Sitting on her quartz stool, the Grandmother of the Universe, resident of Maloca do Céu [the Communal House in the Sky] created men, animals, the earth, and the waters. This stool was handed down to the ancestors of today’s Tukano, who then began to reproduce it in wood. This myth of the Tukano—a people from the Northeast of Amazon who still make the stools in traditional style demonstrates the place of the stools among sacred objects, at the same time part of the primeval universe and source of the power of creation.
This presence in the myths of origin of some peoples attests to the antiquity of the art of carving stools: the first records of the use of these objects among Amerindians of the lowlands of South America, the Caribbean, and Central America date back at least 4 thousand years. They are individual seats of different dimensions made of stone or ceramic (materials which, unlike wood, have resisted the tropical environment). They range from true thrones sculpted in stone found in ancient temples or palaces (like the famous stools of the Manteña culture from the coast of Ecuador, made between the 9th and 16th centuries) to the small circular ceramic stools typical of some pre-Inca cultures of Ecuador and Peru (such as Narrío and La Tolita), but also present in the Amazon, in Marajoara culture for example, made between the 4th and 14th centuries.
If we don’t have any archeological wooden stools, we can infer their use and form from the statues and pottery funerary urns that portray seated individuals. These representations show that the stools used in the past were no different to those of today: always carved in one piece, with a double base for support and external decoration, sometimes taking the form of animals. It can thus be seen that, contrary to what happened with other traditional practices, the production of stools has lasted until today, to the extent of being revitalized in recent decades.
At the moment, the best-known stools, because they are commercialized, are those made by the Indians who live in the Upper Xingu region, in Mato Grosso state. Their different styles reflect the diversity of the origins, languages, histories of each of the sixteen peoples housed in The Xingu Indigenous Park.
Outside the park, the Tukano are an important production center. Living alongside twenty other indigenous peoples, they share a complex system of exchanging different objects and products, in which the stools are not only their craftwork specialty, but also a badge of identity. Peoples from other areas also continue to make stools, like the Karajá, the Asurini, and the Tapirapé, in central Brazil or the Waiwai, the Wayana, and the Palikur in northern Amazon, in the region of the Guyanas and Amapá.
Whether as objects used in everyday village life or on ceremonial occasions, whether as products for external sale, offered as craftwork or design or collected as indigenous art, the stools today are part of the few items of material Indian culture that, even when re-appropriated outside their original universe, remain as symbols of a long-lasting tradition.
Indigenous stools are thus part of the list of objects called “resistant,” that is, those that have not been replaced by industrialized products introduced to the Indians from their first contacts with white people. Axes, pans, clothes, and boats, among other items, were quickly absorbed because of their functional efficacy and greater durability, as well as the ease in obtaining them ready-made. The resistance of the stools is a good indication that their utilitarian function was certainly not the main reason for the Indians to continue making them, reproducing, throughout generations, an operative chain of carving and decoration techniques that produces a unique stool within three or four days.
Among the many indigenous peoples, the use of stools concretizes some internal social norms of the community. Sitting on stools is almost always a male prerogative; women are restricted to mats placed directly on the ground, meaning that they sit with their legs extended. The act of sitting on stools involves flexing the knees, placing the feet on the ground, with the knees pointing to the sky, in a position that creates contact between the earth and the sky, between the natural world of humans and the supernatural spirit world, a position only some of the most important men in the village are permitted to adopt.
During ceremonies and rituals, above all, the stools are used to differentiate between individuals in the community, separating men from women, the young from the old, warriors and shamans from the rest of the community. Among almost all the peoples who make stools, the size of the stool is directly related to the age and prestige of the user.
The use of stools varies between the different peoples. Among the Suyá, they are used by everyone in the village, but a wife, son or daughter may not sit on the father’s stool. The Kaiabi only allow shamans or great chiefs to use stools. The women’s stools in the Wayana communities are visibly lower than those of the men, and there is a different model, with animals on both sides, for older men. The Yudjá made stools specifically for ritual use by the shamans and great chiefs. In the Upper Rio Negro region, the stool, called kumurõ, is also an artifact used by the pajé (shaman), the kumu, increasing in size according to his prestige.
Stools can also be made to be exchanged with other indigenous peoples or offered to allies. Tukano men, who must marry women from neighboring peoples, often make stools for their male in-laws.
Besides functioning as markers of social status or emblems of prestige, the stools have a sacred dimension. They are used by shamans to transform, to ascend to the supernatural worlds and intercede with those who cause illness, deaths or other crises. Very often, it is while seated on a stool that the shaman is induced into an altered state of trance, whether through the consumption of alcohol or hallucinogenic drugs, smoking tobacco or even just through the chants and dances being performed around him. It is no accident that the design on the surface of the stools made by the Desana is called pahmelin gohori, that is, “transformation design.”
The stool allows the user to stand out in his surroundings; using it is an essential act by the shaman of searching for visionary powers, because it symbolizes an axis, a central reference point to mediate, presage, and perform cures. Thus, in many rituals, the stools, along with other sacred objects, acquire powers and are used as actual vehicles of transformation and transportation.
Among some peoples of the Upper Xingu region who produce zoomorphic stools, those used by shamans are traditionally carved into the shape of birds, creatures considered closest to the supernatural world because of their ability to fly. They appear, above all, as birds of prey, such as the king vulture or the jabiru stork, which are generally the protagonists in the myths of origin of these peoples. Some of these stool-birds have two or more heads and a depression on the seat surface, used to crush and prepare pigments used in body painting.
Thus, the stools, beyond being just seats, concretize the knowledge, tradition, and beliefs that in a certain way are reactualized each time a new piece is carved. As with many other indigenous ritual objects, making a stool is as important as using it. Beautiful stools are those that are well made.
Among the Amerindians of the lowlands, all work done with raw material of great hardness and durability—wood, stone and bone—is traditionally done by men. Thus, wooden stools are always carved by men even when, as with the Yudjá, the painting is done by women. Although it is a group activity, some men eventually stand out in this art, and so become specialized artisans.
Making a stool with modern tools takes on average three days: one day to find the wood and begin to carve, another to finish the carving and smooth the wood and one more day for decoration. The wood can be left to dry for longer between carving and painting, for a better result.
The first stage is the search for wood in the forest. Several types of wood can be used for the stools, but they are always the hardest and most durable, resistant to insects, very often the same woods used to make canoes and houses. They are generally slow-growing trees, found in the forest in firm ground. The Yudjá use protium wood, cedar or kapok. The Kaiabi use itaúba and canela, as well as cedar. The Suyá use mulberry, protium wood or styrax. The Tukano favor sorbus, which when mature can supply enough wood for up to twenty stools.
Once the tree is felled and lopped, the wood is cut into logs and taken to the village. Depending on the size of the stool to be made, the wood has to be carried by two or more men. Some woods darken over time and if they are not carved quickly, they need to be preserved in water.
Back in the village, the carving begins, always taking into consideration the size, the shape, and the texture of the wood. Today, the tools used are adze or small hatchet.
The forms chosen follow the traditional models of each group. Among such peoples as the Tukano, the Karajá and the Tapirapé, the form is always the same, with few variations in proportion between the seat and base, but with varying sizes and painted motifs according to the purpose of the stool and the person for whom it is being made. Among other peoples, the variations from the traditional models can be greater and depend more on the individual creativity of the artist. The Tukano take measurements and make marks with charcoal to guarantee the perfect symmetry of form that is typical of their stools. Other models, such as those stools made by the Kalapalo and the Mehinaku in the form of an animal, take on a freer form, according to the texture and volume of the wood itself. But the good artist is always the one who knows tradition well.
During carving, as the sculpture becomes leaner, the shavings become finer and finer, to prevent cracks in the wood. When the final form is achieved, it is necessary to plane, smooth, and polish the piece, using a chisel, a file,
sandpaper, and stones. The main thing is to obtain a very smooth surface, above all where the paint will be applied.
It is important to point out, however, that not all stools are painted. There are many groups, the Asurini for instance, whose traditional designs for body or ceramic decoration have recently begun to be applied to stools as well, to make them more beautiful. But others continue to make them without paint, like some Mehinaku artists, who prefer to allow the texture of the wood to “decorate” the surface of their zoomorphic sculptures. In other groups, the painting of the stools—both the way of applying paint and the designs made—is a fundamental part of their conception. It is common for the decoration to be applied in black, directly onto the wood, with paint obtained by mixing charcoal with some kind of vegetal fixing agent. The bark of some trees (mainly myrtaceae and melastomataceae) is crushed and the liquid is then mixed with charcoal. The same can be done with urucu seeds to obtain a redder color. Urucu also helps to repel insects and seal the wood. The use of a variety of colors is rarer, as in the combination of yellow, orange, and black used for Karajá designs.
The Tukano also use carajuru, a deeper red paint. It is a pigment taken from lianas by women from neighboring peoples, the Bará and the Tuyuka, and is obtained by the Tukano through an exchange system. The Tukano cover the whole seat with a thick layer of these red colorants, which serves as a base for the application of their traditional designs. In this case, the designs are applied by stamping or printing the red surface with tiny splinters of cane dipped in clay. It is the reaction of the clay with the red base that produces the black color of the designs, which only appear after the stool is washed.
The painting is always applied onto the upper surface of the seat, the area of greatest contact with the user. But the sides and bases, above all when they have wider surfaces, can also be decorated. Some zoomorphic stools are painted all over, imitating the animal’s skin, such as jaguar markings and coati stripes. It is common for the eyes to be represented by encrusted circular shell decorations, giving a certain brilliance.
The majority of painted stools exhibit the graphic motifs from the each group’s traditional repertoire, many also used in body painting, the decoration of ceramics and gourds, and in plaiting natural fibers. The motifs also vary according to the occasion and specific purpose for which each stool is made. In this aspect, innovation also occurs within certain parameters: the work of more imaginative individuals is given great prestige, but their imagination must operate in the sense of combining traditional patterns and adapting them to the surface to be decorated, and not in the sense of inventing new motifs.
A close look at the stools made by different indigenous peoples of Brazil reveals a huge diversity of forms and designs. Among the stools that replicate animals—jaguars, anteaters, coatis, frogs, rays, turtles, armadillos, and others—the species is always easily recognizable, even though the animals are portrayed in a more or less stylized way; despite representing the attributes of the same species with great precision, each example is unique. In this sense, they are true sculptures and come close to being “works of art”, in the western meaning of the term.
Other stools are conceived within absolutely rigid models when it comes to the geometry of the forms. There are a great many models, with a diversity of combinations of seat form and base structure. They generally obey an absolute symmetry, identical both in the front and rear and right and left axes.
The seats can be flat, concave—as in those made of wood—or convex, taking advantage of the rounded form of the trunk. The shape of the seat varies between rectangular, the form of a canoe, oval, circular, or elongated, with side extensions, such as the stools made by the Karajá and the Tapirapé. The bases, when double, are formed by two sidewalls, perpendicular to the seat or inclined at different angles, resulting in more or less elaborate forms. They also vary between walls in one piece and those with triangular spaces, like the stools made by the Waiwai.
Kaiabi stools are those that reveal the straightest lines, with rectangular forms both in the seats and the double base, and extensions parallel to the seat running along the ground, which gives the stool more stability. The equally rectangular Suyá stools have simple rectangular bases, perpendicular to the seat. In Xingu stools, even though the seats have the form of animals, there is a huge variety in the form of the bases, which can be triangular, trapezoid, straight, or with extensions.
A regional survey carried out by anthropologist Walter Roth in the area of the Guyanas alone, revealed more than fifteen models of form used for stools made by the Karib and Arawak peoples.
The diversity of formal models of stools, also present among different indigenous peoples of the lowlands of South America, and mainly in Brazil, is without doubt a mirror of the very cultural diversity of these populations. What we tend to encompass under one label as “indigenous” actually hides a current assemblage of 234 peoples, speakers of 180 languages and dialects, in more than 600 indigenous lands spread over all Brazilian states. It is within these parameters that we should understand the variety of stool models: they correspond to the different traditions of these peoples and function as elements of reaffirmation of their identity.
Another strong identifying mark of each people corresponds to the designs applied to the stools. Among the Tukano, all the stools receive the same interlaced design, representing snakeskin—the snake Canoa de Transformação [Canoe of Transformation], a mythical canoe that transported the first humans. The design can be combined with others on the center of the stool. These can portray other parts of the transformation snake—its ribs for example—, other beings of nature, such as the skin of a paca or a butterfly, or even a pineapple skin.
There is not always an exact correspondence between the design and the origin or language spoken by the indigenous people. In the Upper Xingu region, people of different origins, languages, and traditions have, throughout the centuries, shared not only the territory of the Xingu Indigenous Park, but also many of the traditions of material culture. Some traditional designs of the Karib-speaking peoples, like the Kuikuro and the Kalapalo, are also applied to the stools made by the Kamayurá, who speak Arawak, or by the Wauja, who speak Tupi. The Kuikuro recognize their paintings as one of their identifying marks, but also as a mark of the people of the Upper Xingu region in general. However, other peoples that were more recently integrated into the area, but who are not part of the so-called Xingu complex, like the Kaiabi, the Yudjá, and the Suyá, have kept their own styles, both in the forms of carving and in the motif designs applied to the stools.
Many of the designs that we see on Xingu stools are the same as the body painting used in different rituals. One of the most traditional motifs, the painting of a tihigu fish trap, is used only for wooden artifacts in the Kwarup funeral rite, both on the wooden trunks that symbolize the dead, and on the stools. In the decoration of the trunks that transform them into true effigies of the revered ancestors, it is the design that makes them Xingu. The painting thus has a transforming role, the power to construct bodies and people, distinguishing them from non-humans.
In the Upper Xingu, the repetition or sequence of the designs applied to bodies and objects correspond to the rhythm of ritual chants and dances. At other times, the animals represented on the stools, ceramics, and other objects are the visual and material expression of traditional knowledge transmitted through generations.
The stools thus constitute the technological and cosmological knowledge of each culture. Between tradition and aesthetic desire, the function of sitting and the magic of transforming, the artifact and the work of art, the beauty of the stools allows the celebration of the diversity and identity of each indigenous people. They are objects that teach us to bring art and artifact, contemplation and functionality, closer, reminding us of the aesthetic capacity of acting and transforming the world that all human creation has.
Today, bringing this craftwork to light is about making the stools continue to exercise their role of symbolizing the determination of indigenous people to preserve their identity in the face of the complex dynamic of their insertion into national society.
The preservation of material culture, its objects and technical traditions is an act of self-determination and one of the most efficient forms of resistance of the indigenous peoples. The protection and revitalization of traditional knowledge has been carried out in many ways. There is a growing number of cooperatives for craftwork production, courses and workshops for the transmission of traditional knowledge from the old to the young, research activities and documentation of traditional objects by indigenous agencies. There is also a growth in the number of publications, videos, films, exhibitions, and museums that unfold the rich artistic and technological universe of indigenous peoples.
A deeper look at the objects produced today by the communities reveals not only the emphasis on the process, the “execution with art” characteristic of indigenous craftwork production, but also the relation between this execution and the protection of traditional knowledge.
The revitalization of material culture also results in the recovery of important aspects of intangible culture: gestures and ways of doing things, linguistic denominations, memories, myths, chants, and ritual dances are reactualized through material production. In 2003, for example, from research and the dossier compiled by indigenous agencies on the body painting and designs of the Wajãpi, an indigenous people from Amapá, their graphic art was recognized as an intangible heritage by Iphan (the Brazilian National Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage) and later as a masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage by Unesco. The research showed that the designs were intimately associated with the myths and oral memory of this people.
Another important example comes from 2008, with the creation of the Museu Kuahi by the indigenous people of Oiapoque, also in Amapá, with the purpose of integrating the aesthetic production of different peoples in the region, promoting exchange activities between villages, academic institutions, and museums. This shows the active participation of indigenous communities in the development of their own museums or in research programs and the preservation of their heritage, a phenomenon resulting from a dual process of maturing: on the one hand, the communities see their aesthetic traditions as an effective instrument for the affirmation of their specific identity; on the other hand, national society values the complexity of these manifestations anchored in oral traditions, knowledge, and cosmologies, which are not always visible and tangible.
It is in this scenario that current handcrafted production of stools for sale is situated. The income generated by the sale of craftwork rarely counts as the main source of income for any indigenous community, but is maintained among many peoples to provide aggregate, collective and protective activity regarding traditional knowledge.
The sales made through Funai (National Indian Foundation) stores, through indigenous cooperatives or traders specializing in indigenous craftwork, brings elements both of revitalization and the market. Modifications can be introduced using western aesthetic standards, that is, the buyer’s standards, establishing a dynamic that is not always positive for the maintenance of traditions. The market is perhaps not the ideal place to establish an aesthetic dialogue between Indians and national society. But it is through the market that many indigenous objects, like stools, hammocks, baskets, and body adornments, have entered the universe of western design.
Some anthropological scholars of indigenous Brazilian arts even believe that the fact that indigenous peoples do not conceive art as an autonomous, merely contemplative domain—that is, they do not separate art from artifact, or the beautiful from the useful—makes their creations come closer to our design projects than to works of art. They also believe that it is only when design supplants “pure arts” or “fine arts” that we will have in western society a scenario similar to indigenous societies.
Finally, in the aesthetic fruition of the indigenous stools portrayed here, be they recognized as works of art, artifacts or design objects, perhaps the most important lesson we need to learn is that nothing should be done without art, tradition, and beauty.
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