Curly-Tailed Animal Pendant

Artists in the lands that are now part of the modern nations of Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica created pendants and figures of a hybrid creature known to scholars as the curly-tailed animal. This pendant features four such creatures side by side, their wide tails arching over their backs. The head of each animal has a lightly defined snout or bill, as well a protruding eye. The diversity of zoological attributes present on this and similar pendants precludes a definitive identification of any specific animal, but the capuchin monkey (Cebus capucinis), coatimundi (Nasua narica), or even domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) may have provided inspiration. The four animals on this pendant share six legs. Those in the front have loops, presumably to allow for suspension on a cord, with the snouts facing the wearer.

Gold pendants of one, two, three, four, or six curly-tailed animals are common, and others made from agate are known. They have represented multiple ideas to both their owners and their beholders. A Chiriquí warrior figure in stone (see MMA 1979.206.422) is depicted wearing a pendant almost identical to this one, suggesting that the curly-tailed animals were potent symbols of political power.

James A. Doyle, Assistant Curator, 2018

References and Further Reading
Bray, Warwick. “Cruzando el tapón del Darién: Una visión de la arqueología del istmo desde la perspectiva colombiana.” Boletín del Museo del Oro 29 (1990): 3–51.

Hoopes, John. “Magical Substances in the Land Between the Seas: Luxury Arts in Northern South America and Central America,” in Golden Kingdoms: Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas, Joanne Pillsbury, Timothy Potts, and Kim N. Richter, eds. (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2017), pp. 54-65.

Jones, Julie, and Heidi King. "Gold of the Americas." The Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art vol. 59, no. 4 (Spring 2002), p. 40.

Lothrop, Samuel K. Coclé: An Archaeological Study of Central Panama, Part 1. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 7 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937).

Pillsbury, Joanne, Timothy Potts, and Kim N. Richter, eds. Golden Kingdoms: Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2017. See especially cat. no. 102, p. 195.