Thursday, December 28, 2023

Mesoamerican Sanctuaries as a sacred space in nature

 In Alma 16:13, we read of the Nephites having “sanctuaries”; it is possible that the concept of a “sanctuary,” in a Mesoamerican setting, includes a sacred space in nature. As Freidel et al note:

 

The K'iche' lineage shrines reveal something of the integration of sacred and natural spaces in the highland Maya world. In fact, many are placed in low spots close to natural springs or other water sources, while others are placed high on mountain tops. Here as elsewhere among the Maya, the shrines represent points in a grand pattern of procession and visitation, timely ritual action, and prayer. They are holy places along the path of words.

 

The K'iche' shrines also serve as important markers on our own journey into the Maya past. Their word for lineage or cofradia shrine, where the dead souls are propitiated, is warabal ja, literally "sleeping house." This concept has echoes in the Maya Classic period. The logic of calling the shrine home of a dead soul a "sleeping house" is given by one of Garret Cooke's informants in Momostenango:

 

"This then is what I believe. It is as we say when we dream of someone who has died. We have known him and we have a dream. Then we say that the spirit comes down visibly to our spirits in this way when we sleep, and so the two spirits converse, the living and the dead." (Cook 1986: 146) (David Freidel, Linda Schele, and Joy Parker, Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman's Path [New York: William Morrow and Company, 1993], 188)