Transforming the body: fire in mortuary practices in ancient Michoacán, Mexico

Summary

Ethnohistoric sources from prehispanic Michoacán highlight the symbolic importance of fire for the Postclassic Tarascan state. The fact that Curicaueri, the principal Tarascan god, was a fire god and that cremation was used during the warriors’ and ruling elite’s funerary rites, emphasizes its symbolic and social importance. In this presentation, I will examine the different roles played by fire in ritual transformations of the human body. I will consider the ethnohistoric sources as well as the archaeological record. Human remains reveal a wide range of practices dated to the Late Postclassic and earlier periods. I will discuss both funerary and non-funerary contexts.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Smoke, Flames, and the Body in Mesoamerican Ritual Practice

Keywords

Spatial Coverage