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Sacred Trees, Cruel King and Man-God: A Mad Food Journey into the Jungle
What does the moktsuma bonnet symbolize, how is sensuality served to the table, how did the trees rise to such a height and how does it all relate to the lunch of us all?
A new exhibition at the Israel Museum cooks everything into one fascinating bite
Tags
jungle
Maya
Tribes
Amazon
South America
Yaniv Granot
Saturday, July 31, 2021, 6 p.m.
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It can be assumed with a very high level of certainty that you too - like us and like the overwhelming majority of the world population - have been slightly grounded in the last year and a half.
As a result, you can also assume that the closest you came to the exciting jungles of the American continent during these months was through the mediation of Netflix.
To the delicious Instagram page of Walla!
Food
can also be assumed, and it is already at an almost absolute level of certainty, that the two things that occupy you the most these days are food and air conditioning.
And if you can add to this coupling a few violent stories (but ones that really were), ancient and grandiose temples, sacred rituals and practices that combine a royal bonnet, trees with a special status and gods from the underworld - what good.
In fact, this is exactly what is happening now at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
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From the exhibition "The God of Corn and the Lords of Cocoa and Magic" at the Israel Museum (Photo: Eli Posner)
The exhibition "The God of Corn and the Lords of Cocoa and Maggie: From Ancient American Cultures to Contemporary Art" attempts to mediate to the Israeli audience the same ancient American cultures that existed in the areas where Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and the northern part of Honduras are today.
It begins with the entrance of Wow in the form of a restored 4.5-meter-high Maya temple, continues with giant masks, original sculptures and constantly weaves stories about a wondrous world of ancient and mysterious cultures that have almost become extinct.
"I've been researching these cultures for a long time, and this particular exhibit is my master," said Yvonne Plaitman, senior curator of American continental art at the museum. "It's not just food, it's a symbol."
"Cultural Market".
The exhibition at the Israel Museum
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"A king who puts himself and becomes a god while exploiting the power of food. It is a manipulation of symbols, and what symbol is more important than food?"
Plaitman, 62, was born in Uruguay, immigrated to Israel in 1977 and has not stopped returning (more than 50 times, but she has already stopped counting) to her native continent, including with groups she guides there. "The first time I was in Mexico I was captivated. I got there and got a cultural market, there is no other word to describe it, and it happens to a lot of people who come there."
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it depicts a Mexican tourist powerhouse ("Peru is a bit in Delhi, but it gets there") based on the beaches of course, but also on the rich pyramids and jungles. So are her neighbors. "You reach Peru or Ecuador, at an altitude of 4,300 meters, and the jungle climbs to that height because it's the equator. Snow on one side and jungle on the other. It only happens here."
The power of this vast nature is described in Playtman's eyes - and in the exhibition itself - as a mechanism that enabled life, but also established a forceful mechanism and sometimes full of dark powers.
"Almost everything here is fantastic, but not everything is positive. The aristocracy wanted to put itself on top. There was a surplus of crops, and the surplus they became a sacred thing - a king who puts himself and becomes a god while exploiting the power of food. It is a manipulation of symbols, And what symbol is more important than food? "
Imagine a world without chocolate.
Plaitman (Photo: Ofrit Rosenbar Ben-Menachem)
"I do not exaggerate or tell stories. Things are fascinating enough and should not be wrapped in nonsense
Playman automatically connects food and culture ("You can't separate, a trip without taste is not a trip"), and sails away on winding journeys that involve cowboy and Indian battles from Hollywood Westerns, gods from the underworld, a bonnet of Moktsuma and a plant that dances sensually.
"This is not mythology for the sake of mythology," she clarifies immediately, "I do not exaggerate or tell stories. Things are fascinating enough and should not be wrapped in nonsense."
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Apart from the spirit and character of Plaitman, the exhibition reveals unique treasures of the Olmec, Mayan and Aztec cultures, the first to domesticate corn, cocoa and magai crops (a type of agave). They gave birth to the chocolate, tequila and countless corn products that wash us now ("Open a refrigerator, half of the things you see there came from America, and chances are you haven't eaten corn at least seven times today"), and built on them legends that are common in the area to this day.
"How can you imagine a world without chocolate? Come on," Fleitman wonders, "and corn? Today it is the thing that rules the whole world, and has also brought enormous corruption there. Even in Mexico it is easier today to buy corn from outside and consume industrialized food."
To the corn
A small mask of the corn god whose forehead is split (Photo: Eli Posner)
The little mask of the corn god served as a chest pendant.
On the forehead one can see the crack formed with the germination of the corn seed, by means of two shells covering the lower part of the leaves.
The outer bark will fall off and new leaves will grow beneath it.
Olympic culture, Veracruz or Tabasco, Mexico.
600-900 BC.
Jade stone.
Gift from Dr. Daniel Solomon and his wife, Los Angeles
The great sun visor
Portrait of Kinich Janab Pakal I (Photo: Eli Posner)
This realistic portrait of King Pacal I describes it as the corn. In his hand he holds the royal scepter shaped like a two-headed snake, and on his head rests a bird of prey mask surrounded by a crown assembled in reality from the feathers of the cattail bird. The king's name is decorated with pottery on both sides of his figure depicted in its entirety.
Pacal, who embodies the ideal of masculine beauty, asked that corn be his clear representation, wears large earrings in his ears and a large giant on his chest and wears lavish clothes - all made of jade, which shows that his supremacy as king stems from the renewal of nature. Its elongated skull, already shaped from infancy, is typical of the head-shaved corn god in Mayan culture.
The first pakal is best known for its exceptional longevity relative to life expectancy in its time. He ascended the throne at the age of 12 and ruled for 68 years. The Burial Pyramid built in his honor is the most impressive memorial erected to a single ruler in all of ancient America.
Mayan culture, Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico.
683-615 AD.
Pottery and paint.
Gift of Arnold Marmont and his wife, Chicago
A ruler with an ax-like genitals
Ruler with a ceremonial ax-like genitalia (Photo: Eli Posner)
The ceremonial ax in the groin area, whose flame is directed upwards and is part of the groin area, represents the penis and reproduction.
The Olmecs believed that their rulers were directly and uniquely connected to the ancestors and gods, and that it was thanks to them that corn grew.
Olmec culture.
Mexico 600-900 BC.
Jade stone.
Gift of Ruth and Leon Davidoff, through the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City
The temple or temple of El or Cohen is decorated with the heads of a bird
The head of a locomotive is decorated with the heads of the cattail bird and three butterflies (Photo: Eli Posner)
The locomotive is shaped like a temple and inside it is the god or the priest.
At the top of the temple are three tassels of cattail feathers and on its sides the bird heads.
In the center, above the figure's head, are three butterflies.
The many circles appear to have been inlaid with shiny pyrite stone and served as a kind of "divination mirrors."
Tautiwaken Culture, Mexico.
600-450 AD.
Pottery and paint.
An anonymous donor
Cohen at the bloodshed ceremony
A grunt in the form of Cohen and in his arms Magi thorns, part of the bloodshed ceremony (Photo: Eli Posner)
Vercross Culture, Mexico.
600-900 AD.
Pottery and paint.
A gift from Arnold Marmont and his wife, Chicago, to friends of the Israel Museum in the United States
To the corn and the prince of flowers
A pipe in the shape of Santotal-Sochipili, the god of corn and the prince of flowers (Photo: Eli Posner)
To the corn and the flower prince was also the patron saint of music and love and the symbol of summer.
The crest of its head is made of the feathers of the tropical cattail that first chirps at dawn.
Aztec culture, Puebla, Mexico.
1400-1200 AD.
Pottery and paint.
Gift of Arnold Marmont and his wife, Chicago
A noble head played as corn
A noble head played as the corn (Photo: Eli Posner)
Mayan Culture, Chiapas, Mexico.
600-850 AD.
Ugly plaster and paint.
A gift from the Marine Gallery, New York, to
friends of the Israel Museum in the United States
A vessel decorated with monkeys eats cocoa pods
A vessel decorated with monkeys eats cocoa pods (Photo: Eli Posner)
Monkeys were a symbol of renewal and fertility in Mayan culture.
Here they are seen eating the cocoa fruits and scattering their seeds, as is their habit in the jungle.
Mayan culture.
900-600 AD.
Estate of Benjamin Weiss, New York, to the Friends of the Israel Museum in the United States
A multi-sensory tool for drinking cocoa
A multi-sensory tool for drinking cocoa (Photo: Eli Posner)
The special tool activates all the senses - taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing.
The hollow vessel legs used to place pebbles so that it would make a noise like a rattle when it was shaken.
A basket full of cocoa pods is depicted on his body.
Mayan Culture, Petan Center, Guatemala.
50 BC -200 AD.
Pottery and paint.
Ames Partners Gift, New York
It's been three years since Plaitman toured America, and when I ask her if she misses, she almost laughs.
Meanwhile, she walks around the fascinating spaces of the exhibition, and takes solace in her home.
"Every time I go out to my garden and smell wet soil after rain, I remember. I grow a Mayan tree there, and the kids call my garden Jurassic Park. When I go out and smell the smell of the soil and plants, I think straight of the jungle."
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