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by Randy Eady

Jul 9

The bat is arguably second only to the cave itself as the most potent cave-related symbol in Taíno iconography. Within JD-5, bat iconography merges w/the cave, not just as an image on a surface, but as a complementary union of rock art & the rock itself—of bat and cave. Bat’s wings define the mouth of the niche, making the bat the container. This is an inverse on the normal condition of the cave as a container of the bat in the art of the entire circum-Caribbean world.