[Aztlan] MA: Source of term "baktun"?

[Michael Finley]

I was a bit remiss in my earlier post --- On the very page of Gates' 
1932 "Dictionary" I quoted,  he does in fact take full credit for 
introducing  the terms for  "baktun"  and higher long count period 
names, as well as for introducing the term "tzolkin "(by transliteration 
of the Quiche word "ch'olk'ih"):

"It was riding away from Tikal with Morley in 1921, that the present 
writer first suggested that we drop the Nahuatl term tonalamatl for the 
correct  Maya word tzolkin (found in Quiche with the normal phonetic 
differences as ch'olk'ih, with the same meaning), and then also 
suggested the change in our terminology for those higher time periods . 
. . "


Sharon,

To clarify:  It was Linda Schele  who first suggested that the "baktun" 
glyph can be read quasi-phonetically as"pij" or  "pik", which was thus 
likely what  the 20 katun period (baktun, cycle) was actually called in 
the classical era.  Since the long count had largely fallen into disuse 
by the time the Spanish arrived,  we do not have words from 
post-Conquest sources for long count  time-period glyphs  higher than 
the katun. Gates, writing long before the phonetic elements in the 
glyphs were discovered, thought the terms he introduced (baktun etc.) 
were plausible Mayan terms, but devised them by analogy to "katun,"  
using as prefixes words for numbers and numerical classifiers in 
post-Conquest sources. It seems likely that he relied primarily on 
Beltran's 1746 grammar (a book he reproduced as part of his extensive 
effort to collect, preserve and republish  post-Conquest manuscripts).  
All the terms he adopted as prefixes are in Beltran's discussion of 
numeration, but there is nothing in Beltran to suggest they were ever 
prefixed to "tun"  in the way  Gates  did. 


Michael Finley

sharon mcmullen orlet wrote:

> so, is th more traditional term "pik"-- or what did they call these 
> cycles, grand cycles, etc?
> sharon orlet
> st louis
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Finley" <mjfinley at shaw.ca>
> To: "Robert Sitler" <rsitler at stetson.edu>
> Cc: <aztlan at lists.famsi.org>
> Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2006 1:09 AM
> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] MA: Source of term "baktun"?
>
>
>> I think it was probably William Gates  who was responsible for 
>> baktun. (He also seems to have given us tzolk'in).  Earlier Mayanists 
>> used the term "cycle" for 20 katun (eg Morley,  "Introduction to the 
>> Study of Maya Hieroglyphs," 1915).  Gates' "An Outline Dictionary of 
>> Maya Glyphs," 1932, uses "baktun," as well as "piktun," "alautun" 
>> etc. for still higher periods.  He wrote: " It only needed to regard 
>> katun as the shortening of kal-tun, 20-tun, to go on adopt all the 
>> other numbers from bak to alau, in order to give us, at the least, 
>> satisfactory Maya terms, and get away from the cumbersome Cycle, 
>> Great Cycle, Grand Era etc. And anything we can correctly do to use 
>> Maya or Mayance terms and ideas, is that much more help on our still 
>> narrow road." (p. 76, Dover reprint edition).  "Bak"  is a Yucatec 
>> numerical classifier for 400. Thus Gates' baktun = 400 tuns.
>>
>> Michael Finley
>>
>> Robert Sitler wrote:
>>
>>> Does anyone know the source of this term. My understanding is that 
>>> the Classic term was "pik." Was it a Western academic that made up 
>>> the new term? Anyone know who?
>>>
>>> bob
>>>
>>> ________________
>>> Robert K. Sitler
>>> Latin American Studies Program Director
>>> Dept. of Modern Languages & Literatures
>>> Stetson University
>>> DeLand, Florida  32723
>>> (386) 822-7281
>>> http://www.stetson.edu/~rsitler/
>>> ---
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>>
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