Social Skins of the Head. Body Beliefs and Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes

Description

The meanings of ritualized head treatments among ancient Mesoamerican and Andean peoples is the subject of this book, the first overarching coverage of an important subject. Heads are sources of power that protect, impersonate, emulate sacred forces, distinguish, or acquire identity within the native world. The essays in this book examine these themes in a wide array of indigenous head treatments, including facial cosmetics and hair arrangements, permanent cranial vault and facial modifications, dental decorations, posthumous head processing, and head hunting. They offer new insights into native understandings of beauty, power, age, gender, and ethnicity. The contributors are experts from such diverse fields as skeletal biology, archaeology, aesthetics, forensics, taphonomy, and art history. Cover......Page 1 Half Title Page......Page 2 Title Page......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Table of Contents......Page 8 List of Illustrations......Page 10 Preface......Page 14 Chapter One. Introducing the Social Skins of the Head in Ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes by Vera Tiesler and María Cecilia Lozada......Page 18 Part One. Mesoamerica......Page 34 Chapter Two. What Was Being Sealed?: Cranial Modification and Ritual Binding among the Maya by William N. Duncan and Gabrielle Vail......Page 36 Chapter Three. Head Shapes and Group Identity on the Fringes of the Maya Lowlands by Vera Tiesler and Alfonso Lacadena......Page 54 Chapter Four. Head Shaping and Tooth Modification among the Classic Maya of the Usumacinta River Kingdoms by Andrew K. Scherer......Page 76 Chapter Five. Cultural Modification of the Head: The Case of Teopancazco in Teotihuacan by Luis Adrián Alvarado-Viñas and Linda R. Manzanilla......Page 98 Chapter Six. Face Painting among the Classic Maya Elites: An Iconographic Study by María Luisa Vázquez de Ágredos Pascual, Cristina Vidal Lorenzo, and Patricia Horcajada Campos......Page 110 Chapter Seven. The Importance of Visage, Facial Treatment, and Idiosyncratic Traits in Maya Royal Portraiture during the Reign of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal of Palenque, 615–683 CE by Laura Filloy Nadal......Page 126 Chapter Eight. The Representation of Hair in the Art of Chichén Itzá by Virginia E. Miller......Page 146 Chapter Nine. Effigies of Death: Representation, Use, and Reuse of Human Skulls at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan by Ximena Chávez Balderas......Page 158 Chapter Ten. Emic Perspectives on Cultural Practices Pertaining to the Head in Mesoamerica: A Commentary and Discussion of the Chapters in Part One by Gabrielle Vail......Page 194 Part Two. Andes......Page 206 Chapter Eleven. Afterlives of the Decapitated in Ancient Peru by John W. Verano......Page 208 Chapter Twelve. Head Processing in the La Ramada Tradition of Southern Peru by María Cecilia Lozada, Alanna Warner-Smith, Rex C. Haydon, Hans Barnard, Augusto Cardona Rosas, and Raphael Greenberg......Page 220 Chapter Thirteen. From Wawa to “Trophy Head”: Meaning, Representation, and Bioarchaeology of Human Heads from Ancient Tiwanaku by Deborah E. Blom and Nicole C. Couture......Page 238 Chapter Fourteen. Cranial Modification in the Central Andes: Person, Language, Political Economy by Bruce Mannheim, Allison R. Davis, and Matthew C. Velasco......Page 256 Chapter Fifteen. Violence, Power, and Head Extraction in Kallawaya Region, Bolivia by Sara K. Becker and Sonia Alconini......Page 268 Chapter Sixteen. Semiotic Portraits: Expressions of Communal Identity in Wari Faceneck Vessels by Andrea Vazquez de Arthur......Page 286 Chapter Seventeen. Using Their Heads: The Lives of Crania in the Andes by Christine A. Hastorf......Page 302 Index......Page 312