México Desconocido presents this story about the transformation ceremony of Preciado Regalo, an Olmec baby-face boy in La Venta, in the years 750 before our era ...
The position of the stars in the nocturnal dome and the extent of the sun's shadow on its diurnal journey indicated that the earth was pregnant with new life; once again nature flourished in its eternal renewal.
In La Venta, the famous Olmec capital southern Gulf area, east glorious event of the year 750 before our era, the eighth of Jaguar Claw KingdomIt was to be celebrated with splendid public ceremonies of great solemnity and pomp. They expected, of course, the visit of all leaders and many of the inhabitants of the vast surrounding region, of which La Venta is the main ceremonial center.
More than three hundred years ago, when San Lorenzo was the great Olmec regional capitalLa Venta was nothing more than a secondary center located on an island that, in the rainy season, was completely surrounded by water. But in the dry season the circled swamps to the south and east, and two navigable rivers to the northwest and west. Everything that was brought to the center, including the large and heavy stone blocks used in its monuments, the stone slabs and the millions of baskets of earth for the construction of its many platforms and mounds and the great pyramid that dominated the coastal landscape They were brought to the center through the river of the west, which was the deepest.
All constructions of La Venta, including the location of monuments and the location of burials and subsoil offerings, followed a orientation based on an imaginary center line, based on the astronomical orientation that corresponds to 8 ° west of true magnetic north. Visitors to the center were always impressed with the millions of tons of dirt and slabs, and the labor required to build those structures. But what amazed them the most was the size and beauty of the monuments, so perfectly carved, especially the gigantic heads olmec portrait type, which seemed that nature itself had carved them. Only much later did they realize that the stone did not exist in La Venta or its surroundings, and that they had to bring it from far away, using huge numbers of people, crossing jungles, rivers and swamps ... It was truly admirable!
PREPARATIONS FOR THE RITUAL
The preparations for the big celebration now they took weeks. In exchange for baskets of corn, many young people promised to clean squares and sidewalks; Workers were hired to repair, plaster, and paint red-ocher mounds and platforms. Large quantities of salty venison, turtle, hare, crocodile, fish and dog meat were already stored in the noble residential complex, southeast of the great pyramid, all brought downtown in flat-bottomed canoes. In addition, these meats would be served with grains, especially corn, tubers, juices and sweet fruits. They had already fermented large quantities of a drink made from corn, which they put in huge clay pots, kept in sand to keep the temperature cool and constant. Jaguar claw decreed that the religious ritual The main one would take place on the altar on the east side of the great north-south platform, near the elite residential complex. He had it carved to celebrate his first year as supreme priest-ruler. But breaking with tradition, instead of being portrayed in the symbolic niche holding the sculpture of a composite anthropomorphic child, he had himself portrayed holding a rope tied to a captive to emphasize his power as a secular and religious leader, an act much commented on and criticized by officials. religious. His friends and supporters, including La Venta's master sculptor, viewed him as an innovator.
But the most important being of La Venta It was not Jaguar Claw, its high priest-governor, but an adolescent "boy's face", who had already witnessed nineteen changes of season and lived in a secluded area of the residential complex inhabited by Jaguar's Claw himself. The success of the festivities depended on how this venerated entity endured religious ceremonies, since the vast majority of them died in infancy. Those who successfully reached adulthood were honored with a colossal stone portrait (a colossal Olmec head).
THE STORY OF A PRECIOUS GIFT
Individuals "face of child", or baby-face, are what today we call children with Down Syndrome and others related to mongolism. It was sacred among the Olmecs because nature itself chose them and made them unique among other individuals. Precious Gift, the current baby-face of La Venta, was given birth by an elderly woman in a secondary center, a twelve-hour drive from La Venta. His mother named him Precious gift because he received it from nature late in life.
Being a child out of the ordinary, at two years of age he already manifested the characteristics of a baby-face: elongated head with slow closing sutures, sparse and thin hair, almond-shaped eyes with distinctly Mongoloid folds, wide jaw, palatal figure, large tongue, short and wide neck, short and wide limbs, underdeveloped genitalia and a single line on the hands. He did not speak or walk, and only his old mother understood the growls he made. When it became known that he was indeed a baby-face, a priest and an assistant took him to a cave in the distant mountains of the west, where they subjected him to purification rites, pierced the septum or nasal cartilage and the lobes of the ears and they encircled its head with wooden slats to give it the unique bulbous shape of the baby-face. To accentuate this distinction, shaved their heads and in some cases put protective helmets.
Precious Gift went well. The priest he lived with patiently trained him, teaching him to sit still for long periods of time, sit still while wearing mouth masks and heavy clothing, and endure having blood drawn. The most painful and difficult thing to teach him was the prolonged use of mouth masks in preparation for ritual ceremonies. These masks caused him so much pain that they gave him narcotic herbal drinks to relieve it. One day, already in his tenth year of life, the priest-ruler of La Venta came to see him, for the revered baby-face of the capital had died of a wound produced by a blood offering that never healed. After two weeks of observation they took him to La Venta where they made him supreme baby-face, and they began to carve his image to accompany the dead lords on their travels back to the Heart of the Mountain.
THE DAY OF THE GREAT CEREMONY
When it finally came the great day of renewal and fertility ceremonies, many people made pilgrimages to make their offerings to mountain tops, caves and shrines where water gushes from quiet mountains.
In La Venta, before the sun came up, the last noblesAfter long rites of purification, they finished their bleeding rites after several days of sexual and food abstinence. Almost every they wore their best outfits, wonderful headdresses, some in the shape of animals, inlaid with sparkling stones and colored feathers; jade, serpentine and obsidian earmuffs and pendants, many in the shape of a flower or hollow with religious themes, others made of clay or wood, painted. The men wore short skirts, shorts, and loincloths with belts and buckles in a wide variety of styles; guests from the south wore short skirts pulled down to the hips and gathered at the buckle, revealing part of the loincloth. The rich and powerful wore jade necklaces of many turns, rectangular or circular pectorals with images of the composite anthropomorphic. Some nobles wore long cloaks, some feathered, but many solid colored cotton with bars of different colors on the edge. The nobles of La Venta always came barefoot, but many of their guests, especially those from the south, wore high-heeled sandals. The women wore long robes, many of very light cotton, and flowers in their hair. Jaguar claw, the supreme priest and celebrant, he wore a conical amate paper headdress that stood above a band with an insignia bearing the face of the anthropomorph with two rectangles with slits in the shape of a "V" on each side of the insignia. He wore jade earmuffs and a large rectangular breastplate with a slit "V" showing the entire figure of the composite anthropomorph. He wore a loincloth with a wide belt and a buckle with the symbol of the crossed bars, or St. Andrew's cross. His outfit was completed with a white cape that went down to the ankle, where there was a blue band. In the Olmec way, he was barefoot.
Out in the center people crowded in all the spaces and the expectation grew.
It was midmorning when the honking of shells announced the start of the ceremony. At the slow sad rumbling of a large leather drum, the procession began to appear. Solemnly, with slow and measured steps, he made his appearance Jaguar claw, in his rank of first priest. Then, to everyone's amazement, a roofed bunk emerged, open, carrying Precious Gift, wearing only a loincloth and sitting cross-legged on a bed of flowers and shells. Behind the litter came the priests and assistants, the elite of La Venta and their guests, and finally the regional leaders in order of importance.
After the procession reached the south side of the platform that served as the base of the pyramid, the litter was raised over it and placed in such a way that everyone could see the baby-face before its "transformation". Then, followed by the high priest, the baby-face was taken to a humble palm-roofed hut, built at the foot of the pyramid for this special ceremony. It symbolized the entrance to the sacred mountain, where the baby-face was ritually dressed in ancient robes of the reptilian zoomorphic, and where each movement had the power of a magical incantation.
With the help of his servants, the high priest started by inserting the bone piece into the baby-face's nasal septum to keep the upper lip turned up. Then he put the reptile mouth mask that showed the upper fangs between the lower ones to distinguish them from those of a feline. Then he placed the cross bar slope and the wide band at the waist with a buckle that also carried the symbol of the crossed bars. Immediately came the magnificent feather cape It came down to his waist so that it barely touched the ground when he sat down. At the end he placed the headdress, a fundamental symbol of the reptilian zoomorph. The base of this headdress consisted of a leather band with a hematite “mirror” in the center and two serrated jade eyebrows on the sides. From the band, and turned back, the crown of the headdress ended in four rectangles formed by two slits in the shape of a cross. At the back, and coming out from under the leather band, a not very long canvas, with side ribbons ending in slits, covered the shoulders. On either side of the headdress, starting higher than the leather band and down almost to the shoulders, a strip of pressed amate paper covered her ears. This "transformation" symbolized the baby-face's journey to the center of the great mountain of creation., represented by the reptilian zoomorph, where it became or "transformed" into a composite anthropomorph, the personification of the unity between nature and humanity.
The sound of flutes, shell bells and a lively sound of drums announced to those present that the procession continued to the “altar” of Jaguar's Claw, this time with the litter covered in front and followed on foot by the High Priest. The interruption of the music was a sign that they had reached the "altar." Slowly they placed the litter on the "altar", the curtains were removed and the anthropomorph appeared before the people. As the people's shouts of surprise died down, the servants began to burn incense and Jaguar claw sacrificed a child, placing his head and limbs before the niche of the "altar", symbolizing the ritual death of the baby-face. After other acts of purification, he poured precious water on the ground as an offering, and immediately placed a vertically cut shell, resembling a mitten, on the anthropomorph's right hand. Similarly, the rite of the game concluded with a symbolic torch in the anthropomorph's other hand. East fertility ritual, which included water and fire, symbolized nature in its maximum expression of life and death.
Many of the monuments of La Venta commemorate this moment of the grand renovation ceremony.
After these rituals, the nobles and their guests returned to the residential complex to start the celebrations, leaving the anthropomorph at the "altar" to be admired. As people advanced to see it, food and drinks were distributed. When the meal was finished, the curtains of the bunk were drawn down and the anthropomorphist was taken to his rooms in the palace of the priest-ruler. That evening, during the grand dinner in the courtyard of Jaguar's Claw palace, one of the guests who came from distant lands to the west, where the mountains smoke, fell in love with one of Jaguar's Claw's daughters. He was the son of the lord of a small religious center called Chalcatzingo.
