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7 Cemí Idols andTaínoan Idolatry What is striking among the various Spanish chroniclers is that they all coincide in the diversity of forms that both iconic and aniconic objects imbued with cemí could assume and in the varied media from which they were made (Figures 13–15). Fray Ramón Pané (1990:26) makes it clear that the cemí objects/idols came in different shapes and were made of stone, wood, and other materials (e.g., human skulls, bones, and meat bits). Indeed, the chronicler Oviedo, with his characteristic and vulgar ethnocentrism, stated that the natives in Hispaniola and neighboring islands venerate the Devil [shaped] in diverse forms and idols . . . [and] as I have said [before], in many things they paint and carve, and sculpture it in wood and clay, and in other materials; they make a demon that they call cemí, so ugly and as scary as the [devil that] Catholics paint at the feet of Archangel Saint Michael or Apostle St. Bartholomew [referring to wood idols]; but [the cemí is] not tied with chains [as St. Bartholomew’s devil]; instead [it is] venerated: sometimes [it is seen] seated in a tribunal [probably a duho or seat, but may also be a platform of some sort], other times [it is] standing on its feet, and [we see it] in different manners [poses] [Oviedo 1944 (1):251]. Oviedo further notes: I have never found in this generation [of people] such ancient [tradition] painted, sculptured, or carved relief and so highly revered [image] than the abominable and garish Devil—painted [depicted] in many and diverse ways, or sculptured, or de bulto [with volume], with many heads and tails, with deformities , and so scary, and with fierce fangs and dentures [teeth], and with large canine teeth, and disproportionate ears, with burning dragon eyes [a reference to shiny shell or gold inlays], and as a fierce serpent, and in many different forms, to such an extent that the least scary [-looking one] commands fear and admiration. And these [cemí images] are so sociable and commonplace for them that not only [do] they have a place to display them in the house but even more so in the benches where they seat (that they call duhos), meaning that he who sits [a human being] is not alone seating, but Cemí Idols and Taínoan Idolatry 65 he and his adversary [i.e., the cemí image carved on the man’s seat; see Figure 18]. And in wood, and in clay, and in gold and in other things, as many as they can, they sculpture, and carve or paint, snarling and fierce face, as who he is [i.e., the devil] [Oviedo 1944 (1):229–231; see Figure 13]. Most of these idols were subjected to some form of veneration or another. What theTaíno did with these idols, in effect, constituted idolatry, but in the sense originally intended by this word, and as reinstated by Alfred Gell. I concur with Gell (1998:97–98) that “all idols, I think, are iconic—including the so-called aniconic ones—whether or not they look like some familiar object, such as a human body.” I applaud Gell’s reinstatement of the word “idolatry,” which “has had a bad press since the rise to world domination of Christianity and Islam, which have both inherited the anti-imagistic strain of Biblical Judaism. Christianity, encumbered by its Greco-Roman inheritance, has had to struggle more actively with recrudescence of de facto ‘pagan’ idolatry, and has experienced cataclysmic episodes of iconoclasm ” (Gell 1998:98). Islam has been more consistent and persistent in its iconoclastic posture, but Muslim (as opposed to Islam) art has not always been entirely devoid of religious iconic representations, including the Prophet Muhammad. For example, the Muslim art of Medieval Persia (today’s Iran) has such depictions in various mosques and palaces (see Kennedy 2004; Menocal 2002; Ruthven 2000). The idol’s body form (which Gell calls the “index”)—even when visualized by the native shaman via hallucinatory revelations given by the cemí spirit—is nevertheless based onTaínoan artistic conventions, on a “prototype” in the sense denoted by Gell (1998:25). Body form and decoration (the “looks”) provide the visual cues for recognition by the believers of who a given cemí is. The formal, visual cues emerge from a mental vision of what this cemí looks like, and, conversely, that mental image is the prototype or blueprint that the body of the image or icon materially...

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