Pre-Columbian Foodways Interdisciplinary Approaches to Food, Cul
The significance of food and feasting to Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures has been extensively studied by archaeologists, anthropologists and art historians. Foodways studies have been critical to our understanding of early agriculture, political econo
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Pre-Columbian Foodways Interdisciplinary Approaches to Food, Culture, and Markets in Ancient Mesoamerica
Pre-Columbian Foodways
John Edward Staller Michael Carrasco ●
Editors
Pre-Columbian Foodways Interdisciplinary Approaches to Food, Culture, and Markets in Ancient Mesoamerica
Editors John E. Staller The Field Museum Chicago, IL USA [email protected]
Michael Carrasco Florida State University Tallahassee, FL USA [email protected]
ISBN 978-1-4419-0470-6 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-0471-3 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0471-3 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2009927710 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Humana Press, c/o Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Claude Lévi-Strauss on the mythology of food and cultivated plants… “It is not surprising that the acquisition of honey should go back to the mythical period when there was no difference between animals and men, since honey is a wild product belonging to the category of nature… it must have become the heritage of humanity when men were still living in a ‘state of nature’, before any distinction was made between nature and culture… myths about the introduction of cultivated plants… refer to a time when men knew nothing of agriculture and fed on leaves, tree fungi and rotten wood before the existence of maize… maize was like a tree in appearance and grew wild in the forest… men made the mistake of felling the tree, and they then had to share out the seeds, clear the ground for cultivation and sow maize, because the dead tree was not sufficient for their needs. This gave rise, on the one hand, to the different varieties of cultivated species, and on the other hand, to the differences between peoples, languages and customs…” (LéviStrauss 1973, p. 73)
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1973. From Honey to Ashes: Introduction to a Science of Mythology: 2. Translated by J. and D. Weightman. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.
Contents
Pre-Columbian Foodways in Mesoamerica................................................... John E. Staller and Michael D. Carrasco
1
Part I Agriculture and Social Complexity: the Roles of Feasting and Ritual Economies Ethnohistoric Sources on Foodways, Feasts, and Festivals in Mesoamerica......................
