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An Illustrated Dictionary of

The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya M A R Y M IL L E R A N D KARL T A U B E

A n illu s tr a te d D ic tio n a r y o f

The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya

An Illustrated Dictionary of

The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya MARY MILLER AND KARL TAUBE

W ITH

T& H

260

ILLUSTRATIONS

THAMES AND HUDSON

For Michael D. Coe

FronfMptecí?. The Aztec Calendar Stone found beneath the centra! plaza of Mexico City. The monument is not a fully functioning calendar, but commemorates the Rve mythica! world-creations (the Five Suns). Any copy of this book issued by the publisher as a paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including these words being imposed on a subsequent purchaser. (§) 1993 Thames and Hudson Ltd, London First paperback edition 1997 All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-500-27928-4 Printed and bound in Singapore by C.S. Graphics

Contents

Reader's Guide 6

Acknowledgments 7 Introduction 9 Subject Index 36 THE DICTIONARY 38 Guide to Sources and Bibliography 194 Sources of Illustrations 215

Masonry baHcourts are one of the defining features of Mesoamerican civihzation. (A¿?oye) A baUcourt at the Cfassic Maya site of Copán in Honduras. (Be/ow) A Ciassic period Zapotee baHcourt at Monte A lbán ,Oaxaca.

Introduction

Mesoamerican Culture and Chronology Archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians use the term Mesoamerica to describe the known world of the Aztecs in 1519. It encompasses much of modern Mexico - as far north as the old Aztec frontier with the Chichimecs or "barbarians," where non-agricultural, nomadic peoples lived - and the Maya realm in eastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and the western strip of Honduras and El Salvador, and on down through Nicaragua, incorporating the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica. Sharing a constellation of beliefs and practices, highly developed civilizations among different cultures and ethnic groups first rose in Mesoamerica around 1000 Be and then thrived off and on for 3000 years. What makes them all part of a Mesoamerican tradition are such things as use of the unusual 260-day calendar, a rubber ballgame played in an alley deSned by two parallel structures, and use of cement made by burning limestone or shells, as well as many more subtle patterns of life and belief. Mesoamericans never saw themselves as a unity, and indeed, no single dominant culture ever imposed unity on them, but they were interested in each other, in their various pasts, and even, in some cases, in leaving a record for the future. Early Settlement The early peopling and settlement of the Americas remains obscure. Certainly by 15,000 years ago, waves of people had crossed the Bering Strait during times of low water, and by 10,000 years ago people were living within the bounds of Mesoamerica. The Brst widespread reliable evidence for humans in the Western Hemisphere comes around 12,000 years ago, with the makers of flint and other stone fluted points called Clovis. For some 3,000 years, nomadic hunters migrated into Mesoamer­ ica, perhaps in search of megafauna, and archaeologists have found human remains with those of the long-extinct mammoth. Generations later, humans would domesticate small animals, including the dog and turkey, but no large mammals would be available for domestication. Around 7000 BC, the New World began to dry out. At this point, during what is called the Archaic, people in Mesoamerica $lowly shifted their way of life, as many animal species vanished from the planet and humans adapted to the warmer, drier environment. The domestication of major foodstuffs in Mesoamerica accompanied and fueled the impulse to settled life, eventually supporting the development and growth of civilization. A primitive but domesticated maize can be documented by 3500 B e . Waves of migration continued after the onset of sedentary life. The Nahuatlspeaking peoples of Central Mexico may have been among the latest arrivals. When they migrated south, they left their linguistic cousins among the Uto-Aztecan language group behind, largely within the borders of the United States and Canada. The Aztecs spoke Nahuatl, as did their predecessors, the Toltecs, and although

INTRODUCTION

10

CENTRAL MEXICO

1519

LATE POSTCLASSIC

OAXACA

Mixtee independent

s

G ULF COAST

WEST MEXICO

MAYA HIGHLANDS/ PACIFIC COAST

Aztecs

LOWL;^ND MAYA South Tayasa/ (Itzá)

North Tb/um Sfa A ía

< 1200

EARLY POSTCLASSÍC 900

ÍXMncA¿, t/íatAin

71u/a

tS CA/cAen (Toltee Maya)

M tb Pa^gu/

TERMINAL CLASSIC Cacajrt/a

P angue,

600

LATE CLASSIC

Albán IUb >

1 EA RLY Cl .ASSIC 300

Centra! Yucatán

ne

M A! bán 111a

M

7/ia/, LrtMn d e/ Ao

j

/r

5 M A!bán H

PptOTOCt^ASSIC

CAupIenaro

AD BC

7res Zapotes

Xam/na^nyd,

Cerros

Aba/ 7aAaMr Colima

300

R LTE FORMATIVE La Fen la

600

1Í

MIDDLE F()RMATIVE

NaÁb^ Albán 1 77at//co 6 O

900

San

R tRLY F(3RMATÍVE Ocos 1500

A!tCHAIC

Chronological chart for Mesoamerica.

linguists disagree about the language of Teotihuacan - the single largest city in Mesoamerica during the Erst millennium AD - it may well have been the Erst important Nahuatl civilization. Timescales Archaeologists and anthropologists have divided the chronology of Mesoamerica and assigned terminology to the various periods. During the Archaic (7000-2000 B e )

11

INTRODUCTION

people gradually domesticated plants, especially the important foodstuffs maize, beans, squash, chili peppers, and avocados, as well as animals, particularly the turkeys and dogs already mentioned, although others were hunted to extinction as village life took root. The Formative period - also known as the Preclassic - is defined as beginning with the introduction of pottery and settled life c. 2000 Be. (Early pottery manufacture is known in Colombia and Ecuador, and even earlier reports have now been offered from the Amazon; pottery technology may have been slowly diffused from South America.) The Formative era ushers in the Brst high civilizations in Mesoamerica - the Olmec and Zapotee - and ends around 100 BC. During the Protoclassic, roughly 100 BC-AD 300, the patterns for the great Classic cultures began to be established. The Classic, AD 300-900, roughly coincides with the flourishing of Teotihuacan in highland Mexico and the Maya cities in lowland Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize, although by AD 300, Teotihuacan was a fully blossoming culture, while the Maya were still nascent. Scholars introduced the term Classic to describe the Maya at Tikal, Palenque, Copan and elsewhere, peoples who were falsely believed to have dwelt in a peaceful realm under an idyllic theocracy. Investigators also called contemporary states at Monte Alban and Teotihuacan theocracies; the term "Classic" itself initially carried a value judgment that equated these civilizations with the achievements of the Classical Greeks. We use it in this book without prejudice to describe the timd period AD 300-900 and note that it - and other periodizations - inaccurately suggest a cultural lockstep throughout Mesoamerica. The term Terminal Classic is used here to refer to the last century of the Classic era, when Teotihuacan had already fallen into decline and many Maya cities faltered. New stars rose and fell quickly during the Terminal Classic, including such significant developments as those at Cacaxtla and Xochicalco. During the Early Postclassic, AD900-1200, the Toltecs dominated the Mesoamerican picture. Although the Aztecs are the featured players of Mesoamerica during the Late Postclassic (1200 to the Spanish Conquest), the Maya, Totonacs, Huastecs, Mixtees, and Tarascans all remained important. Topography and Trade Rugged, high mountain chains run north to south along the eastern and western sides of Mesoamerica and then cut across its middle, cinching it like a belt studded with volcanoes, from the Valley of Mexico to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Mesoamerica offers every possible ecological niche of the tropics, from hot, dry or wet, to cooler, drier highlands, including in between the rare cloud forest, where tropical vegetation flourishes at 3000-4000 feet (900-1200 meters) of altitude, offering the ideal environment for the quetzal, a bird known throughout Mesoamerica and held precious for its brilliant blue-green plumage. Although no quetzal ever Rew near the cool and high (7500 feet, .2300 meters) capital of the Aztecs at Tenochtitlan, quetzal feathers formed their most prized headdresses. Some Maya kings were known as ÁruAr, the Maya word for quetzal, and on the eve of the Spanish Conquest, Quetzalcoatl, one of the greatest and oldest gods in Mesoamerica, was known throughout the region. His very name suggests the opposition of air and earth (giie%za/ = bird, coa%7 = snake), the duality that characterized Mesoamerican life and religion. Few Mesoamerican civilizations integrated the sharply varying environments of the region, and the differing resources offered keen opportunities for trade. The

12

INTRODUCTION

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i M ^

'o o , O!MPiCM0r0A

ArTrEofinM^cjAi

"

^

. A'üapocwo M ed co a ty /^ ^ /M * JVí^//n¿r¿co ^ (%?&árj/co

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Map of Mesoamerica showing the principa! sites mentioned in the text.

Aztecs lived too high for cotton to grow, and so the cotton mantle functioned as a standard of exchange in their dominion. On his last voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus encountered Maya traders plying the waters o? Honduras in ocean-going canoes piled high with woven cottons, part of the vast web of Mesoamerican trade and tribute about which relatively little is known. Throughout Mesoamerica, highland obsidian from volcanic Hows commanded high values, since all households sought blades from this "steer' of the native New World. And wherever volcanoes erupted, they renewed and enriched the soil. Today coHee plantations have generally replaced tracts of cacao trees and vanilla orchids that once Hourished along the PaciHc Coast of Guatemala and Chiapas and in Veracruz,

13

INTRODUCTION

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