Nomadic Narrative

Some people think it’s boring to go to museums. While some museums have certainly left me yawning, I love it when I find something that makes me hunch over and squint into the glass case. I have a vivid memory of this happening when I visited a museum just outside of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Strolling through the dusty exhibit, a silver tube topped by what looked like a sea urchin caught my eye. I peered into the case and noticed it had a chain attached to it. Interested, I looked for the corresponding explanation to discover that it was a male chastity belt. I had never heard of such a thing. It jarred my previous associations of chastity belt with women.

I went to the Jade Museum in downtown San José today which is owned and operated by the Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS) – the state owned insurance company. I was browsing through thousands of pieces of Pre-Columbian jade and an extensive and diverse collection of ceramics when I saw a skull.

I looked closer to see why the skull was placed within the pottery collection. It had a full set of teeth serrated on the top and at the bottom — an indication of high status. I can’t imagine how painful that must have been! The ceramic piece in the background, shown in the photo below, clued me in to why the skull was placed in that section.

I thought of that hip-hop song “Grillz:”

Twenty carrots thirty stacks let’em know I’m so fo real
My mouthpiece simply symbolizes success
My teeth are mind blowin’ givin’ everybody chillz

A single tooth decorated with a small, round piece of jade also sat next to the skull. This reminded me of a Swiss woman I met recently who wore a small diamond on her incisor. Tooth jewelry is all the rage I hear… or maybe it always has been?

Ah, the creativity of the indomitable human spirit never ceases to amaze me!