Moche corporeal ontology: making and experiencing the ancestors

Abstract

The body has always been an omnipresent concept in archaeological research. And yet, it has been poorly problematized and even less theorized. This limitation is particularly notorious in Andean Archaeology. This article resonates with the current discussion of the ontological turn in archaeology and discusses how this new paradigm offers theoretical tools for an alternative understanding of the human body, its boundaries, and the various ways in which it manifests in the natural and social world. I use Viveiros de Castro´s Amerindian Perspectivism to re-evaluate archaeological evidence from the Moche cemetery of San José de Moro. I propose a Moche corporeal ontology under which the body is conceptualized as an ever-changing entity with relational characteristics and transubstantiation properties. I integrate archaeological data recovered both from the funerary patios and the monumental areas of San José de Moro. I argue that fire was intimately linked to ancestrality rites celebrated at the site. These rites aimed at converting the body of given individuals into ancestral entities, both at a physical and metaphysical level. I draw special attention to the ontology of the rigid matter, which is manifested in the ancestors’ simulacra. These simulacra were widely distributed across the cemetery. Ethnographic accounts in the Andean region describe how these objects are charged with a vital essence, a «sami», which transfigures, transmutes, and exerts significant influence in the social and natural world of Andean people.