Pre-Columbian Shamans at Salango, on the Central Coast of Ecuador, during the Late Formative (600–100 aC)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11093651Keywords:
shamans, figurines, ceremonial structures, burials, Engoroy, SalangoAbstract
Archaeologists are increasingly interested in the possibility that ancient cultures followed ritual practices comparable with or ancestral to historically documented shamanisms. Salango, on the central coast of Ecuador, was for centuries a sanctuary where society aligned and integrated itself with the world of the spirits and ancestors, and over the period 600-100 BC a series of Engoroy ceremonial houses and platforms were built there for actions which can be seen as compatible with a shamanistic worldview. Moreover, individuals buried there can be identified as shamans or shaman-equivalents. Focusing on evidence recovered during the excavation of four of the ceremonial structures, and in particular on the use and distribution of anthropomorphic figurines made of marine shell, tooth, and stone, this paper explores the fact not only that the structures themselves gained the identity and personhood of shamans through the burial of such individuals, but that they were ultimately perceived and configured as shamans. The case of Salango thus offers an addition to the history of pre-Columbian shamanisms and an interesting new perspective on the ideological differences between the trajectories taken by the Formative communities of coastal Ecuador and those of the coast and highlands of Peru.
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