Tuesday I took a day to walk downtown and check out the Museo del Jade. The collection of artifacts was impressive, and I found a lot of the writing describing the artifacts to be interesting and seemingly well supported. The small red clay print-makers were used for body painting, around the torso, arms and legs. Of the owl... stunning.
"Protector spirits were represented in pre-Columbian jade carvings assigned to each person at the moment of his or her birth. In most cases these were birds or mammals present in their natural environment. Birds represented fertility (the eagle) or the spirit which lead the souls to the world of the dead (the vulture)."
"Shamans used psychotropic sustances to induce hallucinations, and they meditated to attain a trance state. This enabled them to contact the spiritual world to explain the nature of things and events, journey to the world of the dead, and to perform healing."
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