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Dumbarton Oaks Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology
A Man and a Feline in Mochica Art
Elizabeth P. Benson

This study seeks to understand the meaning of a turquoise carving of a feline figure crouching behind a human being in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection. Who is the man in this turquoise piece, and what is the significance of the feline? What is the relationship between the feline and the man? Is the feline a predator attacking the man, or a protector standing behind him? Does the object represent a real event, a ceremony, a drug-induced hallucination, or a mythical or supernatural situation, or is it a combination of motifs understood only by the initiated?