A gold and silver necklace of peanut- 

 shaped beads belonged to the warrior 

 priest buried in the first royal tomb to be 

 scientifically excavated. The Moche 

 probably associated gold with the right 

 side and masculinity, and silver with the 

 left side and femininity. 



Susan Einstern 



Looted from an unhiown grave, a Moche 

 vessel depicts a warrior seizing his 

 adversary' by the hair and subduing him 

 with his club. Moche engaged in combat 

 to obtain prisoners for ritual sacrifice. 



Nathan Benn © National Geograptiic Society 



pears to have been the expression of indi- 

 vidual valor, in which warriors engaged in 

 one-on-one combat, seeldng to vanquish, 

 rather than kill, an opponent. The victor is 

 often shown hitting his opponent on the 

 head or upper body with the war club, 

 while the defeated individual is depicted 

 bleeding from his nose or losing his head- 

 dress or other parts of his attire. Some- 

 times the victor grasps his adversary by 

 the hair and removes his nose ornament or 

 slaps his face. 



As far as we can tell, the Moche war- 

 riors fought with one another, not against 

 some foreign enemy. Once an opponent 

 was defeated, he was stripped of some or 



all of his clothing and a rope was placed 

 around his neck. The victor made a bundle 

 of the prisoner's clothing and weapons and 

 tied it to his own war club as a trophy. 

 After a public parading of the spoils, the 

 prisoners were arraigned before a high- 

 status individual and finally brought back 

 to the Moche settlements or ceremonial 

 precincts. There the priests and their atten- 

 dants sacrificed them, cutting their throats 

 and drinking the blood from tall goblets. 

 The bodies were then dismembered and 

 the heads, hands, and feet tied individually 

 with ropes to create trophies. 



Many representations of the sacrifice 

 ceremony exist in Moche art. Although 



iSil 



30 Natural History 5/94 



