著者

宮川 善造

出版者

THE TOHOKU GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION

雑誌

東北地理 (ISSN:03872777)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.16, no.1, pp.1-6, 1964 (Released:2010-10-29)

参考文献数

10

被引用文献数

2

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The archaeological sites of the cult of the jaguar God are found in the tropical jungles of Central America, mainly along the Atlantic coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica.Of all the sites, La Venta in Mexico is known as one of the most important ceremonial centers ; and next comes Las Mercedes in Costa Rica.In this cult, the object of worship enshrined is the figure of a jaguar or that of Warrawana, called “Warru-tiger” by the English speaking Carib tribes.In my view, the inhabitants of the jungles came to enshrine a jaguar because they wished to suppress the evil spirit of jaguar, who attacked the people and gave much damage to them. That was not because the farmers prayed to the jaguar god to decrease an extraordinarily rapid growth of vegetal life in the forests such as trees and weeds. The jaguar masks, with some 500 tons' clay over it, were excavated, giving an account of these circumstances.At the latter Formative period, the priests devised the formalities of cult, by the request of the farmers who had been cultivating in the jungles ; and thus the cult of this kind at its beginning had the closest connection with the farmers' life in jungle.La Venta, which is famous for its oldest relics (B. C. 800-400), was the cradle-land of the cult of the jaguar god, with its influence extending to the surrounding districts.Later, when the Olmec people, who inhabited in La Venta district, were obliged to leave their native land by the invasion of a highland people, some of them seemed to move to Las Mercedes, and they made this place the second largest center of the cult of the jaguar god by giving a stimulus and a modification to its aboriginal culture.