Was looking at Nazca and Paracas textile art and wanted to do something in a similar vein to them.
There is a recurring image/pattern of an entity carrying a severed head in them. From what I read, the entity is supposed to symbolize some kind of spirit guide carrying your (!) severed head while you're dreaming.
a lot of Peruvian art influence can be observed in Yume Nikki, one of my favorite videogames of all time... Which is partly why I decided to do this to begin with
If it hadn't been for someone pointing out the visual similarities between seem of Yume Nikki's art and Peruvian art I wouldn't have found out about the Paracas.
I wish I could find out more on what they believed about dreams though. The thread where I read about YN's connection to Peruvian art suggested that the head-carrying effigies were guardians or something carrying the dreamer's severed head through the dreamscape... but every attempt on finding out more about that results in nothign
also HOLY SHIT I CAN LITERALLY IMAGINE JOHN EGBERT NERDGASMING ABOUT PERUVIAN INDIGENOUS ARTWORK WHILE READING YOUR COMMENT
A few years ago, I've discovered that a lot of the artwork yume nikki has was based off of the paracas textiles. Everyone back then just kept calling it "Aztec" art when in fact the meso american art work is completely different from any other tribal artwork from around the world. I'm pretty sure I pointed it out at a Yume nikki thread before.
There might not be a lot of information towards the ancient Paracas spirituality other than finding the graves and textile artworks. I also figured that the game has some elements to Aboriginal Dreamtime mythology. Perhaps Kikiyama just thought the textile artwork was just really cool and not a lot of people know about ancient peruvian culture.
HI IM JOHN EGBERT AND I LIKE TO NERD OUT ABOUT ANCIENT CULTURE AND THEIR ART WORK WOOOO
This makes me think of the Commodore 64 game "Lazarian". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZia34so4q8
Link
SuryaAsura
Paracas art is seriously one of my favorites from the indigenous Peruvian cultures. The Moche were another culture that really liked to have depictions of decapitations in their artwork. I'm also sure that some of the Paracas head carrying effigies were some sort of shamans as well.
Man this is just so rad! i love it!