Aspect No. 12 - El Jaguar.

Throughout Pre-Hispanic cultures the jaguar is honored, worshipped, and held sacred.

Jaguars symbolize a powerful and enigmatic force, associated with the realms of the unconscious, the spirit world. The Maya thought that at night the sun, as it slips into the underworld would transform into a jaguar, the Celestial grounded.

“When a dignitary was transformed into a jaguar, he acquired strength, agility, aggressivness, sharpe vision and astutness. With these attributes, he protected and cured his people, or took revenge on his enemies.”

El Jaguar is manifested by the following future relics -

  • El Saco del Jaguar - A black and gold staple embellished cropped jacket with the jaguar’s spotted motif built into the embellishment.

  • El Cinturón del Jaguar - A black and gold staple embellished wrap belt with jaguar’s spotted motif built into the embellishment, and two gold rivet “eyes” emulating the look of a jaguar pelt being worn.

  • Los Pantalones Anchos- a wide leg draped high waisted trouser in cotton shirting with a built-in wrap belt featuring a fringe trim.

 

See below for a look into the process.

 

This Aspect introduces Los Celestiales, personifications of celestial and cosmic forces that govern and are omni-present within Perdida.

El Jaguar, who has the universe in its eyes, El Eternal who’s role is the cycle of life, and El del Sol, an avatar for the Sun. They are channeled through Los Divinos when summoned through worship when Los Plateados y Los Cobreados come together.

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This Aspect was primarily inspired by this jaguar nariguera found at el Museo del Oro in Bogotá. The Nariguera depicts a crouching jaguar with emerald eyes,. For my contemporary take on it, I expanded the motif of the jaguar into a nariguera and aretes, giving the crouching jaguar a bit more depth and dimension. I echoed the stone embellishments with black seed beads to reference the spots found on a jaguar. To complement the piece I then created a gold toned stapled jacket where I mapped out the black spots and embellished those areas with black staples to give the subtle illusion to the animal’s skin.

Museo del Oro.