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The PARI Journal Vol. XIII, No. 1 ThePARIJournal A quarterly publication of the Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute VolumeXIII, No. 1, Summer 2012 The Great Ladder of Ocosingo: In This Issue: ATwentieth-Century Example of The Great Ladder of Ocosingo: A Maya Building Techniques Twentieth-Century Example of Maya JESPER NIELSEN Building Techniques University of Copenhagen by In early 1841 John L. Stephens and and eighty feet long, and about twelve Jesper Nielsen Frederick Catherwood, while on the sec- feet wide, made of the rough trunks of PAGES 1-9 ond of their two famous journeys in the saplings lashed together lengthwise, • Maya area, stopped at the settlement of and supported all the way down Bolonchen in northern Campeche. During by horizontal trunks braced against Toward the Making the visit Stephens made a trip to the fa- the face of the precipitous rock. The of a New Map of the mous cenote situated south of the village ladder was double, having two sets or Ixcanrio Basin and wrote a detailed account (Stephens flights of rounds, divided by a middle partition, and the whole fabric was by 1843:2:137-156). In order to access the lashed together by withes (1843:2:148, Thomas G. Garrison water table via the cenote, referred to as and see plate facing p. 148). William A. Saturno Xtacumbi Xunan by the local Yukatek Thomas L. Sever Maya, several imposing ladder-like According to Stephens the ladder was and constructions had been built, and these insecure, dry, and cracked, and some of Daniel E. Irwin clearly made a lasting impression on the the withes were broken. However, as he PAGES 10-18 two travelers. Catherwood drew a plan explains, referring to the nine wells that give the village its name: • of the cenote and produced illustrations of the entrance as well as a breathtaking Every year, when the wells in the Morley’s Diary: view of a very large ladder leading down plaza are about to fail, the ladders are April 26 to the water table at the base of the cenote put into a thorough state of repair. A 1 PAGES 15-16 (Figure 1). This particular ladder was day is appointed by the municipality reached after having descended 20 feet for closing the wells in the plaza, and down the cave, where a precipice was repairing to the cueva; and on that day Joel Skidmore encountered. Stephens wrote: a great village fête is held in the cavern Editor at the foot of this ladder (1843:2:149). [email protected] From the brink on which we stood an enormous ladder, of the rudest Having made his way down the ladder Marc Zender possible construction, led to the bottom Stephens found that the descent continued, Associate Editor of the hole. It was between seventy and no less than eight ladders of varying [email protected] length and steepness had to be overcome 1 In fact, three slightly different versions of (Figure 2) before finally reaching the cool The PARI Journal the image of the great ladder exist: Catherwood’s water some 450 feet below ground. In 202 Edgewood Avenue Catherwood’s illustration several men are San Francisco, CA 94117 original sepia watercolor (reproduced in black and 415-664-8889 white in von Hagen 1968), a lithograph (hand- shown engaged in the heavy and danger- [email protected] tinted by Catherwood himself) which appeared in ous work of transporting the life-giving his self-published Views of Central America, Chiapas, water up the ladder in large ceramic jars. Electronic version and Yucatán from 1844, and finally the lithograph Similar ladders elsewhere in northern available at: prepared by S. H. Gimber for Incidents of Travel in www.mesoweb.com/ Yucatan by John Lloyd Stephens (1843:2:Pl. facing Yucatan were described half a century pari/journal/1301 p. 148). Due to the many editions and reprints of later by Henry Mercer at the cave of Actun Stephens’ volumes the latter has become by far the Chack (eight ladders in total), and Loltun, ISSN 1531-5398 most widely reproduced and distributed version. a site now famous for its rock paintings The PARI Journal 13(1), 2012, pp. 1-9. 1 Nielsen Figure 1. Lithograph from Frederick Catherwood’s Views of Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatán (Catherwood 1844) showing the largest ladder in the cenote called Xtacumbi Xunan at Bolonchen. Courtesy of George Stuart. 2 The Great Ladder of Ocosingo and petroglyphs (Mercer 1975[1896]:91-93, 98-125). According to Mercer the ladder at Loltun was “made by modern Indians, who daily visit the cave to get water, is formed of saplings cut with steel hemp-knives, and tied together with twigs” (Mercer 1975[1896]:125, Fig. 53). It would thus seem that there was a widespread tradition of constructing such ladders, of varying size, among the Maya of western and northern Yucatan. To judge from their usage and the materials involved, there is little to suggest that they were a recent innovation that can be ascribed to an introduction of European material culture or engineering skills. The Repair of the Church in Ocosingo While we have good evidence of ladders being used for the purpose of descending into caves and cenotes from the mid- to late nineteenth century, it is from a later and hitherto neglected source that we find documentation for their use in architectural construction work. In 1928 the Danish-born archaeologist Frans Blom set out on his longest expedition, named the John Geddings Gray Memorial Expedition after the father of the expedition’s main sponsor, Mathilda Geddings Gray (Blom 1928a, 1929). Blom, then director of the Middle American Research Institute at Tulane University, was accom- panied by Louis Bristow, Webster McBryde, Carlos Figure 2: Section drawing by Catherwood of Xtacumbi Xunan with Basauri, Ciriaco Aguilar, and Gustavo Kanter on the trip its eight ladders shown (after Stephens 1843:2:150). of 200 days and 2,400 kms that began in Tapachula on the Pacific coast of Chiapas, moved north through the what were probably the first moving pictures of Tikal, interior of Chiapas, then passed into Guatemala and where Blom climbed Temple I with his camera to take panoramic shots of the temples and roof combs above the Peten and from there into Quintana Roo, ending 3 in Chichen Itza where the weary expedition members the canopy (Blom 1928b:255). By comparing Blom’s were welcomed by Sylvanus Morley. Sadly Blom never field diary with the film we can occasionally identify produced a full report on the expedition and its many the exact date on which he or McBryde made specific interesting findings (as was originally his intention), recordings. and only a few sporadic publications related to the During the first half of their long journey the expedi- expedition have appeared. Fortunately Blom kept a tion arrived at the town of Ocosingo in Chiapas, close field diary, now in the archives of the Middle American to the Maya site of Tonina, which Blom had already Research Institute (M.A.R.I.), and additional documen- visited and described on previous occasions. Blom and tation from the Geddings Gray expedition is found in his crew stayed in Ocosingo from April 23 to May 2, Men, Mules, and Machetes, a documentary film made resting and searching for Maya monuments in the vi- by Blom and Maurice Ries in the early 1930s. The film cinity. According to Blom (1928b:160), Ocosingo was “a follows the stages of a Tulane expedition from begin- dead little place, living on the people who pass through, ning to end, showing the daily routines of packing the having a little trade in sugar, and the other local prod- mules, crossing rivers in the jungle, and the activities ucts,” and the main reason for the relatively long halt at of archaeologists and ethnographers as they encounter the quiet town was the fact that they were out of cash archaeological sites and study the living Maya.2 The film and had to wait to receive additional funds from Tulane was screened as part of Blom’s increasing fund-raising before being able to continue the expedition. Thus there activities in the mid-1930s, a time where he struggled to raise money for a new building for M.A.R.I. (in the 2 The twenty-minute film contains footage from not one but shape of the Castillo of Chichen Itza; see Leifer et al. several Tulane expeditions. The film recordings were made by Blom, 2002:214-245). Thus Blom had brought along a film cam- Webster McBryde, Dan Leyrer, and Douglas Byer. Men, Mules, and Machetes was edited by Maurice Ries, another of Blom’s employees era and with Webster McBryde made several recordings at M.A.R.I. during the Geddings Gray expedition. Among them 3 The footage from Tikal was not included in the film, and it were footage of Lacandon Maya at the chicle camp of is uncertain whether the raw footage from the Geddings Gray El Capulín (included in Men, Mules, and Machetes), and expedition has survived and is still to be rediscovered at Tulane. 3 Nielsen thereby providing access to the roof (Figures 3 and 4). Several rather thin poles support the ladder, and while the construction appears somewhat unstable, it was evidently strong enough to carry the weight of seven adults and a heavy wooden beam. Curiously Blom made no further comments on this unusual construction. However, the similarity of the Ocosingo ladder to those from northern Yucatan is evident, and the existence of this particular type of ladder in Chiapas, Campeche, and Yucatan raises the question as to whether this is an original Precolumbian type of ladder or scaffold.
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