About one and a half kilometers (one mile) to the west of Cacaxtla, on an adjacent and higher hilltop, is the ceremonial center of Xochitecatl, a much older site that was occupied from about 700 B.C.E. and in use until an eruption of the volcano Popocatepetl forced its abandonment around C.E.
150. (Later, at the time of the dominance of Cacaxtla, parts of it were reoccupied.) One of its most distinctive features is a spiral pyramid built around 700 B.C.E. But it is the rectangular Pyramid of the Flowers that is most remarkable. It contains more than thirty infant burials (yet only one adult) and over two thousand clay figures, the great majority representing females of all ages. The obvious conclusion is that the latter were votive offerings related to fertility rites. The infant burials evoke practices known in (later) Aztec times, when children were sacrificed at mountain shrines on particular calendar dates to petition for rain.
Ascending the temple’s western staircase to the large central platform— 140 by 100 meters (460 by 330 feet)—reveals a striking view to the east and, directly ahead, the 4,600 meter (15,000 foot) volcano La Malinche, which dominates this region. The deposits of clay figures were found near this spot, which is scarcely surprising. Rain and fertility are clearly associated, and clouds tend to loom over the mountain even when the sky is otherwise clear. The later Aztecs certainly associated mountains with rains, believing (some have argued) that mountains were hollow “houses” filled with water—a conviction that is likely to reflect a much longer-standing element of Mesoamerican worldview. In pre-conquest times La Malinche was known as Matlalcueye, the great female mountain of sustenance. It is fair to conclude that rain and fertility rites at Xochitecatl might have been associated with this mountain for many centuries into the past, and possibly as far back as the Middle Formative Period when the pyramids were first built.
The view from the platform of the Pyramid of the Flowers reveals one more remarkable fact. From here, the palace of Cacaxtla sits immediately below and directly in line with the volcano. Is it too far-fetched to suggest that Cacaxtla was deliberately placed in an alignment whose significance was already long established? Possibly not; and it is even possible that cult practices related to this alignment have survived into modern times. Each year on the festival of St. Michael, September 29, the people of the village of San Miguel del Milagro, close to Xochitecatl, set out on a pilgrimage to the archangel’s shrine. Chanting to celebrate the feast begins at sunrise. Around this day, as viewed from the Pyramid of the Flowers, the sun rises behind the summit of La Malinche, along the alignment of monuments and mountain. According to Carlson, these activities that still take place in a small Mexican village represent, in Christianized form, a living tradition of sacred geography, timed pilgrimage, and mountain veneration related to rain and fertility rites that extends well back into pre-conquest times. Such a continuity of tradition might seem unthinkable if we did not have good evidence that other fundamental aspects of Mesoamerican thought were remarkably durable— in particular the calendar itself.
Threading together in this way strands of evidence of different types— from archaeology, history, archaeoastronomy, and modern ethnography— raises many methodological issues, and if done carelessly can lead to quite unsustainable conclusions. Yet if done carefully it can bring some remarkable insights.
See also:
Christianization of “Pagan” Festivals; Methodology; Pilgrimage; Sacred Geographies. Aztec Sacred Geography; Mesoamerican Calendar Round; Venus in Mesoamerica.
References and further reading
Carlson, John B. “La Malinche and San Migueclass="underline" Pilgrimage and Sacrifice to the Mountains of Sustenance in the Mexican Altiplano.” In John B. Carlson, ed. Pilgrimage and the Ritual Landscape in Pre-Columbian America. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, in press.
Foncerrada de Molina, Marta. Cacaxtla: La Iconografнa de los Olmeca-Xicalanca. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autуnoma de Mйxico, 1993. [In Spanish.]
Instituto Nacional de Antropologнa e Historia. INAH center Tlaxcala. http://www.inah.gob.mx/inah_ing/cein/htme/cein29.html. Krupp, Edwin C. Skywatchers, Shamans and Kings, 262–266. New York: Wiley, 1997. Ruggles, Clive, and Nicholas Saunders, eds. Astronomies and Cultures, 215–226, 265–267. Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1993.
, Ivan. Orientaciones Astronуmicas en la Arquitectura Prehispбnica del Centro de Mйxico, 181 ff. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropologнa e Historia (Colecciуn Cientнfica 427), 2001. [In Spanish.]
Cahokia
The many huge earthworks or mounds that remain visible in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys form a conspicuous testimonial to the technical achievements of indigenous North Americans before the arrival of European settlers. Inevitably, a number of them have attracted interest in potential astronomical alignments, and it is scarcely surprising that this includes the great Mississippian site of Cahokia.
The Mississippian culture flourished from about C.E. 1000 to 1400 in the central Mississippi valley, where the fertile floodplains were ideal for growing maize and other staple crops. Cahokia was not only the main economic and political focus of this culture but also the largest pre-Columbian town—worthy in fact of being called a city—north of Mexico. At the height of its development it covered over fifteen square kilometers (six square miles) and had an estimated population of more than twenty thousand. The city itself was laid out on a roughly cardinally aligned grid. At its heart was a ceremonial center containing over a hundred earthworks—temple or house platforms together with burial mounds. Most of this “mound center” is now preserved in Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site near East St. Louis.
The rectangular, flat-topped earthwork known as Monks’ Mound is at the center of the ceremonial grid. It is the largest earthen mound in the whole of the Americas, some thirty meters (a hundred feet) high and covering around seven hectares (seventeen acres). But it was the discovery in the early 1960s of rings of postholes marking the sites of five timber circles to the west of Monks’ Mound that triggered intense astronomical interest in the site. By analogy to Woodhenge—a set of concentric, oval-shaped timber rings found near Stonehenge in England—the discoverers named them woodhenges, although it is dangerous to draw close similarities between superficially similar sites from completely different cultural contexts. The five original woodhenges at Cahokia, identified by extrapolating from strings of postholes forming circular arcs running through excavated areas, appear to have had diameters ranging from thirty-seven meters (120 feet) to seventy-one meters (233 feet). They were good approximations to true circles, with evenly spaced posts. Most remarkably, initial estimates of the numbers of posts in the five circles—twenty-four, thirty-six, forty-eight, sixty, and seventy-two—implied that numerology was vitally important, and that strict design principles were operating. Four of the five posthole circles overlap, suggesting that they represent successive constructions fulfilling a particular purpose. Since this time, a number of other postholes and posthole structures have been discovered at Cahokia.