Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Integrative role of ancestor veneration in the multiethnic Middle Sican state (AD 950-1100): A perspective from food practices

Southern Illinois University At Carbondale, Carbondale IL

Investigators

Abstract

Under the guidance of Dr. Izumi Shimada, Go Matsumoto will undertake four separate analyses of archaeological materials excavated in 2006 and 2008 at the site of Sicán in the mid-La Leche Valley, northern Peru. The site was the capital of a multiethnic, theocratic state that flourished between AD 950 and 1100 and was reserved primarily for funerary and ceremonial purposes. Therefore, it provides a unique opportunity to investigate the role of mortuary practice in the social development and maintenance. The excavations targeted the ceremonial core of the capital, which consists of a large rectangular plaza and surrounding platform mounds with elite cemeteries, and documented material traces of preserving and caring the dead bodies as well as other contemporaneous activities within the plaza. The four analyses proposed by Mr. Matsumoto will focus on the food preparation and consumption among others and explore its nature and relation to the mortuary practice. Mr. Matsumoto hypothesizes that central to the Sicán religion was ancestor veneration, and that it served to consolidate this plural society through attendant feasting activities. In traditional as well as modern societies shared beliefs and practices serve to create group identity and promote integration among often disparate social elements. Practices relating to religion and burial play such a role. Thus this study has present day relevance because it directly addresses issues of social cohesion and factors which promote social solidarity and effective function. When explaining why ancestor veneration was practiced, archaeologists have emphasized its economic merits for the cult followers and argued that it helped them demand their rights for limited lands and resources on the basis of their continued occupancy. Contrarily, they have paid little attention to the ideological aspect of ancestor cult, which has been well documented by ethnographers. Mr. Matsumoto focuses on the latter aspect and explores the role of ancestor veneration as a form of ideology for social integration and differentiation through commensal hospitality among the dead and the living of intracultural variability such as social identity and status. Furthermore, many previous studies of mortuary contexts have uncritically invoked ancestor veneration without sufficient empirical support to the point that it was once decried by a British archaeologist that there were too many ancestors. In contrast, Mr. Matsumoto will take a meticulous look at both archaeological contexts and materials to better characterize ancestors and their veneration with reference to ethnological and ethnohistorical resources, and demonstrate how one should approach ancestor veneration and what evidence one would need in order to more appropriately define it in archaeological record. New findings from this study will enhance the local identity and appreciation of prehispanic predecessors literally as remote ancestors. Recent DNA analyses revealed a genetic link between the Sicán and the present people of the area. The contribution of this study will not be confined to the local level. The "Sicán Deity" that represents the Sicán religious art has long been an important icon directly linked to the national identity of modern-day Peru (e.g., the company logo of the national flag carrier and the first of 24 designs for the new coin series). In spite of such a national-level recognition and visibility, however, the nature of the prehispanic religion that created this image is yet to be fully understood. This study will help to orient people's interests not only toward the aesthetics of the representative image, but also toward a better understanding of the Sicán religion and its significance in the Peruvian prehistory. For these purposes, the data and results will be actively made public in different languages in various settings, professional and non-professional.