Mantenimiento at...El Tajín?
The report first piqued my interest when I read about a cerro de los mantenimientos—"hill of maintenances?"
My mind jumped to how, while working at Pemex (Mexico's oil company) over twenty years ago, I struggled to pronounce the word 'man-ten-ee-mee-YEN-toe'—where, of course, every other word uttered by the oil company's engineers was about plant maintenance!
Launching yet another Internet search, I found a delightful Mesoamerican legend that read like a fable: set in Cem Anáhuac (Nahua name for Mexico, which means "land with water all around"—the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans), the legend has starving Humans, talking Red Ants, a greedy, defiant Red Ant Queen, a furious Tlaloc (god of water) and a somewhat clueless Quetzalcóatl (feathered serpent who, in his manifestations as Ehécatl, is god of the wind).
I was enchanted, and I hope you are, too. A summary of the hypothesis is followed by the legend. I translated both. Here are links for those of you who might enjoy reading these pieces in Spanish:
New Hypothesis Regarding the Design of El Tajín
Launching yet another Internet search, I found a delightful Mesoamerican legend that read like a fable: set in Cem Anáhuac (Nahua name for Mexico, which means "land with water all around"—the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans), the legend has starving Humans, talking Red Ants, a greedy, defiant Red Ant Queen, a furious Tlaloc (god of water) and a somewhat clueless Quetzalcóatl (feathered serpent who, in his manifestations as Ehécatl, is god of the wind).
I was enchanted, and I hope you are, too. A summary of the hypothesis is followed by the legend. I translated both. Here are links for those of you who might enjoy reading these pieces in Spanish:
New Hypothesis Regarding the Design of El Tajín
At the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in St. Louis, Missouri, El Tajín's Academic Director, Archaeologist Patricia Castillo Peña, announced that an interdisciplinary team of specialists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have developed a new hypothesis regarding the design of the Totonaca archaeological site at El Tajin, Veracruz. In Castillo's words,
"...so far we have addressed the importance of this city beginning with its architecture or size, but our proposal is that its appearance as a city around 600 AD was determined by symbolic aspects of the Mesoamerican tradition."
Given all I've written about the role of metaphor in Mesoamerican culture, especially its cosmovisión (worldview), you can understand my interest. Archaeologist Castillo links their new hypothesis to the work of renowned archaeologist Alfredo López Austin:
"...in his book El mito del tlacuache (The Myth of the Opossum), López Austin asserted that 'under the mountain’s crust of stone and earth are the abodes of gods and the dead, realms of freshness and vegetation forbidden to man (...) Conversely, the people would replicate the sacred hills, ... they would build the pyramids, artificial mounds whose summit would be inhabited by the gods'."Castillo explained that the new hypothesis arose from pinpointing a hill whose location just East (Rising Sun) of El Tajín makes it a likely sacred hill.
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| Cerro de los mantenimientos, or 'Hill of Plenty', located East of El Tajín. The red lines identify three buildings thought by archaeologists to relate to the sacred hill in the "emulation of concepts linked to fulfillment of the [Mesoamerican] 'vital' cycle." |
Subsequent archaeological investigations have uncovered a series of altars half-way up the hill and at its summit—findings that seem to substantiate the archaeologist's hypothesis that the hill was perfectly sited to perform the role of the cerro de los mantenimientos recounted in the Mesoamerican legend.
The Spanish word mantenimientos doesn't have a good direct English equivalent. It is usually translated as sustenance or provisions, but these words lack poetic impact. Reed suggested plenty—Hill of Plenty, as comparable to the Horn of Plenty. Although an atypical translation, plenty conveys the sense of fullness, completeness, that is suggested by the Spanish word.
The Spanish word mantenimientos doesn't have a good direct English equivalent. It is usually translated as sustenance or provisions, but these words lack poetic impact. Reed suggested plenty—Hill of Plenty, as comparable to the Horn of Plenty. Although an atypical translation, plenty conveys the sense of fullness, completeness, that is suggested by the Spanish word.
Traditional Legend of the Hill of Plenty
Here is the legend as retold by Oscar Méndez Luna:
Jenny's Journal has several posts that discuss the design of urban centers as replicas of the Mesoamerican cosmovision, which remained remarkably consistent across the entire region:
Long ago, when men still did not have houses or temples, food was not found as it is today. It is said that the gods arranged the plants, seeds and fruits in the world so every man and animal might have food to eat. This is the story of how it happened.
The gods had created the new world, and there were plants, and there were people and animals. But the gods saw that their creations were not happy as they had left them. Then they decided to send one of their own to see what was happening, and their choice was Quetzalcóatl.
So, the deity came down from heaven and walked about the world, he felt the sun, he breathed our air, and he enjoyed what he saw. But there seemed to be no trace of the seeds, grains or fruits that the gods had created for the earth.
As the gods had arranged everything in one place in the world, Quetzalcóatl searched for the culprit, dazed by all he saw, but he found nothing until his eye fell to the ground, and there he beheld a strange and wonderful spectacle.
Thousands of busy red ants were walking by Cem Anáhuac with small seeds, grains, etc., forming a long line that disappeared into the distance. The god decided to investigate this matter thoroughly.
He walked with the ants and suddenly found himself facing a huge hill, which the little ants were entering. Quetzalcóatl decided at that moment to continue and find out what the ants were doing with everything they were stealing, since they were taking over the god’s divine powers. The god turned himself into a small black ant.
As an ant, Quetzalcóatl approached the line. One of the ant guards yelled at him: “Sister, what are you doing hanging around when we have a hill to fill?”
The god quickly got in line and helped another ant load something heavy. Then he presented himself inside that he might be assigned a new job.
Quetzalcóatl continued with the game. He helped another ant and began to walk toward a small entryway that existed in that mysterious mountain.
“I've never met an ant like you,” said the ant to Quetzalcóatl, who could only respond, “I got too close to a fire and got roasted.”
The other ant said, “That's interesting, now you load so we don’t waste any more time.”
When he entered the hill, Quetzalcóatl marveled. The hill was hollow and had served as home to the ants. There were thousands of interconnecting tunnels. At the bottom of the main chamber of that hollow hill, he found a small lake that was like a sea for the ants. On its shores were planted small plants and seeds, although the vast majority of things were stored in thousands of chambers that served as warehouses.
Thousands of ants lived in that small city, but while they enjoyed the benefits of these precious foods, the other animals were suffering hunger.
Quetzalcóatl knew that something was not right, so without further delay he went to seek out the ruler of that place. Despite many setbacks owing to the ants’ persistent efforts to put him to work for the enterprise, he arrived at the Queen's chamber, guarded by soldier ants who blocked his way.
But Quetzalcóatl was firm: he wanted to enter. The god didn’t want to waste any more time, so he used his magic to destroy the guards and doors. Then he entered and found a giant ant that was being fed unceasingly by others.
"Who dares enter my room without being invited?” shouted the Queen, much annoyed.
“Keep silent in my presence,” shouted Quetzalcóatl in reply, “for I am one of the creator gods. I am Ce Acatl Topiltzin Ehécatl Quetzalcóatl, and I demand to know why you intend to fill this hill.”
“If you were really ‘roasted’ Quetzalcóatl, I myself would welcome you with a fiesta full of good food, but you cannot come here to demand anything. Catch him and kill him! We will feed him as porridge to new workers!”
Annoyed when the ants tried to attack, Quetzalcóatl just suddenly vanished into thin air. Then as the wind [Ehécatl], he swept swiftly up the hill and ascended into the heavens where the other gods awaited his return. The god told them what he had seen, and all the gods turned to Tlaloc.
The rain god was also responsible for keeping watch and making sure that all the hills in the world stayed filled with water. The hills are like huge water jars, hollow and filled with the essential fluid, which is why clouds rise up from the hills on hot days, like steam from a pot on the fire.
Tlaloc got really upset because the ants had made an unforgivable mistake. Thus, the two gods returned to the world, but before Quetzalcóatl could do anything, Tlaloc took his staff of thunder and divided it into four pieces.
The four Tlalocs (blue, red, yellow and black) each took one of the four canes of thunder and placed each one at a corner of the hill (north, south, east, west). They aimed and fired a tremendous lightning bolt that blew the hill apart from its base. Absolutely everything blew away—plants, seeds, fruits and grains along with the terrified ants flew through the air.
So for the wrath of Tlaloc, all the natural ‘provisions’ came by way of this explosion to each corner of the world, thus giving man and all the animals an opportunity to make a living anywhere in the world.
What happened to the ants? They survived, and they were also dispersed into the entire world. However, by the same explosion, many of them turned black like black ant Quetzalcóatl. That's why when red ants see black ants, they run to attack them because they think the black ants are the god that removed them—the ambitious ones with power over the food for the entire world.
And the hill that was destroyed was known as the “Hill of Plenty”. It was the site symbolically represented on the right side of Templo Mayor, which was the side of Tlaloc.
Thus, the Templo Mayor of México-Tenochtitlan was the mythical representation of two sites at the same time: the hill of the serpents [Quetzalcóatl] and the hill of provisions. Although the site of the Templo Mayor might also have its own interesting history. [END]Still Curious?
Jenny's Journal has several posts that discuss the design of urban centers as replicas of the Mesoamerican cosmovision, which remained remarkably consistent across the entire region:
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