reexamin- land (Graham 1992; Lange 1992), and symbolic connota- ing the potential function of these artifacts, we can begin tion of fertility (Balser 1955). Researchers contrast these to break down the binary of utilitarian versus ritual that has artifacts with utilitarian metates, which are often correlated been mapped so rigidly onto gender roles. In what follows, with women’s domestic labor of preparing maize and other I present data that challenge the strict separation of women foods (Graham 1992). While archaeologists (Balser 1955; from the elaborate metates. This study uses multiple lines of Graham 1992; Lange 1971, 1992; Lothrop 1963; Norweb evidence to address the dynamism of women’s lives, which 1961; Sheets et al. 1991; Snarskis 1992) split these ar- is a central goal of feminist archaeologists. I hope to provide tifacts into two groups—metates used for grinding daily evidence to begin to answer the following questions: Are subsistence foods and elaborate metates used for ritual these sculptures metates? Who used the elaborate metates? purposes—both sets of artifacts retain an association of What does this say about the construction of gender in an- grinding and agriculture (Graham 1992:171). In pairing util- cient Costa Rica? I propose a new interpretation of gender itarian metates with elaborate metates, researchers assign roles in association with the elaborate metates in Costa Rica stereotypically dichotomous gender roles to their uses. For and suggest the implications of this case study for gender example, Graham (1992) argues that elaborate metates are theory more broadly. ARCHEOLOGICAL PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, Vol. 18, Issue 1, pp. 49–59, ISSN 1551-823X, online ISSN 1551-8248. C 2008 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1551-8248.2008.00004.x. 50 Theresa Preston-Werner Figure 4.1. Flying-panel metate from the Atlantic Watershed region of Costa Rica. Length 77 centimeters, height 54 centimeters. Coleccion´ Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, San Jose.´ No. 7150. Photograph by Thomas Preston-Werner. A Case of Stereotyped Gender Attribution jaguars, and monkeys. Tetrapod jaguar metates with rounded plates have been excavated in both the Central High- Archaeologists separate Costa Rica into three lands/Atlantic Watershed Zone and the Diquis Zone and regions—the Guanacaste-Nicoya Zone, the Central High- date to Period VI (1000–1550 C.E.). lands/Atlantic Watershed Zone, and the Diquis Zone— The most famous of all the elaborate metates are the recognizing varied environments and differences in man- “flying-panel” metates, recovered from the Central High- ufacturing styles of artifacts, which are most notable after lands/Atlantic Watershed Zone and dating to Period IV 500 C.E. The Guanacaste-Nicoya Zone is characterized cli- (1000 B.C.E.–500 C.E.). These highly complex and stylized matically as arid and seasonal and geographically as trop- sculptures are carved from a single rock. Anthropomorphic ical dry forest. Fertile valleys and cool mountains make figures, located on the legs and beneath the surface plate, up the Central Highlands/Atlantic Watershed Zone. Finally, dominate the themes of flying-panel metates. While elabo- the Diquis Zone has heavy rainfall, dense tropical forest, rate metates are not uncommon finds in excavations, only and relatively infertile soil as a result of a lack of volcanic approximately a dozen flying-panel metates have been found activity. (Graham 1992:187). Large and ornate metate-like sculptures have been Archaeologists have showcased the elaborate metates found throughout present-day Costa Rica. The earliest elab- (purportedly signifying power and ritual) as a unique Costa orate metates come from the Guanacaste-Nicoya Zone and Rican artifact at the expense of studying utilitarian tools the Central Highlands/Atlantic Watershed Zone from sites (assumed to belong to women): “It seems rather obvious, dated to Period IV (1000 B.C.E.–500 C.E.). These carved, in fact, that one reason why archaeologists have often de- volcanic-stone artifacts vary in shape, size, and decoration valued the study of mundane metates is because of their (Figure 4.1). They may be flat or curved and with or without association with women’s work” (Graham 1992:175). a rim. A few from the Central Highlands/Atlantic Watershed Margaret W. Conkey and Janet D. Spector (1984:15, 17) Zone have been found with rims of carved human head–like recognize the positive values researchers have placed on representations. Some metates are rectangular, while oth- men’s work and roles in society and their consequential dis- ers are oval or circular. They have three or four legs. The missal of female roles as natural and plain. Such stereotyped sculptures feature animals, commonly birds, crocodiles, gender attribution is all too common: Gender, Art, and Tools in Ancient Costa Rica 51 As the largest and most complex symbol of power in a hierarchy in which the indexicality of utilitarian metates the early rank societies of the Atlantic watershed, flying- pales in comparison to the iconic status of elaborate metates: panel metates bore an especially heavy ideological func- “Domestic metates are purely indexical signs: they do not tion: they claim a relation of equivalence between the domestic labor of women and the political power of men. represent or resemble anything other than themselves. They The work of the chiefly elite is aggression to provide vic- are, as it were, mute” (Graham 1992:186, see also 175 n. tims for rituals of sacrifice: as ground maize nourishes 11). This thinking discounts linkages, albeit stereotypical, the household, sacrificed bodies nourish the polity. As in between utilitarian metates, the domestic sphere, and repro- any binary set, however, one term is always privileged. duction through food preparation, as well as the possibil- [Graham 1992:188] ity for other signified meanings assigned to such tools and In order to assess this inference of social structure understood by ancient Costa Ricans. Despite arguing that from material culture, the original binary assignments must grinding stones represent nothing, Graham also writes that be questioned—specifically those that juxtapose and cre- metates connote fertility, the production of tools, food, and ate a hierarchy between ritual and domestic work, men and a sexual division of labor, “since men used bladed tools in women, and artistic sculpture and mundane tools. An in- agriculture, war, and sacrifice, and women used metates for quiry into the potential relationship between women and the domestic food preparation” (Graham 1992:175). elaborate metates may speak to the larger role that gender As pieces of art, the elaborate metates have been in- relations played in ancient Costa Rica. terpreted as having been connected to violence. Graham suggests that the rounded figures that outline the metates’ Tools:Art top surface “clearly stand for the human trophy heads” (Graham 1992:180). Furthermore, “the decapitation of hu- Archaeologists have coupled elaborate metates with man heads is rhetorically likened to the grinding of maize mundane metates, such that the interpretations of the for- kernels; the grinding plate itself assumes crocodilian quali- mer are informed greatly by the latter. Have researchers been ties and thus apparently represents the fertile surface of the correct to assume that these artifacts are, in fact, metates, earth, as crocodiles commonly do in Mesoamerica” (Graham that is, grinding stones, and does their classification as such 1992:180). The figures carved into the sides and attached to create what might be false comparisons? The stone sculp- the metates’ legs are interpreted to be human corpses be- tures have a smooth surface area and appear to be roughly ing lowered by animals from one state of life to the next. the same shape as grinding stones. Labeling the sculptures The corpses refer to captives taken during warfare, a form as metates draws on gendered stereotypes regarding the di- of violence waged to secure landholdings for agricultural vision of labor and confuses types of work. Archaeologists’ purposes. Though Graham’sanalysis of the sculpted iconog- application of the label “metate,” however, generates bias raphy is well grounded in Mesoamerican ethnographic and in the interpretation of use.
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