The Cave
as found in the Codex Ríos

What did a "cave" mean to the Olmecs? It takes a while to sift through information, like some twenty or more years of investigation. Yet, there is actually no way to comprehend a symbol without the person or persons who decided its original purpose. Without a doubt, whatever is written about such concepts is pure guess work, or imagination such as the following.

The "cave" as always thought to contain only the basic living conditions of very primitive peoples. Proof abounds, i.e.: knapped stone arrow and spear heads; crude basketry, skeletal remains of both animals and man, etc. Yet, in some ancient manuscripts and codices, the cave has been thought to be the source of all humanity. This idea is based on the very old imagery of the pregnant earth mmother.

All over the earth, in archaaeological digs, the balloon-hipped figures of the earth mother are found. It HAD to be a fertility cult! It HAD to be a pure sexually active cult! It had no other purpose except for the earth and its inhabitants to become pregnant with the next generation of plants or humans. Fat, rotund, but squared-off Mother-earth is even found in Navajo san paintings. But there, stars exist within the form of the father-being. This is in agreement with the Uranus/Urania (Gea) concept found in Greek myth. Uranus was a sky-god and Urania as Gea, was a fecund mother-earth goddess. A few countries have decided within their myths that fertile earth was a male. Both China's Pan Gu (Pan Ku) and Egypt's Osiris is accepted as these mythic elements.

In writing about the sand paintings, I was able to visualize the caves found within the various areas of North Armerica: Carlsbad Caverns, Devil's Hole in Flagstaff Arizona; Innerspace Caverns in Texas, to mention only a few. Deep within the earth the coolness of the caves was the perfect place for people to flee if the outer air became oippressively hot and uncomfortable. Excessive heat is mentioned in many ancient texts as the forerunner of the great stellar catastrophe. It was said that even deep cool wells became too hot. Water in rivers dried up.

This is cave art from the Cuban Isle del Este. It portrays heat waves with stars and sun seen though them over the ocean. During the heat produced by the great disaster, which was supposed to have occurred 65 million years ago, great bulging mountains with small cave entrances at their feet were remembered. The people fled to them in droves, but not all could enter. And, too, many people would not have survived the long treks to the caves.

No one has yet been able to explain why the stellar event occurred 65 mya but is remembered by all cultures around the world in myth. . . when humans did not populate the earth until 25 million years ago (plus or minus a few eons).

After the great heat subsided, what wouold have been more natural than for the people to emerge from these caves into the normal sunlight. The survivors would have begun their lives all over again; but only those who had been able to reach the safety of the caverns or some other cool location. In such a situation, the symbol of a fat, rotund Mother-earth being who disgorged humans and animals from her fat belly was an obvious symbol of an event.

This departure from the caverns was preceded by a crew of men who left the caves to locate the dead bodies and mark those sites for a second group who were to bury the remains. That was to prevent the spread of disease created by the corpses rotting on the ground.

Later, during the second or third generation, the descendants of those people who had emerged from the caves in the earth, would have created instead, a Mother/Father (Parent) image still residing in the caves, to replace the fertility image of Mother Earth. This is found in the seven caves of the Aztecs and in the Cave of the Codex Ríos. The pregnant image was no longer necessary. The symbolic "parent" took precedence, especially for those ancient ones who had lived through the disaster within the caves. All honor was due to those elders of the various tribes, who first: survived the disaster to become able leaders in the recovery of the tribal structure; or secondly, to those who had been taught by those who had survived. Those Elders or Parent "Mother-Fathers" would have become an important link to the past. The Caves, then were remembered as the origin of the races; the place for true meditation and the holy place where there could be communion with the gods.

The later concept of the Maw of the Earth seems to be fairly recent. It can be assumed that the first disaster was that of the comet as it traveled too close to the earth and burned everything in its path. All cultures have a variation of this sun-out-of-place myth. Then came the second run. The Old Fire God is the primary actor in this scene. The old Fire God (a returning but aged comet of 70 years or more) and the birth of the New God who entered the Maw of the Earth to visit the underworld to save the Sun we see in the sky today.

On Justin Kerr's vase (K0719) the Old Fire God emerging from a great serpent is shown with the wind in his hair and face. He wears the net of Hepheastus which entangled Mars and Venus the two planets. He appears to be discussing a serious subject with the newer earth God who touches the clouds.

Quetzalcoatl, as the sky serpent, slashed the earth with his scythe in order that Huitzilopochtli as the meteoric (stone) egg, could penetrate deep within the maw of the earth and could be born in full regalia. Here the young god is Huitzilopochtli (surrounded by the coil of the great serpent), who grew out of a great flaming volcano that touches the clouds. His birth was aided by Xolotl, who as a dog (seated behind him) (an avatar of Quetzalcoatl) entered the underworld instead of Quetzalcoatl, the original comet, to insure that the "mother-earth-maw" would give birth to the new sun of the underworld. It is said that this new warrior battled the stars who were attacking his mother, the Moon (here we can add the word Lake).

No one knows how long the earth-mother carried the "stone" egg, whether is was for eons or just years or even days.Huitzilopochtli, as the Underground Sun also emeged from the earth to do battle. Arrows of tire were shot into the heavens during the volcanic eruption which competed with the brightness of the sun. Many stars fell from the heavens at this time. This page of the Codex Ríos shows these stars are meteorites falling to earth.

Am I mixing up the gods of the Maya with the gods of the Aztecs? Not really. The story is the same, only the names are different to accommodate the culture of the area where these names are found. The Maya had their own languages, but they were never isolated from their neighbors, the Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, etc. Hence the story, although it is the same, does have different names and different activities that are pertinent to each area.

The one codex that shows the four ages of the sun in simple picture format is the Codex Ríos. All four plates show stones falling. The first page indicates by its color that the stars first fell when the known earth was covered with water. The text annotated in Nahuatl implies water, and a kind of dust, but not large meteorites.

I - Apachihuilliztli (born of water) - Chalchuitlicue - Aqua - water
[Yuyupeuiliztli - caida de caspa - dandruff)

One can assume that caida de caspa or dandruff tells us that the fallout consisted of dust, not stones. This is in agreement with the iridium layer found in many parts of the world which is thought to have caused the death of the dinosaurs. Even so, the Aztec calendar dates this about 2068 years previous to the Conquest of Mexico, roughly about 500 BC.

The annotated text of the second page indicates the Lord of fire.

II - Titlaltotonametli (titlal - Lord); (totona - sign - spirit);
metli - planting maguey) - fire

Excessive heat is a product of fire, but here the heat caused the maguey to flourish. Apparently it was a new plant for the area. This date is about 1352 years before the Conquest.

The third page of the Codex Ríos is also recorded at Chichen Itza. The comet at the top of that mural has a large sun-like image with a man inside of it. A loop extends from the sun-image to a smaller enclosure behind it, the location of another male figure.

The Ríos does not show a person at the end of the serpent tail, but does (See above) indicate wind (by the tumbling deer heads and monkey forms around the cave) and a great heat (by the feathers in the fan, an Aztec symbol of fire)

Every school child knows the Greek story of the young god who drove the horses of the sun and fell to his death. One can say the young brash chariot driver was a personified meteorite. It was during this time when the "sun" came too close to earth that men and beast had to flee to the caves until this great heat dissipated. Those who survived began anew with an appreciation of the Earth Mother/Protectoress/Womb.

One must only remember that such a sky event would have been noticed world-wide. Comets do not travel very far during a single night if they are coming towards the earth, away from the sun. It is an optical illusion, even though the comet is actually moving quickly. The Old God wears a net around his neck. It reminds one of the story of the golden net Hephaestus created to entangle Mars (a constellation once called Ares, but now called Orion) and Venus, a planet which goes retrograde around the upraised hand (or club) of Orion.

The third page of the Ríos contains several Nahuatl words:

III - Tremore - Xuitecutli - as serpent emerging from half the image of the Aztec Calendar Stone - birds (split) - jade - turquoise - comet - returning.

All know Quetzalcoatl as a younger form of this wind/sky serpent, who slashed the earth with his scythe. We know from Aztec myths that Xolotl, an avatar of Quetzalcoatl, went into the underworld to save the sun for the world. Other Maya vases, show a "jaguar-baby" falling onto an earth serpent form. According to Eric Thompson, in his book on Maya civilization, the jaguar-image is the god of the Underworld. (p. 206) By default then, since the Maya jaguar-baby fell onto the earth serpent (mountain), as did Huitzilopochtli, one can actually recall the Aztec version as the same story. Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl then would be the god names for the wind/sky form, part of which fell to earth. Huitzilopochtli would not have acquired his name until the great battle in defense of his mother when he became a separate entity by reason of his new role as warrior. Other lands in the Americas would call the first a decapitator god. The second became the victim or sacrificed one. The third stayed in Central America.

In this drawing of the codex, the tool that cut the earth is visible; as is the feather (fire) fan which was used to burn the earth. It was here that the caves were used as protective coverings, giving credence to the "Mother/Father" parent image in the caves or maw of the earth. The approximate date is 1040 years before the Conquest.

The last page in the set shows a mountain image with flowers and fruit
falling over it when, at the same time, the stones fall from the sky.

IV - Sochiquetzal -(Xochiquetzal) tierra de frutales - green
(feathers - jade - enaltetione - flowers)

Peace and tranquillity was the last vision of the Parent "Mother-Fathers." Here it was 364 years previous to the Conquest.