Abstract

OLIVIER, Guilhem. Music-Loving Deer and Lewd Hunters: Hunting, Music, and Eroticism in Mesoamerica. Estud. cult. náhuatl [online]. 2014, vol.47, pp.121-168. ISSN 0071-1675.

The article explores the erotic dimension of hunting in Mesoamerica, as well as the ties between hunting, warfare, and sacrifice. It describes the connections between hunters and their prey that follow a model based on marriage linked to an amorous conquest in which music plays a key role. Meanwhile, the deer appears as the prey par excellence and as a model of a sacrificial offering comparable to a human victim. The combination of female characteristics attributed to deer and to sacrificial victims with fertility traits that are also assigned to them is analyzed within the framework of the identification of the hunter and his prey, as well as between the individual making the sacrifice and the sacrificial victim.

Keywords : Hunting; warfare; sacrifice; sexuality; music; deer; Mixcoatl; Toci-Tlazolteotl.