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Water and Ritual: The Rise and Fall of Classic Maya Rulers. Lisa J. Lucero, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.253 pp.
Exploring aspects of the dynamics between the broad categories of environment, religion, and politics in long-term processes that led to an increase and/or a decrease in social complexity is still a challenge for scholars of Mayan prehistory. With this well-written monograph, Lisa Lucero takes on the challenge and examines the roles of, and link between, integrative rituals and access to freshwater in political processes of the pre-Columbian southern Maya Lowlands. It should be pointed out that the volume is not specifically concerned with rituals in water contexts, for example, at aguadas, or rain rituals. The argument is that water and ritual are crucial factors in the development and demise of political power.
The basic idea pursued in the volume is that processes towards monopolization of political power (defined as the ability to exact surplus commodities and labor) are, essentially, a form of social negotiation. In more or less cunning ways, the politically ambitious linked their rule with vital elements of life-freshwater, for instance. In return for tribute payment of commoners, the political elite invested parts of their accumulated wealth to provide for their subjects, offsetting seasonal shortages and long-term droughts. Replication and expansion of traditional rituals (including dedication, ancestor veneration, and termination rituals; rituals that all Maya at one time or other also experienced at smaller scales) were a key mechanism to increase the power of rulers and the complexity...