Zemi Figure

After reading the discussions for the things in the Reckoning with Mestizaje gallery, I decided that the item that most correctly represents the term mestizaje would be the Zemi figure. A zemi is defined as being a deified ancestor revered in the Caribbean. Zemis were among the first indigenous objects collected by Europeans in the New World and sent back as curiosities. The figures originated in the Caribbean and were even prevalent in the lives of the Native peoples well before the Spanish conquest. When the Spaniards arrived they discouraged the use of zemis for religious purposes, often destroying them. The Spaniards believed that the Zemis prevented the Tainos, a group of Amerindians inhabiting the Caribbean at the time of the Spanish conquest, from converting to Catholicism. Converting all natives to Catholicism was the goal of the reconquest. The Spanish tried their hardest to discontinue the practice of every religion except for Catholicism, and the zemi was seen as a barrier keeping them
from reaching their end goal. Mainly because of the attempts to excavate these figures from the lives of the Natives, the figures’ importance in the history of the Spanish conquest, when the cultural mixing really began, and the materials the figure is comprised of and what the figure represents, is the reason I chose this item as being the best representation of the reckoning with mestizaje theme.
The Zemi is a sculpture, that is said to be 32 cm tall.
It is made of wood, glass, cotton, shell and horn. It was created through weaving and carving techniques of the tainos. The figure is Janus-faced, meaning it has two faces. One of its faces resembles a human face which is made of rhinoceros horn from Africa, while the other resembles a skull or a bat. Both sides of the figure are wearing large mirror earrings made of Venetian glass from Europe and a headdress and costume made of pink and white Native Caribbean shell beads set in interlocking patterns. The side with human face has a set of eyes, a nose and a mouth carved into the rhinoceros horn. The side whose face depicts a skull or a bat has orange and green beads encircling its eyes and orange and white beads forming the holes for its nose and mouth. The sleeves on both sides of the costume are made with blue beads. The bottom piece of the zemi is said to be detachable and may have been worn as a belt at one
time.
The diversity of the materials that were used to make this figure a perfect visual representation of mestizaje. The only way for the Taino who built this sculpture to retrieve these materieals would be through the social interaction between the ethnicities and cultures.The website explains that, “the experience of cultural interchange among peoples of different ethnicities is [the] embodied in this object.” The importance of this object and the Taino’s ability to incorporate the items from the different cultures and ethnicities and create something so visually pleasing and important to their history indirectly represents the importance of the mestizaje in latin America and the incredible things that transpired or were created as a result.