SHAMAN'S STAFF animated by an ANTHROPOMORPHIC COUPLE
Emberá Culture, Chocó, Northwest Colombia
Around 1900
Drink
Height: 73.5 cm; Width: 4.5 cm

This wooden staff with a red patina features two anthropomorphic figures in the round: a female and a male figure standing back to back. Their faces have brow ridges that meet in a short nasal bridge, reminiscent of a stylized heart motif. The dual representation of man and woman echoes the shaman.

The shaman's staff of the Emberá culture is an object imbued with a particular power. Indeed, according to anthropologist Erland Nordenskiöld, charged with benevolent spirits, these staffs "help the medicine man to drive out demons."
The "medicine man" thus named refers to the jaïbaná: the shaman among the Emberá Indians.

This individual – who could be a man or a woman – assumed a primary role in society: he was at once the healer, the healer, but also the intermediary, the physical link between man and spirituality, between the visible world and the invisible world.
He alone had access to the jai, the spirits.

Tradition dictated that the aspiring shaman, trained by an elder, would carve his first staff himself. Upon attaining the status of jaibaná, he would be given a second staff. A shaman could thus accumulate a large number of staffs throughout his life.

The historian Mircea Eliade recounts three introductory events for a man to become a shaman. First, he had to have a calling, a deep-seated inclination. Second, the initiate had to inherit the shamanic tradition from a parent who had already been a shaman. Finally, he had to be chosen by the clan. Once these three conditions were met, the future jaibaná would embark on an initiatory journey during which he was taught secret languages, mythology, ecstasy, dreams, and oneiric states.

Ref.: 6758

Text and photos © FCP CORIDON