Chimú ceramic featuring a wolf, at the crossroads of iconodiagnosis and semantic shifts

Introduction

After the description of a Chimú zoomorphic vase, a south-American wolf affected with seven cutaneous lesions, we discuss deductions that can be made in French language about the mechanism of vocabulary etymology.

Objectives

The common cutaneous animal pathology observed on this pre-Columbian pottery triggered the etymologic observation of French semantic shifts resulting from the French name of this animal, “loup.” In any language, these linguistic phenomena leading to the general concept of “modifying tropes” and “signifying chain,” deserve our attention for they can be compared with analog shifts that happen in an individual human Unconscious. The overall scope of this review is to lay the stress on the key linkage between symbolism and language in every respect (here subsequently, through an artefact: arts and crafts, myths, and rites) and the patterns of the Freudian Unconscious.

Material, methods and resulting data

This Chimú ceramic vase represents a she-wolf with seven cutaneous pseudo tumoral bump-looking lesions, (histologically: trichilemmal cysts). In French, the popular name of these, “loupe,” derived from the name of the classically affected animal, and was kept in French medical terminology. This work is shaped in three different parts. First a so called “realistic” one, where the Chimú pottery is scrutinized as an object (history, technique, species, function, cutaneous lesions). A “linguistic” approach related to the semantic shifts (metonymy, metaphor, signifying chain) in French language, and their heuristic power as examples. The last chapter ventures into the psychoanalytic practice inasmuch as it stems from a theory of language in relation to the Unconscious, first borrowing from Freud, and then from Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Lacan.

Conclusion

A modern approach of brain functioning by the medium of linguistics and structuralism is under strain, as evidence-based medicine and behavioral approaches nowadays claim a greater relevance. Very long-term dynamic human observations cannot be obtained with instant medical imagery. Language is one of the fields, which can supply this dynamic material. Although this purpose seems guilty reductive, we believe that a short review of the scientific sources of Freudian theory is worth being reminded from time to time… Freud, first thrilled by bio-anatomical description, intuitively suggested a parallel with the ability of reconstructing psychological contexts from the use of artistic artefacts, thanks to the words establishing a link between image and meaning. Further studies from numerous followers interested in art confirmed this reality.