The name Costa Rica, "Rich Coast," derives from
the enthusiastic accounts of European
conquistadors who had seen local chiefs arrayed
in gold. Pre-Columbian gold is irresistibly alluring.
This gold peccary pendant has been found with
three other peccary ornaments of the same lost-
wax cast. This peccary may represent either of
the two pugnacious hoglike ungulates that roam
Central and South America. Here, its pugnacious
quality has been emphasized by its sharp teeth
and ferocious expression. Subject matter of gold
was stictly controlled and of the total range of
animals, only a restricted group appears in the
jewelry. The major food animals that were
essential sources of meat, such as peccaries, are
hardly represented in gold. This peccary provides
a rare exception to this rule. Most of the animals
depicted have certain consistent behavioral
qualities--either fierce, noxious, or dangerous.
The quarrelsome behavioral quality of this
peccary is not simply a "representation of
nature", but the outward sign of a complex world
of symbolism with its own system of beliefs
which are no longer accessible to us. This gold
peccary ornament was not only indicative of the
power and social status of an individual, it may
have been used as a symbol of the supernatural
realms from which this power was thought to
have orginated.
- (PF.4085)
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