This little carved mask dates from the Olmec civilization, which was to the Mayans and Aztecs in Mexico what the Sumerians must have been to the Assyrians and the Babylonians, in Iraq. That is, we know more about the Mayans and the Aztecs, but presumably most of their ideas and traditions came from this earlier civilization, which (like the Mayans) disappeared because of unknown causes. MacGregor studies the face here and points out that, even though any number of people have tried to claim that this is a Chinese, or a European, or an African face, and thus the Olmecs must have genetic stock from ----, it’s really a Mexican face, and its characteristics can be seen in many Mexican faces today. He brings in the writer Carlos Fuentes, who points out that Mexicans are proudly one of the most mixed races in the world: the mestizo, an amalgalm of native cultures (who weren’t genocidally wiped out the way they were up north) and Spanish immigration from the three main ethnic groups in Renaissance Spain: the Spanish, the Sephardic Jews, and the Moors.
Another fun thing about this mask is that you can see various tattoos on it, if you look closely. An expert claims the tattoo here represents the points of the compass, locating the individual here at the center of everything. I love the idea you carry your own prime coordinates, your x=0, y=0 around with you. I studied a little bit of Chinese feng shui when I was first moving into and decorating my house, and there’s something kind of cool about knowing your orientation like that. Going to the lengths of saying, “I am the center of the universe!” means that you probably know, deep down, that you’re not, but you’ll get along better if you acknowledge that you can’t help but see the world from your own unique point of view. For another perspective, take the boat down the Thames from the British Museum to Greenwich mean time, to find the center of the world.
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