The syntax of composite bodies: agency and transformation in the iconography of Marajoara ceramic tangas

Abstract This article explores certain stylistic and iconographic aspects of Marajoara ceramic ‘tangas’ (pubic covers), within the subject of corporeality, and especially notions of body composition, fabrication and transformation. The focus on the ‘tanga’ category aims to untangle some of the aspects related to Marajoara figurative regime, especially with regard to the forms of materialization of cosmological principles, related to fabrication, composition and transformability of bodies. In this sense, the iconography of these objects shows composite bodies elaborated through the integration of a myriad of beings and their anatomical parts, as well as the use of graphic resources that possibly indicate corporeal transformations. This syntax of composite bodies, therefore, can be a crucial point to understand the role of tangas, and a basis to suggest that tangas actually fabricated multicomposite bodies and people.