Are You My Mother?

Tracing a History of Racial, Cultural, and Corporal

Origin Preoccupation in Olmec Scholarship

Vivian Mellon Snyder

Beyond El Dorado

Professor Lisa Trever

December 22, 2020

 I. Introduction

To begin, I would like to explain this paper’s use of the term ​origin,​ and its reasons
for examining an alleged “origin preoccupation.” The argument which follows seeks to
augment the growing commentary surrounding the Mesoamerican “Mother Culture” dogma.
A Mother Culture, in essence, is a cultural group that is perceived to have significant
influence over later cultures and societies. The Olmec are widely considered to be the Mother
Culture of Mesoamerica, despite great uncertainty regarding whether the Olmec existed as a
hegemonic culture or state.​1​ Perhaps more accurately, the Olmec could be considered a
cultural group, wherein the Pre-Classic Gulf Coast of Mexico saw a flourishing corpus of
visually and thematically related artwork. Aspects of Olmec iconography and artistic subjects
recur in works excavated from much later societies, geographically spanning not only the
Gulf Coast center of Olmec activity, but also Central Mexico, Oaxaca, and the Maya region.
Today, the legitimacy of any such Mother Culture is criticized by proponents of “Sister
Culture” and ​Primus Inter Pares​ (First Among Equals).​2​ It is not within this paper’s scope to
address the validity of the Mother Culture, but to examine the effects of its widespread use in
Olmec scholarship.
What this paper calls “origin” refers to the beginning of an author’s defined physical
​ ill be presented in the context of
or temporal sequence. In this paper, the notion of ​origin w
genealogical, cultural, and material progressions within Mesoamerica. “Origin
preoccupation” relates to the notion of Mesoamerican Mother Culture. But whereas Mother
Cultures acts as a framework of historiography, origin preoccupation is the tendency for
Olmec scholars to use origin as a lens through which to parse meaning. The habitual use of
lenses of origin suggests an internalized, often unspoken, acceptance of the Mother Culture
narrative.
The first section of this paper traces an abbreviated history of Olmec studies, which
helps to shed light on the early search for a Mother Culture, and rapid perception of the
Olmec’s cultural ripple throughout Mesoamerica. Secondly, this paper examines the
particular relevance of La Venta ​Altar 4 ​to origin preoccupation. Thirdly, the paper considers

1
Román Piña Chán, ​The Olmec : Mother Culture of Mesoamerica,​ 226.
2
T ​ 6-17​.
​ aube and Oaks, ​Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks, 1

1
examples of contemporary Olmec scholarship which use various lenses of origin-- racial,
cultural, and corporal. Through historical sources, the altar’s visual case study, and
comparison of scholarship, this paper will present an argument for the existence of origin
preoccupation, and examine the implications of authors’ use of the origin lens.

II. Brief History of Olmec Studies

Of the innumerable questions to which the discovery of America gave rise, the most
difficult to answer, perhaps, was that regarding the origin of the newly-discovered
races.
(Alan Thorndike Rice, Introducing ​The Ancient Cities of the New World, ​1887)

The earliest instance of what I call the Mesoamerican “origin preoccupation” occurs in the
writing of the French-born archaeologist Désiré Charnay. Funded by grants received from France’s
Ministry of Education, from 1857 to 1882, Charnay traveled across North and Central America in an
attempt to catalogue the art and architecture of America’s Indigenous peoples. During his 25-year
journey, locals guided him to both well- and lesser-known Pre-Columbian archeological sites across
Mesoamerica. With the most recent methods and technology​3​ at his disposal, Charnay documented
examples of art and architecture he considered to be historically significant. It’s worth noting that
Charnay’s popular designation as an archaeologist is a specious one; more rightly, his work was that
of an expeditionary photographer. Accordingly, his archival pursuits were deeply informed by his
fascination with the exotic. Another excerpt from Rice’s introduction to ​The Ancient Cities ​bares this
problematic captivation:

All the marvels of Eastern fable pale before the vision of a New World emerging like
a mirage from the Western seas, peopled by strange races, glorious in the richness of
its tropical vegetation, its forests teeming with curious animal forms...​4

The flowery language found in Rice’s introduction is matched by Charnay’s following account,
whose romantic, narrative rhetoric conceals a pseudo-scientific enterprise. Though Charnay
effectively was an expeditionary photographer, his curated collection of images and context

3
[Such as primitive photography, rubbings, and castings]
4
​Rice, ​The Ancient Cities of the New World, x​ i-xii

2
nevertheless framed an anthropological theory regarding Mesoamericans’ ethnic parentage. Charnay
was adamant that the Toltec were the origin of all Mesoamerican peoples, and that the Toltec
themselves had descended from East Asians​5​.
But while the Toltec were,​ ​in fact, the ancestors of Aztec people, the present chronology of
Mesoamerica’s known civilizations stretches back to 1500 BCE: approximately 2,400 years prior to
the Toltec horizon, people constructed residential compounds, ballcourts, plazas, and irrigation
systems at the central-Mexican site of Teopantecuanitlan (Fig. 2), mostly likely within the Olmec
sphere of influence and/or or culture area.​6​ Still, Charnay’s shaky timeline and racial postulations,
however laughable, received little discourse during his career. His publications and reputation as an
archeologist were catapulted by a confluence of circumstances: Firstly, from the 1850’s until the turn
of the century, his field held only one American corival: Augustus Lee Plongeon. Further, he greatly
benefited from the timing of his expeditions to the Americas, which coincided with The Second
French Intervention in Mexico (1861-1867). As such, his work-- which was largely sponsored by the
French-- both romanticized and canonized Mexican landscapes to the benefit of colonial Expansion.​7
As a vocal militarist, Charnay benefited both from government sponsorship and France’s mutual
interest in his works’ widespread distribution. Lastly, ​The Ancient Cities of the New World ​(1887)
was published in the wake of growing public acceptance of Darwin’s evolutionary theory, described
in ​On the Origin of Species ​(1859). ​Ancient Cities, u​ like Charnay’s previous photography folios
surrounding Mesoamerica, appealed to academia’s growing interest in Evolution and Social
Darwinism. It’s worth mentioning that his many suggestions of Social Darwinism in ​Ancient Cities
bare contradictory undertones. He mourns “a civilisation which… has been systematically
misunderstood or misrepresented,”​8​ despite his participation in such misrepresentation; The bias of
his methods is certainly ​systematically ​determined, given his vested interest in France’s martial
interventions in modern Mexico. Likewise, his liberal praise of Mesoamerican sites’ aesthetics is
undermined by the attribution of these aesthetics to “the ​instinct ​of a ​particular​ race.”​9
The extent of sophistry in ​The Ancient Cities of the New World i​ s further illustrated by
contradictory statements of intent in Charnay’s preface. Presumably, the academic influence of such

5
​Charnay, ​The Ancient Cities of the New World, x​ xvii.
6
​V.H. Malmström, “A Survey of Teopantecuanitlán, Guerrero, Mexico,” 3.
7
​Evans, ​Romancing the Maya, ​104-110.
8
​Charnay, ​The Ancient Cities of the New World, x​ xvii.
9
, x​ xix.
​Charnay,​

3
a catalogue would have been augmented by declaration of some newly-discovered cultural
antecedent. It’s not surprising that his preface confidently asserts the existence of such an antecedent,
the Toltec; curiously, however, he proposes a limited scope of cultural lineage, clarifying that “we
shall leave the question of first origin as being unnecessary for our purpose; as also traditions,
prehistoric legends, language, and religion, confining ourselves to what may be termed history…”​10
What are the consequences of such an arbitrarily assigned “origin”? What does ​origin​ signify given
the supposed existence of ​first origin?​ He seems to envision first origin as an unfathomably distant
causality, such as “the remote past of man, whose countless generations, scattered in every clime, go
back to the dark period when our rude progenitors were hardly distinguished from the brute
creation.”​11
Dismissal of so-called “pre-historic” Mesoamerican cultural epochs might have been to
Charnay’s benefit. ​Ancient Cities, i​ n tangling its focus between o​ rigin​ and ​first​ ​origin,​ could expect
to benefit from the public excitement amidst the late nineteenth century’s flourishing Antiquarianism
and from then hot-topic Darwinism. This is mind, the validity and substance of Charnay’s claims
would have carried less weight than their ability to intrigue the casual (foreign) reader and reinforce
France’s military agenda (and in doing so, secure their future sponsorship).
Ironically, Charnay’s voyage (from 1857-1882) had very nearly led him to encounter the
so-called “mother culture” he had thought to be Toltec:

Besides these ruins [Comalcalco] others are to be met at Blasillo… I hear from a
montanero, who first discovered them, that an important Indian city formerly existed
there, whose monuments, like those of Comalcalco, consist of caryatides, columns,
and statues; but in this abominable weather it is utterly impossible to visit them.​12

Those poor weather conditions had dissuaded Charnay from trekking to what is now called
La Venta (Fig. 1), an archaeological site located in Tabasco, Mexico. But even had Charnay
stumbled upon the few monuments then exposed at La Venta, it is unlikely he would have
realized their significance and chronological priority to the Taltec. The primacy of
monumental stonework at La Venta was neither immediately apparent nor decipherable (as it

10
, x​ xvii.
​Charnay,​
11
, x​ xviii.
​Charnay,​
12
​Charnay, ​The Ancient Cities of the New World, ​196.

4
lacked recognizable date inscriptions, as seen in Mayan sculpture). A firm chronology would
not be established for the Olmec site until the advent of radiocarbon dating in the 1950’s.
When the age of works found at La Venta (along with other unprovenanced sites along the
Gulf of Mexico) was eventually realized, a long-held curiosity regarding Mesoamerica’s
“Mother Culture” was given a new, supposedly scientifically-sound, subject of attention.
The historical significance of La Venta would not be mentioned again for another
forty year, when in 1926, a team composed of Frans Blom (archaeologist), Oliver La Farge
(ethnologist), and Lazaro Hernando Hernandez Guillermo (guide) published a record of their
expedition (1925) in Mesoamerica. Their account ​Tribes and Temples: a Record of the
Expedition to Middle America​, while more methodical than Charnay’s ​Ancient Cities​, has a
similarly narrative and effusive rhetoric. However, ​Tribes and Temples’​ partly biographical,
partly analytical account diverges from Charnay’s in several key aspects. Firstly, La Farge
contextualized its referenced artwork through study of Mesoamerca’s contemporary
Indigenous cultures. Secondly, the work was received and published by an accredited
academic institution (The Tulane University of Louisiana), and thus its’ intended audience
included other scholars, with the expectation of an ensuing discourse. Thirdly, and most
pertinently to this paper’s theme, ​Tribes and Temples’ ​cusp of origin reaches further back
than ​Ancient Cities’​ , explicitly including the epochs ignored by Charnay. Charnay called
these pre-Toltec epochs pre-historic; Blom and La Farge spin this language around, saying
that the same epochs have “not yet been written, but the day will soon come when the story
of an American race as artistic, as scientific, and as human as most of the races of the Old
World will be opened…”​13​ The team’s attitude, here, speaks to the evolving conventions
within the field of archaeology. Though this paper has criticized Charnay’s methods, it’s
necessary to acknowledge that his work was done amidst a period of transition from
antiquarianism to academic humanities. ​Ancient Cities​ had itself reflected this transition
through its’ advocating for scientific methodology. By the time Blom, La Farge, and
Guillermo completed their expedition, the importance of both cultural studies and scientific
ones was more standard. Their interdisciplinary investigation suggested, with caution, that
the resemblance of artwork at La Venta to Mayan sites might suggest their origination from

13
​Blom and La Farge, ​Tribes and Temples; a Record of the Expedition to Middle America,​ 3-4.

5
latter. Their hypothesis struck closer to the truth than Charnay’s; the works at La Venta far
predated the Toltec, but their visual language did not originate from the Maya. Rather, the
society at La Venta far preceded Mayan Civilization. Though their provenance, to reiterate,
would not be established for several decades, the question remained: what culture had made
the works at La Venta?
This question of provenance is difficult to answer for several reasons. Still today, it is
unknown what those artists called their culture or state. Today, archaeologists associate the
works at La Venta with the ​Olmec​ culture (dated approximately 1500 BCE to 400 BCE) but
this designation is a convention which arose from misnomenclature. In Pre-Columbian and
Early Conquest North America, the people living along the Gulf Coast of Mexico were the
predominant traders of rubber material. The Aztec referred to the people in this region by the
Nahuatl word ​Olmecatl, o​ r ​rubber people​. The Olmeca, really, were the rural-dwelling
contemporaries of the Aztec Empire. It wasn’t until the 1940’s that the site of La Venta was
classified within the same cultural group as other excavation sites in the Gulf of Mexico.​14
And it wasn’t until the 1950’s that the misnomer Olmec was firmly established within the
lexicon of Pre-Columbian Archaeology.​15​ The publications most influential in this
classification were Matthew Stirling’s ​Stone Monuments of Southern Mexico​ (1943) and
Philp Drucker’s ​La Venta, Tabasco: A Study of Olmec Ceramics and Art ​(1959).
Within Blom (et al.), Stirling, and Drucker’s work, one work is given particular
attention: La Venta ​Altar 4 ​(Fig. 3). The altar was partially excavated and photographed by
Blom (Fig. 4), then further excavated and described in greater detail by Stirling (Fig. 5). In
Drucker’s work, various motifs of the altar are codified alongside sculptural works from
other Olmec sites. The altar had been described by Stirling as “remarkable for both its size
and state of preservation,”​16​ and has consistently reappeared in Olmec scholarship since.
Among Olmec works, it is not unique in its being so often revisited and reinterpreted. But its
relative preservation, level of detail, and amalgam of motifs (many of which seem to have
been referenced by later Mesoamerican societies) present a useful case study for Olmec
scholarship’s preoccupation with lenses of origin.

14
​Stirling,
Stone Monuments of Southern Mexico.
​
15
Drucker; Drucker, Heizer, and Squier, ​Excavations at La Venta, Tabasco 1955.
16
Stone Monuments of Southern Mexico, 5​ 4.
​Stirling, ​

6
III. La Venta ​Altar 4
Altar 4​, and the other “Altars” of Olmec sites, are now understood to have functioned as
thrones​17​, and the terms ​altar​ and ​throne​ are still used interchangeably. The central figure of the
frontal plane sits within a recessed archway, which is framed by two, inverted-U-shaped bands: the
central band appears solid, while the outer band is incised and resembles a rope or vine (Fig. 6). Four
trumpet-like flower glyphs extend from the corners of this outer border. The glyphs, which are nearly
identical to one another (save for their varying degrees of preservation), are composed of a base
U-shaped scroll, which I interpret as leaves. What I call the “body” of each flower glyph is shaped
like a tall, plastic cup and tapers toward this scroll base of leaves. Finally, waving incisions extend
from the mouth of these cups, disappearing at each of the altar’s four corners. The defaced niche
figure, which sits at the compositional axis of the altar, appears to be male: his shoulders are broad
and defined, and his body shows prominent musculature across the arms and chest. He wears a
headdress which extends out from and above the arch which surrounds him. A round medallion can
be discerned along the bottom of the headdress, but it and other finer details of the headdress are too
damaged to interpret clearly. Despite the damage present in his face and headdress, several details of
the figure have been remarkably well-preserved. He wears a simple collar piece, whose edges are still
clearly defined, as well as an asymmetrical chest piece, which extends from the base of the collar
piece to the figure’s lower abdomen. Additionally, he wears two wristlets, both rendered minimally
and flat against his body, formally similar to the collar piece. These wristlets draw the eye toward
delicately-rendered, wonderfully conserved details present in his hands; viewers may distinguish
each of his naturalistic fingers, and even finely-wrought nail beds remain on several fingers and toes.
His hands’ activity, as suggested by finer detail, seems to play an important role in the altar’s
composition. One hand rests on his (proper right) ankle, while the other reaches out to grasp the
braided vine/rope which frames the bottom of the altar. That braid wraps around to the right plane of
the altar, and perhaps once continued to its left plane. Unfortunately, the left plane of the altar has
been so severely damaged that no imagery or figures can be identified (Fig. 7). Perhaps, though,
there had never been a figure on the left plane; the significance of the altar’s right plane appears
somewhat privileged by the fact that the niche figure reaches out to grab the rope to his right, less
obviously engaged with the left side of the altar.

17
​Reilly, “Cosmos and Rulership,” 15-6.

7
 The right plane of the altar, despite being better-preserved than the left, retains only traces of
its original imagery (Fig. 8). On this plane, a second figure sits in profile. Their sex is difficult to
ascertain; it’s possible that their sex was irrelevant to the altar’s narrative, or that the sculptural
details which once clarified their sex have been since been lost. Ulike the frontal plane’s niche figure,
the second sits in a low kneel, with calves and feet folded beneath their thighs. Their left hand
reaches in a limp gesture toward the frontal plane of the altar; their wrist appears to either become a
part of or have been tied/restrained by the braided, lower border of the altar.
There is a noticeable discrepancy between the depth of relief present in the right plane and
frontal plane figures. The frontal plane’s central niche figure is nearly carved in-the-round. The
figure depicted on the altar’s right plane is carved in relatively shallow relief. This discrepancy places
the two figure within distinct interpretive spheres: the niche figure, which extends into the world of
his viewer, is enlivened by his naturalistic pose, animated by the bands and flower glyphs which
frame him, and seems to engage with the timespace as his viewers: his eyes have since crumbed
away, but one can imagine his gaze once met those of the altar’s visitors.
The effect of such a direct gaze would have been commanding. A photo of Carlos Pellicer
Cámara (founder of the Parque-Museo La Venta) imitating the pose of the niche figure helps to
reconcile this issue, and illustrates the interpretive effect of the altar’s scale (Fig. 9). The shoulders of
the niche figure are 34% broader than Cámara’s, its head is 20% wider, and its wrists are 39% larger
(Fig. 10). The scale of the niche figure relative to Cámara, though large, resembles the human scale
closely enough for the figure to still register as human, especially if it is to be viewed from a
distance.
The altar’s upper table only retains carved detail along the frontal plane’s ledge. At the center
of the frontal ledge, a zoomorphic image with elongated, serpentine eyes bares its curved fangs
toward the foreground, and a diagonal cross is carved in the space between them. The wide cavity
formed by its opening mouth seems to suggest the abstracted anatomy of a snake. Other aspects of
the image, however, appear more feline than serpentine: curling lips, an upper row of teeth, and
rounded, ear-like shapes at the sides of its head. Behind the zoomorphic image, a horizontal band
divides the frontal plane’s ledge in two. Continuing from the top of this band, four diagonal bars (two
each on the left and right sides) stretch away from the altar’s central axis. Finally, below the dividing
central band, two slightly-squared, inverted-U-shapes meet the bottom of the altar’s edge.

8
 Altar 4​, among similar Olmec works, is helpful to consider in light of this paper’s theme: the
various ways in which scholars adapt the lens of origin to interpret the corpus of Olmec art. The
altar’s visual relationship to an origin narrative is not immediately apparent, but it has been written
about through the lenses of racial origin, cultural origin, and corporal origin. The remainder of this
paper will approach the implications of Olmec literature’s use of these three lenses, in specific
relation to ​Atlar 4​ and select other monuments.

IV. Instances of Origin Preoccupation

A. Racial Origin
Ivan Van Sertima’s ​They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America
is​ ​perhaps the most infamous of Olmec literature. Published in 1976, the book argues that the Olmec
Civilization and cultural legacy was deeply influenced by the arrival of Nubians in ca. 700 BCE.
Sertima, for instance, claims a Nubian origin in Mesoamericans’ use of mummification, construction
of pyramids, and Olmec Colossal Head portraiture, and other arts and technologies. His paper’s lens
is not ​strictly​ racial, despite its concentration on the purported legacies of specifically black​18​ African
civilizations. The book does examine the historic erasure of African and African Americans’ cultural
legacies, but by inserting allegations of such erasure into Indigenous histories, he himself discounts
the cultural achievements of Indigenous Americans, ceding their artistic agency to another group.
This issue is made even more severe in light of his argument’s primary subject: the Olmec. Claims
that the greatest artistic and technological achievements of the Olmec were only made possible
through outside influence, in effect, has implications for later Mesoamerican societies, as well.
Whether the Olmec were really the “Mother Culture” of Mesoamerica is debatable, but at the time
Van Sertima’s work was published this view was widely accepted. On the surface, Van Sertima’s
argument approaches a ​cultural​ origin for Mesoamerica in Africa. But underlying a re-written
cultural narrative, through the dismissal of artistic and scientific feats of Native Americans as a
whole, this cultural lens serves as a racialized lens.
Originally, the book was circulated within and referenced by African-American scholarship,
but largely dismissed within Pre-Columbian literature. Perhaps as a result of absent investigation
18
[Note] van sertima himself expresses hesitation with the term black, that “although it is the fashionable and more
acceptable term, it presents problems…” (Van Sertima, ​They Came Before Columbus, a​ uthor’s note). The alternative
terms that his paper uses, though their use is explained, are not ones I am comfortable using myself, due to their
derogatory associations then and today.

9
contrary to its arguments, its claims had gone generally uncontested until 1997, when ​Robbing Native
American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs​ was published. Its authors
emphasize that their largest concern with the work is not its methodology, but its implications for
Indigenous Mesoamericans:

Despite Vehement protestations to the contrary, Van Sertima has, in effect, trampled
on the self-respect or self-esteem of Native Americans by minimizing their role as
actors in their own history, denigrating their cultures, and usurping their contributions
to the development of world civilizations.​19

Robbing Native American Cultures​ addresses this issue through a discussion of visual and botanical
evidence which contradict Van Sertima’s argument, advocating for academics’ active engagement
with the papers’ issues (rather than dismissal, which they feel has resulted in its widespread
acceptance outside of the field of Archaeology). They spend a good deal of time grappling with the
perception of “Nubian” faces in Olmec colossal heads, highlighting stark differences in bone
structure that fail to suggest an Arican origin in portraiture (Fig. 11).
The implications of Van Sertima’s work were not unlike those of Charnay. Charnay, too, had
been motivated by ridiculous claims of Mesoamerican’s Jewish or Atlantian origin, while proceeding
to argue for their East Asian descent. He made comparisons of Mesoamerican iconography,
mythology, architecture, and artwork to vaguely similar ones in disparate parts of Asia, committing a
similar act of cultural denigration.

B. Cultural Origin
The same Olmec Colossal heads have also been investigated through the lens of cultural
origin. In ​Olmec Colossal Heads as Recarved Thrones: "Mutilation," Revolution, and Recarving,
James Porter investigates the possibility that the “altars” and Colossal Heads seen at La Venta and
other Olmec sites are more closely related than previously thought; the Colossal Heads, he argues,
have been carved from altars. He notes that there are two conventional shapes of altars-- rectangular
and cubic-- which correspond to the two forms of heads-- elongated and round. The colossal heads
also (with the exception of two) have flat-backed heads, which seems to be the result of altars’
undersides having been left largely unchanged. He supplies a series of images which show altars in
19
​Haslip-Viera,
Barbour, and Ortiz de Montellano, “Robbing Native American Cultures: Van
Sertima’s Afrocentricity and the Olmecs,” 431.

10
declining degrees of preservation (Fig. 12). The first image is of La Venta ​Altar 4​, discussed in detail
previously, which is typically referenced as the most well-preserved monument of its type. Viewed
alongside the eroded La Venta ​Altar 5, t​ he more severely eroded San Lorenzo ​Monument 20, a​ nd
intact San Lorenzo ​Colossal Head 2, t​ here is compelling visual evidence to consider this possibility.
If his theory is correct, Porter’s lens of cultural origin (directed toward transformed significance of
blocks of stone) has interesting implications. The ratio of altars to colossal heads at excavation sites
would shed light on the leadership of Olmec communities. Since the “altars” were most likely used
as thrones, a larger number of altars than colossal heads might suggest the endurance of lines of
leadership. Alternatively, multiple altars might suggest plural leadership.
In ​Olmec Altars and Myths, ​David Grove uses a lens of cultural origin toward a different end.
He refers to the poor preservation of Olmec sculpture as “mutilation… heads were broken off statues,
bas-relief carvings were wholly or partially disfigured, and the colossal stone heads for which the
Olmec are so famous were defaced.”​20​ The extensive damage sustained by so many colossal heads
goes unexplained by Porter, and so could very-well could be the result of defacement as Grove
suggests, but what of the altars? Did some “social situation” really bring “in its wake a
political-religious revolution”?​21​ Without mention of other possibilities, he dives into the
iconographic significance of the best-preserved examples of Olmec altars. Grove’s lens of research
depends on the validity of the Olmec’s cultural legacy, and status as a Mother Culture. His
iconographic interpretations are shaped by later Mesoamerican traditions which benefit from textual
or oratory context. For instance, Grove supports the possibility that the humanoid infant of ​Altar 4​ is
a were-jaguar with the Paez creation myth of intercourse between a woman and jaguar. He also cites
Pre-Columbian codices’ convention of using an earth monster or jaguar maw as the entrance of a
cave. Thus, he interprets thrones like La Venta ​Altar 4 a​ s references to underworld creation myths​22​.
Silvia Trejo’s paper ​La Imagen del Guerrero Victorioso en Mesoamérica t​ akes a similar
approach toward interpretation of the altar' s iconography. Like Grove, Trejo projects contemporary,
textually documented Mesoamerican mythology onto earlier civilizations’ works of art. Her paper
champions the notion of an enduring pan-Mesoamerican depiction of the victorious warrior: “In
Mexican antiquity, the image of the victorious warrior belongs to a mythological order based on

20
​Grove,
“Olmec Altars and Myths,” 131.
21
​Grove,
131.
22
​Grove, 134.

11
pan-Mesoamerican visual canons and revelations which are a testimony of the continuity and
homogeneity of this great civilization..."​23​ In line with her conviction towards this notion of
continuity and homogeneity, she quotes an excerpt from the ​Florentine Codex i​ n relation to La Venta
Altar 5. I​ n the passage, a midwife speaks to a newborn as she performs a sacred ceremony:

From the middle of you, I cut your belly button; know yourself and understand that
where you were born is not your home, because you are a soldier and a servant: you
​ this house where you were born is but a nest, it is where
are a bird called ​Quecholli…
you have arrived, it is your exit from this world; here you sprout and you flourish,
here you move away from your mother, like a piece of stone where it is cut… your
own land is another… the field where wars are fought, where battles wage...your duty
is to drink the blood of enemies…​24

Trejo argues that ​Altar 5​ (Fig. 13) may depict an infant’s rite of passage, in which they are
assured of their destiny to become a warrior. Throughout her paper, she points toward
prevailing depictions of warriors as Eagles and Jaguars (such as relief sculptures of Jaguar
and Eagle Warriors at both Tula (Fig. 14) and Tenochtitlan (Fig. 15). She offers that the
feline qualities of the infant might suggest his status as an emerging warrior (one forged in,
and literally emerging from, a cave). One might also consider Grove’s “reconstructed”
drawing of ​Altar 4,​ which shows the adult figure as wearing an eagle headdress (Fig. 16).
Perhaps he is an elder warrior who performs the rite of passage on the newborn. Trejo further
supports this interpretation by highlighting the proper right side ​Altar 4​, which has often been
read as depicting a rope-bound captive of war. However, the proposed captive scene in ​Altar
4 s​ eems distant from ​Altar 5’s​ rite of passage scene. What could be the relationship between
two such moments, other than both relating to war?

C. Corporal and Material Origin

La Venta’s ​Altar 4​ has also been considered through lenses of corporal and material origin.
The book ​The Place of Stone Monuments ​captures this material lens well. The use of this lens is
acknowledged in the book's introduction, in which the authors explain that they “did not consider
stone monuments as ends in themselves but rather as aids to understanding how Mesoamerican

23
​Trejo,
“La imagen del guerrero victorioso en Mesoamérica,” 232.
24
​Trejo,
237. (Excerpt from: Sahagún, Libro sexto, capítulo XXXI, 1946, tomo I, p. 601).
Translated and abbreviated by author.

12
civilization grew and spread.”​25​ Their work pays special attention to the site of La Venta, which they
note has been studied extensively thanks to its lush corpus of stone monuments. They also point out
that most of these studies have approached monuments’ meaning as isolated works, apart from their
spatial and material context. Amending this gap, they compare the altars of La Venta to one another,
considering relative scale, theme, and location. Using this method, they conclude that “the theme of a
single single individual emerging from the niche carried more significance than the theme of an
individual holding an infant.”​26
But ​signifiers​ of physical elements, in addition to actual physical properties, may help to
​ his method can be considered a corporal lens of origin. This
trace meaning in works like ​Altar 4. T
lens seems to be used less frequently than those previously discussed, since the bodies of figures at
La Venta are typically attributed to mythology, spirituality, and cultural values. Carolyn Tate
postulates that these interpretations relate to the “anatomically impossible” bodies within Olmec art.
Reconsidering Olmec Visual Culture: The Unborn, Women, and Creation ​proposes an alternative to
“the tendency exhibited by scholars to to see Olmec images as fantastic creatures, monsters, and
deities-- in other words, as alteralities instead of images based on ancient empirical evidence of
human life”​27​ Her focus is directed towards the subjects most overlooked, women and the unborn,
whose incorporation “into the fabric of Formative period sites is to break with the orthodox view and
to recast to sites as places for rituals of protection and healing, as well as centers of economic
activity”​28​ While she does recognize that the majority of figural sculpture at Olmec sites portrays
male bodies, she points out that much of the iconography surrounding those figures could be read as
​ ate
female sex organs, umbilical cords, birth rites, and fetuses. In regards to La Venta ​Altar 4, T
reimagines the lower rope as an umbilical cord and the niche cave as a womb. In La Venta ​Altar 5
(Fig. 15), she perceives the “were-jaguar” infant to actually suggest the facial features of a fetus.
Peter Furst takes a similar approach in his paper ​Jaguar Baby or Toad mother: a New Look at
​ is paper’s argument is much more abbreviated than Tate’s,
An Old Problem in Olmec Iconography. H
and he spends less time discussing the broader social implications of its theory. Like Tate, he
preferences anatomical interpretations over spiritual ones (which-- as discussed in the Cultural Origin

25
Clark, and Arroyo, ​The Place of Stone Monuments;​ Tate, ​Reconsidering Olmec
​Guernsey,
Visual Culture, x​ vii.
26
​Guernsey, Clark, and Arroyo, 145.
27
Tate, ​Reconsidering Olmec Visual Culture​, xiii.
28
Tate, xiv.

13
section of this paper-- depend upon the supposed continuity of spirituality and iconographic
convention in Mesoamerica). Instead, he supports his iconographic interpretation both through
references to later Mesoamerican cosmologies, and through consideration of natural history. Furst’s
main focus of reinterpretation is the “were-jaguar” motif (as attributed to the Las Limas ​Monument 1,
La Venta ​Altar 5, a​ nd the ​Kunz Axe, t​ o name a few):
What has for so long appeared to us as a “were-jaguar baby-face,” is, I suggest, an
anthropomorphically conceived toad with jaguar characteristics. It is, in short, a
classic example of transformation and mediation between contrasting but
complementary beings, environments, and, by extension, cosmic realms.​29

He supports his view with metaphorical/cosmological context, as above, and with comparison of
“jaguar” and “infant” features to those of toads. For instance, the cleft (Fig. 17 ) often seen in the
were-jaguar motif has no ​certain​ connection to feline anatomy. It could just as well represent the
newborn’s open fontanelle, or the indented brow of male jaguars​30​. And, in line with his
cosmological interpretation of the toad, it could also represent this toad’s clefted head. Furst points
out that page 24 of the Codex Vienna illustrates the portal between the earth and underworld as a
V-shaped cleft (Fig. 18)​31​. The same V-motif, notably, was specifically associated with women and
the female divine in Pre-Columbian mesoamerica. The ​quechquemitl ​garment​, ​as appears in the
Codex Vienna, is exclusively worn by feminine deities (especially those associated with fertility, for
example 9 Reed (Fig. 19) and 1 Eagle), and a few select noble women. Today, the quechquemitl is
still worn by Indigenous women for special occasions (Fig. 20), and is used as a Nahuat euphemism
for the vulva.​32

V. Conclusion
The absence of any decipherable writing system in extant Olmec monuments makes it
difficult to interpret those monuments’ meaning. Art historians, then, necessarily interpret Olmec
works with a great deal of conjecture. If meaning is to be gathered from Olmec monuments, it must
be found through analysis of iconography, spatial context, and forensic data. The absence of any

29
​Furst, “Jaguar Baby or Toad Mother: A New Look at an Old Problem in Olmec Iconography,”
150.
30
​Furst, 149.
31
​Furst, 152.
32
​Furst, 156.

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linguistic context for Olmec history and culture civilization lends itself to an endless cycle of debate
and speculation. The original meaning(s) of Olmec monuments like ​Altar 4 ​at La Venta will always
be speculated, owing to the absence of decipherable glyphs and the likelihood that these monuments,
even within the Olmec timeline, had plastic, evolving significance to their viewers. In the papers
discussed, it is evidenced that the liberty with which authors can, and in instances must, take creative
discretion in the interpretation of Olmec works lends itself to entanglement with modern
perspectives. Tate raises the issue of women’s erasure from Olmec visual narratives. ​Robbing Native
American Cultures p​ oints out the historical erasure of Native Americans’ artistic legacy. In the case
of these two works, use of an origin lens enables the author to advocate not only against
mis/underrepresentation in Olmec art history, but also in later Mesoamerican art histories. The origin
lens which Olmec scholars so often employ can be a powerful tool in proposing revised
methodologies, however, Pre-Columbian scholarship would benefit from a more conscious
application of supposed “Mother Culture.”

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