Sex, Death, and Sacrifice in Moche Religion and Visual Culture

To Unite and Divide: Canals,Tinku, Liquids and Time in the Moche World

“…I now turn to evidence from Moche archaeology to show that the Andean concepts outlined above were relevant in earlier times. Many scholars have argued that dualism was a feature of Moche society and visible in aspects of Moche art and praxis (Bourget 2006; Holmquist 2013; Swenson 2018). Yet dualism is not always explicit in the archaeological record.…”

Moche Human Sacrifice: The Role of Funerary and Warrior Sacrifice in Moche Ritual Organization

“…The Mountain Sacrifice Ceremony is another common but less extensively studied sacrificial scene in Moche iconography. In this scene, supernatural figures known as Wrinkle Face and Iguana are depicted participating in a sacrificial activity that takes place in a mountain setting (Bourget 2006). Garth Bawden (1996:70) has hypothesized that as locales of direct access to the supernatural world, mountain peaks may have provided an ideal location for ritual, including human sacrifice.…”

“…Steve Bourget has argued that warrior sacrifice can also be interpreted following van Gennep's 'rites of passage' theoretical model. According to Bourget (2006), the death of the sacrificial victims represents the separation phase. The extended period of exposure on the plaza is the liminal phase, which comes to an end with the release of the victims' souls with the departure of the newly hatched, scavenging flies from the remains during the reintegration phase.…”

“…Cross-culturally, death is often viewed as a transition from one existential state to another (Rakita and Buikstra 2005:97). Among the Moche, a tripartite system of iconography and religion has been proposed, entailing a world of the living, a world of the dead, and a world of mythical ancestors (Bourget 2006). The boundaries between these domains may have been blurred, as some highranking individuals may have been perceived as originating from the afterlife.…”

“…The boundaries between these domains may have been blurred, as some highranking individuals may have been perceived as originating from the afterlife. The three states of human beings -alive, dead, or ancestral -would thus have been part of a continuum leading from life, through death, to the afterlife, with much fluidity between categories (Bourget 2006). The concept of a journey toward a certain destination after death seems to have constituted an integral part of Moche belief systems regarding death, and burial ritual would have played a significant role in linking the living, the dead, and the ancestors (Bourget 2006).…”