The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts As Trophies by Amerindians

by Chacon, Richard J.; Dye, David H.

• ISBN13: 9780387483009
• ISBN10: 0387483004
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-05-18
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

The Amerindian (American Indian or Native American - reference to both North and South America) practice of taking and displaying various body parts as trophies has long intrigued both the research community as well as the public. As a subject that is both controversial and politically charged, it has also come under attack as a European colonists' perspective intended to denigrate native peoples. What this collection demonstrates is that the practice of trophy-taking predates European contact in the Americas but was also practiced in other parts of the world (Europe, Africa, Asia) and has been practiced prehistorically, historically and up to and including the twentieth century. This edited volume mainly focuses on this practice in both North and South America. The editors and contributors (which include Native Peoples from both continents) examine the evidence and causes of Amerindian trophy taking as reflected in osteological, archaeological, ethnohistoric and ethnographic accounts. Additionally, they present objectively and discuss dispassionately the topic of human proclivity toward ritual violence.

Author Biography

Richard John Chacon is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Winthrop University. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Amazonia among the Yanomamo of Venezuela, the Yora of Peru and the Achuar (Shiwiar) of Ecuador and he has also worked in the Andes with the Otavalo and Cotacachi Indians of Highland Ecuador. His research interests include optimal foraging theory, indigenous subsistence strategies, warfare, belief systems, the evolution of complex societies, ethnohistory and the effects of globalization on indigenous peoples. David H. Dye is an Associate Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Memphis. He has conduced archaeological research throughout the Southeastern. His research interests include the archaeology and ethnohistory of the Midsouth. He has had a long-term interest in late prehistoric warfare, ritual, and iconography in the Eastern Woodlands.

Table of Contents

North America
Introduction to human trophy taking : an ancient and widespread practice	p. 5
Heads, women, and the baubles of prestige : trophies of war in the Arctic and subarctic	p. 32
Human trophy taking on the northwest coast : an ethnohistorical perspective	p. 45
Ethnographic and linguistic evidence for the origins of human-trophy taking in California	p. 65
Head trophies and scalping : images in southwest rock art	p. 90
Human finger and hand bone necklaces from the Plains and Great Basin	p. 124
Predatory war and hopewell trophies	p. 167
"Otinontsiskiaj ondaon" ("the house of cut-off heads") : the history and archaeology of northern Iroquoian trophy taking	p. 190
Human trophy taking in eastern North America during the Archaic period : the relationship to warfare and social complexity	p. 222
Severed heads and sacred scalplocks : Mississippian iconographic trophies	p. 278
Disabling the dead : human trophy taking in the prehistoric southeast	p. 299
Trophy taking in the central and lower Mississippi Valley	p. 339
Latin America
Captive sacrifice and trophy taking among the ancient Maya : an evaluation of the bioarchaeological evidence and its sociopolitical implications	p. 377
The divine gourd tree : Tzompantli skull racks, decapitation rituals, and human trophies in ancient Mesoamerica	p. 400
Sorcery and the taking of trophy heads in ancient Costa Rica	p. 444
From corporeality to sanctity : transforming bodies into trophy heads in the pre-Hispanic Andes	p. 481
Human trophies in the late pre-Hispanic Andes : striving for status and maintaining power among the Incas and other societies	p. 505
Seeking the headhunter's power : the quest for Arutam among the Achuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon and the development of ranked societies	p. 523
"Handsome death" : the taking, veneration, and consumption of human remains in the insular Caribbean and Greater Amazonia	p. 547
Human trophy taking in the South American Gran Chaco	p. 575
Ethics and ethnocentricity in interpretation and critique : challenges to the anthropology of corporeality and death	p. 591
Supplemental data on Amerindian trophy taking	p. 618
Conclusions	p. 630
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