BRINGING BACK MOCHE BADMINTON
When Christopher Donnan began studying the art created by Peru’s Moche culture more than 50 years ago, he wasn’t sure how much it reflected ancient reality. From about A.D. 200 to 850, the Moche lived in the arid valleys of Peru’s northern coast, where they practiced intensive irrigation agriculture and built vast ceremonial complexes. Moche artists created murals and decorated pottery with vivid images of fantastic rituals featuring participants who were part animal and part human. They also painted scenes of figures, some wearing elaborate clothing that indicated their elite status, engaged in a mysterious spear-throwing activity scholars dubbed “ceremonial badminton” due to the use of a feathered object that looks somewhat like a shuttlecock.
Early in his career, Donnan wondered whether the images might depict mythical figures operating on a supernatural plane rather than real people enacting ceremonies on Earth. The rituals certainly seemed to stretch the limits of reality. Chief among them was the sacrifice ceremony, in which attendants slit prisoners’ throats and collected their blood in goblets, which were then presented to the presiding priest. The beings participating in the sacrifice ceremony took human form, but had body
