Findspot: Southern Guanahani? Cave

Description: The duho - or ceremonial seat- in the collections of Bryn Mawr College was recovered from a cave on San Salvador Island, Bahamas in 1825 by Captain Wheeler. The object dates back to AD 1000-1500, but in its more recent history it has passed through the collections of some of Philadelphia's most illustrious institutions, including the American Philosophical Society and the Academy of Natural Sciences. It is one of only 15 Bahamian duhos, from a total of 80 wooden examples known to have survived from the entire Caribbean region.

Duhos often depict animal-like creatures crouching on foreshortened limbs, with heads carved between the two front legs. They typically feature deeply carved faces (for the inclusion of inlay) and 2-dimensional designs across the backrest. These latter features are conspicuously absent in the San Salvador duho - notably, the facial carving is unusually shallow, indicating that no inlays were originally present. The duho maintains the typically large size of Bahamian pieces - the largest examples known from the entire Caribbean region – and the raised height of the back marks this piece as belonging to the ‘high-back’ duho category, of which there are 6 examples from the Bahamas. The back appears to have a slight twist to the upper section, likely a warping reaction after the piece was carved – suggesting that the wood was not seasoned prior to carving.

The Taíno of the Greater Antilles (Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Cuba) and their Bahamian neighbours, the Lucayans, used these seats during important socio-political events and ceremonies, including cohoba – a ritual involving the ingestion of narcotic substances to enable communication with the spirit world. Such seats would have been the prerogative of the chiefly elite, and were crafted from valuable materials including dense tropical hardwoods such as guayacan (Guaiacum sp.) and mahogany (Swietenia sp.) and occasionally inlaid with guanin, a gold-copper alloy. They played an important role in the hosting of visiting dignitaries – such as when Columbus visited the village of cacique Guacanagari in 1493, and was invited to sit on a guanin-encrusted duho and formally presented with duhos as gifts. To be seated on a duho was to be seated ‘with courtesy and veneration’ according to the 16th century historian Bartolome de Las Casas, who was witness to indigenous Taíno traditions before their demise in the mid-1500s. The San Salvador duho at Bryn Mawr thus provides a rare window onto the practices and artistic expressions of a Caribbean cultures at the cusp of European contact and contributes to broadening our current understanding of Bahamian art.
The duho is one of 50 artifacts selected as part of the Pre-Hispanic Sculptural Arts in Wood project, supported by the Getty Foundation. Its analysis includes AMS radiocarbon dating, wood identification and stable isotope analysis. The results will not only help to enhance information specific to this piece, but contribute to the growing information on Caribbean carving traditions.