[Aztlan] Water Over the Earth

Mon Nov 2 19:24:05 CST 2009

Hi Barb, Elaine and Prudence,

I submitted my message before I saw all of yours, so my apologies for the
redundancy.
Barb, is it possible that we have here a pun for both /ha/ as 'water' and
/hay/ as 'destruction' over the earth?

Bolles' reading of /hay/ as 'flatten' would seem to be semantically related
to the root 'stretch thin, make flat', yes? I also found an entry he has
about /hai/ as 'of or pertaining to water', but this seems to be a
contraction from /hail/:
http://www.famsi.org/reports/96072/h/hah_hakzic.htm

Prudence, the iconography in the "Star War" glyph certainly is suggestive of
this 'water over earth' destruction by flood - albeit with the
EK'star/Venus sign included. The current tentative reading of this
collocation,
proposed by David Stuart (1995:265, 311–13), is /hub'/, meaning 'fall,
collapse', and elsewhere as 'destroy, knock over'. However, as far as I
know, the only clues we have regarding the reading are a commonly infixed
/yi/ that can replace the KAB' component, or follow it as a suffix, whereas
other examples have a /ya/ suffix. I found one example on the now famous
Tortuguero Monument 6, G4 which contains both the /yi/ and the /ya/ as
suffixes following the whole version of the "Star Wars" glyph that includes
the KAB' component. The /-yi/ would seem to be a completive/past tense form,
though it may tell us that the root does have a final /-y/. The /-yi-ya/
combination is less common, but it may read 'since it was
destroyed/attacked'.
Barb, any thoughts?

Cheers,
Michael

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Barb MacLeod" <bmacleod at austin.rr.com>
> To: <Aztlan at lists.famsi.org>
> Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 13:55:37 -0600
> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Water Over the Earth
> Here's a bit of information about the root /hay/ in Yukatek Maya:
>
> It is historically /h/-initial rather than /j/-initial, according to the
> Motul Dictionary, and thus it is not cognate with /jay/ meaning 'thin',
> 'stretched out'. The Motul entry is <haycabal, haycabil>: 'destruicion o
> asolamiento y diluvio general con que fue destruido y asolado el mundo'.
>
> Other Motul entries such as <haay cimi u alakob> 'todo mi ganado y mis aves
> se murieron' suggest that it does not refer specifically to flooding but
> rather to general destruction and widespread mortality ('gran mortandad').
> However, there seems to be a persistent association with destructive floods.
> In the Cordemex (p. 190) under <hayah> one finds multiple examples
> suggesting that /hay/ is an intransitive root (<hayi winik>) and is
> transitivized with causative /-(e)s/; it also forms compounds with verbs and
> nouns (<hay kimil>, <hay kab>, also on p.190) suggesting an attributive
> function, and at times it behaves as a noun, as in Tozzer's form
> <haiyokocab>, analyzable as /ha(a)y yok'ol kab/ 'destruction over the
> earth'.
>
> Thompson is correct in his understanding of the simpler terms <haycabal>
> and <haycabil>, which can be analyzed as ha(ay)-kab-il/-al
>  'earth-destruction' plus an abstractive suffix producing '(the general
> concept of) earth destruction'.
>
> As for any epigraphic references to floods, we have of course the scene on
> p. 74 of the Dresden Codex depicting what has been thought to be a great
> end-of-world flood. The terms 'black sky' and 'black earth' appear in the
> text above, which opens with an unknown verb that may be "watery". Perhaps
> someone has deciphered it?
>
> And on pages 68-77 of David Stuart's (2005) The Inscriptions from Temple
> XIX at Palenque there is discussion of a primordial crocodile sacrifice
> featuring another undeciphered "watery" verb, referring in this case to the
> flowing blood of the beast. Perhaps this may be a flood reference, but the
> verb in question is followed by 'u-CH'ICH'/K'IK' -le:
> /'u-ch'ich'el/k'ik'-el/ 'his blood'.
>
> Barb MacLeod
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Elaine Schele <elaineschele at gmail.com>
> To: Barb MacLeod <bmacleod at austin.rr.com>
> Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 14:49:51 -0600
> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Water Over the Earth
> Also, it might be helpful to look at Erik Valazquez Garcia's "The Maya
> Flood Myth and the Decapitation of the Cosmic Caiman" found at the
> Mesoweb website:
> http://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/701/flood_e.pdf,
> where he discusses the Temple XIX passage that Barb references, as
> well as other passages that discuss floods and the flow of blood.
>
> Elaine Schele
> PhD Candidate
> University of Texas
> http://gispalenque.blogspot.com/
> http://volunteermayameetings.blogspot.com/
>
>
> >
> > *************************************************
> > Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:59:34 -0500
> > From: "Hoopes, John W" <hoopes at ku.edu>
> > Subject: [Aztlan] Water Over the Earth
> > To: <aztlan at lists.famsi.org>
> > Message-ID:
> > <499CB7D5C92DEF42A194855BDE4FEE3935C28D at MAILBOX-21.home.ku.edu>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
> >
> > In 1907, Tozzer recorded a story near Valladolid, Yucatan in which there
> > is a narrative of four successive creations and their destructions by
> > floods.  In writing of the intial creation, he notes, "This first epoch
> > was separated from the second by a flood called _haiyokocab_ (water over
> > the earth)."
> >
> > Tozzer, Alfred (1907) A comparative study of the Mayas and the
> > Lacandones. Arch. Inst. Am. Rep. of Fellow in Am. Arch., 1902-05, N.Y.
> > (The quote is cited in Tozzer 1941, ff. 633, as from pp. 153-4).
> >
> > In "Maya History and Religion," Thompson speculated that "haiyokocab"
> > was "comparable to the terms _haycabal_ and _haycabil_ used in the Books
> > of Chilam Balam" (1970: 341).
> >
> > 1) What is the specific etymology and meaning of "haiyokocab"?
> > 2) Is it a typical name for a flood or a name for a special kind of
> > flood?
> > 3) Was Thompson correct about comparable terms in the Books of Chilam
> > Balam?
> > 2) Is there any epigraphic evidence for related terms in pre-Contact
> > literature?
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > John Hoopes
> >
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Prudence M. Rice" <price at siu.edu>
> To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:23:11 -0600
> Subject: [Aztlan] Water over earth
>
> So could this phrase be the meaning of the so-called "star wars" glyph that
> shows droplets over an earth sign?
>
>
>
> .......................................................
>
> Dr. Prudence M. Rice
> Professor of Anthropology and Distinguished Scholar
> Associate Vice Chancellor for Research, and
>      Director, Office of Research Development and Administration
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