Monkey Maskette

Along with carving life-size jade masks, the Olmec also fashioned miniature masks worn as items of jewelry. Although this item was previously identified as Maya (Benson 1963:no. 63; Bliss 1957:no. 111), both the stone and the carving technique suggest an Olmec piece. Rather than the bright apple-green color common to Classic Maya jades, this maskette is of translucent olive-green jadeite, its stone closely resembling the thin jadeite celt plaque in PC.B.031. This particular jadeite material could well derive from the region of Carrizal Grande, on the south side of the Río Motagua in eastern Guatemala. The monkey head closely resembles a miniature mask, complete with eye orbits and a hollowed back. The pair of perforations near the upper portion of the head correspond to a mask’s suspension holes. Rather than serving as a mask for a statuette, however, this object was probably a pendant. As in the case of the fat god maskette (PC.B.551), the hollowed back both alludes to a miniature mask and improves the translucency of the stone. The lower proper left ear has suffered some damage, resulting in much of the earlobe being destroyed.

Along with the form and quality of the jade being characteristic of the Olmec, this pendant exhibits the widespread use of carving with solid-core drills, another common trait of Olmec jade work. The sunken eye orbits, nostrils, cheeks, and hollowed back were all expertly carved by drilling, and the nostril holes biconically pierce the nasal septum, a common trait of Olmec carvings in precious stone. Pairs of holes also pierce the earlobes and the top of the mask—these were drilled primarily from the back of the mask, with only minute holes visible on the front.

Similar jadeite maskettes were discovered in Offerings 5, 6, and 7 during the 1955 excavations at La Venta (Drucker, Heizer, and Squier 1959:fig. 43, pls. 37–40). As with this monkey-head pendant, three of the four La Venta masks have deeply hollowed backs that have been interpreted as a means to enhance the translucency of the carvings (Drucker, Heizer, and Squier 1959:164, 169, 172). Moreover, much of the drilling used to perforate the maskettes was done from the back, with relatively small holes in the front. The back of the largest of these maskettes, from Offering 7, seems to have been hollowed with a massive solid-core drill, recalling the regular and smoothly hollowed back of PC.B.166 (Drucker, Heizer, and Squier 1959:163, 172).

The distinctive central brow crest marks PC.B.166 as the head of a spider monkey as commonly depicted in Olmec art (Easby and Scott 1970:no. 47; Fuente 1977a:figs. 39, 40). A full-figure Olmec monkey pendant rendered in blue-green jade also is known (Easby and Scott 1970:no. 47). Aside from that example, there is a seated monkey pendant of celadon-green jade (Gay 1995:no. 109). Although not of typical Olmec jade, its workmanship and style suggest it is Olmec. A similar, albeit more schematic, greenstone full-figure monkey pendant was excavated at Chalcatzingo (Thomson 1987:fig. 176). Similarly seated monkey pendants have also been found at earlier Ocos-phase Mokaya sites (1250–1100 BCE); these are among the earliest known Mesoamerican effigy pendants (Clark 1991:fig. 7).

The wide open eyes and sunken cheeks of PC.B.166 convey a highly animated and almost mischievous quality, which is emphasized by the curiously asymmetric nostrils. In view of their spirited antics, it is hardly surprising that monkeys were widely regarded as amusing and mischievous beings in ancient Mesoamerica. In both ancient and contemporary Mesoamerica, the spider monkey is identified with music, dance, clowning, and sexuality (Seler 1902–1923:4:456–459; Taube 1989b). Elizabeth Kennedy Easby and John F. Scott note two instances where spider monkeys appear to be depicted with a certain degree of humor in Formative-period art. The Olmec full-figure blue-green jadeite pendant depicts a potbellied monkey in a hanging position with its forearms stretched far above its head (Easby and Scott 1970:no. 47). An Early Formative Las Bocas effigy bottle of a partly crouching monkey with a puckish face and possibly holding a blowgun constitutes the second example.

An Exhibition of Pre-Columbian Art, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, January–March 1940

Ancient American Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, April–June 1942, M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California, July–August 1942, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Oregon, September–October 1942

Indigenous Art of the Americas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1960–1962