Art: Little Helpers

Fat-lipped and long in the nose, the squat, squashed clay figures sat imperturbably on view in a London gallery last week. They were gods & goddesses molded in America before the days of Columbus.

These idols and fetishes—along with pottery, textiles and sculpture—were fashioned in villages from Mexico down through the Central American jungles to Peru. A few antedated Christ as well as Columbus; there were clay fetishes molded over 2,000 years ago by the forerunners of the Maya, nomadic tribes who some authorities believe crossed Bering Strait to the new world from Asia. Now the Maya’s descendants still worship some of the same gods, but have added to their odd pantheon the God of Christianity.

The corn-growing pre-Maya started with little fertility figures of baked clay, some of them familiarly known to archeologists as the “pretty ladies.” Pretty or not, the pregnant goddesses, theatrically bejeweled and stylishly coiffured, were believed to help the crops. For military emergencies, the ancients made froglike war-gods in crested helmets, plump, pop-eyed and fearsome to any enemy who might confront them. As valuable relics safeguarded in glass cases, the best of the figures commanded high enough prices last week to scare off all but the well-heeled.