Coastal Ecuador
Modern reconstruction of a Manteño building at Cerro Hojas
My name is Corey Herrmann, and I am currently a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at Yale University. I have been studying archaeology for about eleven years now, though I have always found archaeology to be a fascinating field – when I was a kid, I loved going to museums and learning about other societies past and present. During my time in college, I became interested in the histories of Andean peoples, and have had the good fortune of helping on projects in Cusco and Lima, Peru. Now, I work with communities in north-central Manabí Province on the coast of Ecuador, bringing to light four thousand years of achievements and investments made by Indigenous peoples there.
Archaeology, to me, is not about finding treasure or filling in holes on a big map. It is about making connections – between people of the past and people of the present. It is about learning how people made their lives meaningful and joyful both in times of plenty and in disasters. It is about how the lessons and hardships and successes of those past people can help us live more meaningful lives. And with that, it means sharing those lessons with the communities that live there now, so we can see ourselves in our pasts and see our pasts in ourselves. Knowing how your home was used for thousands of years is a powerful feeling!
I’ve included in this kit a few topics that showcase how the Indigenous peoples of what is now Ecuador were rooted into their world and connected to their neighbors. There are many societies worth discussing but I will be focusing on the Manteño people who:
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Grew villages, societies and landscapes of diversity and abundance
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Made striking art in ceramic, stone, wood
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Traded and traveled in an Indigenous Age of Sail, stretching from Peru to Mexico
I include these themes and more in this kit because I believe they help illustrate some of the ways that the Indigenous peoples of this region made their lives rich and fulfilling. There is much to learn if we listen, support, and foreground Indigenous viewpoints.
I hope you enjoy this trip to the coast – here at the Mitad del Mundo, I think we can find a new balance.
Saludos,
Corey Herrmann, M.A. M.Phil.
The Manteño have lived on the coastlines and hilly interior of the Ecuadorian coast for over a thousand years. This stretch of the coastline is not as dry as the Peruvian coast south of them, but not as wet as the northern Ecuadorian or Colombian Pacific coastline. This part of the coast is generally full of scrub forest – very thorny trees and shrubs (Figure 1) that blossom with green and flowers during the wet season (December-May), but reserve their water very well in the dry season (June-November).
Figure 1. View of the coastal scrub forests of the central and southern Ecuadorian coast.
Some areas close to the coast in the south have swampy mangrove forests. The climate we see today in this part of the coast is generally the same as it has been for thousands of years; however, droughts and overly rainy conditions can and have been experienced within that time.
The earliest evidence of Manteño culture on the southern Ecuadorian coast is the production of black pottery (Figure 2), which dates to about 700 CE according to archaeologists.
Figure 2. An example of fine Manteño black pottery.
However, the Manteño were direct descendants of an earlier culture that archaeologists call Guangala, who were descendants of even earlier cultures like Chorrera and Valdivia. Archaeologists often use ceramic fragments (that we call sherds) that they recover from fieldwork to understand what time periods and what group of people they are investigating. By organizing ceramic styles through time, archaeologists can track changes in the ceramics and also in other aspects of past peoples’ lives. Of course, while archaeologists note changes in pottery, new ceramics do not mean new people.
So, based on the evidence of black pottery, we can see that Manteño people lived in the coastal areas now known as Manabí and Santa Elena since at least 700 CE. Shortly after 1000 CE, they began building very large settlements like Picoazá (also known as Cerro Hojas-Jaboncillo). Manteño people changed the landscape to better grow crops like corn, chili pepper, squash, achira, yuca, cotton, and all kinds of fruits (Figure 3). These landscape changes included making terraces; canals to irrigate those terraces; storage pits; and a kind of reservoir for saving water, today called an albarrada. With all of these changes made to the landscape to make it more productive, and with all the structures that have been identified at large sites like Cerro Hojas, archaeologists argue that several thousand people lived there.
Along the coastline and beaches, Manteño people fished and dove for shellfish, including the bright red thorny Spondylus, whose shell was used to produce brilliant red jewelry prized throughout the Andes and Pacific coast (Figure 4).
Figure 4. A small Spondylus shell showing its red color.
Some Manteño communities, such as those of a town called Ligüiqui, made stone structures in the intertidal zone. These structures, called corrales today, became tide pools where all kinds of fish and marine life would enter and grow (Figure 5). Residents could then return at low tide and gather marine resources like fish, bivalves, and crabs that were living in these stone structures. So this means the residents of Ligüiqui were more than just farmers on land. They managed agricultural fields and aquacultural resources.
Figure 5. Example of corrales from Ligüiqui.
Along with their fishing exploits, Manteño people of the coastline also built and maintained balsa wood rafts, made from trees that grow on the Ecuadorian coast. (In fact, the Spanish word balsa means “raft” so “balsa wood” means “raft wood”). These rafts used sails, which allowed them to travel enormous distances without having to row them (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Balsa trees growing in the hills of the Ecuadorian coast.
As Manteño society grew through time, their presence expanded over larger areas of the coast, with enclaves showing up on the Santa Elena Peninsula, and in northern Manabí at sites like Canoa. Their trade took them great distances, including all the way to the shores of western Mexico, a trip of 2500 miles each way!
When European settlers arrived in Ecuador in the 1520s, many of their earliest colonial settlements were set up in Manteño towns, especially the cities now known as Manta and Portoviejo. Spanish settlers killed and drove away many Manteño people and members of other Indigenous communities. This happened through disease, forced labor, and violence. One of the casualties of European colonization was the loss of many Indigenous languages, as people were made to speak Spanish in order to trade and work. Despite this, the Manteño way of life was not destroyed. There are still Manteño communities along the coast of Manabí today. For instance, in the modern town of Salango, community members still go fishing, and also dive for Spondylus shells in order to eat these at feasts celebrating significant life events like quinceañeras and baptisms (Figure 7).
Inland, there are still farmers working on the hillsides growing corn and yuca, although some have started growing orchard crops like oranges, bananas, cacao, and coffee instead. So, while there is much that has changed for Manteño society since the arrival of European settlers, many people are still proudly living and thriving on the coast today.
Figure 7. A view of Salango looking north. Note the small and large fishing vessels anchored offshore, ready for another day of fishing and diving.
When archaeologists first investigated Manteño sites, some of them were already known from early colonial documents that recorded Spanish interactions with the Manteño people. This list included the towns of Picoazá, Salangome, and Jocay. Before modern Manta grew to its current size, archaeologists even noted that old Jocay had hundreds of house mounds (the raised platforms where houses were built) over several square miles. One archaeologist of the early twentieth century, an Ecuadorian named Jacinto Jijón y Caamaño, noted that these sites were all along the coastline and some were quite large; he argued that the Manteño were a league of merchants. Through working with modern Manteños and Ecuadorian coastal people, archaeologists knew that balsa rafts with sails were invented by people here to use for trade, many centuries before European settlers arrived. This supported Jijón y Caamaño’s idea of a merchant society on the coast.
As archaeologists have continued exploring South America and Ecuador, more investigators have become attracted to the idea that the Manteño were not just merchants, but also farmers and artisans – which means that Jijón y Caamaño’s interpretation was not wrong, but it was incomplete. Excavations and exploration of sites like Cerro Hojas and Jaboncillo have shown a Manteño place of ritual importance and a very large settlement. (See the video to learn more about excavations). Hundreds of stone structures and terraces have been identified through survey, including farming terraces and storage pits (Figure 8); workshops for making stone sculpture and textiles; and the houses of families of varying size, including one that was likely the home of a community healer (Figure 9).
Proving that there were farmers and artisans at Salangome (Agua Blanca), archaeologist Colin McEwan’s work with the modern community found multiple sites in the area with stone seats. (You’ll learn more about these stone seats in another section). Taken together, archaeologists can show that Manteño life was very rich, with lots of work to be done and many ways to creatively express themselves.
Figure 8. Terrace at Cerro Hojas
Figure 9. The home of a possible healer or religious specialist at Cerro Hojas. The mound in the back would have supported the home; the group of rocks at the front appears to have been arranged into a design of a spiral.
The Manteño were and are a people very grounded in their world, and they produced remarkable sculpture in stone, shell, and ceramic media reflecting that grounding. Manteño art often showed the natural world or people, though some of their religious sculptures showed supernatural creatures as well. In this section you’ll learn about two well-known kinds of art that Manteño people produced: ceramic seals and U-shaped stone seats. We will also talk a little about what these may have meant.
Ceramic seals were a common way of filling the Manteño world with artistic expression. Seals came in two forms: they could have a design that would be imprinted as a flat stamp (Figure 10), or they would look like cylinders that could be used to roll out a design onto a flat surface (Figure 11).
Figure 10. Flat stamp of a seabird, maybe a pelican, with a design behind the bird’s head. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Stamps could be used to paint or decorate textiles, but also to paint skin on the body as well. There are some examples of this decoration on Manteño bodies thanks to ceramic figurines that show these designs on their skin (Figure 12).
Figure 12. Manteño ceramic figurine with intricate incised designs on its body. (An incised design is cut into the surface of an object). This is interpreted to depict the result of roller stamping paint onto Manteño people.
Figure 11. Manteño roller stamp with an abstract design on it. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sometimes the designs were abstract and geometric, and other times they showed flowers, or animals, or people. These animals are often ones we can recognize, like sea-birds or monkeys (Figure 13); others look more supernatural (Figure 14).
Some of the more elaborate seals seem to show many designs of animals and plants together; and in a few cases, multiple seals seem to have the same scene (Figures 15a and 15b). These two roller stamp designs share many of the same elements. This may be telling a story or showing a kind of identity.
There is a lot of discussion and debate about how these seals were used. For instance, they could have been markers of identity, a way to show someone’s personal or family name, or what community they came from. Some roller seals are shown worn around the necks of other ceramic figurines. However, some of the more complicated seals (like the ones shown above with multiple animals and plants together) may have been a way of telling a story. While archaeologists can’t tell what that story was, the fact that the same art is made on different seals (and appear to have been made by different people at different times) suggests that there was a common message or story told across communities. Perhaps this story was about the history of a community, or of a famous Manteño person, or a myth or folktale with a life lesson.
Ceramics were not the only medium that Manteño people used to make art. The U-shaped stone seat is one of the most recognizable sculptural forms that Manteño people produced (Figure 16).
Figure 16. Manteño stone seat, AKA “silla en U”. Photo courtesy of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).
These seats were made from one single block of a soft stone that geologists call zeolite. Because the stone is not very hard, people could use tools made from a harder stone to mine it and bring it to workshops, then make it into these seats. The form of these seats was quite consistent through time: a solid base would be made in the form of an animal (probably a jaguar) or a person on their hands and knees. This figure would then support the U-shape seat, with arms that come up on either side.
These seats have been found in two kinds of places within Manteño archaeological sites. First, they have been found on the very tops of hills at the headwaters of rivers and streams. This has been interpreted as a place where Manteño leaders would sit for rituals of fertility at the start of the rainy season in December. Stone seats have also been found inside very large rectangular halls, which have been interpreted as buildings where Manteño leaders would meet to discuss political and community matters. Between these two contexts where stone seats have been found, archaeologists argue that the stone seats were emblems of the power of Manteño’s leaders.
The use of stone seats as emblems of Manteño identity continue today: a U-shaped stone seat is the logo of the city of Manta today, and the stone seats and archaeological park of Cerro Hojas is a place of great community and regional pride for Ecuadorians (Figure 17).
Figure 17. Exterior and interior of a modern reconstruction of a Manteño building at Cerro Hojas. Designs on the exterior were taken from sculpture and seals that have been found by archaeologists. This reconstruction is a point of pride for the community as it helps visitors envision how the space was used.
Figure 13. Seal design showing people and monkeys.
Figure 14. Seal design showing a possible supernatural
Figure 15a
Figure 15b
The earlier discussion of Manteño stone seats is also important for beginning to discuss how Manteño society was organized. This is because these seats are often considered by archaeologists as a way of measuring the importance of certain sites. As mentioned before, archaeologists interpret stone seats as emblems of the power of Manteño’s leaders. Where there are a large number of seats there were a lot of important people seated, and so researchers theorize a site with many seats may have been used for political or religious gatherings.
There wasn’t a clear division between politics and religion. As in many places in the Andes, politics and religion were often tightly linked: political leaders had responsibilities to take care of their community by managing relationships between people and with other groups, while also managing relationships with supernatural forces. Those supernatural forces may have been ancestors, or other powerful beings that controlled the weather, or the sun.
At the site of Agua Blanca (which would have been the town of Salangome), a large building was excavated by the modern Manteño community with the help of archaeologist Colin McEwan. This building had an entryway at one end and inside there were two rows of stone seats, facing each other. However, there were no seats at the far end of the structure, suggesting there was no primary ruler. While the presence of seats do show a kind of power structure, work at Agua Blanca suggests that this power structure was more complicated than simply “one person in charge”. To understand this, think about how the arrangement of desks in a classroom changes the atmosphere and expectations in the room. What does it mean when all the desks face the front and there is space for a teacher to stand in the front? What does it mean if the desks are all placed in a circle or in small groups facing each other?
Most archaeologists argue that between the archaeological evidence and the chronicles that Spanish explorers made about the Manteño, we can think of Manteño culture as being made of multiple hierarchical chiefdoms or señoríos, with some señorios including many settlements. A señorío would be ruled by a señor(a) or cacique, a local lord whose prestige and connection to supernatural forces would justify their rule. These positions were available to men and women alike, as archaeologists have recovered Manteño figurines of masculine and feminine figures, with decoration that suggests they represent leaders in both cases. It appears that in the case of a cacique, the title and its responsibilities were inherited; not just anyone could be a cacique, only family members of a certain lineage (not unlike European lords and kings). A cacique had the right to take regular tribute from communities under their protection; in exchange, local leaders gained some power and prestige themselves, being associated with these powerful regional leaders.
However, before leaving the topic of political organization, we should not forget that the Ecuadorian coast was full of many different communities and societies living together, which means that many may have organized themselves very differently than a strict hierarchy. For instance, some chronicles by the Spanish mention that some communities were not señoríos but what they called “behetrías”. A behetría was a kind of community that the Spanish knew from their home in Spain. In a behetría leadership was not inherited, but rather a leader was elected or chosen by the community, typically from a group of candidates usually of noble birth. The organization of Agua Blanca’s political building, with no single ruler but rather two groups of community leaders, could show a confederation of many communities working together, like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of North America.
Caciques of the Manteño gained tribute, trade, and prestige from their local relationships, and also from great distances. The development of the balsa wood raft and sail allowed enterprising caciques to travel over water with the goods that Manteño people produced, and trade them. The goods Manteño made that were most desirable included lime (made from seashells and important for taking coca, a stimulant leaf crucial for rituals); mother-of-pearl shell; and most importantly, the red shells of Spondylus, a thorny bivalve which lives in the warm waters of the Ecuadorian coast. One of the first encounters that Spanish people had with Indigenous peoples of South America was actually on the ocean, not on land. Archaeologists point to this account, made by sailors of Pizarro’s vessel in 1525 or 1526, as an example of what balsa rafts looked like and how they worked. This account, the Relación de Sámano-Xerez (written in 1527-28), notes that these rafts were constructed of large balsa logs lashed together with rope, using stone anchors and cotton sails (Figure 18). The larger rafts even had cabins made out of cane, which could protect the cargo and the crew from rain and sun (Figure 19).
Figure 18. A 16th century depiction of a smaller balsa raft, as described by an Italian merchant and adventurer named Girolamo Benzoni.
Figure 19. An 18th-century Spanish drawing of what a larger balsa raft would look like.
Pizarro’s men encountered one of these rafts, and described its cargo as
“many objects of silver and gold for personal ornament to barter with those with whom they were going to trade, among which were crowns and diadems and belts and bracelets and armor for the legs and breastplates and tweezers and bells and strings and masses of beads and mirrors adorned with the said silver and cups and other drinking vessels; they (also) brought many textiles of wool and cloth and shirts and tunics and capes and many other garments all of them finely woven with rich detail, and of colors such as red and crimson and blue and yellow and with all the other colors and varied craftwork and figures of birds and animals and fish and trees” (Samano-Xerez 1937 [1528]: 66–8).
This raft was on a return journey, because they had already traded their Spondylus beads for all of these other goods. Among the inventory of this ship were also a set of weights, which would have been useful for measuring exact amounts and coming to agreements on how much of a given commodity to trade with various communities on their trip. Unfortunately, the Spaniards stole this raft and its goods, and took the Indigenous sailors prisoner in the hopes that they could have help with interpreting other people they encountered. This is why they were able to give such a complete inventory of its contents. However, archaeologists point to this example as one of many trips that Manteño people made on the coast.
There are also accounts of other communities that describe the use of the rafts. One lord of a powerful city in north coast Peru, the Lambayeque, was known as Ñaymlap. He was said to have come from a place to the north on a balsa raft with a group of retainers, including a specialist in making Spondylus shell dust. This dust would be thrown in front of Ñaymlap wherever he walked. At a Lambayeque site called Túcume, there are clay wall friezes that depict people and mythical figures alike on rafts, diving for Spondylus (Figures 20, 21).
While some archaeologists believe this was just a myth told to make Ñaymlap sound like he was exotic and from a foreign place, others believe this indicates that he was quite simply a coastal Manteño cacique who started a new polity in Peru.
Figure 20. Closeup of a wall frieze at Túcume showing two figures, a bird and a bird-person, traveling on a balsa raft.
Figure 21. Closeup of a wall frieze at Túcume. The panel at center right shows a rectangular balsa raft (with a triangular sail sticking up above) with two passengers. They have ropes that hold two upside-down divers. The entire scene is surrounded by repeating shapes that almost look like footprints; however these are interpreted to be Spondylus shells.
One of the other commodities that Manteño people traded were small plates of copper, of uniform size and weight, bundled together in groups of five and ten (Figure 22). Archaeologists call them “axe monies” because these plates of copper resemble axe heads.
Figure 22. Axe money from Ecuador.
These may have been a kind of special-purpose money – they would have had value only in some contexts, and could have perhaps bought commodities only during rituals or with certain communities (as opposed to general-purpose money like what we use today, where money can be used to purchase virtually anything). What is remarkable about these axe monies is where archaeologists have found them. They first appeared in Ecuador around 800 CE and they became more common after 1250 CE. But they weren’t limited to Ecuador. Archaeologists have also found them among burials of elites as far away as coastal Michoacán in western Mexico - well over 2,000 miles away!
Archaeologists continue to debate whether balsa rafts were taken over the open ocean from Ecuador to Mexico directly (perhaps near the Galapagos Islands if they took this route), or if they traveled along the coastline the entire way. You may have learned about trade across the Indian Ocean in this same time period. For comparison, the distance from coastal Ecaudor to coastal Michoacán, Mexico, is about the same distance as sailing from Mogadishu, Somalia, in eastern Africa to Goa, India.
In either case, the ocean currents and winds make these trips possible – and while there have not been Manteños found in Michoacán or Michoacanos in Manabí, the presence of axe monies made the same way in both contexts strongly suggests these two groups met and exchanged goods.
"Ecuadorian Balsa Raft Construction and Design Analysis" slidedeck by Leslie Dewan
"The Andes" from Infinity of Nations at Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian
Manteño Art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
If you want to learn more about the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which was mentioned as a comparison to coastal Ecuador, check out the Haudenosaunee Confederacy website.