Posts Tagged ‘spring’

My personal favorite types of archaeological sites are those that have been built up over the ages: used, reused, redefined by new times and adapted by new generations. Those in my class will recognize this as a vague version of my archaeological byword the “palimpsest.” These layered sites and landscapes are all the more exciting and intriguing when they involve ritual sites, particularly ones which are still in use in the modern world. It speaks of a strong continuation of belief and power. And even when the original tenets of primordial worship and elements of esoteric ceremony have been long forgotten, the use of the site as a ritual focus lingers on: imbuing the landscape with the collective power of human faith.


Northern Mexico’s Tamtoc is one such site which has recently been propelled into the limelight by Archaeology magazine’s July/August 2010 article highlighting its recent finds and ongoing anthropological studies.

The earliest levels of Tamtoc are easily 2,500 years old and date to an early pre-Hispanic culture about which little is known. The people of this earliest layer of occupation, circa 400 BCE, lived in a tightly packed, small urban center; what Tamtoc’s lead archaeologist, Guillermoc Cordova, refers to as an “urban embryo,” centered round a group of springs just off a bend in the Tampaon River. “Tamtoc” means ‘Place of the Deep Black Water’ in the later local Teenek dialect. And as one might suspect, based on what we’ve covered so far, Tamtoc was rich in water cults.

Archaeological evidence suggests that the city’s early focus was on its collection of springs. One spring features evidence of a small temple or sweat lodge built on an elevated platform hovering over its water, while its periphery features more utilitarian platforms most likely utilized by the local populace to access the water in the springs for consumption. These more practical platforms are, however decorated with the swirls, hooks, and furrows which characterize the decorative themes of the period on the city’s monumental stones. A second spring features carved depictions of a pair of flamingoes and a pair of running legs.

The third spring, however, features the reputed crown jewel of the ancient Tamtoc cult: a 26 ton stone slab 23 feet long and 15 feet high, which is believed to be the centerpiece of an ancient ritual; and, since its rediscovery by archaeologists in the 1960s, it is back in use today by the local Teenek people as the focus of their Fall fertility ceremonies. The need for a ritual object of this size and durability must have been great, and the society that constructed it well organized. For the slab is a very heavy piece of sandstone from the distant Tanchipa Mountains, and would have had to have been dragged bodily through the jungle and potentially downriver in order to reach the springs at Tamtoc and its ritual resting place. Whether it was carved before or after transport is unknown.


The images carved in the slab are admittedly morbid, yet hauntingly meaningful: the central image is that of a skull-masked priestess presiding over the ritual decapitation of two other female figures. But despite their macabre appearance, they are meant to be symbolic of both female fertility and the ostensible circle of life. Note in particular the two birds that are transformed from the stylized jets of sacrificial blood and which hover around the waist of the priestess. The figures are also placed on the stone in a microcosmic representation of the realms of the living and the dead. The decapitated figures are sinking into the underworld, becoming the denizens of its shadowy depths and adopting its skeletal footwear while the priestess, on the other hand, is pulling herself up out of the underworld and back into the land of the living. The imagery of the slab is suggestive of the nature of the ancient ritual performed before the stone. It seems likely that the priestess and her victims may have ritually been in or under the water of the spring, emphasizing the water’s position as a place between living and death and as something that can both save people and kill them. Erase all the remnants of science and H20 from your mind and imagine yourself back in an ancient culture like that at Tamtoc. What would you think about water? You drink it to live, but if you drink too much, you drown. It helps you grow your crops but at the same time rains down from the heavens and floods them. Water, as seen through the eyes of most ancient cultures, is a tempestuous, mischievous character who must be handled with care and appeased at all costs. The next time you turn on your water facet or hop in your backyard pool, reflect on the seeming control you have over this most marvelous of elements and then remember the recent floods in Tennessee, the devastation of Hurricane Katriana and the 2004 tsunami and how tenuous mankind’s control over water really is. And just think too, that scientists are only beginning to understand what water is, where it comes from, and how it works. Its no wonder that ancient peoples like those at the Tamtoc created elaborate mythologies and occasionally gruesome rituals to try and appease the wily water gods.


The other ancient treasure of the site was found buried in a sturdy stone box in the mud just beneath the slab of sacrificial images. A filler of shells, pottery pieces, and green fluorite (a stone frequently linked with fertility and water veneration in the majority of Mesoamerican cultures) and four female figurines of a similar artistic style to the slab’s image, surrounded a graceful, life-style female torso. Made from the same sandstone as the slab, its artistic style is unprecedented at the site and more so resembles Old World Hellenic sculptures, thus earning the torso the nickname of ‘Venus.’ The torso was purposefully severed from its limbs (some sections of which also were included in the box) as part of what is presumed to be a ritual dismemberment prior to its burial/sacrifice next to the sacred spring. Its sheer remarkable presence is an anomaly in ancient Mesoamerican archaeology as it does not resemble the artefacts of contemporary Mesoamerican cultures of its contemporary 2500 years ago or since then. It most likely represents the religious expression of one artistic savant within their community or else unprecedented cultural interaction at the time of early Tamtoc.

Despite the rich level of religious evidence found, the early level of Tamtoc was only occupied for a handful of generations before being abandoned for unknown reasons. Poetically, the slab of sacrificial imagery fell into the mud of the spring sometime prior to or during the city’s desertion; thus preserving it and the box below it for archaeologists to find in the 20th century. The city slept for over a millennia before being rediscovered between 500 and 900 AD, either by a secondary mystery culture or potentially by the descendents of the modern inhabitants of the region, a branch of the Mayan linguistic family known as the Teenek. This second rebirth of the city saw the creation of raised circular and rectangular platforms topped with houses and temples, and a new city center, away from the ancient springs. Several of these mounds are believed to have been used specifically for watching the night sky. Excavations of this new city center in the 1960s yielded caches of skeletons and artefacts which were ritually buried beneath the central plaza and its mounds: perhaps as a form of ancestor worship or sacrifice.

However, this new focus did not entirely abandon the ancient springs. Two small ovens of this second phase have been found and are believed to have been used to bake ceremonial foods. The burial of a high status female of advanced age for her society (she was 45 when most people probably wouldn’t see 35) was also found beneath a new structure which had been built near the springs during this period. The woman notably was tall and large boned in comparison to her contemporaries whose skeletons were small and slim, supporting the idea that the rulers of Tamtoc were often not from the same ethnic group as its general population.


By 900 AD Tamtoc was abandoned by its second wave of settlers and lay waiting for its third rebirth: which would occur a mere two centuries later as the Mayan cities of the region collapsed and populations spread outwards, seeking new homes. If the Teenek were not part of the second wave to Tamtoc, they were definitely part of the third wave; along with members of the Nahuas and Otomi tribal groups; and together they are collectively identified as the Huastecs during this time. However, with chaos reigning in the region, the fertility cults and water worship of previous generations of Tamtoc-dwellers gave way to a more militant foci. Most notably in the form of a large stone warrior, standing with his very large and elaborately decorated penis erect, guarding the city’s ceremonial plaza. Recent re-evaluation of the evidence and artefacts collected at the site over the past several decades is indicating more and more that the Huastecs of the third phase and potentially the second phase inhabitants of Tamtoc as well, were in contact with the Southeastern North American cultures like the Late Woodland and Mississippian cultures, best known as the mound-builders of sites like Cahokia. Archaeologists have long been theorizing trade connections and potential migrations between these mysterious and richly religious early Native American peoples and Mesoamerican cultures.

The past aside, Tamtoc is still, today, a vibrant ritual center utilized by the local Teenek Indians. The Teenek feel that performing their rituals at Tamtoc, despite gaps in the continuity of their culture and the sites’, is the best way in which they can honor both their own ancestors and those walked the site before them. Their rituals, they say, have been passed down orally, generation to generation; preserving what they can of the old ways. When Archaeology’s Tom Gidwitz caught up with them last November, they were celebrating Xantolo: the day when the spirits who came to earth on the Day of the Dead at the beginning of the month are sent back to where they came from. The Teenek mount a sunset ceremonial procession, winding through the streets of Tamtoc, decked out in ritual garb (the elders in white and pink, the rest of the men in pink, and the women in black and red), carrying offerings made from cempasuchiles marigolds (known as the Flowers of the Dead) and swinging censors of incense. It culminates in a nighttime dance in the fields just beyond Tamtoc. A modern ritual for an ancient city.

Further Reading

Check out the Archaeology article that inspired this one: Cities upon Cities by Tom Gidwitz
And further articles at the Instituto Nacional de Anthropologia e Historia (INAH) which has several devoted to the specifics of Tamtoc.

Ostara is just about here (for us in the northern hemisphere) so today we’re going to take a little bit of a look at some of the themes surrounding this Sabbat and some of the correspondences that can help you put together some simple rituals and observances to mark the day.

Ostara happens at the time of the spring equinox, also known as the vernal equinox.  Some people get a little confused, especially when just getting started with understanding the Sabbats, as to what and when the equinoxes and solstices are.  So here is a really quick, crash course in the Sabbats.

There are eight Sabbats, as most are aware; Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lughnasadh, and Mabon. The year is broken down into the Greater Sabbats and the Lesser Sabbats. The Sabbats are also broken down into the Quarter and Cross Quarter Days.

The Greater Sabbats
The follow Sabbats are The Greater Sabbats as well as Cross Quarter Days.

• Samhain
• Imbolc
• Beltane
• Lughnasadh

The Lesser Sabbats
The following Sabbats are The Lesser Sabbats as well as the Quarter Days.

• Yule
• Ostara
• Litha
• Mabon

The Greater Sabbats, which in addition are also sometimes called The Fire Festivals, are the celebrations that were honored in agricultural communities in Europe. They are all connected to the planting and harvesting cycles of the earth and, then as well as now, they are connected to the rhythms of the earth and are part of that connection to the land. The Lesser Sabbats focus more around the age and movement of the sun and its orbit. Because of this these Lesser Sabbats do not have set dates since they fluctuate based on the actual astronomical events going on. The Greater Sabbats, being agricultural, have set dates that remain the same year after year. This also helps to explain where the idea of Quarter and Cross Quarter Days come from. The astronomical events of the solstices and equinoxes that make up the Lesser Sabbats make the seasonal transitions, or quarters, of the year. The Cross Quarter Days mark celebrations that fall between the Quarter days. For example Samhain, as a Cross Quarter Day falls in-between the Quarter Days of Mabon and Yule.

The Greater Sabbats, in the Northern Hemisphere, have the following fixed dates:

• Samhain – Oct 31
• Imbolc – Feb 2
• Beltane Eve/Beltane – April 30/May 1
• Lughnasadh – August 1

The Lesser Sabbats, in the Northern Hemisphere, fall on the dates of the actual solstice or equinox. The dates change based on when the actual astronomical event takes place. The solstice happens twice a year when the axis of the earth is either tilted closer to the sun (which happens at the summer solstice) or tiled as far from the sun as it can go (which takes place during the winter solstice). You can remember this a bit by recognizing the word “sol” in “solstice” which means “sun”. When the equinox happens it’s a time of perfect balance for the earth. This happens twice a year when the earth is completely vertical, neither closer or farther from the Sun. We recognize these days at the spring equinox and the autumn equinox. These are the two dates where we acknowledge that the amount of hours of light and dark and exactly equal. You can keep this in mind by remembering that one of the root words for “equinox” is “aequus” which is Latin for “equal”, and that’s what we get on these two days each year.

When it comes to Ostara, it is a day to take time to celebrate the return of spring and the time of balance between the light and dark halves of the year.  While we stand at this point of balance we know that there is a shift about to happen and that we will be on the light half of the year again.  Ostara is known by other names such Alban Eilir in the Celtic and Druidic traditions, Lady Day, and Rite of Eostre.  Like we’ve seen above, Ostara is one of the Sabbats that falls on a changeable date but typically it happens sometimes around the 20^th or 21^st of March.  The confusion of dates with the Sabbats often seems to come from people starting out on their path reading books that list a single date for each Sabbat without explaining this issue of how these dates relate to the actual cycles of nature in an astronomical sense.  By using just about any of the magickal calendars out there, or even most conventional calendars, you’ll usually have these days for the solstices and equinoxes listed.

The name for the Sabbat comes for the Goddess Eostra (pronounced “East-ra”) from the Teutonic (Norse) tradition.  Eostra is a Goddess of fertility, spring and the greening of the earth.  Her name, from the Germanic roots, means “to shine”.  She is said to be a Goddess of the dawn in the Anglo-Saxon tradition and, with “east” being part of her name and being the location where the sun rises, this is usually part of why most Wiccan traditions, when acknowledging her, keep to this solar attribution.

On the flip side of this author Mike Nichols in essay “Lady Day: The Vernal Equinox” make a few important points.  In the Teutonic tradition Eostre is a lunar Goddess, not a solar Goddess, and therefore naming a solar holiday that celebrates the return of the light half of the year after her is somewhat inaccurate.  It would be more correct to honor her and her attributes at the nearest full moon Esbat to the vernal equinox.  There are legends that talk about rabbits being seen prominently during the full moon at this time of year and it is thought that this is Eostre making herself known.  Nichols speculates that it’s possible that the reason for this modern Pagan naming of the Sabbat may be that Beltane was also being misnamed with the folk name Lady Day, which was originally one of the names for Ostara.  With that folk name attributed to Beltane Ostara/Eostre ended up becoming the name for this Sabbat because, even though she is a lunar Goddess, she was still be honored at this time of year.

Eostre’s animal attribute, as we’ve seen, is the rabbit.  As this is fertility celebration, eggs were symbols used to honor this aspect for the rebirth and fertility of the earth.  This is where we get two of our popular Easter symbols from, the Easter Egg and Easter Bunny.  This also brings us to the often discussed issue of Easter and its Pagan connections.

The church, like with most of its new holidays as it was a new tradition trying to superimpose itself on the old, took the essence of the celebration of the equinox and attributed them their God.  There is another holiday, part of the Catholic tradition, called Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Birgin Mary, which happens on March 25^th.  This is when the angel Gabriel announces that Mary is pregnant with the baby Jesus which places his birth in December around the winter solstice.  This has some of the symbolisms from the fertility aspects of Ostara.  The holiday of Easter goes a bit further though and takes some of the direct aspects of Ostara, especially that of the triumph of light over dark, or in the case of Easter specifically, life over death through the resurrection of Jesus.  All of this again helps to take the traditions of the old and mold and mesh them into the new helping to make the transition and conversion to the new religion easier.

Today we focus on the aspects of fertility and renewal, still using the symbols of the green earth, rabbits and eggs to draw on these aspects.  Here are correspondences for the Sabbat.  Use them to put together your own rituals to honor the day.  I’ve also included a few magickal recipes at the end.

Herbs:
Spring flowers, broom, cinquefoil, honeysuckle, iris, jasmine, lavender, lily, peony, rose, sage, violet, willow

Incense:
Jasmine, rose, frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, nutmeg, aloe wood, benzoin, African violet, sage, strawberry, lotus

Colors:
green, yellow, pastel shades of pink and blue

Decorations:
Woven baskets, butterflies, dyed eyes, rabbits, spring flower wreaths.

Foods:
seeds, leafy greens, egg dishes such as deviled eggs and hard boiled eggs, edible flowers, flower and egg shaped sugar cookies, nuts, honey cakes

Crystals and Stones:
Amethyst, aquamarine, bloodstone, red jasper

Spells:
Spells for growth, abundance, fertility, communication and bonding with those around you.

Kid Friendly Activity:
This is something  that I came up with for a public Ostara ritual I did with one of the public groups I was leading years ago.  We would have kids come to our events and this was a way to help them be involved in the spell work process.  You can modify this any way you’d like to make it more “grown up” but I think spring time is a great time to get in touch with your inner child.

You’ll need:
About a handful of jelly beans
A hallow plastic Easter egg in a color that is appropriate to a desire, wish or goal.
A black permanent marker
Pick out a rune that corresponds to your desire, wish or goal.

Charge your jelly beans with your intent.

Put them inside your plastic egg.

With the marker, draw your chosen rune on the outside of the egg.

Now you’re going to use your egg like a rattle.  Visualize your goal and begin to shake the egg.  As you do this and as you chant the following chant:

Seed of what I wish to be
Grow and bud and bloom in me.

You’ll naturally begin to increase the speed of your shaking as you build energy.  When you begin to shake the egg rattle without rhythm, or very erratically, release the energy while visualizing it flying off from you like a balloon floating free.

When your desire manifests, eat the jelly beans.

An Ostara Oil Recipe (by Laurie Cabot)

1 dram almond oil
1 dram patchouli
1 dram elder oil
1 dram lavender oil
1 dram violet oil

Warm in a non-metallic pan, remove from heat and cool.

Ostara Ritual Incense (by Scott Cunningham)

2 parts Frankincense
1 part Dragon’s Blood
1/2 part Nutmeg
1/2 part Violet flowers (or a few drops Violet oil)
1/2 part Orange peel
1/2 part Rose petals