Moche Crawling Feline facts for kids
The Moche Crawling Feline is a specific stirrup spout vessel dating from 100—800 CE. This Moche ceramic effigy is currently in the collection of Larco Museum, in Lima, Peru. It comes from the North Coast of Peru. It represents a zoomorphic character: a lunar dog, or a crawling feline.
Background
In the Northern cultures of Peru, ceramic is the main support to pass on the religious concepts, and was used for the principal funerary, sacrificial and fertility rituals. This type of piece was found in the funerary context of a Moche ruler and was one of the most important ways to honour him and to accompany him in his journey to the underworld.
Pre-Columbian societies were agricultural societies, their knowledge was therefore principally based on the observation of the sky (of the stars, the rain, the climate changes …), of the earth (for the agriculture), and of the subterranean world (for the medicinal plants and roots). Their way of thinking the world was therefore organized according to those three levels of the world. They adored the animals that represented those three levels: the bird for the sky and the upper world, the world of the gods, the feline for the earth and the world of here, the human world, and the reptiles (that are snakes most of the time) for the subterranean world, the underworld, the world of death.
Pre-Columbian societies were the masters of ceramic; they reached an exceptional level of sculptural quality. This comes from a precise and patient observation of nature and of their environment and from the methodic study of animals and their morphology.
The high level of their sculptural and pictorial techniques in their ceramics allowed them to increase the details in the representation of their religious subjects. The feline was one of the most important symbolic religious animals. It appears a lot in the Northern cultures and it became a major source of inspiration for Peruvian artists. It is a strong and brave animal, and it is linked to fertility and water, as it comes from the wet and fertile Amazonian grounds.
