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Ancient Mesoamerica RETHINKING CLASSIC LOWLAND MAYA

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Ancient Mesoamerica RETHINKING CLASSIC LOWLAND MAYA Ancient Mesoamerica http://journals.cambridge.org/ATM Additional services for Ancient Mesoamerica: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here RETHINKING CLASSIC LOWLAND MAYA POTTERY CENSERS Prudence M. Rice Ancient Mesoamerica / Volume 10 / Issue 01 / January 1999, pp 25 - 50 DOI: null, Published online: 08 September 2000 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0956536199101020 How to cite this article: Prudence M. Rice (1999). RETHINKING CLASSIC LOWLAND MAYA POTTERY CENSERS. Ancient Mesoamerica, 10, pp 25-50 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/ATM, IP address: 128.148.252.35 on 13 Nov 2014 Ancient Mesoamerica, 10 (1999), 25–50 Copyright © 1999 Cambridge University Press. Printed in the U.S.A. RETHINKING CLASSIC LOWLAND MAYA POTTERY CENSERS Prudence M. Rice Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA Abstract Classic lowland Maya censers can be described in terms of two general categories, image (or effigy) and non-image. The function and meaning of these incensarios is approached through consideration of their embellishment, symbolism, and contexts of use and recovery. It is suggested that in Peten and some adjacent areas, Classic image censers were part of the paraphernalia of divine kingship, associated with termination rituals and a royal funerary cult. Non-image and particularly spiked censers were more associated with birth/renewal, earth, rain, and calendrical rituals involving fire drilling. Their use became widespread in the lowlands during the Terminal Classic period, with the “collapse” of divine kingship and elite power. Incense burners are a rich and distinctive, but surprisingly under- the Maya but also in Mexican cultures, and in highlands and low- studied, component of Maya ceremonialism. These artifacts are, lands, incense burners were made and used from the Preclassic as the name suggests, containers used to burn various kinds of nat- period into the centuries of the Classic and Postclassic eras, through urally occurring aromatic resins and gums, although other mate- Spanish contact and into modern times. rials and offerings may have been burned in them as well. Usually made of clay or stone, these vessels are referred to by English- and As a general homage to deities, incense was burned in front of Spanish-speaking archaeologists as censers, incensarios, braziers their effigies. Incense offerings were also made in New Year or braseros, or sometimes sahumadores (“smokers”). Compared rituals, in architectural renewal of temples and pyramids, and to other categories of Maya pottery and ceremonialism, relatively in offerings to sacred bodies of water....[the smoke of burn- little research has been devoted to illuminating the ritual concepts ing incense] functioned as a link between mortals and their gods; and behaviors associated with incensarios or toward achieving a a means of homage, a prayer [Berlo 1982:85]. deeper understanding of the role of incense burners in the Maya area.1 However, spatial and temporal variations in form, embel- In the Maya region, each prehistoric chronological subdivision lishment, and context of recovery of these vessels provide archae- and cultural subarea boasted its own stylistic variants of what is ologists with a virtually untapped resource for social, economic, actually a comparatively limited repertoire of basic censer forms. and ceremonial inferences, over and above the more pedestrian The receptacle holding the incense or other substance is usually operations of classification and chronology building. relatively simple—a shallow plate, an open dish or bowl, or a nar- This paper is an exploration of the use, function, and meaning row vase or chalice—but these shapes were often elaborated by of Classic lowland Maya incensarios, particularly in the central the addition of handles (e.g., the ladle censer), attached bases (of- Peten area. The overview is informed by several sources of data: ten a pedestal to elevate the receptacle), or flanges, or through use archaeological (i.e., spatial and architectural contexts of recov- of a separate support and/or cover, thereby creating compound or ery); iconographic (embellishments on the censers themselves, plus composite censer forms. Any and all of these components could occasional representations of censers on stelae and Postclassic co- be richly elaborated with modeled, stuccoed, and painted human dices, and, more rarely still, on painted pottery); and ethnographic/ and animal features, sometimes only their heads and limbs, but ethnohistoric. The objective is to develop a framework for often full-figure effigies. Indeed, many effigies are representa- interpreting regional and historical patterns of censer use in the tions of specific deities of the Maya, patrons of vital forces and Maya lowlands. beings in the natural and supernatural worlds. In displaying these representations, pottery incensarios are similar to several other cat- egories of ceramics employed in Maya ceremonial activity over INCENSE AND INCENSE BURNERS the millennia, for example vessels placed in dedicatory caches, Incensarios were used in the intense and diversified ritual life of accompanying burials, or used in household observance. At the nearly all ancient Mesoamerican societies. Found not just among same time, it must be remembered that not all incense burners were made of fired clay: documentary sources and archaeological ex- 1 Important exceptions to this generalization demand mention, how- cavations indicate that these ritual objects (and associated effi- ever: e.g., Benyo (1979), Bishop et al. (1982), Ferree (1967, 1972), Gann gies) were also made of stone, plaster or stucco, wood, jade, and (1934), Goldstein (1977), Rands and Rands (1959), and Rands et al. (1979). rubber (see Thompson 1970:189–191). 25 26 Rice Just as archaeologists refer to incense and incense burners by a pot with the face of the god B’ol on it” and is used to hold b’alche number of terms, so too did the Maya. Dictionaries and ethno- (McGee 1990:45, 49). graphic accounts reveal Maya words for incense, incensario, and Yucatec Mayan dictionaries (e.g., Diccionario maya 1991) give their use (incensar, “to cense”). Unfortunately, however, there is several words for incensario, incensar, and brasero, and the dis- not always a clear correspondence between colonial or modern Ma- tinctions have some potential for illuminating ancient usage of such yan words for incensarios and their use, and objects recovered in vessels. For example, two words used by archaeologists as syn- archaeological excavations (see Houston et al. [1989] for discus- onyms for censer are brasero (brazier) and sahumador (smoker). sion of Classic Maya pottery ethnotaxonomy; their discussion, how- A strict translation of brazier/brasero is “an object holding hot coals ever, excludes censers). (brasas) placed under the bed for heat” (Yucatec moj), but bra- Maya incense is usually identified as pom or copal (Nahuatl sero also can mean coal burner or, more generally, incensario. In- copalli), typically the resin of the copal tree (L. Protium copal)of censario, in turn, is referenced by various Mayan terms that could lowland forests. Among the contemporary Lacandon Maya, pom be glossed as “smoker.” For example, ch’uyub’ chuk refers to an is made from resin of the pitch pine (Pinus pseudostrobos) (McGee incensario, but a literal translation would be “hanger [of ] coal.” 1990:44). Another Yucatec Maya term for incense is jaak’, de- This could refer to the type of smoking censer swung by Catholic fined as incienso del país (in contrast to kastellan pom, “Spanish priests; it might also refer to prehistoric ladle censers that could incense”), made from a small tree identified as Notoptera lepto- have held burning, smoking incense and been swept around a room. cephala (Diccionario maya, yucatec–español [Diccionario maya] Another Mayan word for incensario is p’ul (“smoker,” “vessel that 1991:173). Other tropical hardwood and pine resins also were smokes,” and “smoking”). Variants of p’ul include p’ultaj (verb burned as incense by Maya past and present; e.g., resins from trees “to smoke”) and p’ulut (verb “to smoke, to perfume by smoking” of the Bursera genus (Vogt 1976) and rubber (Castilla elastica; [sahumar], and “to cense”). Finally, incensarios are referred to in McGee 1990:91; Miller and Taube 1993:99, 144). Given so many Yucatec Maya as yum k’aak’ (or yum k’ak’, “señor/lord of fire”)3 alternatives, different types of saps, gums, and resins may have and yum pom (“señor/lord of copal”). It is tempting to suggest that had distinct functions. In the Popol Vuh, the sacred history of the these latter terms may refer to the anthropomorphic or theomor- highland K’iche’ Maya, for example, offerings of incense to lords phic incensarios so often seen in Classic and Postclassic Maya of the Underworld, Xibalba, were limited to the sap of the croton contexts (see Note 2). Curiously, none of these words referring to (Croton sanguifluus), whereas the copal incense used today by the smoke and perfumed smoke incorporates the Maya noun and verb K’iche’ is identified as a resin from the bark of the palo jilote tree butz’ (“smoke”), although in modern Itzaj Maya ajmenb’utz’ re- (Hymenaea verrucosa) (Tedlock 1985:46, 332, 334). fers to a person burning incense (Charles Andrew Hofling, per- Incense is represented in Maya hieroglyphic writing and im- sonal communication 1998). ages. Glyphs T687b, T141, and T93 (Figure 1a–c) have been read A final comment on terminology concerns a particular glyphic as referring to incense as pom, po-m(o),orch’aj (Bricker compound in the Postclassic Dresden and Madrid codices, 1984:233; Lounsbury 1973:107). A variant of the pom glyph (see T122:528:87 (Figure 1h). This is most commonly seen in associ- Figure 1b) is often shown in the mouths of smoking spiked cylin- ation with God G (5 the Sun god, aged Sun god [;Itzamna], drical censers in the Postclassic Dresden Codex (Figure 1d).
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