Today's Stories To the wrong side of the world and back. Caves and Pots Kevin Welch: Interview

Caves and Pots
In pre-Hispanic times caves in Mexico had a religious or magical significance for native cultures. The most obvious signs of this use of caves is the large pot vessels known as Ollas. These can be over a metre high and were probably used for collecting water. These pot vessels are often placed in areas quite difficult to reach. Why would an Olla be placed 200m into a cave, when 10m into the cave a better supply of drip water could be tapped? Obviously special rites and ceremonies were attached to these ceremonies.

On a previous expedition to the Chiapas area of Mexico, we found several of the larger caves had Ollas. A few still had native superstitions attached to them, in particular a cave named Borovitz. In this cave, a large staircase of gours led down from the entrance and, half way down, a large Olla thickly encrusted in calcite collected drips of water. The local women were totally against us going into the cave, because we would upset the spirit world. At the bottom of the gour staircase, two passages led off. The left-hand passage was supposed to lead to heaven, this passage is very pretty with lots of stalagmites. The right hand passage was supposed to lead to hell. When we followed this passage we came to a small drop into a large chamber. This chamber was alive with thousands of bats; a vision of hell could quite easily be imagined. On exiting the cave we found the entrance had been garlanded to appease the gods, and it possibly ensured that we returned safe.

In Cuetzalan we have heard of no such superstitions concerning the caves, although Ollas have been found in two caves. One of the Ollas stands a meter high and is found in the Alpazat area. The other, a smaller version was found in the San Andreas system. Other signs of possible pre-Hispanic use are small walled structures inside several of the local caves, these include Quichat, Tsalopan and Talcomitl.

John "Lugger" Thorp