Associations With Natural Forces
Caves are linked with wind, rain, and clouds. The Zinacantecos of the Chiapas highlands even believe that lightning comes from caves. The Yukatek and Lacandon believe that caves and cenotes are where rain deities reside and the Yukatek of the sixteenth century sacrificed humans to appease these deities.
At Dos Pilas the Cueva de Murciélagos rests beneath the royal palace platform. After it rains heavily water rushes out from this cave signaling the beginning of the rainy season and the advance of the crop cycle. This artificial landscape showed that the king had control over water, rainmaking, and fertility, thereby legitimizing his authority.
Caves in art have also been used to legitimize authority and elevate status. Individuals in the mouth of a cave for example are endowed with authority that is often associated with shamanism. Scribal imagery is often associated with a skeletal jaw (maws are often likened to the mouths of caves), which may indicate that caves are where his craft originated. Perhaps this imagery "served to mystify and exalt the scribe's role."
Read more about this topic: Maya Cave Sites
Famous quotes containing the words associations, natural and/or forces:
“There is ... no glamor at banquets—I mean the large formal banquets of big associations and societies. There is only a kind of dignified confusion that gradually unhinges the mind.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail—its roof may shake—the wind may blow through it—the storm may enter—the rain may enter—but the King of England cannot enter!—all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!”
—William Pitt, The Elder, Lord Chatham (1708–1778)