ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Coatis: From the Americas the Europe, From the Familiar to the Exotic

• In Event: Contested Conceptions of Atlantic Animals I

English Abstract

As endemic animals of the Americas, coatis have co-existed alongside Indigenous populations for millennia. The coati is named in the Popol Vuh as the daytime animal avatar of the Maya creator grandmother Xmacane, and plays a key role in the ballgame story, with additional symbolic associations including agricultural fertility, ritual clowning, chilacayote, male virility, and gluttony. While never truly domesticated, coatis can easily become habituated to humans; as such, across their range, there are long cultural traditions of coatis being tamed and/or kept as pets continuing into the present day. They are also hunted as subsistence food.

Perhaps because coatis were already popular as familiars and pets amongst Indigenous American cultures, they found themselves amongst the few non-primate quadrupeds to make their way into Europe early in the post-1492 transatlantic trade, not as dead specimens, but as live animals destined for menageries. They were often illustrated wearing collars to signal their status as owned creatures; and, whether sketched from life or posed in commissioned portraits, their unique morphology was usually rendered in enough naturalistic detail to make species-level identification indisputable. Furthermore, the range of fur colors on display (in an animal with such naturally variable pelage) can just as easily suggest the observation of unique individuals as it could be said to have anything to do with differences in artistic media and style.

Author

• Deniz Martinez, University of Delaware