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Creatures
Emerging From a Mouth - Day's Knob Site
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Sandstone
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Sandstone |
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Limestone
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Sandstone
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Limestone
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Limestone |
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Hematite |
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Limestone |
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Limestone |
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Below:
For comparison, Inuit/Yupik masks with emerging birds. |
| Below: A drawing of
Ohio's Great Serpent Mound. The image is commonly
interpreted as a snake swallowing an egg, but one might consider
the possi- bility of figures exiting the serpent's mouth,
clearly a very ancient motif, seemingly one of regeneration. |
| The image of one creature
(spirit?) emerging from the mouth of another seems to be a quite
ancient and primal one that appears in many parts of the
world. It is easy to see in the clearly sculpted statues
at San Agustin, Colombia (below), and very likely reflected in
the ritual vomiting of shamans in the Peruvian Amazon south of
there. |
| In this context, it is
interesting to consider a Caddo ritual reported by early and
understandably appalled European explorers in North America.
This was the rapid consumption of a hot liquid made from the
yaupon plant, causing what might be characterized as projectile
vomiting.
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| The motif appears
consistently in very old European lithic artifacts, as in this
small carving on a rock found near the summit of Ben Lawers, a
mountain in Scotland's central highlands. (Figure facing
left.) |
| Strangely enough, the image of
one creature emerging from the mouth of another is also quite
apparent in Australian lithic
artifact material: |
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