Recommended listening: Zuni songs
Story
A thousand years ago, women from the Mimbres Valley embarked on an incredible journey. They knew that far to the south and east, there were lands rich with religious knowledge. This faraway place was perceived as a centre of learning, somewhere you could go and come back transformed. Traders and merchants had told tales of this land, and a few precious objects from there had occasionally made their way to the Mimbres people. But the journey ahead of the women was not one of mercantile gain. They were pilgrims, religious seekers. They set out on a long road in order to acquire new knowledge of rituals and stories that would help them order the world back home. Relying on their trade contacts would only get them so far - beyond that, they would need to learn the lay of the land from locals, availing of their hospitality and generosity of knowledge to get them to their destination.
And what a place that destination was. The Huasteca region of Mexico was unlike anything the Mimbres people had seen at home. Gone were the arid deserts they were used to. This was a lush, verdant land that faced a vast expanse of ocean. The leaders here wore colourful, elaborate headdresses, their jade and gold jewellery glittering in the tropical sun. They filed their teeth to points and decorated their bodies with swirling tattoos, layered with meanings the Mimbres yearned to understand. The men and women who came all the way from the Mimbres Valley were eager to learn the stories of this place, and the rituals that enacted those stories in real time. But what seems to have captured their imaginations above all were the Haustec's beautiful birds.
The scarlet macaw is a tropical bird, and the Huasteca region is the northernmost part of its natural range, which sweeps down from the Gulf of Mexico through Central America and into the depths of the Amazon rainforest. Like the Huastec people, whose language was at the Mayan language family's northern edge, the birds who made their home here were a small outpost compared to larger populations further south. But their proximity to northern lands gave the visiting Mimbres access to a rich world of religious knowledge centred around these birds. While macaws can be tamed, they are never fully domesticated, and the Huastec parrot keepers must have spent considerable time training the Mimbres in their care. And from the art that the Mimbres created after learning how to care for these birds, it is clear that most of their keepers were women.
A baby scarlet macaw who is reared by humans will create strong bonds with the person who raises it. In fact, scarlet macaws become extremely picky and can show hostility to other people, only cooperating with the person who cared for them as a hatchling. They are particularly aware of gender and always prefer the gender of the person who raised them. This makes down-the-line trade of macaws an unlikely explanation for their proliferation in the Mimbres Valley from around the 10th century onward. Scarlet macaws used in ritual often only lived to be a year old, as they were sacrificed at the spring equinox once their long tail feathers had grown in and given richly furnished burials. With these factors in mind, scholars have argued that the scarlet macaws found at Mimbres sites in New Mexico were brought directly by their handlers from their birthplace in the Huasteca region to their final home in the Mimbres Valley.
Strengthening the support for such direct contact between the Huastec and the Mimbres is the explosion of Mayan iconography in Mimbres pottery starting around the year 1000. Imagery of two mythological brothers known as the Hero Twins is common throughout much of the Americas. However, the way that Mimbres women portrayed the Hero Twins on pottery shows a remarkable similarity to the version of the story later recorded in the Mayan Popol Vuh. Their unusual births, their battles with their arch-enemy Seven Macaw, their various deaths and rebirths - all of this is reproduced with uncanny fidelity in Classic Mimbres bowls. At the same time as the scarlet macaws arrived in New Mexico, so too did the entire Mayan saga of the Hero Twins Hunahpú and Xbalanqué. Whether the Mimbres called them by these Mayan names is lost to time, but they clearly learned the story from the same people who gave them the scarlet macaws. In fact, parrots feature more heavily in Mimbres versions of the story depicted on pottery than they do in the Popol Vuh itself.
Burials of women from various parts of Mexico in Mimbres sites suggest that the traffic wasn't completely one-way, either. It's quite possible that some Huastec women accompanied Mimbres women back to New Mexico and helped them establish their parrot-related rituals. While some Mexican women settled in Mimbres communities, others may have been more transient travellers. At the Mimbres site of Wind Mountain, for example, a single scarlet macaw burial is the only evidence of direct contact with the south. Perhaps some Huastec women circulated among a few Mimbres communities, passing on their knowledge before heading back on the long journey home. Among the Mimbres, these precious pieces of religious knowledge added prestige to the people who had travelled so far to get them, and the scarlet macaws were the living embodiment of that knowledge. Most Mimbres religious rituals were led by men, so the macaw rituals were an especially powerful way for women to demonstrate their own ritual prestige. In later centuries, a halfway point would be established at the macaw captive breeding site of Casas Grandes, but in the year 1000, acquiring a macaw probably meant venturing all the way to the home of the Huastec people.
In this illustration, a Mimbres woman eagerly collaborates with her Huastec guest to train a young scarlet macaw. The Huastec woman's headdress is full of scarlet macaw feathers, signalling to any observers that she is an expert in these matters. While the locals may not understand all the meanings behind her tattoos and face paint, they trust that the Mimbres woman who brought her here will be able to interpret the most salient points for them. The Mimbres woman, who has been raising this macaw since it first hatched in its tropical home, watches with excitement as it successfully flies through a wooden hoop. Spectacles like this will be memorialized in pottery sculpted by women artists for generations to come. For now, though, these two women are simply exhilarated to be sharing in this moment of religious knowledge and cultural exchange, represented by a beautiful bird in flight.
And what a place that destination was. The Huasteca region of Mexico was unlike anything the Mimbres people had seen at home. Gone were the arid deserts they were used to. This was a lush, verdant land that faced a vast expanse of ocean. The leaders here wore colourful, elaborate headdresses, their jade and gold jewellery glittering in the tropical sun. They filed their teeth to points and decorated their bodies with swirling tattoos, layered with meanings the Mimbres yearned to understand. The men and women who came all the way from the Mimbres Valley were eager to learn the stories of this place, and the rituals that enacted those stories in real time. But what seems to have captured their imaginations above all were the Haustec's beautiful birds.
The scarlet macaw is a tropical bird, and the Huasteca region is the northernmost part of its natural range, which sweeps down from the Gulf of Mexico through Central America and into the depths of the Amazon rainforest. Like the Huastec people, whose language was at the Mayan language family's northern edge, the birds who made their home here were a small outpost compared to larger populations further south. But their proximity to northern lands gave the visiting Mimbres access to a rich world of religious knowledge centred around these birds. While macaws can be tamed, they are never fully domesticated, and the Huastec parrot keepers must have spent considerable time training the Mimbres in their care. And from the art that the Mimbres created after learning how to care for these birds, it is clear that most of their keepers were women.
A baby scarlet macaw who is reared by humans will create strong bonds with the person who raises it. In fact, scarlet macaws become extremely picky and can show hostility to other people, only cooperating with the person who cared for them as a hatchling. They are particularly aware of gender and always prefer the gender of the person who raised them. This makes down-the-line trade of macaws an unlikely explanation for their proliferation in the Mimbres Valley from around the 10th century onward. Scarlet macaws used in ritual often only lived to be a year old, as they were sacrificed at the spring equinox once their long tail feathers had grown in and given richly furnished burials. With these factors in mind, scholars have argued that the scarlet macaws found at Mimbres sites in New Mexico were brought directly by their handlers from their birthplace in the Huasteca region to their final home in the Mimbres Valley.
Strengthening the support for such direct contact between the Huastec and the Mimbres is the explosion of Mayan iconography in Mimbres pottery starting around the year 1000. Imagery of two mythological brothers known as the Hero Twins is common throughout much of the Americas. However, the way that Mimbres women portrayed the Hero Twins on pottery shows a remarkable similarity to the version of the story later recorded in the Mayan Popol Vuh. Their unusual births, their battles with their arch-enemy Seven Macaw, their various deaths and rebirths - all of this is reproduced with uncanny fidelity in Classic Mimbres bowls. At the same time as the scarlet macaws arrived in New Mexico, so too did the entire Mayan saga of the Hero Twins Hunahpú and Xbalanqué. Whether the Mimbres called them by these Mayan names is lost to time, but they clearly learned the story from the same people who gave them the scarlet macaws. In fact, parrots feature more heavily in Mimbres versions of the story depicted on pottery than they do in the Popol Vuh itself.
Burials of women from various parts of Mexico in Mimbres sites suggest that the traffic wasn't completely one-way, either. It's quite possible that some Huastec women accompanied Mimbres women back to New Mexico and helped them establish their parrot-related rituals. While some Mexican women settled in Mimbres communities, others may have been more transient travellers. At the Mimbres site of Wind Mountain, for example, a single scarlet macaw burial is the only evidence of direct contact with the south. Perhaps some Huastec women circulated among a few Mimbres communities, passing on their knowledge before heading back on the long journey home. Among the Mimbres, these precious pieces of religious knowledge added prestige to the people who had travelled so far to get them, and the scarlet macaws were the living embodiment of that knowledge. Most Mimbres religious rituals were led by men, so the macaw rituals were an especially powerful way for women to demonstrate their own ritual prestige. In later centuries, a halfway point would be established at the macaw captive breeding site of Casas Grandes, but in the year 1000, acquiring a macaw probably meant venturing all the way to the home of the Huastec people.
In this illustration, a Mimbres woman eagerly collaborates with her Huastec guest to train a young scarlet macaw. The Huastec woman's headdress is full of scarlet macaw feathers, signalling to any observers that she is an expert in these matters. While the locals may not understand all the meanings behind her tattoos and face paint, they trust that the Mimbres woman who brought her here will be able to interpret the most salient points for them. The Mimbres woman, who has been raising this macaw since it first hatched in its tropical home, watches with excitement as it successfully flies through a wooden hoop. Spectacles like this will be memorialized in pottery sculpted by women artists for generations to come. For now, though, these two women are simply exhilarated to be sharing in this moment of religious knowledge and cultural exchange, represented by a beautiful bird in flight.
Artist's Comments
This one took a very long time to research but I'm so excited to finally share it with you. I went back and forth on whether or not to make the visiting woman from La Huasteca or Casas Grandes, since Casas Grandes was a later site of captive parrot breeding closer to the Mimbres Valley. However, there isn't any archaeological evidence yet of macaw breeding in Casas Grandes until centuries after the first scarlet macaws arrived in New Mexico, and I was also very persuaded by scholars' arguments about the Hero Twins mythological cycle and Mimbres pottery. So in the end, I went with a Huastec woman who's travelled all the way up from the tropical Gulf of Mexico to the arid Mimbres Valley. I picked the site of Wind Mountain because its scarlet macaw burial has been radiocarbon dated to AD 1000 or thereabouts. I used this stock image as a pose reference for the Mimbres woman. The art of Daniel Parada (kamazotz) was also really helpful for interpreting some of the faded tattoos on the Huastec statuary.
This is my 60th illustration in the Women of 1000 series. I can't believe it's come this far. I'd like to dedicate this illustration and the milestone it represents to my recently departed cat Poe. Poe has been my companion through drawing much of the series, and in his final month, he sat on my lap while I researched this picture. He was a true "phenomenal cat." For over half of my life, Poe has been there for me through hard times. As a newly adopted kitten he purred on my forehead when I was home sick from school with a migraine, which gives you a glimpse of the empathy and love he expressed all his life. So many of the stories in the Women of 1000 series were researched, drawn, and written with Poe in my lap. I even made an April Fools drawing installing him as an entry in the series two years ago. In the last year, he'd become particularly attached to sitting with me in the study for most of the day. We all miss him so much, and our lives won't be the same without him. ~ August 16, 2022
This is my 60th illustration in the Women of 1000 series. I can't believe it's come this far. I'd like to dedicate this illustration and the milestone it represents to my recently departed cat Poe. Poe has been my companion through drawing much of the series, and in his final month, he sat on my lap while I researched this picture. He was a true "phenomenal cat." For over half of my life, Poe has been there for me through hard times. As a newly adopted kitten he purred on my forehead when I was home sick from school with a migraine, which gives you a glimpse of the empathy and love he expressed all his life. So many of the stories in the Women of 1000 series were researched, drawn, and written with Poe in my lap. I even made an April Fools drawing installing him as an entry in the series two years ago. In the last year, he'd become particularly attached to sitting with me in the study for most of the day. We all miss him so much, and our lives won't be the same without him. ~ August 16, 2022
Resources
Want to learn more about Mimbres women, Huastec women, and their scarlet macaws? Here are some recommended resources.
"Ritual Change and the Distant: Mesoamerican Iconography, Scarlet Macaws, and Great Kivas in the Mimbres Region of Southwestern New Mexico" by Patricia A. Gilman, Marc Thompson, and Kristina C. Wyckoff
This is the article that inspired me to draw this illustration. The authors point out that the arrival of scarlet macaws in the Mimbres Valley coincides with Hero Twin iconography closely linked to Mayan stories later recorded in the Popul Vuh. Since the Huastec are the northernmost peoples speaking a Mayan language in the scarlet macaw's natural range, the authors argue that they are the most likely point of contact for the Mimbres. For a recent and even more detailed look at the Hero Twins mythology in Mimbres art and its relationship to the arrival of scarlet macaws, see also "The Diffusion of Scarlet Macaws and Mesoamerican Motifs into the Mimbres Region" by Marc Thompson and Patricia Gilman. These two articles explore the exciting possibilities of long-distance religious expeditions undertaken by Mimbres and/or Mayan women, accompanied by their scarlet macaws.
"Sex, Gender, and Status: Human Images from the Classic Mimbres" by Marit K. Munson
My reconstruction of the Mimbres woman's clothing is based on this article. Munson compares how men and women are portrayed in Mimbres art, mainly pottery. Women's association with parrots is highlighted as an example of a way that high status may have been available to women, whose high-status activities seem to have been more restricted than men's. The clothing of Mimbres women is also discussed in "Dressing the Person: Clothing and Identity in the Casas Grandes World" by Christine S. VanPool, Todd L. VanPool, and Lauren W. Downs.
"Archaeogenomic evidence from the southwestern US points to a pre-Hispanic scarlet macaw breeding colony" by Richard George et al
This is a recent and exciting genetic study of southwestern US macaw remains. I chose Wind Mountain as the location for my illustration because the researchers here radiocarbon dated the scarlet macaw from that site to right around AD 1000. They also determined that all of these birds were very closely related to each other, likely descending from a captive breeding population outside of their normal range. Although the authors posit that a Chihuahuan site like Casas Grandes as the most likely location for the breeding centre due to the birds' genetic isolation from wild bird populations, I ultimately decided to portray a story where there was direct contact between Mimbres and Huastec women. That's because, as the authors here acknowledge, all of these scarlet macaws predate the known macaw breeding at Casas Grandes by a few hundred years, and no other site has yet been found outside the birds' natural range that matches the timeframe. In addition to that, this genetic study doesn't explain the close links between Mayan and Mimbres Hero Twins iconography which accompanied the arrival of scarlet macaws in the Southwest, so I still think direct contact between the Mimbres and the Huastec is a real possibility.
Mimbres Pottery Images Digital Database
If you'd like to see more Mimbres pottery, this is the main online collection of images to browse. You would need to request a researcher's account to see the images in high resolution. I have collected some images of Mimbres pottery depicting women and/or parrots on this Pinterest board too.
Jewelry of the Prehistoric Southwest by E. W. Jernigan
There is a great chapter here about Mogollon jewellery. It's full of diagrams showing the different types of beads, pendants, pins, and other jewellery that Mimbres people used. There's a lot of comparative information too with the other Mogollon peoples, the Sinagua and Western Pueblo, and with neighbouring peoples like the Chacoans and Hohokam. There's even an illustration of a Mimbres woman from AD 1000! I interpreted some of the source material a little differently than the illustrator of this reconstruction did, but it's still awesome to see and a very useful reference.
Mimbres Mogollon Archaeology: Charles C. Di Peso's Excavations at Wind Mountain by Anne I. Woosley and Allan J. McIntyre
The Wind Mountain site is not so easy to find information about online, but this book is an exhaustive exploration of the archaeology that was done there before the site was destroyed by mining. There weren't a lot of photographs of views from the site, so I did my best to approximate the location based on the descriptions of neighbouring mountain ranges and local flora given in the book. The authors don't spend a lot of time on the scarlet macaw, but they highlight that it is the only artefact from the site with clear origins to the south of New Mexico. Note that this book makes it clear that the site in question is not the Wind Mountain in the Cornudas Mountains, but a lesser-known site in the Upper Gila River valley.
"Sculpting Haustec Social and Gender Identity" by Kim Richter
In this chapter of the book Dressing the Part: Power, Dress, Gender and Representation in the Pre-Columbian Americas, Richter takes a fresh approach to evaluating the statuary of the Huastec. She points out that previous authors have interpreted the male figures as real and authoritative human men while interpreting the female figures only as goddesses. She takes a different approach and looks at how gender affects the representation of authority in these impressive stone statues. For more on Huastec women's dress, see also the PhD thesis "Weaving threads and painting bodies: Huasteca women, clothing, and embodiment during the Late Classic to Postclassic" by Adriana Fabiola Sanchez Balderas. The headdress of the woman in my illustration is based on this figurine.
"Ritual Change and the Distant: Mesoamerican Iconography, Scarlet Macaws, and Great Kivas in the Mimbres Region of Southwestern New Mexico" by Patricia A. Gilman, Marc Thompson, and Kristina C. Wyckoff
This is the article that inspired me to draw this illustration. The authors point out that the arrival of scarlet macaws in the Mimbres Valley coincides with Hero Twin iconography closely linked to Mayan stories later recorded in the Popul Vuh. Since the Huastec are the northernmost peoples speaking a Mayan language in the scarlet macaw's natural range, the authors argue that they are the most likely point of contact for the Mimbres. For a recent and even more detailed look at the Hero Twins mythology in Mimbres art and its relationship to the arrival of scarlet macaws, see also "The Diffusion of Scarlet Macaws and Mesoamerican Motifs into the Mimbres Region" by Marc Thompson and Patricia Gilman. These two articles explore the exciting possibilities of long-distance religious expeditions undertaken by Mimbres and/or Mayan women, accompanied by their scarlet macaws.
"Sex, Gender, and Status: Human Images from the Classic Mimbres" by Marit K. Munson
My reconstruction of the Mimbres woman's clothing is based on this article. Munson compares how men and women are portrayed in Mimbres art, mainly pottery. Women's association with parrots is highlighted as an example of a way that high status may have been available to women, whose high-status activities seem to have been more restricted than men's. The clothing of Mimbres women is also discussed in "Dressing the Person: Clothing and Identity in the Casas Grandes World" by Christine S. VanPool, Todd L. VanPool, and Lauren W. Downs.
"Archaeogenomic evidence from the southwestern US points to a pre-Hispanic scarlet macaw breeding colony" by Richard George et al
This is a recent and exciting genetic study of southwestern US macaw remains. I chose Wind Mountain as the location for my illustration because the researchers here radiocarbon dated the scarlet macaw from that site to right around AD 1000. They also determined that all of these birds were very closely related to each other, likely descending from a captive breeding population outside of their normal range. Although the authors posit that a Chihuahuan site like Casas Grandes as the most likely location for the breeding centre due to the birds' genetic isolation from wild bird populations, I ultimately decided to portray a story where there was direct contact between Mimbres and Huastec women. That's because, as the authors here acknowledge, all of these scarlet macaws predate the known macaw breeding at Casas Grandes by a few hundred years, and no other site has yet been found outside the birds' natural range that matches the timeframe. In addition to that, this genetic study doesn't explain the close links between Mayan and Mimbres Hero Twins iconography which accompanied the arrival of scarlet macaws in the Southwest, so I still think direct contact between the Mimbres and the Huastec is a real possibility.
Mimbres Pottery Images Digital Database
If you'd like to see more Mimbres pottery, this is the main online collection of images to browse. You would need to request a researcher's account to see the images in high resolution. I have collected some images of Mimbres pottery depicting women and/or parrots on this Pinterest board too.
Jewelry of the Prehistoric Southwest by E. W. Jernigan
There is a great chapter here about Mogollon jewellery. It's full of diagrams showing the different types of beads, pendants, pins, and other jewellery that Mimbres people used. There's a lot of comparative information too with the other Mogollon peoples, the Sinagua and Western Pueblo, and with neighbouring peoples like the Chacoans and Hohokam. There's even an illustration of a Mimbres woman from AD 1000! I interpreted some of the source material a little differently than the illustrator of this reconstruction did, but it's still awesome to see and a very useful reference.
Mimbres Mogollon Archaeology: Charles C. Di Peso's Excavations at Wind Mountain by Anne I. Woosley and Allan J. McIntyre
The Wind Mountain site is not so easy to find information about online, but this book is an exhaustive exploration of the archaeology that was done there before the site was destroyed by mining. There weren't a lot of photographs of views from the site, so I did my best to approximate the location based on the descriptions of neighbouring mountain ranges and local flora given in the book. The authors don't spend a lot of time on the scarlet macaw, but they highlight that it is the only artefact from the site with clear origins to the south of New Mexico. Note that this book makes it clear that the site in question is not the Wind Mountain in the Cornudas Mountains, but a lesser-known site in the Upper Gila River valley.
"Sculpting Haustec Social and Gender Identity" by Kim Richter
In this chapter of the book Dressing the Part: Power, Dress, Gender and Representation in the Pre-Columbian Americas, Richter takes a fresh approach to evaluating the statuary of the Huastec. She points out that previous authors have interpreted the male figures as real and authoritative human men while interpreting the female figures only as goddesses. She takes a different approach and looks at how gender affects the representation of authority in these impressive stone statues. For more on Huastec women's dress, see also the PhD thesis "Weaving threads and painting bodies: Huasteca women, clothing, and embodiment during the Late Classic to Postclassic" by Adriana Fabiola Sanchez Balderas. The headdress of the woman in my illustration is based on this figurine.