Blood and Beauty: Organized Violence in the Art and Archaeology of Mesoamerica and Central America

Recently the culture of Pre-Columbian Central and Mesoamerica has been the object of popular fascination, especially pertaining to its religion and rituals of violence. Orr and Koontz address the subject of organized violence in various aspects of Mesoamerican societies in this collection. They begin with the universal apex of violence, war. The articles here revise earlier theories about war being constant and about women being solely non-combatants. Another essay looks at the iconography of violence and questions earlier interpretations. The second part is on the ball games and boxing that seem to have been such an important part of religious life. The third section deals with trophy head taking, particularly in Costa Rica and its possible purposes. Finally, the subject of pain, indivisible from violence, is taken up. It appears that pain was self-inflicted in religious contexts and the idea of blood for blood in the healing process is considered. In all the essays it is made clear that the authors, though experts, are aware that they are working with fragments of evidence; however, the images that they create from them bring us closer to understanding the world of the early Mesoamericans. Distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)