Effigy Small Yoke (Yuguito)

Date

1000 - 300 BCE

Creator

This superb yuguito, carved in the effigy of the Corn God, is a stone model of a ritual ballplayer’s kneepad. It may be a trophy, since it is too narrow to fit a knee and has no means of attachment. The yuguito, or "little yoke," is a rare form confined to Olmec times. The Corn God is identified by a corn kernel in the center of his forehead and two corn dots flanking his mouth. The dots have forked roots, and slender shoots grow up beside them. They are the clearest images of sprouting and rooting corn in Olmec art. Gods, like rulers, offered personal blood sacrifices, and the central trough below this god’s down-turned mouth symbolizes the mutilation of his tongue to feed his fellow deities with his own soul in the blood. Stylized blood scrolls flank the wound. On the back of the head is a T-shaped emblem similar to that found on many stone portraits of rulers. The crossbar contains an image of a deity wearing a sprouting-corn headdress and giving the extended-arms gesture of rulership; the upright contains the crossed bands of the Earth Dragon and, across the bottom, a fan of feathers. The original inlays and paint are now missing. from Snite Museum of Art, Selected Works: Snite Museum of Art (Notre Dame, 2005)