CHECAN – MUNAY
LOVE
At the heart of the Andean worldview is the concept of tinkuy: the generative meeting of opposite and complementary forces. Just as the day gives way to night before dawn comes once more, and the dry season gives way to the rains so that crops can flourish, men and women come together to engender new life.
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In 5 minutes, this mini documentary from the Museo Larco offers an introduction to our renovated Erotic Gallery.
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THE FEMALE BODY AND THE MALE BODY
IN THE POTTERY OF ANCIENT PERU
The way in which we conceive our own bodily form is strongly influenced by our particular cultural and moral framework. Certain dogmas may tell us that the human body should be covered, or even that the “flesh” of the body stands in opposition to the spirit, to the divine. By presenting an art form which does not shy away from the naked body, our aim is to rid ourselves of certain concepts deeply-rooted in our own society’s thought, in order to better understand a very different vision of the human body, expressed in the art of ancient Peru.
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LIFE-GIVING SEXUAL UNION
The inhabitants of this world interact sexually in a variety of ways. Among these interactions is the union of man and woman, complementary opposites who join in order to procreate, just as the primordial couple did. The mother, like Mother Earth, feeds and nurtures her offspring. Thus, new life develops and also gives forth fruit, thereby ensuring the continuity of the community.
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SEXUAL ACTIVITY IN THE UNDERWORLD
In the art of ancient Peru, in addition to sexual activities between beings that inhabit the earthly world, we also find represented sexual interactions among the inhabitants of the underworld, the ancestors. In these interactions associated with Uku Pacha, the intention appears to be the propitiation and arousal of the ancestors, the release of semen, the flowing of fluids symbolizing, perhaps, the coming of the rains needed to ensure the fertility of the earth.
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THE REGENERATION OF LIFE: THE UNION OF THE HERO AND MOTHER EARTH
The primordial union, that which must be repeated again and again, is the sacred joining of mythical beings that enables the continuation of the cycle of life. In the art of the cultures that occupied Peru’s northern coast, we find the hero Ai Apaec, who followed the path of the sun, where he joined with Mother Earth to inseminate her in a union from which the tree of life was reborn, and life in this world was regenerated.
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The dead are depicted with cadaverous bodies, but at the same time with erections, indicating their ability to fertilize the world they inhabit; the underworld which is the realm of Pachamama, or Mother Earth.
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