In the archaeology of Maya civilization, the finding of complete pots and many chards of various stages and periods at the bottom of bodies of water felt startling and shocking.
Lake Amatitlan lies at the bottom of an active volcano. Around it many villages, looking deceptively precarious but really very ancient, cultivate traditional life sustaining crafts in agriculture, weaving, dyeing and of course ceramics, using the locally dug clay and fired in heaps of meagre logs that hardly reach the 900 degrees Celsius they need to become impervious. A tightly compacted slip of of a beautiful rose colour is used to help seal the surface. These pots are simple, fat, wobbly and frilly edged, bruised by black charred marks and livid patches where the fire churned, they are used mainly to carry and contain water. All the water for the household has to be carried on the head of the mother. They are very fragile and have to be replaced often. It is therefore incredible that the shady verandahs often boast at least a couple of hanging pots with luxiriant ferns, their feathery fronds waving in the hot breeze.
The lake itself is dotted in places by clusters of bubbling hot springs amid blackened lava boulders and it is around these spouts of the underworld that most pottery finds are made. Unlike the modern utilitarian versions, these ancient items are straight sided cylinders, well fired deep red earthenware, at times with a carbonised core. They are decorated, not with frilly edges or braided handles but with scenes and calligraphy; monster serpents, frogs, hyeroglyphs, enthroned beasts, slaves, killings, scribes, all scenes drawn very precisely in fine black trace, with some paler and some darker patches to aid relief. The tripod legs, when present, are sometimes hollow and have small clay spheres inside so they rattle. They are incense burners or sacrificial vessels. Some of them speak of a king's self-sacrfice, where a stingray spine was used to pierce the tongue and the blood collected in the sacred container. Sometimes a deadly ball game is depictred, and the basin collected the heart of the defeated warrior. To consumate the dedication, the vessel is pierced and thrown into the waters of the lake in dedication.
To think of such a society, such a religion, touches a deep emotion. And then we see how in modern society fun loving tourists throw coins into small springs or even concrete receptacles in urban environments - is there a a connection somewhere between these tourists and the feather turbaned frog faced personages of Maya pots?
In Mozambique, in the early 60's, a deffective Portuguese government of corrupt and venal old men drove the local population to increasing rebellion. The easy going peoples of the Indian Ocean shoreline began to organise and muster their resources. A handful of them accessed universities and began the hard slog that ended in 1973 with the independence of the country.
The conflict had become more and more bloody over years, it had opened rifts of pain and mistrust within the society and at independence more complicated counter movements emerged which shifted the bloodletting from the white enemy to the enemy within.
Civil war lasted 25 years. It was horrendously brutal, dumb, dark and devastating of humanity, of environment and of resources. This civil war seems to have had no proper direction or cause, and no proper final solution or target. It just expired one day of exhaustion. To me, it was the excising of a blood clot left behind by centuries of depraved collusion. For me, nothing can be taken away from the evils of colonialism, but some gesture needs to be made to the connivance of black people and their enabling of the servitude and humiliation that occurred. Reconciliation came naturally to the wonderful people of Mozambique, once the new generation was able to take up life in freedom.
Mozambique is a country of wonderful water. The emerald beaches fringed by palms and golden sands, the reefs, the open skies. Powerful rivers like the Limpopo, the Rovuma, the Revue, the Zambeze, the Inkomati flow and fertilize the land. In 35 years of conflict, this pure water, source of life and recreation, was polluted by sacrifice and madness. Victims of prosecution were thrown into the rivers to be devoured by crocodiles or drowned; Ships were sunk to prevent the other side from using them; rockets and missiles were flung to the skies and plunged their spent cartridges into the deep waters. in Mozambique, the water is full of memories. Tese memories are black and pitted, deformed, by hatred. They are being overlaid with algae and coral formation, used as attachment for barnacles and hiding places for octupi.
Just like our own memories, they transform and modulate their appearance, but at the core is still the human tragedy and shame.
On February 14th 1978, my daughters Caroline and Smartie and I went with my friend Phyllis to the pool. Smartie died drowned that morning in that pool. Her memory lies in water, overlaid over thirty one years by many other thoughts and events, succeeded in time by questions and wondering and the impact of her own death. At the core is the death of our 28 month old child, Caroline's sister. Around that memory is a long weave of days and thoughts and actions that would not have happened if she had not died.
This is for me the story of UNDERWATER
