The Embodied Sacrifice

Abstract

The interest in the study of the body that is emerging in European archaeologies has not yet penetrated Americanist approaches to prehistoric iconography. Nevertheless, American materials provide an excellent data base with which to work. This article employs the complex human representational imagery of the Moche (Peruvian North Coast, c.AD 100–800) to explore how the body was situated within the context of ritual sacrifice. Employing both the Foucauldian concept of the disciplined body and the work of Mary Douglas, two forms of bodily representation are discussed: the naked male prisoner and the spread-eagled female sacrifice. These bodies are defined iconographically not only by their sex, but also by their qualities of anonymity or individuality. While the sacrificed female represents an individual who is notable because of who she is (i.e. who she embodies), the male prisoners represent an undifferentiated and anonymous group. These two examples suggest that the body can be read as an individual symbolic field (the female body) and, alternatively, can serve as an undifferentiated forum (the bodies of prisoners) for sacrificial discourse. Despite these differences in representation, both forms of the body present potentially liminal sites within the context of sacrificial ritual. This liminality is essential for the discursive re-ordering of the body politic to occur.

Possible cases of scalping from pre‐hispanic highland Peru

“…6.22 & 6.23:202). This practice is interpreted as a sign of humiliation and degradation of the captives just prior to their violent sacrifice (Hill, 2000), but their scalps were not removed as trophies.…”

Crucibles of power: Forging copper and forging subjects at the Moche Ceremonial Center of Huaca Colorada, Peru

“…In this light, it is of particular relevance that a symbolic connection is commonly made between technological transformation of objects and the liminal metamorphosis of people engineered in rites of passage as interpreted by Van Gennep (1960), Turner (1967, and others (and usually based on violent ritual alterations-see also Hill, 1998Hill, , 2000. The smelting of copper, the crushing of prills (droplets of metal lodged in vitrified slag), the re-melting of the finer metal, and its final annealing is directly analogous if not homologous to the ritual re-formation of initiates, celebrants, and even sacrificial victims.…”

House forms and Recuay culture: Residential compounds at Yayno (Ancash, Peru), a fortified hilltop town, AD 400–800

“…The imagery pioneered an interest, unprecedented in the sierra, in human corporeal forms through ceramic and stone sculpture. Like coeval coastal cultures (Moche, Nasca, Gallinazo, and Vicús), the Recuay located important meanings in the human body, in its entirety or in parts (Donnan, 2004;Hill, 2000;Verano, 1995). Much of the imagery commemorated practices and relations that constructed the authority of lords and their followers.…”