Nariguera

Sunday 13 April 2008

We visited another neat museum today, one which allowed photos! This is a piece of jewelry really common to the Mochica and Chimu cultures, and we have seen an awful lot of them in different sizes and styles. It is a nariguera, or nose-ornament. Powerful and important people such as kings and priests would attatch it to the little piece of skin that separates your nostrils in order to hide their mouth. Why? These people were supposed to be dieties, and as such commoners were not allowed to see their expression. With these, kings could smile or frown or yawn in privacy. I've also heard it explained that dieties would not have human teeth, and so kings used them to hide the fact that their teeth were perfectly human.