By Richard Dally

Introduction

The essence and comprehension of human sacrifice performed by ancient cultures across the world are proven in the archaeological record, and in some cases, continue to remain open for discussion. Human sacrifice is customarily defined as an act of killing a person as a propitiatory offering or as a retainer sacrifice to a divine figure, and it has a large cultural significance in the history of Peru. The scope of this research focuses on the Moche culture that flourished before the Incan and Chimu empires of ancient Peru. Through the review of relevant literature, iconographic interpretation, and archaeological and osteological analysis, this research explores how the Moche elite and priests utilized human sacrifice to affirm and advance their religious and political polities to maintain order over internal and neighboring rival polities.

The Moche, or Mochica, were named after the Moche river valley in the North Coast of Peru. As written records do not exist, archaeology and anthropology provide a better understanding of the Moche’s cultural identity through analyzation of material culture, archaeological sites, and iconography. The Moche dominated the majority of the North Coast of Peru during the Early Intermediate Period (200–850 CE). Their influence and material culture ranges from the far north Piura valley to as far south as the Huarmey valley.¹

THE MOCHE UTILIZED THE CRAFTSMANSHIP, SOCIOPOLITICAL STRUCTURE, AND TECHNOLOGY FROM PIONEERING PERUVIAN CULTURES TO MAKE THEMSELVES CULTURALLY DISTINCT

The Moche utilized the craftsmanship, sociopolitical structure, and technology from pioneering Peruvian cultures to make themselves culturally distinct in the pre-Columbian world. Although they lived in an arid coastal environment, the Moche thrived by incorporating maritime resources and advanced agriculture through a system of irrigation canals. The Moche channeled rivers from the Andes to cultivate and augment agriculture potential. They were specialists in sophisticated metallurgy, textiles, and ceramics, as well as in constructing adobe temples, pyramids, and palaces known as huacas.²

Literature Review

Our comprehension of the Moche’s political and social organization has changed throughout decades of archaeological research and interpretation. Rafael Larco Hoyle, a pioneering Peruvian archaeologist, categorized the Moche by developing a five-stage chronology through analysis and interpretation of Moche art style and ceramic vessels. Larco’s chronology allowed future scholars to divide the Moche into three phases: Early Moche, Middle Moche, and Late Moche. The huacas suggest the Moche were a highly stratified political and religious hierarchy that expanded their range of influence through militaristic behavior as a state-like society.³ However, it is now widely acknowledged that there were two spheres, northern and southern, of Moche influence. The north is “characterized as a loose confederation of culturally similar polities” and the south, as a militaristic and expansionist state society.⁴ Understanding Moche’s sociopolitical structure provides further insight into their elite’s motives for human sacrifice and warfare.

The purpose of Moche warfare and human sacrifice depicted in iconography continues to be a topic of debate. Sutter and Cortez addressed three competing models, primarily derived from ethnohistoric analogies and iconographic interpretations that potentially offer clarification for Moche human sacrifice and warfare. Model A suggests the Moche performed staged ritual one-on-one combat amongst the local elite within their society. Model B proposes combat with non-Moche polities through traditional militaristic state expansion. Model C posits the Moche were engaging in warfare with conflicting independent Moche polities in neighboring valleys.⁵ Mortuary samples gathered from Moche archaeological sites provide insight to the origins of sacrificial victims. Biological analyses help determine biodistance and oxygen isotope compositions of dental samples gathered from skeletal remains of sacrificed and non-sacrificed individuals.⁶,⁷,⁸ This allows researchers to identify the origins of the sacrificial victims at Huaca de la Luna and apply them to the competing models.

Figure 1. Rollout drawing of a large combat scene by Donna McClelland. Image Courtesy of the Christopher B. Donnan and Donna McClelland Moche Archive, Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C.

Figure 2. Rollout drawing of combat between two pairs of warriors by Donna McClelland. Image Courtesy of the Christopher B. Donnan and Donna McClelland Moche Archive, Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C.

Figure 3. Rollout drawing of warriors leading nude prisoners by a rope by Donna McClelland. Image Courtesy of the Christopher B. Donnan and Donna McClelland Moche Archive, Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C.

Figure 4. Rollout drawing of the Sacrifice Ceremony, or Presentation Theme, by Donna McClelland. Image Courtesy of the Christopher B. Donnan and Donna McClelland Moche Archive, Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C.

Moche Iconographic Scenes of Violence and Sacrifice

Warfare is easily recognizable in Moche iconography, with frequent scenes of one-on-one combat found on ceramic vessels and murals located in temples (Figures 1, 2). Combat is depicted through the phases of the Moche but most commonly found on Middle and Late Moche ceramics. The interpretations of combat scenes can be categorized using the three models mentioned above.

Model A was favored by Moche scholars due to the recognition of the warriors’ Moche style apparel and weapons in combat scenes, indicating that the Moche warriors were fighting against other warriors from their population. The scholars assert that the primary objective of these ritual battles was not to kill opponents, but to wound and defeat them in battle. Defeated warriors were taken as captives, stripped of their regalia and clothing, and paraded to a religious power center for a sanguineous ceremony (Figures 3, 4).⁹ Proponents of Model A assert that the Moche’s representation of the combat scenes parallels tinkus, ethnohistoric Andean highland ritual battles. However the comparison is problematic and archaeological evidence is not consistent with the tinkus.¹⁰

Model B focuses on combat with non-Moche polities (e.g. Recuay and Gallinazo).¹¹ This model is unlikely due to a lack of foreigners represented in these scenes; however, opinions differ on whether foreigners are depicted in Moche iconography.¹² Model C posits that the Moche were engaging in religious or secular combat with Moche polities in neighboring valleys,¹³ which explains the similarities between the Moche combatants depicted in iconography and supports the idea of ritual one-on-one combat posited in Model A. Knocking off an opponent’s helmet or grabbing the foe’s hair is a sign of capture or a “visual metaphor for a military victory over an enemy or competing polity,” which has also been documented in other cultures (Figure 2).¹⁴ Placing Model C in the greater context of the Moche’s sociopolitical organization supports the northern and southern spheres of Moche influence.

The most iconic religious ceremony depicted in Moche iconography is the Sacrifice Ceremony, or the Presentation Theme, that represents a sanguineous religious ceremony (Figure 4). In the lower portion of this scene, two bound captives’ throats are slit for exsanguination by ceremony participants who collect the captives’ blood in goblets. The upper portion reveals the Warrior Priest, receiving a goblet presumably filled with blood, from the Bird Priest, followed by other prominent figures participating in the ceremony. Originally, the Sacrifice Ceremony was interpreted as a mythical scene, however, excavations of Moche power centers in the Lambayeque and Jequetepeque Valleys revealed elaborate tombs of elite individuals adorned in regalia similar to the figures in the Sacrifice Ceremony.¹⁵ These tombs indicate the Moche, or at least the elite, participated in these religious sacrificial ceremonies. A ceremonial goblet that contained human blood antigens was excavated from a tomb, perhaps to be consumed by the attendants of the ceremony.¹⁶

These archaeological discoveries offer a better understanding of Moche religious ideology and organization. The regalia of recognizable characters depicted in the ceremony found in tombs were real, or at least they participated in a guise of supernatural figures and deities, confirming the Moche conducted ceremonies requiring the sacrifice of captives.¹⁷ These ritual roles were passed down, as indicated by multiple, non-contemporaneous burials of similar fashion. The Sacrifice Ceremony was enacted in numerous sites throughout many valleys. Huaca El Brujo in the Chicama Valley houses painted friezes of prisoners and supernatural spider decapitators with a human femur from a fleshed body integrated into the friezes, suggesting that the decapitator scenes and prisoner display are not metaphorical.¹⁸ Several portrayals of the decapitator god (e.g., fish, spider, and birds of prey) are presented in Moche iconography, and evidence of sacrificial decapitation was found at Huaca Dos Cabezas in the Jequetepeque Valley.

MORTUARY SAMPLES GATHERED FROM MOCHE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES PROVIDE INSIGHT TO THE ORIGINS OF SACRIFICIAL VICTIMS

Moche Human Sacrifice at Huaca de la Luna

Huaca de la Luna in the Moche Valley is well-known for containing sacrificial victims, especially at Plazas 3A and 3C. Excavations conducted at Plaza 3C revealed it was enclosed with adobes preceding the erection of Plaza 3A, supporting the idea that the plazas were “not in use at the same time, but date to different construction phases.”¹⁹ Radiocarbon-dated samples revealed that nearly all human sacrifices in Plaza 3C were buried over several centuries in eolian sediment (i.e., windblown sand) during typical weather associated with the arid environment. Thin and few layers of fluvial sediment in the stratigraphy is evidence of infrequent rainfall over time, which revealed no signs of correlation between rainfall and number of victims. The earliest evidence of human sacrifice dates to the beginning construction stages of Huaca de la Luna. These early sacrifices did not take place in Plaza 3A, as it was rapidly built due to threatening El Niño flooding. Excavations at Plaza 3A uncovered roughly seventy-five individuals that likely died in six distinct events. Some of the victims in Plaza 3A were embedded in colluvial and alluvial sediment (i.e. mud) and some eolian sediment, which implies that they were sacrificed during and after torrential flooding caused by at least two El Niño episodes.²⁰ Data from high-resolution ice-cores indicates that there was frequent torrential flooding around the same time Plaza 3A was in use.²¹ Environmental and sociopolitical disruptions, caused by torrential flooding, likely spawned local skirmishes among rival Moche polities which ultimately led to the human sacrifices at Plaza 3A.

The individuals sacrificed in both plazas were young, healthy males showing signs of injuries, especially parry fractures, which is a defensive fracture of the ulna at midshaft. These injuries are consistent with combat, indicating that they were professional warriors with experience. Fracture wounds were found in “the early stages of healing at the time of death: apparently wounds sustained in combat or following capture.”²² This suggests that several weeks has passed between when they were captured and sacrificed. The victims were seated and bound before being sacrificed, as represented in Moche iconography, supporting all three models (Figure 3). The sacrificial remains at Plaza 3C are usually articulated while most of the remains in Plaza 3A are disarticulated and unbound.²³,²⁴ The disarticulation of the skeletal remains in Plaza 3A may be a result of vulture scavenging, which has also been seen in Moche iconography.²⁵

Osteological analysis of the remains in both plazas indicates that the majority of the victims had their throats slit, as indicated by nicks across the cervical vertebrae and few “unequivocal cases of decapitation” (Figure 4).²⁶,²⁷,²⁸ There is evidence of skull fractures associated with eight victims at Plazas 3A and one from 3C that were perimortem. The reason some of the victims were clubbed remains ambiguous. Although Moche warriors were depicted in iconography striking captives to induce nose bleeding, scenes of victims being bludgeoned to death are unknown. Further analysis reveals that some of the victims with skull fractures, whose cervical vertebrae are still attached, also show cut marks of a standard throat slice that is common with majority of the victims.²⁹ Hence, the practice of bludgeoning victims was not an alternate modus operandi of human sacrifice, “but perhaps an embellishment reserved for a select few,” or victims who resisted being sacrificed. Nonetheless, the evidence does not support Model A because if it were staged ritual combat the victims would have been willingly sacrificed by traditional throat slitting. These examples of bludgeoning can also be interpreted as capital punishment, yet the end result of capital punishment is indistinguishable from human sacrifice.

The sacrificial ritual did not end with the death of the victims; sacrificed individuals were left out to decompose under natural elements and reveal signs of intentional postmortem flaying of fleshed bodies and disarticulation of skeletons. In contrast, the elite and some commoners were typically interred with grave goods in a supine position.³⁰,³¹ The tortured victims “would have been transgressors of the ancestral order”³² so they were displayed out in the elements to deprive them “funerary rites that would have assured the circulation of vital force between life and death.”³³ Sacrificial expiation was intended to placate the deities and ancestors of the Moche. Additionally, shattered ceramic vessels of seated prisoners with ropes tied around their neck were found in situ with the unburied sacrificial remains, which can be interpreted as a form of harassment instead of physical torture.³⁴ This treatment of the victims supports Models B and C.

Conceptualizing the Origins of the Huaca de la Luna Human Sacrifices

One study tested the three models to the Plaza 3A victims by examining the archaeological context and “biodistance data on genetically influenced dental traits” gathered from samples within the same and nearby valleys; allowing further insight into reconstructing “genetic relations among both prehistoric and living populations.”³⁵ The researchers compared the dental traits of the sacrificial victims at Plaza 3A to the non-sacrificial mortuary samples and concluded that the victims from Plaza 3A originated from valley populations outside of the local Moche valley population.³⁶ The same study was applied to the Plaza 3C victims, who were found to be closely related to the local Moche valley population.³⁷ Although the researchers were unable to determine the exact origins of the sacrificed individuals, they concluded that their data does not support Model A.³⁸,³⁹

Another study tested individuals from urban tombs of the elite and sacrificial victims at Huaca de la Luna using “phosphate oxygen isotope compositions of tooth enamel and bone.”40 Phosphate oxygen isotope values vary considerably with the highest values found at low altitudes near a coast, and they decrease the farther one travels from a coast and when moving up elevation. These values become fixed during childhood in tooth enamel, however, the values in bones changes throughout an individual’s life. By comparing the local values to the values in tooth enamel and bone remains, it can be determined if an individual had lifelong residence at a site; were born elsewhere and moved to a site, and even if they were born at a site, left for an extended period, then returned. Elite males from urban tombs had values consistent with lifelong residence whereas females had values consistent with later arrivals, suggesting wives were chosen from outside Huaca de la Luna “to unify social and political alliances.”⁴¹ The earlier victims from Plaza 3C were from Huaca de la Luna while the later victims from Plaza 3A were both locals and non-locals, suggesting a change in the sacrificial ritual. The research utilized the regional baseline water sources from the north coast of Peru to elucidate the human oxygen isotope values.⁴² Some of the individuals from Plaza 3A may have relocated to Huaca de la Luna, although the dental morphology and oxygen isotope values reveal non-local origins. One possibility is that the victims were captured for several years from distant valleys as “controlled labor” or as slaves.⁴³

Conclusion

When applied to Model C, the characteristics of the sacrificial victims from Plazas 3A and 3C are consistent with the current knowledge of the militaristic and expansionist southern Moche polity and a loose confederation of northern Moche polities of similar cultural and ideological beliefs.⁴⁴,⁴⁵ The archaeology of Huacas de Moche affirms a “significant chronological shift in power from religious specialists to more overt secular-like political control.”⁴⁶ The southern Moche’s expansion of territory did not transpire over a single campaign but alternatively in several campaigns over hundreds of years, utilizing both non-military and military tactics that most likely included alliance formation between the south and north.⁴⁷,⁴⁸ Undoubtedly, the Moche heavily engaged in the four sources of power identified by Mann: military, economic, political and ideology.⁴⁹ However, the Moche utilized ideology as their primary strategy and source of power through the investment in resources, as seen in the construction of Moche temples, production of religious objects, and performance of religious ceremonies.⁵⁰ I believe Moche iconography can be interpreted as a form of propaganda to spread religious and sociopolitical ideologies through different expressions of material culture.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND HOW ARCHAIC CULTURES IN PERU, SUCH AS THE MOCHE, RESPONDED TO TIMES OF SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS

It is important to understand how archaic cultures in Peru, such as the Moche, responded to times of social and environmental crisis (e.g., El Niño flooding or drought) that resulted in warfare and human sacrifice. Labeling human sacrifice as purely religious is too narrow of an interpretation. For some cultures, modern and prehistoric, religion is used as a sociopolitical tool to affirm one’s own power and legitimacy. Human sacrifice could very well have been used to inflict fear and assert power in order to prevent local skirmishes and insurgency from rival polities. This is seen with the Moche using human sacrifice as a religious mechanism to affirm their religious and political ideologies from competing Moche polities, as well as affirming the elite’s supremacy.

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References

1. Luis J. Castillo Butters and Santiago U. Castillo, “The Mochicas,” in Handbook of South American Archaeology, ed. Helaine Silverman and William Isbell (New York: Springer, 2008), 707–29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-74907-5.

2. Butters et. al, “The Mochicas,” 707–29.

3. Butters et. al, “The Mochicas,” 707–29.

4. Richard C. Sutter and John W. Verano, “Biodistance Analysis of the Moche Sacrificial Victims from Huaca de la Luna Plaza 3C: Matrix Method Test of their Origins,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 132, no. 2 (November 2006): 193–206, https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.20514.

5. Richard C. Sutter and Rosa J. Cortez, “The Nature of Moche Human Sacrifice: A Bio-Archaeological Perspective,” Current Anthropology 46, no. 4 (August 2005): 521–49, https://doi.org/10.1086/431527.

6. Sutter et. al, “Moche Human Sacrifice,” 521–49.

7. Sutter et. al, “Biodistance Analysis,” 193–206.

8. J. Marla Toyne et al., “Residential Histories of Elites and Sacrificial Victims at Huacas de Moche, Peru, as Reconstructed from Oxygen Isotopes,” Journal of Archaeological Science 42, no. 1 (February 2014): 15–28, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2013.10.036.

9. Sutter et. al, “Moche Human Sacrifice,” 521–49.

10. John W. Verano, “Warfare and Captive Sacrifice in the Moche Culture: The Battle Continues,” in Embattled Bodies, Embattled Places: War in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Andes, ed. Andrew K. Scherer and John W. Verano (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Symposia and Colloquia, 2014), 283–310.

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14. Verano, “Warfare and Captive Sacrifice,” 283–310.

15. Sutter et. al, “Moche Human Sacrifice,” 521–49.

16. John W. Verano, “War and Death in the Moche World: Osteological Evidence and Visual Discourse,” in Moche Art and Archaeology in Ancient Peru, ed. Joanne Pillsbury (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 111–26.

17. Verano, “War and Death,” 111–26.

18. Verano, “War and Death,” 111–26.

19. John W. Verano, “Communality and Diversity in Moche Human Sacrifice,” in The Art and Archaeology of the Moche: An Ancient Andean Society of the Peruvian North Coast, ed. Steve Bourget and Kimberly L. Jones (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008), 23–42.

20. Verano, “Communality,” 23–42.

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25. Verano, “Warfare and Captive Sacrifice,” 283–310.

26. John W. Verano, “The Physical Evidence of Human Sacrifice in Ancient Peru,” in Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru, ed. Elizabeth P. Benson and Anita G. Cook (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), 165–84.

27. Verano, “War and Death,” 111–26.

28. Verano, “Communality,” 23–42.

29. Verano, “Communality,” 23–42.

30. Verano, “Physical Evidence,” 165–84.

31. Verano, “War and Death,” 111–26.

32. Anne-Marie Hocquenghem, “Sacrifices and Ceremonial Calendars in Societies of the Central Andes: A Reconsideration,” in The Art and Archaeology of the Moche: An Ancient Andean Society of the Peruvian North Coast, ed. Steve Bourget and Kimberly L. Jones (Austin: University of Texas Press), 23–42.

33. Hocquenghem, “Sacrifices and Ceremonial Calendars,” 23–42.

34. Hocquenghem, “Sacrifices and Ceremonial Calendars,” 23–42.

35. Verano, “Warfare and Captive Sacrifice,” 283–310.

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38. Verano, “Warfare and Captive Sacrifice,” 283–310.

39. Sutter et. al, “Biodistance Analysis,” 193–206.

40. Marla Toyne et al., “Residential Histories of Elites and Sacrificial Victims at Huacas de Moche, Peru, as Reconstructed from Oxygen Isotopes,” Journal of Archaeological Science 42, no. 1 (February 2014): 15–28, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2013.10.036.

41. Toyne et al., “Residential Histories,” 15–28.

42. Toyne et al., “Residential Histories,” 15–28.

43. Toyne et al., “Residential Histories,” 15–28.

44. Verano, “Warfare and Captive Sacrifice,” 283–310.

45. Sutter et. al, “Biodistance Analysis,” 193–206.

46. Toyne et al., “Residential Histories,” 15–28.

47. Sutter et. al, “Biodistance Analysis,” 193–206.

48. Toyne et al., “Residential Histories,” 15–28.

49. Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power: Volume I, A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 11–27.

50. Butters et. al, “The Mochicas,” 707–29.

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Richard Alexander Dally ‘19

Richard Alexander Dally ‘19 attended Texas A&M University at Galveston as a Maritime Studies major with a double minor in Anthropology and English from Waxahachie, Texas. Richard completed his research in the 2018–2019 class of the Undergraduate Research Scholars under the guidance of Dr. DiGeorgio-Lutz and Dr. Mark. Richard plans to pursue a Master’s in Marine Resources Management at Texas A&M University at Galveston.