“Pre-historic Central American Natives and the Pearls in the Pacific”
Searches for the mostly unrecorded truths about the prehistoric residents of Archipelagos de las Perlas, help to reconstruct the social, political, ideological and natural world of the native peoples; but will we ever truly grasp the contextual nature the ethno-historical sources offer about pearls in the pre-colonial eras? Exploring the context of the sociopolitical and supernatural worlds of the southern Central American Natives, before they ever met a European; how the pearls they collected were used in daily activities and how they functioned as symbols of identity, wisdom, and knowledge are part of understandings gleaned from those truths.
Based on archeological evidence, it is now possible to divide objects forming part of the daily lives of South Central American Natives into three categories: sacred object, “monetary” objects and objects of value. The inhabitants of the isthmus had many means of distinguishing themselves from one another, among which ornaments, clothing, language and bodily ornamentation all played complementary roles. Pearls were a large part of the ornamentation used in all three categories.
In those pre-historic times, jewelry given by Native peoples was believed to have magical-religious powers. Pearls were guarded by the basket in the chiefs’ houses…they were even recorded being taken from the Pearl Islands and transported to the Caribbean where the Chief of Comogre received them. Moreover, on some occasions natives are recorded as having given Spaniards pearls in designs together with gold, as a sign of their hopes and plans for peace.
Yet, even allegedly pearl-free, the Archipelagos of La Perlas continues to enchant each of us to visit again, with amazing sea life in azure seas, and bright skies decorated with beams of sunlight and rays of moonlight. We are privileged to sit on the sea’s shore just as did the pre-historic men, women and children…and admire them.
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