Ancestors, Ghosts, and Enemies in Prehistoric Baja California

منو

" Ancestors, Ghosts, and Enemies in Prehistoric Baja California "
Laylander, Don

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	920246
Doc. No	:	LA9328q5bp
Title & Author	:	Ancestors, Ghosts, and Enemies in Prehistoric Baja California [Article]\ Laylander, Don
Date	:	2005
Title of Periodical	:	UC Merced
Abstract	:	Recent investigators have argued that the worship or veneration of lineage ancestors is a key to understanding the prehistoric archaeology of Baja California, and in particular the central peninsula's Great Mural rock art. However, a review of the ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological evidence favors a different interpretation—that prehistoric Baja Californians regarded the dead primarily as a source of danger to the living, to be avoided and forgotten rather than venerated, and that the human figures depicted in the Great Murals are more likely to have represented the painters' enemies than their ancestors.