Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru

Chapter 6: Ritual Uses of Trophy Heads in Ancient Nasca Society

  Ritual Uses of Trophy Heads in Ancient Nasca Society  .  Department of Anthropology, Universityof Massachusetts  Centered in the Ica and Nasca Valleys of south coastal Peru, the ancient culture known as Nasca dominated a wide area of southern Peru between  .. and .. . Here the Nasca people practiced intensive agriculture in one of the driest and most formidable environments in the world. The vast desert that covers the coastal plain of Peru and northern Chile is bisected by over forty river valleys that carry rain from the higher Andes across the landscape, emptying into the Pacific Ocean. It was in these narrow valleys and their tributaries that the ancient populations eked out their precarious existence, exploited the maritime resources of the ocean, and planted their crops in those parts of the valleys where sufficient water and adequate soils could be found. Survival in this harsh environment was of utmost concern, and many activities, both secular and sacred, revolved around providing for adequate food and water as well as appeasing the spiritual powers that controlled the forces of nature. The Nasca culture developed directly out of the earlier Paracas culture, from which it derived many of its characteristic attributes. Archaeologists use the introduction of slip-painted pottery to mark the beginning of the Nasca culture, although many other cultural changes were occurring simultaneously . Elaborately decorated textiles with rich religious iconography are found in both the late Paracas and early Nasca cultures, but within several generations of the beginning of the Nasca culture, this complex iconography shifts from textiles to ceramics, representing another major difference between the two cultures. However, many Paracas traditions continue well into the Nasca sequence, including the ritual use of trophy heads and many of the fundamental religious icons. Recent evidence suggests that politically the Nasca people did not have a unified central government or a capital city, which are characteristics of state-level societies, but rather were divided into a series of chiefdoms, each with its own leader, yet sharing in a common cultural tradition (see Silver-  Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru man: ff.).The centers of these chiefdoms have yet to be determined, although the multiple tributaries of the Río Grande de Nasca system may have formed the natural boundaries for such a division. The huge site of Cahuachi, covering  hectares in the Nasca River drainage, was once thought to be the capital, but has now been identified as an empty ceremonial center—a place of pilgrimage and burial used only for ritual purposes (Silverman ). Habitation sites, most of them small to moderate in size, are situated on the flanks of the rivers close to the primary centers of cultivation . Like those constructed by contemporary farmers in the region, many of these houses were made of poles and cane matting or of wattle and daub, although stone and adobe were used where the resources permitted. Excavation of these settlements is now just beginning, and as of now we know little of the daily life of the people. The Nasca buried their dead in shallow graves dug approximately six to eight feet into the sand and roofed over with wooden beams derived from the local huarango tree. Sometimes adobes were used to line the tombs or to cover the roofing beams. Bodies were placed in a seated position in the tomb and were accompanied by ceramic vessels, gourd containers with food, weapons, weaving implements, and ornaments. Although museum and private collections contain examples of golden mouth masks and ornaments along with elaborate textiles that are thought to be Nasca, no elite tomb containing the remains of an individual that could be singled out as a leader has yet been scientifically excavated. Because there are no absolute or exclusive differences among the more than two hundred Nasca burials that have been scientifically recorded, but rather a graded continuum from simple to more elaborate graves, the mortuary evidence supports the presence of a ranked rather than a stratified society (Carmichael : – ). Thus, politically and socially the Nasca were quite different from their Moche contemporaries on the north coast, who had a highly stratified society and royal tombs with many elite goods (Alva and Donnan ). The Nasca were skilled craftsmen who wove exquisite textiles from both cotton and wool, fashioned ornaments from imported shell and stone, produced elaborate featherwork, decorated gourd containers with pyroengraved designs, carved objects from wood and stone, and made metal ornaments from gold. The Nasca are best...