Abstract

GONZALEZ RIZO, Erick. The Lords of Devastation. Ritualized violence in warlike and underworld deities of Western Mexico during the Postclassic (900-1521 AD). Mem. am. [online]. 2021, vol.29, n.2, pp.186-207.  Epub Nov 01, 2021. ISSN 1851-3751.

The worship of gods of war in West Mexico has been the object of study before, especially in Michoacán. In the non-Tarascan West; that is, the states of Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit, the issue has not been thoroughly investigated due to the lack of written sources on the matter. However, the iconographic evidence available in the regional archaeological record allows us to infer the presence of very widespread war cults in the region during the Postclassic (900-1521 AD). The phenomenon of war was not exclusive to this period and there is archaeological evidence of it in figurines from the Formative, but it is during this late period that religious representations associated with war and militarism spread, especially in areas with presence of the Aztatlán Network. It is proposed that the regional warrior cults shared a common symbolic language as part of the growing interregional integration of the Mesoamerican World-System.

Keywords : warrior Gods; Western Mexico; Tezcatlipoca; Warrior Tláloc.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )