The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas Volume I, II, and III

Evolution of Andean Diversity ($00 B.C.E.-C.E. 600) 449
ciples (e.g., time-reckoning and agricultural calendar, dual and quadripartite
social divisions) and religious ideologies. If the Mochica shared
"pan-Andean" calendrics, social organization, and religious beliefs with
other prehispanic cultures, why then do we see so many differences, for
example, between the Mochica and Inka iconographies? Berezkin, a Russian
scholar, notes that there are, in fact, Mochica mythological concepts
apparently without counterparts in the Cusco region. One example is an
anthropomorphic deity, who supports the sky, shown as a double-headed
serpent. Further, there are important differences among mythologies
historically recorded in southern Peru and the South-Central Andes
versus those in northern Peru and the North Andes. For example, man's
acquisition of cultivated plants is explained in the south as having been
unintentionally brought from the sky by fox; in the north, a cultural
hero is said to have taken them from a toad or that the stolen child of
the mother-goddess transformed herself into the desired plants. Thus the
validity of the basic premise underlying Hocquenghem's iconographic
analysis comes into question. The same kinds of questions surrounding
the use of ethnographic data applies to various views of the Chavin
iconography presented earlier.
Further, in lumping together examples of ceramic representations
from the vast Mochica territory and its lengthy chronology, Hocquenghem
assumes homogeneity of iconographic content in space and
time. Actually there seems to be regional variation in the popularity of
different motifs and themes, as well as indications of change in content
over time.
In contrast to Hocquenghem, who believes Mochica iconography
represents scenes related to their calendric cycle, Berezkin posits that it
was mainly concerned with representation of Mochica mythologies. Further,
he allows for the possibility that Mochica artisans consciously or
unconsciously depicted their ideas about their social structure and its
changes over time. Like Menzel, he believes that Mochica religion had a
wide range of mythical beings, who may be classified into several general
categories and numerous particular categories, with some overlap between
them. Accordingly, Berezkin has focused his attention on the internal
structure and dynamics of the Mochica pantheon through identification
of the roles and status of mythological personages over time. He believes
that the pantheon indirectly reflects the social reality of the Mochica
culture and argues that the two opposing but complementary groups of
"shamans" and "warriors" of regional populations each had their own
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