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16 Ancestor Cemís and the Cemíification of the Caciques Another class of cemí objects that is difficult to determine if they were or were not gifted to foreign caciques or political allies consists of the idols and other receptacles , such as baskets and calabashes, that contain the actual skull or bones of a deceased cacique (Figure 24). Like those idols made of stone, wood, and other media, these cemís were undoubtedly subjected to veneration; they were also imbued with cemí potency. Unlike others, however, these ancestor cemís did contain real human bones, usually a skull, selected from the skeleton at some point after the desiccation of the body. Upon death, the personhood of a cacique would undergo a process of decomposition (literally and figuratively) and deconstruction before being recomposed to emerge as a new person and with a new set of social relations in the afterlife (see Mosko 1992). The deceased cacique can, for example, be transformed into a cemíified ancestor, provided with a new body, made of fiber and cotton (Figure 24; see Kerchache 1994:158–161). This very process of deconstruction and reconstruction (decomposition, death; recomposition, rebirth) of the cacique’s person in the form of a cemí idol is precisely what is meant by “cemíification.” These ancestor cemís are not the kind that manifested their presence in nature (see section 5) and revealed their personhood to a shaman; rather, they are the product of bodily and personhood transformations of the cacique upon death. The cemí idol, as a cemíified ancestor, defines the relationships (duties, obligations , modes of social conduct) among the surviving, living descendants. The living cacique heir and relatives entrusted with such an icon would have direct access to this and all other cemíified ancestors by virtue of their direct kinship and descent relations with the set of cemíified ancestor idols. The relationships between the cemíified ancestor idol and the living relatives are fundamentally different than they were when the ancestor was among the living: the dead cacique is now imbued with cemí power and vested with seminal potency and fecundity.The ancestor cemí has the potency to promote the production and reproduction of the cacique heir and his lineage, if not the community at large. Such idols and objects of veneration, like the stone, shell, or wood cemí idols that were first manifested in nature (as discussed earlier), would henceforth be consulted and invoked in cohoba ceremonies, offered food, and kept in the caney. Admiral Columbus (Colón 1985:204, ch. 60; see also Crespo 2000:127–139) 142 Chapter 16 described several ways in which the body of a dead cacique would be prepared for a funeral. Disemboweling and then slowly desiccating the body with indirect fire lit under the hammock of the deceased would be the first stage. Afterward, the skull—and perhaps other bones, too—would be selected and curated, while the remaining bones would be buried as secondary interments in a burial ground or, for example, deposited in a cave. Columbus also mentioned setting fire to the house with the cacique’s body inside it. Depending on the temperature achieved, the remnant cremated bones would be collected, curated, or buried. In any event, the skull or head was the key part of the human anatomy (Crespo 2000:129), and the symbolic repository of the dead cacique’s potency and power, as is attested by the notorious example of the cotton cemí idol held in the Museum of Ethnography of Turin, Italy (Figure 24), whose cotton head wraps the front part of a human skull. As shall be seen, in life the head of a human being was the repository of his living soul (goeíza or guaíza).Thus, upon death the head of the deceased , revealed after defleshing as a skull, is most likely to be the repository of his soul in the afterlife: the opía (or operito; Pané 1999).The eyes of the ancestor cemí idols, as well as many other cemí icons, were covered with gold sheets (or mother of pearl or other shiny materials), because these are the liminal orifices—windows to the soul—allowing the soul to “see” the world outside and vice versa, for the outside world to reach the inner soul (Oliver 2000). Two sites with cemeteries, La Caleta and Nisibón, belonging to the Ostionan Ostionoid subseries (i.e., so-called Anadel or Transicional style or period, A.D. 600–900...

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