From the Preface:
ROBERT WOODS BLISS began collecting Pre-Columbian art because he was lured by the beauty of the materials, the fineness of the craftsmanship, and the fascination of the iconography of the first Pre-Columbian objects hesaw. The Bliss Collection has been, since its beginning in 1912, primarily an estheticone - probably the first esthetically oriented collection of Pre-Columbian artifacts - so it seemed appropriate to organize a conference that would focus on a cross-cultural,art-historical approach. When we sought for a theme, the first that came to mind was that great unifying factor in Pre-Columbian cultures, the feline. Large cats such as the jaguar and puma preoccupied the artists and religious thinkers of the very earliest civilizations, the Olmec in Mesoamerica and Chaven in Peru. The feline continued to be an important theme throughout much of the New World until the European conquests. We are indebted to Barbara Braun for the title, “The Cult of the Feline.”