Crocodile Gourd-Carved Effigy from Mina Perdida in Northwest Peru. Formative Period. (1800-900 B.C.)
The Initial Period in the North-West Coast of Peru was populated by numerous monumental, bisymmetrical U-shaped temples, interpreted generally as expressions of Andean ontological beliefs in cosmic duality. Yet these temples are also notable as the beginning of images of deities in the record, always fanged and vicious, usually in the form of predatory animals such as Jaguar, Spiders, and Crocodiles. Rather than simply wings of symmetry the architecture of the Initial Period temples can be seen as divine jaws of death devouring entrants.
It is an absolute mistake to assume the gods were wishy-washy ideal archetypes who existed only in the ideology of the superstitious. The gods were real, socially constituted agents living amongst us, embodied in statuary and monuments. They were consumers. They demanded veneration, luxuries, food, labor, and human sacrifice.
I find this thing pants-shittingly scary. It's dem fingers.