[Aztlan] Bajos and Sailing (From Ron Canter)

Tue Sep 26 13:58:56 CDT 2006

Listeros:

I would just like to echo and maybe amplify some of Ron's comments on canals. 
These are multi-functional features and I don't wish to imply that all or even
many served transportation functions.  But, in some cases, it's pretty clear
that they could have been used for transportation in addition to functions in
agriculture, etc.  For example, Rice found some possible raised fields adjacent
to one of the inter-lacustrine canals in central Peten.

I should also point out that Epstein's article was refuting some of the evidence
Thomposon used to argue for sailing in the contact period Maya world.  The key
point was Thompson's translation of the Spanish phrase "a remo y a vela" used
by Bernal Diaz and other early chroniclers.  Thompson translated this phrase
literally as "by paddle and sail."  Epstein points out that this is a metaphor,
translated more accurately as "to do business quickly."

Finally, I do think that Rice's identification of inter-lacustrine canals in
central Peten is pretty darn significant.  The two that Rice and his colleagues
have ground-truthed are between Lake Peten Itza and Lake Petenxil and between
Lake Petenxil and Lake Quexil.  During a period of high lake level, they were
actually able to navigate portions of these canals by kayak.  He also
identified possible canals between Lake Peten Itza and Lake Salpeten, Lake
Sacpuy and Lake Picu, and Lake Peten Itza and Lake Picu.  I would caution (as
Rice clearly does) that these last have not been ground-truthed and, further,
that they would really only be useful under conditions of higher than modern
lake level.  That said, inter-lacustrine canals would certainly have added
considerably to the range of canoe travel in central Peten and might have had
some importance to long-distance trade crossing the spine of the Maya lowlands
between the eastern and western river systems.

Best,
Matt

Quoting Dave Pentecost <dave.pentecost at gmail.com>:

> Listeros
>
> As some of you may know, Ron Canter has a deep interest in Maya
> navigation. I've been keeping him informed on this discussion, and he
> recently sent me his thoughts, with permission to post them here.
>
> Dave Pentecost
>
>
> FROM RON:
>
>       This is all good stuff.  I've got to get Rice's paper on canals
> connecting L. Peten Itza to nearby lakes - I would guess Lakes Salpeten and
> Macanche.   Canals between the east-west lake chain could extend the length
> of a continuous canoe route through Peten Itza to 40 km.
> Docks on a canal in the El Mirador basin would confirm that it was used for
> transportation.
>
>      The danger is that people will start assuming navigation canals
> wherever there are bajos, which can be a risky assumption.  Bajos aren't
> all alike.  They all might have had canals, but it seems better to be
> careful and look for some 'ground-truth' first.  I also got on Google-earth
> yesterday and scanned the west coast of Yucatan.  There are traces of
> canals visible behind the coast, but most head for the shore, not parallel
> to it.  I couldn't see signs of an 'intracoastal waterway'.  Since the west
> coast is sheltered from the Trades, there wouldn't have been much need for
> one anyway.
>      Some interesting patterns turned up though.  Between Campeche and
> Celestun, the coast is banded: mangrove, salt flats, marsh, backswamp, and
> dry ground.  In the marsh are prominent round forested islands.  Most have
> the trace of a canal either leaving them or running through them.  Not sure
> what to make of  it.  In the Ria Celestun, there are traces of canals
> visible on the bottom, underwater.
>      The east coast has a sheltered route behind reefs and barrier islands
> for most of (but not all of) the distance from Isla Contoy to Punta
> Herrero, and probably did in the past too.  The north coast could be windy,
> a tough slog east.  The 'Thousand Islands' in Parque Natural San Felipe
> offer about 30 km of protected channels behind the coast.  Ria Lagartos and
> Laguna Conil [Yalahan] have even longer channels behind the coast, but how
> much of those were useable in the Classic is not clear.  They gradually
> shoal out as they trend east.  Ria Lagartos has a good short haulover back
> to the Gulf at El Cuyo but Laguna Conil ends in mangroves.
>      In the Classic, sea level was a meter lower, so the west coast
> backswamps and marshes would have been drier, maybe even farmland.  The
> shallow lagoons we see around Sisal may not have been there in the past.
> The Ria Lagartos and Laguna Conil may have been much shorter.  One meter
> doesn't sound like much but it can be.  If sea level rose one meter,
> Bangladesh would lose some of its best rice growing lands and lose the
> Sunderban, the second largest mangrove swamp in the world.  In all, 25,000
> km2 would be inundated at high tide, more than 17.5% of the entire country
> of Bangladesh.
>
> I should read Epstein's before I comment.  I remain skeptical of Maya
> sailors, but maybe he has turned up some newer material that I'm unaware
> of.
>
> Ron Canter
>
>
>
>
> On 9/25/06, mmoriar at tulane.edu <mmoriar at tulane.edu> wrote:
> > Dear Dave G,
> >
> > There are some interesting discussions of ancient Maya canoes and
> navigation out
> > there.  Both Eric Thompson and Norman Hammond have published pretty
> detailed
> > syntheses on the topic.  Jeremiah Epstein has also published a nice
> > reevaluation of Thompson's data on sailing.  I've attached some refs at the
> > bottom.
> >
> > More directly related to your question, Héctor Mejía gave a paper at this
> > summer's Guatemalan Simposio that presented data from some of the new sites
> in
> > the Mirador Basin.  Although I don't remember the details very well,
> several of
> > the sites have possible canals running out of the bajos, and at least one
> of
> > these canals has a possible docking area.  You might also check out some of
> the
> > hydraulic features at Edzna and Calakmul.
> >
> > If some of these bajos were lakes, then I think it's very likely that they
> would
> > have been used for canoe travel.  As a possible analogy, canoes were the
> major
> > mode of transportation in the Lake Petén Itzá basin.  Contact period
> accounts
> > include some nice descriptions of Itzá canoes and describe at least one
> > settlement as a "port."  Don Rice has also identified ancient Maya port
> > features at the sites of Nixtún Ch'ich' and Ixlú, and my colleagues and I
> have
> > excavated a little harbor at the site of Trinidad de Nosotros.  Rice has
> also
> > identified two definite and several possible inter-lacustrine canals that
> may
> > have been used to facilitate canoe traffic between Lake Petén Itzá and some
> of
> > the smaller lakes nearby.  In short, canoe travel seems to have been very
> > important in and around Lake Petén Itzá.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Matt Moriarty
> >
> >
> > Epstein, Jeremiah F.
> > 1990 Sails in Aboriginal Mesoamerica: Reevaluating Thompson's Argument.
> American
> > Anthropologist 92(1):187-192.
> >
> > Hammond, Norman
> > 1981 Classic Maya Canoes.  The International Journal of Nautical
> Archaeology and
> > Underwater Exploration 10(3):173-185.
> >
> > Rice, Don S.
> > 1996 Hydraulic Engineering in the Central Peten, Guatemala: Ports and
> > Inter-lacustrine Canals.  In Arqueología Mesoamericana: Homenaje a William
> T.
> > Sanders, Volume II, edited by A. Guadalupe M., J.R. Parsons, R.S. Santley,
> and
> > M.C. Serra P., pp. 109-122.  Mexico, D.F.: INAH.
> >
> > Thompson, J. Eric S.
> > 1951 Canoes and Navigation of the Maya and Their Neighbors.  The Journal of
> the
> > Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 79(1/2,
> > 1949):69-78.
> >
> >
> >
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