The Mayan Defeat of Xibalba
When the Mayan ancestors arrived in El Salvador from South America in about 8700 BCE they quickly were captured by a remnant of Northamerican hunters who took them captive to the Corinto cave. In spite of the hunters being much taller than the Mayan ancestors the Maya were able to escape towards the confluence of the Torola and Lempa Rivers to a place now called Jardín (Garden) in the municipality of San Juán de Edén. When the hunters found them their only escape was to submerge themselves in the Lempa River. They found out the hunters were afraid of water, which is why they named them Xibalbha ("those afraid of water"). That is the only thing that saved the Maya then and again over the hundreds of years that they lived next to the Xibalbans. The Xibalbans most likely called themselves the Manik.
Later the Mayan ancestors discovered wild tobacco at Tecapa volcano, enjoying it for both spiritual and personal use. The Manik heard about the tobacco and took over, most likely by force, Tecapa volcano and the Laguna de Alegria. The Mayan ancestors were forced to find an island home where they would be safe and moved to Isla Tigre, in the Gulf of Fonseca, in about 8600 BCE. After about 400 years the Maya, having learned how to cultivate tobacco, were ready to fulfill their destiny as agriculturalists and promoters of human development. They moved to four island homes - Olomega, Tehuacan, Teopan, and Teotipa - where they remained safe from "those afraid of water" as long as they stayed on the islands.
But 700 years after the first encounter with the hunters, the Maya were outgrowing their four islands. Any time they ventured out to hunt, to visit each other, or to do anything beyond the islands they were harassed, attacked, or killed. The Maya realized that the Manik were the primary barrier to their progress.
But the Maya had a major problem - the Manik were much taller and stronger, had better weapons, and lived in two fortified citadels - a cave (Corinto) and inside a volcanic crater (Tecapa). A strictly military campaign would never work. The first Mayan leader to attempt to defeat the Manik was Hunahpu, a generic reference meaning leader. In the Popol Vuh he is referred to as 1 Hunahpu, 7 Hunahpu, where 7 Hunahpu is a code for a date. One Hunahpu tried a shamanistic approach instead of military - that is by superior use of astronomy he might undermine the shamanistic authority of the Manik leader, perhaps convincing all the Manik underlords to respect Mayan authority or at least not attack the Maya.
The Manik's likely use of astronomy was to predict the night of the full moon each month. Hunahpu and the Maya studied each planet for patterns that they might use to predict movements - risings, settings, retrogrades, directs - and therefore demonstrate their superior astronomy. They already had a 20-day week and had a 260 day cycle (tzolk'in), likely because it is the length of time between a pregnant woman's first missed period and the birth of a child. A child was believed to be conceived and born on the same day in the 260-day cycle.
Only one planet was found to have a pattern based on 20 or 260 days by the Maya and that was Mars. It has an orbit (synodic period) of 799.94 days, almost exactly three of the 260 day cycles or tzolk'ins. The Maya surely noticed that Mars always rose within the same 20-day period of the tzolk'in and always set within a different 20-day period. But risings and settings are close the horizon where there are often clouds. Mars tended to turn retrograde when it was nearly directly up in the sky one hour after sunset. Over several generations the Maya learned that when Mars was near the Milky Way - and straight up an hour after sunset - it turned retrograde earlier in the tzolk'in than when it was in other parts of the sky. Even more, every 30 to 50 years Mars would turn retrograde one day sooner in the tzolk'in than it ever had before. (This is because the 799.94 day synodic period is slightly less than three tzolk'ins.) After several generations of observing and tracking Mars and passing the method and the day counts on to successive generations, 1 Hunahpu was ready to take his trick to the Manik - to predict the night on which Mars would turn backward in the sky.
The Xibalbhans knew about the Mayan's advanced astronomy and they were jealous and desired to play games (astronomy) with the Maya:
What Xibalba desired was the gaming equipment of One and Seven Hunahpu: their kilts, their yokes, their arm guards, their panaches and headbands, the costumes of One and Seven Hunahpu. "They must come," the (Xibalba) lords say to you. "Would that they might come to play ball with us here." - Popol Vuh, D. Tedlock translation, rev. ed., pg 93.
This is a key passage where the key words remained in Ch'orti' rather than evolving into Quiche over the years like the more mundane parts. Let's look at each one to understand the meaning in Ch'orti'. The last two will get translated when we get to the Hunahpu and "Ixbalanque" story:
Gaming equipment: Etz'ab'al. Ehtz' - study; tz'ahbah - shine. "Study of shining" which we would call astronomy. As they did so often, one syllable ends with the same consonant as the beginning of the next.
Kilts: Tz'u'm. Tz'uhr - skinned hide. I partially agree with Tedlock although I think the hides were displayed as trophies as much as they were worn.
Yoke: B'ate. Bah - a body, being, spirit; te' - tree, stick. "Tree being" which is referring to the Milky Way. A key astronomical observation was the movement of Mars into the Milky Way when it was time for Mars to turn retrograde.
Arm guard: Pach'q'ab'. Pahch' - falling trap, deadfall; k'abah - come to an end. Falling death trap. This refers to the whole in the roof of the Corinto cave. Like many phrases this one has multiple meanings: Kahp means "cutting" so it could be "cutting falling trap" and k'ahbu means "remember, recollect, survive another". We will see with Hunahpu and "Xbalanque" that this is an important meaning - "to recollect the deathfall."
Mars only turns retrograde close to the Milky Way every 15 years (21 tzolk'in cycles), so after waiting years for the right moment, 1 Hunahpu and his contingent traveled by canoe from Teotipa to the Lempa River, most likely down to the Torola River, then up the Torola as far as canoes would go and then hiked from there to Corinto. The Popol Vuh says they passed Puj River (Rapids River, a reference to the Sumpul) and the Kik River (Rumble River, mostly likely the Torola).
They arrived at Corinto. Corinto cave is a rock shelter that is like a mushroom cap. There is a cap of rock that is about 12 meters tall and about two kilometers in diameter. On the north and south sides of the rock cap the stone has eroded away to form two rock shelters. There is one place where one can climb up onto the rock cap above the caves. It was up on top of the rock cap that the astronomical contests took place. Much later the Maya would model their ball courts on the description of this rock cap.
Perhaps during the day before the nightly astronomy, each side showed off their skins, putting on the skins of the various animals. Next the Manik shaman showed off their astronomy, predicting when the moon would become full. Each night the parties would go above the cave to the rock cap to look at the moon and Mars. It was like being on a different level of the world. The moon turned full just on the night that the Manik shaman predicted.
"This ball of theirs [the Xibalbans] is just a spherical knife. White Dagger is the name of the ball, the ball of Xibalba." - Popol Vuh, rev., pg. 96.
White Dagger is saqi toq'. Saqi has a double meaning, it means "white" but also "to hunt". Toq' comes from tokar or "cloud". This tells us that they had to hunt for the moon in the clouds to determine if it was full. The reference to a sphere and ball makes it clear that the white object they were hunting for was the moon.
Next it was the Mayans' turn. Mars slowly approached the Milky Way. The Mars contest was considered the fifth test and called the Razor House. The Razor test referred both to the back-and-forth motion of Mars but also to the back-and-forth sharp rock walls of the hole that connected the roof of the cave to the ground-level.
"And the fifth [test] is named Razor House, with blades alone inside. The blades are moving back and forth, ripping, slashing through the house." - Popol Vuh, rev., pg. 97.
One Hunahpu predicted the Mars backward motion but he was wrong. What I imagine happened is that Mars turned retrograde very near the center of the Milky Way. One Hunahpu predicted it would turn retrograde one day before the previous earliest date in the tzolk'in (7th day of B'ajram week). But Mars turned retrograde on the 5th day of B'ajram week, one night before 1 Hunahpu predicted and the Manik laughed.
This would place the date of 1 Hunahpu's bad prediction and subsequent death on Nov 21, 7,913 BCE. The 7 Hunahpu date place marker in this story tells us that these events took place during the 126 year period in the Mars retrograde calendar between the 7th day of B'ajram week (7960 BCE) and the 1st day of B'ajram week (7834 BCE).
In the Popol Vuh we see Mars represented by a torch and cigar. Two cigars were given to the Maya and they were told to keep them for two nights but they consumed it the first night. In other words the Maya had said Mars would not be put out (turn backward) until the second night but it was put out (turned backward) the first night.
"'They [the Maya] must be sure to return them [the cigars] in the morning - not finished, but just as they look now. They must return them intact,' the lords say to you," they were told, and they were defeated. They finished the torch and they finished the cigars that had been brought to them. - Popol Vuh, rev., pg. 96-97.
Further evidence that this is referring to Mars is the word translated here as torch: Chaj. This seems to come from chak which means red object.
As punishment 1 Hunahpu was forced to jump through the hole. No one ever survived the hole - a zig-zag rock-lined drop of 12 meters from the rock cap down to the rocky ground. Here too, 1 Hunahpu tried to out-smart the Manik. If he could bounce off the walls he might make it down alive. His entourage watched his fall. He didn't make it. His body was ripped apart and he was beheaded.
One Hunahpu's head was placed at the crossroads for all the see, perhaps at a place now called Calavera, Skull in English, which would have been on the path to the Torola River. (In Ch'orti' Calavera would mean "carrying the throat" - more evidence this is the spot.) Eventually the Maya sneaked back to the head and planted a squash seed in the skull. The squash grew and haunted the Xibalbhans each time they passed by. This also indicates when squash was first cultivated - about 7913 BCE.
As was custom the hosts would clean the body of the dead and bury them, even if it was their enemy. Soon everyone noticed that 1 Hunahpu's corpse had an erect penis. This must have happened due to the adrenaline of the contest and the jump through the hole. Perhaps a post-puberty girl was in charge of cleaning the body. In any case the Popol Vuh says a girl was present at the body in the dark of night.
"She went all alone and arrived where the tree stood. It stood at the Place of Ball Game Sacrifice: 'What? Well! What's the fruit of this tree? Shouldn't this tree bear something sweet? They shouldn't die, they shouldn't be wasted. Should I pick one?' said the maiden." - Popol Vuh, rev., pg. 98.
Here the Popol Vuh uses a euphemisms to describe the penis - a bone. The bone spoke to the girl - I understand this to mean that it moved. The bone spit on the girl's hand. This is a reference to semen present on the penis, which can happen under certain excited conditions at death. Another scenario is possible but what seems to have happened was the girl touched the semen on the penis and then put her fingers inside herself. In any case, this girl who had not had sexual relations according to the Popol Vuh, became impregnated from the corpse of 1 Hunahpu.
The girl's name was Xkik' - x or ix meaning feminine and kik' which comes from kirik which means thunder or rumble. Earlier the Popol Vuh referenced the Kik' River or Rumble River. So Xkik' is "Girl from Rumble". This would be the Torola River, which comes within a few kilometers of the Corinto cave and joins the Lempa River at San Juán de Edén.
Soon the pregnant girl was rejected by the Manik people and she walked across the length of El Salvador to Teotipa at Lago Güija to appeal to the Maya to take her in. It took some time to gain confidence of people but eventually she did. Her bloodline - half Maya, half Manik - was likely valued because it was 1 Hunahpu's from the time of his death. It was probably a taller and lighter-skinned bloodline.
It was soon after 1 Hunahpu's death, within 60 years, that I believe that the Lago Guija flood and tzuhnami occurred, killing nearly everyone at Teotipa. One of the survivors was one of carriers of the special bloodline, if not Xkik' herself. The survivors went to Teopan and after a few generations moved back to Lago Guija, this time to Igualtepec.
The harassment and repression of the Maya by the Xibalbhans only got worse. Once, sometime after 7834 BCE, one Maya or a group of Maya were captured, taken to Corinto Cave and burned alive over an open flame. The Mayan women convinced the Xibalbhans to dump the bones and ashes in a river where they just came back to life. This tells us of the beginning of the Mayan belief in reincarnation.
After a few generations of building population back up and monitoring and refining predictions of the Mars retrograde motion, the Maya were ready to take on the Manik again.
This time the Maya had both a shamanistic and a military strategy. The shamanistic strategy was again to predict the retrograde of Mars, which I believe was used at Corinto cave, along with a trick learned through dreams. There was also a military strategy, one of the ants and mosquitos, which I believe was used at Tecapa volcano. For that they would need the entire community - not only of Igualtepec but also the other three islands as well.
The Maya were ready for the Mars prediction - they had been studying this for generations. By predicting when Mars moved backward they would show shamanistic prowess over the Manik, undermining the authority of the Manik leader and weakening the resolve of the hunter warriors.
For many nights the Manik and Mayan shamans would gather on top of the Corinto cave where the stars are very visible. Like before the Manik shaman correctly predicted the night of the full moon. Now it was the Maya's turn. Mars was slowing in the sky as it neared the Milky Way. The Maya knew from its position that it was a normal clicking backward in the 260-day tzolk'in, just one day before the last time this had happened about 30 years before. The Maya were right and for this the Manik leader-shaman would have to take his life by jumping through the hole in the cap-stone.
But here the Maya played a trick. Instead of having the hunter leader jump, the Mayan leader - generically called Hunahpu - insisted on jumping through the hole himself. The Popol Vuh states that Ixbalamque was also present but I believe that this is a long-count period marker not a person. I think this refers to Inte Balam, or 1 Bajram, which was Nov. 24, 7834 BCE in the Mars retrograde long-count calendar, although I think the convention was to refer to 1 Bajram as a period, in this case from 7834 BCE to 7629 BCE, until the 7th day of the next period, Imix. These events would have taken place between those dates.
Hunahpu had the help of the ancestors, specifically 1 Hunahpu who was killed about 100 years before. We know this from two of the pieces of "equipment" that Hunahpu carried - yachwach and wachsot.
Panache (in Tedlock): Yachwach. Hax - a roll, a twist; wayak' - dream. Dream of a twist and roll.
Headband (in Tedlock): Wachsot. Wayak' - dream; soy - bend, arc, arch. Dream of a bend.
Hunahpu had a dream in which 1 Hunahpu the ancestor told him of the bend in the deathtrap hole and how to twist and roll so that he could avoid that rock surface, the razor sharp surface that killed 1 Hunahpu. When Hunahpu jumped through he used arms and legs to bounce from side to side to slow his velocity and he did a special twist and roll in the bend which 1 Hunahpu had revealed to him.
While bruised, at the bottom he pretended to be dead. Then he jumped up and said that he had defeated death. He had power over death and he could bring the Manik hunters back to life as well. The Manik leader went first. He died on the rock walls and his body was moved away at the bottom. Hunahpu assured the Manik that he would bring him back to life. Each hunter jumped through the hole and the same result happened each time. Hunahpu could not bring them back to life. Much later the Maya would design their ball courts with a hoop to symbolize the hole in the Corinto cave cap-stone. The ball going through the hoop representing Hunahpu who cheated death by jumping down the hole. All the Manik at Corinto cave passed away that day. The Xibalbhans lords fell down to earth. Now there were only hunters at Tecapa volcano.
The ants strategy was to mobilize entire communities - the old, women, the children, in addition to the young men - in order to surround the Tecapa Alegria lagoon. Once they had announced their presence they would sing and dance to demonstrate that they had no fear of the tall hunters. Until today Salvadorans still call themselves ants.
"Well don't go boys. We can still play ball. ... What should our prize be?" asked the Xibalbans. ... "We'll just win four bowls of flowers. One bowl of red petals ..."
Now Hunahpu and Xbalanque summoned all the ants:
"Cutting ants, conquering ants, come now,
all of you fetch all of them for us:
flowers in bloom, prizes for lords."
"Very well," they replied. Then all the ants went to get the flowers, the plantings of One and Seven Death. -- Popol Vuh, rev., pg. 121, 123.
The phrase translated as "bowl" of "petals" tells us where they were. Bowl - jutikab' - translates in Ch'orti' as "opening-crater held in mouth", an indicator of a tobacco cigarette and a volcanic crater. Tecapa is the volcano where the Maya found tobacco and modeled the Hakawitz flat pyramid structure after. Soon thereafter the Manik took over Tecapa so they could access tobacco, forcing the Maya to Isla Tigre. Petals - muchij - translates as "mound of the giants", another reference to Tecapa as model for the mound building and a reference to the very tall Manik hunters (ch'i'ih). The last syllable has a double meaning of ch'i' or growth, used to refer to cultivation, since tobacco was the first plant to be cultivated. In addition to surrounding the Manik, the ants came to collect all the tobacco.
Submerged among the ants were the mosquitos - the blow-gunners. Poison was placed in the blow-guns. As the ants announced their presence, surprising the hunters, the mosquitos shot their blow-guns, each one with a different target.
[The mosquito] stopped at the two manikins, or woodcarvings, that were seated first. They were all dressed up, and he bit the first of them, ... he bit the one seated second, ... and then he bit the third one, the one seated third actually being One Death.
"Yeow!" each one said as he was bitten.
"What?" each one replied.
"Ouch!" said One Death.
"What is it, One Death?"
"Something's bitten me."
"It's - ouch! There's something that's bitten me," the one seated fourth said next.
[and so on] - Popol Vuh, rev., pg. 117
Perhaps the hunters ran to get away but stumbled as the poison took effect and the swarm of the ants prevented the hunters from leaving. The hunters were defeated and it seems that all were killed according to the Popol Vuh.
The Maya could finally leave their island homes without concern for being attacked by the hunters. Women, men, and children could work in the fields. New communities could be formed throughout the countryside. Not having a constant enemy represented a major advance in the development of the Maya.
One Hunahpu's death helped the Maya to perfect the Mars retrograde prediction method by recognizing when there would be a two-day skip in the calendar. And One Hunahpu's revelation in a dream to offspring Hunahpu of how to jump down the deathtrap allowed the defeat of Xibalbha. In this way, through teaching the lessons of how to defeat the Manik to future generations and through the "squash" after death, 1 Hunahpu came back to life. One Hunahpu the savior, for whom El Salvador is named. Or rather, the Spanish used that name referring to a Christian story to try to cover up the story of the real Salvadoran savior.
Posted at 08:07 AM in Cosmology | Permalink | Comments (1)
1 Ak'bar - Akbar and Chomija, a story of greatness
Night. Aq'ab'al (Quiche), Ak'bal (Yucatec), Calli (Aztec). The tzolk'in day sign of 1 Ak'bar (in Ch'orti') provides the tone for the next 13 days. Ak'bar was one of the eight great founders of the Mayan people and considered the greatest of them all. The Ak'bar lineage consisted of Ak'bar on the male side and Chomija on the female side. Ak'bar is the name of the leader of the flotilla of four rafts that made the journey from South America to Central America in about 8900 BCE. Ak'bar means "night" and the name corresponds to Ak'bar taking the night shift of the leading the rafts - the most difficult and arduous shift.
The Ak'bar lineage eventually settled at Lake Guija on the Guatemala and El Salvador border and then became the source lineage for most of the Mayan settlements and Classic-era sites. The Ch'orti', Huasteca, and Yucatec Mayan peoples are some of the Mayan ethnicities that come from the Ak'bar lineage.
The Ak'bar lineage was also called Nijayib' in the Popol Vuh. This means "shaking fast" in Ch'orti' and describes the state of the members of the Ak'bar lineage in the midst of the fasts that they would make. This daysign has the most Saturn overtones of the daysigns: providing compassionate leadership based on self-discipline and self-sacrifice. Somehow European models of Saturn leave out the compassion.
Any discussion of the Ak'bar daysign can not leave out Chomija, named as the female partner of Ak'bar in the Popul Vuh. Certainly on the raft ride to Central America, Chomija played an equal or nearly equal part as Ak'bar, since sleep was due to both. But the female energy of the Maya really came alive on Isla Tigre. It was the women who first began to domesticate animals - first the macaw parrot and then the puma and jaguar, according to the Popol Vuh. Chomija's name means "puma housecat". Chomija is the bridge which gets us to the Aztec Nahuat name for this sign: Calli or "house". Ak'bar is also know as Ak'bar Bajram or Night Jaguar. It was Chomija who tamed the jaguar and made it into a house creature, Calli.
Ak'bar and Chomija, "Night and Puma Cat", the great ones.
The origin of Ak'bar in the Ch'orti' language comes from ak' - "covering" - and bar - "weight" or "heaviness". Night is like a heavy covering.
There will never be an eclipse during an Ak'bar week, in our era. Mars always stations direct in Ak'bar or the previous 13-day week, in our era. The Mars retrograde long-count date that corresponds to 1 Ak'bar: 2500 BCE.
Posted at 08:21 AM in 260 Day Signs, Cosmology, Mayan calendars | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Maya Discovered Center of the Galaxy Through Orbit of Mars
Of all the celestial objects, the Maya have held the Milky Way with the most reverence. The Maya have many names for the Milky Way, depending on its position in the sky which changed throughout the night and by season. Those names include Canoe Paddler, World Tree, Crocodile or White Boned Serpent, and Lying Down Sky, with World Tree being the most common. The Maya created images of the World Tree intersected at the top by the solar ecliptic, in the appearance of a Christian cross.
The Milky Way was called yaxte' in Ch'orti' Maya, which means clear tree or living tree. Yaxte' is also the name for the ceiba tree, one of the most sacred trees of the Maya. Images of the World Tree are modeled after the ceiba.
Within the Milky Way, one spot has had special meaning for the Maya, an area devoid of the same star haze as the rest of the Milky Way, located between the constellations of Scorpio and Sagittarius. This happens to be the center of the galaxy where a massive black hole is located. For the Maya this spot was associated with creation, especially the creation of the Mayan world. Other names or symbols that the Maya gave it include the void, cleft, black hole, the mouth of the crocodile, the mouth of the jaguar that leads to the underworld, and the great cleft of the Great Mother. Most likely the Maya daysign Ik' or Ik'ar, which means air or wind, represents the center of the galaxy.
The Olmec and Maya also determined that it is the location where two great celestial objects become perpindicular – the solar elliptic and the galactic elliptic. This occurred in about 2008, close to when the Olmec and Maya predicted over 2000 years ago. In fact it was through figuring out the orbit of Mars that the Maya were able to establish the location of the galactic plane and determine the convergence. The Maya interpret this event as the sun being reborn and ushering in a new age. During these years, the sun and our solar system will be touched by the galactic force – i.e. the mass of the galaxy concentrated at the center of the galaxy and the plane of the galactic elliptic, the combined forces that interact with every star in the galaxy. The sun and its solar system are being renewed and regenerated with the force, the energy, and the volition of the galaxy, as embodied by the black hole at the center of the galaxy.
Before discussing how the Maya discovered the galaxy’s center, a description of the black hole there would be helpful. The galaxy center black hole is by far the largest body in the galaxy in terms of mass. It is estimated to be 4 million solar masses (4 million times greater than our sun). For comparison, the star with the largest mass has between 100 and 150 solar masses. This means that the black hole at the galaxy center is at least 25,000 times more massive than the largest star in the galaxy.
In physical terms, this black hole affects our solar system by its gravity and by the various radiations that it emits. Due to its mass, it has by far the largest gravitational field in the galaxy. For the most part, this is a constant force. The large distance between it and our solar system limits its gravitational on our solar system. However, its gravitational pull is greatly augmented by the stars that are within the galactic elliptic. This combined gravity does have a pull on the sun and planets. In fact, it causes the extreme elongation of Mars’ orbit, something which the Maya discovered thousands of years ago, as we will see. And I think that we are able to sense this gravity under special circumstances like meditation. I also believe it is this gravity acting upon the planets and each human that causes astrology "to work".
Black holes also emit radiation and cause radiation to be emitted from their surroundings. Black holes emit thermal radiation, known as Hawking radiation, which has a very low temperature. The galaxy center black hole also likely emits electro-magnetic radiation of two frequencies – x-rays and radio waves. In addition, there are likely gamma rays which have the same frequency as x-rays. All three of these radiations are caused by the same thing – matter being sucked into a black hole. The most common of these are gamma rays, caused by the matter entering the black hole, similar to solar flares. It appears that the galaxy center black hole also radiates x-ray radiation. Scientists have determined flares of x-rays from the dust cloud near the black hole. X-rays come from the electrons of the matter and gamma from the nucleus. In 2005 scientists discovered radio waves coming from Sgr A*, the astronomical name for the black hole at the center of the galaxy. While this radiation can be sensed with radio telescopes, perhaps someday we will learn that humans can also sense it if especially intuned.
The pre-Maya/pre-Lenca discovered the center of the galaxy in another way: watching the motion of the planets. I believe that they made this discovery in about 8500 BCE in El Salvador. Mars has an average synodic period of 779.93 days – the time it takes until it turns backward, retrograde, again. It has a very elongated orbit, meaning that its synodic period can vary anywhere from about 750 to 810 days.
Using sticks and clay circles, the pre-Maya/pre-Lenca counted how many days between the retrograde motions of Venus and Mars. After many years of watching Mars and passing knowledge to next generations, they determined that its synodic period is divisible by 20, the base of their counting system. There were 39 of their 20 day weeks in the Mars synodic period. The 780 days became three 260-day years eventually, divided into 20 13-day weeks.
Here’s where the center of the galaxy comes in. The pre-Maya/pre-Lenca figured out that the Mars retrograde always happened within the same four 13-day weeks of their calendar, but when the Mars retrograde occurred when Mars was close to the Milky Way, it happened at the beginning of those four weeks. And when Mars turned retrograde very close to the center of the Milky Way, it would occur one day earlier than it ever had before, tracked by oral tradition. This would happen every 15, 32, or 47 years - when Mars turned retrograde in Scorpio or Sagitarrius. This formed the basis for the original Mars long-count calendar that preceded the current solar-based long-count calendar that has been used since at least 3100 BCE. My earlier blog entry explains in much more detail about the Mars long count calendar.
It was this knowledge, demonstrating their mental prowess, which allowed the pre-Maya/pre-Lenca to overcome their Xibalba enemies and become the leading people in Central America.
The shamans interpreted these discoveries as proof of a universal force. The first proof of universal force was that the synodic period of Mars was divisible by 20, the number of fingers and toes of human beings. Second, when they determined that the blank spot in the Milky Way caused the irregularity in Mars’ synodic period and caused their long-count calendar to click one day backward, they knew that one location of this universal force was at the center of the galaxy.
The center of the galaxy, 4 million solar masses, whose elliptic recently crossed the solar elliptic. It emits four kinds of radiation that have been reaching the surface of the earth since earth came into existence. And it was one of the first powerful "gods" of the pre-Maya/pre-Lenca people and still is today.
Posted at 10:49 PM in Cosmology, Mayan calendars | Permalink | Comments (2)
A death and resurrection story from the Popol Vuh
On this Good Friday during Easter week I am reminded that many ancient traditions had death and resurrection stories, including the Maya-Lenca. This one comes straight from the Popol Vuh, Part 3:
When One and Seven Hunahpu went back before One and Seven Death, they were asked:
"Where are my cigars? What of my torch? They were brought to you last night!"
"We finished them, your lordship."
"Very well. This very day, your day is finished, you will die, you will disappear, and we shall break you off. Here you will hide your faces: you are to be sacrificed!" said One and Seven Death.
And then they were sacrificed and buried. They were buried at the Place of Ball Game Sacrifice, as it is called. The head of One Hunahpu was cut off; only his body was buried with his younger brother.
"Put his dead in the fork of the tree that stands by the road," said One and Seven Death.
And when his head was put in the fork of the tree, the tree bore fruit. It would not have had any fruit, had not the head of One Hunahpu been put in the fork of the tree.
This is the calabash, as we call it today, or "the skull of One Hunahpu," as it is said.
And then One and Seven Death were amazed at the fruit of the tree. The fruit grows out everywhere, and it isn't clear where the head of One Hunahpu is; now it looks just the way calabashes look. All the Xibalbans see this, when they come to look.
The state of the tree loomed large in their thoughts, because it came about at the same time the head of One Hunahpu was put in the fork. The Xibalbans said among themselves:
"No one is to pick the fruit, nor is anyone to go beneath the tree," they said. They restricted themselves; all of Xibalba held back.
Popol Vuh, the Maya Book of the Dawn of Life. Trans. by Dennis Tedlock. 1996.
In this story the resurrection happens in the form of calabash squash. Central America is precisely where squash were first domesticated.
I believe parts of this history allude to historical fact, some parts are symbolic to agriculture and some are symbolic to astronomy.
On the historical side, I think that there was a leader of the Hunahpu family - the 1 Hunahpu is more of a family reference than an actual name of one person. I believe that this person was tested through a series of astronomical tests by the archenemies - the previous passage spoke of being put through five tests. I think the reference above to the cigars going out means that an astronomical event involving Venus or Mars did not occur as 1 Hunahpu said that it would. I think another translation for the word torch (chaj in Quiche) is 'red object' (chak in Chorti), which seems to provide a clue toward Mars. 1 Hunahpu came to be reverred so much because it was his insight and error that allowed future Maya-Lenca astronomers to advance beyond the Xibalban lords. Still to this day (possibly 9,000+ years later) Maya communities visit the cemetery on Hunahpu day.
In terms of when this occured, I think that the Popol Vuh uses the convention of family name then date, in many cases where two names are presented together. In this case the date referenced was 7 Hunahpu, a day in the 260 day calendar, but also a day in the Mars retrograde long-count calendar, which would be the equivalent of about 7500 BCE.
I also believe that the place that this occurred is eastern El Salvador. I think that the town of Corinto (corintoy in Chorti) translates as 'place of game sacrifice'. This is near to La Gruta del Espíritu Santo, which I think was the original site symbolized later as Xibalba. In fact a few kilometers west of Corinto is a village named Calavera, which means 'skull'. I would propose that this is the precise place where 1 Hunahpu's skull was placed. By the way, it's not clear that it was placed on a tree, the original words are unclear.
In addition to the other meanings described here, I think that the Popol Vuh provides a date for when squash was first domesticated. In that sense the 7 Hunahpu date, 7,500 BCE, may correspond more as a date for squash than as a date for the story of 1 Hunahpu. That is certainly possible. Evidence of squash and corn were both found in the Rio Balsas site in western Mexico which dates to 6,700 BCE.
By using an easy name/date convention, such as "1 Hunahpu 7 Hunahpu" to associate with squash, it was simple for future generations to know when squash was domesticated. Unfortunately it appears that the Mars calendar fell out of use a few hundred years before writing became common, so there is no written or oral record of its use, except, I believe, in the Popol Vuh.
The story of the Hunahpu's head growing into a squash is full of irony and humor, based on word play, which is so common to the Maya. In the Popol Vuh, recorded in Quiche Maya, the name of 1 Death is 1 Kame, which means death or dead person. In the Yucateca calendar, this day sign is Cimi, which also means death. However, Yucateca derived from Ch'orti' (Cholti) Maya, and in Ch'orti' cimin or tzimin means 'tapir'. This makes sense as tapir is the symbol for death and sacrifice in Maya cosmology and tapir is a fitting animal to symbolize the cave-dwelling Xibalbans. I would guess that tzimin might be a word that came across from Asia and originally meant bear.
Well the word used for squash in the Popol Vuh is tzima, clearly a play on tzimin. It still means 'thick-skinned gourd' in Ch'orti'. To name a squash after your enemies and then say your dead leader's head turned into a squash that then grew into a plant and reproduced at great length, was an ultimate insult and spoke of the Maya superior abilities in agriculture as well as language.
Finally, one can see traces of the story of 1 Hunahpu in the Day of the Dead tradition of Mexico and now the United States. The prominent use of the skull in Day of the Dead festivities is a reminder of Hunahpu's sacrifice but also ongoing life in the form of squash vine. Just as Hunahpu's people were able to laugh at the purveyors of death, today celebrants of the Day of the Dead are able to laugh at death.
Posted at 11:07 AM in Beginnings of Civilization, Cosmology | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tracing the Mesoamericans’ Travel through Names and Spirituality
The Mesoamerican people were travelers. They made balsa rafts from the balsa trees that grow along El Salvador’s La Libertad coast. They constructed reed boats from the reeds along the Torola River. They made dugout canoes, including large catamaran canoes for ocean-faring. They traveled to nearly every continent, and nearly every major river.
They went first of all to know the four corners of the earth, to know the beauty of the earth. Second, they went to share their knowledge of agriculture, earth’s bounty. Third, they also went to share their science and their spirituality, which for them was inseparable. And these were not things that could be forced on anyone, since that was contradictory of the spirituality itself.
In order to find the traces of the Mayans-Mesoamericans, one can look for at least four things:
Place names, especially islands, since they were the most sacred places. I will look along coast lines and rivers, since that is how they traveled. I will be looking at lakes, mountains, and towns. For one example, a town with a Mayan name along the Rhine River.
Examples of sea-faring people that would otherwise seem to be an anomaly. Other legends or stories of mysterious sea-faring people. For example, the Lukka people in the Mediterranean Sea in about 1200 to 1000 BC.
The names of fruits and vegetables, especially outside the sphere of the well-know agricultural societies. For example, the name of the cranberry will have significance in Ch’orti’ Maya.
Vestiges of the Mayan-Mesoamerican science and spirituality. In order to trace this, I will need to describe in more detail what it consisted of. It would be better that a Mayan, Lenca, or Zapotec leader do this, but I will do my best to outline it.
Early Mayan – Mesoamerican Spirituality
While there are many great books on Mayan and Mesoamerican spirituality, I wish to take the approach of trying to determine the key points to the spirituality by 2000 BC, that is before most of their expansion throughout Mesoamerica and before most of their travels around the globe on their ocean-faring rafts. The major exception is their travel and establishment of a community on the coast of Peru in about 3500 BC or 3000 BC.
I will use Mayan in this description, but these things would hold true for all Mesomerican groups, such as Lenca, Zapotec, Olmec, etc. Most of this early spirituality is identified in the Popol Vuh, the Mayan holy book:
Four Original Leaders. There were four original civilizing families or bands that led the Mesoamerican people to greatness. Three came out of the jaguar room of the Xibalba cave and one came out of the bat room. Two other families came out of the bat room but they decided not to join the Mayan-Mesoamerican way of life. The four Mesoamerican leaders were Balam Kitze, Balam Akbar, Balam Ik’, and Maza Manix. They are revered above all ancestors and remembered in all things.
Three Gifts from the Gods in the East. The Mayans received three gifts from the gods, Tohil, Hacawitz, and Auilix. These were tobacco, which kept people from starving; flint stone from Mount Usulután, which allowed them to make fire during the cold of the last of the Ice Age; and a collapsible raft which allowed them to cross rivers and streams. These were usually called three separate gods but at times were also called a three-fold god. The Mayan people survived to become the people they were only due to these three gifts from the east of El Salvador.
Looking to the East to Remember their Founding. The early people survived years in the wilderness and then were able to cross the sea as the sea descended due to the last mini Ice Age and make it to the islands in the Golfo de Fonseca. They settled on an island they named 'Balam' (Isla Tigre). This is where they built a tower in honor of the first jaguar leaders and where they founded their spirituality of remembering the three gods who gave them the gifts to survive in the wilderness. Once they left Isla Tigre they went west and always lived west of Isla Tigre. They never failed to look east to remember where they became a people.
The Leader whose Death Led to the Liberation of the People. One Hunahpu was a great early leader of the Quiche, I believe in about 7500 BC. He was one of the first astronomers and tracked the Mars cycle in the sky. Using the 260-day tzolkin and the Mars retrograde long-count calendar, he became good at predicting when Mars would turn retrograde when it was nearing the center of the galaxy at its retrograde cycle. He challenged their enemies that he could name the day of the retrograde motion and in return, the Mayan people would be free from the constant threat of the Xibalba lords. Unfortunately he was wrong and he was killed, his head place on a tree at the crossroads. But through his mistake later astronomers, such as Ixbalamque, were able to predict Mars motion and was able to once and for all defeat the Xibalba lords. One Hunahpu is revered as the ideal of sacrificing oneself for the good of the people, whether actual or symbolic.
Supreme Being at the Center of the Galaxy. The orbit of Mars was elongated by the dense gravity along the elliptic formed by the center of the galaxy, causing Mars’ retrograde to occur on the earliest possible date when that retrograde happened at the hole, the void, at the center of the galaxy. This spot, which we now know to be a massive black hole, is where the Supreme Being resides. The Mesoamericans commune with the Supreme Being through a sweat bath – a “bath” of steam and incense.
Mother Earth or ix (pronounced ‘ish’). There is a reverence for the earth which allows itself to be broken open so that life – corn, beans, squash, and cacao – can spring out.
The 20 day signs and the Mars long-count calendar. The Mayans had a base 20 counting system and a 260-day calendar that consisted of 20 weeks of 13 days each. In addition there were calendars to track Mars, Venus, and the lunar cycles, including an eclipse cycle. The Mars long-count calendar was a way to keep track of thousands of years – it would take nearly 700 years, and over 900 tzolkins, for this calendar to pass through one sign of 13 days.
Water, Rainbow, and the Serpent. Water has significance since the time of the escape from the cave and the people fled north to the Torola River. Their pursuers, the Xibalbans or Xibahkhans, could not swim and the people were safe. Those that stepped into the water, that immersed themselves, were saved. Xibahkha means ‘men afraid of water’. One of the four islands that the Mesoamerican people settled on was called Tammakchan, or 'deep inside the rainbow'. It was in Lago Coatepeque, a crater lake in western El Salvador. Makchan or 'rainbow' in Ch'orti' means "serpent that blocks" or "stops up" (the rain or the Xibahkha attacks). Both the rainbow and the serpent are associated with rain and with security. The rainbow also came to be symbolized by the plumed or feathered serpent.
Pyramids. The Mesoamericans gained access to flint stone on a volcano, Mount Usulután, provided by the god Hacawitz. Flint stone provided fire as well as being a cutting tool. Along with the jaguar, the earliest spiritual buildings took the form of a volcano. At times the volcanoes were represented with a flat top and at other times with a more pointed top. Ceremonies involving symbolic cutting or fire were typical on a pyramid to remember the gift from Hacawitz.
The Flood. One of the four Mesoamerican islands was at the mouth of the Rio Lempa. The oceans rose following the last of the Ice Age. In particular the flood and tsunami event of about 6400 BC when Lake Agassiz drained into the oceans may have caused the island of Teokan, founded by Balam Ik', to have been wiped out. The Mesoamericans always remembered this founder and re-established a community at the mouth of the Lempa.
Obsession with Pure Blood. The early Mayan leader One Hunahpu intermarried with another race. Many hundreds - thousands - of years later, his descendants, the Quiches, were the first to suffer from pellegra, a deadly niacin deficiency. The other Mesoamerican groups wrongly blamed the earlier inter-racial marriage as the cause, when in fact it was caused by over reliance on untreated corn. The Quiches were banished, starting tension and conflict, and an obsession with pure blood started. This obsession was shared with many of the people that the Mesoamericans visited.
Posted at 09:10 AM in Cosmology, Pre-Classic Maya, Travel to Other Continents | Permalink | Comments (5)
The Mayan Long Count Mars Retrograde Calendar
First published Feb 8, 2010. Major revisions Mar 25, 2013.
Before the Maya developed the well-known Long Count calendar sometime before 3114 BCE, they were using a long count calendar based on the orbit of Mars. The Mars tables in the Dresden Codex might provide more information, but there are also clues of this in the Mayan history book, the Popol Vuh. In fact, I believe that this calendar was developed in Honduras, when the Maya lived on Isla Tigre, and dates back to about 8500 BCE, which would make it one of the oldest calendars known to humankind.
The Mayan ancestors were using a base 20 day-counting system, no later than 8600 BCE while they were living at the Tecapa volcano, El Salvador, known as Hakawitz in the Popol Vuh and may have used it earlier. According to the Popol Vuh at Hakawitz (Tecapa) they began to practice every 20th day as a day of sacrifice to the ancestors and spirits (Tojmar day). Soon thereafter they seem to have initiated the 260 day calendar, most likely because it corresponded with the time between a pregnant woman's first missed period and the time of birth.
The Maya were forced to flee to an island - Isla Tigre - because they had a fierce enemy, descendants of the Clovis point hunters, who were based at Corinto cave. The Maya called them Xibalbha - "those afraid of water". The Maya were safe on islands. But they desired to live on land and the only way to do that was to overcome the Xibalbha. Eventually it might mean militarily but before that they needed to overcome the Xibalbha shaman who could predict the timing of the full moon. The Maya began to see if they could predict the standing still and retrograde motions of the various planets - that would overcome the Xibalba shaman.
The Mayan ancestors would have noticed that at least four stars (planets) did stand still and move backward - Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They might have noticed Mercury but it is never high above the horizon and is hard to see, especially in a hilly landscape.
Venus has a synodic period - the length of time from one retrograde motion until the next retrograde motion - of about 584 days. One could track Venus with 73 8-day weeks, and eventually the Mayans probably did this. But 584 is not evenly divisible by 20, so it was not possible to predict its retrograde motion with a base 20 system.
Jupiter has a synodic period of just under 399 days. That is close to 20 20-day weeks, but is not close enough to being evenly divisible by 20 to serve as a long-count calendar. Saturn has a synodic period of 378 days and is close to 19 20-day weeks, but, like Jupiter, would not serve as a long-count calendar.
Mars has a synodic period of 779.9197 days. This is almost exactly 39 20-day weeks. Embedded within that 780 day cycle are three 260 day segments, corresponding to the 260 day tzolk'in calendar, with 13 20-day weeks in each segment. Eventually that flipped to become 20 13-day weeks.
The three 260 day segments of the Mars cycle are:
Middle night to evening star: station (turn) retrograde, retrograde, station direct, direct
Evening star to invisible: evening star, heliacal setting, invisible (conjunct Sun)
Morning to middle night star: heliacal rising, morning star, to middle night star
Based on the how the Mayan week fits into the characteristic of the stages in the first segment, the retrograde period, the weeks of the tzolk'in can be placed in four groups. Mars always stations retrograde within the same 52 day span (4 13-day weeks) of the tzolk'in - what I call Group 'A' in the table below. (Actually not always: it slips one day every 26 years.) Mars is always retrograde during every third time through a 26-day period, called Group 'B'. Mars also stations direct each time within the same 52 day span, Group 'C', below. Finally there is a 130 period in tzolk'in where Mars is never retrograde or stationing direct, called Group 'D' below.
The following table describes how the four groupings of weeks fall within the three 260-day cycles of Mars. When it says last three days of Noj, for example, that means the 11th, 12th and 13th days of the week that begins 1 Noj. Note: I will use the following convention when referring to day signs (Chorti/Quiche/Yucatec/Aztec/English). The four weeks mentioned below are: Noj/No'j/Caban/Ollin/Greatness; Tojmar/Toj/Muluk/Atl/Payment made; Tz'ikin/Tz'ikin/Men/Cuauhtli/Clay and sticks; and Ch'i'/Kej/Manik'/Mazatl/Growth. Based on my reading of the Popol Vuh, I use the correlation of GMT-95 or 584188, for dates after October 1582.
1. Middle night to evening star
2. Evening star to invisible
3. Morning to middle night star
last 3 days of Noj to first 10 days of Tojmar
Turns retrograde
Heliacal rising
last 3 days of Tojmar to first 10 days of Tz'ikin
Always retrograde
Early evening star
last 3 days of Tz'ikin to first 10 days of Ch'i'
Turns direct
Heliacal setting
Early morning star
last 3 days of Ch'i' to first 10 days of Noj
Late evening star
Invisible or briefly visible
Middle of night star
The key driver of the Mars calendar is the station retrograde. When Mars is ready to turn retrograde it rises in the evening - between 8:00 pm and 9:30 pm. The elliptical nature of Mars' orbit is due, in part, to the gravitational pull of the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Visually this is located at the dark spot in the middle of the Milky Way, the 'void', which is, literally, a large black hole.
When Mars stations (turns) retrograde opposite the center of the galaxy, i.e., in Taurus or Gemini, its retrograde station occurs very late in the tzolk'in, but when it stations retrograde in Scorpio or early Sagittarius the retrograde station occurs very early in the tzolk'in. It's important to use the tropical zodiac rather than the sidereal zodiac since the impacting force is the center of the galaxy not individual stars which are precessing through the galaxy's elliptic. Every 7th or 8th Mars' synodic period, every 15 to 17 years, will produce a retrograde in Scorpio or early Sagittarius.
By representing each tzolk'in day as a number from 1 to 260, starting with 1 Imix as 1, one can see how the Mars retrograde occurs earlier during March and April and when Mars is Scorpio or Sagittarius. The following table lists the last time that the Mars retrograde calendar moved backward one day (in 1984), when it repeated on that tzolk'in date in 1999, as well as all of the Mars retrograde occurrences from 2012 to 2031.
Mars Mars Tzolk'in
Retrograde Zodiac Tzolk'in 1-260
Date d/m/y Position Date Number
5/4/1984 28 21 Sco 12 K'anir 168
18/3/1999 12 12 Sco 12 K'anir 168
23/1/2012 23 06 Vir 13 Ik'ar 182
1/3/2014 27 32 Lib 1 Tz'i 170
17/4/2016 8 54 Sag 12 K'anir 168
26/6/2018 9 13 Aqu 6 K'anir 188
9/9/2020 28 8 Ari 6 B'ahram 214
30/10/2022 25 37 Gem 7 Tz'ikin 215
6/12/2024 6 10 Leo 8 Akbar 203
10/1/2027 10 26 Vir 6 K'anir 188
14/2/2029 13 55 Lib 5 B'ahram 174
28/3/2031 21 38 Sco 10 Chamer 166
The Mars retrograde calendar moves backward every 15, 32, or 47 years. Fifteen years after 1984, in 1999, it almost moved back but repeated the same day, 12 K'anir. Thirty two years after 1984, in 2016, it almost moved back but again repeated the same day, 12 K'anir. Forty-seven years after 1984, in 2031, the calendar will move back two days to 10 Chamer. Often when it hasn't moved in 47 years it will back up two days at once. The Maya would have known from the position of Mars as it slows down whether or not it would move the calendar back. For example in 1999, Mars' position at 12 Scorpio was too early in the Milky Way.
Because Mars' synodic period is 779.9197 days and not exactly 780 days it slowly moves backward through the tzolk'in. This happens on average one day per about 26 years. A Mars station retrograde is considered significant in the calendar when it moves the Mars calendar backward by one day. For example, on March 25, 1952, the Mars retrograde station occurred on 13 Tojmar (the 13th day of Noj/No'j/Caban/Ollin/Greatness week). It was a significant retrograde since previously the calendar was set on 1 Tz'i'/Tz'i'/Ok/Izcuintli/Dog. Considering for the moment only Mars retrogrades that occurred in Scorpio or early Sagittarius, 15 years later, on March 8, 1967, Mars turned retrograde on 1 Tz'i'; this was not significant. Seventeen years later, on April 5, 1984, Mars turned retrograde on 12 K'anir/Q'anil/Lamat/Tochtli/Yellow Star (12th day of Noj week); this was significant since it clicked down from the 13th day of Noj to the 12th day of Noj.
Generally anytime that the Mars retrograde starts between March 19 and April 8, it will be a significant retrograde for the calendar. Over time this time span slowly moves forward. This corresponds to a location of Mars between 13 Scorpio and 3 Sagittarius. The table above shows that in 1999 Mars turned retrograde in the 12th degree of Scorpio. It was not significant. In 2016 Mars will turn retrograde in the 8th degree of Sagittarius and it will not be significant. Then in 2031 Mars turns retrograde at 21 Scorpio and will click down two spaces in the calendar. While the Maya could see that Mars was in the middle of the Milky Way, when it clicked the calendar down two days it helped to confirm it was the center of the galaxy that was affecting Mars' orbit. Watching Mars helped the Maya determine where the center of the galaxy was - located in our era at 2 Sagittarius.
The Mars retrograde long-count calendar is not exact - it can range from 316 years to 394 years to click through one 13-day sign. This may be one reason that the Maya decided to adopt the solar elliptic based long-count calendar, which consists of 73 tzolk'in cycles, 52 365-day years, or 51.9644 Julian years.
How did the Maya keep track of time for thousands of years? I guess that they did it by body painting, body piercing, and scarring. It would have been necessary to track only two calendars: the tzolk'in and the Mars calendar date, in order to keep track of the Mars long count.
The tzolk'in, which changed each day, was likely tracked in a non-permanent way, such as with body paint on people's toes and fingers. It was an honor to be the official day-keeper. Counting the days is symbolized by the day sign tz'ikin, which has a double meaning of "count days".
The Mars long count itself was most likely tracked with piercings or scarring, since a change in the count would occur only every 15 to 47 years. This was probably done only on the shaman-astronomers themselves. They probably used the body parts least likely to be lost - the face, chest, and abdomen. In fact, I think that the later practice by the priests of cutting themselves on the ear or genitalia was a symbolic reference back to the days when shaman kept track of the Mars long count in that manner. When a new shaman was being initiated part of the initiation was to repeat the scarring or the piercing of the outgoing shaman so that the historical record was not lost.
When Mars rose an hour or two after sunset, i.e. about to turn retrograde, and nearing the center of the galaxy, several days of celebration would ensue as people waited to see if it heralded a new calendar day. The shamans were able to predict the exact date of the retrograde motion by seeing how close Mars was to the center of galaxy when it was about to turn backward. The Popol Vuh describes precisely this "ball game" contest with the lords of Xibalba, when Hunahpu and Xbalanque ("movement into B'ahram") were in the razor room and made the razors stand still. (Tedlock, pg. 123). Note: the page numbers that I reference are from the Revised Edition, 1996, of Dennis Tedlock's English translation of the Popol Vuh.
Because the calendar is moving backward through the signs, the week identifier does not start until the calendar is down to the first day of the week. For example, we are now in the Tz'i' period, which started with 1 Tz'i' and continues from the 13th to the 2nd day of Noj week. This helps explain why the Mayans later used the last day of a time period to identify that period rather than the first day.
Historic Era-Week in the Mars Retrograde Calendar
(Ch'orti'/Quiche/Yucatec)
1 Ahchuck/Junahpu/Ahaw
1 Ch'i'/Kej/Manik'
1 B'ahram/Ix/Ix
1 Imix/Imox/Imix
1 K'anir/Q'anil/Lamat
1 Tz'ikin/Tz'ikin/Men
1 Ik'ar/Iq'/Ik'
1 Tojmar/Toj/Muluk
1 Ahmok/Ajmak/Cib
1 Akb'ar/Aq'ab'al/Ak'bal
1 Tz'i'/Tz'i'/Ok
1 Noj/No'j/Caban
1 Kach/K'at/Kan
1 B'atz/B'atz'/Chuen
1 Etz'nab'/Tijax/Etz'nab
1 Chichan/Kan/Chikchan
1 B'i'r/E/Eb
1 Kawe't/Kawuq/Kawak
1 Chamer/Kame/Kimi
1 B'ahk'/Aj/Ben
1 Ahchuk/Junajpu/Ahaw
Note: Uses GMT correlation 584178, except after 1582 CE uses 584188.
Nov 28, 8529 BCE
Dec 16, 7487 BCE
Dec 4, 6462 BCE
Jan 2, 5387 BCE
Jan 27, 3335 BCE
Feb 15, 2293 BCE
Feb 6, 1962 BCE
Feb 25, 920 BCE
Feb 23, 137 CE
Mar 10, 816 CE
Mar 3, 1147 CE
Apr 2, 1905 CE
What is the evidence that the Maya used the Mars retrograde calendar? The first is deduction and the second are references in the Popol Vuh. The deductive argument is that if the Maya had a 260 day calendar, and they did, they would have had to be aware of the Mars cycle that is described at the beginning of this post. They were simply such good astronomers that they must have noticed the Mars cycle of retrogrades, directs, settings and risings. And if the Maya were aware of the Mars cycle they would have made a calendar of the cycle. They created dozens or even hundreds of calendars.
The Popol Vuh appears to embed dates from the Mars long count calendar by using pairs of names and by using other symbols that appear to be placed in the narrative for no apparent reason. The most obvious pairing of names are "One Kame (Chamer), Seven Kame" (One Death, Seven Death) and "One Hunahpu (Ahchuk), Seven Hunahpu" (One Observer, Seven Observer). In the case of One Hunahpu, Seven Hunahpu, the Popol Vuh states (pg. 91) that Seven Hunahpu "has no wife. He's just a partner and just secondary; he just remains a boy." That to me is a clue that it is a date reference rather than an actual person.
The repeated references to "One Kame, Seven Kame" appear to refer to the date that the Maya met the death-bringing Xibalba hunters soon after the Maya arrived to El Salvador on four rafts. They were captured and taken to the Corinto cave. Seven Kame occurred about 180 years before 1 Ahchuk (8514 BCE) on the calendar above. Precisely 7 Kame (Chamer) occurred in 8687 BCE but I don't see evidence in the Popol Vuh for the tzolk'in, let alone the Mars calendar, to be in use that early. The tzolk'in seems to have been developed at Hakawitz which would have been in the 50 to 100 years following the Mayan arrival to El Salvador. So the Maya on Isla Tigre were estimating when their ancestors had met the Xibalbhans and used 7 Kame as that estimate.
The date 7 Hunahpu also appears to be an embedded date which refers to two occurrences. The first, on pages 96-97, is One Hunahpu (leader of all four Mayan clans) making a mistake when predicting the motion of a planet - most likely Mars. One Hunahpu is forced to jump through the razor room and the sharp rocks behead him and his head is placed on a tree at the crossroads. But the Popol Vuh states that his death was not in vain, the Maya learned from it in terms of becoming better predictors of planetary motion. His sacrifice helped to later save the Mayan people. One Hunahpu's head then becomes a calabash, a squash. This may be indicating that the Mayan people first domesticated the squash at this same time. The date 7 Hunahpu is 7993 BCE. It appears that the 7 Hunahpu refers to the entire period from 7993 BCE until the next 1 date which is 1 B'ahram on 7835 BCE. It is in this time period that 1 Hunahpu is killed, most likely on the night that the Mars retrograde calendar clicked down to 5 Etz'nab' on Nov. 21, 7914 BCE. Razors are the symbol of the Etz'nab' day sign.
Probably the best evidence from the Popol Vuh of the existence of the Mars retrograde calendar is a passage from page 103 of Tedlock where there is a speech from Xkik'. The second line of the poem is:
xtoj, xq'anil
movement (into) Tojmar, movement (into) K'anir
Normally with the tzolk'in the days proceed Ch'i', K'anir, Tojmar, and Tz'i'. The only calendar where it goes in the opposite direction - Tz'i' to Tojmar to K'anir - is the Mars retrograde calendar. The use of x to denote movement also implies that something is moving (backward) into Tojmar and then K'anir. In this case the reference is to a process that took place over many years.
The following table lists many of the Mars retrograde calendar references in the Popol Vuh, as well as a couple others. Most of the Popol Vuh references took place between 8529 BCE and 7487 BCE.
BCE Date:
Mars Retro Mars Retrograde
Tzolk'in Marker
7 Chamer (Death) Mayan arrival to place of Xibalba (El Salvador)
Nov 28, 8529 1 Ahchuk (Observer) Observe Mars pattern
Nov 22, 8403 9 Tz'ikin (Count days; 2nd meaning) Beginning of day count, tzolk'in
Nov 14, 8356 8 B'ahram (Jaguar) Taming of the jaguar (B'ahram means "spider lattice")
7 B'ahk' (Cultivation) First cultivation (of tobacco)
Nov 28, 8245 2 K'anir (Yellow star) Triple star of 8207 BCE: Venus, Mars, Jupiter alignment
1 Ch'i' (Growth) First corn grown at Teotipa
Nov 18, 7993 7 Ahchuk (Observer) 7 Hunahpu Popol Vuh reference. 1st squash
Nov 21, 7914 5 Etz'nab' (Study or forget) Death of Ahchuk in the Razor Room at Corinto Cave after making mistake in prediction of Mars retrograde
2 Tz'ikin (Clay & sticks) Lago Guija flood, Nov 1, 7835 BCE ("Sikin" sounds like Tz'ikin and means "Day of the Dead")
Nov 23, 7835 1 B'ahram (Jaguar) Flood aftermath
11 B'atz (Sterile) First explosives experiments by those with no family
Dec 19, 7692 9 Tojmar (Payment made), 8 K'anir (Yellow star)
Clearing the blocked Lago Guija egress river
Nov 29, 7677 7 Ch'i' (Growth) Lago Guija egress completely unblocked. Move to Igualtepec. (7 Chimalmat from Popol Vuh)
Dec 16, 7486 1 Imix (Cutting movement) Final defeat of the Xibalbha hunters as they jump through the cutting rocks of the Razor House at Corinto cave
Jan 25, 3130 7 Etz'nab' (Study or forget) Mars retrograde sign during the beginning of the long count calendar in August 3014 BCE.
In some cases the day signs were named for events that happened on that day in the Mars retrograde calendar. I believe that this is the case with K'anir with the planetary alignment in 8207 BCE and with Etz'nab' with the death of 1 Hunahpu in the Razor Room in 7914 BCE. In other cases like the Guija flood which occurred while the calendar was on Tz'ikin a second meaning was given to Tz'ikin.
Posted at 05:39 PM in 260 Day Signs, Beginnings of Civilization, Cosmology, Mayan calendars | Permalink | Comments (8)
The Rooms and Colors of the Corinto Cave
The Mayans, and by extension, many other people, emerged from a cave called Xibalba, a place of great suffering. We know that this cave is not just allegorical, due to the fact that the word Xibalba means, 'those men who are afraid of water' and that the Mayans fled eventually to islands, including Teopan and Teotipa in far western El Salvador. Teopan is located in Lago Coatepeque whose name in Chorti was Tammakchan, 'deep inside the rainbow', where rainbow means 'stopping up the rainstorm'. On the islands the Mayans perfected corn by hybridizing it with teosinte grass, which means 'plants in a row on an island'.
By looking up place names in the online Chorti' Maya dictionary, I have been able to locate a cave in eastern El Salvador called La Gruta del Espíritu Santo near the town of Corinto. Corinto means 'place of game sacrifice' in Chorti Maya. Before moving on to what the Popol Vuh says happened to the civilizing people once they left the cave of Xibalba, it will be helpful to describe the cave. All of the people who can trace some of their lineage back to the Mayans will share some of these specific cultural icons.
The Popol Vuh describes five sections in the cave, the first being the Dark 'House', which appears to be where the leaders stayed as well as guests. Next is the Razor House, perhaps in reference to pointed rocks or stalagmites. Then is the Cold or Whistling House, in obvious reference to a draft that whistles as it blows in. This area would have been several degrees colder then during the Ice Age period. The next room is the Jaguar House. As I mentioned in a previous post this might refer to those who will later be forced to fight for the entertainment of the cave leaders. Finally is the Bat House, which is probably a literal reference to an area where bats flew around.
The Popol Vuh tells us that three of the four original Mayan came out of the Jaguar House and I will demonstrate that one also came out of the Bat House. In some versions of the Popol Vuh description there is a sixth fire or smoke house, an obvious reference to a cooking space. The cave people would have kept a constant fire going since it was so difficult to start a fire. Consistent with the Popol Vuh, the Bradshaw Foundation documented that the cave consists of several galleries or sections.
The Bradshaw Foundation also says that there are five paint colors on the cave drawings in the cave. These are the same five colors mentioned throughout the Popol Vuh and to this day used by the Mayans in their ceremonies: white, black, yellow, red, and green. My guess is that the colors represented clans or groups of leaders.
When the Popol Vuh mentions the roads to Xibalba and calls them the white, black, yellow, and red roads, it may be the road for which a particular color clan is responsible for controlling. Later, probably after the Mayans left the cave, green paint was added in the cave. It is only in a later passage of the Popol Vuh that the green road is mentioned. The green road is the one of choice. This would seem to be a reference to going off-road, through the woods, to avoid the Xibalba marauders. Even today one can hear Central Americans make a joke about taking the green road when going off a beaten path.
Raphael Girard, who lived among the Chortis for a long time, documented a near-forgotten play called 'the History' performed at Christian feast days very close to the summer and winter solstice celebrations. In the play, the Mayans are opposed to a white giant and a black giant. And move around as if stars and planets. The Mayan 'king' has a gold crown with ten points, a yellow cloak, rose or red trousers, and a blue 'bonnet' with a long (30 cm) red veil hanging over his face. There are other solar and celestial symbols on his clothing. First the white and black giants battle each other, with the black giant winning. In the end the Mayan king is able to defeat the black giant.
While Girard considers this to be entirely metaphor, I believe it corresponds to glimmers of human history: that the white giant represents the leader(s) of the humans as they crossed over the Bering Strait. That as they progressed down toward Central America, there was a struggle for power and that the black giant represents the victor clan which established a legacy of control over the entire traffic of the isthmus between North and South America, the Central American isthmus. The black giant clan had their base out of the Gruta cave in Corinto, El Salvador.
The Bradshaw Foundation found that some of the drawings had feathered headdresses. Some had an elongated left wrist - perhaps a club reference. At the very deepest point in the cave is a large black and white hand, using the black rock with white paint stenciled around it. The symbol of those who controlled the cave.
This cultural reference also existed in El Salvador until recently. During the 1970s, prior to the armed conflict in El Salvador, the death squads used the drawing of either a black or white hand, 'El Mano', to identify the house of somebody that they intended to kill. When your house was selected it was said that you were fingered out.
It appears from the references in the Popol Vuh of lights, fireflies, and torches that the Mayans were able to demonstrate knowledge of the heavenly skies to the Xibalbans. The Xibalbans counter with their own somewhat simple knowledge of the skies, a white dagger, which I would guess is the sun. It would appear that although the Xibalbans may have been cruel, they were intelligent.
Ultimately it was a test of knowledge rather than a test of strength, that allowed the Mayans to free themselves of the cave. Each time that they visit the cave it is for several days and there are references to staying up all night. This would have been necessary to watch the night skies, in order for the Mayans to demonstrate their prowess of astronomical knowledge.
It would appear that the specific knowledge that the Mayans developed that allowed their freedom was the ability to track Mars and predict when it would turn retrograde in the sky.
One can imagine the conversation, "We don't need to do anything differently. The sun will come up tomorrow. That is our reality. Why sit there and count to 20 by painting on your fingers and toes. See our hand, this is our counting. If you think you have a better system than us, go back where you came from. If you think you're so hot, make the stars stand still."
In the razor room the razors are moving back and forth but the Mayans are able to make the razors stand still. This was done by developing the 260 day calendar and the Mars long-count calendar. It was not brute force but an astronomical calendar, pulled by the gravitational force of the center of the galaxy, the void in the Milky Way, the tree of life in the sky, that led to the liberation of one of the world's earliest people. This is the 'ball game equipment' of the Mayans. Game on!
Posted at 08:58 AM in Archeological Sites, Beginnings of Civilization, Cosmology, Creation Story | Permalink | Comments (0)
Entering the Underworld Hell - a Look at the Cave Beginnings of Xibalba
It is not by accident that I reached the point in my series on El Salvador indigenous history and got stuck at 600 AD, with the description of Joya de Cerén, the Pompeii-like Mayan classical site which was frozen in time following a volcanic eruption which covered the farming village. The next topics to cover - the spectacular building of Cihuatán in the mid 8th century, its violent destruction about 100 years later, and then the arrival of the Pipiles from Mexico - did not make sense. The Pipiles, for example, told early Spanish chroniclers that they resettled in El Salvador as a form of retribution against all the Olmecas for causing them so much suffering. How does that fit? The Olmecs were from the Gulf of Mexico coast of Veracruz and Tabasco. And who would have attacked Cihuatán in such a fashion? The Pipiles did not have that military capacity.
That is why I have needed to take a big step back and look at the history of corn and the world of the cave dwellers. The history of corn has included an examination of the distribution of teosinte as a place name which was found to be centered in the Guatemala-Honduras-El Salvador triangle area (i.e. Chorti Maya area). Then by determining that teo means 'island' in Chorti' Maya, it was possible to see that teosinte, in fact, means 'plants in a row on an island'. The two islands of Lago Coatepeque ('serpent hill lake') and Lago Güija ('navel' or 'source' lake), both in western El Salvador, were used to continually hybridize corn with teosinte from a variety of local sites. Corn had undergone significant hybridization by 1500 BC, therefore these two islands are extremely early Mayan agricultural sites, i.e. pre-Pre-Classic.
And now the cave. The Popol Vuh offers a very detailed view of Xibalba, the underworld, the cave that the Mayans came out of. Dennis Tedlock, in his very good translation of the Popol Vuh into English, states that the first part of Xibalba means 'fright'. That's an important clue. Xibalba is an evil place, as described in the Popol Vuh, perhaps similar to Hades. Tedlock translates the leaders' names as One Death and Seven Death. Other leaders are called Demon of Pus, Blood Gatherer, Demon of Jaundice, Bone Scepter, Skull Scepter, and so on. You get the picture. And this is men describing Xibalba - you can only imagine what life was like for the women.
The Xibalbans did not just stay in the cave. The Popol Vuh discusses the road(s) to Xibalba as crossing various rivers, but especially mentions Pus River and Blood River, and says that they were traps put there by the Xibalbans. Given the leader names of Demon of Pus and Blood Gatherer, it is clear that the Xibalbans used rivers to ambush people and keep control of the roads, as is typical in "pre-civilized" societies. They controlled the countryside.
In Chorti' Maya, which is the oldest and purest Mayan language and the language of the inscriptions at Tikal and most Classic-era sites, xib is a plural male pronoun, as in 'those men of' or 'those men who'. It is pronounced similar to 'she' in English, with a 'b' at the end. But xib also correlates with the syllable xi. To show the impact of xi in the Mayan psyche or culture, it is helpful to see how it shows up in various words, with meanings in English:
baxi 'pull out'
haxi 'roll into a twist'
ha'xi 'snare with a rope'
hixi 'pull off with the fingers'
huxi 'pluck'
k'uxi 'gnaw on'
muxi 'grind on the metate'
see quxi 'lay an egg'
Following Tedlock's lead, in Chorti' the middle syllable is ba'k' which means 'fear' or 'fright'. The 'a' at the end could be ah, as in 'one who does'. But that is only used as a prefix in Chorti', not a suffix. The closest suffix sound is ha, which means 'water'. So Xi-ba'k'-ha means 'men who make water afraid' or more likely 'men who are afraid of water'. This is a derogatory name, something seen over and over again in the names of one's enemies in the Popol Vuh.
But more importantly, putting it together with the fact that some of the earliest Mayan settlements were built on islands, a very clear picture comes about. The earliest Mayans escaped from Xibalba, were pursued, and were only safe after entering water and swimming to safety to islands, because xibakha, the men were afraid of water. The islands were the only place that the Mayans were safe from the xibakha reign of terror. This is made even clearer by the Chorti' verb 'to swim', which is luhxih, giving a directional reference point, i.e. away from xih.
I write this as tears fall down my face. One can only understand the meaning of Xibalba if one understands El Mozote massacre, the Rio Sumpul massacre, the matanza of indigenous of 1932, the nearly 200,000 Guatemalan indigenous killed in the 1980s, the suffering caused by the US government in Central America, the repression of anti-coup leaders in Honduras, and the current murders against Salvadoran anti-mining activists. And then learn to swim.
I recently wrote about various caves in the Mesoamerica region, including La Gruta del Espíritu Santo cave in eastern El Salvador. The Popol Vuh also offers clues regarding the location of Xibalba. The Popol Vuh describes two early Mayan leaders being killed at Xibalba and buried nearby at 'Place of Ball Game Sacrifice'. The Popol Vuh was written in Quiche. Some of the words and syllables have changed from the original, which would have been Chorti' or very close to Chorti'. In Quiche, the 'Place of Ball Game Sacrifice' is Pusb'al cha'j. But let's look at it in Chorti'.
In Chorti', just as in English, there is a connection between the words used for hunted animals and a ball game. In Chorti' korom is hunted animals and kor is ball or pellet. Perhaps the subjects of the Xibalban lords were actually forced to "play" each other, as wild animals, to the death. This may have been both a form of entertainment and a means of population control. The naming of one of the rooms or houses in Xibalba as 'jaguar room' gives this connotation. This interpretation also would be consistent with the evolution of the later ball game fields at Mayan Pre-Classic and Classic sites.
In addition to kor, 'place' is irah, and 'sacrifice' is toy. So the full name would be kor-irah-toy. Two kilometers from La Gruta del Espíritu Santo cave is the town of Corinto. Further confirmation of this connection is the word for 'game place' in Chorti', koromtar.
This placement of Xibalba is consistent with the Popol Vuh. The early Mayans in the Popol Vuh always traveled east from their homes to Xibalba when summoned by the lords there. The Xibalba cave is in northeast El Salvador and one of the roads to Xibalba went from Isla Teopán and Isla Teotipa in west and northwest El Salvador. But the Popol Vuh makes it clear that there were four Mayan clans that escaped from Xibalba. And it turns out that they each went to a different island to escape the men afraid of water.
Posted at 03:23 AM in Beginnings of Civilization, Chorti, Cosmology, Geography, Pre-Classic Maya | Permalink | Comments (0)
1 Mono, 1 Goriletti, Líder Corrupto de 3200 A.C.
Hoy dia es 1 Mono en el calendario maya de 260 dias, el tzolkin. Es el dia de "Goriletti", como es conocido el político hondureño, Roberto Michiletti, que tomó poder despues del golpe del estado el 28 de junio. En el Popol Vuh los monos son asociados con el tercer Tiempo, o sea antes del año de 3114 antes de Cristo - que es la fecha iniciadora de este cuarto Tiempo de civilización de los chortis y los lencas.
En el Popol Vuh los lideres del tercer Tiempo son muy astutos y listos - descubrieron como hacer hamacas y redes, como curar los infermos. Pero son sin valores y la ética. Gente maliciosa. Es el Tiempo en la historia cuando se comenzó la práctica del sacrificio humano. El uso de la palabra 'Goriletti' por la Resistencia hondureña muestra que es muy bien enterrado de la cultura indígena que nunca ha sido borrada por los usurpadores.
Por fin, el Popol Vuh dice, los dos líderes corruptos son atraidos por los gemelos héroes, Hunahpu y Ixbaramque, al arbol madre de cacao (q'ante). Allí son bureados por los gemelos, y cambiados a ser monos, 1 Mono (m'ax) y 1 Artesano (manix). Así termina el tercer Tiempo, que tambien marca el comienzo del cuarto Tiempo de civilización.
El libro maya Chilam Balam de Chumayel dice que nueve dioses dan fin al Tercer Tiempo. El número nueve siempre es femenino por los maya. La diosa nueve crea mujeres sin familia, o sea diosas femeninas, que dan su vida por la gente sufrida para terminar el tercer Tiempo corrupto.
El pueblo es listo por dar fin al tercer Tiempo. ¡Qué llegue el cuarto! y la restoración de la democracia por medio de la Asamblea Constituyente. El Goriletti puede descansar en su hamaca muy bien hecha.
Posted at 10:37 AM in 260 Day Signs, Cosmology, Honduras, Mayan calendars | Permalink | Comments (0)
Transforming the Gods
The beginnings of the Mayan religion were tumultuous. As the Chortis, the Mayans along the Pacific Coast, became more adept at agriculture - hybridizing corn, beans, and squash, and introducing yuca (manioc), peanuts, and cacao from areas to the south - adoration was given to Mother Earth, ix, who provided all good things. The Chortis named corn, ixim, which means something similar to 'fruit of Mother Earth'. Corn came from teosinte, ixim ka, 'wild fruit of Mother Earth'.
But as people ate more corn, a disease appeared (pellegra - a niacin deficiency) and destroyed entire villages. Leaders became lesioned, weak, demented, and died. After many deaths, much sacrifice, the gods seemed to reveal a solution to help the Mayans overcome the awful disease - soaking corn in ash. A new creation narrative was developed to explain how this happened, gods were transformed, and new language was created.
While still female, Ix was transformed from mother earth to jaguar god, the spotted (lesioned) god that came from the underworld, the land of death. This was done through creating the legend of Ixbalanque - the spotted (lesioned) jaguar hero twin. Balan means jaguar - clearly the linking of ix and balan in this hero twin was a way of transforming this god from the generous and beneficent Mother Earth to the clever and death-dealing jaguar. Likewise, it is likely that at this time Ixbalba, also written Xibalba, came to mean 'the underworld'. The new theology and philosophy was carried with the Mayans to help convince neighboring peoples to trust their new discovery of the cure for the diseased corn. And it clearly worked, as civilization spread at a tremendous pace from 1500 to 1300 BC.
Everyday language was transformed as well. A new word was created for corn, nar, to differentiate it from the diseased corn, ixim, the corn of the jaguar god. The term nixtamal, the process of soaking corn in ash or lime, was created and means "to cure the corn of the disease ix." Ix refers to pellegra, the disease of spots, the disease of the lesioned jaguar god of death. Nir means 'to cure' in Chorti and nian means 'none' or 'not any'.
Posted at 07:14 AM in Beginnings of Civilization, Chorti, Cosmology, Creation Story, Mayan languages | Permalink | Comments (0)