A STUDY OF CLASSIC MAYA CAVE ICONOGRAPHY

A Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of the Department of Anthropology

California State University, Los Angeles

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

Anthropology

By

Jeremy D. Coltman

June 2014

© 2014

Jeremy D. Coltman

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ii

The thesis of Jeremy D. Coltman is approved.

John M.D. Pohl

James E. Brady, Committee Chair

René L.Vellanoweth, Department Chair

California State University, Los Angeles

June 2014

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ABSTRACT

A Study of Classic Maya Cave Iconography

By

Jeremy D. Coltman

The study of iconographic motifs can be firmly situated within cognitive

processual archaeology. While this thesis describes and documents different categories of

cave motifs, it will also employ an ethnographic model of Mesoamerican cosmology and

ideology that speaks to an animate and sentient Earth, with mountains and caves

representing the most important features. Ancient Maya art confirms what the

ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources are saying, mainly that caves are the animate

houses and sources of wind and rain. Most iconographers have yet to embrace this aspect

of sacred geography.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study in Classic Maya cave iconography has come to fruition not a minute

too soon as my thinking on the topic has consistently been enriched, reorganized, and

further developed, hopefully making for a more fluid contribution to Maya studies.

When first arriving at Cal State Los Angeles, I thought I had a good understanding of

Classic Maya iconography and the important themes that deserved full consideration.

This understanding rapidly began to change as I was introduced to the sub discipline of

Maya cave archaeology and the voluminous ethnographic and ethnohistoric literature on

caves in Mesoamerica. Further development came from working at Midnight Terror Cave

(Meddanat Schreklijch), the Plautdietsch name for the cave) in the Cayo District of

Belize during the spring of 2010. No amount of reading could have prepared me for the

awesomeness of such a place. Taking all this together led to a more nuanced view of

iconography that relied heavily on both ethnography and ethnohistory.

First and foremost, I must thank James Brady for taking me to the field and for

introducing me to such a wonderful subject. He has not only been an excellent mentor

and teacher, but a great friend. His teaching has gone far beyond the call of duty in the

classroom and has extended into other areas of life. Thank you for everything, Jim! I

would also like to thank my longtime friend and my other mentor in all things

Mesoamerica, John M.D. Pohl. I would like to say thank you and express my gratitude to

my other committee member and department chair, Rene Vellenoweth. My

undergraduate teachers and mentors, most notably Frances Berdan and Karl Taube

fostered my passion for all things Mesoamerica. My friends in the Department of

Anthropology are truly unique in providing such a friendly, collegial, environment where

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one can always commiserate or laugh over a cup of coffee in the Mesoamerican Reading

room. I would especially like to single out and thank Adam Solano for his editorial help

in preparing this thesis.

Last but never ever least, I owe heartfelt gratitude and thanks to my family. I

would especially like to thank my mother for all the love, inspiration, and support. My

brother, sister and nieces have all been a constant source of happiness and inspiration,

and a constant reminder that there is so much more to life than just research and writing.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. v

List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix

Chapter

1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1

An Archaeological Approach to Iconography ..........................................2

Archaeological vs. Art Historical Approaches .........................................5

2. Living Landscapes: An Animate View of Earth .............................................. 9

The Phenomena of “Breathing Caves” ...................................................11

Earth, Wind, and Water in Ancient and Modern Mesoamerica ..............16

3. Cave Motifs in the Corpus of Ancient Maya Art ............................................ 22

Earth or Mountain House ........................................................................23

Quatrefoils...............................................................................................28

Earth Maws .............................................................................................34

The Skeletal Centipede Maw and Cenote ...............................................39

The Ik’ Enclosure ....................................................................................43

Ballcourts ................................................................................................47

The “V-Cleft” Cave Aperture .................................................................48

Symbolic “Mountain Cave” Temples .....................................................53

4. Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................. 57

Larger Themes and Meanings .................................................................58

Other Considerations ..............................................................................59

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Concluding Remarks ...............................................................................60

References ......................................................................................................................... 62

Appendix: Caves, Cross Bones, and Darkness ..................................................................71

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

1.1 a) Earth crocodile, Codex Borgia .....................................................................13

b) Earth crocodile with maize, Codex Borgia……… ………………………..13

1.2 a) Maize God resurrection from turtle earth……… …………………………14

b) Maize God emerging from mountain, Bonampak Stela 1… …………...…15

1.3 a) Turtle earth…………………………………………… …………………...15

b) Earth net skirt, Late Classic vessel………………… ……………………..15

c) Tlaloc in his mountain cave, Codex Borbonicus…… …………………….15

d) Earth net hill, Codex Selden………………………… …………………....15

2.1 a) Chaak in his mountain cave home, K0530………… ……………………..26

b) Musicians emerging from cave, K8947…………… …………………..…26

c) Piedras Negras, Stela 5…………………………………… ………………27

3.1 a) West Wall, San Bartolo……………………………… ………………...…31

b) Monument 9, Chalcatzingo………………………… ………………..……31

c) Detail of Monument 1, Chalcatzingo…………… …………………...……31

d) Machaquila, Stela 10…………………………… ……………………...…32

e) Cancuen, Panel 3………………………………… ………………………..33

4.1 a) IzapaStela 4…………………………………… …………………….….…37

b) Kaminaljuyu Stela 11………………………… ………………………..…37

c) Cave from North Wall, San Bartolo…………… …………………………38

d)Quirigua, Zoomorph P……………………………………… ……..………38

e) Late Classic Zoomorph……………………………………………… ……38

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5.1 a) Centipede maw, Palenque…………………………………………………..…41

b) Stela 11, Copan…… ...……………………………………………………..…41

c) Centipede maw conflated with mountain, K4013……… ...……………….…41

d) Centipede maw enclosure, Copan….............................. ..................................41

e) Wind being emerging from skeletal maw, Dos Pilas… ...………………….…42

f) Cenote glyph…..................................................................... ............................42

g) Wind dwarves standing on cenote, Uxmal Stela 14……… ...…………..……42

6.1 a) Chaak emerging from Ik’ enclosure, Altar O, Quirigua………………………45

b) Being emerging from Ik’ enclosure, Altar P, Quirigua……………… ...…….46

7.1 a) V-cleft in turtle earth carapace………………………………………….……..51

b) Late Classic “Resurrection” plate……………………………… ...…..………51

c) Codex Selden p.1………………………………………………… ...……...…51

d) Chicomoztoc, HistoriaTolteca-Chichimeca………………………… .....….…52

8.1 a) Mountain cave temple, Rio Bec…………………………………………….…56

b) Mountain cave temple, Codex Borgia…........................................... ...............56

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Maya archaeology has gone through a fundamental change over the past couple of

decades. A driving force of this change has been the sub discipline of Maya cave

archaeology. Once inhabiting the periphery of the field, it has now become clear that

Maya cave archaeology constitutes a legitimate and important component of the larger

discipline. Spear-headed by James Brady in his seminal dissertation (1989), there are now

a number of dissertations dedicated specifically to the topic of Maya cave archaeology

(Rissolo 2001; Moyes 2006; Peterson 2006; Ishihara 2007; Helmke 2009; Slater 2014).

Proof of the significant contributions made in Maya cave archaeology came full circle at

the 79th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Austin Texas where

two sessions were devoted to the influence and inspiration of Brady’s work which has

spanned multiple approaches, countries, and sites in some three decades of research. One

of Brady’s main contributions to Maya cave archaeology is his adaptation of an emic

approach to the study of caves (1997). He has also provided a guiding principle in how

the term “cave” should be applied in the field:

Cave is being used here in the sense of the Maya word č’en which means a

hole or a cavity that penetrates the earth. As such it includes caves,

grottoes, cenotes, sinkholes, many springs, places where rivers emerge

from or disappear into the earth, crevices, and any number of other holes

(Laughlin 1975:132). At times rockshelters will be treated as a č’en and be

used ritually while other times not. While this definition is not nicely

bounded, it reflects both the nature of human categories and the ambiguity

often encountered in the field (Brady 1997:603).

This emic definition of caves has become widely accepted in cave archaeology,

especially with its unapologetic use of ethnographic data that is one major component

constituting a Mesoamerican cave paradigm (Kieffer and Scott 2012). The ethnographic

and ethnohistoric literature speaks volumes to the ritual importance of caves in both

ancient and contemporary Maya and greater Mesoamerican ritual. The ethnographic

literature concerning the importance of Earth in Maya cosmology is voluminous indeed,

and provides an immense amount of data documenting the fundamental importance of

this complex among living Maya informants (Redfield 1940; Guiteras Holmes 1963;

Vogt 1969; Girard 1995; Christensen 2001). While the ethnographic data for the Maya is

certainly strong, it is also just as prevalent in other parts of Mesoamerica thus illustrating

the overall importance of this complex in a culturally unified area (Ichon 1973; Galinier

1990; Monaghan 1995). Evon Vogt (Vogt and Stuart 2005: 164-179) has demonstrated

that caves played a central role in the belief of various Maya groups including the Tzotzil

(Vogt 1969; Gossen 1974, 1975; Holland 1962; Guiteras-Holmes 1994), Tzeltal (Villa

Rojas 1969: 205; Pitarch Roman 1993, 1996), Tojolabal (Lenkersdorf 1996; Lenkersdorff

and Van Der Haar 1998), and Chol (Whittaker and Warkentin 1965: 81-85; Manca 1995;

Marion 1994; Morales Bermudez 1999; Bassie et al. 2002: 8-10).

An Archaeological Approach to Iconography

The approach of this thesis will be explicitly situated within cognitive processual

archaeology, as outlined by Colin Renfrew (1994) and Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus

(1998). According to Renfrew (1994: 3) cognitive archeology is the study of past ways of

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thought as inferred from material remains. An important aspect to this cognitive-

processual approach is its examination of the ways in which symbols were used (Renfrew

1994: 6). Both Renfrew (1994) and Flannery and Marcus (1998) clearly situate

iconography in the field of cognitive processual archaeology. Iconography at its most

basic could be defined as the study or analysis of images and symbols that pertain to a

belief system. This has become particularly pertinent to archaeology where material

culture often yields vast amounts of symbolic information. According to H.G.

Kippenberg (1987: 7), iconography is simply describing how other cultures read their

images. However, we definitely do this as outsiders looking in (Martin 2006: 57).

According to archaeologist Gordon Willey (1973: 153-154), a basic

“methodological assumption” in archaeology is that Mesoamerican art and iconography

should be approached through the ethnohistoric documentation and then proceeds back.

This methodological assumption has three subsidiary assumptions: 1) that Mesoamerica

was a unified culture area (following Paul Kirchoff (1943), 2) there was a unified

ideological system within the culture area, and 3), there was an integrity of belief and

communication within the ideological system of Mesoamerica that permits archaeologists

to ascribe similar meanings to similar symbols (ibid.). He also recognized that

archaeologists operate with two kinds of analogical material: general comparative and

specific historical. Willey notes that the first allows inferences drawn from general life

situations about people. This is done without restrictions to space and time. The second,

however, permits inferences only within a geographically circumscribed and historically

defined context. The specific historic kind of analogy Willey referred to as ethnographic

analogy which has relevance to the New World, where according to Willey (1973:155)

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“archaeological cultures are frequently interpreted with the aid of ethnographic or ethno

historic accounts that relate to Indian cultures believed to be in direct line of descent from

these archaeological cultures”.

While Flannery and Marcus (1998) note that iconography has resulted in some of

the worst archaeology on record, they are also encouraged by its prospects when done

with astute scholarship and scientific rigor. Such related themes as religion, cosmology,

and ideology are also considered with cognitive archaeology. According to these authors,

aspects of cognitive archaeology, such as iconography, should be taken on by the well-

rounded archaeologist when deemed appropriate (ibid.). They argue for a more holistic

view of archaeology and one that takes cognitive archaeology seriously. This puts

iconography in an archaeological framework where data and scientific rigor are important

aspects of the analysis and removes iconography from those that rely on mere intuition.

A holistic approach tends to be the most fruitful, as Henry B. Nicholson notes:

I would also favor the utilization of possible other approaches, however,

when- ever cogent results seem likely to emerge: specific ethnographic

analogy, intrinsic general comparative analogy, intrinsic configurationally

analysis, and the like -always with the caveat that these methods should be

applied with a certain degree of caution and prudence, if for no other

reason than to provide a necessary counterweight to the extravagant

fantasies of romantics, mystics, and downright crackpots which have

infested this field from the beginning. (Nicholson 1976: 172)

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Archaeological vs. Art Historical Approaches

Processual archaeology in the 1960’s had a strong materialist foundation that led it

to reject the study of iconography as unscientific. This allowed art historians to claim

iconography as their own special province. In the 1970’s, many processual archaeologists

diverged from strict materialist approaches in favor of a more cognitive processual

outlook and became interested in iconography once again. The difference between art

historical, as opposed to archaeological iconography is illustrated in the work of two

major art historical theorists, Erwin Panofsky and George Kubler. Panofsky’s (1944)

Principle of Disjunction primarily dealt with the separation of form and significance in

Late Medieval European art. In other words, it was the reinterpretation of borrowed

forms of classical antiquity with Christian meaning and the presentation of classical

themes in contemporary, Christian forms. George Kubler, a student of Panofsky, would

become an advocate of Panofsky’s Principle of Disjunction, bringing it away from

Medieval art by applying it to the art and archaeology of the New World. For Kubler, the

Principle of Disjunction assumes discontinuity, therefore, negating the value of

ethnographic analogy. Kubler endorsed this view in part because he did not accept

Mesoamerica as a culture area. Kubler (1970: 143-144) describes his application of the

Principle of Disjunction as:

Disjunction, which is a mode of renovation, may be said to happen,

whenever the members of a successor civilization refashion their

inheritance by gearing the predecessor’s forms to new meanings, and by

clothing in new forms those old meanings, which remain acceptable.

Continuous form does not predicate continuous meaning, nor does

5

continuity of form or of meaning necessarily imply continuity of culture.

On the contrary, prolonged continuities of from or meaning, on the order

of a thousand years, may ask... cultural discontinuity deeper than that

between classical antiquity and the middle ages. We may not use Aztec

ritual descriptions as compiled by Sahagun about 1550 to explain murals

painted at Teotihuacan a thousand years earlier, for the same reason that

we would not easily get agreement in interpreting the Hellenistic images

of Palmyra by using Arabic texts on Islamic ritual. The idea of

disjunction...makes every ethnological analogy questionable by insisting

on discontinuity rather than its opposite when- ever long durations are

under discussion.

Willey rejected Kubler’s analogy between Hellenistic Palmyra and Arabic texts with

Teotihuacan and Aztec ritual. According to Willey, Mesoamerica was much more self-

contained within traditional cultural boundaries than the eastern Mediterranean from

Hellenistic to Muslim times (1973). Aztec scholar Henry B. Nicholson further criticized

Kubler’s analogy saying:

The Chichimec ancestors of the Mexica cannot be fitly compared to the

galloping desert warriors of the Prophet who in the seventh and eighth

centuries over- ran and spread throughout much of the Near East, North

Africa, and Iberia a new religious ideology quite distinct from those that

previously flourished in these regions (Nicholson 1976: 162).

When disjunction is applied to the area of study that Panofsky had intended, it can

yield valuable insights. Applied elsewhere, however, as Kubler has chosen to do with the

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New World, the case for disjunction is not as strong. There is little evidence for instance,

that ideological shifts on the order of this magnitude ever occurred in pre-Hispanic

Mesoamerica between the Late Preclassic-Early Classic and the Conquest. Clearly the

burden of proof rests with those arguing for disjunction (Nicholson 1976). The irony here

is that Kubler’s Principal of Disjunction rests on the application of an Old World

historical analogy to the New World that is far more extreme than anything he was

criticizing among Mesoamerican iconographers.

Since Kubler, several major art historians have worked to reconcile these

differences in theoretical approaches. Esther Pasztory (1973) developed a synthesis that

reconciles art historical and archaeological approaches through a series of analytical

steps. Her approach involves four steps: an analysis of motifs, comparison of motifs with

motifs of other Mesoamerican cultures, the use of Aztec and Spanish texts, and modern

ethnography. According to art historian Janet Berlo (1983: 6), this method uses “a

rigorous analytical approach that combines the best of traditional anthropological use of

discrete texts with the traditional art historical commitment to the primacy of the art

object”. Cecelia Klein (1982) argued for the reconciliation between mainstream

archaeology and art history due to the risk of art history becoming marginalized and

atheoretical.

While Maya cave archaeology has made significant advances over the years, the

systematic study of cave motifs in the corpus of Maya art has received far less attention.

Fortunately, several studies devoted to the mention of caves in Maya hieroglyphic

inscriptions underscores the importance that caves held for the ancient Maya, particularly

during the Classic period C.E. 550-950 (Stuart and Vogt 2005; Helmke 2009). The

7

archaeological iconographer, as part of the larger discipline of anthropology, builds on

the concept of culture. This recognizes that symbols operate within cultural systems,

which are often very different from that of the analyst. At the core of my approach is the

recognition that the indigenous, or emic, perspective is threatened by the ever-present

tendency to inject interpretations from the analyst’s own culture. My solution to this

dilemma is to construct an explicit model of Maya religion and cosmology from

ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources. It is to this model that I will refer when

interpreting indigenous icons. During the construction of this model, I came to recognize

the centrality of the idea of Earth as a sacred, living entity. Connected to this idea of

Earth is the very important water complex since rain is thought to be formed within the

earth. Earth, however, is too large a topic to approach as a monolithic whole. Scholars

have suggested that mountains and caves are the two most important features associated

with Earth. Over the past several years, I have come to recognize the importance of caves

in ancient Maya worldview, so I will limit my focus to iconographic representation of

caves. According to the ethnographic exegesis and the myriad of representations, this

topographical feature constituted one of the fundamental themes in Maya cosmology and

worldview.

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CHAPTER 2

Living Landscapes: An Animate View of Earth

The Earth constitutes a major point of reverence for Amerindian peoples, many of

whom refer to “Mother Earth” as a clear term of respect and endearment (Guiteras

Holmes 1961: 288-289; Eliade 1962: 40; Gill 1987; Garza 2003). In Mesoamerican

studies, however, the general importance and significance of Earth is often missed due to

the application of western models of religion and western assumptions regarding

structures of cosmology (Brady and Prufer 2005: 366). As Brady and Prufer (2005: 370)

note “Maya cosmology differs radically from our own, particularly in beliefs related to

Earth.”

According to Richard Wilson (1995: 53), the Q’eqchi’ Maya say that mountains are

alive and have the quality of “personhood,” which is a concept reserved for only

mountains and people. Among the ancient and contemporary Mixtec, the earth is a living

entity that is also an integral part of Mixtec personality (Ravicz and Romney 1969: 373).

Personified mountains in the Mixtec codices can frequently be seen with human-like

qualities and features. As Monaghan (1995: 98) notes, contemporary Nuyootecos use

corporeal images when speaking about the Earth, which is consistent with the idea that

the Earth is in fact “alive”. The animate Earth, including hills, mountains, caves, springs,

and other bodies of water that form features of the sacred landscape are therefore full of

supernaturals who are the controllers and personifications of natural phenomena that can

in part be “explained by their resemblance, in varying degree, to the phenomena they

represent, as well as by the fact that they are always present in such phenomena”

(Wisdom 1952: 126). A specific pantheon such as Greco-Roman models from ancient

9

antiquity need not always apply, for ancient Mesoamericans “categorized and worshipped

vital, impersonal forces of nature. These forces embodied essences that animated all (or

most) things in nature…” (Houston and Stuart 1996: 291). Many of these “impersonal

forces of nature” are personified within the landscape itself, with the Earth constituting

the principal animate and sentient being.

In ancient and contemporary Mesoamerican thought, mountains and caves are

conceived of as living and sentient beings constituting only parts of a monolithic whole.

An Aztec myth from the Histoyre du Mechique (Jonghe 1905) describes the creation of

the universe from when Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl dismembered the body of the

Aztec earth deity Tlaltecuhtli. Whereas one half of Tlaltecuhtli became the sky, the other

became the earth with her hair becoming the trees and grass, her eyes the pools, springs,

and caves, her mouth the rivers and caverns, and her nose the valleys and mountains

(Garibay 1965: 108). Interestingly, although the goddess is dismembered, her body

remains alive.

The Codex Borgia depicts the earth as a spiky crocodile, the spikes denoting the

hard rocky surface of the earth (Figure 1.1a-b). The Classic Maya frequently depicted the

earth as a giant turtle from which the Maize God was resurrected from the hard ground

that was a turtle carapace (Figure 1.2a). One motif known as the “earth-net” motif is of

considerable antiquity dating at least to the Classic Period where it marks turtle carapaces

and water lilies and persists into the Late Postclassic Central Mexican codices where it

marks representations of mountains and hills (Quenon and Le Fort 1997: 897-898)

(Figure 1.3a-d).Furthermore it marks the “Hill of the Turkey” toponym at Cacaxtla

(Quenon and Le Fort 1997: 897), which suggests a logical point for dissemination of

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Classic Maya iconography into Central Mexico (Taube 2010: 149). A diamond and dot

pattern is known for Aztec textiles, which closely resembles the “earth-net” motif.

Commonly referred to as the “diaper motif”, it decorates Aztec royal capes as well as the

skin of the monumental Coatlicue statue from the Museo Nacional de Antropología

(Anawalt 1990: 301-302). In Mixtec and the Borgia group codices this motif frequently

marks mountains, hills, and crocodiles. Not just limited to the natural landscape and

reptilians, this motif also decorates skirts in the Mixtec codices, some of which adorn

mountains as if they were actual people (McCafferty and McCafferty 2006). Personified

mountains figure prominently in ancient Maya art. In one instance from Bonampak Stela

1, the Maize God resurrects from an anthropomorphic mountain, which the Classic Maya

knew as witz (see Stuart 1987) (Figure 1.2b). These mountains were bestowed with

human like features; eyes that could see, noses that could smell, and mouths that could

breathe.

The Phenomena of “Breathing Caves”

One of the most important characteristics of a “living earth” is air current that

issues from the mouth of caves, providing further proof that they are alive: “The air

exchange that can be felt at the entrances to caves as a result of the differences in

atmospheric pressure is interpreted by the Maya as the cave breathing” (Brady and Prufer

2005: 367). Wind from mountain caves for the Tz’utujil Maya is xlaajuyu’ which means

“mountain breath” (Perez Mendoza and Hernandez Mendoza 1996: 158, 507). Among

the inhabitants of the Mexican village of San Francisco Tecospa, rain dwarfs are believed

to live in their mountain cave homes where they make rain and they say the cave air is

their breath, which is known as “aire de cueva” (Madsen 1957: 145, 160; 1960). In some

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cases, rain and clouds are thought to be born or conceived in caves. According to Groark

(1997: 25) the Huastec describe clouds issuing forth from caves “pregnant with rain”. A

sacred cave located around Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, called Paq’ alib’ al, is where

“...the south wind is born. Strong rains come from the cave because that is where the

clouds are formed” (Christensen 2001: 84).

Winds, taking a more subservient role to the rain gods, are often invoked for the

sole purpose of bringing the rain. An explicit example of this comes from a prayer during

the Ch’aa Chaak ceremony in the Yucatan. The prayer is intended to invoke the winds to

move and bring the fructifying rain over the earth:

I also commend this food to the winds who come for the first time and for

the wind that spies from behind the stones, without forgetting the great

winds who emerge from caves. Lord, Chaak, we call on all the rain gods,

the lords of these winds. I offer this food to you. I also ask that the lords of

the wind move the clouds so that they may water the milpas of their

children (GongoraCamara and Preuss1990).

As this prayer suggests, rain and wind are inextricably linked to fertility, with the

“great winds” coming from their cave homes. House B at Palenque depicts a striking

representation of the phenomena of breathing caves infused with symbolism of the water

serpent (Taube 1992: 59; Stone and Zender 2011). Two large Ik’ signs are placed directly

above the niche of a step-fretted mountain, depicted as a watery cavernous breathing

abode, the ideal home of the terrestrial water serpent who is a denizen of lakes, rivers,

streams, and springs.

12

b

Figure 1.1. a) Earth crocodile from Codex Borgia. b) Earth crocodile with maize sprouting from back, Codex Borgia.

a

13

a

b Figure 1.2. a) Maize God emerging from the turtle earth on k1892. Courtesy of Justin Kerr. b) Maize God emergence from brow of witz, detail of Bonampak Stela 1. Drawing by Linda Schele.

14

a

b

c d Figure 1.3. a) The emergence of the Maize God from the turtle earth. Drawing by Linda Schele. b) Late Classic Maya vase depicting figure with “earth net” skirt. c) Tlaloc in his mountain cave, Codex Borbonicus. d) Detail of hill from Mixtec Codex Selden. Drawing by author.

15

Earth, Wind, and Water in Ancient and Modern Mesoamerica

The belief that clouds and rain originated from caves and mountains was not lost on

ethnographer Evon Vogt (1969: 387) who observed firsthand how the clouds formed and

streamed up over the highland ridges that gave the impression that they came up from

caves over the Chiapas highlands: “...Given the Zinacanteco’s premises and the evidence

observable from the day to day behavior of clouds, their belief is understandable” (Vogt

1969: 387). While the sky clearly embodied an important concept in Mesoamerican

cosmology, mountains and caves were and are particularly important as the nexus of

wind, rain and earth. In this respect they occupied the most fundamental component of

Mesoamerican ideology as an animate place and the terrestrial source of natural

phenomena. For agricultural peoples, tangible elements such as earth, wind, and water are

inseparable and differ from more western celestial conceptions. As Vogt’s account

implies, differing views can be seen in the way westerners perceive rain and clouds as

celestial phenomena, opposed to the Mesoamerican view which sees it as wholly

terrestrial.

Caves and mountains form a locus of sacred geography where rituals are frequently

carried out. A significant aspect of their sacredness lies in the anthropomorphic

supernatural beings that occupy these locales. The beings represent natural phenomena

primarily in the form of wind, water, and earth spirits. Supernaturals in the Sierra de

Puebla for instance are grouped into three classes, earth, water, and wind (Knab 1976:

131). In Otomi thought, cavities, caverns, and springs are thought to generate both

clouds and rains because they are replications of the houses of the wind and rain gods

(Galinier 1990: 555).In Ostotempa, Guerrero, offerings are made to invoke lightning,

16

wind and the tlaloques along with other inhabitants of rivers, streams, springs, caves, and

hills (Sepulveda 1973: 12). Winds that inhabit caves in Pedregal de San Angel are

referred to as those that move the clouds and they are gods of both wind and water

(Robles 1997: 160). Among the contemporary Maya of Chiapas, there is a strong core of

common elements in ethnographic descriptions of sacred geography, much of which

revolves around rain (Vogt and Stuart 2005: 176-177). The Tzotzil of San Andres

Larianzar have a striking explanation of the rainmaking process:

Those who control the wind and rain inhabit the caves and are generally

called chauk, which is probably cognate of chac, the ancient Maya rain

god. When there is thunder and lightning during a rainstorm, the Indians

believe that it is an angel leaping out of a cave and into the sky where it

sprinkles water from a huge jug which falls to the earth as rain. When the

wind blows, it is because an angel in a cave has exhaled (Holland 1962:

127).

This contemporary Tzotzil account of wind being described as the breath of a

cave inhabiting angel recalls the rain dwarves of San Francisco de Tecospa whose breath

is described as the “aire de cueva” (Madsen 1960: 183). These accounts, one in Central

Mexico, the other in Chiapas, shows the “breathing cave” phenomena to be a pan-

Mesoamerican concept.

The intimate relationship of meteorological phenomena for the Late Postclassic

Aztec was based on the ehecatotontin (little winds) gathering the rain filled clouds

around the mountain homes of the tlaloque. Just as Tlaloc presided over the tlaloque, the

ehecatotontin were also said to belong to the tlaloque. The attendants to Tlaloc were also

referred to as the ahuaque “masters of water” and “the little winds” who lived in hollow

17

mountains from which the rivers, winds, and clouds emerged (Lopez Austin 1988: 1:

335). This hollow mountain is undoubtedly a cave as wind, clouds, and rain were all

thought to emanate from the mouths of caves. The preeminent wind god for the Late

Postclassic Aztec was the duck-billed Ehecatl who was described as the “road sweeper of

the rain gods” (Sahagun 1950-69, bk. 1:3). In Henry B. Nicholson’s (1971: 414-416)

major study of religion in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico (1971), he places Ehecatl in the

Tlaloc complex in a theme based on Rain-Moisture-Agricultural fertility. This is due to

the close relationship that Ehecatl and the ehecatotontin had to Tlaloc and the tlaloque,

primarily in the winds function as a bringer of rain. Aside from being producers of

agricultural fertility through beneficial rains, the tlaloque and ehecatotontin could also

bring harmful forces accompanied by lightning bolts, devastating storms, and hail (Lopez

Austin 1988: 340). On Codex Borgia pp. 27-28, there are five Tlalocs on each page

representing directional rains with the fifth representing the axis mundi. Here the Tlalocs

clearly bring both beneficial and harmful rains. In Central Mexican and Zapotec thought,

the rain gods have four tubs where they keep the rains, some of it good but some of it also

destructive rain that could cause mildew and frost (Thompson 1970: 257-258). The

Florentine Codex (1950-1982: I: 3) describes another aspect of Quetzalcoatl aside from

his being the guide and “road sweeper of the rain gods”:

…when the wind rose, when the dust rumbled and it crackled and there

was a great din, and it became dark and the wind blew in many directions,

and it thundered; then it was said [“Quetzalcoatl”] is wrathful.

Clearly this is describing the more destructive aspect of the wind, apparently in

the form of a fully developed storm. On p. 27 of the Mixtec Codex Vindobonensis, two

18

images of Ehecatl, or 9 Wind, are pictured, one blowing a cold white wind, the other

blowing a hot red wind. There is a destroyed maize plant in front of them, indicating the

potential destructiveness that extreme winds could have on the maize crops. In

contemporary Nuyooteco thinking, the winds are closely allied with earth deities and

strong winds are considered the favored punishment for those that break agricultural

taboos (Monaghan 1990: 563). In Tecospa, the rain dwarfs are subordinate to a water

snake “culebra de agua.” This chief of the rain dwarfs tells them what barrel to open

from their mountain cave homes, be it rain, hail, lightning, clouds, drizzle, thunder, or

frost (Madsen 1960: 131). These rain dwarfs are analogous to the tlaloque who were

described as having control of the “clouds, rain, hail snow, mist, sheet lightning, thunder

and lightning bolts” (Sahagun 1950-1982: VII: 18). According to contemporary Totonac

thought, the thunder and wind produce storms that are ruled over by the water deity

whereas lightning is loosened by wind under the aspect of a snake (Graulich 1992: 26).

In Mixtec thought the koo savi is a plumed serpent associated with violent and destructive

storms (Monaghan 1989: 14).

Mountains figured quite prominently among the tlaloque and ehecatotontin.

Clouds formed in the mountain homes of the tlaloque and were brought out of their

abodes by the ehecatotontin. The major Aztec veintenas of Tepeilhuitl and Atemoztli

were dedicated to the tlaloque as tepictoton, the “little molded ones” made from dough

and were thought of as belonging to the Tlalocs (Sahagun 1950-69, bk. 1: 47). Clouds

and rain were believed to originate in caves and were conceived of as tlaloque in the role

of the tepictoton who are the mountain deities (Nicholson 1971: 414). Figuring among

the tepictoton was the wind god, Quetzalcoatl. The Primeros Memoriales mentions that

19

the other tepictoton face Quetzalcoatl (Quinones Keber and Nicholson 1997: 114). This

may indicate a superior position for the wind god mountain image among the tepictoton.

Therefore the Aztecs made “mountains” with effigies of the wind gods precisely because

the ehecatotontin swept the road for the rain gods and so they were thus considered

tlaloque (Graulich 1992: 26). In fact all the tepictoton were considered tlaloque because

they all made the rain (Quinones Keber and Nicholson 1997: 114). A certain overlap

clearly exists here in the sense that the ehecatotontin and the tlaloque could be considered

the amaranth dough images of the tepictoton. This is a natural relationship being that

these rains and winds come from their mountain cave homes. Thus by celebrating these

mountains they were celebrating “the places of origin of the celestial and terrestrial

waters, the Tlaloque and the earth, the maize and water deities belonging to them, the

fertilizing lightning and the maize generated by them all (Graulich 1992: 26).

The most important ceremonies invoking the tlaloque were obviously intended to

produce rain. Sahagun (1950-69, bk.2: 139) describes a rain ritual during the veintena

month of Atemoztli where the rain priest of the temple of Tlaloc burned the sweet scented

yauhtli marigold incense in his serpent shaped incense ladle. This incense ladle rattled

furiously as he offered the sweet smelling fragrance to the four cardinal directions calling

upon the Tlalocs to bring rain. Graulich (1992: 32) notes that through enacting this ritual,

the priest was producing clouds, lighting and rain, the clouds being the smoke of the

yauhtli incense, the thunderbolt being the handle of the incense ladle in the form of a

serpent, and the rain being the rattling sound of the incense ladle. A similar group of the

incense ladle censers were found in the Cueva de Chimalacatepec, Morelos, which may

have been a rain-making cave (Schaafsma and Taube 2006: 263). Furthermore, caves in

20

Mesoamerica very often contain censers that are in the form of Tlaloc as can be found in

the cave of Balankanche which has censers with both Tlaloc and Chaak symbolism

(ibid.).

21

CHAPTER 3

Cave Motifs in the Corpus of Ancient Maya Art

Chapter 2 discussed the centrality of Earth as a sacred and animate entity in

Maya religion and showed that rain,wind and lightning are part of this terrestrial

complex. In the early stages of this project, I had naively proposed to study the entire

complex. I was told to limit myself to a single aspect and was correctly warned that even

one would become too large and complex to study exhaustively. I had considered

focusing on mountains but was struck by Brady’s (1997:603) statement that:

The Q'eqchi' recognize thirteen major sacred mountains, each the home of

an important Tzuultaq'a. But each major sacred mountain also has its cave

(Goubaud Carrera 1949:35) which is the most sacred spot and the loci for

the performance of rites to the Tzuultaq'a. Thus, while the Q'eqchi'

frequently speak of going to the sacred mountain Xucaneb, the destination

is actually the cave.

Edward Fischer (2001: 154) elaborated on this idea in stating that:

Caves, where one descends toward the k’u’x (heart or center) of a

mountain, are especially hot places. This is due their symbolic proximity

to the powers unleashed by cosmic convergence at the axis mundi.

I decided that caves were in fact the “heart of earth” which is often invoked in indigenous

prayer and so decided to focus on these features.

While the iconographic study of a few cave related motifs has received

considerable attention, the synthesis of the material to define the larger “cave complex” is

22

all but nonexistent. While these studies have all produced valuable insights, the

systematic analysis of multiple cave motifs has been lacking with one major exception.

Andrea Stone (1995, 2003a,) was the only person to address multiple cave motifs in a

single study. Stone notes four different motifs that appear to refer to caves for the ancient

Maya: 1) the four lobed floral formed quatrefoil, 2) the skeletal centipede maw, 3) the

lunar glyph, and 4) the mountain or earth house. While Stone is to be lauded for her four

categories, I propose to expand it even further by working with a larger corpus of cave

motifs. I have recognized a total of eight categories of cave motifs, including three

mentioned by Stone. To fully grasp the importance of this, a systematic study of the

major cave motifs in Classic Maya iconography is warranted, even essential. By viewing

cave iconography as a complex of motifs as opposed to single motifs, we are able to

grasp just how fundamentally important caves were to the Classic Maya. These motifs all

constitute their own category through exemplifying aspects of “caveness”, which

according to Stone (2003a), is when motifs create frames and enclosures.

Earth or Mountain House

An excellent example of a cave enclosure is the earth or mountain house. In ancient

Maya art, caves can often be shown as half frames, which mimic the profile cutaway of a

house (Stone 2003). Stone defines the half frame on the basis that the earth or mountain

house symbol “is a profile rendition of a building formed by an inverted L-shaped

frame.” It should be stated outright, however, that these representations of earth or

mountain houses can easily be put into another category, which is the Earth maw. The

representations to be discussed are essentially anthropomorphic mountains, with the open

maw symbolizing a cave.

23

Among the Jalcatec Maya, caves are referred to as a “Stone House” (La Farge and

Byers 1931: 243). In Yukatek, actun carries the meaning of “casa de piedra” (Alvarez

1980: 137). In Q’eqchi’, ochochpec combines the word for “habitación” with “piedra”

(Haeserijn 1979: 243). According to the Lacandon Maya, the deities make no distinction

between thatch and wood houses and caves (Davis 1978: 24-25). These houses for gods

look like stones houses to humans but to the gods they resemble the palm thatched huts of

humans (Boremanse 1998: 27). This idea may be of considerable antiquity. A

subterranean structure constructed of giant basalt columns, known as La Venta Tomb A,

may in fact suggest a literal “stone house” (Diehl and Coe 1995: 18, Fig. 13). Gods such

as Chaak, the pre-eminent rain deity, often occupy mountain or earth houses. Thus on

some Late Classic Maya vessels, Chaak is shown sitting in this cutaway cave house,

which serves as a fitting throne for a rain deity (Figure 2.1a). It should not be surprising

that Chaak is frequently pictured within caves. For the ancient Maya, the pairing of

Chaak and caves is of considerable antiquity. A cave in La Pailita, Peten, Guatemala,

housed a stucco statue of Chaak (Graham 1997) that signified the owner of that particular

cave. In other cases, musicians can also appear in caves, which may be related to rain

rituals (Ishihara 2008) (Figure 2.1b).

Very often these cutaway “stone houses” double as a seat or throne, a probable

allusion to rulership and kingly authority. This idea goes back to La Venta Altar 4 where

a figure is housed within the open maw of a jaguar (Grove 1973). The relation to

rulership is evident on Piedras Negras Stela 5 which depicts the ruler addressing his sajal

from within his cave like throne that is a huge witz forming a looming arch over his head

(Figure 2.2) Various nocturnal beings can be seen on the periphery including the Jaguar

24

God of the Underworld and a monkey smoking a cigar, perhaps an indication of giving

light into this realm of darkness. The bottom half of this Stela depicts a watery terrestrial

environment further strengthening the subterranean location of this scene. Another Late

Classic incised vessel depicts the anthropomorphic Jaguar God sitting within his hill cave

holding court to a bestiary audience and refers to his abode as “my earth (and) my cave”

(Stone and Zender 2011: 133). Among the modern Q’eqchi’ Maya the indigenous figure

known as tzuultaq’a is the “Earth Lord”, the name literally meaning “hill-valley” (Brady

2003: 87). Tzuultaq’as are spirits that inhabit their cave “houses” deep inside the

mountain (Wilson 1995: 53).

25

Figure 2.1.a) Chaak sitting in his mountain cave throne, K0530. Courtesy of Justin Kerr. b) Musicians emerging from cave, K8947. Courtesy of Justin Kerr.

a

b

26

Figure 2. 2. Ruler addressing a sajal from his mountain cave throne, Piedras Negras Stela 5. Drawing by John Montgomery.

27

Quatrefoils

Perhaps the most frequently employed and recognizable cave motif in ancient

Mesoamerica is the floral formed quatrefoil. This may also very well be the oldest cave

symbol in Mesoamerica (Stone 2003). This motif resembles the form of a flower, four

lobed in its full form although it can also appear in partial form. As Stone (ibid.) notes,

cave frames have corresponding full and half forms, the half form being an abbreviation.

Clear examples of the quatrefoil motif date to the Early Preclassic (1500-900 B.C.), but

as Julia Guernsey (2011) notes, the quatrefoil motif does not make a formal appearance

until the Middle Preclassic (900-300 B.C.), on the Pacific slope of La Blanca, Guatemala.

During this period, the quatrefoil is linked to an animate symbol of the earth: the

turtle. Stela 8 from Izapa and Alter 48 from Takalik Abaj depict human figures placed

within full quatrefoils affixed to the bodies of turtles (Taube et al. 2010: 72-73. Fig.47a-

b). Another example of the quatrefoil cave and turtle conflation occurs on the West Wall

at Late Preclassic San Bartolo. Within this terrestrial setting, Chaak accompanies the

Maize God and Water Serpent within the full quatrefoil enclosure (Taube et al. 2010: 75-

76) (Figure 3.1a).

Other early examples of the quatrefoil motif are present at Chalcatzingo. Located

in Morelos, Mexico, Cerro Chalcatzingo remains an impressive Mesoamerican site.

Known for its rare rock carvings and monuments, both archaeologists and art historians

have received a rare glimpse into the nature of landscape and religion during the Middle

Formative. As Miguel Covarrubius (1946) first noted, many of the symbolic features

employed at Chalcatzingo are strikingly similar to the Gulf coast Olmec. While the

ideological and technical roots of these monuments may be derived from the Olmec, it

28

should be kept in mind that Chalcatzingo is not an Olmec site (Grove 2008: 5). No less

than three explicit examples of the quatrefoil motif occur on Monuments 1, 9, and 13

(Grove 1987; Guernsey 2010). Monument 9 is particularly striking as it depicts a full

quatrefoil as an open maw (Figure 3.1b). Vegetation can be seen on the sides of the

monument suggesting fertility. Monument 1 portrays one of the most explicit

representations of the “breathing cave” phenomena (Figure 3.1c). Commonly known as

“El Rey,” this monument depicts an active living cave, depicted in side profile, or a half

quatrefoil. Large swirling volutes indicating wind can be seen exiting the maw of the

anthropomorphic beast while rain falls from clouds above. In this case, the wind is

depicted as large volutes that project out from the side profile of the animate quatrefoil

cave maw. Like Monument 9, vegetation can be seen on the exterior of the cave. The full

quatrefoil of Monument 9 and half quatrefoil of Monument 1 are interesting in that both

caves are depicted with eyes therefore making it anthropomorphic and emphasizing the

animate quality of the representation.

In Olmec and Classic period Maya art, four-petalled flowers frequently evoke the

shape of the quatrefoil cave (Taube 2001: 108-109). The quatrefoil cave in Classic Maya

art frequently displays flowers at the corners, similar to the vegetation growing on the

exterior of Chalcatzingo Monuments 1 and 9, and may be based on the “breathing cave”

phenomena; just as wind emerges from caves, aroma comes from flowers and the wind

issuing from the Chalcatzingo cave are mirrored by Classic and Postclassic Maya

examples of flowers emitting fragrant volutes (Houston and Taube 2000: 271). Such

examples of Late Classic portrayals of floral-lobed quatrefoils appear at Houses B and C

at Palenque where Ik’ signs emanate from the four directions of the floral cave symbol.

29

Perhaps denoting the winds of the four directions, these examples conflate themes of

caves, wind, flowers, and aroma. Ik’ signs and quatrefoils appear conflated together in the

earspools of the Classic Maya wind god who is patron of the month mac and god of the

number three (Taube 2004: 73). As Taube (2005: 47) notes, jade earspools

“…symbolized rain-making wind and the breath spirit, and in their hollow, flared form,

both evoked flowers and cave like portals”.

Caves and mountains were the ideal abodes of windy and watery beings and this

is reflected in representations of quatrefoils as noted for the West Wall at San Bartolo. A

stuccoed altar from Aguacatal, Campeche, depicts Chaak in a watery quatrefoil cave

(Houston et al. 2005). Panel 3 from Cancuen depicts a meeting between a ruler and his

subordinates within a watery quatrefoil (Figure 3.1d). The two subordinates each have

wind and water markings on their arms, thereby reinforcing the chosen meeting place as

no less than ideal. A series of Stela from Machaquila depict rulers impersonating the

Water Serpent dancing over watery quatrefoil caves with sprouting aquatic vegetation

recalling basal registers from Copan and quatrefoils at Chalcatzingo. Remarkably, Stela

10 from Machaquila depicts the face of the quintessential rain god Chaak facing upward

from within the terrestrial quatrefoil enclosure (Figure 3.1e). Interestingly, these rulers

are dancing over these quatrefoils, a possible representation of masked rain dances

known for the Katsina rain spirits in the American Southwest (Schaafsma 1999;

Schaafsma and Taube 2006).

30

a

b c

31

d

32

Figure 3.1. a) The Maize God, Chaak, and the Water Serpent sitting within quatrefoil cave over the turtle earth, detail of West Wall, San Bartolo. Drawing by Heather Hurst. b) Quatrefoil maw of Monument 9, Chalcatzingo. c) “Breathing” quatrefoil cave, detail of Monument 1, Chalcazingo. Drawing by Karl Taube. d) Cancuen panel 3. Photo courtesy of Harri Kettunen. ) Ruler dancing over quatrefoil cave. Note upward facing Chaak in quatrefoil. Stela 10, Machaquila.Courtesy of Middle American Research Institute, Tulane.

e

33

Earth Maws

Earth iconography in Mesoamerican art shows incredible spatial and temporal

depth with some motifs being clearly derived from earlier traditions. An excellent

example of this comes in the form of the “Earth Maw.” The earth maw appears

frequently in the Preclassic art of Izapa and Kaminaljuyu with one of the principal

characteristics being an inward curving ground line. Rulers frequently stand upon this

symbol (Figure 4.1a-b). As Guernsey (2006: 78-79) notes, “…the basal motif appears to

signify the terrestrial realm, firmly anchoring the performance of the individual standing

upon it to the earth”. As an important basal register for the earth, a particular variant of

earth maw continues into Late Postclassic and Colonial Mexico. As Taube (2004: 40)

notes, “The earth maw sign continued to be used as a basal element in later

Mesoamerican toponymic signs where it usually appears with a prominent pair of teeth,

clearly identifying it as a mouth”.

While the Earth maw is clearly depicted as a basal register, other maws

representing the Earth appear as zoomorphic beasts with their large gaping maws

representing the dark and hollow interior of a cave. Rulers are frequently depicted

situated within caves, a vivid indicator of terrestrial power and control. One of the most

explicit examples comes from La Venta Monument 4. Here a ruler sits within the

confines of a cave, which caused David Grove (1973: 134) to remark:

The iconography of Mesoamerican codices, with its use of jaguar or earth-

monster mouths to represent caves, and the association of the polychrome

jaguar-monster face with the cave-mouth at Oxtotitlan, leave little doubt in

my mind that the niches at Olmec altars represent jaguar-monster mouths,

34

and thus caves, and hence entrances to the underworld. This interpretation

would apply to all niched altars, whether a jaguar-monster face is

specifically depicted or not. This interpretation is at least implied in the

iconography by the presence of the niche itself.

The Late Classic Zoomorph P at Quirigua is a particular graphic portrayal of earth,

wind, and water symbolism with the ruler sitting in the open maw of the saurian earth

(Figure 4.1e) .Chaaks encapsulated in conch breath scrolls pour water from jars, an act

consistent with rainmaking in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest (Schaafsma

1999; Schaafsma and Taube 2006). A contemporary Tzotzil account of rainmaking that

describes Chaaks pouring water from jars and the wind being the breath of an anhel is

strikingly similar and almost reads as an exact description of Zoomorph P at Quirigua.

This demonstrates an extraordinary time depth regarding Maya conceptions of earth,

wind, and water. The idea that these beasts, be it jaguar or crocodile form thrones recalls

the turtle quatrefoil thrones known for Izapa, Takalik Abaj, and the Classic Maya.

The cauac monster was first identified and named by Thompson (1971: 87). He

viewed this beast as a rain god and while he noted vegetation that was symbolic of the

earth, he consistently associated the cauac monster with the sky. Several years later,

Dicey Taylor (1978) noted that the cauac monster was actually an enclosure and formed

a cave on the surface of the earth. It should be recalled that one of Stone’s criteria for

caves was that they form full or partial enclosures. The cauac monster theme received

further development when David Stuart (1987) deciphered the glyph for “hill” or

“mountain” which is witz. Thus the transformation from cauac monster to witz had

begun. It should be noted that these witz monsters are essentially hollow mountains.

35

Serpents emerging from the maws of the witz are a common indicator of breathing

mountains and caves in ancient Maya art (Saturno et al. 2005: 21-25). For the ancient

Maya, wind and breath were synonymous and could take on many distinct forms. One

such form is the plumed serpent, a being of both breath and wind and a carrier of rain

clouds. The North Wall at San Bartolo features an extraordinary anthropomorphic cave

exhaling a plumed serpent that serves as a ground line for the other individuals in the

scene (Saturno et al. 2005: 21-25) (Figure 4.1c).Other examples of breathing witz

exhaling serpents occur on Structure 5D-33-2nd at Tikal and Monument 106 from Tonina

where the exhaled serpents emerge from the maw and earspools of the mountain (ibid.).

These examples underscore the importance of the witz as living and breathing entities, yet

one more aspect of an animate earth. The cave maw from the North Wall at San Bartolo

expresses an ancient and widespread belief in Mesoamerican thought, as a similar scene

is depicted over fifteen hundred years later in the Codex Duran (Figure 4.1d).

36

b a

37

Figure 4.1. Earth Maws. a) Earth maw basal register, Izapa Stela 4. b) Ruler standing over earth maw register, Kaminaljuyu Stela 11. c) Cave of emergence, North Wall, San Bartolo. Drawing by Heather Hurst. d) Cave of emergence, from Duran 1994, plate 3. e) Ruler sitting within the earth cave maw of saurian being, Late Classic Zoomorph P, Quirigua. Drawing by Matthew Looper.

e

d c

38

The Skeletal Centipede Maw and Cenote

A major cave symbol during the Late Classic was the skeletal centipede maw.

Once thought to represent skeletal serpents, recent research by Grube and Nahm (1994)

and Taube (2003) have shown that these actually represent centipedes. An outstanding

example comes from Pakal’s sarcophagus lid at Palenque (Figure 5.1a). The skeletal

centipede maw was typically depicted as a water filled cavity and a fleshless jaw depicted

as a U-shaped enclosure (Stone and Zender 2011: 53). Sometimes one pincher of the

centipede maw could be juxtaposed to a witz mountain, perhaps indicating a toothed maw

that symbolized an entrance (Figure 5.1c). In other cases, one pincher of the skeletal

centipede maw forms an enclosure itself, keeping with general conventions of Classic

Maya cave iconography (Stone 2003; Stone and Zender 2011: 134, fig. 2). Stela 11 from

Copan depicts a skeletal centipede maw as a basal register, used in much the same way

an Earth maw would be (Figure 5.1b). A profile pair of skeletal centipede maws also

appears exhaling the floral Ajaw sign as fragrant breath, a testament to the animacy of the

enclosure (Figure 5.1d). In the Late Postclassic Codex Vaticanus B p. 76, Ehecatl and

Mictlantecuhtli sit atop a representation of an anthropomorphic earth where the teeth

curve upward, much like the centipede maws known for the Classic Maya. Leg supports

for a throne excavated at Dos Pilas depict two duck-billed wind gods who are in

subservient positions as throne bearers (Chinchilla 1990; Stuart 2009). One of these wind

lords stands before an open maw of a skeletal centipede as if he has just emerged from it

(Figure 5.1e).

The Postclassic sign for cenote most likely evolved from the skeletal centipede

maw, an unsurprising transition given that both evoke water filled cavities (Stone 2003).

39

J. Eric Thompson (1972: 150) first noted that the cenote sign appeared to carry the same

meaning as cave in Maya iconography (Figure 5.1f). While the cenote sign is a common

motif among the Classic Maya, it was more popularly employed in the cenote rich

northern lowlands as opposed to the southern lowlands. In the Postclassic Dresden

Codex, Chaak is shown sitting on the cenote sign. Stela 14 from Uxmal depicts a pair of

duck-billed wind dwarves, subservient to the glyphically named Lord Chaak, standing

over a cenote with dead and bloated captives within its depths (Figure 5.1g). In

contemporary Yukatekan thought, cenotes were terrestrial sources of the winds, which

were thought to come from the sea:

The cenotes are particularly the sources of the winds. As the water makes

its cycle, carried by the rain-gods from the cenotes up into the sky to fall

as fertilizing rain upon the milpa, so the winds have their sources in the

sea and pass up through the cenotes. Therefore, in certain ceremonies

offerings are thrown into the cenotes to propitiate the winds (Redfield

1940: 118-119).

40

a b

c d

41

Figure 5.1. Centipede Maws and Cenote. a) Skeletal centipede maw from the sarcophagus of Pakal. Drawing by Karl Taube. b) Skeletal centipede maw as basal register, Copan Stela 11. Drawing by Linda Schele. c) Centipede maw pincher juxtaposed to witz, K4013. Courtesy of Justin Kerr. d) Skeletal centipede maw enclosre, Copan.. Drawing by Linda Schele. e) Wind god emerging from centipede maw, Dos Pilas. Drawing courtesy of Oswaldo Chinchilla. f) Centoe glyph. Drawing by Andrea Stone. g) Wind dwarves standing over cenote, detail of Uxmal Stela 14. Drawing by author.

g

e f

42

The Ik’ Enclosure

Among the ancient Maya, the tau or T-shaped Ik’ motif carried the meaning of

both ‘wind’ and ‘breath’. As J. Eric Thompson (1960: 73) noted: “Ik…means not only

wind but breath and by extension life itself.” The Ik’ sign makes its first formal

appearance during the Preclassic period at the site of Kaminaljuyu, where it is clearly

depicted as breathy exhalation (Houston and Taube 2000: 267). For the ancient Maya, Ik’

signs frequently marked jade objects, jade being a highly esteemed stone equated with the

moist breath soul (Taube 2005). A stone sculpture from the Pacific Coast of Guatemala

shows a figure wearing a jade pectoral Ik’ necklace with rain drops falling from it, an

idea consistent with jade being related to wind bringing rain (Parsons 1986: fig. 74).

In ancient Maya art basal registers often indicate landscape forms. As a basal

register, the T-shaped Ik’ sign may also appear as half a quatrefoil, a probable symbol for

earth or at times, cave (Baudez 1994; Fash 2005). The first discussion of these Ik’

enclosures are made by Claude Baudez (1994: 260-262), where he notes their occurrence

on the northwest, northeast, and southwest doorjambs of Temple 18 at Copan. The

southeast jamb however, depicts a watery quatrefoil recalling the impersonators of the

water serpent at Machaquila. Furthermore, like the basal registers at Machaquila and

Chalcatzingo Monuments 1 and 9, these are clearly marked with vegetation and

symbolism consistent with both the earth and aquatic environment.

At the Late Classic site of Quirigua the Ik’ form as a cave or aperture within the

earth appears on Altar O and features the rain god Chaak emerging out of the Ik’ shaped

earth dancing in a swirl of clouds, a vivid portrayal of rain and clouds emerging from the

43

windy earth (Figure 6.1a). Altar P depicts a similar scene, this time Chaak emerging from

the Ik’ enclosure entangled in flowery breath cords marked by Ik’ (Figure 6.1b).

The relationship of the Ik’ sign to caves is clearly illustrated on Late Classic

Chenes, Rio Bec, and Puuc Zoomorphic facades. These facades place the doorway

squarely within the open maw of the earth monster. These facades are widely recognized

as being cave symbols (Schávelzon1978, 1980). Interestingly, they frequently display the

open maw entrance to the temple as an Ik’ sign. It has been mentioned that the Ik’ sign

can also serve as a partial quatrefoil and the case would appear to be the same with the

Zoomorphic temple entrances. As Taube (2013: 102) notes in relation to these inverted

“T” Ik’ entrances:

…although an architectural necessity to physically walk into the building,

the lower jaw conceptually forms the lower extension of the T-shaped

doorway, thereby creating the quatrefoil cave motif found far earlier at

Chalcatzingo.

The examples from Quirigua, Copan, and the Zoomorphic Ik’ maw entrances

therefore conflate themes of wind, rain and earth, ideas consistent with ancient and

contemporary Maya cosmology.

44

a

45

Figure 6.1. The Ik’ Enclosure. a) Altar O, Quirigua, depicting Chaak emerging in a swirl of clouds from Ik’ earth enclosure. From Looper 2006: fig.6.6. b) Altar P, Quirigua, depicting emerging being from Ik’ enclosure. From Looper 2006: fig. 6.10.

b

46

Ballcourts

In an excellent study of quatrefoil symbolism during the Preclassic, Julia

Guernsey (2011: 88) notes the similarities quatrefoils have to ballcourts: “Accordingly,

ballcourts were understood as portals into the surface of the earth, like the quatrefoils

with which they share a conceptual domain”. Furthermore, the frequently sunken

ballcourts may have served as entrances into the watery underworld (Taube 2010: 271).

Indeed, the relationship seems well attested in Mayan languages. The 16th century Popol

Vuh refers to the ballcourt as hom, a word meaning “grave” in contemporary K’iche’

while in contemporary Yucatec it reads “chasm” or “abyss” (Friedel et al. 1993: 351-

352). Petroglyphs from Las Palmas, Mexico, “depict ballcourts or depressions, with

channels grooved for the flow of water or some other fluid, and these can be linked to

physical ballcourts with hydraulic channels such as Planchon de lasFiguras, Mexico,

where the groove connected water from a spring into a capitol “I” shaped depression”

(Houston 1998: 359-360).

The ballcourt itself is composed of two partial quatrefoils and these put together

form the capitol “I” shaped courts (Guernsey: 2010: 88). A half quatrefoil forms the T-

shaped Ik’ sign, which also serves as a notable cave sign, probably in reference to the

close relationship between wind and caves. Apparently the ancient Maya gave no change

in meaning when the Ik’ sign was turned, inverted, or manipulated in other ways

(Houston et al. 2006: 145-146). Duck-billed wind gods or their impersonators are

occasionally found in the context of ballcourts or the ballgame. Both ballcourts and

quatrefoils are related to watery realms, a fitting place for impersonators of windy and

watery beings. The room 1 mural at Bonampak depicts two duck-billed wind gods in

47

ballgame paraphernalia. The Hieroglyphic Stairway at Yaxchilan depicts Ik’ k’uh as

subservients of Bird Jaguar IV playing the ballgame (Stuart et al. 1999: 150-152; Zender

2004). It may be that the cave-like features of ballcourts as sunken retainers of water

somehow invoked the Ik’k’uh as personified winds from the chasms of the earth.

Strengthening the bond between ballcourts and caves is the appearance of quatrefoil

ballcourt markers. It has been discussed that the quatrefoil is clearly related to themes of

wind, rain, and fertility; however, it does frequently appear in the ballcourt context as

well. The north, central, and south markers for Ballcourt A-IIB at Copan depicts

individuals in each quatrefoil enclosure (Baudez 1994: 161 fig. 78).

The “V-Cleft” Cave Aperture

The first attention given to V-cleft’s can be traced to early discussions of Olmec

iconography, where many representations of Olmec figures have a V-cleft in the

forehead. Miguel Covarrubias (1946: 97-98) considered that this might have been

indicative of sacrifice, perhaps by a blow from an axe. Ignacio Bernal (1969: 72-73) also

considered these V-clefts as “one of the most characteristic traits” of the Olmec style and

suggested that it may have derived from the deep furrow that marks living jaguar heads.

Peter Furst (1981: 150) however, reexamined the V-cleft on Olmec figures and compared

them to depictions of V-clefts in the Mixtec Codex Vienna, which caused him to follow a

line of inquiry that saw the V-cleft as “a sipapu-like place of emergence from and re-

entry into the divine, female earth”. Mixtec art and writing is particularly rich in

representations of landscape features. Hills and mountains are frequently depicted as

pierced with figures or objects entering or exiting them, acts often leaving a gaping hole

or outcrop in the landscape feature that forms a V-cleft or aperture similar to a capitol U.

48

In the Codex Nuttall for instance, this convention is usually given the appearance of a

fleshy scalloped bowl. Cuahuxicalli bowls known for the Late Postclassic Aztec depict

this scalloped convention on the rim, with the earth goddess Tlaltecuhtli typically on the

underside (Taube 2009). This makes the bowl itself a microcosm of the world, an animate

earth that has been sacrificed. The fleshy scalloped convention of cuahuxicalli probably

also relates to birth. The V- cleft also appears as a cave like opening in scenes of birth.

For instance, on p. 49 of the Mixtec Codex Vienna, the creator god 9 Wind is born from

the V-cleft of an anthropomorphic flint. Codex Selden p.1 depicts the birth of Lady

Eleven Water from the fleshy V-cleft of a hill or mountain (Figure 7.1c). The message

conveyed could not be any clearer as there is an umbilical cord leading from Lady Eleven

Water to the opening in the mountain. The depiction of Chicomoztoc in the Historia-

Tolteca-Chichimeca depicts caves as fleshy scalloped wombs (Figure 7.1d). The Codex

Borgia also depicts several excellent examples of the cut scalloped flesh motif. Strip

goddesses that introduce scenes in the cosmological narrative section of the Borgia

(Pp.29-32) are typically cut in half, the yellow subcutaneous scalloped fat being clearly

visible. It may be that these goddesses are cut open to provide entrance or emergence into

the next scene with important figures moving out of the cut body of the goddess. Indeed,

we follow a similar reading in Mixtec codices where protagonists emerge or are birthed

from within these fleshy bowl-like apertures, often made in the landscape itself. This can

be taken quite literally as the fat of the land! In the Codex Vindobonensis, the scalloped

cuts are usually portrayed as V-clefts, the V-cleft less common in the Borgia, Nuttall, and

Colombino manuscripts.

49

Among the Classic Maya, the most common use of the V-cleft serves as the

resurrection or emergence of the Maize God (Figure 7.1a-b). Typically, he is seen rising

out of a V-cleft from the carapace of a turtle (Quenon and Le Fort 1997).This recalls the

V-cleft from the Olmec figures that have maize sprouting from the V-cleft on their brow,

an idea relatively straightforward, which is the emergence of maize sprouting from the

fertile earth.

50

c

a a

51

Figure 7.1. a) Late Classic depiction of V-cleft in turtle carapace. b) Late Classic “Resurrection” plate depicting the emergence of the Maize God out of the V-cleft opening of the turtle earth. c) Fleshy openings in the landscape. Codex Selden p.1. d) The seven caves of Chicomoztoc, HistoriaTolteca-Chichimeca.

d

52

Symbolic “Mountain Cave” Temples

The natural environment and Maya architecture were closely linked where

pyramids and temples were infused with life and seen as artificial sacred mountains

(Vogt 1964). As Benson (1985: 184) notes, “Schematized caves are often related to, or

interchangeable with, architecture.” The relationship extends further where 16th century

speakers of Yukatek Maya used the term aktun to refer to caves and stone buildings, a

statement supporting an assertion by Las Casas that caves and temples were

interchangeable as locations for religious rites (Thompson 1959: 124).

Thanks to David Stuart’s (1987) decipherment of the witz glyph (hill, mountain),

ancient buildings representing symbolic mountains can now be recognized. Zoomorphic

facades on structures throughout Mesoamerica frequently portray the open maw

doorways as symbolic caves (Schávelzon1978, 1980) (Figure 8.1a-b). Structure 10L-22

from Copan is one of the finest examples of an artificial mountain known for the Maya

region, where the outer four corners of the temple were marked by stacked faces of the

witz character clearly identifying it as an artificial mountain (Friedel et al. 1993: 149;

Stuart 1997: 15). The inner doorway of Temple 22 was an open maw “…meant to

indicate that the interior of the temple symbolized a living cave that opened into the heart

of the mountain” (Friedel et al. 1993: 151). Chenes and Rio Bec architectural facades and

Temple 22 at Copan portray the toothy gaping maws of these mountain temples in the

form of the Ik’ sign. Breath emanates from these Ik’ maws on Structure 20 at Chicanna

and Structure 1 at Tabasqueño confirming that these are animate dwellings (Figure 8.1a).

Serpents emerging from the maws of the witz are a common indicator of breathing

53

mountains and caves in ancient Maya art, for the ancient Maya saw wind and breath as

synonymous with the ability to take on many distinct forms.

The frame of the doorway leading into the inner chamber of Temple 22 at Copan

is framed by a serpent whose body is marked with lazy-S scrolls that represent clouds, an

idea probably consistent with burning offerings and incense smoke from rituals taking

place within the artificial mountain (Friedel 1993 et al. 1993: 152; Stuart 1997: 15). In

the Maya area copal smoke is frequently identified with rain clouds (Thompson 1970:

264). In ancient and contemporary Mesoamerica and the American Southwest, ritual

smoking and the smoke from burning fire offerings is a form of rain-making, the black

smoke symbolizing dark clouds filled with rain (Schaafsma and Taube 2006: 263-264).

An explicit example of imitative rainmaking magic within a cave occurs in a Lacandon

myth:

Metzabak is a santo who lives in a cave on a lake. He makes rain by

burning copal, and the smoke turns into rain clouds. Then the Santo makes

wind which brings the rain by waving the tail of a big guacamaya (macaw)

which he has. When the wind comes then there is rain (Cline 1944: 113).

One Late Classic vessel depicting a form of rainmaking mimetic magic depicts

the blowing of conch, a burning offering, and a dancing figure described in the text as a

“sacred wind lord” (see K3247) (Taube 2004: 78). During times of intense ritual, smoke

would have billowed out of the open maw. The Late Classic Rio Bec and Chenes facades

would have symbolized not just symbolic mountains but caves, as one entering the maw

would have been metaphorically entering the maw of the earth. These mountain temples

54

could have served as places of rainmaking through various processes of imitative magic.

For contemporary Maya, cofradia houses and private residences may be seen as small-

scale constructions of mountains (Vogt 1976: 58; Christensen 2001:6):

The nab’eysil, or priest-shaman of the cofradia of San Juan, says that the

thick incense smoke used in their ceremonies represents rain clouds which

are born inside sacred mountains. As the nab’eysil performs ritual dances

or other actions, he appears to float through an ambient atmosphere of

subterranean mist or rain clouds that alternately conceals and reveals his

movements. When the doors and windows are opened at the conclusion of

these ceremonies, the smoke pours out like clouds emerging from the

sacred cave home of the ancestors at Paq’alib’al (Christensen 2001: 7).

55

Figure 8.1.Mountain Cave Temples. a) El Tabasqueño. Note Ik’ maw entrance. From Taube 2004 fig. 13d. b) Mountain cave temple, Codex Borgia.

b

a

56

CHAPTER 4

Discussion and Conclusion

This study has undertaken an iconographic analysis of the way Earth, particularly

caves, were portrayed among the ancient Maya. In the course of researching this thesis, I

have assembled a far more extensive corpus of motifs that appear to designate caves than

has previously been recognized by the field. The most obvious implication is that the

ancient Maya were representing caves in their art far more frequently than has been

heretofore appreciated. Helmke and Brady (2014) suggest that epigraphers are reluctant

to accept that the Maya were talking about actual caves when using the che’een glyph.

Here the epigraphic and iconographic data are pointing in the same direction and suggest

that Maya studies in general needs to reevaluate its thinking. At the very least, this

suggests that caves were more prominent and more important than currently

acknowledged.

The reason for this oversight is not difficult to find. By employing an

ethnographic model of cosmology, mountains and caves clearly emerge as the two most

important representations of Earth. With the expanded list of cave motifs it becomes

clear that the Earth was prominently represented in Classic Period imagery, paralleling

my ethnographic model. Iconographers lacking an indigenous cosmology model have

simply failed to recognize this prominence.

A far more important implication, however, is that the array of motifs suggests

that the Maya were probably attempting to represent different attributes or specific

characteristics with the use of a particular motif. Moreover, this study suggests many

sites had quite distinctive ways of representing caves. Despite the regularities of Maya art

57

and cosmology, there were certainly localized models of cosmology that varied from site

to site. Future comparative contextual analysis will hopefully allow me to document

some of the precise contextual uses and hopefully to tease out a sense of the associated

meanings.

Larger Themes and Meanings

This thesis has used as its point of departure Stone’s (2003) observation that

Classic Maya cave motifs form frames and enclosures and therefore exemplify the

bounded aspect of ‘caveness.’ While this is helpful in the recognition of motifs, it

conveys only limited information about the indigenous conception of caves. My analysis

has gone beyond simply recognizing and cataloging motifs. In assembling this array of

motifs much overlap is noted. This overlap suggests that key ideas are being expressed

that are at the heart of the indigenous understanding of caves. Stone houses or mountain

earth houses are also anthropomorphic maws and quatrefoils often have eyes, as in

Chalcatzingo Monuments 1 and 9, also making them anthropomorphic (Figure 3.1b-c).

The skeletal centipede maw and the V-cleft in a turtle’s back mark them as part of living

creatures (Figure 5.1a and Figure 7.1a-b). Interestingly, while iconographers have

routinely called such motifs “maws” and even “maws of the earth monster” there is no

discussion of why the motifs take such a form. Here my ethnographic model gives the

clearest and simplest explanation. The cave motifs take the form of a living entity

because they represent earth which is understood as living.

The association of motifs for wind and rain has been discussed in relation to

nearly all cave motifs. This suggests that wind, rain and earth form an indigenous

complex which is recognizable in the iconography. This is a critically important

58

observation in that the complex clearly relates to the larger concept of fertility which has

not heretofore been recognized as inherent in the motif of the cave. In its most explicit

form, the whole meteorological/terrestrial complex can be seen such as on Chalcatzingo

Monument 1, Quirigua Zoomorph P, and Quirigua Altar O. Others may be less direct but

no less powerful, such as a ruler dancing as the water serpent over a water filled

quatrefoil or this same aquatic being emerging from the rear opening of the turtle earth as

the Maize God resurrects from the carapace. It therefore becomes clear that themes of

wind, rain, and fertility are inextricably linked to the analysis of cave and earth

representations.

Other Considerations

There remain other avenues of research to be explored as well. One of Stone’s

four categories of caves is the lunar sign. Closely resembling the skeletal centipede maw

in some contexts, this sign is also related to water and can easily fall into the category of

“caveness,” yet for iconographers in general it remains a primarily celestial symbol.

Because of this, lunar signs will be dealt with in a subsequent study.

Although rare, the naturalistic representations of caves that lack anthropomorphic

features also deserve consideration. These caves appear on the Yde vessel from

Honduras, which Nielson and Brady (2006) interpreted as the cave of the primordial

couple. This relates to the larger issue of origin caves which has not been dealt with in

this study for several reasons. First, the Maya simply do not have a motif that has been

recognized that represents an origin cave. In Central Mexico, the Chicomoztoc is such a

motif but falls outside of the geographical focus of this thesis. The topic clearly deserves

further consideration.

59

Nielson and Brady’s (2006) use of the thematic approach also raises the

possibility that caves could be represented in a highly stylized manner as nothing more

than a colored square or rectangle. The authors documented such a use on either side of

the Maya area so it is likely that the Maya may have represented caves similarly. At this

point, I have not encountered an example and so I have only mentioned the possibility

here in passing.

Concluding Remarks

Cave motifs were able to evoke different ideas through their various form and

iconographic detail. These motifs were by no means peripheral or used as simple

background, but constituted fundamental meanings, germane to Maya religion and

cosmology. Scholarship spearheaded by Linda Schele in the 1990’s looked to the sky as a

fundamental component of the Maya cosmos (Friedel et al. 1993). While the sky

certainly looms large in ancient and contemporary Maya thought, it is the terrestrial Earth

that is the source of rain-bringing wind. The earth itself was conceived as a living sentient

being bestowed with the capability to see, breathe, and embody the concept of

“personhood.”

The different cave motifs discussed in this thesis have confirmed what the

indigenous sources are saying. Furthermore, despite some variation in local models as to

what representation is being employed, there is a fundamental system regarding the

animate Earth with caves being portrayed most frequently in ancient Maya art.

As Renfrew (1994: 54) so cogently notes in regards to finding continuity in symbol

systems:

...a categorical answer is not always possible, but where a considerable

60

range of specific symbols is found in each location, with a good degree of

overlap between them, it may be reasonable to infer in some instances,

that a single coherent system is in operation.

That I would argue is precisely what we have with the Classic Maya and

their representations of caves.

61

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APPENDIX

Caves, Cross Bones, and Darkness

In most Mayan languages, the word ch’een carries the meaning of “cave”, “well”,

and “grave”. In ancient times, the ch’een glyph is frequently depicted as a profile

enclosure with a blackened shadowing and can include either an impinged bone,

mandible, cross bones, or an disembodied eye infixed into the nocturnal field (Stone and

Zender 2011: 133). As Stuart (Vogt and Stuart 2005: 157) notes, the ch’een glyph

corresponds to a recurring motif in Maya iconography; eyes and bones set against a

nocturnal darkened background. Such motifs frequently appear on the wings of bats

marking them as nocturnal cave-dwelling creatures. This particular cave bat has another

attribute. Grube and Nahm (1994: 701) read the text accompanying a bat figure on K1080

as k’ak’:sotz’ “fire bat”. The reading implies exactly that. Spelled with k’ahk’ for fire and

the head of a bat, the iconography depicts a bat which according to Grube and Nahm had

“scrolls of red blood or flames emerge from opened mouth” (ibid.). In a slightly amended

translation of the text on K1080, Stuart (2005: 162) deciphered the phrase as, k ‘ahk’ uti’

sutz’ meaning “fire is the bat’s mouth” or “fire is the bat’s speech”. This bat constitutes

part of the broad category of the poorly understood wahy beings that frequently appear on

Late Classic Maya vessels (Houston and Stuart 1989). Originally considered to be

companion spirits or “co-essences”, these strange bestial creatures are now thought to be

more representative of sorcery and personified illnesses (Stuart 2005).

Another figure frequently appears with this macabre symbol set. Known as

Ahkan, this entity seems more part of a complex than a single individual. A similar

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symbol set makes up individual diagnostic elements in Ahkan’s attire such as a human

femur, disembodied eye, and skeletal mandible. In one instance on a bowl from Museo

Popol Vuh, Ahkan spreads his cape adorned with cross bones as if they were bat wings.

Ahkan was also associated with intoxication and enema rituals as he is frequently shown

vomiting and holding an enema syringe. That such ritual activity would have taken place

in caves at least part of the time seems assured. On K530, an enema ritual takes place in

front of Chaak who sits in his “stone house”. An actual enema syringe was found in Naj

Tunich cave (James Brady, pers.comm., 2014). This syringe is strikingly similar in form

to the one held by an individual engaged in a self-administered enema on the San Diego

reliefs. At best, both Ahkan and bats were part of the same general category of wahy

beings that were identified with a similar symbol set that included cross bones, eyeballs,

and on occasion, skeletal mandibles. Rather than death and sacrifice, this complex is

more indicative of themes related to caves, sorcery, darkness and the general category of

Maya wahy beings.

For the contemporary Maya, caves are not only the source of rain bringing winds

and clouds but also serve as powerful locations for malevolent acts of sorcery, witchcraft,

and the supernatural power of the Earth Lords. The Tzotzil fear caves as places of sorcery

and the powerful Earth Lords (Fabrega and Silver 1973). A common form of witchcraft

for the Tzotzil of Zinacantan is ‘ak’ chamel, meaning “giving illness” where witchcraft

rituals are performed in front of crosses in caves near the hamlets where the participants

live (Vogt 1969: 406-410). A counter-witchcraft ceremony has been described in eerie

detail by Tugrul Uke (1970), which takes place in a cave near San Andres Larrainzar.

The ritual killing or “cutting the hour” takes place on three enemies attempting to kill the

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one conducting this ceremony. Among the Chol, sacred caves house both the xibaj (evil

spirits) and witz chen (good spirits) (Manca 1995). For the Tzotzil two types of powerful

shamans exist, those that can cause illness and those that can cure it (Silver 1966). In

many instances, one possesses both of these abilities. For instance, the power of lightning

men (hombres rayos) protect the community from brujos and evil winds with power

derived from Chahwuk, who is patron of witchcraft and healing in Amatenango del Valle

(Hermitte 1970: 90-91).

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