Processions, Architecture, and the Space In-Between: Some Observations about Sculpted Moche Pottery

Abstract

The focus of procession, in the ancient Andes and elsewhere, is generally on movement. A handful of Moche ceramic vessels, however, suggest that stasis was also an important part of processional activity. This article presents visual evidence from Moche ceramic vessels and Moche architectural remains to suggest that Moche artisans intentionally included references to pauses in ritual activity. These pauses are given tangible form on representations where two-dimensional processional movement intersects with three-dimensional architectural structures. Appearing as recessed or depressed spaces, they are located squarely in the boundary between processional movement and architectural destination.

While these features, in both art and architecture, have been largely overlooked, their inclusion in Moche art indicates they had a decided function in Moche ritual activity. Their appearance in art and architecture alerts us to, as well as concretizes, an aspect of procession which is difficult to recognize in the archaeological record: thresholds of transition, or liminal space. These features illuminate for us not only a space but also a moment. By giving concrete form to this feature, Moche artisans communicated the importance of liminal or transitional moments in Moche procession.

En los antiguos Andes y otras áreas, por lo general, el enfoque sobre las procesiones está en el movimiento. Sin embargo, un pequeño grupo de vasijas cerámicas Moche sugiere que la estasis o pausa fue también una parte importante de la actividad procesional. Este artículo presenta evidencia visual de artefactos y restos arquitectónicos Moche que sugieren que sus artesanos incluyeron intencionalmente referencias a pausas en la actividad ritual. Se les ha otorgado forma tangible a estas pausas en las representaciones en las que el movimiento procesional bidimensional se intersecta con estructuras arquitectónicas tridimensionales. Estas referencias a las pausas, que aparecen como espacios ahuecados o rebajados, están localizadas directamente en el límite entre el movimiento procesional y el destino arquitectónico.

Aunque estos rasgos, tanto en arte como en arquitectura, han sido largamente ignorados, su inclusión en el arte Moche indica que tenían una función significativa en la actividad ritual Moche. Su aparición en el arte y la arquitectura nos alerta, como también materializa, un aspecto de la procesión que es difícil de reconocer en el registro arqueológico: los umbrales de transición o el espacio liminal. Esos rasgos no solamente resaltan un espacio sino también un momento. Al otorgar forma concreta a este rasgo, los artesanos Moche comunicaban la importancia de los momentos liminales o transicionales en la procesión Moche.

Keywords:

• Moche architecture
• architectural vessel
• representation
• narrative
• procession
• liminal space
• foxes
• snails
• warriors
• captive

Keywords:

• Arquitectura Moche
• vasija con representación arquitectónica
• representación
• narrativa
• procesión
• espacio liminal
• zorros
• caracoles
• guerreros
• cautivo

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Stella Nair and Susan Toby Evans, who organized the session, “Processions in the Ancient Americas,” at the Society for American Archaeology in April 2014 and served as symposiarchs for the Dumbarton Oaks annual symposium on the same topic in October 2014. I am indebted to the participants, whose research informed aspects of this study. In particular, I would like to thank Jerry Moore and Zoila Mendoza. Hannah Wong was an important sounding board, as was Lisa Trever. I am grateful to both for having read earlier drafts of this manuscript and provided insightful feedback. John Verano, Toni Aveni, and Jeff Quilter raised good questions about aspects of the vessels discussed. I thank the anonymous reviewers whose excellent critiques helped to tighten and focus key aspects of this article. Any errors that remain are, of course, my own.

Notes

1. See Wiersema (2015).

2. For processional activity on polychrome murals from Huaca de la Luna, see Uceda (2010). For Huaca Cao Viejo, see Mujica et al. (2007), and for recent discoveries at Pañamarca, see Trever (2013).

3. Both the single and double step motif have full-scale counterparts in Moche ceremonial architecture, see Wiersema (2015: 69, 72). Each is also the subject of its own vessel, see Wiersema (2015: Figures 3.18 and 3.24).

4. To date, this type of staircase has only been identified at Dos Cabezas (Donnan 2014: 123–126).

5. Five examples are known. The two discussed in this article are held in the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Arqueología, e Historia del Peru in Lima (Figure 1) and the Dallas Museum of Art (Figure 2). Others not discussed here are held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, and a private collection in Trujillo, Peru. These are discussed in Wiersema (2015: 79–82, Figures 3.39 and 3.41).

6. An exception would be Christopher Donnan's discussion of a recessed cleft at Chornancap (1984, 2011: 102).

7. Examples include extensive mural programs at Huaca Cao Viejo, Huaca de la Luna, and more recently Pañamarca (see Mujica et al. 2007; Uceda and Tufinio 2003, and Trever 2013, respectively). Other spectacular discoveries include the large-scale evidence of human sacrifice found at Huaca de la Luna (see Bourget 1997) and royal tombs at Sipán (see Alva and Donnan 1993).

8. See Uceda and Tufinio (2003).

9. Throughout the Huaca de la Luna complex, there are other small, elaborately decorated structures which seem to have been venues for specialized ritual activity. See Uceda and Tufinio (2003) and Wiersema (2010, 2015). At Huaca Cao Viejo in the Chicama Valley, a similar polychrome procession of nude captives, bound at the neck, is depicted on the south wall of the main plaza. These figures march in single file towards a small, free-standing, elaborately decorated structure in the southeast corner. Archaeological illustration indicates that the procession turned at this point and headed north along the east wall (see Gálvez and Briceño 2001: 150), but damage to this area leaves little evidence of this today.

10. Styles tend to vary from site to site and from phase to phase. A synthesis of Moche sculpted war clubs and an interpretation of them is found in Gutiérrez (1999). See also Wiersema (2010: 147–148, ff. 215).

11. The moon animal, represented on the exterior walls of independent structures on architectural vessels, has correspondence in the archaeological record. At Huaca Cao Viejo, the moon animal appears on the west wall of the decorated patio; see Mujica et al. (2007: 126–129). At the same site, a carved zapote wooden idol with a moon animal headdress was found, discovered in the upper part of the southwest corner of Huaca Cao Viejo, inside recinto 5, edificio D; see Mujica et al. (2007: 146–151) and Franco and Gálvez (2003a).

12. This was found in the center of the courtyard with murals (platform 1) on the west wall, facing east. See Donnan (1984, 2011: 102–103).

13. Uceda and Tufinio (2003: Figure 20.5).

14. This depression connecting procession and architecture is also found on the side opposite the stirrup handle which also unites architecture and procession.

15. Megan O'Neil has noted that ancient Maya participants in ceremonial ritual used sculpture, or stelae, of powerful local rulers at Piedras Negras (Guatemala) to guide their movement in a counterclockwise direction. She explains that movement in this direction served to activate the sculpture and the ritual space (O'Neil 2012: 4).

16. In the contemporary community of Pacaritambo, foxes are omens for rain and good crops, see Urton (1985: 261–262).

17. Activity and diet patterns for the Sechuran fox were studied in the area of Piura before and after El Niño rains (Asa and Wallace 1990: 69–70).

18. An example can be found in the Museo Larco database, http://www.museolarco.org/catalogo/index.php, using catalog code ML002558.

19. An example can be found in the Museo Larco database, http://www.museolarco.org/catalogo/index.php, using catalog code ML009183.

20. Parts of the Sechuran fox are used today by shamans in magic-religious rituals (Asa and Cossíos 2004: 71; Cossíos 2010: 5).

21. This is discussed in Franco and Gálvez (2003b) and Quilter et al. (2012). A cross-section of the well appears in Quilter et al. (2012).

22. The back side of this wall has two double spirals on the upper register and two scrolls on the lower one. The roof is decorated with war clubs, or porras, depicted two-dimensionally.

23. The sunken step also appears on two Moche V vessels, one in the British Museum and the other in a private collection in Trujillo. See Wiersema (2015: 82, Figure 3.41).

24. This same feature is found in a similar location at Huaca Cao Viejo, on a small elevated platform that interacts with a two-dimensional procession (see Mujica et al. 2007: 152, 162–163).

25. This paper was presented at the Dumbarton Oaks pre-Columbian symposium in 2014.

26. This quote is from an interview with Sir Peter Hall, BBC Radio 3, http://www.pinterproject.webeden.co.uk/#/peter-hall-pinter-pauses/4537477397.