Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Pespectives on Food, Politics, and Power

13. Feasting on the Periphery: The Production of Ritual Feasting and Village Festivals at the Ceren Site, El Salvador

fEASTING ON THE PERIPHERY THE PRODUCTION OF RITUAL FEASTING AND VILLAGE FESTIVALS AT THE CEREN SITE, EL SALVADOR Linda A. Brown And they [the sixteenth-century Yucatec Mayal often spend on one banquet whatthey have earned by trading and bargaining many days. And they have two ways of celebrating these feasts: the first, which is that of the nobles and of the principal people, obliges each one of the invited guests to give another similarfeast.And to each guest they give a roasted fowl, bread and drink of cacao in abundance; and at the end of the repast, they were accustomed to give a manta [cloth[ to each to wear, and a little stand and vessel, as beautiful as possible. And if one of the guests should die, his household or his relations are obliged to repay the invitation.The second way of giving feasts was used among kinfolk when they marry their children or celebrate the memory of the deeds of their ancestors, and this does not oblige the guests to give a feast in return,except if a hundred persons have invited an Indian to a feast, he also invites them all when he gives a banquet or marries his children.They have strong friendship and they remember for a long time these invitations, although they are far apart from one another. Bishop Diego de Landa (Tozzer 1941:92) In the Maya region. feasting was a pivotal component of rituals for the elite and non-elite alike. As noted by Bishop Diego de Landa. elite Maya rulers engaged in a form of competitive feasting and gift-giving with strict understandings for repayment . Social obligations were so embedded in sixteenth-century Maya elite consumption rituals that the debts acquired during feasts did not end with death but would be inherited by surviving kin (Tozzer 1941:92). But in addirion to the competitive feasting of the elite. Landa mentioned feasting among the commoners. or "kinfolk." associated with ancestor veneration and life-cycle celebrations. Many of these feasts occurred in conjunction with ritual activities. such as dancing with animal headdresses. bloodletting. animal sacrifice . carving new idols. and displays of ideologically charged icons. which took 368 RITUAL FEASTING AND VILLAGE FESTIVALS AT THE CEREN SITE, EL SALVADOR place during public religious performances at community festivals (e.g., Tozzer 1941), In this chapter 1explore this second type of feast, that of the "kinfolk," focusing on the archaeological correlates of ritual feasting at the site of Ceren, El Salvador . The Ceren site, located in the Zapotitan Valley, was a Oourishing Middle Classic period agricultural community located on the southern Maya periphery (Sheets 1992a; Fig. 13.r). Around A.D. 590 a volcanic vent, located only 600 meters from the site, opened up beneath the nearby Rio Sucio and buried the community under 6 meters of ash (Sheets 1992a). The suddenness of the eruption precipitated a catastrophic abandonment of the community leaving virtually complete artifact assemblages in their context of use or storage, in addition to preserving fragile earthen architecture and organic artifacts. The unique mode of abandonment and subsequent extraordinary preservation of the site provides archaeologists with a rare glimpse of rural village life, including material remains that can be interpreted as functioning in the production of community festivals and ritual feasting. The archaeological signature suggesting participation in village feasting at Ceren adds important new criteria to the archaeological identification of feasts, one of the major themes of this volume, HONDURAS Pacific Ocean Ocean ...... o 50 kilometers Figure 13. r. Map or western EI Salvador. 369 Lmda A. Brown Material correlates of feasting inferred from the Ceren data include many of the expected categories as proposed by Hayden (1995.1998. Chapter 2) including: (I) a specialized permanent facility. known as Structure 10. that was used for food storage. food preparation during feasts. and as a storage house for ritual paraphernalia between events: (2) a cleared area around the exterior of the building interpreted as a gathering space for food consumption and ritual performances; (3) an artifact assemblage indicative of large-scale food preparation and storage; and (4) ritual items that included a deer-skull headdress with other likely components of a ceremonial dance costume. [n this chapter, my objective is to examine the archaeological signature of ritual feasting. First the archaeological evidence of feasting at Ceren is examined and data suggesting that one household may have been linked with feasting are presented...