Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino

Cultures > Arid North > Alto Ramírez

Beliefs and funeral rites

A distinctive feature of the Alto Ramirez people was their burial mound cemeteries, large groupings of artificial mounds up to 3 meters in height. The graves tended to be marked by sticks or lengths of cane implanted in the ground and contained a variety of different grave goods, notable among which are miniature versions of local textiles and/or baskets. The heads of the deceased were often covered with round colored knotted hats or wrapped with camelid or cotton cord, which has led to their name of “the turban wearers.” Some mounds have been found containing only heads, others without any human remains, which suggests that these structures had a ceremonial function beyond burial, which in turn points to a more complex ideology. The use of hallucinogenic powders inhaled through the nose (using tablets and tubes) appears to have become more prevalent as a ritual practice at this time, and later on it would became even more important in the shamanism of several northern Chilean peoples.