纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 065泰诺仪式用椅（1）

 

065：EPISODE 65 - Taino Ritual Seat 泰诺仪式用椅

Taino ritual seat (made between thirteenth and fifteenth century). Wooden stool; from the Dominican Republic

This week we've been talking about high-status objects that belonged to leaders and thinkers around the world about seven hundred years ago. Objects that reflect the societies that produced them, in Scandinavia and Nigeria, Spain and China. Today's object is a stool from the Caribbean, from what is now the Dominican Republic, and it too tells a rich story - in this case of the Taino people who lived in the Caribbean islands before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.

In the history of the world that we've been telling, this stool is the first object in which the separate narratives¹ of the Americas on the one hand and Europe, Asia and Africa on the other, intersect, or perhaps more accurately², collide. But this is no ordinary domestic thing - it's a stool of great power, a strange and exotic ceremonial seat carved into the shape of an otherworldly being; half-human, half-animal, which would take its owners travelling between worlds, and gave them the power of prophecy. We don't know if the seat helped them foretell³ it, but we do know that the people who made this seat had a terrible future ahead of them.

"It hides a lot more information than you might suspect, and it's eliciting⁴ that information that really is thrilling." (Jos Oliver)

"These objects, for those of us who grew up here in New York, were almost like objects of veneration⁵, in the sense that we were rediscovering our culture - culture that we didn't know existed." (Gabriel Haslip-Viera)

泰诺仪式用椅

木制长凳，来自多米尼加圣多明各

公元一千二百年至公元一千五百年

前几节讲述的都是尊贵的物品，它们曾属于七百年前各国的思想者与统治者，反映出其诞生地—一斯堪的纳维亚、尼日利亚、西班牙和中国的社会面貌。本文中的长凳则来自加勒比海今多米尼加共和国境内的地区。它也承载着很多故事，诉说着在哥伦布一行到达加勒比群岛之前生活在当地的民族泰诺人的种种。

在这本关于世界历史的书中，这条长凳是自克洛维斯矛尖（第5节）之后第一件体现原本独立的美洲文化与欧亚非三洲文化交集（更确切地说是碰撞）的文物。这条长凳不是寻常的家用物品，它代表高高在上的权力，被雕刻成半人半兽、充满异域情调的奇特形象，好似某种来自其他世界的生物，一种可以帮助它的主人往来于不同世界、赋予他预言能力的生物。我们并不了解它的主人是否真的可以因此预知未来，但我们知道，制造这条长凳的民族面临着凄惨的未来。

1 narratives   

记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分

参考例句：

• Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning. 结婚一向是许多小说的终点，然而也是一个伟大的开始。
• This is one of the narratives that children are fond of. 这是孩子们喜欢的故事之一。

2 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。

3 foretell   

v.预言，预告，预示

参考例句：

• Willow trees breaking out into buds foretell the coming of spring.柳枝绽青报春来。
• The outcome of the war is hard to foretell.战争胜负难以预卜。

4 eliciting   

n. 诱发, 引出 动词elicit的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• He succeeded in eliciting the information he needed from her. 他从她那里问出了他所需要的信息。
• A criminal trial isn't a tribunal for eliciting the truth. 刑事审讯并非是一种要探明真相的审判。

5 veneration   

n.尊敬，崇拜

参考例句：

• I acquired lasting respect for tradition and veneration for the past.我开始对传统和历史产生了持久的敬慕。
• My father venerated General Eisenhower.我父亲十分敬仰艾森豪威尔将军。