Mesoamerican Ritual Economy: Archaeological and Ethnological Perspectives

Scholars examine the extent to which economic processes were driven by and integrated with religious ritual in ancient Mesoamerica. The contributors explore how traditional rituals – human blood sacrifice and self-mutilation, ‘flowery wars’ and battling butterfly warriors, sumptuous feasting with chocolate and tamales, and fantastic funerary rites – intertwined with all sectors of the economy. Examining the interplay between well-established religious rites and market forces of raw material acquisition, production, circulation, and consumption, this volume effectively questions the idea that materialism alone motivates the production, exchange, and use of objects. Exploring the intersection of spirituality and materiality, MESOAMERICAN RITUAL ECONOMY will be of interest to all scholars studying how worldview and belief motivate economic behaviour. The authors consider a diverse set of Mesoamerican cultural patterns in order to investigate the ways in which ritual and economic practices influenced each other in the operation of communities, small-scale societies, and state-level polities.