Peter de Smet
Nijmegen, Netherlands

See Part One for examples from the Old World

Case 4: Finger amputation among the ancient Maya

Iconography¹

The vessel in Fig. 1 is in the collections of the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin (inv.no. IV Ca 15186 a). It was found to contain the phalanges of a little finger together with an obsidian blade that could have been used for its removal.² In view of these contents, it may not be coincidental that the figurine only has four fingers on its right hand—incorrectly described as four fingers on the left hand in the original report.

Other ancient Maya representations of missing phalanges, fingers, or even hands have also been reported.¹ Among the most clear-cut examples is a stone relief on the Temple XIX platform at Palenque (Fig. 2). A general caveat concerning these images is that they may not always portray surgical amputation, as it can be difficult to exclude other causes, such as a pathological deformity.⁴

Some authors believe that the Maya obtained fingers from living people as part of mortuary rites.^3,6,7 Geller recalls that modern Yucatec Maya mothers remove portions of one of their own fingers after the death of a child. She suggests that such practices would have bound mother and child beyond death and would have served as a permanent reminder to the mother’s loss.^8,9 This cannot be the full story, however, because it does not explain why some Maya artefacts portray male persons with missing phalanges¹ (e.g., Fig. 2) and why a single deposit in the Belize Valley yielded some 200 bowls with 225 phalanges.¹⁰ It is therefore expedient to look at other possible explanations as well (see Table 1).

Table 1. Possible reasons of finger and/or hand removal among the ancient Maya, as collected by McCauley on the basis of ethnohistoric and iconographic sources1
Voluntary/Involuntary Practice	Description of Practice
Voluntary	Mourning mothers of deceased children cutting off portion of finger to be left in burial
	Sacrificial ritual as an extension of bloodletting ritual, cut off finger to bleed through instead of simple cuts
Involuntary	Warriors cutting off hands/fingers of defeated enemies to keep as trophies
	Religious authorities cutting off hands of human sacrifice victims to be consumed or used as ritual objects

Bioarchaeology

McCauley identifies 52 archaeological Maya sites that yielded 124 separate finger caches including 23 sites with 62 deposits of so-called finger bowls (vessels with human phalanges inside) and 31 sites with isolated instances of hands and/or fingers spread over 52 deposits.¹ These numbers suggest that ritual deposition of amputated fingers and phalanges may have been fairly common among the ancient Maya, particularly in western Belize and the Petén region of Guatemala.^1,3

Case 5: Foot amputation in pre-Columbian Peru

Iconography^11,12,13,14

Various ceramic vessels of the pre-Columbian Moche culture (AD 100–800) portray individuals missing a foot (or both feet) which are generally believed to represent foot amputees. A medically interesting detail of the example in Fig. 3.1 is the groove across the leg stump which can be observed in several other examples of Moche amputees.^13,15,16 This seems to indicate that both malleoli were preserved in their original position, which strengthens the hypothesis that ankle disarticulation was the main type of Moche foot amputation.^13,17

A survey of 800 Moche ceramics of medical interestin the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin yielded 127 footless examples, 42 of which depict amputees placing a cup-like prosthesis on their leg stump (or removing it).¹⁴ This suggests that Moche foot amputees could survive their surgery (Fig. 3.2) and raises the question of which roles such individuals would have played in Moche society.

Arsenault distinguishes two different types of footless figures in Moche iconography: one type served the ruler in the world of the living, e.g., by supervising the selection and preparation of food offerings. The other type seems to have been a major servant to the ruler in the afterlife. In other words, being footless could have been perceived as a symbol that transcended life and death.¹⁸ At least twelve of the 127 examples in Berlin are situated in the realm of the dead (see Fig. 4.1 for an eloquent example).¹⁴

Another remarkable feature of the figure in Fig. 3.1 is nasolabial mutilation, which occurs more often than not in Moche foot amputees.¹³ Bourget suggests that this type of facial mutilation was meant to create a skull-like appearance.¹⁹ Benson wonders whether persons with a foot prosthesis played a role in the transition of high-ranked Moche to the next world. She recalls that the Moche would hold community rites in the cemetery sometime after a burial, in which they drank corn beer and danced (presumably to the beat of music).²⁰ This fits with Bernier’s claim of a strong connection between death and music making in Moche iconography.²¹

A connection between being footless, death, and music making is not only suggested by the representation in Fig. 4.1 but also by the stirrup spout vessel in Fig. 4.2. It portrays a musician with nasolabial mutilation and two missing feet, who is beating a handheld drum (see for another example inv.no. ML002224 in the Museo Larco in Lima). This reinforces the assumption that the surgical signs in Moche vessels do not depict a punitive or therapeutic intervention but portray a symbolic or magical concept.

Bioarchaeology

In 1913, Vélez Lopez described the skeleton of an adult with two amputated feet, who had been using wooden cup-like prostheses padded with wool.¹³ Unfortunately, his description was not accompanied by photographs and the present whereabouts of the skeleton are unknown.²²

Four recent reports offer more detailed bioarchaeological data about nine cases of foot amputation in pre-Columbian Peru, all of which showed signs of healing.^13,17,23,24 The four oldest cases dated to the Moche culture (AD 100–800)^13,23 and the youngest case to the Inca empire (AD 1470–1532).²⁴ Two cases came from the Wari culture (AD 400–1000) and were found in an antechamber, where they apparently served as guardians of the main burial chamber.

Conclusion

The five cases presented here come from three different continents. They involved both antemortem and perimortem amputations and both voluntary and involuntary practices. They targeted fingers and phalanges (case 4); whole hands (cases 1, 2); feet (cases 2, 3, 5), and feet with part of lower leg (case 3). The cases also illustrate that early peoples practiced amputation for a variety of reasons (see Table 2). Iconographic portrayal of therapeutic amputation is not included in this survey but the bioarchaeological details of case 1 shows that this medical type of amputation was sometimes performed. In cases 3 and 5, bioarchaeological signs of healing were observed, which ties in with archaeological reports of healed limb amputation in other early cultures.²⁵

Table 2. Main reasons for amputation in early cultures and indigenous societies (*)
Reason for amputation (*)	Case(s)
To mark victory (by trophy-taking and/or disabling enemies in this life or the next)	1,2
As punishment for socially unacceptable behaviour	3
To express grief and procure bonding beyond death	4
To create an outer sign of magical power	5
To make sacrifices to deities
To mark group membership
As method of medical healing
(*) After Tables 1-3 in McCauly 2018.26 Her ten different reasons have been reduced here to seven by merging antemortem and perimortem practices with a similar reason and by excluding a reason (namely, as a sign of marital status) that was only found in one group. The descriptions of reasons have been reworded but without changing their basic meaning.

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Ute Schüren (Ethnologisch Museum Berlin), Joel Skidmore (Mesoweb.com), and Zemanek-Münster (Würzburg) for permissions to reproduce Figs. 5, 6, and 8.2.

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