[Aztlan] River Routes

[Karen Bassie]

Allen Christenson, Ron Canter and I have just finished a chapter for the 
catalogue for Elin Danien's Chama exhibit that opens in 2009 that 
discusses these routes. There are colonial period documents that 
indicate that both routes were extensively used. When Maudslay shipped 
the Yaxchilan lintels to Coban, his men took the Salinas route.
The Salinas is navigable upriver as far as Roknima in the dry season 
(the Burkitt collection at Penn contains material from Roknima). There 
was an overland route from Roknima to Cubilhuitz and then up to the 
Coban plateau. Alternatively, a person could leave the Salinas at Nueve 
Cerros (the great salt mine that gives the river its name) and take an 
overland trail along the Rio Icbolay (a tributary of the Salinas) to 
Cubilhuitz. The route up the Pasion would end near Cancuen and then head 
west overland through Chisec to Cubilhuitz. This route was close to all 
those amazing pre-Classic caves that Brent Woodfill has documented just 
south of the Sierra de Chinaja  (http://mayacaves.org). There was also 
an alternative land route south of Cancuen through Campur that also 
ended up at the Coban plateau. The Coban plateau was the major gateway 
between the lowlands and highlands which is why it figures so 
prominently in the core creation myth found in Popol Vuh. From the Coban 
plateau the route went through the Salama and Rabinal valleys as 
demonstrated 30 years ago by Sharer and Sedat.