Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2026
Publication Title
Latin American Antiquity
Volume
37
Issue
2
First Page
403
Last Page
422
ISSN
2325-5080
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2026.10175
ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9114-5875
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Keywords
deity embodiment; Indigenous ontology; nagualism; Oaxaca; transformation
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 non -humans 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.
Rights
© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for American Archaeology. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Recommended Citation
Brzezinski, Jeffrey S., and Guy David Hepp. 2026. Ritual Transformation, Deity Embodiment, and Nagualism in Formative Period Oaxaca, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 37(2):403–422. https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2026.10175.
