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Mass Inhumation and the Execution of Witches in the American Southwest
Author(s) -
Andrew Darling J.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1998.100.3.732
Subject(s) - osteology , witch , prehistory , archaeological record , ethnography , history , archaeology , cannibalism , anthropology , geography , ethnology , sociology , ecology , biology , larva
Recent analyses of prehistoric multiple inhumations in Anasazi sites in the American Southwest have argued that cannibalism best explains evidence of defleshing, cutting, and bone breakage. The validity of this explanation is questioned in a review of ethnohistoric and ethnographic literature on Pueblo witchcraft and witch execution. A model based on Puebloan procedures for witch destruction is offered which accounts for osteological patterning in the archaeological record as well as contextual and artifactual evidence not considered previously.