Mesoamerican Ritual Economy: Archaeological and Ethnological Perspectives (review)

In this collection, 13 scholars consider the extent to which economic processes were driven by and integrated with religious ritual in ancient Mesoamerica. This symbiosis between materiality and spirituality is exceedingly complex and generally not well understood, even in the ethnographic record, let alone from archaeological contexts. The contributors focus on diverse Mesoamerican cultural patterns to elucidate how rituals and economic activities influenced one another in communities, small-scale societies, and state-level polities. The 12 chapters derive from a symposium organized by the editors for the 2003 meeting of the American Anthropological Association. There is an editors’ introductory essay and three topical groupings: “Acquisition” (six chapters), “Consumption” (three), and “Reflection” (two). Five tables and 41 figures supplement the essays, each of which has its own references. Here, “Mesoamerica” refers predominantly to the Maya area (five essays), while two essays each focus on northern and central Mexico, and one addresses Oaxaca.

The editors’ contribution, “Mesoamerican Ritual Economy: Materialization as Ritual and Economic Process,” provides essential context and background. They note the complementarity of political and ritual economies, and that social agents use material culture and symbols to negotiate cultural meaning. Christian Wells’s “Faenas, Ferias, and Fiestas: Ritual Finance in Ancient and Modern Honduras” employs ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological evidence to elucidate festive labor mobilization. Ceramics and fauna from the Cacaulpan Valley (600–1000 CE) support the prehistoric interpretations. Brigette Kovacevich’s “Ritual, Crafting, and Agency in the Classic Maya Kingdom of Cancuén” focuses on ritual/prestige goods (jade, pyrite, and ceramics), resource control, and social and ritual interpretations at this Guatemalan site (600–800/830 CE). “Addicted to Rituals of Contested Meanings in Colonial Mexico,” by Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, is a study of colonial terracottas from San Juan Teotihuacan, which combine pre-Hispanic and Christian imagery—temples, crosses, four-petal flowers, and glyphs. Wells and Ben Nelson collaborated on “Ritual Pilgrimage and Material Transfers in pre-Hispanic Northwest Mexico,” examining 200–900 CE markets and fairs served by mobile merchants at the site of La Quemada, Zacatecas. Lastly, Antonia Foias contributes “Ritual, Politics, and Pottery Economics in the Classic Maya Southern Lowlands,” focusing on decentralized bureaucracies, rituals and feasts, patron-client relationships, and elite control of prestige goods.

The second part begins with Davis-Salazar’s “Ritual Consumption and the Origins of Social Inequality in Early Formative Copán, Honduras,” examining ritual as performance and models of the origin of social inequality, with a focus on objects and status (notably grave goods). Sara Barber and Arthur Joyce collaborated on “Polity Produced and Community Consumed: Negotiating Political Centralization through Ritual in the Lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca,” which examines consumption and community identity, elite control, and the construction of monumental architecture (150 BCE-250 CE). Frances Berdan’s “Material Dimensions of Aztec Religion and Ritual” uses codices and archaeological evidence to assess Tenochtitlan’s temples, idols, priesthoods, offerings, ceremonies, and the periodic renewal of objects and structures. Barbara and William Fash review Mesoamerican ballgame ritual iconography, offerings and sacrifices, and socioeconomic factors (such as gambling) in “The Roles of Ballgames in Mesoamerican Ritual Economy.” The final analytical chapters include Katherine Spielmann’s “Ritual and Political Economies,” which reviews these case studies and provides additional global, cross-cultural examples, observing that political economy comprises large-scale mobilization of labor, food, and goods for ritual performance. John Watanabe’s “Ritual Economy and the Negotiation of Autarky and Interdependence in a Ritual Mode of Production” emphasizes theories about the economics of ritual (citing Rappaport, Weber, Sahlins, Wolf, and Mauss) and modes of production.

This book is a welcome contribution to our understanding of economic and religious activities and the production and use of material culture (human-crafted artifacts and naturally occurring objects) in ritual ceremonies and in maintaining and enhancing political power.