Myth and Catastrophic Reality: Using Myth to Identify Cosmic Impacts and Massive Plinian Eruptions in Holocene South America
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Myth and catastrophic reality: using myth to identify cosmic impacts and massive Plinian eruptions in Holocene South America W. BRUCE MASSE1 & MICHAEL J. MASSE2 1ENV-EAQ Ecology and Air Quality Group, Mailstop J978, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA (e-mail: [email protected]) 2Mail Drop SW308, Scripps Green Hospital, La Jolla, California 92037, USA Abstract: Major natural catastrophes such as floods, fire, darkness, and ‘sky falling down’ are prominently reflected in traditional South American creation myths, cosmology, religion, and worldview. Cosmogonic myths represent a rich and largely untapped data set concerning the most dramatic natural events and processes experienced by cultural groups during the past several thousand years. Observational details regarding specific catastrophes are encoded in myth storylines, typically cast in terms of supernatural characters and actions. Not only are the myths amenable to scientific analysis, some sets of myths encode multiple catastrophes in mean- ingful relative chronological order. The present study considers 4259 myths, including 284 ‘uni- versal’ (perceived in the narratives to be worldwide) catastrophe myths, from 20 cultural groups east of the Andes. These myths are examined in light of available geological, palaeoenvironmen- tal, archaeological, and documentary evidence. Our analysis reveals three likely major Plinian vol- canic eruptions in Columbia and the Gran Chaco. We also identify a set of traditions that are probably linked to the well-known Campo del Cielo iron meteorite impact in northern Argentina around 4000 years ago, along with a separate set of traditions alluding to a possible airburst in the Brazilian Highlands. These impacts apparantly triggered widespread mass fires. There are hints of cosmic impacts in the mythologies for other locations in South America. South America is a vast and physically diverse explorers and missionaries had no systematic way region, occupying some 17 819 000 sq km, approxi- to classify the various groups of people they mately 12% of the world’s overall land mass. South encountered. There are at least 65 known language America was seemingly the last of the inhabited families in South America with estimates of the continents to be colonized, a process beginning by numbers of individual languages ranging between at least 12 000 BP. Prior to European contact in 400 to as many as 3000 (Bierhorst 1988, p. 17). the sixteenth century, a wide range of societies This uncertainty is compounded by the fact that developed and flourished throughout South many of these languages and the groups who America, ranging from simple migratory hunter- spoke them have become extinct during the past gatherers of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego to several hundred years. well-known state-level societies of the central Despite these conditions, South America has a Andes and adjacent coastal plains of Peru and rich legacy of oral traditions and mythologies. Chile. The Inca, the Chimu, and the Moche con- South American mythology has been the source tinue to impress archaeologists and historians with for some of the most creative and comprehensive their monumental architecture and their mastery studies of mythology performed to date (e.g. of irrigation and general water management. In Le´vi-Strauss 1969, 1973, 1978, 1981; Bierhorst between these two extremes were semi-sedentary 1988). Of particular value for our study is the set and sedentary village horticulturalists and various of 4259 myths published during the period of small independent chiefdoms relying heavily on 1970–1992 by the University of California at Los agriculture and maritime resources. Angeles (UCLA) as part of the monumental 24- The distinguished anthropologist Julian Steward volume series entitled Folk Literature of South identified a total of 178 named different tribes for American Indians (Wilbert & Simoneau 1992). South America (Steward 1946–1959; Steward & The distribution of the ‘UCLA collection’, repre- Faron 1959). It is readily apparent that thousands senting 20 different cultural groups east of the of additional ‘tribal’ names are present in historical Andes, is depicted in Figure 1. documents, and that much confusion exists due to We hypothesize that ‘great’ or ‘worldwide’ cata- synonymy and language uncertainties. Early strophic events appearing in South American Indian From:PICCARDI,L.&MASSE, W. B. (eds) Myth and Geology. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 273, 177–202. 0305-8719/07/$15.00 # The Geological Society of London 2007. 178 W. B. MASSE & M. J. MASSE Fig. 1. Map of South America depicting countries (e.g. Paraguay), geographic regions (e.g. Gran Chaco) and cultures with their total numbers of myths in the UCLA collection (e.g. Toba with 636 myths). MYTH AND CATASTROPHE IN SOUTH AMERICA 179 mythologies are based on actual large-scale natural South American Holocene physical events identifiable in the geological and archaeol- environment ogical record. These include Plinian volcanic erup- tions, cosmic impacts, and mass fires potentially The Andes and Holocene volcanism caused by cosmic impacts. We are not the first researchers to attempt to use The subduction of the Nazca and Antarctic plates myths to elicit historical information about South along the western continental margin has uplifted American catastrophes. A century ago Adolph and folded the Andes into the longest range of Bandelier (1905, 1906) attempted to determine the mountains in the world, extending 8900 km from historicity of myths along the western coast of Columbia in the north to Tierra del Fuego South America relating to earthquakes, volcanic (Fig. 2). At least 203 volcanoes with Holocene eruptions, and possible impacts by meteorites. (c. 11 000 BP to present) activity have been ident- Based on Spanish archival accounts and associated ified, based on radiocarbon and tephrachronological Native American oral traditions, Bandelier sur- dating and on observed glacial activity on older mised that a number of South American volcanoes volcanoes. Holocene volcanism is divided into likely had significant eruptive events prior to four main zones controlled by segmentation of the Spanish colonization. Although several of his subducted plates along pre-existing zones of weak- named volcanoes cannot be matched with their ness. The volcanoes typically range in height from modern counterparts, Bandelier’s list includes the 4000 m to nearly 6000 m in the two northern Ecuadorian volcanoes of Capacurcu (?), Cayambe, zones, and are progressively lower in the two Chimborazo, Cotocachi (?), Cotopaxi, Gugagua southern zones. Pichincha, and Tungurahua; the northern Peruvian Unless otherwise noted, the details listed in the volcanoes of Guallollo (?) and Pariacaca (?); the following discussion are obtained from Volcanoes southern Peruvian volcanoes of Coropuna, of the World (Simkin & Siebert 1994), Encyclope- Huaynaputina (‘Omate’), Misti, Quimsachata, and dia of Volcanoes (Sigurdsson 2000), and Smith- Solimana (?); and the Chilean volcanoes of sonian Institution’s ‘Global Volcanism Program’ Planchon-Peteroa and Villarrica. Of the 11 certain website (Siebert & Simkin 2005). Reference to identified volcanoes for which Bandelier found the Volcano Explosive Index (VEI) for pertinent oral traditions supportive of significant pre- eruptions is from the Global Volcanism Program Spanish volcanic activity, only that of Planchon- website. Figure 2 illustrates the locations of South Peteroa has yet to provide documented physical American volcanoes highlighted below, presented evidence of such pre-Spanish Holocene activity in order of descending latitude. Thirty-eight (Siebert & Simkin 2005). Bandelier specifically Plinian eruptive events have been documented in looked for, but failed to find, evidence for either South America (VEI ¼ 4), along with 14 probable historic or pre-Spanish Holocene volcanic eruptions ultraplinian events (VEI 5). Plinian eruptions in the Bolivian Andes. are characterized by voluminous eruptions of Native American oral traditions gathered and many cubic kilometres of magma, resulting in erup- cursorily evaluated by Bandelier were all from tion columns generally ranging in height between Andean and coastal cultural groups not represented 11 and 40 km. The column is composed of mag- in the UCLA collection. We build on Bandelier’s matic gases and tephra (fragmental volcanic precocious suggestion that myth storylines and the ejecta), including pumice (frothy low density par- spatial distributions of myth elements and motifs ticles) and ash (glass shards, minerals, and rock represent a logical and relatively accurate record fragments less than 2 mm in diameter). Strato- of catastrophe and its impact on both humans and spheric winds fan out the tephra column creating the environment. A systematic comparative analy- an effect commonly referred to as an umbrella sis of environmental and geophysical data con- cloud. Prevailing winds can distribute pumice tens tained within the UCLA collection reveals of kilometres from volcanoes; ash can be patterns that appear to reflect the physical nature distributed hundreds or even thousands of kilo- of the catastrophe, including the type, location, metres away. Hot pyroclastic density currents intensity, and duration. (flows) also are a common feature of Plinian erup- In order to set the stage for our hypothesis and to tions. Many of the Andean volcanoes are covered identify potential specific catastrophes, we first in ice and snow, and pyroclastic