[Aztlan] moon's cycle

[Karen Bassie]

This posting isn’t directly about the correlation question, but it is 
about how and why the Maya were counting the moon’s synodic cycle. The 
Maya were corn farmers who lived in a tropical environment where the 
timing of the corn planting was dedicated by the start of the rainy 
season. The timing was crucial because a farmer must burn his field, and 
immediately plant his corn just before the rains begin. If he burns too 
early, the essential ash from the burn will be diminished by the time 
the rains come, and if he plants too late and the rains begin, he will 
not get a good burn. Although the Maya use a variety of signs related to 
plant and animal behavior that indicated it is time to burn the field 
and plant, the rainy season begins around the first zenith passage of 
the sun in late April/early May so the Maya had to be focusing on this 
important solar event as well. More importantly, there is a prevalent 
practice in the Maya area of planting at full moon. There is 
approximately 13 days from the first visible waxing moon to full moon. 
In this two week period prior to planting, the Maya prepare themselves 
for planting by performing a series of rituals and by adhering to 
certain practices such as sexual abstinence and fasting. So the 
disappearance of the moon at new moon, and its re-appearance as a waxing 
moon in the time period just before the zenith passage of the sun is an 
important signal to begin the period of ritual preparation for planting. 
I am, therefore, very inclined to think that the Lunar Series notation 
referring to the arrival of the moon refers to the first arrival of the 
waxing moon in the western sky because this is the period of the moon’s 
cycle that the Maya were most concerned with.

Karen Bassie