His waist cinched with a serpent belt, a fanned?od looks on as the body of a hapless mortal is borne on the crest of an ocean wave topping a step motif that may represent mountain peaks. Two additional human figures are shown on the step. All three are probably sacrificial offerings.
Deities and the variety of rituals associated with them were among the Moche potters’ favorite themes. One of the most common deities has a human body and jaguarlike fangs, and is frequently shown in scenes of sacrifices or in the context of ocean waves or mountain peaks, both of which seem to have loomed large in the Moche view of the supernatural.
Healing ceremonies were of paramount importance in Moche culture, and such rites are often depicted in pottery. The scenes usually show the curer, accompanied by various charms and plant products and sometimes with the head of an animal thought to have magical powers, hovering over the prostrate patient.
Possibly the most puzzling of all the activities commonly pictured on the pottery involves lines of energetic nmners wearing ornate headgear and carrying what appear to be small bags. Scholars have tried in vain to determine for certain what the nmners were doing. So far, they can only agree that whatever it was, it was very important to the Moche.
A healer—either an owl-faced god or a masked human—-grips a slice of halltuinogenic cactus and prepares to minister to the patient shown lying to the right. The four rows of beadlike objects painted in front of the healer are strings of dried espingo seeds, still used in north coastal Peru to treat psychic problems and stomachaches.
Grimly intent on their mysterious goal, Moche runners dash eternally around this graceful stirrup-spout bottle. Some scholars suggest that the runners are whisking bags of seeds to plant symbolically in conquered territories; others propose that the bags contain lima beans that were somehow used for communications, recordkeeping, or foretelling the future.
World History
