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:
“Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self- Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff’s hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)