Cortes LI. 2007 TESIS MAESTRIA. Material

Material Confines

  Conceptualizations of death through the materiality of burial structures

Leticia Inés Cortés

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the Requirements for the degree of MSc in Human Osteology and Funerary Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

Abstract

  The present research is aimed at the exploration of the possible meanings and significances associated to the materials and forms employed by ancient North-western Argentina’s societies in providing confinement for their dead. Ethnographical and etnohistorical accounts from the Andean region and adjacent lowland areas serve to this purpose in encouraging a locally-informed understanding of the perceptions of matter, life and death.

  The social aspects of enclosure and confinement of the dead as well as the symbolic properties of earth, clay and stones used in the structures of burial are given thought. The various implications of burning and drying as meaningful processes of transformation of matter are revised in relation to indigenous conceptions of death and the afterlife. These insights are later discussed in light of several archaeological examples from North-western Argentina.

  It is concluded that a research on ‘traditional’ Andean worldview provides a necessary framework to be included in the interpretation of past funerary rituals and practices which have become incommensurable from an isolated Western perspective. This research constitutes a first approximation to the material embodiments of the concepts of death held by past Andean societies to be pursued in depth with more detailed contextual information and fieldwork.

  Table of Contents

  Abstract ….. 2

  Table of Contents ….. 3 Acknowledgements ….. 4 Introduction: building death out of materiality ….. 5

I. From Structures to Structuring: archaeological accounts of burial practices ….. 9

  Classification, Materiality and Structure: the archaeological perception of a burial ..... 9

  II. Materiality, Death and Burial ..…13 On enclosure and confinement: structures, gestures and social implications ..… 13

  Structures and objects, among other material means of confinement …. 15 Bodies and gestures of confinement ….. 22

  Meaningful Matters: earth, stones and clay ….. 24

  Earth ….. 25 Stones ….. 30 Clay and Pottery ….. 33

  Death and the Transformations of Matter: decomposing, drying and burning ….35

III. To Think Ahead: considerations on North-western Argentina’s burial record …. 41

  Landscape, history and societies in North-western Argentina ….. 42 Death and Burial among North-western Argentina’s pre-Hispanic Societies: insights from materiality ….. 45

  Conclusions ….. 69 Bibliography ….. 75

Acknowledgements

  This research has been supported by the Programme Al βan, the European Union, Programme of High Level Scholarships for Latin America, scholarship No. E06M100529AR; the University of Sheffield International Scholarship for Latin America; and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET, Argentina).

  I would like to express my most sincere thanks to all those who have made this possible: Andrew Chamberlain, for his constant support and guidance, for being so helpful before my arrival at Sheffield, throughout the course and after. To my professors at the Department of Archaeology Pia Nystrom, Mike Parker Pearson and Kevin Kuykendall, to Christie and Chris who have made of this course a most enjoyable and fruitful experience. To my family and friends who in the distance supported me in innumerable ways. To Alejandro, because this wouldn’t have been possible without you.

  Thank you all.

Introduction: building death out of materiality

  In North-western (NW) Argentina, throughout centuries of archaeological investigation, every description of the funerary customs of ancient societies has been primarily made in terms of the structure that contained the remains of the deceased. Certainly, while other relevant features might have been overlooked, whether it was an ‘urn burial’ a ‘cist’ or a body placed directly on the ground has always been accounted for in the reports. Such varied ways of placing the dead later defined ‘types’ of burial and were even used to classify distinct cultural groups. However, the potentially diverse concepts of death implied by each particular way of confinement have rarely been discussed. In this place, I will begin to explore how the materiality of the burial structures and by implication, the ways of disposing the bodies of the dead might have denoted different concepts of death in NW Argentina’s prehistory.

  From very ancient times, ‘Andean’ traditional knowledge has considered earth, stones and clay to be symbolically charged materials (e.g. Mariscotti de Görlitz 1978, Allen 1988, Sillar 1996, Hosler 1996, Saunders 1999, 2004). As in many other societies in different times and places, the use of particular materials to place the dead is likely to have been restricted by the representation and meanings of certain contexts and ritual occasions. From this perspective, the building of a tomb is thought to inaugurate a particular association between the dead and the material properties and symbolic significances of those raw materials and forms employed (e.g. Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina 1998). In creation, there is selection from a virtually infinite number of possibilities and combinations, accordingly, we should see in the very materiality of the tomb the significant choice of past societies and the embodiment of a particular From very ancient times, ‘Andean’ traditional knowledge has considered earth, stones and clay to be symbolically charged materials (e.g. Mariscotti de Görlitz 1978, Allen 1988, Sillar 1996, Hosler 1996, Saunders 1999, 2004). As in many other societies in different times and places, the use of particular materials to place the dead is likely to have been restricted by the representation and meanings of certain contexts and ritual occasions. From this perspective, the building of a tomb is thought to inaugurate a particular association between the dead and the material properties and symbolic significances of those raw materials and forms employed (e.g. Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina 1998). In creation, there is selection from a virtually infinite number of possibilities and combinations, accordingly, we should see in the very materiality of the tomb the significant choice of past societies and the embodiment of a particular

  

  The first part of this research takes the form of a very brief acknowledgement on how particular perceptions might be biasing the archaeological classification of burial practices. While it might be unrealistic to think that the remains that we investigate can

  be totally freed from our own culturally shaped perceptions, this should not preclude the effort of discerning other possible ways of ordering reality. A critical consideration of the way we perceive, organize and interpret the material record of burial practices will hopefully be promoted by considering indigenous definitions of death and the afterlife.

  The second part is devoted to exploring the physical and conceptual proprieties of various constructive materials, shapes and associated features of burial structures. Throughout this research, ethnographical and ethnohistorical accounts are deemed especially relevant to encourage a locally informed understanding (sensu Meskell 2004:58) of the materiality of funerary rituals in the Andean region. These accounts play

  a substantive role in informing the present research with different modes of perceiving and organizing reality, thus helping widening our conceptual boundaries in the interpretation of the past. The use such accounts does not however provide any simple solution to interpreting what in essence is culturally and historically determined. Yet, these records force us to observe reality from a different angle, challenging the pertinence of Western taxonomies (Saunders 2004:136-7). Can the materiality of burial

  structures -as problem to investigate itself- provide any different perspective in the interpretation of past funerary practices? If creating, building and shaping entails a “manipulation and recombination” of powerful substances into cultural forms (Saunders 2004:124), how then is a clay-urn, a stone-cist or a hole dug in the ground conceptually appropriate for the placing of the dead? A number of related issues are also given thought in this chapter. For example, why may be sometimes essential to provide the dead with a material structure of confinement? How are the bodily remains of the deceased purposively ‘affected’ by different types of confinement, or even by the absence of one? What meaningful considerations about the body and the afterlife can be drawn from different post-mortem treatments of the deceased’s body? Why might be particular qualities of the landscape, features or objects relevant to the realms of death?

  The third part of this research is aimed at providing a first approximation to the material record of funerary rituals in pre-Hispanic NW Argentina hoping to develop some ideas with regards to the concept of death and their embodiment in diverse burial structures. I will consider various published and unedited records of funerary contexts ascribed to Formative (ca.600BC-9001000AD) as well as Late period (ca.1000-1480 AD) societies settled around the Santa María Valley area and the eastern forest regions. The examples here discussed are not expected to provide any uncontested results but instead to unfold a framework of discussion to be deepened with further fieldwork and detailed contextual research.

  “Material Confines” thus makes an intentional reference to the general will of confinement that is apparent from the treatment of the dead in many societies. At the same time, it enfolds an allusion to our culturally-specific process of description, “Material Confines” thus makes an intentional reference to the general will of confinement that is apparent from the treatment of the dead in many societies. At the same time, it enfolds an allusion to our culturally-specific process of description,

  

I. FROM STRUCTRES TO STRUCTURING: ARCHAEOLOGICAL ACCOUNTS OF BURIAL PRACTICES

  Classification, Materiality and Structure: the archaeological perception of a burial

  In our Western tradition death occurs in an absolute moment of time. Life and death are axiomatic opposite realms: one, determined by the absence of the other. Nowadays, funerary rituals take in general a relative short time. Just the necessary involved in the preparation of the corpse and the paying of the final respects to the deceased and its’ relatives (Hertz 1960:28). After that time, the body is given final disposal.

  Yet, as Hertz has early recognised, that’s just us. It is our own way of perceiving death and the dead. In other times and places, death may not have corresponded to any ‘clear-cut event’ (Gittings 1984:19) but instead taken a series of ritualised acts, starting even before death took place (e.g. with the conviction or suspicion of anyone going to die) and not ending with its actual occurrence. In many societies around the world, the processes of decomposition of the body, primary disposal or even the time taken to prepare the deceased’s’ body are considered liminal periods where the dead still have influence and control over the living; and yet again, formal disposal doesn’t either terminate this relationship (for the Andes see e.g. Tschopik 1951, Allen 1982, Harris 1982, Pærregaard 1987, Sillar 1992). Among many contemporary Andean communities, for example, the dead are thought to come back every year during All Saint’s Day to Yet, as Hertz has early recognised, that’s just us. It is our own way of perceiving death and the dead. In other times and places, death may not have corresponded to any ‘clear-cut event’ (Gittings 1984:19) but instead taken a series of ritualised acts, starting even before death took place (e.g. with the conviction or suspicion of anyone going to die) and not ending with its actual occurrence. In many societies around the world, the processes of decomposition of the body, primary disposal or even the time taken to prepare the deceased’s’ body are considered liminal periods where the dead still have influence and control over the living; and yet again, formal disposal doesn’t either terminate this relationship (for the Andes see e.g. Tschopik 1951, Allen 1982, Harris 1982, Pærregaard 1987, Sillar 1992). Among many contemporary Andean communities, for example, the dead are thought to come back every year during All Saint’s Day to

  To admit such variation becomes essential when attempting to understand other possible ways of conceptualising death and burial. An acknowledgement of what has become ‘normal’ to us should then be the starting point of every attempt to understand and interpret other cultures’ funerary rituals. As Gittings’ has succinctly stated, it is of foremost importance to realise that even the words ‘death’ and ‘funeral’ are deeply influenced by our own time. Certainly, our own conceptions and perceptions will necessarily permeate the discourses of the past. In writing and choosing the words to describe reality, we are too organizing, categorizing and giving existence to the perceived world (Goodman 1990, Meskell 2004). While this practice is ineludibly and necessary, it is not however exempt of some dangers. As Owoc has argued for prehistoric Britain, names can become powerful things as those common descriptive terms used to designate burial structures (e.g. “earthen mounds, rings, stone cairns, ditches”) have in the long run served to pre-define them and to condition their experience (Owoc 2004:108). Similarly, in the long history of NW Argentina’s archaeological research, perhaps the use of terms such as ‘cists’, ‘urn-burials’ and ‘direct-earth burials’ has restrained the thought of their very materiality as embodiment of distinct concepts of death. Certainly, once we have learnt to ‘see’ variation from a particular perspective it may become very difficult to adopt other point of view (Fyfe and Law, Margolis, cited in Dobres 1999:7).

  Any classification will tell us as much about the object itself as about those who have produced such ordering (see Miller 1985:6). Being born out of reflection and discourse, they too deserve critical examination (Foucalult 1972:22). Moreover, depending on what is being weighted, classifications may ponder certain features or properties and yet, contextual differences can transform and produce new similarities and dissimilarities (Goodman 1992:21). For example, we may think that a stone cist and

  a funerary urn are ‘similar’ in terms of their function: they both have served to place the dead; however, they can be very dissimilar in terms of the associated concepts of death that each one entailed. It is in this sense that the ‘glimpse’ provided by ethnographical accounts and historical texts may become an invaluable guide -tough certainly not a solution- to their interpretation. The present work will endeavour to provide a contextually and historically informed approach of burial structures as material expressions of particular conceptualizations of death. Certainly, the appropriateness of using ‘Andean traditional knowledge’ as a homogeneous body of thought to be applied to different contexts and times is debatable. However, specific ethnographical and ethnohistorical accounts serve the purpose of start dealing with our past from a non- Western perspective. Even though present Andean societies are historically unique in every way as were those of pre-Hispanic times, the striking formal and conceptual resemblance of certain practices and beliefs to those recorded by early Spanish chronicles speak of the long permanence of certain background attitudes and perceptions towards nature, life and death. In this sense, the theoretical justification of applying such body of knowledge to interpreting archaeological remains is sustained by the need of start thinking funerary evidences through local ways of understanding life and death.

  Previous approaches to burial evidences based of different criteria will not be discredited in light of the framework chosen here. Instead, the aim is placed in the rethinking existing evidences through other meaningful principles (Douglas and Hull 1992:7). Accordingly, my starting point will necessarily take hold of currently used categories, to suggest further ways of understanding differential burial practices in pre- Hispanic NW Argentina. It is hoped that this work will accomplish a first step in the complex task of incorporating the perceptions of others while acknowledging our own cultural biases in describing and interpreting the past.

II. MATERIALITY, DEATH AND BURIAL

  The aim of this chapter is twofold. In the first place I will focus on the social aspects of the enclosure and confinement of the dead, with particular concern to Andean societies. Without expecting this practice to be universal or even unavoidable, its unquestionable occurrence in the archaeological record gives reason for investigating the underlying beliefs as well as the material outcomes of such practice. In the second place, the symbolic meanings and cultural significances of diverse materials, elements and their changing physical and chemical states as perceived by past and present societies will be explored. Particular emphasis is given to Andean perceptions of materiality as well as to those recorded in the lowland eastern forests. The final objective is to elaborate a thoughtful body of knowledge on the symbolic implications associated to the use of particular materials and transforming processes (e.g. drying, burning) in the context of death and burial to later advance possible interpretations of pre-Hispanic NW Argentina’s funerary record.

On Enclosure and Confinement: structures, gestures and social implications

  Many accounts around the world have highlighted the polluting and dangerous nature of the deceased. For example, the vulnerability of close kin -especially women and children- against a recent death as well as all members of society to the ancient dead has been extensively documented in the Andean region (e.g. Karsten 1932:189-190,

  Harris 1982, Allen 1988, Gose 1994, Salomon 1995, 2002, Sillar 1996, DeLeonardis and Lau 2004). Consanguine relatives are said to be exposed to exceptional danger do to their “almost physical connection” to the corpse, a situation that does not end until the alma (soul) has been definitively separated from the living (Tschopik 1951:214, Gose 1994:117). Before this time, the relatives and the community in general are in particular danger of being seized by the dead (Tschopik 1951:214).

  Tschopik (1951:214) reports that among the Aymara of highland Peru, the funeral practices are explicitly designed to: “(1) prevent additional deaths; (2) protect the living against dangers incurred through contact with the dead; (3) discourage the ghost from lingering about the premises; and (4) speed the departed soul on its journey to the hereafter”. These four schematic aims are systematically repeated throughout the Andean region and the adjacent lowlands areas. A series of ritual actions thus take place to comply with this necessary separation of the realms of life and death, some of which may be considered transient and ephemeral but others indeed leaving distinct material outcomes. Indeed, building an enclosed structure for confinement constitutes one material means of effective separation. However, other more subtle forms might have had the same effects (see Parker Pearson 1999:25). Yet here I will not only think of confinement in terms of accomplishing a physical separation but also implying any material and immaterial means of control and restrain from the potentially harmful dead. Among the Laymi of the Bolivan Andes for example, the array of protective ritual gestures performed during the periods of burial and mourning included “constant chewing of coca leaf, wailing, leaving the grave prior to burial, putting up thorns and knives to keep it from the house, taking care not to sleep or walk alone at night, and avoiding the graveyard at all times, especially at night which is the time of ghosts”

  (Harris 1982:53). Certainly, although none of these ephemeral actions will be archaeologically recoverable, other gestures may have lasted as material embodiments of the imperative need of confinement, control and restrain. Indeed, while living among the Chaco groups of Argentina and Bolivia, Karsten realised that these peoples tried to avoid the spirits of the deceased by using “the same material means” as they would have employed against a human enemy, such as shutting the house where the corpse had laid, barricading the door with poles, and fencing the place with arrows. All these were perceived as “effective” protections against the dangerous spirits of the dead (Karsten 1932:194).

  Here I would like to think of the various means and reasons for confining the dead while simultaneously protecting the living and to explore their material outcomes to build on possible archaeological indicators of such practices. In what follows, several questions will be explored: how and when is any burial structure to be understood as inherently confining? Could certain materials, landscape features or particular environs

  be founders of an effective separation of the harmful but indispensable dead? Could certain objects and their disposition in the grave be inhibiting noxious effects associated to the dead and thus ‘confining’ them in particular ways? Could burial postures -the ‘gestures’ of the dead- be considered an embodied means of restraint?

Structures and objects, among other material means of confinement

  Although not able to be generalized to all times and places, providing a material enclosure to contain the body of the deceased has since ancient times been indeed Although not able to be generalized to all times and places, providing a material enclosure to contain the body of the deceased has since ancient times been indeed

  In the Andean thought, the ‘ghost’ of the dead -sometimes equated with its soul- has been said to represent the biggest threat to the living (Harris 1982:54); death rites are accomplished to dissolute the intimate link between the soul and the bodily remains of the dead (Gose 1994:116). On occasions, three or more ‘almas’ are distinguished, one of which is thought to remain with the buried cadaver (Valderrama and Escalante, cited in

  Gose 1994:116) 1 . The process by which the soul becomes effectively detached from the body of the dead begins with the simultaneous rituals of clothes washing and burial

  (Gose 1994:121) however it does not come to an end with the actual disposal of the body. Every year during the celebrations of All Saints and the Day of the Dead the recent dead are thought to come back to visit the living, an event that foresees the preparation of great quantities of food and drink to be offered to and ‘eaten’ by the visiting souls (e.g. Bastien 1978:171-187, 1995:368-372). Through this cyclical annual ritual, the separation of the living and the dead -initially accomplished during burial- is

  1 In general, there seems to be a wide variety of interpretations concerning the number and quality of souls and their different paths alter death (Tschopik 1951:210-219). According to

  Allen (1988:62) “Andean worldview does not accommodate the Western dualism of body and soul”. Equally Harris (1982:61) warns about the ‘incompatibilities’ regarding the concept of soul, which might be simultaneously present -tied up to the body- and departing -to the afterlife.

  ensured in time (e.g. Harris 1982:56). Although the division of the dead and the living seems to be reversed during these festivities (Gose 1994:114), this time could also be understood as a controlled, regulated way of contact and in this sense, as a culturally prescribed way of preserving their necessary separation.

  However, both for contemporary and historic Andean and neighbouring lowland societies, the soul of the dead is thought to be particularly harmful during the time following death that is, when the arrangements for the disposal of the body are being made. During this critical time, several actions are performed to protect the ones in danger. Karsten has argued that among the lowland groups of the Argentinean and Bolivian Chaco the burial customs performed seemed to be aimed at “interring the soul with the body”, and only later is the soul thought to leave the grave and become some undefined entity (Karsten 1932:189). Providing the burial structure with a lid or cover seems to have been a clear indication of such need of confining the soul of the deceased:

  “Before life was extinct, the body was thrust into a huge jar into which also ornaments, weapons, food and drink were put, the mouth of the vessel then being carefully closed up with an earthenware platter. It was important that the lid was put on before the dying person had drawn his last breath. By doing this, it was thought that the soul of the dead would for a time be held in confinement, so that it would not be able to work any harm on the living. The jar was afterwards interred inside the dead persons hut” (von Rosen 1901-1902:224, emphasis added).

  While the practice of interring adults in big vessels appears to have been more common in the eastern forests of the Andes (e.g. Berberián 1969), the fear of the soul escaping may have made of the practice of covering other types of tombs necessary and unavoidable. Yet, even these actions could sometimes be regarded as insufficient for which extra means of security could have been imperative. Huntington and Metcalf (1979:76) when discussing Berewan funerary rites have pointed out an occasion when extra bands of rattan needed to be tied to a coffin in order ‘to secure the lid more firmly’ as threatening sounds were heard coming from inside. Interestingly, several examples in the archaeological record of NW Argentina could be pointing towards this need of ‘reassuring’ the covers or lids (see Chapter III).

  To cover up entails providing a close environment that neatly separates what remains inside and outside; in this sense, any ‘hole’ or ‘aperture’ (as in an opened urn) might be considered potentially dangerous. According to Hertz it is the need of avoiding the exit of the soul and preventing it causing other deaths what motivates the hermetic sealing of the coffins among Borneo peoples (Hertz 1960:32). In this same respect the account recorded by Pærregaard in highland Peru becomes revealing:

  “Before the night of the wake, the relatives of the dead search for one or several holes in the ground which is said always to be found on a circle drawn around the corpse placed in the house of the family…Finally it is filled with a series of objects to obstruct it… I was told that the soul of the deceased can escape through the hole if it is not properly obstructed. Should this happen horrible things might occur like the walls “Before the night of the wake, the relatives of the dead search for one or several holes in the ground which is said always to be found on a circle drawn around the corpse placed in the house of the family…Finally it is filled with a series of objects to obstruct it… I was told that the soul of the deceased can escape through the hole if it is not properly obstructed. Should this happen horrible things might occur like the walls

  Also:

  “La Barre reports about the Aymara Indians he studied that when

  a person dies, in order that more in the family will not die also, a local doctor sound out all holes in the walls and floor of the house. If he strikes

  a place sounding hollow, he will dig it out pretending that he fights with something very strong… In the same area, Tschopik tells, people believe that the soul of the deceased digs a hole in the floor of the house to call the widow and convince her to join him. The only way to prevent this from happening is to identify and obstruct the hole…” (Pærregaard 1987:32-33, emphasis added).

  And again:

  “When a man died, his soul (qamasa) digs a little grave under the floor of the house. He is calling for his wife so that she will die too. The person who cleans the house discovers these ‘graves’ with a needle or awl and fills them with earth to prevent other deaths” (La Barre, cited in Tschopik 1951:214, emphasis added)

  Another set of interesting accounts of Aymara groups point out that if there is no sufficient soil to cover up a child’s grave this means that another one will soon die (Tschopik 1968:168; also Flores, cited in Gose 1994:275). Along with the others, this Another set of interesting accounts of Aymara groups point out that if there is no sufficient soil to cover up a child’s grave this means that another one will soon die (Tschopik 1968:168; also Flores, cited in Gose 1994:275). Along with the others, this

  Not just the proper covering of the body seems to have been imperative but also interring the dead with certain urgency. For instance, some researchers have argued that it is the fear of someone being ‘seized’ by the soul of the deceased what makes the mourners fill in the grave hastily (Gose 1994:119, Bastien 1995:363) and “hurry” the corpse into the ground (Allen 1988:15). In this respect, Metraux (1930:143) has reported that among historic Chiriguano groups, just having the “slight perception of someone going to die” was sufficient enough “to grab the person and put him inside an urn”. Although perhaps overdramatized by the ethnographer, this perception is clearly evocative of the danger of the soul escaping just after death occurs.

  The accomplishment of confinement however, needed not to be always dependent on a sealed structure since other less obvious means may have had the same outcomes. For example, in the Berewan case, the action of confinement was further ensured by placing magical plants on top of the coffins’ lid (Huntington and Metcalf op. cit.). In contemporary Bolivia, Laymi people placed thorns and knifes in an upright position to keep the recently buried dead away from the house (Harris 1982: 53). So too in the lowland Chaco areas thorny branches are placed on top of the grave to prevent the spirit of the dead from escaping (Karsten 1932:194-5, also Harris 1982:52 for the

  Andean region; Figure 1). Among some Bolivian groups stones are hurled with slings to avoid the souls of the living following the dead (La Barre, cited in Tschopik 1951:214). Similarly, as Gose has himself sensed “almost as if to make sure that the corpse stays down, heavy rocks and a cross are planted on top of the grave” (Gose 1994:119). In the same fashion, some of the relatives were in charged of “pounding the loose dirt on the grave with a heavy flat stone, which further emphasizes that the corpsealma is being driven downwards” (Skar, cited in Gose 1994:275, emphasis added). Interestingly, several examples from NW Argentina could be evocative of such practices (see Chapter III).

  Figure 1: Grave covered by thorny branches. Taken from Karsten (1932:194)

  Another common means of establishing a symbolic but effective separation between the realms of the dead and the living deals with the inversion of time and space. Such “rites of reversal” are said to define an “opposite ritual time” for the dead and in this sense to portrait a distinctive contextual situation from that of the living (Parker Pearson 1999:26). Among the Bolivian Laymi for example, the land of the dead is

  thought to be diametrically opposed to that of the living: one world experiences night while the other daytime; wet season in one, dryness in the other (Harris 1982:62). Also among contemporary Andean communities, the ritual of washing the clothes of the deceased is done by men in place of women who are usually in charged of that activity (e.g. Gose 1994). Similarly, and given the polluting nature of the clothes, the washing is done with the feet instead of the normal use of the hands. Moreover, the clothes of those who have participated in a funeral should be put inside out to avoid sickness and further bad luck (Tschopik 1951:215). Perhaps in this light, the frequent placing of upturned objects in the contexts of death could become relevant as another ritual means for taming the dead (see Chapter III).

Bodies and gestures of confinement

  Historical accounts from the ‘extirpators of idolatries’ recall that “amazingly successful efforts” were made to give the ancestors “lifelike postures, gestures, and orientations” (Salomon 1995:346) perhaps to provoke certain feelings in the onlookers. Certainly, the dead are disposed; their bodies are prepared and arranged by the living. After death, bodies become “plastic entities” that demand ritual manipulation (Meskell 2004:124). Just as walking, standing, resting or giving birth are shaped by culturally determined ways of movement and posture (e.g. Mauss 1979, Kendon and Blakely 1986, Bremmer and Roodenburg 1991) so too the disposition of the dead responds to particular conceptualizations of death and life. From an archaeological point of view, the perspective of ‘gestures’ has clear implications for the analysis of the disposal of bodies Historical accounts from the ‘extirpators of idolatries’ recall that “amazingly successful efforts” were made to give the ancestors “lifelike postures, gestures, and orientations” (Salomon 1995:346) perhaps to provoke certain feelings in the onlookers. Certainly, the dead are disposed; their bodies are prepared and arranged by the living. After death, bodies become “plastic entities” that demand ritual manipulation (Meskell 2004:124). Just as walking, standing, resting or giving birth are shaped by culturally determined ways of movement and posture (e.g. Mauss 1979, Kendon and Blakely 1986, Bremmer and Roodenburg 1991) so too the disposition of the dead responds to particular conceptualizations of death and life. From an archaeological point of view, the perspective of ‘gestures’ has clear implications for the analysis of the disposal of bodies

  Mauss’ notion of ‘body techniques’ pointed towards the effectiveness of certain culturally prescribed postures and movements, in this sense equated to any magical, religious or symbolic action (Mauss 1979:104). Schmitt further argued that although ‘gestures’ tend to be identified with something immaterial, gestured expressions produced something, had an outcome, and it was here where its efficacy ultimately rested (Schmitt 1991:62). The gestures performed by the living are effective and transforming, but also ephemeral and transient. By contrast, the gestures of the dead become permanent and static, eternal. They have meaningful outcomes as silent bodily practices (Cortés op. cit.). Indeed, providing the corpse with a particular position in the grave could have effectively guaranteed a protection against their potentially harmful nature, thus becoming an ‘embodied’ way of confinement. As Olivia Harris described, the Laymi of Bolivia tied the neck, arms and feet of the dead to restrain the evil spirit to its own body, thus preventing it from causing any harm to the living (Harris 1982:53). Others have pointed out that it is through the mouth that the spirit of the dead can escape (Tschopik 1951:217), thus perhaps covering specific parts of the body could have prevented the soul from evading the corpse or even re-entering it. What I would like to highlight here is the efficacy of a bodily gesture in confining the noxious effects of the dead. If the efficacy of gestures lies in their ability to regulate the behaviour of the other in an interpersonal relationship (Kendon 1981:141), perhaps this approach could be fruitfully applied to understand the fragile equilibrium between the living and the dead in the Andean past.

Meaningful Matters: earth, stones and clay

  Materiality is sensuous in essence; textures, shapes, colours and smells may interact together to provide a unique experience of the material world (Meskell 2004:64, Tilley 2004:12). In the every day life of ancient communities, stone, clay, wood, earth, mud, metals, shell, bone were all constitutive of varied kinds of structures and objects. While according to traditional Andean thought, all materials are ultimately derived from the Mother Earth (Pachamama), the transformation of raw materials into objects may have entailed the conscious transfer and resignificance of their symbolic properties (Allen 1982:193). In this place, I will support the idea that the differential use of raw materials should be taken as inherently informative of a materially-expressed worldview (e.g. Boivin and Owoc 2004, Meskell 2004). Certainly, to create, to build and to shape entails a conscious reordering of substances into cultural forms, becoming the embodiment of fundamental powers or capacities (Saunders 2004:124). Today, many Andean communities experience the material world as “animate, powerful and responsive” to human intervention, influencing everyday activities, perceptions and beliefs (Allen 1988:37). The choices of particular materials and the techniques employed in their processing thus become necessarily entangled with the particular representations of the material world (Sillar 1996:259). How then, could stones, clay and the same Earth have imprinted particular statements and meaningful qualities to the structures they conformed? What immutable materials as well as transformative processes were considered necessary in the realms of death and burial?

  One way of start disentangling this multisided issue is to consider what associations are being forwarded through the materiality of burial structures and to what

  extent these may inform our analysis of past funerary practices. Ethnographic as well as etnohistorical accounts contribute to this purpose although they do not provide any simple solution to interpreting what is in essence culturally and historically unique. Yet, these records may inspire us to observe reality from a different angle. In the following paragraphs, the evocative qualities of diverse materials will be explored. Special emphasis is given to stone, clay and earth as these are the main substances associated to the archaeological record of burial in NW Argentina and the southern Andes in general. In close relation to this, the various conceptual associations of death and the physical and chemical processes of burning, decomposing and drying are examined to further build on the past significances of burial structures, surroundings and contents.

Earth

  The pervasive symbolic importance of the Mother Earth (Pachamama) in Andean cosmology, its fundamental position in thought and its omnipresence in ritual performances does not need to be emphasized. Certainly, since ancient times the ‘empowered earth’ has been the cause of many ritual practices, behaviours, gestures and offerings (Boivin 2004:5) but it is perhaps in the Andean region were ‘Pachamama’ becomes the defining element of ideology, the source from where all meaning ultimately derives (e.g. Mariscotti de Görlitz 1978).

  Paradoxically, for us archaeologist working in the Andean region of the southern parts of South America, the earth is usually ‘taken for granted’ as the material that needs to be screened and taken out to uncover the remains of the past. As Parker Pearson has cogently pointed out “earth has often been considered by archaeologists to be a Paradoxically, for us archaeologist working in the Andean region of the southern parts of South America, the earth is usually ‘taken for granted’ as the material that needs to be screened and taken out to uncover the remains of the past. As Parker Pearson has cogently pointed out “earth has often been considered by archaeologists to be a

  

  The every-day complex of ritual gestures towards the Pachamama that are today held in many parts of the Andean world could perhaps be taken as hints of the impressive importance and ubiquity that these rituals might have had in the pre-Hispanic past. While resignifications of such rituals have undoubtedly occurred, the long-standing omnipresence of such practices in the Andes speaks of the centrality of Earth in shaping the destiny of the people who live at expenses of ‘her’. In parallel with ancient sensitivities, digging the earth to extract its ‘treasures’ is not regarded as a harmless or innocuous practice by many contemporary Andean communities. Catherine Allen, among the many ethnographers that have worked and lived in Andean communities honestly confessed the impossibility of approaching their rationalities without taking into account the emotional basis of these peoples’ relation to nature and the material world. So she truthfully admitted having been able to describe the methods and techniques employed in hoeing the potatoes out of the fields and the teamwork involved in these tasks, yet regretting not being able to observe “the Earth’s resentment of the hoes cutting into her” (Allen 1988:37). In this phrase, Allen brilliantly summarizes our conceptual and perceptual distance to Andean present societies and leaves us archaeologists with a reflection of how far away are we to understanding past practices if we keep thinking them through our Western parameters and taxonomies.

  In my experience, when the archaeological practice is done in conjunction with the invaluable help and knowledge of local communities, ordinary digging work will

  inevitably and rightfully get engaged with traditional beliefs. In the Cajon Valley (NW Argentina) just like any professional archaeological digging entails a quantity of governmental and official permits, so too we have learned to request ‘permission’ to the Mother Earth by performing the offering ritual or ‘Pacha’. Before starting any archaeological dig, every participant in the excavation makes hisher ‘payment’ to the Pachamama and requests her ‘treasures’ to be accessed. The main performer of the ritual (usually a local collaborator) digs a small hole in the earth were all participants one by one will pour coca leaves, wine, aguardiente, cooked maize flour, sweets, chocolate and all that the Pacha enjoys ‘eating’. A cigarette is lighted and later placed standing in the hole for ‘the Earth to smoke’. Once the libations have finished, the hole is covered by a stone. Successive Pachas are preferably done in the same hole and a new stone is added each time (Figures 2, 3, 4).

  Figure 2: Pacha ritual. Pouring of wine (Cajón Valley, Argentina). Photos by Lic. Marilin Calo

  Figures 3 and 4: Pacha ritual. Pouring of wine and toasted maize flour (Cajón Valley, Argentina). Photos by Lic. Marilin Calo.

  Another special event where the Pacha ritual is of foremost importance is during the ‘señalada’ (‘signalising’), a ritual performed to mark the new born animals of the flock. In this particular occasion the hole is dug inside the corral and adorned with wool garlands (Figure 5). Successive ‘señalada’ rituals will again look for the same hole to make the new offerings and each time, the hole is covered by the same flat stone and buried some centimetres below ground (Figure 6). Importantly, although this stone is not visible at the level of the surface, the exact place where to look for it is remembered by the performers.

  Figures 5 and 6: ‘Señalada’ ritual (Cajón Valley, Argentina). Pouring of wine and detail of the

  flat stone used to cover the hole (arrow).

  According to a generalized Andean world view, life comes from the earth and returns to it at death (Bastien 1978:173). Harris has already stated that the digging of the graves and the way in which the corpse is placed “in the newly-opened earth” is explicitly reminiscent of the cultivation of potatoes (Harris 1982:52). Both activities - burying the dead and cultivating- have further been argued to be symbolically linked in the Andean thought: the dead give water back to the world of the living; water is taken up by the crops which are in turn eaten by the people who benefit from the water ‘sent’ by the dead. Therefore, as people plant seeds they recuperate the energy of the dead in the appropriate manner (Gose 1994:131). In this same line of thought the ritual action of digging of the earth and covering up with flat stones as in the ‘Pachamama’ ritual becomes significantly evocative of particular burial contexts of NW Argentina (see Chapter III). Clearly then, when dealing with burial contexts in the Andean past we According to a generalized Andean world view, life comes from the earth and returns to it at death (Bastien 1978:173). Harris has already stated that the digging of the graves and the way in which the corpse is placed “in the newly-opened earth” is explicitly reminiscent of the cultivation of potatoes (Harris 1982:52). Both activities - burying the dead and cultivating- have further been argued to be symbolically linked in the Andean thought: the dead give water back to the world of the living; water is taken up by the crops which are in turn eaten by the people who benefit from the water ‘sent’ by the dead. Therefore, as people plant seeds they recuperate the energy of the dead in the appropriate manner (Gose 1994:131). In this same line of thought the ritual action of digging of the earth and covering up with flat stones as in the ‘Pachamama’ ritual becomes significantly evocative of particular burial contexts of NW Argentina (see Chapter III). Clearly then, when dealing with burial contexts in the Andean past we

  

Stones

  To embark in the understanding of the meanings of stone becomes emblematic of the contradictory ways of perceiving reality between different systems of belief. Certainly, to us stones have become the paradigm of the ‘inanimate’, the ‘inert’, the ‘non-living’ thing. By contrast, many contemporary as well as ancient societies in different parts of the world share the perception of stones as animated beings (Boivin 2004). In the Andean region, the personified character of stones and stone formations (mountains, caves, outcrops, cliffs) has been determinant since ancient times (e.g. Arriaga 1621, Karsten 1926, Mariscotti de Görlitz 1978, Gose 1994, Bastien 1978, Saunders 2004). The sacredness of these formations stands in direct relation to their ritual-demanding nature, what in turn speaks of the powers that are embodied in them (Saunders 2004:126). According to the Andean worldview:

  “the compact hardness of stones, bones, and statues implies not a lack of animation, but a different state of animation -life crystallized, as it were. Hard, unusual stones (such as illas and istrillas) and bare bones (like the skull kept for khuyay) are felt to be the most potent sources of energy. They are intimately connected with lighting and sunlight, whose power they absorb and condense” (Allen 1988:63).

  From a phenomenological framework, Tilley (2004) has extensively discussed how the different sensual proprieties of stones -textures, colours, sizes, even tastes and smells- become relevant in their perception and significance. Ethnographical and historical accounts have highlighted the importance that certain natural formations, stones and minerals had for Andean people, in particular those whose colours, shapes or textures stood out against their surroundings making them comparatively unique in their realm (Karsten 1926:363, Mariscotti de Görlitz 1978:57, Saunders 1999, Van de Guchte 1999:154). To some, the distinctiveness of certain formations is said to establish the limits of the sacred spaces (Mariscotti de Görlitz op. cit.), a point to which we will return when discussing specific landscape features related to the placing of the dead in NW Argentina.

  Stones are habitually used as markers of significant points in the landscape, signalising specific places for ritual offerings. These stones are themselves considered sacred, meaningful objects (Mariscotti de Görlitz 1978:60). Mountains and rock outcrops have long been used as places for the dead in the Andean region. The arrangement of single stones to build special compound enclosures for the dead is also ubiquitous. Even when stones are not built into proper, enclosed ‘containers’, these are used in relation to burial structures which further speak of their symbolic importance in the context of death. For example, Allen (1988:15) has described the use of flat stones to cover the graves among contemporary highland Peruvian communities, a feature that is ubiquitously repeated in the Andean pre-Hispanic record (see Chapter III). Whether these stones are selected from the landscape or shaped into this particular ‘flat’ form demands further examination as to unravel their significance as embodiments of death in the Andean past.

  Among the humanly created stone ‘formations’, the ‘apachetas’ or ‘apachitas’ are cairns formed by the purposeful accumulation of stones located in particular places of the landscape (Figure 7). Today as in the past, travellers deposit one stone in the pile,