Descripción:
The idea for a Symposium to focus on Andean mortuary practices began in conversations with Tom Dillehay in 1988. The PreColumbian program’s Senior Fellows committee was looking to develop a symposium that drew upon recent research in the Andes and at ¡Jll’ same time pushed researchers to expand their thinking about their own work. Dillehay and I had béen discussing several ideas when he began to talk about a long-term interest of his: funerary practices. His work among I he Mapuche, with their complex and costly burial practices, had made him iv.rlize how important and telling this aspect of a culture could be.

In spite of all the excavation-and all the looting-of cemeteries in the Andes, and in spite of the significance placed on burials by ancient Andean peoples, the theme of mortuary practices had never been thoroughly explored. The excavational material was potentially there, but analysis of that data in terms of the practices and beliefs lagged behind. The committee Igreed fully with Dillehay’s idea to organize a symposium for 1991 that would explore Andean mortuary practices and their social, economic, and religious implications, approached from a pan-Andean perspective.

As Dillehay has pointed out, in the Andes there is a long history of research on burial records and context for the purpose of reconstructing cultural affiliation, chronology, socioeconomic status, grave content, treatment of the human body, and specific burial context in various types of sites. Less attention has been paid to the larger question of how mortuary practices functioned in different cultures. The symposium, of which this volume is the result, focused on this broader issue by looking at linkages between the living and the dead (including ancestors) achieved through mortuary rites, the role of wealth and ancestors in cosmological schemes, the location and construction of tombs and cemeteries and their social and political implications, and the art and iconography of death. The speakers were chosen not for their geographic or culture coverage but because their work embraced different and complementary aspects of the topic. The speakers also brought their own perspectives .and approaches, which makes lor a richlv textured volume.


CONTENTS:

Preface......vii

Tom D. Dillehay: Introduction......1

John Howland Rowe: Behavior and Belief in Ancient Peruvian Mortuary Practice......27

Mario A. Rivera: The Preceramic Chinchorro Mummy Complex of Northern Chile: Context, Style, and Purpose......43

Robert D. Drennan: Mortuary Practices in the Alto Magdalena: The Social Context of the ‘San Agustín Culture’......79

Christopher B. Donnan: Moche Funerary Practice......111

Patrick H. Carmichael: Nasca Burial Patterns: Social Structure and Mortuary Ideology......161

John W. Verano: Where Do They Rest? The Treatment of Human Offerings and Trophies in Ancient Peru......189

Jane E. Buikstra: Tombs for the Living…or…For the Dead: The Osmore Ancestors......229

Tom D. Dillehay: Mounds of Social Death: Araucanian Funerary Rites and Political Succession......281

Frank Salomon: ‘The Beautiful Grandparents’: Andean Ancestor Shrines and Mortuary Ritual as Seen Through Colonial Records......315

Joseph W. Bastien: The Mountain/Body Metaphor Expressed in a Kaatan Funeral......355

Patricia J. Lyon: Death in the Andes......379

James A. Brown: Andean Mortuary Practices in Perspective......391

INDEX, prepared by Lisa de Leonardis......407