“Ix Mutal Ahaw” Stela – De Young Museum SF

The stela of the lady Ix Mutal Ahaw is an impressive and rare example of Mayan art from the mid eighth century. A visual examination and analysis of the work can tell us more about the iconography of female Mayans of rank and privilege and their interaction with the divine. The stela is a carved limestone relief sculpture; it is 82 inches high and 42 inches wide. A formal analysis of this piece can be useful, because the civilization from which this piece has come has fallen and exploration of this piece of art can give us insights into both iconology as well as a glimpse at the role of a lady of rank as she engaged in a sacred rite. This is a piece of both political and religious significance. The various visual elements of the work are tightly arranged. There is very little negative space on the stela, but the small amounts of negative space are interesting. It is a well designed masterpiece
The stela depicts a charismatic female personage in a beaded dress, belted by a Xoc mask. Her body is depicted frontally, and she turns her face to the viewer’s left. She holds in her arms a large ceremonial bar through which a Vision Serpent passes. From the serpent’s mouth emerges the head an shoulders of K’awil, a principal Mayan deity. (Berrin, p. 7)
The lady is in profile and has a snake wrapping around her body four times. The carvings of her clothing and the snake are extremely elaborate. She is wearing a headdress with large plumes. The snake’s mouth is wide open, displaying large fangs as the deity passes from his mouth above the woman’s head There are four sets of glyphs on the piece as well.
K’awil is the the god of sustenance. K’awil is associated with royal power, which originates with the gods. The founder of the Maya culture. He brought maize and cacao and taught writing, healing, and the use of calendars. As the bringer of culture he became the state-god of the Mayan empire. As the moon-god he rules over the night. Also called 'God D' his title is 'lord of knowledge'. He is a son of Hunab Ku and with Ixchel he is the father of the Bacabs. He is related to the snake and the mussel. (http://www.mayankids.com/mmkbeliefs/gods.htm)
The artist was clearly a master. It would also be interesting to have seen the colors that this stela would have originally been painted. While this piece clearly fits with the stylistic devices other Late Classic Mayan stelae from the lowlands of Guatemala and southern Mexico, This piece is unique. Its main figure is a single woman. It is shows her strong connection with the world of the gods. She is standing instead of kneeling like the women in many other Mayan artworks. Stela such as this were made as to honor political personages of importance. It is rare to see a piece with such striking iconography. The snake is especially well designed. IT is unclear what the symbolic meaning of the snake encircling Ix Mutal Ahaw’s body four times is. It is clear to me that with Mayan cosmology emphasis on sacred numbers that this would also be important. This is a place in which our lack of knowledge about the culture decreases our ability to correctly interpret the art. Other artists clearly used the same limestone to create stelae with similar techniques and stylistic choices during the Late Classic period (600 AD-800 AD). It is purely the imagery itself that sets this piece off from others as unique.
It is unknown exactly who would have commissioned this particular stela. It is likely that the stela was created to honor the lady whose image is upon it. Ix Mutal Ahaw translates as "lady king of Mutal" (Boot, 59) . Mutal was the kingdom that included Tikal as well Dos Pilas. However, it is unlikely that this piece ever was in the kingdom of Mutal, because nobility rarely referenced place names if the art was in the place from whence they are from. The art historians from the De Young have theorized that this lady was given as a bride to a ruler of another nearby Mayan kingdom and he honored her by having this stela made. (http://www.famsf.org/files/collectionicons/index1.html). There are two dates on the stela. They are March 13, 760 AD and August 10, 761 AD. (Berrin, p. 7). The second is thought to be the date of dedication of the stela. The second date has a glyph next to it that translates as “he stacked wood.” This glyph is assumed by De Young historians to be a metaphor for tribute giving or taking captives. (http://www.famsf.org/files/collectionicons/index1.html) . The other glyphs on the piece translate as “At the halfway period of the k’atun” “was erected” “her stone” “Ix Mutal Ahaw” there is then an unintelligible continuation of the Queen’s name “he supervised it.” (http://www.famsf.org/files/collectionicons/index1.html).
The piece expresses feeling of awe and wonder. Its elaborate carving and supernatural imagery clearly had such intent. The expressive content of the piece causes one to realize that the woman on the carving was held in some respect, and held religious and political power among her people. As a feminist, I must say that it is intriguing to find a female figure from 760 AD depicted with such force of presence. It certainly was unheard of in Europe at this time with the exception of the Virgin Mary.
It is unknown where this stela was originally located. It was stolen by looters at some point, cut into smaller pieces, smuggled into the US and offered to the De Young for acquisition in 1999. The De Young contacted the Governments of Guatemala and Mexico before purchasing the piece. No Mayan art historians have been able to determine the exact location of the stela before it was removed from the jungles of south Mexico/Guatemala/Belize. It is unknown if it was part of a temple complex, or whether it was a solitary stela. Guatemalan art historians believed that this piece originated in Mexico while Mexican art historians believe that the piece is from Guatemala (Berrin, p. 6-8).
This piece has intense historic and political significance that we cannot fathom at today. Because of our lack of knowledge about the particular woman pictured as well as exactly what was happening in Mayan society between the years 760-761 AD it is difficult for us to get an exact reading of what the significance of this piece was at the time of its creation and installation. While Berrin (1999) theorized that the Vision Serpent had appeared to the Queen as the result of a bloodletting ritual, there is no such ritual pictured on the stela or alluded to in the glyphs. It is possible that Ix Mutal Ahaw was a Queen but also a very spiritual woman that engaged in sacred rituals that we have no knowledge about today. Beyond the bloodletting rituals, modern anthropologists and art historians have very little knowledge about the sacred women’s mysteries that certainly took place under the Late Classic period of the Maya.







Sources:
Berrin, Kathleen ( Autumn 1999) “Fine Arts Museums Acquire Mayan Stela:
Collaboration with Guatemala and Mexico Sets New Standards for Museums. FINE ARTS: M.H. DE YOUNG MEMORIAL MUSEUM CALIFORNIA PALACE OF THE LEGION OF HONOR, p.6-9 article was originally published in PreColumbian Art Research Institute Newsletter, no. 28, June 1, 1999.

Boot, Erik (2002) A PREL IMINARY CLASSIC MAYA - ENGLISH / ENGLISH –
CLASSIC MAYA VOCABULARY OF HIEROGLYPHIC READINGS Leiden University, the Netherlands Retrieved from http://www.mesoweb.com/resources/vocabulary/Vocabulary.pdf

“Feathered Serpents and More” (2008) Retrieved from
http://www.mayankids.com/mmkbeliefs/gods.htm


“Stela with Queen Ix Mutal Ahaw” (undated) De Young Collection Icons Retrieved from
http://www.famsf.org/files/collectionicons/index1.html

the stela in question

California Native History is MUCH more Gruesome than you learned in 4th Grade

The history of Native California as taught in the public schools and historic sites of the state often glosses over the horrors, genocidal extermination and slavery that was inflicted upon the Native peoples by the Missions, gold miners and other so-called pioneers. The mission system was little better than enforced work camps at best and concentration camps filled with sexual crimes, massacres and abuse at worst. Antonia Castaneda in her "Sexual Violence in the Politics and Policies of Conquest: Amerindian Women and the Spanish Conquest of Alta California," catalogs and critically analyzes both the prior situation of Native Americans in California in relation to rape and other sex crimes (they were unheard of) as well as the unabashed way in which soldiers attached to the mission system went about raping and kidnapping Native American women in proximity to the Missions. By 1776, California Natives were fearful of the Spaniards and routinely hid their wives and daughters from their exploratory expeditions. (p. 19). Although, priests complained about the widespread rapes and sexual assaults they were still part of the system that impressed men in to forced labor and subjugated women. As California transferred from Spanish to Mexican and then American control, the situation for California Natives went through some serious changes. The Californios maintained the systems of enforced labor that had been established under the Spaniards. In Vacaville, at the ruins of the Pena Adobe there is a dilapidated grave yard with a mass grave for Native American workers labeled simply “Unnamed Indians.”

The gold rush and subsequent population boom in California led to a change in tactics and perhaps methodologies. So-called pioneers established Native American slavery as a source of labor and prostitution. “Sutter {of Sutter’s Fort fame} also sold Indians into slavery. The reputable Indian historian Jack Forbes asserts that Sutter’s forces captured Indians from remote villages and then sold them to rancheros in coastal California. This slave trade also included the kidnapping and selling of Indian children. In 1876, at his home in Lititz, Pa., Sutter dictated his reminiscences to the famous California historian and bibliophile Hubert H. Bancroft. Based on the information provided, Bancroft reported that "from the first, [Sutter] was in the habit of seizing Indian children, who were retained as servants, or slaves, at his own establishment, or sent to his friends in different parts of the country[Alta California].” (http://www.historynet.com/john-sutter-and-californias-indians.htm/3) Schoolchildren are often taken to Sutter’s Fort for fieldtrips. The sordid history of the enslavement of children, perhaps their own age, is neglected as the children view historic rooms and dioramas. “More than 4,000 Native children were sold into slavery at prices ranging from $60 for a boy to $200 for a girl” (Chatterjee, p. 11). Girls fetched a higher [rice because they could be used in prostitution which was a more lucrative endeavor than the hard labor that the boys were destined for. “From 1850 until 1863, California Indians could legally be taken and forced to become unpaid servants. Confronting a labor shortage, on 22 April 1850, legislators passed an "Act for the Government and Protection of Indians," which legalized white custody of Indian minors and Indian prisoner leasing. Under the act, children could, with consent of "friends or parents," be held and worked without pay until age fifteen (for females) or eighteen (for males). The act also empowered whites to arrest Indian adults "found loitering and strolling about," or "begging, or leading an immoral or profligate course of life." When a court received a "complaint" along these lines, court officers were required to capture and lease "such vagrant within twenty-four hours to the best bidder." (http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/whq/39.3/madley.html) It is doubtful however that with little to no legal recourse for the Native Californians that white slaveholders felt bound by the four-month limit.

“Over the twenty years of the Gold Rush, the numbers of indigenous people plummeted from 150,000 to 31,000. Most starved to death after being forcibly removed from their ancestral lands and prevented from maintaining their traditional ways of living. Many more died from diseases brought in by the miners, or were killed in a series of massacres organized by local townspeople and by private militias financed by the State of California.” (Ibid) The State paid out a million dollars to private militias in scalping missions which converts to $29,055,735.49 in the year 2008. Even after the Gold Rush itself had ended the slaughter of inconvenient Native peoples continued in California as well as their enslavement. An example of one of these brutal massacres is the “discovery” of Round Valley in Mendocino County. “In May 1854, Frank Asbill and others were traveling through the Coast Range looking for a route from Petaluma to Weaverville, a route that could be used to ship supplies to the gold miners who were now flooding the state. On May 15, while gathering up his horses, Frank Asbill spotted beautiful Round Valley. He gathered up his men and rode into Round Valley where he proceeded to kill 40 Yuki Indians.A bronze plaque has been placed by the state of California to mark the spot where Frank Asbill "discovered" Round Valley. It doesn't mention the massacre that happened later that day. The plaque, spotted with bullet holes, was stolen several years ago. It was eventually recovered from the Alameda County Flea Market, where it was being sold as junk.” (http://revcom.us/a/v19/910-19/917/rndvaly.htm)

The Native peoples of California lived in one of the greatest and most abundant lands on earth. Many lived completely subsistence lives, because there was so much food and game that farming was simply unnecessary. The enslavement, forced Christianization, sexual assaults and military actions of the Spanish Missions began the process of destroying the idyllic life that the Native Californians had possessed. The complete horror of the Gold Rush era completed that destruction. It is no wonder then that many of the Indigenous people now residing in California have come from other tribal groups. The sparcity of reservations in California is staggering when compared to the hundreds of thousands that lived in this area before European Contact. These centuries of slavery, rape and genocide decimated large chunks of the Native population and contributed to California's damaged ecosystems. Many California Native people can trace their family back to children who survived massacres during the 19th century. There was no doubt a large amount of culture, language and religion that was lost forever because of these atrocities.

Sources:

Castaneda, Antonia “Sexual Violence in the Politics and Policies of Conquest: Amerindian Women and the Spanish Conquest of Alta California.” In Building With Our Hands: New Directions in Chicana Studies edited by Adela de la Torre and Beatríz M. Pesquera, 15-33. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Chatterjee, P. (2003). GOLD, GREED & GENOCIDE. News from Native California, 16(3), 10. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

“John Sutter and California’s Indians” Wild West Retrieved from http://www.historynet.com/john-sutter-and-californias-indians.htm/3
Madley, Benjamin. “California's Yuki Indians: Defining Genocide in Native American History” Western Historical Quarterly vol. 39 n. 3 retrieved from http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/whq/39.3/madley.html#REF56

“Native Peoples in Northern California: Bitter Memories at Round Valley”

Revolutionary Worker #917, July 27, 1997 Retrieved from http://revcom.us/a/v19/910-19/917/rndvaly.htm