PREDATORS OF CULTURE - JAGUAR SYMBOLISM AND MESOAMERICAN ELITES

Jaguar imagery is one of the most frequently encountered features of P re-Columbian Mesoamerican symbolism. However, despite its appearance i n art and iconography over a period of some three thousand years, most previous interpretations have tended to assert rather than prove its significance. In this paper an attempt is made to locate such imagery meaningfully in several categories of indigenous thought. Thus, this a pproach seeks to show how such symbolism is entrenched in Amerindian, Aztec and Maya conceptual systems, and how 'constructions' of the jagu ar in classification led to the emically logical use of its verbal and artistic imagery in symbolic representations associated with warfare, and the display of elite status.