RAIN PETITION RITUALS AND OFFERINGS IN MESOAMERICA: AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ETHNOGRAFIC RESEARCH

Summary

This paper examines two ritual expresions: the offering 102 of the Aztec Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (1436-1502) and the "promise" to the Santa Cruz or rain petition ceremony in Temalacatzingo, Guerrero, Mexico (2007, 2008 and 2010). It analyzes the consumption of botanical materials, such as copal resin, amaranth seeds, ahuehuete branches, yauhtli flowers, guajes and beans in both rituals. It identifies similarities in the way those materials were used, and proposes that this fact demonstrates cultural continuities in religious life of ancient and contemporary nahua peoples of central Mexico. It argues that both ritual expressions rendered worship to rainy and fertility goddess: Tláloc and Tlatoque in the past, Santa Cruz in the present. In this context, the botanical materials functioned not only as presents to the deities but also as representations of the natural factors (mountains, rivers, land and clouds) related to fertility in Mesoamerican religious tradition. The cultural continuities are explained as a consequence of persistence of agriculture of temporary, especially maize production, as the main economic activity, and the survival of ancient religious ideas and symbols.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Use of Plants in Ancient Rituals: New Perspectives from Paleoethnobotany   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16608