The Seba library treats Jaguar in 9 passages, across 4 authors (including Victor Turner, Victor Witter Turner, Campbell, Joseph, Hillman, James).
the jaguar form is a kind of mask that both reveals and conceals a process of structural realignment. This process concerns the movement of a boy from the nuclear family to the men's house.
Turner, via Terence Turner's Kayapo analysis, argues that the jaguar is a multivocal initiatory symbol encoding gendered social transition and the ambivalence of parental power.
, The Ritual Process Structure and Anti-Structure, 1966thesis
jaguar, as Olmec symbol, 114, 176: in Mesoamerican art, 123 (115), 126, 132, 155 (132); in Olmec art, 114, 115; symbolic of female principle, 126; symbol of Tezcatlipoca, 154, 176
Campbell's index establishes the jaguar as the pre-eminent Olmec symbol, associating it with the female principle and the dark, mirror-bearing deity Tezcatlipoca in Mesoamerican cosmology.
, The Mythic Image, 1974thesis
the great jaguar-sarcophagus seen here, for example; layers of studiously arranged, carefully shaped and polished stone blocks; layers of celts and other valuable objects carved of jade and serpentine
Campbell documents the jaguar-sarcophagus as a major buried offering at La Venta, situating it within a ritual complex of depth, sacrifice, and cosmological orientation.
, The Mythic Image, 1974supporting
Monument 3 was found ... The subject, which is similar to Monument 1, Rio Chiquito, apparently represented copulation between a jaguar and a woman.
Campbell records the Olmec sculptural motif of jaguar-human sexual union, which he reads as evidence of a theogonic myth linking feline power to human origins.
, The Mythic Image, 1974supporting
Tiger skin (like those of its mythic kin, the panther, the leopard, and the jaguar) provides the classic seat for the yogin or holy man, as the tiger (or panther) draws the chariot of Dionysus, the lord of mysteries.
Hillman positions the jaguar within a cross-cultural family of shamanic and Dionysian felines whose pelts mark the seat of sacred and visionary authority.
, Animal Presences, 2008supporting
She synthesizes these discoveries in her book The Jaguar Within (in Mesoamerican traditions, the jaguar is a sacred animal).
Keltner cites Rebecca Stone's work to connect the jaguar's Mesoamerican sacrality to a psychology of awe and visionary interiority in artistic experience.
, Awe The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can, 2023supporting
Mask: gorgon, 151, 153 (130), 156 jaguar, 121 life as, 160 primitive, 458 (399) t'ao-t'ieh, 120
Campbell's index aligns the jaguar mask with the Gorgon and T'ao-t'ieh as cognate expressions of the Terrible Face — the devouring threshold guardian across cultures.
, The Mythic Image, 1974supporting
There came to his palace a young god, Tezcatlipoca, bearing a mirror wrapped in the skin of a rabbit (the animal whose form is seen in the shadows on the face of the moon)
Campbell's narrative of Tezcatlipoca — the jaguar-associated deity — frames the mirror-bearing god as an agent of self-revelation and destruction, contextualizing the jaguar's nocturnal and chthonic symbolism.
, The Mythic Image, 1974aside
Jaguar Within, The (Stone), 183
An index reference confirming the presence of Stone's Mesoamerican jaguar study within Keltner's treatment of awe and sacred art.
, Awe The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can, 2023aside