Shaman or Ancestor Transforming into a Shark
Paracas culture
6" x 41/2"

Two fascinating figures—a shamanic personage wearing a fish-shaped cape and an anthropomorphized shark—enjoy a complementary relationship in the Paracas pantheon. These two characters are thought to represent consecutive stages in a transformation allegory that is told through a series of discrete images embroidered on various textiles from the Paracas Necropolis. When these figures are arranged in a logical narrative sequence, they collectively illustrate the evolution of an extraordinary human being into animal form.

The metamorphosis is inferred in Plate 69, where the face of an ancestral or shamanic being is shown mutating into the extended jaws and serrated teeth of the ocean predator. His pose defies gravity—as if he is already swimming. Together, the elongated head and multifinned train draped over the back read as a complete fish superimposed on a human body. Trophy heads and a double-bladed knife, tumi, symbolize the supernatural’s bloodthirsty role as “harvester” of the sea.