Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena

4. Formative Period Gulf Coast Ceramic Figurines: The Key to Identifying Sex, Gender, and Age Groups in Gulf Coast Olmec Imagery

4 Formative Period Gulf Coast Ceramic Figurines The Key to Identifying Sex, Gender, and Age Groups in Gulf Coast Olmec Imagery Billie J. A. Follensbee While the task of isolating and understanding concepts such as gender, age groups, and sociopolitical structures in the remains of any ancient culture is difficult, studying these concepts in Gulf Coast Olmec material culture is especially problematic. Unlike scholars of later cultures such as the Maya and the Aztec, scholars of Formative period cultures have no ethnographic or ethnohistoric resources, nor do they have extensive pictographic or hieroglyphic texts. Although hieroglyphs are now known to date from well before the Classic period (see, for example, Justeson and Kaufman 1993; Pohl et al. 2002; Rodríguez Martínez et al. 2006), relatively few Formative period glyphs survive, and even for these, their current translations and their viability as true writing systems are not without dispute (see Bruhns and Kelker 2007; Cyphers 2007a, 2007b; Houston 2004; Macri and Stark 1993; Ortíz Ceballos and Rodríguez Martínez 2007; Rodríguez Martínez et al. 2007). Furthermore, because the Gulf Coast Olmec flourished in a tropical rainforest environment with heavily acidic soils, osteological and other perishable remains recovered at these sites are meager (compare Ort íz Ceballos and Rodríguez Martínez 1997; Rodríguez Martínez and Ort íz Ceballos 1994); only the most durable of Gulf Coast material culture survives—that made of stone and ceramic. Given these limitations, thorough analysis of all available imagery is crucial to proper understanding of these cultures. Many scholars have studied Gulf Coast Olmec stone sculpture in attempts to identify and interpret important iconography. Few, however, have studied the most common form of Olmec sculpture: the small, handmade ceramic figurines. Beyond 78 Billie J. A. Follensbee determinations of typologies, recovery contexts, and probable usage, Gulf Coast ceramic figurines have been, in general, sorely underanalyzed. The iconography of these ubiquitous ancient sculptures has the potential to provide important insights into imagery portrayed in the larger sculpture and ultimately to reveal much about the cultures that produced them. Identifying Gender in Gulf Coast Olmec Imagery Previous to my dissertation research (Follensbee 2000),1 no systematic study of male and female sexed or gendered characteristics in Gulf Coast Olmec imagery had been undertaken, and gender representation was poorly understood in Olmec imagery.2 In most past analyses, gender determination was made by summary assertion, generally assigned in an inconsistent and arbitrary manner. For example, small jade figurines with fleshy, rounded chests and short skirts (figure 4.1) were nearly always designated as female, Figure 4.1. La Venta Figure 1, jade figurine of a woman (drawing by the author, after author’s photographs and Benson and Fuente 1996: 16). 79 Identifying Sex, Gender, and Age Groups in Gulf Coast Olmec Imagery because of these features (see, for example, Drucker 1952: 154–55; Drucker et al. 1959: 25–26); however, large stone sculptures with fleshy, rounded chests and short skirts (figure 4.2) were summarily asserted to be male. Direct assertions of sex or gender in Olmec imagery often have been based in argumentum ad ignorantiam—asserting a conclusion based on the absence of features rather than on the presence of features, which is a recognized logical fallacy (see Follensbee 2000: 9–18). However, even this method was applied in a one-sided manner: the absence of large, rounded breasts and overt female genitalia was assumed to indicate male gender, but the absence of facial hair and any indication of male genitalia was not assumed to imply female gender. Fully ambiguous Olmec images that do not clearly exhibit sexed or gendered characteristics, especially those that express power and leadership, were asserted a priori to be male; the huge, formidable Colossal Heads (figure 4.3), for example, have been designated by many scholars as exclusively male, although no physical characteristics clearly identify them as such (see, for example, Coe 1972: 5; Fuente 1992). Figure 4.2. Cruz del Milagro Monument 1 (drawing by the author, after author’s photographs and Benson and Fuente 1996: 167). 80 Billie J. A. Follensbee Figure 4.3. La Venta Monument 1 (drawing by the author, after author’s photographs and Vela 1996: n.p.). The pervasive confusion about sex and gender in much Gulf Coast Olmec imagery is understandable, however, as large Olmec stone sculpture is notorious for its sexual ambiguity. Most anthropomorphic figures are androgynous...