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CHAPTER 3 The Cave-Pyramid Complex among the Contemporary Nahua of Northern Veracruz alan r. sandstrom illustrated by michael a. sandstrom We who are women . . . in us is a cave, a gorge. (quoted by fray bernardino de sahagún 1969 6 : 118) In June 1998, a combined group of Nahua and Otomí people from northern Veracruz, Mexico, undertook an elaborate pilgrimage to two caves at the peak of a distant, sacred mountain in order to appeal for rain.1 The caves are the homes of water and thunder spirits, and the pilgrims brought offerings to assuage the spirits’ apparent anger. Probably as a result of El Niño, the region was suffering from the worst drought in living memory, and the corn and other crops on which these people depended for food were threatened by the extreme conditions . The air was filled day and night with thick smoke from innumerable forest fires burning out of control more than a hundred miles to the west in the central highlands of Mexico. People were worried about the drought, and, clearly, something had to be done. The pilgrimage was organized by Encarnación Téllez Hernández, known by everyone as Cirilo, a powerful shaman, or ritual specialist, from the Nahua village of Amatlán (a pseudonym) where I have conducted ethnographic field research since 1970.2 I knew that the situation must be grave for the people of Amatlán and their neighbors because of the enormous cost of organizing such a pilgrimage measured in money, goods, time, and effort. I learned that Cirilo, a man in his early seventies and a renowned ritual specialist, had visited these important caves only twice before. As a longtime resident in the village, I was invited to contribute to the effort and to document the ritual events. In this chapter, I will discuss the logic of the pilgrimage in the context of contemporary Nahua religion and worldview. In particular, I would like to offer an interpretation of how Nahua views of caves, pyramids, and sacred mountains offer insight into indigenous thought in the Mesoamerica culture area. I make the case that contemporary beliefs and prac- 36 Central Mexico tices of the Nahua and other Native American groups provide valuable information by which we can better understand enigmatic aspects of the rich archaeological and ethnohistorical record of Mesoamerica (Heyden 1981:28; see Stone 1995:11–12, for a discussion of cultural continuity in Mesoamerica). Northern Veracruz, where Amatlán is located, forms part of a region along the Gulf Coast in East-Central Mexico known as the Huasteca. Named for the Maya-speaking Huastec who today live in the northern parts of the region, the Huasteca is composed of portions of six states: Veracruz, Puebla, Querétaro, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, and Tamaulipas. The Huasteca is renowned throughout Mexico as a wild and lawless frontier inhabited by cowboys, ranchers, and Indians. In addition to the Huastec, members of Pame, Otomí, Tepehua, Totonac , and Nahua ethnic groups also live in the Huasteca, typically in small, remote villages far from paved roads and urban amenities. According to the 1990 census, 431,805 Nahua (people who speak the Nahuatl language) aged five years or older live in the ninety-two municipalities that make up the Huasteca region (Sandstrom 1995:184). Most people make a living through slash-and-burn milpa horticulture mixed with small-scale animal husbandry and temporary wage labor on local ranches or in cities. With few reliable government services and little or no access to financial institutions, the indigenous peoples of the region are dependent on their crops and the weather in a way that is difficult for most Euro-Americans to understand. Despite missionary efforts by the Catholic Church in the Huasteca beginning in the sixteenth century and the more recent incursion of U.S. Protestant missionaries, a large number of indigenous people in the Huasteca continue to follow the beliefs and practices of Native American religions (see Sandstrom 1994, 2001a). Ethnographers have begun to document and clarify some of these religions (Báez-Jorge and Gómez Martínez 1998; Gómez Martínez 1999, 2002; Ichon 1973; Leynes and Olguín 1993; Martínez de la Cruz 2000; Medellín Zenil 1982; Mönnich 1976; Reyes García and Christensen 1976; Signorini and Lupo 1989; Williams García 1963). Beliefs, rituals, and myths among different indigenous groups trace to common Mesoamerican roots and demonstrate...

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