God,
My Lord,
See here, my Father,
See here, my Lord.
May I pass before Thy glorious eyes…
For this, my lowly mouth departs,
For this my humble lips depart,
For this, my lowly chunk of incense,
For this, my humble cloud of smoke,
For this, my three lowly torches,
For this, my three humble candles.
I go to beg holy pardon,
I go to beg divine forgiveness…
A TRADITIONAL ZINACANTAN HOUSE
DEDICATION PRAYER, VOGT (1993:54)
The goal in this chapter is to illustrate the continuity of traditional Maya rituals from past to present to demonstrate how the present can inform the past and vice versa. Before discussing the Maya, however, I define ritual—what it is and what it is not, and how to identify ritual in the archaeological record. In the final section I discuss Maya rituals and present expectations regarding the relationship between traditional rites and the emergence of Maya rulership.
The definition of ritual is not agreed upon in anthropology (Richards and Thomas 1984), not to mention elsewhere. For example, in the 1993 unabridged Random House dictionary, the word “ritual” has twelve definitions. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, most definitions have religious connotations (Random House 1993:1661; emphasis in original):
1. an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite. 2. a system or collection of religious or other rites. 3. observance of set forms in public worship. 4. a book of rites or ceremonies. 5. a book containing the offices to be used by priests in administering the sacraments and for visitation of the sick, burial of the dead, etc. 6. a prescribed or established rite, ceremony, proceeding, or service: the ritual of the dead. 7. prescribed, established, or ceremonial acts or features collectively, as in religious services. 8. any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner. 9. a prescribed code of behavior regulating social conduct, as that exemplified by the raising of one’s hat or the shaking of hands in greeting. 10. Psychiatry. a specific act, as hand-washing, performed repetitively to a psychological degree, occurring as a common symptom of obsessive-compulsive neurosis.—adj. 11. of the nature of or practiced as a rite or ritual: a ritual dance. 12. of or pertaining to rites or rituals: ritual laws.
While definitions of ritual vary, anthropologists at least agree that ritual pervades all aspects of life (Leach 1966), including religious, political, and economic realms, all of which intersect. Because ritual expression typically involves the use of symbols, dancing, singing, oral stories, ceremonies, and feasting, many of these acts leave telling material evidence due to their “structured nature,” representing repetitive behaviors (Richards and Thomas 1984:191; cf. Kertzer 1988:9). “All acts of ancient worship have a material embodiment, which is not left to the choice of the worshipers but is limited by fixed roles” (Robertson Smith 1956 [1894] : 84).
The material qualities of ritual make it possible: (1) to identify ritual in the archaeological record; (2) to illustrate the type and continuity of material expression or ritual through ethnographic research and analogy; and (3) by doing so, to contribute to bringing ancient rites back to life. I wish to expand briefly on this last point. Archaeologists indeed can reveal ancient ritual activities. With the aid of ethnographic analogy, we can also perhaps identify the type of ritual. But we cannot illuminate the beliefs behind the rituals. For example, I have excavated several prehispanic Maya burials in the floors of houses in central Belize. Based on ethnographic, ethnohistorical, and epigraphic data, I would be comfortable, as are others, in suggesting that burials, based on their location and grave goods, reflect ancestor veneration. However, it is not sound scholarship to attempt to discuss the beliefs behind ancestor veneration, other than stating that ancestors were clearly important to the ancient Maya, as they are at present. Time and history have passed to the degree that it is not possible to equate recent beliefs with ancient ones. In addition (and as I illustrate below), different people often believe different things while participating in the same rite.
Ritual Is Action, Not Beliefs
Religious phenomena fall into two basic categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion and consist of representations; the second are particular modes of action. Between these two categories of phenomena lies all that separates thinking from doing.
DURKHEIM (1995 [1912] : 34)
Scholars tend to conflate ritual and religion, and hence beliefs, because they focus on the religious aspects of ritual rather than on the ritual aspects of religion. And since religious beliefs are “beyond the realms of archaeological inference …” (Richards and Thomas 1984:189), presumably so is ritual. Ritual, however, is not epiphenomenal. “Labeling ritual as ideology universally masks the material qualities of ritual action …” (Walker 2002:162), and we cannot reduce “actions to beliefs” (Walker 1995:67). Of course, most rituals involve religion.
That some of these relationships are with beings, forces, or powers having no “rational” or “practical” standing is irrelevant to the study of the manipulation of material culture engendered by those relationships. For archaeology, deposits and sequences of deposits resulting from such relationships become tangible evidence of prehistoric religion. (Walker 2002:161)
Ancient ritual activities are being revealed worldwide, especially religious and political ones—and secondarily economic rites (e.g., Bradley 1990; Walker 1998, 2002). For example, William Walker (1998), using ethnographic data, artifact context, and depositional histories, argues that the ritual killing of witches explains the obvious evidence for violent death in the prehistoric U.S. Southwest, rather than just cannibalism and warfare. In another case, Walker (2002) again uses artifact context and depositional histories to illustrate that Casas Grandes in Chihuahua, Mexico, was ritually dismantled and abandoned and not destroyed during a catastrophic battle as others have claimed.
The archaeological record, however, cannot reveal beliefs. Rituals can be observed; beliefs cannot. As a matter of fact, participation in the same rituals does not entail participants having the same beliefs (Kertzer 1988; Rappaport 1999 : 119–120; Robertson Smith 1956 [1894] :16). For example, sociologist Daniel B. Lee has studied religious practices of the Weaverland Conference Old World Mennonites of New York and Pennsylvania and shows that they did not have to share common beliefs. “Ritual is socially meaningful as a source of social solidarity because it transcends the personal beliefs of individuals” (Lee 2000:1). To illustrate this, Lee (pp. 4–5) discusses the “kiss of peace”; people are supposed to say certain things in greeting (which actually varies). As to the significance of the kiss of peace, when asked, each person has a different response—for example: “Our ancestors brought the kiss with him or her from Germany and Switzerland. We want to hold on to those traditions,” or “The kiss was established by the early leaders of the church,” or “It’s from the Bible. The disciples did it,” or “I don’t know why we do it” (p. 5). According to Lee, the important point is to “make it look right” (p. 5). “[A]s long as members follow the rules of the church, their personal reasons for doing so are of little social consequence” (p. 143).
William Robertson Smith (1956 [1894] : 17) noted this fact over a century ago in his treatise on the origins of Semitic religions. As Lee demonstrates, rituals serve to promote solidarity and a sense of belonging (see Kertzer 1988:11, 62). David Kertzer (1988:67) labels these integrative events “solidarity without consensus.” In other words, different people often explain the same ritual in different ways, as the Mennonites do. Rituals (and symbols) can and do have multiple meanings (Cohen 1974:29, 36; Durkheim 1995 [1912]:390). Solidarity, however, is created by people participating together (Kertzer 1988:72), “not by people thinking together” (p. 76; Lee 2000:142). Ritual clearly is an efficient means to communicate ideas, worldviews, status, economic, and political differences with the purpose of integrating people (Kertzer 1988:30). “Rituals bring people together, identifying a common allegiance through these symbols and making them feel as one” (p. 64). For example, among the Merina of Madagascar, Bloch (1986:122) notes that the circumcision ritual has basically remained unchanged from its first known recording in 1800 to a recent recording in 1971, though social, economic, and political histories have changed dramatically.
Because of these features of ritual, it can serve as a powerful medium of change. “Ritual becomes a mechanism of social and material reproduction, in that it sanctions the redefinition of people and things” (Richards and Thomas 1984:190). While we cannot elucidate the multiple meanings or beliefs of rituals and their symbols, we can reveal the rituals themselves and their settings (private, restricted, or public) and scale (small or large).
Identifying Ancient Ritual
As I detail elsewhere (Lucero 2003) and note again, the most promising archaeological evidence of the relationship between ritual and politics is the variability resulting from the dynamic relationship between structure and practice and the way in which political aspirants expanded upon that variability (Walker and Lucero 2000). Variability and expansion leave telling evidence in the archaeological record (Schiffer 1976:7), especially ritual, since it has both conservative and innovative properties. For example, Kent Flannery (1976) proposes that during the more egalitarian period in Oaxaca all members of society practiced bloodletting, using stingray spines. By the Middle Formative, however, “chiefly” individuals appear to have used jade spines, community leaders stingray spines, and the rest imitation spines made from mammal bones. Chiefs conducted bloodletting rites in public arenas. The temporal variability in artifacts and location may indicate the expansion of traditional rituals for larger-scale religious and presumably political activities. A similar scenario took place in Western Europe from the Neolithic through the Iron Age. The aquatic location of ritual offerings does not change through the millennia. The types of materials used and the quality of manufactured goods increased, however, and the focus changed “… so that what started as an informal transaction between the living and the gods was transformed into one of the central political activities in prehistoric society” (Bradley 1990:202).
The material aspects of rituals, including how they are replicated and expanded, leave traces in the archaeological record and include ceremonial and religious structures, temples, caches of ritual objects, and burials (e.g., Bradley 1990:10–14; DeMarrais et al. 1996). For example, because the Maya performed rituals for nearly every construction phase during the building and rebuilding of houses, palaces, and temples, the life histories of structures reflect such events and result in the creation of interconnected sequential deposits, including fill, artifacts in fill, floor features, and artifacts on floors (Walker and Lucero 2000). Ceramic vessels smashed and burned on floors differ ritually from whole vessels found in fill under floors. The pots themselves became part of the life history of the structure (e.g., Gillespie 2001) as their life history changed from a domestic vessel to a ritually deposited item, whole or broken (see Thomas 1991:57, 63; e.g., Kunen et al. 2002). “It is common in the archaeology literature for the term ‘ritual’ to be used as a catch-all designation for anything which defies a crudely utilitarian explanation” (Richards and Thomas 1984:189). “Utilitarian” versus “nonutilitarian” designations are thus a false dichotomy (Walker 1998, 2002). It has to be eradicated if our goal is to recognize “structured deposits” (Richards and Thomas 1984), created by repetitive, formalized actions or “purposeful deposition” of items, whether they be pig bones or gold diadems.
Repetitive behaviors result in specific sequences in the archaeological record that reflect ritual actions. Consequently, the contexts of artifacts are key for identifying ritual activities (Walker 1995). Domestic objects such as cooking pots can become ritual items if they are taken out of a kitchen and used in a ceremony or, in the case of the ancient Maya, if a serving dish is taken from a house, rendered useless by ceremonially “killing” it, and then offered as a dedicatory cache. Rather than just evaluating strata in terms of chronology, we can view them as reflecting sequences of (ritual) behaviors—more specifically, ritual replication and expansion—where similar formal ritual activities took place in a variety of architectural contexts, from houses to palaces and temples. While the quality and quantity of goods may have changed from commoner house to elite compound to palace and temple (e.g., from one or two plain vessels to numerous labor-intensive polychrome vessels), their context (under or on top of surfaces) and ritual significance (e.g., dedication cache or termination deposit) are the same. This behavior resulted in functionally and structurally similar ritual deposits in houses, palaces, and temples.
For example, the content of Zapotec rituals between 1500–500 BC included ancestral spirits and pèe, “the vital force within powerful natural forces of the cosmos” (Marcus 1996:286). Figurines dating to ca. 1500–850 BC associated with ancestor rites were recovered from residences but not from public areas. Beginning ca. 1150 BC, figurines became more diverse in form and context, signifying increasing status and wealth differences. By 500 BC, however, figurines seem to disappear from domestic contexts. Marcus suggests that the focus shifted out of domestic contexts to standardized temples where ritual specialists performed rites to ancestors of elites and royals. This practice expanded; and by Monte Albán II (ca. 100 BC–AD 200), Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery (1996:182) suggest that full-time priests “took a great deal of ritual out of the hands of Zapotec laymen.” But they also note that not many commoner houses have been excavated. Eventually, however, at least in Monte Albán proper, commoners apparently were increasingly excluded from state rites altogether (Joyce et al. 2001).
In another example, excavated residences outside of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (e.g., at Chiconautla, Nonoalco, and Cuexcomate) yielded evidence for domestic new-fire ceremonies, including ritual dumps of ash and large sherds from vessels of all kinds—utilitarian, incensarios, and figurine fragments (Elson and Smith 2001). The Mexica adopted the new-fire ceremony during the Postclassic period, a rite conducted every fifty-two years that was widespread in northern Mesoamerica. Aztec emperors, however, instituted new practices whereby all fires had to be lit by imperial runners once a new fire was lit during the imperial ceremony on Mount Huixachtlan, a sacred mountain near Tenochtitlan.
These few examples illustrate the material reality of ritual actions. In the following section, I detail the long history of Maya rituals. Ethnographic and ethnohistoric cases provide the backdrop to examine the role of prehispanic Maya rituals in the rise of rulers.
Maya Household Dedication, Ancestor Veneration, and Termination Rituals
The significance and prevalence of Maya rituals are illustrated in the ethnographic and ethnohistoric records, including feasts and cave, rain, renewal, household, agricultural, and water ceremonies. I focus on household dedication, ancestor veneration, and termination rites because they have a long tradition and leave clear evidence in the archaeological record. These rites always remained in the home and were expanded for community solidarity and later for political purposes. Domestic rituals revolved around life, death, and renewal, aspects that concerned everyone in Maya society. Therefore, they are ideal for political appropriation. My intent is not to deemphasize the significance of other rituals; this work is only an exercise to illustrate ritual replication and expansion. It does not take away from the significance of other public ceremonies, such as those conducted at the community level. Community rites took place in open areas near water sources, small plazas, and ball courts and leave less obvious evidence; further, archaeologists seldom excavate these areas (e.g., Davis-Salazar 2003; Fox 1996; LeCount 1996; Robin 2002). Evidence for dedication, ancestor veneration, and termination rites, however, abounds. And if it can be shown that these rites were replicated and expanded, it follows that other traditional rituals also were, especially water ceremonies.
The Ethnographic Record:Syncretism
The material expression of Maya rituals has continued from prehispanic times to the present (Deal 1988). Beliefs have not. There have been dramatic changes in the last millennium, including the abandonment of Maya centers and parts of the southern Maya lowlands in the AD 900s, Spanish conquest in the 1500s, forced settlement nucleation, conversion to Christianity, and depopulation due to foreign diseases. Today we at least can record people’s beliefs revolving around present rites even though they themselves can vary, as Lee (1998, 2000) illustrates in the Mennonite case. For example, in the Lacandon village of Najá in southeastern Chiapas, Mexico, the Maya are still largely non-Christian and practice the “old” ways (McGee 1990:6–7); however, on their list of principal deities (1990 :Table 6.1) is at least one new god, Akyantho, a postconquest addition (p. 22). Akyantho “is the god of foreigners and commerce.… he looks like a light-skinned foreigner wearing a hat and carrying a pistol.… He is also responsible for the existence of foreign objects such as medicine, hard liquor, cattle, horses, and disease” (p. 65). Jesus Christ (Hesuklistos) is recognized as a minor, though foreign, deity (p. 70), but not one to be worshiped by the Lacandon (p. 126).
Most Maya, however, have converted to one form of Christianity or another. Consequently, many of their rituals, while materially the same as those of prehispanic ones, serve as the expressive core of a different ideology and religion. For example, in the Yucatán village of Chan Kom, Robert Redfield and Alfonso Villa Rojas (1934:83) note that traditional agricultural ceremonies are tied to the religious calendar of the Catholic Church, especially saints’ days. Shamans (h-menob) lead ceremonies and use ritual equipment from the past, including crystals for divination and gourds for drinking a sacred alcoholic drink (balche) (pp. 74–75). They also still believe in “pagan” gods, including balams (“guardians of the milpa and village”), chaacs (“gods of rain”), and kuilob kaaxob (“deities of the forest”) (pp. 112–113).
Shamans are also involved in the “new house” or dedication ceremony (e.g., Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934:146), a practice found throughout the Christian and non-Christian Maya world. Dedication rituals are performed to animate new houses and other objects. Part of such rituals includes the caching of objects under house floors. For example, Evon Vogt (1993:52–55) describes the two stages of the dedication ceremony during and after house construction for the Catholic Zinacantan Maya of highland Chiapas. During construction, builders bury the heads of sacrificed chickens in the floor with other offerings. Afterward, a shaman performs rites to compensate the Earth Lord for the materials he has provided as well as to “summon the ancestral gods to provide the house with an innate soul” (Vogt 1993:52). Again, more offerings are buried in the floor of the new house (Vogt 1970:78, 98; see also Wauchope 1938:143). Part of the rite includes reciting prayers to the gods, including references to the Christian God, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ (Vogt 1993:53–54).
In Chichicastenango of highland Guatemala, Ruth Bunzel (1952) notes similar syncretic practices. The Quiché Maya, while mostly Catholic, also still conduct “housebuilding” ceremonies (p. 37) led by a shaman (p. 77). They classify power into at least nine realms, which involve both Christian and non-Christian elements (pp. 266–267): “The World”; phenomena of nature; saints; “idols” (ancient); “forces of destiny…. The ‘twelve-thirteen moons and stars’ (i.e., time and destiny); the 260 days of the sacred … and the life-token animals of individuals”; death bringers—“The Lord of Sickness and Pain”; masters of useful activities, including the patron deities of agriculture, weaving, business, industry, writing, midwifery, medicine, divination, and sorcery; Lords of Justice (e.g., deceased alcaldes or leaders); and souls of the dead—the “first people,” the common souls, and one’s own ancestors.
The ancestors are the most important supernatural component in the life of the Quiché Maya, however, as well as among other Maya groups. “The powers whose influence on human affairs is continuous and unremitting are the ancestors, who represent the great moral force” (Bunzel 1952:269). Bunzel details the importance of ancestors in everyday life (p. 18) and their role in the continuance of fertile land, rain, plentiful crops, and good health (p. 56). Among the Zinacantecos, ancestral gods are even more important than the Earth Lord (Vogt 1970:6). Ancestor veneration rites are thus performed to honor and thank ancestors. Part of such rituals involves keeping an ancestor’s remains close to home and making offerings. Although ancestors live in sacred places such as caves or mountains, at least through colonial times their physical remains and offerings were kept close to home, buried in the floors of houses, as Bishop de Landa describes for colonial Yucatán (Tozzer 1941:130). In the ethnographic present, most people are buried in cemeteries or in plots near the home; but as R. Jon McGee (1990:117, 1998) describes among the Lacandon, the dead are still buried with grave goods; “A variety of grave goods including both food and the deceased’s personal possessions are left at the gravesite” (1990:117).
Termination rites are part of the renewal ceremony—for the new year, for example, or after the death of a family member when life must begin anew. For example, in the Lacandon village of Najá, if a dead person’s spirit does not leave people in peace, the family moves to a new house (McGee 1990:115). Termination rituals also are performed to deactivate or deanimate houses or objects, thus releasing their soul before being renewed. Part of such rituals includes breaking objects, partially destroying houses, and burning incense. For the new year in colonial Mexico, Bishop de Landa notes, “To celebrate it with more solemnity, they renewed on this day all the objects which they made use of, such as plates, vessels, stools, mats and old clothes and the stuffs with which they wrapped up their idols. They swept out their houses …” (Tozzer 1941:151) and deposited old items as contaminated sacred trash outside of town (p. 152). Similarly, among the Lacandon, a feature of the renewal ceremony is the manufacture of new incense-burners, the building of new fires, and the use of new utilitarian goods (Tozzer 1907:106). Old incensarios, jars, and other items are “terminated,” taken out of habitation areas to a nearby cliff, and deposited in a specific place below a ledge, thus signifying the end of the termination/renewal ceremonies (Tozzer 1907:146–147).
“Smashing objects [also] constitutes one way of deactivating, or de-animating, them and releasing the soul” (Stross 1998:37). For example, throughout Mesoamerica, ritually abandoning a house involves pulling down parts of the house (e.g., corner posts, roof), burning incense, reciting prayers, and making offerings (Stross 1998). Among the Lacandon of Najá, when god pots—incense burners—are replaced with new ensouled/animated/dedicated ones, the old ones are ritually killed and discarded.
During the transitional period before new god pots are completed, the old incense burners, which are about to die, are taken down from their storage shelf in the god house, placed on a mat of palm leaves facing east, and fed daily offerings. (McGee 1998:44)
Several days later:
The old god pots are fed offerings one last time, the stone concealed in their bowls is removed, and the pots are placed in a corner of the god house facing west and covered, an action that symbolizes their death…. The old incense burners, which have sat covered in the corner for the past several days, are carefully collected and taken to a dry limestone cave about an hour’s walk from the community. There, amid the smoke from burning incense, the god pots are covered with palm leaves and abandoned…. The vessels are left in caves, which are considered sacred and dangerous places because they are passages to the Underworld. (McGee 1998:45)
Ethnographic and colonial case studies play a key role in revealing past ritual actions. The rituals just described clearly have a long history, around which varied and changing beliefs have revolved. These examples dramatically illustrate the central role that ritual plays in creating the material world, a fact also demonstrated in the archaeological record. For example, when a Maya temple was ritually destroyed, rulers and elites burned incense and left old broken items as offerings, after which a new temple was constructed over the old and dedicated with the caching of new whole objects (Freidel and Schele 1989; Garber 1986, 1989; Schele and Freidel 1990:104–108). Even though there is extreme diversity in structure configuration, size, and function among commoner houses, elite compounds, and palaces and temples, current evidence indicates that they have structurally and functionally similar depositional (ritual) histories (e.g., Becker 1992; Gillespie 2000a; Haviland 1981, 1988; McAnany 1995:97; Walker and Lucero 2000; Willey et al. 1965). This can be attributed to common dedication, ancestor veneration, and termination rituals (practices I demonstrate in Chapters 4, 5, and 6).
Identifying Ancient Maya Rituals: Expectations
Building and destroying houses relates to the life history of ancestors. The death of an important family member often represents the need for a new house, which means the old one has to be razed and terminated and a new one built and dedicated. Dedication, ancestor veneration, and termination rites thus cannot be viewed singly but must be seen as inextricably linked ritual events; they are a vital component of the construction process. It is impossible to separate ritual activities and construction events—they are practically one and the same. Consequently, the depositional histories of Maya structures reflect a continuous flow of ritual behaviors. They also reflect how critical these rites were to everyone, high and low—as well as how they were excellently suitable for political replication and expansion.
I posit that political aspirants began to expand traditional rituals during the Late Preclassic (ca. 250 BC–AD 250) and continued to do so, culminating in large-scale royal rites in the Early Classic (ca. AD 250–550) and a direct association of royal families with the supernatural or divine forces by the Late Classic (ca. AD 550–850). Incrementally, Maya rulers conducted rites in progressively larger-scale settings (e.g., houses to elite compounds to temples and palaces), incorporating ever-larger groups of people.
If Maya rulers replicated and expanded household rituals, then we should find evidence for such rituals at commoner houses, elite residences, royal palaces, and temples beginning in the Late Preclassic. Rituals should be represented in depositional histories that are structurally and functionally similar but increase in scale. Differences between commoner, elite, and royal ritual deposits consist of increasing quality, quantity, and diversity of deposited items and setting (structure types). For example, all members of Maya society cached exotic obsidian objects (e.g., Olson 1994): commoners cached small blades in houses, elites more and longer blades in larger houses with small public courtyards, and royals more and longer blades as well as skillfully carved objects in palaces and temples (Krejci and Culbert 1995). Obsidian was used for multiple purposes—as cutting implements, for bloodletting, and perhaps as small versions of “eccentrics.” Whatever their function, the point is that everyone, rich and poor, relinquished forever—sacrificed—items acquired through long-distance exchange networks. Before the advent of monarchs, all people in society cached more or less the same quantities of similarly shaped obsidian in their houses. During the rise of rulers, one begins to see increasing diversity in form and quantity in commoner, elite, and royal caches. The caching of obsidian never left the home but was taken to new levels in conjunction with the rise of rulers in larger public forums (e.g., Hendon 1999; Ringle 1999).
Termination deposits and dedication caches are typically found in the centers of rooms (e.g., Garber 1986, 1989). Burials are typically found in the southeast corner of small residences (e.g., Willey et al. 1965) and the eastern structures of elite plazuelas or compounds (e.g., Belize Valley, southeastern Petén) (Garber et al. 1998). Caches, other ritual deposits, and burials in palaces and temples are often located at the primary axis on top of or under floors and stairs (Ashmore 1991; Loten and Pendergast 1984:5; Pendergast 1998).
Dedication caches are found under floors and usually consist of burned or unburned whole objects such as jade, obsidian, groundstone fragments, lithic eccentrics, and ceramic vessels (some lip-to-lip) (Becker 1992; Coe 1959:77–78, 1965a; e.g., Chase and Chase 1998; Garber 1989:98; Mock 1998). Major differences among commoner, elite, and royal caches include the quality, quantity, and diversity of offerings and location. For example, I would expect to find shell beads in houses, jade beads in elite structures, and more diverse forms and quantities of jade objects in public monumental temples and palaces (e.g., Garber 1989:67).
Evidence for ancestor veneration rites consists of burials and offerings under structure floors (e.g., Gillespie 2000a; McAnany 1995:535). Again, major differences among nonelite, elite, and royal burials include location and the quality, quantity, and diversity of grave goods. Commoner Maya buried their dead in the floors of their houses. In elite residences, the Maya built shrines to their ancestors, usually the eastern structure of their residential compound. Royals took this practice to new heights and buried their dead in a special place, the royal acropolis. The Maya buried the most powerful royal personages in funerary temples (e.g., Temple of the Inscriptions, Palenque).
Termination deposits are found on top of floors and are typically broken and burned, such as smashed ceramic vessels and burned items (Coe 1965a; Garber 1986, 1989; e.g., Rice 1999). Major differences among commoner, elite, and royal deposits include the quality, quantity, and diversity of offerings and location. I expect to find a few smashed vessels in commoner houses, greater numbers and fancier polychrome vessels in elite residences, and more diverse forms and quantities of vessels with incised or painted hieroglyphs from monumental architecture. In addition, termination rituals in monumental public architecture are evidenced by the destruction of stone and stuccoed sculpture, the effacing of painted and carved portraits of rulers and deities, and the whitewashing of painted walls (Becker 1992; Garber 1989:9).
Concluding Remarks
During the Postclassic period (ca. AD 950-conquest), after rulers disappeared from the southern Maya lowlands, the Maya continued to conduct rituals where they originated, in the home. Instead of participating in household, community, and royal rites as they did beginning in the Late Preclassic through the Late/Terminal Classic periods, Maya farmers now only participated in household and community rites (the latter still funded and organized by wealthy landowners or elites). This pattern is evidenced throughout the postcollapse Maya world (e.g., Lucero and Brown 2002; Lucero, McGahee, and Corral 2002; Masson 1997; Willey et al. 1965).
In this chapter I have attempted to illustrate the key role of ritual in daily life, past and present. The critical importance of ritual lends itself to manipulation by ambitious political agents. Rituals served to show that political change was beneficial to all, as were its proponents—emerging rulers.
The increase in scale and the public setting of dedication, ancestor veneration, and termination rituals associated with the rise of Maya rulers can be assessed in the archaeological record in domestic and monumental structures at minor, secondary, and regional centers. This pattern is particularly noticeable at sites with long occupation histories spanning the periods before, during, and after the advent of rulership, which I illustrate in the following chapters. I also incorporate ritual data from other southern lowland centers to examine structurally and functionally similar ritual histories.