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

[R]ituals employed during manufacture took time and effort away from the
technical tasks at hand. Such rituals also involved additional skills and
responsibilities in the production sequence that had to be mastered during the
apprenticeship and followed during production. These rules and rituals were used
to minimize risk and maximize success during an operation, to prevent harm to
iron workers, and to promote social and economic dependency on the iron
workers within the community rather than realize the Western value of efficiency.
If the taboos were not met or the rituals were not performed, however, the
resulting disasters would certainly reduce the efficiency of Toro iron production.
The forge, bellows, and other “utilitarian” tools and features used in metal good
production in Africa also are highly symbolic, and essential aspects of social identity
(Childs 1998:119). In addition to rituals carried out upon the creation of a forge and
bellows, they also are decorated with male and female icons of sexual fertility. Many of
the objects smiths produce are imbued with the prestige and symbolism of the source,
production area, and producer of their origin. Tools, features, and products may be tied to
the same strain of esoteric knowledge controlled by the producer, and have implications
for production and consumption of iron goods (Helms 1993). Childs (1998:119) argued
that finding links between technologies and religious symbolism was an important
archaeological avenue to identify ritualized production in the past.
In Mesoamerica production also appears to have been ritualized. The most
obvious examples of ritual associated with human craft production are dedicatory caches
deposited during particular phases of architectural construction. Monaghan (1998) has
recently conceptualized dedicatory and caching ritual practice as production, after
observations from his ethnographic work in Oaxaca. For Monaghan, the “ritual” aspects
of production are so ubiquitous at most levels that they are indelible aspects of material
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