Plants of the Underworld: Ritual Plant Use in Ancient Maya Cave Ceremonies

Discussion

Domesticated crops were yielded only from the dark interiors of caves in the rural countryside. I suggest that these sites were the loci for rites conducted to appease gods associated with agricultural fecundity. Among many contemporary Maya groups, maize is believed to have had a subterranean origin (Thompson 1970:348-354), and iconography from the Classic period often depict the maize god emerging from a fissure in the earth’s surface (Figure 14, shown below). The Tzotzil of Chiapas, México, make pilgrimages to the caves and mountains surrounding Zinacantán during maize-field ceremonies in order to communicate with the Earth Lord who resides there (Vogt 1969:457).

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Examination of the archaeobotanical specimens themselves also supports the interpretation that the agricultural rites were conducted at the rural cave sites. With the exception of the maize starch grains from Actun Chechem Ha, that are probably the remnants of an ancient maize-based ceremonial beverage ¹ , there appears to be a clear preference for offerings of unprocessed, domesticated crops in the rural areas. This observation is especially salient with the Barton Creek maize in which maize stalks and cobs with intact husks were recovered (Figure 15). Other caves in the Maya lowlands where corncobs have been recovered include Cueva de las Pinturas (Brady et al. 1997) and Naj Tunich (Brady 1989; Brady and Stone 1986) in Petén, Guatemala, and Gordon’s Cave #3, located near Copán, Honduras (Brady 1995).

Most ethnographic accounts of the ritual use of unprocessed maize are associated with agricultural rituals. For instance, Quiché priest-shamans of Momostenango, Guatemala, collect armloads of corn stalks, and arrange them around shrines to ask deities for agricultural productivity (Tedlock 1982:80). The Yucatec Maya of Chan Kom use unprocessed maize during first fruit ceremonies, known as hol-che (Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934). Finally, the Tzotzil Maya hang unhusked maize ears from wooden crosses to protect the stored, harvested maize (Vogt 1976:56).

In contrast to the rural cave sites where ceremonies associated with agricultural products were common, qualitatively different ritual practices are evident at Actun Nak Beh. A causeway connects the entrance of Actun Nak Beh to the medium-sized, ceremonial center Cahal Witz Na’ (Figure 16). The direct association of the cave with the surface site suggests that the ideological potency of caves was crucial to the legitimization and maintenance of political authority for the rulers of Cahal Witz Na’ (Halperin 2001; Halperin et al. 2001). The only food items recovered from Actun Nak Beh consist of nancé and cohune fruits from a burial in the cave’s entrance. Among the post-Conquest Maya, elites maintained orchards of economically useful trees that were an inheritable source of both wealth and prestige (Tozzer 1941). If this ethnohistoric analogy is applicable to Actun Nak Beh’s archaeobotanical assemblage, then it appears that socially and ideologically dominant groups at Cahal Witz Na’ utilized the open space of the cave’s entrance for more public rituals that involved material displays of wealth in order to secure their right to rule. By public, I simply mean a social realm where collective social opinions can be formed (see Habermas 1991).

A Classic period example of this practice is found in Pakal’s tomb at Palenque (Figure 17), where Pakal’s ancestors are depicted with economically useful fruit trees (Robertson 1983:68, figs. 181-186). Pakal’s father, Kan Bahlum Mo’, is associated with a nancé tree. According to Patricia McAnany (1995:75), the association between Pakal’s ancestors and orchard species metaphorically links these trees to inheritable sources of social, political, and economic power. Archaeobotanical data from other Maya sites can be viewed in a similar manner. For example, at Cerros, located in northern Belize, the percentage of nancé and coyol palm recovered from the site’s center grew dramatically as Cerros became more socio-politically complex (Cliff and Crane 1989).

A parallel contrast between the more urban area of Actun Nak Beh and the rural loci of the other cave sites is observable in the charcoal assemblages. Pine charcoal was the most ubiquitous wood charcoal recovered. In general, pine is commonly found in abundance at archaeological sites in the Maya region. Pine is an excellent source of fuel, and, at some sites, extensive forest clearing for pine fuelwood may have severely degraded the environment (Abrams and Rue 1988; Abrams et al. 1996). The species of pine that is represented in the archaeobotanical assemblages is likely Pinus oocarpa, which grows north of the Belize Valley in the Mountain Pine Ridge (Figure 18, shown above). David Lentz (2001, personal communications) has suggested that pinewood was probably a centrally controlled trade good during Classic period Maya society. The archaeobotanical data from the cave sites conform to Lentz’s hypothesis. At Actun Nak Beh, pine was by far the dominant wood charcoal both temporally and spatially (Figure 19). At the more rural cave sites, such as Actun Chapat, hardwoods greatly outweigh pine ²  (Figure 20). This pattern indicates that the users of Actun Nak Beh had more access to pine resources than the users of the caves in the surrounding countryside.

The recovery of pine charcoal from ceremonial contexts is not surprising. The ritual use of pine has been observed among many contemporary Maya groups (Thompson 1970:182). Religious practitioners commonly stand on a carpet of pine needles during ceremonies (Breedlove and Laughlin 1993; Vogt 1969, 1976), and offerings of pine branches are placed in front of crosses erected in caves (Thompson 1970:268). Pine rosin is also utilized for incense, a practice of the Lacandón of Chiapas, México (McGee 1990).

Ethnographic analogies from the Maya highlands reveal a relationship between the prehistoric ceremonial burning of pine and the modern use of candles. Among the Tzotzil, the general term for pine is toj (Breedlove and Laughlin 1993, 2000), which corresponds to the Tzeltal name, tah (Berlin et al. 1974). During Tzotzil ritual speech, candles and pine torches are referred to as semantically parallel sets of things (Breedlove and Laughlin 2000:183; Vogt 1976). The similarity between pine and candles is likely because pine torches are an ancient analogue to the modern day use of candles, a position also proposed by Evon Vogt (1976:105). Indeed, the Classic Maya phonetic sign for ta* is a bundle of pine faggots (Stuart 1987) (Figure 21). Candles are an integral component of the ritual assemblages among many modern Maya groups. For the Tzotzil, they are tortillas for the gods (Vogt 1976). If this analogy is correct then the ancient burning of pine can be interpreted as food offerings–a feasible proposition given the many other food remains recovered from the cave sites.

Endnotes

1. The types of ceramic vessels that yielded maize starch grains can largely be classified as utilitarian wares. Thus, if the vessels had previously been used in a domestic sphere then the recovery of maize starch may actually reflect their prior use as utilitarian tools.

2. The distribution of hardwoods and pine at Actun Nak Beh is based upon the percentage of deposits containing each wood type, also called ubiquity. At Actun Chapat, the distribution is based on the weights of each wood type. The separate methods were undertaken because of differential preservation between the two sites. Ubiquity was used at Nak Beh because poor preservation affected the weights of woods more than their appearance in separate deposits. At Actun Chapat, preservation was good, and ubiquity analysis inflated the importance of certain woods, such as pine. Because wood charcoal weight was not as severely affected at Chapat, weights were used to evaluate the relative importance of pine and hardwoods.

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