Cosmologic principles of Moche-highland interactions during the Middle Horizon period in Jequetepeque

Abstract

In this chapter, I argue that developments characterizing the Late Moche Period in the Jequetepeque Valley, including both the adoption of highland artistic styles at San José de Moro and Huaca Colorada, as well as the proliferation of Moche religious architecture throughout the hinterland, were significantly influenced by interactions with highland societies, including Wari and Cajamarca. I support this thesis by examining the reconfiguration of the chicha-based political economy and the intensification of competitive feasting in the region that accompanied the ascendancy of the priestess cult in Jequetepeque. I also contend that a specific cosmological framework of coastal-highland opposition and gendered complementarity, evident at the time of the conquest, appears to have taken root in the Middle Horizon. In other words, culturally constructed and religiously mediated notions of geography, alterity, and interdependence can partly explain the tenor of Moche-highland relations and the subtle transformations of Moche ritual practices and political relations. The data suggests that the priestess cult may have been patronized by sierra polities, even if indirectly, for it conformed to emerging geo-cosmological and gendered understandings of coastal-highland dependencies.