What are cenotes?

The word “cenote” derives from the ancient Mayan term ts'onot, denoting an area with accessible groundwater. Cenotes form when limestone bedrock collapses to reveal aquifers below the ground. More than 6,000 cenotes have so far been documented in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, which has the world’s largest concentration. They also occur in Australia, Canada, Cuba, and the United States.

For the Yucatán Maya civilization, cenotes were points of spiritual connection with the natural environment. This film features the Tsukán cenote, which takes its name from a Mayan serpent spirit who guards the gateway between people and nature’s underground realm. Contemplating the image and sensation of one’s reflection in a cenote was thought to provoke progressively deeper levels of self-awareness about life, death, and human nature.

Just as cenotes were traditionally believed to improve human health and wellbeing, Mayan communities reciprocated by caring for their purity. But disregard and oppression of Mayan cultural traditions since European colonization has seen cenotes become unprotected and polluted. Today, trash discarded by tourists and locals, untreated wastewater, agricultural pesticides and fertilizers, and other industrial chemicals have contaminated eighty percent of Yucatán’s cenotes. The impact is especially negative for communities that rely on cenote aquifers for drinking water.

Cultural and ecological awareness programs are helping to change behaviors and educate publics. Community projects, such as the Tsukán Sanctuary of Life shown in this film, are teaching visitors about Mayan nutritional medicine and the historical importance of cenotes. Projects are emerging to revive cenotes as focal points of human reflection about our relationships with nature, each other, and ourselves.

Further reading:

Berger-González, M., A. Vides-Porras, S. Strauss, M. Heinrich, S. Taquirá, and P. Krütli. 2016. “Relationships that Heal: Beyond the Patient-Healer Dyad in Mayan Therapy.” Medical Anthropology 35(4):353-367.

Garcia, H., A. Sierra, and G. Balam Pereira. 1999. Wind in the Blood: Mayan Healing and Chinese Medicine. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Muñetón-Pérez, P. 2009. “Plantas medicinales: un complemento vital para la salud de los mexicanos. Entrevista con el Dr. Erick Estrada Lugo.” Revista Digital Universitaria vol. 10, no.9, http://www.revista.unam.mx/vol.10/num9/art58/int58.htm

Vera-Ku, M, M. Méndez-González, R. Moo-Pucc, M. Rosado-Vallado, P. Simá-Polanco, R. Cedillo-Rivera, and S.R. Peraza-Sáncheza. 2010. “Medicinal potions used against infectious bowel diseases in Mayan traditional medicine.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 132(1):303-308.

Afro-Cuban healing

Cuba’s unique culture derives from a blend of African, European, and Asian influences. Between the mid-16th and late-19th centuries approximately 12 million people were forcibly transplanted from West Africa to the Americas. Around two million men, women, and children were brought to Cuba, where they were put to work in the expanding colonial sugar industry.

By the 17th century mutual aid organizations called cabildos had been set up in conjunction with Catholic churches to evangelize, house, and provide basic services for free and enslaved black Cubans. Within the cabildos the religious traditions of Yoruba, Carabalí, Kongo, and other West African ethnolinguistic groups became integrated with Catholic practices. Catholic statues and images were introduced into religious ceremonies, but unknown to church authorities, these symbols were used merely as visual substitutes for forbidden African deities.

Over time cabildos evolved into private temple-houses, enabling the consolidation of the religion now known as Santería. At the core of Santería practice is the veneration of a pantheon of Yoruba deities (orishas) and a divination system called Ifá. Scholars estimate that Santería and other Afro-Cuban religions are currently practiced in some capacity by approximately 70 percent of the Cuban population, particularly in disadvantaged urban communities. Ifá healers called babalawos command a great deal of respect as spiritual intermediaries, personal advisors, and doctors of natural medicine.

In this scene, two babalawo healers are collecting specific plants for a community “cleaning” ceremony. First they seek ceremonial permission to enter the forest, and then sing specific Yoruba ritual chants to the plants they collect. Each plant is associated with a particular orisha, and in turn, each orisha represents a force of nature. Changó, for instance, is the patron of lightning and thunder; Oyá the guardian of wind and storms; Yemayá the mother of the sea; Ochún the keeper of freshwater streams; and so on. Figuring prominently in this scene is Osaín, the spirit of medicinal plants (ewe).

In exchange for ewe, the healers offer songs and coins containing copper to replace the minerals they extract. The interaction of copper with soil acids provides nutrients for plants, ceremonially enacting mutual exchange between people and nature. This dialogue with Osaín and the other orishas underpins the continuing vitality of Afro-Cuban culture, memory, and ecological philosophy.

Further reading

Hearn, A.H. 2008. Cuba: religion, social capital, and development. Durham, Duke University Press.

Ortiz, F. 1950. La Africanía de la Música Folklórica de Cuba. La Habana: Ministerio de Educación, Dirección de Cultura.

Palmié, S. 2013. The cooking of history: How not to study Afro-Cuban religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Thompson, R.F. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. Robert Farris Thompson. Vintage Books, 1984.

Enter the Dreaming

Aboriginal people throughout Australia have multiple and varying stories of how the world was created. While these stories have some similarities, they are owned by people from a specific place or “Country.” The Nanda community inhabits land in and around Kalbarri, Western Australia, stretching North along the coastline to Tamala Station and South to Northhampton. Nanda are salt water people: keepers of the land and sea with a spiritual connection to Mother Earth.

Nanda people believe that mythological Dreamtime beings sculpted the landscape into what we see today. Long ago during the spiritual Dreamtime, a serpent called Beemarra travelled West along the Murchison River, drawn by the unfamiliar sound of the pounding waves. When Beemarra arrived at the Kalbarri coastal cliffs, she was terrified by the thundering waves and fled back inland to the safety of the Murchison River. As she fled her passage was marked by a tunnel through an outcrop of red sandstone. She rested in many places, leaving freshwater where she had lain. These freshwater springs still exist today, and knowledge of their wheareabouts has been important for countless generations of Nanda people. This Dreamtime story, as told by Elders, provides the Nanda community with the tools required to unlock the secrets of Country. It is a map that Beemarra the creator left behind.

While the landscape that Beemarra shaped is visually captivating, Nanda people understand and feel Country in more nuanced ways. In a very profound sense the land is in the community and the community is in the land. People therefore have a responsibility for looking after nature - just as it cares for people. Knowledge about how and why to do this is embedded in Beemarra’s story (depicted in this scene) and acknowledged in ritual practices as Lore. Simply put, Dreaming informs Lore, and Lore informs people.

Dreaming binds the Nanda community to Country. In order for Nanda traditions to live on, knowledge about how the world came to be must be recognized and communicated (Kelly 2018, cited below). To this day elders pass on and share the knowledge embedded within the Beemarra story, highlighting the need to protect and nurture sacred locations.