[Aztlan] Dynamic History and Dugout Relays (Canter)

[Dave Pentecost]

(passed along with Ron Canter's permission)

In response to an off-list comment on dynamic history and the
possibility that canoes were not always portaged, but stationed in
places for the shortest overland carry of cargo, Ron Canter offered
these observations. He also admitted that he might rejoin the Aztlan
list. Watch out.

**************************************

I totally agree on your comments about a dynamic, living history vs a
static grid.  Maya history was more a chess match than a tableau, and the
rivers and trails were the chessboard.  Trade routes were no more static
then than the routes used today to move transmigrantes and drugs north into
the USA.  When a change in politics (enforcement) blocks one, traffic
shifts to another.  You are also right about canoe relays.  They were
common historically in Central and South America.
     Along those lines here is the other half of one probable
transpeninsular route between the San Pedro Martir and the Belize River,
and what I have on portages involving dugout canoes.  They are not polished
articles, but I hope they are interesting.

A Possible Portage through Tikal:
     Tikal [per Stuart and Houston, Yax Mutal, "First Topknot", was the
city's actual name] is built on hills formed by part of a graben that did
not subside as much as sections to either side.  The fault block forms a
natural land bridge across bajos running east-west in the graben.  As the
only dry crossing for 40 km, the city would have been on any probable
north-south route up the spine of Yucatan.  A dry moat and wall, 6 m high
and 9.5 km long, was built in the Early Classic from east to west between
Bajo Santa Fe and the bajo leading west to El Zotz.  Four or five causeways
crossed the dry moat, marking routes north from the city.  The wall faces
Calakmul.  Though north of the royal city and seldom visited, the wall is
easily the largest structure in Tikal.
     Tikal is nowhere near the Chicle Trail, the topographically easiest
east-west route in the region, but certainly was on any comparable Classic
Period route running east and west.  This suggests either that Tikal
improved an inferior east-west route, or that its influence overrode
topographic considerations.  The Colonial name highlights one key
improvement made in the Classic.  "Ti ak'al'" means "at the waterhole", and
referred to a still-functioning city reservoir.
     One possible west to east portage through Tikal could have started on
the Rio San Pedro Martir at Paso Caballos (or possibly Yala), ran east
along the base of a scarp for 20 km to El Juleque.  It could have followed
a valley east-northeast into karst hills before turning east through a gap
in the broken "Sierra de Yucatan" to the ruins of El Zotz "The Bat" (and a
good waterhole), and then followed the edge of those east-west bajos to
Tikal.  The modern 50 km long El Zotz-Tikal Biosphere Trail runs northeast
from Aguada San Miguel to El Zotz and bat caves nearby.  It then runs along
the edge of the east-west bajo to Tikal, just as a past trail may have
done.
     From Tikal, a trail southeast through either Nakum or Yaxha, and east
to the Belize River at Cahal Pech would have worked topographically.  This
is a fairly practical but strictly theoretical connect-the-dots route.
Alternatively, the route could have gone from either Nakum or the east end
of Laguna Sacnab through Naranjo to the Belize River at Bullet Tree Fall.
Interestingly, Tikal would fall right in the middle of such a 150 km
portage between the San Pedro Martir and Belize Rivers.
     Inscriptions at Tikal record an entrada by Lord Siyaj K'ak from
central Mexico on January 31, AD 378.  His passage through El Peru eight
days prior to Tikal indicates that he came up the Rio San Pedro Martir,
"the natural approach from Mexico and Teotihuacan" per Simon Martin.  It is
common to know the start and end points for royal visits, but rare to get a
glimpse of the actual route taken between.
     When Tikal broke Calakmul's grip on the region in AD 744, it first
conquered Naranjo and Waka [El Peru] [need to doublecheck this].  Naranjo
was near the east end of the possible portage outlined above and Waka
controlled approaches to the west end along the San Pedro Martir.  It is
tempting to see the campaigns as clearing barriers to east-west trade
through Tikal.

     A Portage of the boat itself was always an absolute last resort.
Dugouts were heavy, and got heavier as they absorbed river water.  A 9 m
dugout weighed a minimum of half a metric ton dry, and 10% more wet.
Unlike lightweight birchbark canoes designed to be carried overhead by
their crew, dugouts could hardly be dragged, much less carried, by their
crew without lots of extra help.   They had to be dragged and twitched
along skids laid across the path.  Those who have never lugged a heavy boat
across a portage cannot conceive of the effort required.  It is the way of
the cross.        Rarely were dugouts portaged any distance.  In all the
accounts of journeys along standard trade routes, no regularly used portage
required dragging a dugout more than one or two km.  Most were short hauls
past a single bad drop too dangerous to track up or run down.  Longer
portages past hard rapids or falls required relays of canoes at each end.
The canoemen, often with the help of local porters, carried cargo past the
rapids from one set of boats to the next.
     Historically, the Indians of Mosquitia, the broad coastal marshland
extending from Cabo de las Orejas in Honduras east and south to Bluefields
in Nicaragua, passed from one lagoon system to another via a series of
"haulovers", the English trader's term for a portage where both boat and
cargo was dragged from one waterway to another.  Since the land was
invariably flat, boats could be dragged across a one km carry, prepared
with skids laid in the mud.
     On the River of Doubt [now the Rio Roosevelt] in Brazil, Teddy
Roosevelt brought a block and tackle for the portages.  After it was lost
in an upset, the expedition was unable to portage their dugouts.  The
strength of the combined crews was inadequate to haul even one boat
overland.  Small hills were formidable obstacles.   They were forced to run
marginal rapids and line all the hardest.
     In the Guayana Highlands of Venezuela three falls, a day or so apart,
interrupt the Rio Ventuari.  The Maquiritare tribe had relays of canoes
above both Saltos Tencua and Salto El Oso [Anteater Falls, lit. Bear
Falls].  They carried only their cargo around both.  The third falls was
the head of navigation, where a trail into the mountains began.
     The Guayanan relay system was an honors system, a kind of game of put
and take.  In theory, if traffic up and down the river was about equal,
there would always be a boat available.  However it might be an old, leaky
boat waiting at the next landing, or occasionally none at all, rather like
renting a car in the Third World.   In the Classic Period the Maya may or
may not have had more organized relays.  There is really no way to know if
they used an honors system, hired boats on the spot, or made arrangements
in advance.
     I have resorted partly to South American examples for the mechanics
of long distance dugout canoe travel because they are the best documented
in the Western Hemisphere.  The water routes of Canada and the northern USA
are also well documented, but not entirely analogous.  On portages, bark
canoes were not like their Maya counterparts at all.  Carries impossible
with dugouts were unremarkable with a birchbark "wuskwiecheman", or even a
South American "woodskin".  They were easy to carry, and sometimes were for
20 km or more.
     In sum, historical accounts show that boatmen in both Central and
South America avoided a portage if at all possible.  They frogged and lined
dugouts through rapids too hard to run.  When a short portage was
unavoidable, the boat was dragged past the falls.   For portages over one
or two km, the cargo was carried to another fleet of boats and the first
set left behind.



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