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Ecology and Ritual: Water Management and the Maya Author(S): Vernon L Society for American Archaeology Ecology and Ritual: Water Management and the Maya Author(s): Vernon L. Scarborough Source: Latin American Antiquity, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Jun., 1998), pp. 135-159 Published by: Society for American Archaeology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/971991 . Accessed: 10/05/2011 21:13 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sam. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Society for American Archaeology is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Latin American Antiquity. http://www.jstor.org ECOLOGYAND RITUAL:WATER MANAGEMENT AND THE MAYA VernonL. Scarborough How the ancient Maya of the central YucatecanLowlands managed their water and land resources remains poorly knownX although crucial to an understandingof ancient political economy. Recent archival research and field data suggest the wide- spread use of artificially altered, natural depressionsfor the collection and containmentof water, bothfor potable consump- tion and agricultural ends. During the Classic period (A.D. 250-900) several of the principal cities in the Maya area constructed their largest architecture and monumentsat the summit of hills and ridges. Associated with these elevated cen- ters-"water mountains"-were sizable, life-sustaining reserroirs quarried into their summits. The effect of this town-plan- ning design was the centralization of a primary and fundamental resource. Although elite managers controlled the water source, other decentralizingforces prevented anything similar to Wittfogel's"total power." However, by ritually appropriat- ing the everyday and mundane activities associated with water by the sustaining population, elites used high-performance water ritual as manifest in the iconography to further centralize control. The significance of modifying the urban landscape in the partial image of the ordinary water hole defines the extraordinaryin Maya ritual. El tema de como los mayas antiguos de las tierras bajas del centro de Yucataonadministraron sus recursos de agua y tierra permanece raqufticamenteexplicado, aunque esto se considera muy importantepara llegar a entender la economfa polftica antigua. Recientes investigaciones de los archivos e informaciondel campo insinuan el extenso uso de las depresiones natu- rales modificadas artificialmente,para la recoleccion, y el represamientodel agua, para los consumos domeosticosy agrfcola. Durante el perfodo Cla'sico(250-900 d. C.) varias de las ciudades principales en el aoreaMaya construyeronla arquitectura mayor y los monumentos en la cima de los cerros y lomas. En asociacion con estos centros elevados-"las montanas de agua"-habfa grandes depositos de agua, las reservas de sostenimiento de vida excavados en sus cimas. El efecto de este diseno de planificacion de asentamientos fue la centralizacion de un recurso principal y fundamental. Aunque los admi- nistradores de la eolitecontrolaban la fuente del aguaXotras fuerzas descentralizadoras prevenlan cualquier cosa que fuera similar al "poder totalizador" de Wittfogel.Sin embargo, al apropiarse ritualmentede las actividades cotidianas y mundanas asociadas con el agua por parte de la populacion a la que mantenfan, los administradoresde la eoliteusaron ritos acuaticos sofisticados, como se manifiesta en la iconograffa para controlar centralmente matsy mats.El sign ificado de la modificacion del paisaje urbano a travetsde la imagen del pozo ordinario de agua define lo extraordinariodel ritual maya. When processual archaeologists waive their right to The MayaLowlands of the greaterYucatan include cosmology and ideology in their reconstruc- Peninsulawere a difficultenvironment in tions, one gets the kind of dichotomy which we have seen in Mesoamerica: anthropologists writing about whichto makea living. The semitropical settlement and subsistence, while humanists write landscapewas definedby thinkarstic soils, sea- about religion and cosmology. And the humanists, for sonaland erratic rainfall, and a markedabsence of the most part, do not have the ecological and evolu- permanentnatural water sources. In keepingwith tionary perspective of the anthropological archaeolo- a tropicalecosystem speciesdiversity was abun- gists [Marcus and Flannery 1994:55]. dant but concentrationsof any single speciesat Shamanism is his medium; he can see "faraway"by any one location were minor preventingthe going into a trance and looking into a mirroror a con- largenatural harvests associated with moretem- tainer with water [Covarrubias1937:349]. perateenvironments. Nevertheless, one of the ear- Vernon L. Scarborough * Departmentof Anthropology,University of Cincinnati,Cincinnati, OH 45221 LatinAmencan Antiquity,9(2), 1998, pp. 135-159. Copyright C)by the Society for AmericanArchaeology 135 LATIN 136 AMERICANANTIQUITY [Vol. 9, No. 2, 1998 Figure 1. Map of Maya area with boundaries for the Southern Lowlands. liest tropical/semitropicalstates known evolved in conspicuous consumption of luxury goods, the this setting.The apogee of political and economic conspicuousmanipulation of monumentalarchi- development occurred during the Classic period tecture, and charismatic rulers. But the funda- (A.D. 25s900) in a Maya heartlandextending mental need for water and the food that it over Belize, central and northernGuatemala, and allows preparingand maintainingthe earth for adjacent portions of Mexico and Honduras the plantingor the daily requirementsfor drinking southernMaya Lowlands (Figure 1). Given the water made water management in a fragile, difficultiesin accessing and centralizingresources water-stressed environment another powerful fromthe semitropicalsetting, how did the ancient Organlzlng:. -orce.. Mayaorganize a labor force to harvest the land- The construction and maintenance of water scape? One window into their political econ- systems in the towns and cities of the ancient omy how a society employs power relationships Mayaconcentrated water in a quantityand qual- between groupsto organizethe use of resources- ityunavailable naturally. By placing water and its isthe management of land and water. managementapparatus in the center of their ele- As a critical and scarce resource during the vatedClassic-period communities, the Maya per- lengthydry season, water was politically manipu- mitted a controlling elite to manipulate the latedby a Maya elite to centralize and control resource.Nevertheless, the dispersed settlement powerduring the Classic period. Clearly, other andland-use design of the ancient Maya required meanswere used to marshall authority in the theelite frequently to draw the attention and MayaLowlands: overt warfare, acquisition and activitiesof the sustaining population into the Scarborough] WATERMANAGEMENT AND THE MAYA 137 public centers, in part by incorporatinga wide Ecological Possibilism and variety of ritual. In spite of the complexity of Hydrological Accomplishment Classic-period cities that functioned like "water mountains" gravity-flow, reservoir systems Water and land use during the Classic period of positioned at the summit of naturalhillocks and the Maya was a complex and sophisticatedset of ridges a support population could opt for systems and techniques adaptedto the semitropi- another environmental and political situation, cal microclimatic rhythms and topographiccon- given the weakly developed, centralizingforces at straints of the karstic Upper Central American work in a Maya center.Elite managersare posited lowland setting. Because the YucatanPeninsular to have symbolically appropriatedthe everyday environmentis characterizedby markedseasonal tasks of a sustaining population associated with scarcity of permanent water sources be they water use by promotingwater-related activities in springs, open lakes, or perennial streams popu- high ritual performance.By locating tanks near lations invested in creative landscaping adapta- the largest civic architecture structuresused in tions to collect and store surfacerunoff duringthe public theater the Maya elite employed ritual six to eight months of abundantannual precipita- acts derived from water use and availability. tion. As I have suggested elsewhere (Scarborough The paper begins with an extended introduc- 1993a, 1994), it was the limitationsof these envi- tion to the physical hydraulic systems in the rons that partially stimulatedthe accretionaryor southern Maya Lowlands. Reference is made to incrementalmodifications made to the landscape the centralizingeffects of the water-management by the Maya. design duringthe Classic period in
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