Vicus Double Chambered Whistling Vessel, Seated Figure with Hooked Nose

Pre-Columbian, Northern Peru, Vicus. A double chambered whistling vessel of earthenware. The front chamber is modeled as a seated person whose limbs are drawn up and bent, with the arms and legs projecting in lively angles from a squat, cylindrical torso. The face is the focus. A hooked nose juts forward like a beak above an open, pierced mouth, and the eyes are narrow, puffy slits. Perforated spools sit in the ears, and a flat, disc-like cap on the head is ringed with concentric bands. The figure is joined to a plain, domed rear chamber with an open spout by a strap bridge and a lower tubular conduit. Bands of cream slip over a red ground stripe the arms, the bridge, and the rear chamber. Pouring liquid or blowing into the spout forces air through a whistle hidden in the figure, and this one still sounds when blown. Whistling vessels work by moving air from one chamber to the other. When liquid tips between the two linked chambers, or when someone blows into the open spout, air is pushed out through a small whistle built into the effigy chamber, often inside the head. The result is a thin, piping tone. In Andean ceramics the form goes back to the coastal and highland traditions of the first millennium BCE. Vicus potters in the upper Piura region favored it for figures with sharp, exaggerated profiles like this one. What the sound was for is still debated. Suggestions include ritual, music, and imitating birdsong, and the beak-like nose on this figure may hint at a bird connection. This vessel was reportedly exhibited at the David Stuart Art Gallery in Los Angeles, California, in February 1971. Item # 205623

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