The Organization of Chipped-Stone Economies at Piedras Negras ...

2.3.1: Ritualized Production
John Monaghan (1998) has recently argued that ritual activities were an integral
aspect of production in Oaxaca, and Takeshi Inomata (2001) has elucidated the role of
ideology in elite craft specialization for the Classic Maya. These important studies urge
an investigation of the role of ritual and ceremony in the production and use of both
material and symbolic products in ancient Mesoamerica. In a similar way, Spielmann
(1998) argued that the production of goods used in rituals and ceremonies can confer
heightened status on the producer (see also DeMarrais et al. 1996). Spielmann (1998:153-
154) referred to the materialization of ideologies (i.e., the production of goods used in
rituals, and ideologically imbued objects) as ritual craft specialization. I draw a
distinction between ritual craft specialization and ritualized production in that the former
refers mainly to the nature of the product and how it is consumed after production, and
the latter refers to the practice of production. In ritualized production the product can be a
“mundane,” “utilitarian,” “prestige,” “ceremonial,” etc. object, but the process of
production is itself a ritualized activity. This is not to say that ritual craft goods are more
likely produced in a ritualized manner by ritual specialists (Spielmann 1998:156), but the
focus here is on the intersection of world views and religion with the practice of
production. Furthermore, the practice of ritualized production does not always include
prayers or chants carried out during the actual process of production. Ritual
circumscription, in which production activities were marked by a series of rituals before,
after, and during important steps of the production process, however, may have been
45