Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru

Chapter 3: Blood and the Moon Priestesses: Spondylus Shells in Moche Ceremony

  Blood and the Moon Priestesses: Spondylus Shells in Moche Ceremony  -  Anthropology Department, Universityof San Diego  Archaeological and artistic evidence informs us that a primary ceremonial focus in Moche society was the ritual bleeding of bound males, captured in combat, and the drinking of their blood (Donnan ; Alva and Donnan; Donnan and Castillo).The only female in the roster of elite participants in this ritual is a priestess, one who, we can now suggest , was a major functionary in a cult of the Moon. The inquiry leading to her identification as a Moon priestess is multilineal, but is closely tied to the rather abrupt appearance of symmetrical Spondylus princeps shells late in Moche cultural evolution.    One of the most intriguing symbolic objects from the ancient Peruvian world is the Spondylus shell (Figure .). Known colloquially as the spiny oyster or the thorny oyster, and scientifically as Spondylus spp., this spectacular bivalve has been an item of ritual importance in the region for well over four thousand years. The earliest archaeological remains are a few tiny fragments recovered from Formative Period sites (ca. – ..) along the Peruvian coast. Through time, the amount of Spondylus in use in Peru increased until, by the time of the Chimú Empire’s apogee (ca. .. ), vast quantities of the shell were in evidence. Aside from its physical beauty, two characteristics of the shell are noteworthy: () it is not native to the cold waters of coastal Peru, and () it is found always in ritual contexts there. The mollusk is indigenous to both coasts of the Americas, where six species or subspecies, all living in warm-water habitats, are recognized by malacologists. Those closest to Peru are found in Ecuador’s Gulf of Guayaquil . There, two species are local: the larger S. calcifer, with its interior border of reddish-purple, and the smaller S. princeps, with its crimson inner rim. S. princeps is the deeper dweller, found as much as – meters below  Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru  .. Open valves of Spondylus princeps. Photo by Alana Cordy-Collins. the ocean surface. Despite the obvious difficulty in collecting the shellfish at such depths—or perhaps precisely because of it—S. princeps was the species most utilized by the ancient Peruvians. My long-term study of Spondylus shells in pre-Hispanic Peru has revealed a clear pattern: from the beginning of the Initial Period (ca.  ..) through the end of the Late Horizon (ca. .. ), Peru’s ancient cultures consistently allocated the thorny oyster to four specific ends. They presented it whole or in part in petitions to the gods, interred it as elite mortuary offerings, worked it into jewelry and ornaments for their nobility, and infused its image into all high-status media, including ceramic, textile , and metal. It is widely associated with sacrifice, in part, surely, because of its reddish color, and also because of its significance as a sacred substance.   The one apparent rupture in this social continuum occurs with the Moche (..–). It would seem that the Moche studiously avoided any rep-  .. Map of South America with area of Moche occupation highlighted. Map by Donald McClelland.  Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru resentation of the Spondylus in any medium. Indeed, until the archaeological discoveries at Sipán were made in thes, we were inclined to believe that Peruvian access to the shell somehow had been curtailed during Moche times. We now know that this was not so. Notable numbers of the bivalves were found among the sumptuous burial goods of Sipán’s Warrior Priest, an aristocrat who lived and died in the Lambayeque Valley around the third century .. (Alva and Donnan : Fig. ). His cohorts, the Bird Priest and the Old Lord, were also buried with respectable quantities of the exotic shells (Alva and Donnan : –, –). Subsequently, and to the south in the Jequetepeque Valley, excavations have revealed that the early Moche nobility of La Mina and Dos Cabezas also were sent to the afterlife with an array of Spondylus (Fig. .). Moreover, four hundred years later in Jequetepeque, the elaborate tombs at San José de Moro have demonstrated that the Moche elites of the eighth century still were laid to rest accompanied by thornyoyster shells. This presence of actual Spondylus shells in clear-cut Moche ritual contexts presented a real conundrum: there can be no question that the Moche revered the porcelaneous mollusks; the puzzle was why they did not represent them...