[Aztlan] 2012

[Sid Hollander]

Jeff Chouinard said,
Snip
... we get asked a lot of questions about the
ancient calendar. The most common misconception is that there is as 1-to-1
correlation between particular Gregorian days and particular sets of glyphs.
"Please send me the glyphs for my birthday, which is June 13th. I'm going to
get a tattoo.";;;;;;; end snip

I have two points to make.
1.  You lost me when you spoke about the Maya not having a word for cycle
(if they did or not is not at question) but you then go to great lengths
speaking of "repetitions" that they used.  Did they have a word for
"repetitions".

2. The person that wants the tattoo just wanted something to go on his "x",
I assume a small area of his body.  He could have just as well said "...for
my birthday, which is  Friday".

Now let's assume he had two tattoos made;  one with some Haab date and one
with the word "Friday".  Now when he shows either to a friend who has
knowledge of only our calendar he will no doubt get two different types of
reaction.  If he flashed the Maya one the response might be, "WOW, Cool!
Had he shown the other one while proclaiming, "I was born on this date", the
reaction  would be quite different.   And this is not surprising is it?

To the list"   If this person was a beginning anthro student of yours, in
which case do do you think he is further from the particular calendar
"truth"?

What I have observed is that the person looking for the Maya equivalent of
June 13 may be just a tiny bit confused.  That person probably has done some
reading or has gotten a glyph while in the Yucatan etc. and it was based on
the recorded 'facts' of Landa who gave the 1 to 1 correspondence between the
Haab and European calendar.  Had this person been born in 1560's none of us
would be chuckling would we.  But today the 'student' needs a bit of
education, that's all.  And this is what educators are supposed to do.

-- 
Sid Hollander
Merida, Yucatan