The installation, Sensing the past of Peru, was co-created by Pete Richardson, Nasreen Bawa, Lauren Todd, Lou Robinson, Fiona W., Elizabeth, and others, and facilitated by the fantastic museum team.
Transcript:
Sensing the past of Peru
This 1400 year old pot was made by the Moche people, who lived on the north coast of Peru. The pot is fairly weighty, with a pleasant, warm texture and a flat bottom. The lower part of the pot is a red, terracotta colour and is shaped like two smooth, round grapefruit, joined together with an even smoother bridge of pottery. From the top of one of the grapefruit, a bird’s head has been made, the beak slightly open, making a hole into the body of the pot. This side of the pot is made to look like a macaw, a type of parrot that lives in the Amazonian rainforest, far across the Andes mountains from where the Moche lived. The wings of the macaw have been painted round the belly of the pot, joining at the back behind its head. The eyes and beak are also painted in white to make them stand out.
From the back of the macaw’s head, and the top of the other grapefruit, pottery tubes have been made; they join together into one tube that sticks up. The top of this is the only other hole on the pot, and it’s quite narrow, about the size of a finger, and not very even at the edge. If you hold the pot by these tubes it’s unbalanced and very awkward to hold, not like a handle. The pot doesn’t seem to be made for pouring out of – the hole in the macaw’s beak is not in the right place and there’s no lip to guide liquid out.
This pot was cleverly made by the Moche to make a sound. Liquids, maybe water or the local maize drink chicha, could be poured into the hole in the top of the pot. When the pot is rocked backwards and forwards, the liquid moves between the two round grapefruit sections, forcing air our through the macaw’s beak, making a whistling sound.
In the film, curator Jimena poured about a drink’s can of water into the top tube, then she slowly tips the pot backwards and forwards to move the water first into one side of the pot, and then the other. Eventually it makes a sharp whistling sound, and Jimena gets the pot to make a lot of different sounds.
In the film, the pot sits in a plastic tray while Jimena pours the water in. She cups her hands round the bottom of the pot to pick it up, then rocks the pot one way and then the other, it doesn’t make any sound, so she stops to add more water. She tips it forward, then back, forward then back. It doesn’t make any noise to start with, so she rolls it round, tipping the head of the macaw down, then up, then gently moving the pot backwards and forwards. After it plays the first whistle, she tips it back again, and the water moves inside the pot, almost sounding like the pot is breathing in. She sweeps the pot up in the air and then back, up and back, swaying it to make a range of notes. The sound this pot makes is like the squawk of a macaw. The Moche made other pots in the shape of different animals, like birds, monkeys and jaguars, the sound that each pot made would be like the call of that animal.
Archaeologists think that pots like this one were probably used during ceremonies, festivities, and as funerary offerings in burials. The sound was a way to connect with the ancestors or other beings. As the dead person travelled to the other world they would take on the abilities and skills of the animals represented on the pot, like this macaw.
Intervention Design and Project Management: Barker Langham
Build: Reeves and Bond