The Cave and the Cross: Agricultural Subsistence, Rainfall Prediction, and Ritual in the Sixteenth-Century Mixteca-Puebla Region

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The inhabitants across the Northern Mixteca and the drier sectors of the Tehuacan Valley developed technological innovations to counter the effects of recurrent drought on subsistence. Among measures implemented to conserve soil and water there are terraces, dams, reservoirs, and canals, as well as seed selection and cultivation techniques adopted from trial and error to optimize capturing and retaining soil moisture. Overlying these mundane tasks was a religious subsystem rich in symbolism that inspired the organization of farmers into a labor force that modified the landscape with supporting infrastructure. Under the guidance of ritual specialists, who encouraged collective participation in petitioning the personified forces of nature associated with sustenance, communities survived. Ritual activity was synchronized with the agricultural cycle. Communicating with the sacred sphere through ritual practice was aimed at generating bountiful harvests. This presentation focuses on the ability to predict the quality of the rainy season by studying ritual activity in the period prior to its beginning and the return of rainfall following the annual mid-summer drought drawing from prehispanic and colonial period examples.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37641.0