Religion and Authority at Chavín de Huántar I 167 166 From the irst Spanish chronicles, Chavín de Huántar has captured the attention of travel- ers and scholars, who were fascinated by the site’s im- pressive architecture and complex iconography. his has led to descriptions, analyses, and interpretations from many diverse points of view and variable results on subjects ranging from chronological sequences to models of panregional population distribution. 1 his article attempts to understand the construction, ac- tivity, timing, and intention of Chavín within the logic of the society of the time. To understand the intention of the builders and users of Chavín, we have to come to an understanding of the character of nascent au- thority that gives the word “ formative ” its sense. his was the time of emerging authority and hierarchical structure in Andean societies, and Chavín was one of their stellar projects (as was Kuntur Wasi [see Chap. 3.2, Cat. nos. 56–107] ). I hope to show that Chavín was part of an attempt to create a new reality–that of the temples and the experiences within them–that was part of a long-term program of convincing segments of society of the validity of that emerging authority, and, inten- tionally or not, an avenue for propagating the resulting ideology throughout the Andes. Chavín, then, is one of a number of key locations in this region in which ideol- ogy was being innovated and transmitted through the very physical remains that we can study today. Most will agree that Chavín was a series of religious structures; perhaps we can use the word “ temples ” with a likelihood of being approximately correct. We are unaware of any serious scholars who argue that the primary design of the major Formative centers such as Chavín obeyed any logic other than that of religion. Yet, if we try to adopt modern reli- gious architecture from most areas of the world as a model, we are destined to fail at understanding this transitory stage between local-scale belief and obser- vation and the supraregional network of centers and the highly organized ideological systems they repre- sent. 2 Without doubt Chavín represents an attempt to increase the reach, and perhaps the control, exercised by the center’s leadership. What makes this attempt all the more interesting is irst, that it was undertaken not through military domination evidenced by arms, military structures, and conquest, but rather through highly developed religious facilities, and second that the recruitment of populations does not seem to have come through an ideology aimed at including and convincing the overall population, but rather through the recruitment of an emerging elite and authorities both within and beyond the immediate inluence or dominance of the ceremonial center. hese broad understandings frame some basic ideas about Chavín and its contemporary sites and leaderships. Foremost is the fact that Chavín shows signs of being a type of cult. “ Cult ” is a com- plex word with many deinitions, but important for our purposes are the strong sense of membership, identity, empowerment, separateness, and common experience that are shared and that create an identity for cult members. Unlike modern cults, which tend to be splinter groups from other religions or to repre- sent deviant or countercultural behavior, the Chavín- period cults seem to have been central to the society of the times, and to have paved the way into the future for the sociopolitical structures of Andean societies. My feeling is that Formative period temple systems, most notably that of Chavín, were locations in which membership was conferred and common identities generated, where authorities established their power and diference from the remainder of the population, and where major innovations beyond mere religious practice probably were generated. In some sense, then, these were strategized places of change in which a new structure to society emerged, driven in large part by an evolving, human-devised material world of buildings, technologies, objects, and art, as well as orchestrated human actions. hese patterns seem broadly spread in both time and space. he beginnings of monumen- tal architecture in the Andes signi icantly predate Chavín’s apparent origins around 1200 BC, and in places, similar systems seem to have been in place even after Chavín itself apparently stopped its tem- ple-like functions around 500 BC. Sites similar to Chavín are to be found throughout the Central An- des, notably Kuntur Wasi [Chap. 3.2, Cat. nos. 56–107] 3 and Pacopampa [Chap. 3.2, Cat. no. 10], 4 but many others, too. It is quite apparent that the similarity of these sites does not come from political unity, because they were probably not subject to a single, or a few, systems of political control, but rather were fairly independent. hey probably represent parallel systems, in all likeli- hood emulating and imitating each other, perhaps in a tight grid of competition for converts to their re- spective cults. Competition of this kind may well have resulted over the income and resources to be obtained John W. Rick 4.4 Religion and Authority at Chavín de Huántar From: Chavin: Peru's Enigmatic Temple in the Andes. Rietberg Museum and Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess AG, Zurich, 2013 pp 167-176