Bodily Transformation and Sacralization: Human Sacrifice in Southwestern Mesoamerica

My intention in this contribution is to use the structural model of human sacrifice proposed by Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss (1964 [1898]) in order to interpret a variety of disparate data from southwestern Mesoamerica. Like any structural approach, the model does not account for the historicity of the diachronic dimensions of the phenomenon. There are reasons to suppose that the practice of human sacrifice in this region of Mesoamerica exhibited temporal and spatial differences, but lacking the necessary data to address and account for this variation, I will limit my analysis to a general model of cultural and behavioral precepts specific to human immolation. To achieve this objective, I will review both the data and the applicability of the model to five culturally constituted notions: specifically, those of personhood, the body, the community, the place, and the divinity.