[Aztlan] Amerindian Warfare & Ritual Violence Resources

[Archaeology Institute]

"Justin Kerr" <mayavase at verizon.net> on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at 4:48 AM -0800 wrote:
>Dear Friends,
>In light of the announcement of these important books, may I point out that
>the Ancient Maya left quite a few images of their practices in regard to
>combat, war, and treatment of those who had been taken prisoner.
>In the Maya Vase Database:
>206 and 680 Disembowelment while tied to a scaffold. 
>1082 Decapitation and body parts.
>2206 Taking of prisoners.
>2342 and others: Wearing of trophy heads.
>2781 Another scaffold scene
>5850 An ax does the bloody deed.
>6674 A ritual before death
>7516 The prisoner is being stoned to death (hand stone)
>7749	Bloody combat with sharpened bones.
>Theses scenes are only a sampling.
>If one enters a string such as 206 or 680 or 2206 or etc., the database will
>bring up all the numbers at once.
>Justin Kerr

Dear Colleagues,

	I would like to take this opportunity to thank Justin Kerr for advancing the discussion, and presenting additional evidence, for the question of Amerindian warfare and ritual violence in the Americas.  In my Latin American Indigenous Warfare and
Ritual Violence (University of Arizona Press, 2007) chapter regarding "Aztec Militarism and Blood Sacrifice: The Archaeology and Ideology of Ritual Violence," I review the extent to which some scholars, and a growing cadre of students, now question
any and all scholarly works that allude to Amerindian warfare and ritual violence (e.g., Hassler 1992).  At the same time, I present arguments for how we might best go about restructuring the dialogue based on reassessments of that forensic,
osteological, archaeological, and ethnohistorical documentation now available.  Clearly, the edification of decades of scholarly frameworks devoted to appeasing both our students and (more intractable) colleagues has resulted in skirting such issues
as blood sacrifice and or ritualized violence so as to frame a dialogue based on what might best be construed as respect and deference for a more idealized past promulgated by the revisionists among us.  My studies at the University of Arizona were
themselves frought with complications arising from my dissertation advisor's insistence that war and violence had little to do with the demise of Maya or other Mesoamerican civilizations.  That individuals insistence was such that upon completing my
dissertation, I was sent an admonishment on UA stationary that made clear that my failure to fall in line with said advisor's perspectives on the ecological basis for the Maya collapse was taken as a personal slight...and that I should consider
going elsewhere for mentoring and post-graduate support.

	Having devoted my life to studying American Indian contributions to science, technology, medicine, and society (e.g., Mendoza, 1997; Mendoza 2003; 2008), I have always found it curious that the only issues that have ever come into question, and
thereby subject to vitriolic attacks, are those that pertain to Amerindian warfare, conflict, and ritual violence in the Americas both before and after the European invasion that transformed the Americas.  At a number of universities in California
and beyond, including a presentation of mine at the National Research Council in Washington, DC (in 1990), I have repeatedly been subjected to ad hominem attacks for merely discussing the visual and forensic evidence for pre-Columbian
warfare...which happens to be my specialty, and the subject of my 1992 dissertation.  After years of such attacks, including a rather unfortunate and condescending discussant's review of the "Human Trophies" session sponsored by Richard Chacon and
David Dye at the Montreal meetings of the Society for American Archaeology in 2004, it has become apparent to my colleagues and I that the subject of war and conflict, and ritual sacrifice, in Amerindian contexts has been shelved in deference to a
more politically correct and sanitized airing of the issues.  Some respondents to past listserv posts here at Aztlan-L have in turn resulted in commentaries that bring into question the very relevance of addressing pre-Columbian warfare and ritual
violence...and that despite the growing evidence of same from throughout the Americas.

	Fortunately, Arthur Demarest, a noted Mesoamericanist and authority on the subject of militarism, empire, and religion has long reported such evidence, and has in addition authored a chapter in Latin American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence
(O'Mansky and Demarest 2007), as well as the concluding chapter of the Chacon and Dye (2007) volume on human trophies...and has more fully addressed the question of scholarly ethics and responsibility in accurately representing those instances when
we as social scientists and art historians encounter evidence for war, ritual sacrifice, cannibalism, and human trophy taking.  We as such look forward to a discussion, however challenging, of the merits of furthering the analysis of those
collections that present evidence that either supports or refutes the question of Amerindian conflict, ritual violence, and bloodshed in both regional and pan-regional contexts...across the spectrum of time and place.  In the end, I believe that if
we are to accurately portray American Indian society and culture, sans those myths often questioned by Vine Deloria (a former professor of mine) and others, then we all need to step back and take stock of those flashpoints of controversy within
which competing epistemological constructs collide...as they clearly do where the question of indigenous warfare and ritual violence in the Americas is concerned.

Best Regards,

Ruben G. Mendoza, Ph.D., Director
Institute for Archaeological Science, Technology and Visualization
Social and Behavioral Sciences
California State University Monterey Bay
100 Campus Center
Seaside, California 93955-8001

Email: archaeology.csumb at gmail.edu
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