Ritual Transformation, Deity Embodiment, and Nagualism in Formative Period Oaxaca, Mexico

Abstract A hallmark of ancient Mesoamerican art and religion is the ability of ritual practitioners, sometimes called “shamans,” to transform. The Olmec were-jaguar is a well-known example of the phenomenon. Artifacts from different regions demonstrate that these beliefs involved many animal and spiritual entities and a porous boundary between humans and other beings. In this article, we examine the archaeology of ritual transformation in Preclassic or Formative period (2000 BC–AD 250) Oaxaca, Mexico. As links between the physical world and other dimensions, altered bodies reflect negotiated relationships among people, animals, ancestors, deities, and landforms. Traditional interpretations of transformational art have oversimplified the role of nonhumans in these processes by representing ritual practitioners as “impersonating” other beings; for example, by wearing masks. We draw on almost two centuries of archaeology, Indigenous history, and ethnography to demonstrate that the reification of separate cultural and natural worlds is a modern artifice that would be unrecognizable to ancient Oaxacans. It was via transformation that ancient Mesoamerican people intimately knew their world, engaged the senses, and acquired knowledge.