A UNM student's discovery that hundreds of ancient pottery relics found in northern Mexico depict journeys from the natural to the spirit world has landed her in this month's issue of a national archeological magazine.
Christine VanPool, an anthropology doctoral candidate, did the study as part of her dissertation. It focuses on her six years of research in the Casas Grandes Region, which extends from southern New Mexico and Arizona, but is mostly concentrated in the northwestern part of Chihuahua, Mexico.
The portion of the study used for the cover article "Flight of the Shaman" in the January 2002 issue of Archaeology magazine, a national publication aimed at amateur and professional archeologists, focuses on the ancient practice of shamanism. Patterns of travel from human to spiritual form emerged, VanPool said, as she examined stacks of photographs and samples of tobacco smoking effigies, bowls and jars.
"I realized I was looking at a shamanic journey," she said. "If you follow the pots, you see the transformation."
The magazine article, which she says doesn't even comprise a single chapter of her dissertation, is illustrated with colorful pictures of pottery, most depicting stout men smoking tobacco. All of the pottery, much of which is scattered in museums and private collections throughout the southwest, is painted with geometric and natural patterns. Often, the vessels depict animals, or gender roles. The patterns, she said, have been studied for years, but no one has tried to link them together.
"I knew they had a tale to tell," she said. "We were on new ground. A lot of people have done design analysis, et cetera, but I stepped back. I tried to understand it in terms of what it was depicting. This is the first study of its kind."
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VanPool and her colleagues found that different vessels depicted different phases of the shamanic journey. Effigies of men smoking represented the use of tobacco to enter a trance, which is considered a window to the spirit world.
Often, these were decorated with signs and clothing that ground him in the natural world. Other ceramics depict the middle stage, as the shaman loses his hair and clothing, becoming an animal spirit in preparation for his transformation to the spirit world.
And other pieces of pottery continue the transformation as the shaman sheds all human characteristics and is then able to commune with the spirit world, according to VanPool's article. Shamans made the transformation, often with the help of psychoactive plants, self-mutilation and fasting, to bring rain, among other things, she writes.
VanPool directed the project in the Casas Grandes region, which focuses on pottery from several cities that existed in the area between 1200 and 1450 A.D. It is sponsored by the Instituto Nacional de Antropologiae Historia, UNM, the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology and the Museum of New Mexico.
She said the article in the magazine, which has a circulation of about 250,000, will help expose UNM to readers worldwide.
"One of the most important things an archeologist can do is reach out to the public," she said.
Though university projects have been outlined in the academic journal American Antiquities, this is one of the first to wind up in a mainstream publication.
"There's never been excitement like this," VanPool said. "One of my friends said, 'Wow, that's like being on the cover of Rolling Stone.'"
VanPool, a New Mexico native who completed her undergraduate studies at Eastern New Mexico University, says she hopes to continue working on similar projects in the future. The Casas Grandes project, one of only a handful to receive funding from the Mexican government in recent years, allowed students from Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, Argentina and Indonesia to gain field experience.
"We're really excited to be working with Mexico," she said.
