Shamanism in Moche Art and Iconography - Maya Exploration Center

individuals as the individ~~als on the te:ctiles,Early scholarshave referred to them as deities, demons and spirits.EvanHadi,ngham has suggested that they are in fact shamans intrans+ormation (Hadingham 1987; 178). The paper agrees withHadi ngham's int.erpret'ation and purposes further supportingevidence by linking the costume of the Paracas shaman with thatof the previous1 y identified Moche shaman.Figure 35 showsflying Mache shamans with animal headdress, one jaguar, one bird,,snakes extending off the waist and out of the mouth, just re inthe standard Faracas textile image.The headdress of the Faracaeshaman.;is an abstracto?d jaguar head with elungated whiskerswhich are sometimes snakes. Images painted on pottery from the';Nazca, the inheritors of Paracas c~~lture, strongly sl.~pport thisobservatl on (Fig!.~res 37-3'7).An image from a Nazca mural showsshamans trarisforming in the same costume as portrayed in theF'aracas textiles of centuries earlier (Figure 36).Though rare,images of both Paracas and Nasca shaman can 'be found in which theabstracted jaguar headdress is replaced with a more recognizabledepiction !Figure 40 and 41). The abstracted jaguar headdress wasan important enough imaye to be displayed in one of the famous. . .Nazca Lines(Figura 42).The Paracas/Nazca style of depicting shamanrs differs fromthe Mocha depictions in one important way; the incluaion ofsevered head%.They are displayed in the shamans hand or hangingoff his waist i,n many examples. Severed heads were apparently