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Home , Mesoamerica, Ring of Fire

CATALDI

COSMOGONY AND DIRECT USES OF GEOTHERMAL ENERGY

Arriaga and Raffaele

CFE Comision Federal de Electricidad, A.P. 58290 Morelia, Mich., ENEL-SPA Dir. Produzione e Via A. Italy

Key Words: Mexico, Mesoamerica, geothermal energy, Cosmogony, direct uses

ABSTRACT An imposing series of volcanic Volcanic Mexican formed the hean where Mesoamerican developed. During of years, rhis area was a place panicularly rich in active georhermal man and influenced deeply and cosmogony of Geothermal energy played imponanr role on such as occupancy of volcanic explosions populaions and they due rhe renewal of volcanic ground lakeformation and narural hearpresence. Vapour baths, cooking by or on naturally hor rocks. of gardens and therapeuric applications, were some original of the narural in Mesoamerica. The myrhical of geothermal phenomena occurred very early, a pmfound toward terrestrial heat. Man's relationship geothermal energy had a dual ethical beneficial harmful, Mesoamerican Sub-Arras in Classic Period (100 900 This undemanding influenced deeply rhe I mesoamencan view. Gulf Coast Central High Plateau - South INTRODUCTION Limits Mesoamerica in the XVI Century When opening any on the history of science, one rarely finds any chapter or paragraph dealing with science in pre-. However, the mesoamerican cultures created in an independent and absolutely original way: , hydraulics, archi- This work is a preliminary outline, not an exhaustive treatment of tecture and . They developed autonomously the concept the subject. Our survey has a double objective: To explore the of zero, an advanced numeric system and they knew how to carry influence exercised by geothermal energy on the material and astronomical calculations with astonishing precision. Today we spiritual development of Mesoamerica and the relationship know that and scientific knowledge were a daily reality in between man and territory and, to emphasize the historic Mesoamerica. Less known is the general conception they possessed antiquity of the cognitive process of geothermal phenomena, The about the world. The context wherein their beliefs and knowledge history of geothermics in America Still needs to be written; this originated came from their peculiar idea about the Cosmos. brief document sketches that possibility for the first . The Cosmogony is the science of the creation and evolution of the proposal of this theme is left open for new studies, in hopes of a Universe. Their Cosmogony arose, at least from intense better understanding the of Mesoamerica. experiences with geothermal phenomena. To comprehend this vision one must look into the natural environment, and BRIEF SURVEY OF PREHISTORY AMERICA Mesoamerican mysticism. Man's origin in America doesn't introduce, apparently, any The that today we call Mesoamerica extended from the epistemological problem. On this , nobody has ever found slate of , in , and included the entire human remains from predecessors of the 'Homo Sapiens' as in extending to a of modern-day (Fig. I). At , and . Today it is accepted that the the southernmost border expanded to the of . In the proto-Americans came from Asia, some years ago and that , it was desert, an impossible place for life. Thus they passed through the Bering Straits in the northwest. The first America developed, separated from Europe by the Atlantic and immigrations could be the so-called 'Amurians' [Ruiz, or from Asia by the Pacific; it remained isolated for thousands of inhabitants of the shore at the in . Sodi years from the discoveries and cultural mixtures of the . thinks that they also could have come from southern zones of Because of that isolation, the that was created here held Central Russia. The indigenous from , the unique attributes. Mesoamerica was a region of the world the the and the have the predominantly volcanic; it included , thermal , facial features of the 'Amurians'. That first passage could have fumaroles, boiling muds, steaming grounds, eruptions. The super- been carried during the Wisconsin glaciation that lasted from 70 ficial geothermal manifestations and the energy of were thousand until 30 thousand B.C. This agrees with the oldest daily phenomena for the remote Americans. Since prehistoric times, ages of human fossils in America [Carmona, The Mongoloid covering millenniums, its inhabitants kept extremely close contact immigration, with the probable and 'Mayan' ancestors, with the energy of the earth. Because of it, geothermics in the should have occurred subsequent to the second glacial period, widest sense of the word deeply influenced the material, spiritual around the year B.C., at the end of the and cosmogonic developments of the Mesoamerican people. interglacial period.

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The first contacts of the 'Homo Sapiens' with There were many different cultures that, in different times, gwthermics probably happened soon thereafter when the nomads developed in Mesoamerica. However, simplifying, one could speak were passing through the northern portion of of a Mesoamerican Civilization because there was a certain between the North American and Pacific plates, in southwestern uniformity, a shared cultural inheritance. All the Mesoamerican . Then, when new populations. advancing progressively people had a common mental horizon: religious beliefs, theocratic- toward the south, reached the northerly sector of the Cascade military organization and a general concept of the Cosmos. The Range, they numerous active volcanoes and other gwthermal Mesoamerican people revered the same gods, although with distinct manifestations. Subsequently in their slow expansion, they should names. Their cult objects had something very peculiar: they have met the imposing manifestations of Yellowstone Park and The represented only things captured by the senses: the , the Geysers Geothermal Field. After somehow crossing the enormous , the , the wind, fire. , corn, death, etc. At different deserts in Arizona. Mexico and , some ancestral nomads times, Mesoamerica knew peak periods and decadence, ascent and were able to arrive to the great depression between destruction without ever breaking the global continuity of that the and Mexicali valleys, at the present-day Mexico-USA civilization. A universe deeply religious, recurrent, circular, where border. Now, familiarity with geothermics should have been all returns to its origin and everything begins again. According to very high. Octavio this walk i n circles is due to the fact that the Mesoamerican cultures didn't receive influence from the exterior. Those archaic groups should have spread slowly towards the centre and south of Mexico, in search of better soils and climates. THE FIRST USES O F TERRESTRIAL HEAT de la Torre [Burgassi et points out that the volcanic activity in Mexico's present territory was general in the Tertiary From his remotest and darkest past, prehistoric man used volcanic Era. I t decreased first in the Western Sierra and lasted rock, silex, , and to manufacture weapons and longer in zone situated between and 22" , At the tools. Tales and legends exist, coming from pre-Hispanic sources, south-central sector of Mexico, the Volcanic Mexican Axis is which tell of the use of waters and thermal muds in hygiene of characterized by an imposing series of three thousand volcanic the body, in the curing of wounds and in tempering arrows and apparata, from which still in activity. sector is lances used for hunting and for war Cataldi, particularly rich in gwthermal manifestations, active and fossil; Some to 3500 years ago, with the beginning of stable thermal springs, fumaroles, gas exhalations, mud lakes and settlements that began to devote themselves to the cultivation of volcanoes, hydrothermal deposits such as kaolin, sulphur, iron soil, the first experiences of the utilization of natural heat arose. oxide, It is at an altitude of 1500 to meters, i n temperate The placing of food among very hot stones to or lo steam lands. formed some thousand years ago [Ruir, 19871, a began at this time. Such items as ears of corn, potatoes, and the privileged region to occupied by man. With the passing of meat of certain animals were cooked i n this fashion. centuries different human groups evolved in that area attaining high cultural levels. In this sector, hean of Mesoamerica, a In the following epoch, starting from probably the 'Late Formative profound relationship was articulated between man and geothermal Period' from 800 to B.C., with the development and diffusion phenomena. of , cooking or heating with pots in steam first started. The puts were placed upon the boiling water or on the spouts of vapor GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS O F MESOAMERICA of manifestations. In the second case, they cooked the food by indirect contact with the heat of the as the natives still do Extraordinary often emerged at the shores of big today in the geothermal zone of de HeNores in Mexico. : the , Euphrates, Tigris, , Tiber, Seine, etc. In America that didn't happen either at the Amazon River or at the EVIDENCE O F HUMAN SETTLEMENTS IN THE . In Mexico some twelve thousand archawlogical VICINITY OF MESOAMERICAN VOLCANOES sites have been detected the majority near to volcanic areas. Why were the Mesoamerican cultures born i n those It is probable that the relationship between man and gwthermics places and not in others? Why in America did some people develop was establishing itself in America i n an autonomous but slower way a lot and others little? Archaeological statistics suggest that in relation to other zones of the European-Asiatic and African gwthermics exercised some singular attraction on the human et al, The presence, settlements in this region of the world. years ago, of resident communities in many zones with geothermal manifestations and at the feet of all the volcanic apparata of Historically Mesoamerica is divided into four parts [Sodi, Mesoamerica, is verified by investigations and archawlogical discoveries. The presence of such settlements would be enough to -Prehistoric horizon, from years B.C., to years B.C. infer that from very remote times man established a relationship of -Formative period or Preclassic, from B.C. to B.C. conviviality with the volcanoes, the surficial manifestations and, -Classic Period, from the year to the 900 of our era. generally, with the phenomena that characterized the energy of the or Historic Period from the year to 1521. Earth. The Mesoamencan people became sedentary upon cultivating corn. Payson, at the volcano Arenal, and Hurtado de They were not navigators. They the but, because of the lnduni at Miravalles, both in [Burgassi et al., irregular topography of their territory, they didn't need to develop showed in their investigations that the economical, the cart, or the use of animal labor. Perhaps their technology was agricultural and craftsmanship development in the original similar to the Age in Europe. They were outstanding artists population sites were influenced by volcanic eruptions. Important in almost every area: painting, , and copper work, volcanic events determined processes of an 'expulsive' kind on the architecture, poetry, feather embroidering and the manufacture of populations and inverse processes of an 'attractive' type, some They possessed great scientific achievements in , years after the occurrence of the events. The last type would be mathematics, medicine, hydraulic engineering. Their architecture, due to the periodic renewal of the fertility of the volcanic soil, the in intimate communion with Nature, was deeply religious and existence of water and good climatic conditions. mythical. The new specialty of shows one singular feature of their architectural conception. When studying the Therefore, the volcanic activity should have determined alternate , the Mesoamerican sages used to record not only the emigration-immigration fluctuations over the old population in the observation itself, but also time and were into zone. Ceramic residues discovered at the volcano Miravalles indi- landscape by means of the orientation of buildings and ceremonial cate the presence of an agricultural population beginning in the year Sites 19901. This means that there was a sense of cosmic B.C. L. [ibid.], mentions the use of sepulchral badges orientation in the construction of , which were planned to shaped as very thin plaques, extracted from lava laminar formations include a system of codes immersed in the scenery [ibid]. and used by pre-Hispanic populations between 800 and 500 B.C.

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The geothermal zone of L a Mexico, is in a volcanic In fact, the vapor bath as the hot water bath, usual in many other with multiple domes, hot springs and fumaroles. In one of locations, had the appearance of a ritual practice, delineating these domes, named there were found obsidian arrowheads therefore a diffused attitude of the hot waters' culturization, and, according to Gutierre the hill is consecrated lo comparable to that established in the Mediterranean area i n the god of fire. A piece was also found that characterizes times [Cataldi et al., 'the twisted of obsidian, the Gad of Punishment'. In this period, the usage of the thermal bath was very common in The indirect references about the contact between the population of Mesoamerica. There were hundreds and of them had assigned Mesoamerica and geothermics are quite varied. The majority medicinal and divine properties. The temperature of those thermal consist of names of places, gods and narrations about religious waters is between 20 and 40 South of Mexico i n the myths Cataldi, 1993, There also Valley of is the bath of with sulphurous waters exist traditions and legends always transmitted orally, and some at 25 "C. was used by the Aztec for recreation and had the by Spanish monks. Many others, like most of the foremost garden in the continent. There also, the thermal codices, were hopelessly lost. As an example, the indigenous waters were employed to heal soldiers and for informants of Spanish historian narrated an arrival imgation. of travelers from remote , through the coasts of the Gulf Mexico, who came to settle down in a mythical place named In architecture, the knew how continuously use the where the culture flourished for the first time. abundant extrusions of lava rocks around the region. The upper classes of Aztec made their homes with a hard 'Here is rhe old men used fell: 'In a cenain volcanic rock extracted from stony ground situated in southern no one can any longer recount. and which now nobody can . The minerals i n Mesoamerica not only served to remember... Over in fheir boars they came, in many manufacture weapons and tools, they were charged also with a groups. and arrived rhe edge of warer, on fhe nonh mythical religious meaning. For example , a red colored and rheir boars were is called ... Off went mineral, was used to paint the holies of important personages. It following rhe wafer edge. for whire and was believed that the mineral would provide him heat in the mountains ... .

We are not acquainted with the reasons that impelled those Principal corpses were decorated with masks incrusted with legendary nomads seek and settle down near volcanoes. various shades of or , Both rocks were related to the Sahagun's informants were not very explicit. This story suggests a heat and to the humidity of the Earth [Ruiz willful consciousness in the relationship between man and one of the more important divinities, was geothermal phenomena in America. characterized by a sculpture i n obsidian and to him was given the name of "smoky mirror". Flint and the obsidian were related to GEOTHERMAL ENERGY IN POSTCLASSIC PERIOD death, magic, war and fertility.

Cooking food with steam has been one type of traditional use of THE COSMOGONY natural heat in the Mexican geothermal areas. The diffusion of the nahuatl term which in this means 'the boiling For the '', the supreme being was a waters' is a word highly feminine monster that inhabited the . Two gods converted into diffused in Mexico. The ancient inhabitants of the 25 villages serpents in portions. From the first half they made possessing this name, attributed the thermal waters healing, the underground world, from the second, . For the Mayan divine and magical properties, This allows us to infer that many the cosmos consisted of a formed by horizontal planes in human settlements in those locations were determined by the pre- which sacred powers lived. They decided the destinies of each sence of geothermal manifestations at least one millennium before person. For both cultures, those divine energies were land, corn, the Christian era. The use of geothermics to cook and was volcanoes, wind, rain, lightning, the sun, the stars. certainly not limited only to Mexico. Such use also spread the whole of & Cataldi, Two stable bodies in the heavens are the Sun during the day and the Milky Way during the night. Among the Aztecs, During the same period, the hot god of war born on the Earth, represented the Sun. springs and thermal muds of the His dismembered sister, the goddess characterized several and those of the Milky [Aguilera. The Sun, dying at every sunset, other geothermal locations in the undertook a daily trip through the underground to charge himself Mexican , were with the energy from the womb of his mother Coarlicue. goddess used with healing purposes in of the Earth. Only in this way could he be born again, in each mind, From time immemorial, sunrise. many American tribes vapor baths, throwing cold water Water was always related to the Mesoamerican people's origin on rocks gathered from the Water was the basic element in one of the mouth of hydrothermal first epochs of their existence. At the horizon the waters of the manifestations at high Earth joined the water of Heaven enveloping the world. That world temperatures, around which they was called ('that which is surrounded by water'). socialized. The cosmic meaning of water was so important that in the nahuatl language arl (water) came to represent precisely the phoneme Subsequently, in some Mexican Because of such importance the god of rain, was adored in towns they were accustomed to all Mesoamerica. The Mayan called him Chac; the Mixtecas, using the temazcal (Fig. 2) for the Totonacas, Tajln. In city is translated as 'in therapeutic and religious purposes This vapor in literally: [ibid.]. Pilgrimages were bath was obtained by showering piled rocks, heated by fire, with made to the volcanoes in several festivities marked in the solar cold water. The remazcal was constructed in a dome shape, made . The existence of lakes i n various craters of old volcanoes of volcanic stones and morlar and was heated from the outside. The reinforced the belief in the relationship This narrow corridor at the was adorned with an image of equivalence implicitly contains the idea that the mountains are big the great goddess of earth and of childbirth. The water reservoirs, preserved as reserves by the gods of rain. As is was used collectively by the pregnant women and babies referred to by the Florentine :

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" A N rhe high mourns, where cloudsjoin IO make rain, are gods. To each OM of rhem an image is made ... Like rhe image of volcano (smoky mountain) o r of her whose name is (while or image of the mourn which from region of fog). ..

Existence for the ancient Mesoamericans found its reason of being in the notion that man and woman are the necessary collaborators of the living universe. Both depend on nature the Same way as nature depends on them. Heat was the force that sustained life. Heat was equal to life; cold was equal to death. Cosmic ideas of beings living with Nature.

The Five Aztec In many chronicles and oral traditions, in indigenous manuscripts and on the reliefs of several pre-Hispanic monuments. the idea is found that our time was bv four Eras named by the Aztecs (Fig. 3). Each one A of these epochs finished with the destruction of the world by different and t e r r i b l e c a t a c l y s m s generated by the energy of the Earth. Those missing Fig, In the figure, up ai the Center. the pod the w o r l d s w e r e i n descends. leaving from a Crater and and fire. cosmological order: (water), (tiger), During the course of the aforementioned a spiral evolution (rain) and ehecarl took place: men appeared in upgraded forms, as did food and (wind) plants The end of each age was governed by one of Our present world is the 4 primal forces in nature: water, earth, fire and wind. designated on the by the date In the myth of a strange depth is observed, apart from its Fig. The five Suns or in (4-Movement), which the Calendar. religious implications and geological coincidences. The original text mean, . a penetrating consciousness concerning the relativity of the world and of existence. In this legend, an implicit and resigned Each age had great mythical imparlance; the meaning and the end acceptance that everything passes, everything finishes, even the of each of them are the following: gods, is observed. This legend, by itself, makes up an extraordi- nary synthesis of the group of cosmogonical which the (water Sun). The first men had been made from latest heirs of Mesoamerica confronted. ashes. In this first catastrophe humanity was destroyed by water in the form of the inhabited land invaded, converting the men In Mesoamerica, the origin, existence and development of the into . universe were the effects of divine beings and energies in action. (Tiger Sun). In this second age the sun stopped Therefore, the understanding of the reality was of a religious at its path. Suddenly night appeared and heaven nature. For the Aztecs, religion was the axis around which their was oppressed. At this time giants lived, who in spite of their great existence turned. This was accomplished even i n art corpulence, were in fact weak beings; when they fell because of an accident, they fell forever. Gods, world and men formed a cosmos in equilibrium, interacting (Rainof Fire Sun). In this third age, the rock in a dynamic reality. Such continuous motion occurred in an boiled, burning the people; it was a rain of fire coming down from orderly way [De la giving stability to their existence. volcanic eruptions which destroyed the world. Man This was usually governed by the ethical duality of who existed there had a tragic end: he remained transformed into inseparable from the intrinsic nature of all beings. even among the turkey. The date which records the end of this time, gods. placed under the protection of god of rain. He also was the god of fire, falling from the sky in the form of lightning rays and The Mesoamerican concept of geothermal manifestations war volcanic eruptions impregnated also by a fervent religious meaning, pregnant with (Wind Sun). During this epoch, everything was duality into a destroyed by the wind i n the form of terrible hurricanes, snow destructive relationship. The characteristics of three geothermal storms and glaciation. Human beings were converted into monkeys divinities point out this paradox: and were scattered to the mountains. At the termination of this fourth Era, the gods met in in order to once again create the world [ibid]. By means of the of one of them, who flung himself into the tire of an active volcano, the Fifth Sun One of the principal gods, the oldest one, father of the other gods. emerged . He was the divinity that controlled fire, living in the 'navel of the (Movement Sun). This was the last of the world', that is to say, in the center of the earth. At the same time cosmogonical Eras, the Fifth Sun in which the nahuas lived. We he was the nearest to men, Nahuaque 'Sir of the are living in the midst of this Era, which will be devastated by Vicinity', of the immediate present. thus he lived earthquakes. Its divinity is Xiuhrecurli, god of tire who joins the directly with man, in the residence of each man. heat of the Earth with that of heaven. For the Aztecs, (Fig. 5 ) was the fire itself, coming For the Aztec cosmogony, in four attempts the world is born and from the volcanoes, the heat from terrestrial origin and the oldest dies, destroyed by gigantic catastrophes. Similar beliefs, where the principle generator of life that resides in the center of the Earth 4 prevails in the cosmogony, are found among the [Vaillant, Mayan-Quiche in the south of Mexico and among the in the nonh [Soustelle,

420 The of as an old man suggests the the time under the concept of "that which is leaving us" oldness of the k i n g a flow, time must come from a divine source. mountains and It was another time, outside ofthe human scope, which originated The man's time. At the beginning of the universe, the vital activities of antiquity of this the gods created this world. The order in which the mythical actions happened gave birth to the calendar. Every engendered characterized in being will take for its name the name of the day i n which he a different way created at underlines the A current conception of Cosmology defines as the study of i m p o r t i n c e of the universe as an ordered whole. Given the given by the terrestrial nature of the oldest gods and the worldly origin of Sun Mesoamericans and the symbols that formed part of the calendar to represent to geothermal days, months. years and centuries, deeply reflected the influence of heat. His cult, geothermal phenomena in the Aztec Calendar's final structure. This c o n t i n u e d calendar is the best known and has been the most studied of all. during many The calendar had tremendous importance in the daily life of c e n t u r i e s , Mesoamericans. We give a brief description here. converts him into the oldest The calendar held cycles of distinct dimension and significance. Fig. 5.- God of terrestrial fire. One of 260 days surged from the calculation between cosmic fundamental 13 and 20; which governed the order of the destinies of mundane beings. It also was the cycle of days Aztec God of the rain, was at the Same time malevolent and divided into 18 months of 20 days each. The year of 365 days beneficent; he existed as well, with 5 'useless' days, that guided the labour and fecundated the ritual activities. Also there was the cycle of 9 days pertaining to the soil with water divinities named 'Sirs of the Night'. There was also a major cycle and at the same of 52 years, attached to the Constellation of the , at whose time could bring completion was celebrated the festivity of New Fire, related to f l o o d s a n d terrestrial heat and representing, probably, eruptions or d i s a s t e r s earthquakes. This half century was divided into 4 groups 13 provoking hail, years each. The ritual activities corresponded to the agricultural thunder, lightning cycles and, given that the basis of the calendar was the solar year, o r v o l c a n i c the principal function of the religious cult was to regulate and eruptions. He was control the social and economic life. consequently a dual who Each one of the cycles expressed the eternal return of things and could mean rain the recurrent regularity of natural phenomena. It was considered of water or rain that the complex reality of the world originated from the inter- o f f i r e . sections and simultaneous influences of cycles of different time. god and volcanic Cholchiuhrlicue, The historic repetition was inevitable but only at the end of a was his feminine gigantic cycle that includes all the possible combinations of the part, the goddess of running waters. previous cycles: will be like this, so will be things, in some rime, in some place." []. The Aztec goddess of love and natality, but also of the vapor bath and of the The premier ring holding the 20 days of the Aztec Calendar (Fig.8) confession of wicked shows again the importance the ancient gave to the sexual relationships. concepts related to geothermal processes: rain (water, fire or S h e w a s t h e lion), flint (production of knivesand fire), movement devouring goddess of (related to the ground and things underground). The most garbage, of the surprising concept is the one related to water essential in all lewdness and of the forms, whose patron saint was precisely the god of tire spiritual impurities; Xiuhrecurli The aztecs used the special name she also was named to say 'water in tire'; the geothermal relation is C i h immediately evident. On the central disk there is found a series of (woman-serpent), one elements that, combined, provide the cycle, the lunar of the forms of the phases, the period of comets and the of eclipses. goddess of the Earth, which presided over RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSIONS p a r t o f t h e underground world, In America, volcanic eruptions and other geothermal manifestations the world of the dead, were well known and used since Prehistoric times. Some t h e s o w e r a n d years ago, established settlements were begun in Mesoamerica childbirth. goddess Steam bath. devoted to the cultivation of soil, as well as the common direct and indirect utilization of natural geothermal heat for food, THE CALENDAR AND THE CONCEPT OF TIME therapeutic applications and steam baths. In this place, geothermal energy was the principal background for human development, ever One fundamental feature in the Mesoamerican civilization was the since the obscure and extensive dawn of prehistoric times. obsession about the flow of time. According to Marcus the oldest known , Zapoteca and Maya are The first magical religious interpretations of geothermal processes closely related to the calendar. The mesoamerican calendar exists occurred thereafter. This is evinced by the antiquity of the god since the year 700 structured as a complex measuring system representing terrestrial fire, considered as the father of all the other based an the idea of time as a material flow. The Aztecs conceived

421 I In particular, the use of natural heat and its by-products, as well as the daily Observation of gwthermal phenomena played an important role on the cultural, ethical and religious formation and on the social development of the in many places of Mesoamerica

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