Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru

Chapter 8: The Physical Evidence of Human Sacrifice in Ancient Peru

  The Physical Evidence of Human Sacrifice in Ancient Peru  .  Department of Anthropology,Tulane University  Descriptions of human sacrifice by the Inca and other native peoples of Andean South America are scattered through many of the early colonial-period Spanish chronicles and histories (Figure .). These are not eyewitness accounts, but are generally secondhand descriptions by native informants. Unlike accounts from Mexico, where human sacrifice was witnessed firsthand by Spanish soldiers and priests in the early sixteenth century, written accounts from Peru generally describe religious practices prior to the conquest of the Inca empire. The secondhand nature of Andean accounts led, not unexpectedly, to differences of opinion as to the frequency with which, and context within which, human lives were offered by the Inca and other Andean peoples. At one extreme lie writers such as Garcilaso de la Vega, who claimed that the Inca banned the practice of human sacrifice. Reliable sources such as Fray Bernabé Cobo, however, described various rituals in which the Inca reportedly offered human lives (Rowe ). Sacrificial practices among the diverse peoples incorporated into the Inca empire are less known; such knowledge is limited for the most part to scattered references drawn from oral histories (Rowe ; Moseley and Cordy-Collins ). Only during the twentieth century has archaeological evidence been brought to bear on the question of human sacrifice in pre-Hispanic Peru. Max Uhle was the first to uncover and systematically record archaeological evidence of human sacrifice by the Inca at the site of Pachacamac, on the central coast of Peru. Uhle excavated a cemetery that contained the bodies of numerous female sacrifices made by the Inca in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. Preservation was excellent, allowing him to make detailed observations of the bodies and their accompanying clothing and offerings . The bodies were naturally mummified, and tightly knotted cloth ligatures were still in place around their necks, indicating death by stran-  Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru  .. Offering a child sacrifice to Pachacamac (after Guaman Poma de Ayala : : []). gulation. Uhle compared this discovery with early colonial-period descriptions of Inca sacrifice, finding significant parallels with the written accounts (Uhle ). Uhle’s work was important in providing evidence to refute Garcilaso de la Vega’s claim that the Inca did not practice human sacrifice (Rowe ; Verano ). It was not until the mid-twentieth century that additional evidence of Inca human sacrifice was documented archaeologically. The frozen body of a boy found on Cerro El Plomo in central Chile (Mostny ) has been joined in recent decades by a growing number of high-altitude Inca sacri- fices found on mountain peaks in Chile, Argentina, and Peru (Schobinger ; Reinhard). These mountain sacrifices correlate well in their context and associated offerings with early colonial-period accounts of the Inca sacrificial cycle known as capac hucha, in which children selected from different parts of the empire were brought to the Inca capital at Cuzco, then returned to their native region to be buried at high mountain shrines. The The Physical Evidence of Human Sacrifice in Ancient Peru  recent discovery of three such sacrifices atop the Nevado Ampato, near Arequipa, Peru, has drawn worldwide attention to this practice (Reinhard ; ). Ethnohistorical accounts and archaeological evidence confirm that the Inca practiced human sacrifice. The offering of human lives appears to have been reserved for particularly important rituals and events, however, and was certainly not a daily occurrence in Inca times. Textiles, camelids, chicha , coca leaf, and other items were the offerings most frequently made to propitiate Andean deities (Rowe ; Murra ). Certain Inca sacrificial practices can be reconstructed in substantial detail , given the availability of both ethnohistoric and archaeological evidence . Attempts to identify similar practices in pre-Inca societies are more difficult, due to a lack of ethnohistoric sources and the vagaries of archaeological preservation. Nevertheless, in recent decades important archaeological discoveries have been made that reveal evidence of a long tradition of human sacrifice in Andean South America. How human sacrifice can be identified from archaeological evidence, and the contribution physical anthropological analysis can make to interpreting these findings, are the subject of this chapter.        How is human sacrifice identified archaeologically? This is an important issue, because preconceived notions can lead to distinctly different interpretations of archaeological...