#uto-aztecan

Easter day ceremonies of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe

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Introduction

In an important pioneering study, Jane Hill (1992) defined the extremely widespread concept of a floral paradise present among native peoples of Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Terming it Flower World, Hill noted that this ancestral place of origin and return is closely related to the sun, heat, music, and brilliant or iridescent colors. In fact, Flower World is commonly identified with the path of the sun: “The image of the flowering road, with its prototype in the path of the sun across the heavens, is one of the most widely diffused Flower World metaphors” (ibid.: 215). According to Hill, the paradisal Flower World is especially developed among Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples, including the ancient Aztec, the contemporary Huichol, Tarahumara, and Yaqui of western Mexico, and the Hopi and O’odham of the American Southwest. In addition, HIll (ibid.: 123) noted the Flower World complex also appears in contemporary beliefs of the Tzotzil Maya of highland Chiapas. More recently, Kelley Hays-Gilpin and Jane Hill (1999) described the presence of Flower World symbolism in ancient Puebloan art, suggesting considerable antiquity for this belief in the American Southwest.

In her initial study of Flower World, HIll (1992: 136) provided a number of scenarios to explain the distribution of this floral paradise among ancient and contemporary peoples of Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. According to Hill, the Flower World complex probably derived from an ancient Uto-Aztecan speech community and then spread into more distant Hopi and Maya areas. However, Hill (ibid.) also suggested that Flower World may have been introduced into other areas from southern Mesoamerica during the dissemination of agriculture. The present study finds a good deal of support for the latter scenario. The Flower World complex is very ancient in Mesoamerica and can be traced to the Middle Formative Olmec as well as the Late Preclassic and Classic Maya. Among the ancient Maya, Flower World concerned a floral mountain that served both as an abode for gods and ancestors and as a means of ascent into the paradisal realm of the sun. The floral paradise closely related to the concept of the breath soul, a vitalizing force frequently symbolized by flowers or jade. This breath soul is also expressed by music and sweet-smelling aroma, both carried by air and win. It will also be noted that some of the secondary traits found with the Classic Maya Flower World, such as Flower Mountain and the floral breath soul, can be found with Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples, including the Aztec and Hopi.

In our studies of the ancient Maya, it has become increasingly clear that they were profoundly aware of their surrounding world. However, although we have a great deal of detailed knowledge concerning pre-Hispanic horticultural methods and beliefs, there was been relatively little discussion of how the ancient Maya perceived their relation to the surrounding environment. Based on modern ethnographic accounts and Classic period writing and art, Andrea Stone (1995) and I (Taube 2003a) have argued that the pre-Hispanic Maya had two opposite conceptions of space, the ordered human environments of the house, community, and fields, and the primordial world of the forest and bush. Whereas the house, town, and milpa are socially constructed spaces of straight lines and right angles, the forest is a chaotic realm of twisted paths and tangled growth. In addition, whereas the human spheres of the town and field are symbolically bright, diurnal regions of the sun, the forest wilds are related to darkness, caves, and the underworld.

In Maya thought, the relation of people to the environment is more complex than simply a contrast between a positive world of humans a negative world of nature. It is abundantly clear that the ancient Maya regard certain aspects of the natural world, such as flowers and tropical birds, as things of beauty and admiration. Aside from the constructed human world of toil and effort and the threatening wilds, there was also a paradisal realm of flowers and beauty.

Examples of glyphic signs in the Teotihuacan writing system. Credit: Christophe Helmke, University of Copenhagen