In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

CHAPTER 8 Shamans, Caves, and the Roles of Ritual Specialists in Maya Society keith m. prufer As physical spaces that can be glossed under the Yukatek term ch’e’en, rockshelters , underground passages, and springs all represent places in nature appropriated by the Maya for exercising religious activities related to earth deities and ancestors. Until the 1990s, however, ch’e’en did not form an integral part of most discussions of Pre-Columbian Maya society. Since the 1980s, caves have become increasingly recognized in archaeological and epigraphic investigations of settlements and ideology. The rapid evolution of Maya cave archaeology since the 1990s has spurred developments in both field methods and interpretation. Archaeologists are now investigating more specific questions concerning the nature of rituals performed in caves and the types of actors involved in those events. Initial investigations of caves in the southern Maya region tended to focus on large caves, perhaps because the extensive dark zones facilitated attributing the archaeological contexts to ritual activity. What is needed, but has not yet been achieved, is a detailed examination of how variability in cave morphology, artifact assemblages, and relation to surface sites affects the types of activities conducted in caves. Archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic data indicate that caves were used for a variety of purposes, including large-scale pilgrimage activities, public politywide ceremonies and validation of space, the seclusion of shamans, mortuary activity, group and individual rituals related to agricultural success, personal health, and the accumulation of wealth and social status (Adams and Brady 1994; Brady and Prufer 1999; Gossen 1974:294; McGee 1990:58–59; Sanmiguel 1994; Schackt 1984:18–19; Villa Rojas 1969:241). While it is well established that caves used in Pre-Columbian times were the loci of ritual activities, there is a good deal of variation within each cave in terms of patterns of utilization. At a minimum, there appears to be a widespread distinction between twilight-zone public-ritual activities and activities in more restricted dark-zone areas. Brady (1989; also see Brady et al. 1992) first proposed , based on contexts from Naj Tunich, Guatemala, that variability in cave Shamans, Caves, and the Roles of Ritual Specialists 187 artifact assemblages between cave zones might reflect the status of participants. He posited that in Naj Tunich’s large semilight entrance area, public rituals were conducted and speculated that these might have involved elite community members as protagonists. Conversely, artifact distributions indicated that dark interior cave passages might have been restricted to more private ritual activities, though these activities might also have been intended to facilitate elite ritual agendas. While Brady’s distinction appears to be accurate, it addresses only a single dimension of the complex social and religious interrelationships in which cave sites were embedded—those involving elite members of a political organization . In order to understand how a particular cave, or part of a cave, was used, one must address all of the major social components that were operating in that particular situation. The basic concept that different parts of caves were used for different activities also seems well established (Prufer 2002). If we assume that there are discernible patterns to these activities (reflected in artifacts, cave types, or by comparison or contrast with surface site contexts), the isolation of specific contexts will allow us to investigate those activities more accurately and perhaps identify categories of social actors. It seems likely that ritual specialists were deeply involved in all aspects of cave and rockshelter activities, both public and private. It is also likely that the same ritual specialists were involved in activities at surface sites. However, ritual specialists are notoriously ambiguous, and some of their activities may be more individualized, less public, and less clearly defined in the archaeological record. I first review the status of ritual specialists called ‘‘shamans’’ in current anthropological thought. The study of ritual and ritual specialists has been fraught with contention and lack of consensus regarding the role of inspirational practitioners in modern and traditional societies and categories and definitions of ritual actors. Next I discuss several ethnographic studies that examine the multiple ways ritual specialists operate in different societies—as actors in political, healing, illness, and formal religious arenas. If we more clearly elucidate the roles of contemporary and historical ritual specialists, it becomes easier to understand how broadly these types of individuals may have affected prehistoric societies. I then examine ethnographic and ethnohistorical data from Mesoamerica to show that regionally based analogical models can...

Share