Taino Stone Yoke circa AD 1000-1500

Taino Stone Yoke

European Private Collection, acquired in New York between 1973 and 1983

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, long term loan, 1986 - 2005

Excellent condition overall, intact. The surface shows natural polish and finish with textured areas on under front end as per the style. Has stand.
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Taino stone yokes are part of the ballgame tradition as developed in the ancient Caribbean. Known as batey, it was a recreational and ritual game referencing creation myths and customs, many of which which were recorded in 1497 by Ramon Paré, a friar aboard Columbus’ second voyage to Hispaniola. (Arrom in Bercht et al., Taino: Pre-Columbian Art and Culture from the Caribbean, New York, 1997, p.  68). Batey was played during the areytos, the community gatherings where regional political and social competitions took place.

This yoke is of the “slender oblique oval” category, the closed form referencing a flexible branch bound together; the expanded front is carved on one side with addorsed stylized figures, described as bird/frog figures (also seen as bones). Typical of Taino art, one image can serve as different zoomorphic figures when viewed at various angles; “… this meshing of figures [is] a visual form of myth telling. Each figure is a person, animal, god, object or concept from a Taino myth" with the different visualizations providing a “graphic instructional link” to reveal the specific myth. (Walker in Bercht et al., ibid., pp. 85-86)

For a similar examples in the Latimer collection (first studied by Otis Mason in 1876), see Fewkes, “The Aborigines of Porto Rico and Neighboring Islands”, in Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1907, pl. LXVIII; see also Bercht et al., ibid., pp. 81, 86, fig. 57 and fig. 64, for yokes in the collections of the musée du quai Branly, Paris, and the Museo de Historia, Antropologia y Arte, Universidad de Puerto Rico, San Juan.