Sacred Matter

Animacy and Authority in the Americas

Edited by Steve Kosiba, John Wayne Janusek, Thomas B. F. Cummins

Sacred Matter: Animacy and Authority in the Americas examines animism in Pre-Columbian America, focusing on the central roles objects and places played in practices that expressed and sanctified political authority in the Andes, Amazon, and Mesoamerica.

Contributors to this volume present a range of perspectives (archaeological, art historical, ethnohistorical, and linguistic) to shed light on how Pre-Columbian social authority was claimed and sanctified in practices of transformation and transubstantiation—that is, practices that birthed, converted, or destroyed certain objects and places, as well as the social and natural order from which these things were said to emerge.

About the Authors:  Steve Kosiba is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the Univerisity of Minnesota.  John Wayne Janusek is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Vanderbilt Univeristy.  Thomas B. F. Cummins is Director of Dumbarton Oaks and Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Art at Harvard University.

HARDCOVER

ISBN 9780884024668

Publication Date: 05/12/2020

320 pages

8-1/2 x 11 inches