In the Maw of the Earth Monster Mesoamerican Ritual Cave Use

In the Maw of the Earth Monster Mesoamerican Ritual Cave Use edited by james e. brady and keith m. prufer University of Texas Press Austin CHAPTER 7 Some Notes on Ritual Caves among the Ancient and Modern Maya evon z. vogt and david stuart Introduction Caves and hills or mountains are arguably the most prominent natural features of the Maya landscape, and they have for centuries been the focus of ritual and communal activities. Whether we look at the karstic limestone lowlands, the piedmont regions to the south, or the volcanic terrain of the highlands, caves and hills have long provided essential models for an interrelated set of crucial concepts in cosmology and ritual (Awe 1999; Bassie-Sweet 1991, 1996; Brady 1991, 1997; Brady and Veni 1992; Brady et al. 1996; Burnett et al. 2002; Frei- del et al. 1993; Gossen 1999a; MacLeod and Puleston 1979; Schele and Freidel 1990; Stone 1995; Thompson 1959; Vogt 1969, 1993, 1981). In this chapter we attempt to discern widely distributed and conservative patterns in the ways caves and hills have been understood and used by the Maya. We focus on ethnographic data and also the results of recent advancements in deciphering textual sources from the Classic Period. The two vantage points, one Pre-Columbian and the other modern, show a remarkable degree of over- lap, and we believe it is from these convergences that we can discern the long- lasting and most-essential Maya beliefs surrounding the surface and interior of the landscape. Our detailed ethnographic treatment will focus on the relatively well studied region of Highland Chiapas, although many of the shared patterns we see among those communities are certainly more widespread. We conclude with an ex- amination of how caves are ambivalent, boundary-line settings (between this world and the supernatural world) that, as posited by Edmund Leach and Victor Turner, actively generate ritual. 156 The Maya Region Figure 7.1. The animated mountain, or witz, from an Early Classic Maya vessel. Drawn by David Stuart. Mountains and Caves in Ancient Maya Religion A number of years ago Vogt (1964) made the observation that Maya temple- pyramids of the Classic Period replicate sacred mountains and their summit shrines, examples of which can today be found throughout much of Chiapas and Guatemala. This idea has been borne out by several lines of evidence, not the least of which is the extensive comparative body of evidence concern- ing mountain-pyramids both within and outside of Mesoamerica (Scully 1991; Townsend 1982). More specific support comes from the textual and iconographic evidence of Classic sources, which explicitly name or label ritual architecture as witzob, or mountains (Stuart 1997). Indeed, the animate mountain image (Figure 7.1) is one of the most common elements of ancient Maya iconography and is used to specify the names of ritual locations and shrines. We will discuss below certain evidence that suggests an explicit conceptualization of temple-shrines as the cave interiors of mountain-pyramids. For the present-day Maya, the essential connections of people and communities to the earth generally are expressed in the cosmological architecture of caves and mountains. For the ancient Maya, one could argue that much the same was true, since ceremonial centers were literally constructed as arrays of mountain-pyramids and cave-temples. And, as is true today among numerous traditional communities (to be discussed below), iconographic and epigraphic Ritual Caves among the Ancient and Modern Maya 157 evidence strongly suggests that mountains and their architectural counterparts were conceived in ancient times as residences of ancestors and possibly co- essences (animal-spirit companions) of humans. Perhaps the most explicit representation of this concept appears on a selection of sculptures from El Peru, Guatemala, depicting large witz (‘‘hill’’) masks beneath the feet of standing rulers (Figure 7.2). Within the two eyes of the masks, as if they were windows for seeing into the earth, we find portraits of ancestors, in one case, a male and a female figure meant to represent the mother and father of the king. The fu- nerary pyramids of Classic architecture, holding the actual remains of ancestors within tombs, sometimes referred to as ‘‘houses’’ (atotob) in the afterlife, can also be seen as reflecting the same spatial relationship (Figure 7.3). Excavations and archaeological surveys conducted since the 1960s clearly at- test to the importance of caves in the ritual geography of the ancient Maya, but until now there has been no evidence of caves being mentioned in the inscriptions of that period. The recent suggestion by Stuart that a common element of the script reads CH’EN or CH’EEN, ‘‘cave,’’ would, if correct, change this situation drastically.1 The ‘‘Cave’’ Hieroglyph The sign in question (Figure 7.4) is the so-called impinged bone element, which has been the topic of considerable discussion among epigraphers. It is one of the most frequent glyphs known in the Classic inscriptions and in the codices. If in fact its reading is CH’EEN, there is every indication that caves were a central topic of discussion in Maya inscriptions. The details of the evidence in support of this new reading are presented else- where (Stuart 1999), but a few basic points can be made here. The representation of the sign is difficult to discern, but early variants clearly show a bone motif with side indentations within the standard rounded form of a main sign. In later examples a half-darkened field was added, and the bone was sometimes changed into a mandible or, more commonly, a detached eye. Also, there are similarities between these variants and the sign read MUK or MUKNAL, ‘‘burial,’’ which also shows a half-darkened field but with a skull within (see Stuart 1998). The sign in question therefore has strong visual affinities with themes of death and the Underworld. The associations can be expanded once we see that the glyph corresponds to a recurrent motif in Maya iconography: eyes and bones against a darkened background. In iconographic settings this seems to specify some blackened space with Underworld associations, as shown, for example, on the Vase of the Seven Gods (Figure 7.5). The thematic connection to death and the Underworld is Figure 7.2. El Peru, Stela 31, basal register. Photograph by Ian Graham; courtesy Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions. Figure 7.3. A royal tomb named as a ‘‘house’’ (atot) of the deceased. Painted wall from Tomb 6, Río Azul, Guatemala. Drawn by David Stuart. Ritual Caves among the Ancient and Modern Maya 159 Figure 7.4. The putative CH’EEN,‘‘cave,’’ hieroglyph in its Early and Late Classic forms. Drawn by David Stuart. Figure 7.5. The Vase of the Seven Gods. The ‘‘bones and eyes’’ motif above the throne of God L, at right, may indicate a cave setting for this creation scene. Drawn by Diane Griffiths Peck, after Coe (1974). echoed by the appearance of the same motif on bats’ wings, as represented on Nebaj-style polychrome vases and other decorated ceramics of the Classic Period (Figure 7.6). For many years before the CH’EEN reading suggested itself, there existed strong indications that the ‘‘impinged bone’’ hieroglyph served in some way as a location sign, because of its very close association with place names (Stuart and Houston 1994:12–13). For example, the sign may follow the verbal sign OCH, meaning ‘‘to enter,’’ where it must somehow specify a place that is enclosed or that is hollow. A parallel verb phrase in the inscriptions is OCH-WITZ, meaning ‘‘enters the mountain’’ (Figure 7.7), referring, perhaps, to the descent into a cave for some sort of ancestral ritual. The sign also often takes the locative prefix sign tu-, for t-u- ‘‘inhis/herits...,’’sometimesinassociation with different 160 The Maya Region verbs. On an inscription on Panel 1 from El Cayo, for example, we find the verb phrase muhk-aj t-u-?, meaning ‘‘he was interred in his ‘x’,’’ possibly in reference to the burial of an individual within a cave. In other instances, we find the prefix TAHN-na,fortahn-, ‘‘within . ,’’ before this possible CH’EEN sign, as in a recently discovered text from Temple XIX at Palenque (Figure 7.8). In this usage, the bone sign seems to alternate with HA’, ‘‘water,’’ in parallel texts. If we consider the evidence in sum, we have the following assumptions with which to work: (a) the sign is a logogram, or word sign, that refers to a kind of location or space into which one can ‘‘enter,’’ ‘‘sit,’’ or ‘‘be buried’’; (b) visually, the sign has strong death associations, with a special connection to Underworld and bat symbolism; and (c) the sign’s phonetic value ends in the consonant -n. Taken together, an attractive hypothesis in agreement with all three points is that we have a sign with the value CH’EEN, ‘‘cave.’’ Admittedly, other readings might exist, but the convergence of the evidence around ‘‘cave’’ makes considerable sense in the numerous contexts in which we find the sign. One important example is from a painted text from the walls of the ritual cave of Jolja, Chiapas, which we will feature in our ethnographic treatment of the Chol Maya (see also Alejos García 1994:95; Reise 1981; Stone 1995:87–90; Thompson 1975:xxxvi). The text opens with the revealing phrase (applying the new reading) hul-iiy t-u-ch’een, ‘‘he arrived in his cave’’ (Figure 7.9). The walls of the cave exhibit many other Pre-Columbian paintings, including several hieroglyphic texts, indicating that it was a pilgrimage or ritual center in ancient times and continues to be in modern times (Bassie et al.

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