CONTRIBUTIONS IN NEW WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY Volume 10 Contributions in New World Archaeology (ISSN 2080-8216) is a semi-annual journal dealing with various aspects of North and South American archaeology, anthropology and ethnohistory. Its main aim is to publish results of archaeological excavations and surveys conducted in various parts of the New World as well as to present papers devoted to the studies of collections of archaeological artefacts discovered in either American continent. Moreover, the journal addresses such subjects as theory, methodology and practice in New World archaeology. www.cnwajournal.org E-mail: [email protected]

REDACTION ADDRESS: EDITORS: Department of New World Archaeology Janusz Krzysztof Kozłowski Institute of Archaeology Jarosław Źrałka Jagiellonian University Radosław Palonka Golebia 11 Street Michał Wasilewski 31-007 Krakow Poland Telephone: +48 126631595

EDITORIAL BOARD: Víctor González Fernandez Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia Christophe Helmke Institute of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Michał Kobusiewicz Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Poznań Branch), Poland Krzysztof Makowski Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru Aleksander Posern-Zieliński Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland William I. Woods Department of Geography, Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA Mariusz S. Ziółkowski Centre for Precolumbian Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland

POLISH ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY – INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY

CONTRIBUTIONS IN NEW WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY Volume 10

Into the Underworld: Landscapes of Creation and Conceptions of the Afterlife in Mesoamerica

Special Issue

Proceedings of the 4rd Cracow Maya Conference ‘Into the Underworld: Archaeological and anthropological perspectives on caves, death and the afterlife in the Pre-Columbian Americas’ February 19-22, 2015, Cracow

Edited by Jarosław Źrałka and Christophe Helmke

Assistant editor: Monika Banach

Kraków 2016 Cover image: Front cover: ceremony conducted in Paxil (community Xolcuay, Chajul), photograph by Monika Banach; back cover: chert eccentrics from Pusilha and Nim li Punit, photograph by Geoffrey Braswell, drawing by Edwin Barnes

Linguistic editors: English: Steve Jones (GB), BA in Modern Languages – English, Director of Distinction Language Centre, Gdańsk Spanish: Ewa Palka (PL), Departamento de Filología Románica – Universidad Jaguelónica, Kraków, Polonia

Cover art design Adam Borkowski

Graphics editing and DTP Elżbieta Fidler-Źrałka Alter Publishing House

© Copyright by: Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and Jagiellonian University – Institute of Archaeology Kraków 2016

ISSN 2080-8216

The print version of Contributions in New World Archaeology is the primary, reference version of this journal.

Indexed on CONTENTS

7 From the editors

11 Through the valley of the shadow of death: Death as a typical domain requiring non-literal treatment Agnieszka Hamann

25 Xo’l vitz y xe’ naloj: el paisaje sagrado de los mayas ixiles de Guatemala Monika Banach

43 Lacandon paths to the Underworld Milan Kováč

55 Caves and New Fire ceremonies in the Central Mexican Highlands: The case of the Cerro de la Estrella, Iztapalapa, Mexico Christophe Helmke and Ismael Arturo Montero García

101 The cave and the butterfly: Thoughts on death and rebirth in ancient Mesoamerica Jesper Nielsen

113 Uk’ay ajbuj: Otherworldly owls in the mundo maya Harri Kettunen

149 Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson

183 The life, death, and afterlife of an ancient Maya king: A study of Pusilha Ruler G Andrew D. Somerville and Geoffrey E. Braswell

207 Burials, offerings, flints and the cult of ancestors: The case of Nakum Structure X, Peten, Guatemala Jarosław Źrałka, Wiesław Koszkul, Varinia Matute, Bogumił Pilarski, Bernard Hermes, Juan Luis Velásquez

251 Excavating data: Harmonization of burial data from Uaxactun, Guatemala Lenka Horáková

287 Out of the Underworld: The resurrection of the Maize God and its architectural context Jan Szymański Contributions in New World Archaeology 10: 149-182

PLACES OF BEGINNING, MODES OF BELONGING: STEAMBATHS AND CAVES IN MESOAMERICA

John S. Henderson1 and Kathryn M. Hudson2

1Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, USA. E-mail: [email protected] 2Department of Anthropology, Department of Linguistics, University at Buffalo, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract Caves are commonly interpreted as portals leading into an underworld realm populated by malign supernatural beings associated with death. The association between caves and ancestors in Maya ethnography seems to confirm this death connection, but emergence is an equally prominent theme relating to caves that is attested in Mesoamerican myth and imagery. Caves are linked with the emergence of ancestors and the life-giving water that flows from springs. They are also the source of new human souls, and a strong connection between caves and steambaths underlines a connection with birth. The Mesoamerican symbolic equation of steambaths with caves was in place in the Olmec world by the middle of the first millennium bc. Conflation of the conceptual domains of caves and steambaths, especially in conjunction with the altepetl (water-hill) theme, created a powerful array of symbolic associations which could be mobilized in politically charged contexts. Mesoamerican politicians concerned with bolstering and legitimizing their power deployed it to great effect for more than two millennia. Keywords: caves, ancestors, steambaths, childbirth, legitimization, political, authority

Resumen Las cuevas se interpretan con frecuencia como portales que conducen al inframundo donde viven seres sobrenaturales asociados con la muerte. Aunque la asociación entre las cuevas y los antepasados en la etnografía maya parece confirmar la conexión con la muerte, temas de emergencia son también conspicuos en relación con cuevas en los mitos y en el arte mesoame- ricana. Las cuevas tienen conexiones con la aparición de los antepasados y del agua que sale de los manantiales. También son las fuentes de las ánimas y existe una relación fuerte con los baños de vapor que subraya una conexión con el alumbramiento. Existía una equivalencia entre los baños de vapor y las cuevas ya en el mundo olmeca en 500 a.C. La fusión de los conceptos de la cueva y del baño de vapor, especialmente en relación con la tema del altepetl, hacía un poderoso serie de símbolos que se mo- vilizaban en contextos de importancia política. Los políticos mesoamericanos los empleaban para aumentar y legitimar su poder. Palabras claves: alumbramiento, antepasados, autoridad política, cuevas, legitimación, temazcal

INTRODUCTION

Caves and cave symbolism permeate Mesoamerican thought. Caves are commonly interpreted as dangerous portals leading to an underworld realm populated by supernatural beings, many of them malign, but the connection between caves and death is not entirely negative since caves are widely 150 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson viewed as the abode of ancestors and as places of origin. They are also considered to be the source of new human souls and, consequently, they are sometimes likened to wombs. Caves, and the underworld to which they connect, are the sources of new life and life-giving substances; they are as much places of emergence as places of death. Caves are associated with springs and are believed to be the places where clouds form, so they are also viewed as the sources of life-giving water. This connection between water and caves links them with the concept of altepetl, which was central to political thought in western Mesoamerica. The semantic couplet ‘water-hill,’ meaning “settlement,” is one of the semantic calques or loan translations that help define Mesoamerica as a linguistic area (Campbell et al. 1986: 553-554; Smith-Stark 1994; Montes de Oca Vega 2004; Macri 2010). In Nawatl, the full form of the couplet is in atl, in tepetl, ‘the water, the mountain’ and the nominal compound altepetl is often glossed as “capital” or “city-state” (Molina 1970[1571]: 2a Parte, 4). Caves and steambaths are largely equivalent in Mesoamerican thought and practice, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, steambaths share most of the symbolic associations of caves. They, too, are linked with water and conceptualized as symbolic wombs that are intimately connected with fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth. They are places of origin on an individual level and function as the preferred locations for life cycle rituals that make an individual’s connection with the community manifest. Steambaths were occasionally built within caves (e.g., Moyes 2005), and they can be considered constructed caves even when they are part of the built environment. Steambaths in palaces and non-elite domestic contexts are well documented both before and after the Spanish invasion. Grand steambaths in non-residential public spaces however, point to functions that have no post-invasion counterparts. These public steambaths – along with related imagery in monumental public art – conflate the symbolic dimensions of caves and steambaths in contexts that are thoroughly imbued with political overtones. Steambaths, and the under-appreciated political dimensions indicated by these patterns of use, provide a useful lens through which to explore the symbolic power of this constellation of concepts in ancient Mesoamerica.

AN INTRODUCTION TO STEAMBATHS IN MESOAMERICA

Bathing, commonly performed individually to maintain personal cleanliness, is an important component of domestic practice in most societies. More institutionalized forms of bathing — typically in special facilities and often a group activity — are also widely distributed. The Roman thermæ (DeLaine and Johnston 1999; Fagan 1999; Yegül 1992, 2010), Finnish sauna (Bremer and Raevuori 1986; Edelsward 1991), Japanese sentō (Grilli and Levy 1985), and North American sweat lodge (Bucko 1998; Driver and Massey 1957: 314; Paper 1991) all have social, curative, and ritual dimensions that are at least as important as their cleansing functions. The Jewish mikva is used mainly for individual purification, although the bathhouse in which it is located also serves for relaxation and socialization (Miller 2007, 2010). In late 19th and early 20th century Finland, pregnant women were sometimes secluded in the sauna for substantial periods, and childbirth often took place there (Helsti 1997). Roman thermæ were highly politicized public facilities. They were venues in which wealth and status could be flaunted and, consequently, they provided opportunities for networking, faction- building and comparable sorts of political activities (Fagan 1999; Yegül 2010). The core feature of Mesoamerican steambaths is a small and low chamber, often with benches that allow the user to recline (Figure 1). Steambaths are usually provided with mechanisms to produce steam to enhance sweating, an important component of much activity that takes place in them. Fuel is burned in a firing area, which may be internal, attached to the steam chamber but charged from the outside, or entirely freestanding. Steam is produced by throwing water on stones heated in the firing area and brought into the steam chamber, or by throwing water directly against the common Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica 151

Figure 1. Elaborate double-roofed sweatbath at Tepoztlan (after Cresson 1938: Fig. 5); upper – sweat chamber, firing facility, and drainage; lower left – cutaway showing sweat chamber, opening to upper firing chamber and drainage; lower right cutaway showing firing chamber and opening to sweat chamber; the fire is built in the lower section of the chamber and when the volcanic stones above are hot, water thrown on them from the sweat chamber produces steam. wall separating the chamber from the firing area. In the interest of retarding dissipation of the steam, entrances are small and low; windows, if they exist at all, are small and designed to be covered. Provision for water drainage, from the condensation of steam and from washing, may be as simple as a lowered section of the floor sloping toward the entrance. The constellation of associations revolving around Mesoamerican steambaths made them prominent in public and political life in a different way. Bathing was among the experiences most widely shared by Mesoamerican people at every socio-economic level, both before and after the Spanish invasion: it was pleasurable, hygienic, curative, purifying, and symbolic. The connection 152 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson with pregnancy and childbirth made steambaths the instruments for symbolically rooting newborns in their birth communities and arguably led to the conceptualization of steambaths as materialized instantiations of maternal relationships. Steambaths and associated imagery in public contexts in the civic cores of pre-Columbian cities also point to symbolic political functions that built on this connection with childbirth and, by extension, with ancestry. Ethnographic accounts and Colonial period texts emphasize medicinal and ritual activities revolving around fertility, pregnancy, and birth. Steambaths often provide a secluded meeting place for couples, and remedies for infertility are often mentioned among steambath practices. Most of these involve the application of leaves, grass, or other plant parts – specific to the ritual or therapy – to the skin. Therapeutic visits to steambaths following conception are described as especially important, mainly for women in the last weeks of pregnancy. Palpation to adjust the position of the fetus is a particularly common procedure, but midwives and female relatives of the expectant mother prescribe a variety of other pre-parturition therapies and rituals. Birth sometimes takes place in the steambath, and activities following successful delivery – especially the naming ceremony – are important as well. Steambath activities related to birth reflect and reinforce a newborn’s connection with the community, and subsequent life-cycle ceremonies – which are preferentially performed in the natal steambath – reiterate the rootedness of individuals in the community where they were socialized. Material remains also reflect the importance of steambaths in Precolumbian domestic life. Viewed through an ethnographic lens, steambaths in Precolumbian palaces may be understood in the same terms as those in modest houses: large, elaborate, and costly facilities for elite use that were still part of household practice. The construction of grand steambaths in public spaces (for example Figures 3-4) with no obvious connection to domestic spheres of activity points to Precolumbian functions that have no post-invasion counterparts. The place of steambaths in Precolumbian civic life has typically been understood in terms of ritual and cult (Child 2006), but the political meanings implied by their construction in public locations have not been thoroughly explored (though Houston1996 is an exception). Recent investigations at Puerto Escondido in northwestern Honduras, documenting the use of steambaths before 1000 bc, are particularly relevant to the issue of civic roles of steambaths. The location and associations of the earliest known steambath (Figure 8) suggest that it functioned in a more public sphere in which the effects included maintaining or enhancing the status of emergent elites. Analysis of Olmec imagery confirms the early symbolic use of steambaths in connection with elite status and political power. An obvious interpretive trajectory would envision an appropriation of long-standing household practice by emergent elites for political ends. On the surface, this fits nicely with a widely shared inclination to identify household models for state institutions and features of civic life. A closer look at the archaeological record of early steambaths, however, suggests that we should entertain alterative interpretations.

STEAMBATHS IN MESOAMERICAN ETHNOGRAPHY

Although contemporary steambath use in Mesoamerican households increasingly revolves around relaxation, socializing, and cleansing, ethnographic accounts have demonstrated their continuing importance in medicine and ritual practice (Groark 1997; Lillo 2007: 87-104, 167-179, 189-194, 211- 238). Birth-related activities are particularly prominent, perhaps due to the ongoing association of steambaths and wombs, and many contemporary uses relate to ante- and post-natal care. Steambaths also have an important place in other kinds of ritual and curing activities, and their symbolic associations extend well beyond birth. Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica 153

Among Nahuatl- and Otomi-speaking communities in central Mexico, steambaths serve a variety of needs (Galinier 1990: 151-153; Noriega 1922: 241-242; Romero 1998: 86-82). Steambath-based activities include personal hygiene and sexual liaisons as well as ritual and curing, but pre- and post- partum therapies and rituals are particularly prominent. In the Nahuatl community of San Isidro Buen Suceso in Tlaxcala, birth itself took place in the steambath until the 1960s (Romero 1998: 88-89). In Otomi communities, as in San Isidro, the steambath is said to be like the womb. Water flowing from the steam chamber is related to amniotic fluid and thus to the birth event, and a person emerging from the steam chamber is metaphorically born (again). Activities and meanings for the Nahuatl and Otomi extend beyond those directly related to childbirth and also include fertility and reproduction more generally. The steambath is frequently used for sexual activity, and its function is explicitly likened to copulation. This connection may represent a conceptual extension of the associations with childbirth, since sexual activity is the impetus responsible for the childbirth event and copulation within the space of a steambath allows new life to form simultaneously in the corporeal and metaphorical wombs. The Otomi also relate the steambath directly to springs and water and indirectly to caves; the steam is likened to clouds, which form in caves and have broader cosmological implications. The steambath is also a microcosm of the house in Otomi communities and relates to the specifically to the hearth as well as to the altar (known as a mesa). Meanings attached to the steambath thus extend to the symbolic center and to the ancestors (Romero 1998: 85; Galinier 1990: 145-153):

…in the ancient conceptualization of the world the steambath was described by religious complexes that articulated different symbolic fields corresponding to the dwelling, to water, and to fire. There is no doubt that the temazcal continues to be a projection of the house in miniature, attested by the food offerings periodically accumulated on its threshold. It represents in some way the terrestrial body, the generative core of the earth. This image of a woman’s body as wellspring is associated in popular thought with the ceremonial temazcal, of which the mayonikha, the main sanctuary of the eastern Otomí, was a model. It refers to a small stone structure, some 50 centimeters in height, covered with tiles to which shamans attributed magical properties, since it was the site of the periodic renewal of subterranean water and promoted the growth of food plants. Many other images connect the temazcal with the maternal womb: it governs rituals of birth and purification of the mother’s body. Key episodes of carnival echo this symbolism. In San Miguel, for example, each year people attend a startling mythical birth enacted in the sweatbath. Clearly, this act exemplifies the dual association of the dwelling with fire and water (poured on heated rocks to produce steam), confirming the fact that, in Otomí cosmology, atmospheric phenomena, especially clouds, are supposed to have their origin in caves. (Galinier 1990: 146)

During pilgrimages to Iglesia Vieja, which is believed to be a place of origin and is explicitly associated with ancestors, altars are represented as symbolic steambaths. They have the form of steambaths and are referred to as temazcales (from Nahuatl temazcalli, ‘steambath’) (Galinier 1990: 145-153, 313-328); offerings made to supernaturals associated with the water, fertility, wind, and earth are placed on them. Otomi practice thus makes explicit the web of interconnected meanings that includes steambaths, fertility, reproduction, childbirth, home, ancestors, place of origin, caves, springs. Similar practices and meanings are found in Maya communities. In Santiago Chimaltenango, located in the western highlands of Guatemala, steambaths are found near the house in many or most family compounds. These steambaths are constructed of stone and earth, with roofs of poles and straw covered with earth. The fireplace is built of stone and tucked into the interior corner nearest the door. A plank bench set on stones opposite the fireplace provides seating for those using the 154 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson facility. Two ceramic cántaros (‘pitchers’) set near the fireplace hold water that is thrown on the hot stones to produce steam, and a piece of woolen fabric is hung over the door to control the dissipation of heat and steam. The steambath area is screened with cane fencing so that users may preserve modesty as they undress before entering (Wagley 1949: 122, 124, 127-128). Bathing in the steambath, in preference to the cold streams of the Maya highlands, provides for comfort as well as hygiene. Prenatal and post-partum therapies include cleansing, herbal treatments, and especially massaging of the mother’s abdomen (Bunzel 1952: 97; Fischer and Hendrickson 2003: 88-89; Wagley 1949: 22-24). The placenta is frequently the focus of special attention in post-natal rituals. Although it is sometimes burned, it is typically buried in the household compound, frequently within the steambath (Fischer and Hendrickson 2003: 88-89; Wagley 1949: 23, 122-128). A material residue of the birth event – one that is part of the corporeal essence of mother and infant and a marker of the newborn’s first life transition – makes the steambath in or near which it is placed a symbol of local belonging and situates it as the proper venue for subsequent life cycle rituals. Because of its close association with birth, the steambath carries a cluster of meanings that revolve around the connections between individuals, their place of birth, and their community of socialization. The salience of such rootedness among meanings associated with steambaths is particularly clear in the Maya highlands. The Mam of Santiago Chimaltenango are articulate about mechanisms through which the steambath connects the newborn to the local social group and about the implications of this linkage in later life. The placenta is buried in the floor of the steambath in the family compound, where it is said to live, reinforcing the attachment of the newborn to the family (patrilineal) group. If birth occurs away from home, the placenta is heated in a clay vessel until it is dry and can be brought back to the home village, where it is buried in the family steambath, which is “happy again” when the new child and family bathe there. Adults should return to the natal steambath, where the placenta was buried, from time to time to pray and perform rituals, particularly at key points in the life cycle and at times of illness or other crisis. Before building a new steambath, individuals must perform a ceremony to break the tie with the natal steambath (Wagley 1949: 23-24).

STEAMBATHS, CAVES, AND THEIR MEANINGS AT THE TIME OF THE SPANISH INVASION

Ethnohistorical sources and archaeological remains provide rich documentation of the symbolic associations and ritual functions of steambaths, both within households and at the community level, in 16th century Mesoamerica. Among the early Colonial period Coxoh Maya, in eastern Chiapas, steambaths were common fixtures of residential groups. At the site of Coapa, 83 steambaths were identified among 336 domestic compounds; only 5 of these showed any indications of elite status. At Coneta, the ratio of steambaths to houses was only slightly lower (Lee 1979: 219-220; Lee and Bryant 1988: 12). These distributions indicate that steambathing and its connotations were widely understood and implemented, even among non-elite households. They also suggest that the “rooting” function attested by ethnographic accounts was already in existence at the time of the Spanish invasion. In the Basin of Mexico, steambaths – temazcaltin in Nahuatl – provided the venue for a wide variety of ritual activities relating to personal hygiene, curing and – above all – life cycle transitions. The Florentine Codex (Dibble and Anderson 1950-1971), compiled by Bernardino de Sahagún in the mid-sixteenth century, provides a useful picture of the ritual and social significance of steambaths in the Aztec world. According to Sahagún’s informants, the families of an expectant Aztec couple sought the services of a ticitl (curer or midwife) in the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy. The Florentine Codex (Book VI, Chapter 27, Dibble and Anderson 1969: 151-152, 155) explicitly preserves the speech with which the parents requested these services, including its emphasis on the use of the Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica 155 steambath (here called metaphorically the xochicalli, ‘flower house’ or xochicaltzin ‘venerable/little flower house’):“Those who are the mothers, who are the fathers now deliver thee the child. Verily now, introduce her into the xochicaltzin of our lady, the place where the mother, the grandmother, the lady Yoalticitl fortifieth [the body of the baby]” (Dibble and Anderson 1969: 151-152. After a successful delivery, the midwife bathed the baby, placed it in the cradle and invoked the protection of Ticitl, mother of the gods, Toalticitl, guardian of the xochicalli, and other divinities associated with the steambath. The Florentine Codex repeatedly likens newborn infants to precious stones and feathers, substances requiring transformation into cultural materials. During the ritual that attended the cutting of the umbilical cord, the midwife addressed the infant as a newly hatched wild bird. Infants were understood to be wild things and thus part of nature; steambath rituals brought them into the human community (Florentine Codex Book III, Chapters 25-35, Dibble and Anderson 1969: 141-196; Joyce 2000: 475-476). The texts preserved by Sahagún underline the relationship of the steambath with birth and with the rituals that connect individuals to their places of birth and their communities of socialization. The Florentine Codex also identifies subsequent life cycle rituals that took place in the steambath and involved transformations in the social identity of the rooted individual. One of the central functions of the steambath in these contexts was to reinforce this quality of belonging. For example, in the month Panquetzaliztli, the ixiptla (‘image’ or ‘impersonator’) of Huitzilopochtli known as Yopoch was taken at midnight to be bathed at the Ayauhcalco, or ‘mist house’ (another metaphorical reference to the steambath). The steambath employed in this bathing was presumably the natal steambath of the god (comparable to the symbolic steambaths in the Cross Group at Palenque; Houston 1996; see below), reiterating the original rite of passage at birth. The young men of the telpochcalli – the ‘youth house’, which was the venue for a major transformation in the life cycle of Aztec commoners (Joyce 2000; Florentine Codex Book III, Chapter 1, Dibble and Anderson 1952: 6-8) – accompanied Yopoch to the steambath. The Mist House ceremony is one of a series that annually reenacted the life cycle transformations of the deity, recapitulating the cycle of human transition rituals. Beyond the emphasis on curing, birth, and belonging, familiar in the ethnography of steambaths, invasion-period sources indicate that steambaths were also important in the public sphere. Huitzilopochtli embodied Mexica identity and underwrote the legitimacy of claims to authority by the lords of Tenochtitlan (Boone 1989), so his metaphorical rebirth located the defining element of Aztec mythic history in the steambath. Steambaths are connected with origins not only through their relationships with the womb and birth but also by virtue of their association with caves, which are quintessential places of origin in Mesoamerican thought. Chicomoztoc (‘seven-caves’), from which the ancestors of the Mexica emerged (Boone 2000: 162-177, 213-219, 239-242; Smith 1984), is the most familiar of many instances in which Mesoamerican myths and legendary histories trace the origin of groups to caves. The Codex Boturini (also known as the Tira de la Peregrinación), a pictorial account of the history of Mexica ancestors painted shortly after the Spanish invasion (Boone 2000: 198-199, 245), depicts the beginning of the migration on which Huitzilopochtli would guide his chosen people to their destiny of dominance in the Valley of Mexico (Johansson 2007: Lám. I). He appears in a cave within a place sign for Culhuacan, ‘place of ancestors’, which referred not only to the city of that name in the Valley of Mexico but also to a place of origin that conferred legitimacy (probably reflecting the strategy of early Tenochtitlan kings of establishing noble status by marrying Culhuacan women, ostensibly of Toltec descent (Gillespie 1989: 20-21, 43-44). Later episodes of the Mexica migration recounted by Diego Durán and other early Colonial historians feature steambaths in connection with the founding of cities and polities. After their expulsion from the city of Culhuacan in the Valley of Mexico, they rested at a place called Acatzintitlan and constructed a temazcalli in which everyone bathed. An unspecified “lewd happening” led to their departure from this place and, after more wandering through lakeshore swamps, the Mexica came to a town (later called Temazcaltitlan) 156 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson and built another temazcalli. Shortly thereafter they discovered the eagle and cactus, Huitzilopochtli’s sign for the place where Tenochtitlan was to be founded (Heyden and Horcasitas 1964: 28-31; Orozco and Berra 1975: 30). According to Tezozómoc, (Alvarado Tezozómoc 1949: 63) flaming water flowed from a spring in a cave beneath, indicating a clear equation of steambath and cave. The main temple in Tenochtitlan – a sacred mountain dedicated jointly to Huitzilopochtli, patron of the Mexica, and to the rain god Tlaloc – embodied the altepetl concept. It was built – conceptually, if not literally – over a cave-steambath; several actual springs flowed nearby within the sacred precinct. The altepetl had strong political connotations in the Aztec world; it was conceived less in terms of territory than in terms of people and their subjugation by or allegiance to a lord. It embodied the identity of the polity and the legitimacy of its lord (Smith 2008: 89-93; McCafferty 2008; Hirth 2003; Reyes García 2000). The sacred precinct and its focal temple, which combined the concept of water- hill with the embodiment of divine sanction for Mexica destiny and the legitimacy of the tlatoani, stood at the center of Tenochtitlan and thus at the conceptual center of the world (Broda 1987: 93-94; Townsend 1989). In mobilizing this legitimizing power, Mexica rulers were drawing on an ancient tradition of linkage between the concepts of water-hill and cave-steambath. There is also indication that steambaths were associated specifically with Aztec royalty. The text that accompanies the depiction of the steambath in the Codex Magliabechiano (Figure 2), which contains a description of Aztec beliefs and ritual practice written soon after the Spanish invasion, associates the god Tezcatlipoca with steambaths in his capacity as advocate for the sick (Boone 1983: Folio 76v-77r). However, he was also a patron of royalty and closely connected to the institution of kingship (Boone 2007: 40-48). The process of investiture for Aztec kings (Townsend 1989) began with a period of separation in which the prospective ruler was secluded in the central temple precinct

Figure 2. Steambath (Codex Magliabechiano Folio 77r). Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica 157 and divested of his former social person. Purification through bathing was part of this process, though surviving accounts do not explicitly mention steambaths. The culmination of the next stage of the process, in which the new ruler was enthroned and garbed in symbols of royalty, was his emergence from the Yopico temple transformed into a new social and political person. The rebirth of the tlatoani and his reincorporation into the community replicate the domestic functions of steambath practice in the political sphere. Yopico’s associations clearly indicate that it was a symbolic cave, and caves are closely linked to steambaths in Mesoamerican thought. Depictions of Yopico suggest a small structure with a low entrance, so it may have been a functional steambath.

PRECOLUMBIAN STEAMBATHS AND CAVE SYMBOLISM

The use of steambaths can be traced deeper into Mesoamerican history by means of imagery and material remains. The archaeological record reflects many specific elements of the webs of meaning documented in ethnographic accounts and ethnohistorical sources that relate steambaths to birth, transformation, curing, purification, springs, caves, and places of origin. Both material remains and imagery – such as the steambath connections of Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca documented in the Colonial period – point to important public and political dimensions of Precolumbian steambathing that did not fully survive the demise of Precolumbian states in the aftermath of the Spanish invasion. The medicinal benefits attributed to steambath therapy in Colonial period hospitals may represent a partial exception, though these do not seem to reflect indigenous community practice (Risse 2000: 75). Divinatory books indicate that steambaths were an important part of ritual and belief in Postclassic central Mexico. The Codex Borgia, which was probably painted in the Puebla-Tlaxcala region late in the Postclassic period (Nicholson 2001), includes a steambath as an important symbolic association of Xiuhtecuhtli, a deity of fire and the hearth (Díaz and Rodgers 1993: Pl.13). Surviving books that record the histories of Mixtec towns in Oaxaca document the importance of steambaths as the loci of rituals and other key events in the lives of prominent political figures (Jansen and Pérez Jiménez 2007). The Codex Nuttall, for example, features steambaths in its depictions of life cycle rituals, notably birth. It also locates the killing, possibly ritual, of a major political figure there (Nuttall and Miller 1975: 16, 81; Smith 1973: 29-30; Dahlgren 1966: 284-285). This seems out of keeping with the other associations of steambaths, but death may be regarded as a natural part of the life cycle. In form and construction technique, Precolumbian steambaths are much the same as their post- invasion counterparts; the clear continuity provides a reasonable warrant for using ethnohistorical and ethnographic information to understand the functions of Precolumbian steambaths and the meanings attached to them (see Alcina Franch 2000: 67-98, Child 2007: 234, and Helmke 2006: 66-67 for listings of archaeologically documented steambath facilities). Steambaths in non-elite residential groups suggest household functions comparable to those of recent steambaths. Unassuming domestic steambath structures are known from Postclassic communities in the Mixteca Alta (Finsten et al. 1996) and Cholula (McCafferty 1992: 201-205; McCafferty and McCafferty 2008: 28), from Epiclassic Xochicalco (Webb and Hirth 2003: 34-37), from Classic period villages at Agua Tibia in the western highlands of Guatemala (Alcina Franch 2000: 88-90, Fig. 2) and Ceren in western El Salvador (McKee 1997). The fortuitous preservation of the Ceren steambath, buried by volcanic ash fall about ad 600, provides unique construction details. The steam enclosure, built of adobe, had an unusual conical roof construction that was sheltered by a second, thatched roof. In contrast with the ethnographic situation, steambaths were installed in palace complexes and, importantly, elsewhere in public space in many Precolumbian communities. These “monumental” steambaths were more elaborate architectural undertakings than their recent counterparts and are usually interpreted as elite versions of domestic facilities (i.e. upscale plumbing fixtures). This is 158 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson not surprising, since steambaths, when viewed through an ethnographic lens, are quintessentially domestic. But “monumental” steambaths are not just more elaborate; their location in public space also ensures that their use would have been, to some degree, public. These features signal a distinct set of functions and meanings. At the time of the Spanish invasion, steambaths could be found in the grandest public spaces, including the palace of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma in central Tenochtitlan (Evans 2004: 24, n.11; Lombardo de Ruiz 1973: 157-158, Lam. XXXIII; Díaz del Castillo 1963: 231). In Cihuatecpan in the northeastern Valley of Mexico, and in comparable small communities throughout the Aztec world, the tecpan incorporated a steambath. These large and elaborate building complexes housed village or calpulli (corporate residential groups) headmen as well as other government officials, and they provided venues for a variety of administrative and community activities. The location of steambaths in civic complexes suggests that they may have engaged a broader constituency than the elite residents and served public functions (Evans 1991: 86-88, 1993: 184-186, 2004: 43). Palaces and less imposing elite residences in Postclassic and Classic period communities across Mesoamerica also featured steambaths. They were prominent fixtures of the Classic period royal palace at Lambityeco in the Valley of Oaxaca (Winter 1990: 291) and of the grand palace at the highest point of Epiclassic Xochicalco, a hilltop town in northern Morelos (Garza and González 1995: 118). The main palace complex at the heart of the Late Classic Maya city of Palenque (Child 2007) also had a steambath, as did a residential complex occupied by high-ranking aristocrats near the civic core of Copan (Webster 1989: 22). These architectural complexes certainly served functions that extended beyond the elite domestic sphere; it is very likely that at least some of their steambaths also played roles in public life. At Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico, an artificially enhanced cave beneath the Pyramid of the Sun contains drainage features and fire pits that may reflect steambath functions (Heyden 1975; Millon 1981: 231-235; Taube 1986: 54). The cave, which may once have contained a spring as well, was certainly symbolically connected with notions of origin. Late pottery found in the cave suggests that it was still known to the Aztecs, long after Teotihuacan’s political and economic prominence had waned. In Aztec myth, Teotihuacan was the setting for the origin of the fifth sun, the most recent re- creation of the world. It is thus unsurprising that a steambath within a ritualized cave was maintained as a significant ritual location even after Teotihuacan’s decline. A steambath was part of the complex of structures adjacent to the Caracol in Terminal Classic Chichen Itza in the northern Maya lowlands (Ruppert 1935: 270, Fig. 349), and a building located at the rim of the site’s Sacred Cenote may have been another (Tozzer 1957: 82, 192, Fig. 59). Both locations reflect the cosmological and ritual connotations of steambath activities, and both are suggestive of civic rather than domestic patterns of use. In the Peten, at least eight steambaths were constructed in the center of Piedras Negras during the Late Classic period (Satterthwaite 1952; Child and Child 2000, 2001). These structures may have been the venues for life cycle rituals of particular rulers and their families as well as civic facilities (Houston 1996: 144).

Peripheral Location Steambaths were often located at the margins of civic architectural complexes. Late Postclassic steambaths in the Mixteca Alta were not situated within civic structures; their positions associate them instead with gateways and other entry features and with site margins (Finsten et al. 1996). At Teotihuacan, a steambath was located on the edge of a pottery workshop in a complex adjacent to the Ciudadela, one of the most important public spaces in the Classic period metropolis (Rattray 2001: 393; Rodríguez 1982a, 1982b: 59). At Edzna, along the western edge of the Maya lowlands in Campeche, a steambath stands at the head of the stair that gives access to the city’s main temple- Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica 159 palace complex (Figure 3). An unusually spacious steambath was built on the edge of the central civic plaza at Classic-period El Cuajilote in Veracruz (Ortíz 2005), and the largest and most elaborate steambath built in public space at Chichen Itza (Figure 4) stands at the edge of the main cluster of monumental buildings on the Great Platform (Ruppert 1952: 82-83, Figs. 51-52; Tozzer 1957: 138). Near the southeastern edge of the Maya world, the aristocrats of Copan built a steambath in a council building or men’s house on the edge of the main plaza (Cheek 2003; Webster 1989: 22). Steambaths at Late Postclassic Los Cimientos-Chustum in the K’iche’ region of highland Guatemala (Ichon 1977) and at Classic Tikal in the southern lowlands (Jones 1996: 75-77, Figs. 62-64, 80; Herman de León 2008: 58-59) fall into this category as well. Steambaths were closely associated with rituals that established individuals as members of social groups and thus would be highly appropriate architectural markers of bounded space. This connection may account for their frequent location along the margins of civic complexes and other public areas, since a steambath near an entry point – to a community, a venue for political ceremony, a ritual precinct – might well mark the connection of that space with a particular social group. Such structures would function as a forcible reminder that the space pertained most closely to those who belonged and whose belonging had been defined by and reiterated by steambath ritual. A perceived liminality may also have contributed to this placement pattern, since steambath activities often pertained to events in which an individual transcended the boundary between distinct social states. Passing by or through a peripherally located steambath may have signaled a kind of social transformation in which individuals left behind, even if temporarily, the social and cultural connections of their normal lives and entered a new sociocultural space.

Ball Game Connection Steambath locations often highlight their connection with the ball game (Taladoire 1975). A well- built steambath in a high status residential sector of Epiclassic Teotenango in the Toluca valley (Piña Chán 1975: 128-135) certainly served a segment of the aristocracy and was likely the locus of community ritual associated with the adjacent ballcourt as well. At Xochicalco, steambaths were located in the architectural complex next to the grand ballcourt on the edge of the civic core (Ortíz 2005; Noguera 1948-49: 117-119); another sumptuous steambath overlooks the northern ballcourt within the core (Garza and González 1995: 118-122). The largest known steambath, which was spacious enough to accommodate twenty or more people, was incorporated into the Classic period Maya ballcourt complex at San Antonio in eastern Chiapas (Agrinier 1966, 1969). The largest steambath at Chichen Itza (Figure 4) stands adjacent to a ball court on the Great Platform (Ruppert 1952: 82-83, Figs. 51-52; Tozzer 1957: 138). Imagery associated with ball courts also testifies to the importance of steambaths in connection with the ball game. An elaborate steambath depicted in relief on one side of the South Ballcourt at El Tajin, on the Gulf coast of Mexico, associates steambathing with important civic rituals, arguably royal accession (Koontz 2009: 55-62). The reliefs of the North Temple of the Great Ballcourt complex at Chichen Itza, which represent a sequence of ceremonies related to the death and burial of one ruler and the installation of the next (Wren and Schmidt 1991; Schele and Mathews 1998: 248-253), include a rectangular enclosure occupied by two figures. The structure contains wavy lines, a motif commonly used for water at Chichen; scrolls – elsewhere a metaphor for steam (Figure 10) – appear above, with attached jewels or flowers. This part of the relief is eroded in such a way that the identification of the image as a steambath is not certain, but similarities with the steambaths in ball court imagery at El Tajin are strong and the involvement of steambaths in the rituals attending royal succession would be consistent with the their architectural contexts at the site and with uses of steambaths elsewhere in the Classic Maya world. 160 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson

Figure 3. Steambath, Acropolis, Edzna. upper – location at top of stair; lower – interior (photographs by John S. Henderson). Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica 161

Figure 4. Steambath, Chichen Itza (photograph by John S. Henderson).

Symbolic Steambaths At Palenque, Kan Bahlam built a series of temples late in the 7th century to memorialize his royal descent and to connect himself with deities who are, in effect, his divine ancestors; three of them were designed as symbolic steambaths (Houston 1996; Child 2007). Each of the buildings of the lower Cross group – the Temples of the Sun, Cross, and Foliated Cross – houses an independent interior shrine (Figure 5). The Cross Group shrines were not fitted with firing and drainage facilities, but the overall layout of the structures closely resembles the antechamber and steam chamber design of elaborate functional steambaths. The shrines appear to be the referents of the pibnaah (‘oven- house’ or steambath) expression and of other references to ovens and burning found in associated 162 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson

Figure 5. Interior shrine (symbolic steambath) visible in rear room, Temple of the Cross, Palenque (photograph by John S. Henderson). hieroglyphic texts. These texts focus on (i) the births of deities in the distant, mythic past, who are named as the owners of the steambaths; (ii) the special relationship of these deities to Kan Bahlam; (iii) the designation of Kan Bahlam as successor to the throne; and (iv) his actual accession. Life cycle rituals central to the political status of Kan Bahlam were connected to, and perhaps took place in, the symbolic natal steambaths of his tutelary deities. He was situated in Palenque and its dynastic history by means of rituals connected to the symbolic steambaths of the Cross Group just as people are rooted in their communities by rituals that take place in functional steambaths. The hieroglyphic texts and iconography of the lower Cross Group connect the temples and their symbolic steambaths with a topography that conflates local physiographic features with a broader symbolic landscape. The toponym lakam ha’ (‘big/wide water’) refers to the central civic precinct of Palenque, where the Río Otolum flows past the Cross Group from its source at a spring behind Temple XIX (Stuart and Houston 1994: 30-32). The group is constructed on the lower slopes of a large hill, presumably the referent of the lakam witz (‘big hill’) toponym that is paired with lakam ha’ in the texts of Temple XVIII (Houston 1996: 133; Stuart and Houston 1994: 30-32). The roofs of the Cross Group temples and steambath shrines feature gaping mouths of saurian beings. On the Temple of the Cross shrine roof, human figures emerge from quatrefoil motifs with jaw elements that likely represent caves conceptualized as the mouths of animate beings (Robertson 1991: Ills. 45-54, 56, 90, 165). These elements of Cross Group symbolism echo the close connection of springs, caves, and mountains with steambaths in post-invasion Mesoamerica. The quatrefoil motif – symbolically linked to caves, water, fertility, ancestors, and rulership – has a long history in Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica 163

Mesoamerican imagery. It appears at La Blanca in Pacific Guatemala in the Middle Formative, and in the Late Formative Maya world it was used specifically to designate watery caves (Looper 2000; Houston et al. 2005; Guernsey 2010: 75). For Maya kings, the construction of steambaths, functional or symbolic, was not simply elaboration of civic architecture. It connected them to divine patrons as well as human ancestors, and thereby rooted them, situating them in symbolic landscapes and dynastic histories in ways that powerfully legitimized their political pretensions. The imagery and texts of the Cross Group at Palenque, along with the landscape to which they refer, are strongly reminiscent of the Aztec concept of the altepetl (French et al. 2006). The system of reservoirs constructed in elevated locations on the hills occupied by the major civic architecture at the contemporary city of Tikal (Scarborough 1998), with mechanisms that would have allowed for spectacular release of gushing water, seems to reflect the same concept. The civic cores of Palenque and Tikal were arguably conceptualized in relation to something like the altepetl concept, and they may have been constructed as symbolic landscapes representing it. Archaeological remains of earlier steambaths are much less common, but steambaths were definitely in use in Formative Mesoamerica. A steambath was incorporated into a modest public architectural complex in the Mirador group at Dzibilchaltun in the Middle Formative period (Andrews and Andrews 1980: 20-40). At the beginning of the Middle Formative period, about 900 bc, a steambath (Figure 6) stood on one side of the central plaza of Cuello in northern Belize (Figure 7). Elite residences or public structures occupied the other three sides (Hammond and Bauer 2001). An even earlier steambath (Figure 8) was part of an unusually large household at Puerto Escondido, in the lower Ulua valley of northern Honduras. In the Late Formative period, steambaths were built in a sector of the village used for community ceremonial activity (Henderson and Joyce 1998, 2004).

EARLY FORMATIVE STEAMBATHS AT PUERTO ESCONDIDO

The lower course of the Rio Ulua winds through a large, fertile alluvial valley that was one of Mesoamerica’s premier cacao-producing regions at the time of the Spanish invasion. By the late 2nd millennium bc, the valley was home to prosperous communities actively engaged with neighboring areas. Deep stratified deposits at Puerto Escondido, on the banks of a tributary of the Río Ulua have documented one of the region’s longest continuous occupation histories. A village had emerged there by the initial Early Formative, before 1500 bc, and persisted through the Late Classic (Henderson and Joyce 1998, 2004; Joyce and Henderson 2001). By the later Early Formative Chotepe phase (1100 – 900 bc), a steambath had been constructed in a residential building group (Figure 8) that contrasted with the rest of the community in terms of size, construction technique, craft products, and imported raw materials; it is arguably the household of a chief. The steambath had a small circular chamber, 2.5 meters in diameter, with thick, rammed clay walls. An adobe bench attached to the exterior may have been part of a dressing area. There was no interior feature for sitting and, as at Cuello, users would have sat on the earthen floor. A nearby pile of burned rock and ash is the detritus of heating stones to produce steam. An adjacent building – at least 9 meters long by 5 meters wide – is the largest known construction in the community. Thick, rammed clay wall bases coated on the interior with mud plaster supported wattle- and-daub upper walls, and interior posts carried a thatched roof. Pottery in trash deposits produced by the residents of the area included serving vessels (bottles and bowls) with complex surface treatment and elaborate designs. Motifs that are part of the Olmec style – including the U-bracket, 4-pointed star, St. Andrew’s cross, and hand-paw-wing – along with production techniques such as differential firing indicate that the residents of this complex maintained connections with a wider world. They also enjoyed access to imported raw materials such as marine shell, obsidian from distant sources 164 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson

Figure 6. Early Middle Formative steambath, Cuello (drawing by M. Rothman). Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica 165

Figure 7. Early and Middle Formative sites with steambaths and steambath imagery (map by John S. Henderson).

Figure 8. Plan of Early Formative household (Str 4) with steambath, Puerto Escondido (plan by John S. Henderson). 166 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson

(Ixtepeque and El Chayal), and (perhaps slightly later, at the beginning of the Middle Formative) jade. The pottery, however – exotic new decoration and production techniques notwithstanding – was not imported. To judge by the presence of two small firing facilities within the extended residential group, it was produced in the immediate area. These developments reflect practices that created distinction within the community; they represent an early stage in the emergence of differences in status, wealth, and power. Elsewhere in Chotepe phase Puerto Escondido, simpler and older construction techniques continued to prevail, access to raw materials from distant sources was much more limited, and ceramic vessels with indications of foreign connections are much less frequent. The construction of internal distinctions within Puerto Escondido drew on wider networks, some of which involved connections with elites in other parts of the Olmec world who employed similar carefully made and decorated serving vessels and items of bodily adornment. Emphasizing external relationships – especially if it involved assertions of cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the community coupled with claims to authority – was potentially divisive. By accentuating local attachments of the participants and their rootedness in the community, rituals involving the steambath – which was prominently located in a large and prosperous residential compound – could have served to balance perceptions of foreignness and any hostility they might have engendered.

STEAMBATHS AND CAVES IN FORMATIVE MONUMENTAL ART

Elsewhere in the Olmec world, the imagery of public monumental art indicates that steambaths were intimately related to the maintenance of elite status and to the legitimation of power. Steambaths can be identified in Olmec style reliefs in the Central Mexican highlands and in three-dimensional stone sculpture at Gulf coast Olmec centers. Monumental representations of steambaths located in public space and depictions of richly dressed human figures in the same compositions with steambaths underscore a connection with community leaders and their pretensions to authority and power. Because Olmec political art, like its later Mesoamerican counterparts, employs polyvalent symbols, identifying images as representations of steambaths does not necessarily invalidate other interpretations. Orthodox interpretations are entirely compatible with the proposed steambath identification, since they invoke symbolic elements – caves, rain, and fertility – that fall squarely within the web of meanings associated with steambaths. Among the most distinctive political sculptures in Gulf coast Olmec centers are the large, three- dimensional basalt compositions conventionally labeled tabletop altars (Figure 9) (Porter 1989). They are rectangular in plan, with flat, slightly projecting tops. On the front face of several, a human figure projects from a recess as though emerging from an enclosure in the body of the sculpture. The enclosure is sometimes framed by elements representing facial features – mouth, fangs, eyes – indicating that the figure is emerging from the interior of an animate reptilian being. The emerging figure often holds in its arms a smaller figure (Figure 9a) that is infantile but stiff and that possesses such non-naturalistic features as a cleft head. Additional humans, often carrying infantile beings, are executed in low relief on the sides of some examples (Figure 9b). Compositions with seated figures holding infantile beings also occur on a smaller scale as freestanding sculptures (Benson and de la Fuente 1996: 170-171). The ancient settings of these works are unknown, but altars were arrayed in public space in Gulf coast centers. At La Venta, altars were displayed in spacious plazas flanked by large platforms. Other monuments arrayed in the plazas – including stelae and a colossal head – depict rulers (Grove 1999: 267-70). Monument 14 at San Lorenzo was located in front of the platform that closed off the north side of a large patio in the central sector of the site. A colossal head was set on the adjacent east platform, and the south platform contained a Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica 167

Figure 9. Altar 5, La Venta; a) front and right side; b) detail of left side (photographs by John S. Henderson). well that fed a stone-lined aqueduct (Cyphers 1999: 159-165; Cyphers et al. 2006: 20-27). An Olmec style image painted above the entrance to Oxtotitlan Cave in Guerrero makes it clear that the “altars” represent, and likely served as, thrones (Grove 1970, 1973). A richly costumed figure is shown seated on a stylized head with eye and fang elements; the facial features and the cave opening below are perfectly homologous to the zoomorphic faces of Gulf coast altars (Kappelman and Reilly 2001: 44). The location of these monuments in civic architectural complexes, along with the labor required to import the stone and to carve and place the monuments, leaves no doubt of their importance in civic life. Their function as thrones connects them specifically to rulers. Some thrones were eventually re- carved, transformed into colossal heads, perhaps portraits of the kings who had sat upon them (Porter 1989); such intentional recycling may suggest a desire to perpetuate the symbolic significances of the thrones or transfer their connotations to the individual depicted by the later carvings. The Oxtotitlan imagery provides the strongest possible support for the orthodox interpretation of the recesses in the faces of thrones as representations of cave entrances (Grove 1973). The case for identifying thrones with steambaths is equally compelling and in no way inconsistent. Steambaths are closely linked to caves in later Mesoamerican thought, and the same meanings – origin, birth, fertility, ancestors, springs, water – are attached to each. In form, thrones are decidedly architectural. Like steambaths, they are low structures with restricted interiors and small entrances, about the height of a seated figure. Like caves, steambaths are animate, so their entrances may be conceptualized as mouths. Figures shown emerging from throne recesses are arguably women, since the figures they carry and those in relief on throne sides refer directly to infants. This imagery suggests presentation of newborns to an audience, a practice that would fit perfectly with documented associations of steambaths and with the inferred political dimensions of the monuments. In contrast with the emerging figures, the infantile creatures they bear are stiff or flaccid (Figure 9a) and may have cleft heads and non-naturalistic facial features. Depicting newborns as though they are not (yet) fully human would be consistent with later Mesoamerican notions of infants as wild, still part of nature, needing to be brought into the human community through the medium of the steambath; it also reflects the association of unborn infants and steambath-based ritual activities. Infants depicted on throne sides have swept-back cleft heads but they are animate and squirming (Figure 9a). This display of more human infants (by human adults with elaborate headgear) may refer to a later stage of the transformation to humanity and to the ritual that brought it about. 168 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson

Tate (2012: 235) also identifies thrones as steambaths but does not relate them to politics. Her emphasis on the prominence of representations of infants in Olmec art, particularly in relation to steambaths, lends strong support to the argument that steambath imagery served to legitimatize power by asserting that those who held it belonged to the community by virtue of birth and life-cycle rituals. The thrust of her analysis – arguing that sexuality, gestation, embryos, and fetuses are key themes in Olmec art – is debatable, but it is certainly consistent with this interpretation of steambath imagery. The figures emerging from the La Venta Altar 4 and San Lorenzo Monument 14 enclosures do not carry infants but instead hold ropes that extend to the sides of the monuments, connecting them to smaller figures carved in relief (de la Fuente 1981: Fig. 7; Porter 1989: Fig. 2a). This composition has been described, unconvincingly, as a depiction of captor and prisoner; in light of the symbolic meanings attached to steambaths, it is better read as another reference to kinship. Later Mesoamerican imagery represents ropes in connection with birth, specifically as a symbol for umbilical cords (Miller 1974; Taube 1994), and ropes or cords were widely employed in Mesoamerica as a metaphor for relationships of descent (Kappelman and Reilly 2001; Chance 2000: 497; Kellogg 1986: 106-107). Ropes associated with steambath imagery at El Tajin may also be related to accession ritual (Koontz 2009: 55-62), which offers a variation on the theme of lineage and descent. Confirmation for these interpretations can be found at Chalcatzingo in the highlands of central Mexico, where the same elements and combinations appear in reliefs carved on exposed rock faces (Grove and Angulo 1987; Grove 1999: 258-265). Monument 1 (Figure 10), known as El Rey, bears a striking resemblance to Gulf coast thrones. The focus of the composition is a half-quatrefoil defined by parallel lines that enclose a seated figure holding an object that bears a double scroll. A crossed- band motif with curving projections appears on the upper edge of the quatrefoil; volutes extend from the opening. Elongated elements, often identified as raindrops, appear to fall from three bracket-like designs at the top of the composition. Circular motifs and plant-like elements surround the enclosure. The central theme – a figure seated in an enclosure holding something across its forearms – is shared with three-dimensional thrones; moreover, the specifics of elements and their combinations are the same as those found on Gulf coast thrones, especially Altar 4 at La Venta (de la Fuente 1981: Fig. 7; Porter 1989: Fig. 2a). The crossed-band with projections – the eye and flame eyebrow motif widely employed in Olmec art – serves to animate Monument 1’s enclosure, as do the eyes and fangs on Altar 4; the crossed-band appears on Altar 4 as well, though it is not part of the eye. The vegetal elements at the corners of the quatrefoil echo elements placed along the edge of Altar 4’s recess. The figure emerging from the enclosure on Altar 5 at La Venta wears a headdress with the raindrop elements (Figure 9a) (Porter 1989: Fig. 2b). Monument 1 is thus, in effect, the same image in cutaway profile. Monument 1, like the Gulf coast thrones, is often interpreted as a zoomorphic cave, the mouth of a mountain, and/or the earth (Grove 1973, 1999: 258-260; Angulo 1987). Grove reads the brackets as clouds, the elongated elements below as raindrops, and the volutes issuing from the enclosure as mist, noting that they evoke later Mesoamerican notions of clouds forming in caves. These elements, along with the plants, suggest rain and fertility as primary themes. As with the thrones, considering Monument 1 in relation to steambath imagery offers a new, fuller understanding. The volutes are the key elements and lend themselves at least equally well to identification as steam issuing from a steambath, particularly given their placement at the opening of the demarcated space. Sahagún speaks of the ayauhcalco (‘mist house’) as an Aztec metaphor for the steambath, and this interpretation seems applicable to Monument 1. The seated figure, which seems to wear a skirt, is more easily interpreted as a woman than counterparts emerging from throne enclosures, and she holds an object in the same way, as though presenting it (though it is not depicted as an infant). Cloud, raindrop and vegetal elements, and the themes they suggest – water, fertility, and rebirth – are perfectly consonant with the suite of meanings associated with steambaths. The raindrops, which also Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica 169

Figure 10. Monument 1 (detail), Chalcatzingo (photograph by John S. Henderson). appear on the skirt of the presenting figure, evoke the Florentine Codex reference to infants as droplets (Florentine Codex Book VI, Chapter 27, Dibble and Anderson 1969: 151-152). A series of reliefs (Monuments 11, 8, 14, 15, 7, and 6) on the rock face adjacent to Monument 1 feature several of the same elements: double scrolls, volutes, raindrops, and especially depictions of plants, including squash, an important cultigen. This suggests that the reliefs were intended to be understood as a group with a common theme of rain, fertility, and rebirth (Angulo 1987: 133-137; Grove 1999: 259-260). Angulo’s (1987: 137-138) argument that the upward facing posture of all the zoomorphic figures in the group should be read as references to birth is interesting in the context of steambath imagery. Just above the reliefs, a small channel cut into bedrock that feeds a series of small depressions in the rock near the reliefs may have been used in rituals relating to rain. A feeder for a large-scale rainwater collection system runs close to Monument 1, below which it expands into a major channel that controlled runoff on the hill above leveled terraces. A construction some 30 meters long and 7 meters high diverted water away from the terraces at the foot of the slope; its ultimate destination is unknown, though agricultural uses are likely (Grove 1987: 159-160; Grove and Cyphers 1987: 32-33). Two sculptures on slabs found at the base of the slope are closely related to the upper relief group. Monument 13 depicts the same quatrefoil enclosure, complete with vegetal motifs – including 170 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson squashes – at the corners. The figure seated within it has a cleft head and snarling mouth, resembling more the infantile figures on thrones than the presenters. Monument 9 (Benson and de la Fuente 1996: 178-179) presents a frontal view of the quatrefoil, again with plants at the corners. Eyes and a nose make the zoomorphic character of the monument inescapable. The eyes may have eroded traces of crossed-bands, and the eyebrows have protuberances with cleft-like ends recalling the clefts on the quatrefoil of Monument 1. Raindrop elements appear above the nose, along with a small, stylized face. The composition is strikingly similar to the quatrefoil mouth on the roof of the symbolic steambath in the Temple of the Cross at Palenque (Child 2007: 243; Robertson 1991: Ills. 45-54). The interior of the quatrefoil (i.e. the mouth), is entirely carved away to form an opening whose lower edge is worn, as though by people moving through it. Monument 9 was probably once set atop a long mound bounding the north edge of the central plaza; this sector includes other carved monuments, high-status residences and burials, and a sunken patio construction with the only known throne outside the Gulf coast (Angulo 1987: 141; Fash 1987; Grove and Angulo 1987: 125; Grove 1999: 262; Grove and Cyphers 1987: 29-31). Monument 9 was designed to be set vertically, and the wear on the opening suggests that it might have served as an entrance to an enclosure. The restricted size of the passage is perfectly suited to an entry to a steambath, the structure embodied by the quatrefoil mouth. The placement of steambath imagery in relation to the landscape at Chalcatzingo offers a powerful reminder that steambaths should also be considered an instance of the Mesoamerican inclination to control and channel water, and interpreted in relation to the multi-faceted importance of water in Mesoamerican thought (Brady and Ashmore 1999; Lucero and Fash 2006). Steambath imagery at Chalcatzingo is juxtaposed to rainwater control channels, harnessing the local landscape to add dramatic images of running water to the symbolic message of the carved imagery. Seasonally, Chalcatzingo is literally a mountain that gushes water. Given the political dimensions of its imagery, Chalcatzingo can be viewed as an ancient embodiment of the altepetl concept. The design of civic space at San Lorenzo, may also reflect the construction of a sacred landscape featuring the altepetl. The southern side of the patio in which Monument 14 was placed enclosed a well that was the source of water for the largest of the center’s stone-lined aqueducts. An aqueduct discharging water from an elite building complex atop a plateau that housed monuments connected to rulership (Cyphers 1999: 159-165; Cyphers et al. 2006: 20-27) certainly lends itself to interpretation in terms of the altepetl concept.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The elements associated with steambaths in Olmec imagery – fertility, birth, descent, caves, water, rootedness in the local community – are all meanings widely attached to steambaths in later Mesoamerica. Material remains demonstrate that this web of meanings had emerged and become widely shared early in the Formative period. It persisted throughout subsequent centuries and is attested at a variety of sites spanning multiple cultural traditions. Olmec imagery, like the archaeological contexts of known steambaths in the Olmec world, associates them with public spaces and with the activities of the nobles who designed those spaces to enhance their status and bolster their claims to authority. At La Venta and San Lorenzo, lords were literally enthroned on images that conflated caves, which functioned as places associated with origin and ancestors, and steambaths, which served as venues of birth and transformation rituals (e.g. coming of age, heir designation, and installation in positions of authority). Steambath imagery drew on the powerful symbolism of the cave of origin and recalled actual rituals in the life cycles of individuals claiming status and authority, who used them to establish their rootedness in the local community and their connection with local ancestors, human and supernatural. By invoking local roots, steambath Places of beginning, modes of belonging: Steambaths and caves in Mesoamerica 171 symbolism based claims to special status on local legitimacy. This made the steambath an especially attractive nexus of symbols for claimants to power without adequate local roots. A metaphorical connection of the steambath with the womb would have added a very attractive dimension since emergence from the steambath, whether actual or imagined, signals rebirth. Lords who were foreign, or whose assertions of connections with other societies made them seem so – a situation widely documented in later Mesoamerican polities (for example Braswell 2001, 2003; Carmack 1968, 1973; Martin 2003; Okoshi 2001; Restall 2001a, 2001b; Sharer 2003; Sharer et al. 2005; Stuart 2000, 2004) – could nonetheless be (newly) rooted in the community through steambath ritual. The earliest steambath documented in Mesoamerica, at Puerto Escondido, was part of the most elaborate residential complex in the village. It was arguably occupied by an upwardly mobile family flaunting its strong connections to distant parts of Mesoamerica – that is, by an emergent elite group. The slightly later steambath at Cuello occupied public space, adjacent to elite residences (Hammond and Bauer 2001). Later in the Middle Formative, a steambath was incorporated into a civic architectural complex at Dzibilchaltun (Andrews and Andrews 1980: 20-40). The link between steambaths and public, political arenas is clear. At the beginning of what we now recognize as a process through which stratified complex societies developed in Mesoamerica, social groups that we identify (with hindsight) as emergent elites (Joyce 2004) caused steambaths to be built in the context of their relatively large and costly residential complexes. Do the basic household functions of steambaths, so well documented in later Mesoamerican societies, imply that steambaths must have a longer history, stretching back into a time when their functions were purely domestic? If so, the builders of the early civic steambaths would have been operating in terms of structures defined by the practices that were current in the domestic life of early Mesoamerican communities (Joyce 2004). In this view, emergent elites would have been appropriating an ancient household practice that served to affirm their roots in the local community. They would not necessarily have been engaged in a conscious attempt to aggrandize themselves, but the effect – even if unintended – would have served their political ends, balancing and naturalizing assertions of status distinction and authority. This interpretive trajectory is perfectly aligned with a widely shared inclination to discover the roots of state institutions and features of civic life in quotidian household practices. Interpretations in this vein have been offered for ritual activities as well as for such material features as monumental architecture (e.g., Demarest 2004: 116, 176; Harrison 1999: 112-115; Walker and Lucero 2000; Webster 1998: 27-29). This is precisely what popular theoretical views of the structural, symbolic importance of the house and of the structuring effects of household practice (Bourdieu 1977: 90-91; Giddens 1979) lead us to expect. The issue is whether steambathing was a novelty in Early Formative Puerto Escondido, or a long- established facet of doxa. Did the initial political uses of steambaths by emergent elites create new contexts for familiar practices, or did innovative practices and new facilities for them provide a model for practices that became familiar and were incorporated into doxa because ordinary householders emulated them? In either case, these contexts and the practices associated with them led to changes in the structures within which successors operated, and elite groups intending to enhance power did make use of steambaths, which combined the symbolic power of the origin cave with a panoply of domestic associations. In fact, the earliest known steambaths – at present, at Puerto Escondido and Cuello – were not located in ordinary households, and we are compelled to assess the development of steambath meanings in that light. Until earlier steambaths are found in domestic contexts that are arguably not those of (emergent) elites, the preferred hypothesis must be that general household practice followed from innovative distinction-building activities. At the beginning of their documented history, steambath rituals relating to birth and transition may have emphasized local dimensions of identity, but it is not obvious that they would initially have served to naturalize inequality. 172 John S. Henderson and Kathryn M. Hudson

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Conversations with Rosemary Joyce, who co-directed excavations at Puerto Escondido, have enriched our observations, particularly in relation to Mexica steambath practice and symbolism. Perceptive comments by Jonathan Boyarin and Ananda Cohen Suarez have also greatly improved our arguments.

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