The Amerindian (American Indian or Native American reference to both North and South America) practice of taking and displaying various body parts as trophies has long intrigued both the research community as well as the public. As a subject that is both controversial and politically charged, it has also come under attack as a European colonists perspective intended to denigrate native peoples.
What this collection demonstrates is that the practice of trophy-taking predates European contact in the Americas but was also practiced in other parts of the world (Europe, Africa, Asia) and has been practiced prehistorically, historically and up to and including the twentieth century.
This edited volume mainly focuses on this practice in both North and South America. The editors and contributors (which include Native Peoples from both continents) examine the evidence and causes of Amerindian trophy taking as reflected in osteological, archaeological, ethnohistoric and ethnographic accounts. Additionally, they present objectively and discuss dispassionately the topic of human proclivity toward ritual violence.
Recenzijas
From the reviews:
"The volume edited by Chacon and David Dye is a comprehensive source book on trophy-taking in the Americas. carefully produced, thoroughly researched, and thoughtfully written, drawing on ethnohistory and archaeology in about equal measure. essential reading for anyone interested in the archaeology of war and violence." (Elizabeth Arkush, American Antiquity, Vol. 73 (3), 2008)
"This volume of far ahead of many bioarcheological works...it should be the goal of the violence researcher (or any anthropologist for that matter) to not search for a single event that delineates and homogenizes a systematic function of a group (e.g. sacrifice, violence, or warfare) but rather try to understand how people are bound by events and processes that allow for a fluidity of responses to multiple stimuli. This volume moves in that direction by establishing skeletal and taphonomic studies in the Maya region that adhere to a rigorous methodology and that are systematically applied." (Ventura Perez, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, vol. 19 (566-571), 2009).
Part I: North America.- Preface William Woodworth (Mohawk
Traditionalist).
Chapter 1 Richard Chacon (Winthrop University) and David H.
Dye (University of Memphis) 'Introduction to Human Trophy Taking: An Ancient
and Widespread Practice.'.
Chapter 2 Herb Maschner (Idaho State University)
and Katherine Reedy-Maschner (Idaho State University) 'Heads, Women, and the
Baubles of Prestige: Trophies of War in the Arctic and Subarctic.'.
Chapter
3 Joan Lovisek (Lovisek Research) 'Human Trophy Taking on the Northwest
Coast: An Ethnohistorical Perspective.'.
Chapter 4 Patricia Lambert (Utah
State) 'Ethnographic and Linguistic Evidence for the Origins of Human-Trophy
Taking in California.'.
Chapter 5 Polly Schaafsma (Museum of Indian Arts and
Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology of the Museum of New Mexico) 'Head
Trophies and Scalping: Images in Southwestern Rock Art.'.
Chapter 6 Douglas
Owsley (Smithsonian), Karin Bruwelheide (Smithsonian), Laurie Burgess
(Smithsonian) and William Billeck (Smithsonian) 'Human Finger and Hand Bone
Neclaces from the Plains and Great Basin.' .
Chapter 7 Mark F. Seeman (Kent
State University) 'Predatory War and Hopewell Trophy-Taking.'.
Chapter 8 Ron
Williamson (Archaeological Services Inc., Canada) 'Otinontsiskiaj ondaon-
the house of cut-off heads: The History and Archaeology of Northern
Iroquoian Trophy-Taking.'.
Chapter 9 Robert Mensforth (Cleveland State
University) 'Human Trophy Taking in Eastern North America During the Archaic
Period: Its Relationship to Warfare and Social Complexity.'.
Chapter 10
James Brown (Northwestern) and David H. Dye (University of Memphis) 'Sacred
Heads and sacred Scalplocks: Mississippian Iconographic Trophies.'.
Chapter
11 Keith Jacobi (U. Alabama) 'Disabling the Dead: Human Trophy Taking in
thePrehistoric Southeast.'.
Chapter 12 Nancy Ross-Stallings (Cultural
Horizons Inc.) 'Trophy Taking in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley.'
.- Part II: Latin America.- Preface Alberto Esquit-Choy(Ph.D candidate,
Vanderbilt University): Kaqchikel Mayan indigenous leader.
Chapter 13 Carrie
Anne Berryman (Ph.D candidate, Vanderbilt) 'Captive Sacrifice and Trophy
Taking among the Ancient Maya: An Evaluation of the Bioarchaeological
Evidence and its Sociopolitical Implications.'.
Chapter 14 Ruben Mendoza
(CSUMB) 'The Divine Gourd Tree: Tzompanlti Skull Racks, Decapitation Rituals,
and Human Trophies in Ancient Mesoamerica.'.
Chapter 15 John Hoopes (U.
Kansas) 'Sorcery and Trophy Head Taking in Ancient Costa Rica.'.
Chapter 16
Tiffiny Tung (Vanderbilt) 'From Corporeality to Sanctity: Transforming Bodies
into Trophy Heads in the Prehispanic Andes.'.
Chapter 17 Dennis Ogburn (UC
Berkeley) 'Human Trophies in the Late Pre-Hispanic Andes: Display, Propaganda
and Reinforcement of Power among the Incas and Other Societies.'.
Chapter 18
Richard J. Chacon (Winthrop University) 'Seeking the Headhunters Power:The
Quest for Arutam Among the Achuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Evolution
of Ranked Societies.'.
Chapter 19 James Petersen (U. Vermont) and John Crock
(U. Vermont) 'Handsome Death: The Taking, Veneration, and Consumption of
Human Remains in the Insular Caribbean and Greater Amazonia.'.
Chapter 20
Marcela Mendoza (University of Oregon) 'Human Trophy Taking in the South
American Gran Chaco.' .
Chapter 21 Arthur Demarest (Vanderbilt) 'The Ethical
Issues Surrounding Research on Amerindian Trophy Taking.'.
Chapter 22
Richard J. Chacon (Winthrop University) and David H. Dye (University of
Memphis) 'Supplemental Data on Amerindian Trophy Taking.'.
Chapter 23Richard
J. Chacon (Winthrop University) and David H. Dye (University of Memphis)
'Conclusions.'
Richard John Chacon is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Winthrop University. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Amazonia among the Yanomamo of Venezuela, the Yora of Peru and the Achuar (Shiwiar) of Ecuador and he has also worked in the Andes with the Otavalo and Cotacachi Indians of Highland Ecuador. His research interests include optimal foraging theory, indigenous subsistence strategies, warfare, belief systems, the evolution of complex societies, ethnohistory and the effects of globalization on indigenous peoples.
David H. Dye is an Associate Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Memphis. He has conduced archaeological research throughout the Southeastern. His research interests include the archaeology and ethnohistory of the Midsouth. He has had a long-term interest in late prehistoric warfare, ritual, and iconography in the Eastern Woodlands.
