[Aztlan] Maya 2012 Question

[Clifford T. Brown]

On the topic of this thread, there is an interesting 2004 ethnographic
dissertation on the Santa Cruz Maya of Quintana Roo by Miguel Astor Aguilera
(SUNY Albany, Department of Anthropology): Unshrouding the Talking Cross:
The Iconology of a Maya Quadripartite Symbol. 

The author performed extensive fieldwork, and the text includes some very
interesting material.

Cliff

Clifford T. Brown, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of Anthropology

Florida Atlantic University

777 Glades Road

Boca Raton, Florida 33431

(561) 297-3232

ctbrown at fau.edu

http://www.fau.edu/~ctbrown


-----Original Message-----
From: aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org [mailto:aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org]
On Behalf Of Paul Sullivan
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 12:23 PM
To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
Subject: [Aztlan] Maya 2012 Question

My thanks to those boosting my previous
works.  I'm currently working on a book on Maya
prophecy - the same topic on which I wrote my
1984 dissertation, now supplemented with more
material, new perspectives, and, I hope, some of
the wisdom of advancing age.  Regarding the 2012
controversy - Is this really a Maya thing, or
something cooked up by New Ageists and others?  I
haven't gotten to that chapter yet, but I think
I'll have to say it's some of both.  Just
addressing for now the Maya side, there's solid
evidence since the 1930, and more tentative
evidence going back a couple of centuries before
that, of an expectation of a significant period
ending to occur on or around 2012.  In 1930
University of Chicago Linguist Manuel Andrade was
told by Lorenzo Kinil of Chemax that "I have read
the Testament of Handsome Lord, where he says
2000 and a few more years the world will
end."  Since then there are numerous other Maya
sources, written and oral, that mention "2000 y
pico", "two thousand and a little more."  What
will transpire at that time, I was told by folks
in central Quintana Roo, would be the "wuudz
anyo", the "fold of the year"  - the end of this
world/time, and the beginning of another - and as
one fellow put it to me, "As much time as the
epoch has been since the world awoke, that much will go again."

When did the world awake?  According to one
passage in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel, it was
in Katun 4 Ahau that the pawahtun were born, the
four brother-gods who have held up the sky since
the llast creation of the world.  The "fold of
the year" is seemingly an allusion to the "wuudz
katun" of the Books of Chilam Balam, the end of a
cycle of 13 katuns and the beginning of
another.  Just when a cycle of katuns began and
ended (What was the first katun?) varied over
time and among authors.  But one good candidate
for the end of a cycle- cited as such in various
passages of those books - is Katun 4 Ahau.  From
the Codex Perez, for example, regarding Katun 4
Ahau, "I promote the first seeing of all that is
in heaven, all of the days have passed, because
it is already the fold of the katun."

There is no evidence that any Maya man or woman
was keeping track of the Long Count for centuries
before the arrival of Europeans on the peninsula
(bringing their calendars with which Mayas could
then correlate their own).  But there is evidence
that Mayas kept up a count of katuns and
maintained an interest in cycle endings, and
evidence that Katun 4 Ahau was of special
interest to them, that 2012 concludes a Katun 4
Ahau, and that Mayas for almost a century have
anticipated a great transformation around that
time.  So, in my opinion there's something to
this 2012 business.  What others make of it,
that's a different story.  And ultimately, of
course, as long as Mayas and others engage one
another on this issue, 2012 will be something we fashion together.


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