U
kahlay katunob The
Maya short count and katun prophecy .
"Not
only did the Indians have a count for the year and months . . . but
they
also had a certain method of counting time and their matters by ages,
which
they counted by 20 year periods, counting thirteen twenties. . .
.
They call these periods katuns. Thus it was easy for the
Elder to recall events which had taken place
300
years before. . As
to who it was that arranged this count of katuns: If it
was
the evil one it was so done as to serve in his honor, if it was a man,
he must have been a great idolator, for to these katuns he added all
the
deceptions, auguries and prophesies by which these people walked.
This was the science to which they gave most credit, held in highest
regard."
---
Friar Diego de Landa, Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan, (1556)
The katun is a
basic unit
of time in the Maya calendar, a period of 7200 days, just short of 20
years
in the European calendar. At the time of the Spanish Conquest,
the
longest calendrical cycle kept by the Maya was a cycle of 13 katuns,
about 256 years. The Maya called this cycle u kahlay katanob,
"the
count of katuns". Writers on the Maya calendar often
refer
to it as the "short count" to distinguish the "long
count" kept in the Classical era (200-900 AD) which counted time
from
creation of the present world.
Each katun in
the cycle
is identified by the date of its final day in the tzolk'in,
a
cycle of 260 days used to make auguries and time rituals. Days in
the tzolk'in are assigned one of 20 day names and one of 13
day
numbers. The mathematics of the Maya calendar dictate that katuns
always end on a day named Ahaw.
The day Ahaw on
successive katun ends
cycles through the 13 day numbers in this order: 11 Ahaw, 9 Ahaw, 7
Ahaw,
5 Ahaw, 3 Ahaw, 1 Ahaw, 12 Ahaw, 10 Ahaw, 8 Ahaw, 6 Ahaw, 4 Ahaw, 2
Ahaw,
13 Ahaw. These are names of the katuns of the u kahlay
katanob.
Katun
wheel from Landa (1556)
.
Mathematical
details: Because
there are 20 tzolk'in day names, and the katun is 7200
days
long, there are 7200/20 = 360 complete cycles of the day names in the katun.
Thus katuns
always end with same day name. There are 7200/13 = 553 complete
cycles
of the 13 day numbers in the katun, with 11 days left
over.
Thus the day number at katun end advances by 11 days from katun
to katun. If
the katun ends on 2 Ahaw, the next will end on 13
Ahaw.
11
Ahaw Katun
(From Dresden Codex)
The
numbers are reset when 13 is reached, so the katun
following katun
13 Ahaw is katun 11 Ahaw. According to
Maya
tradition, creation of the present world occurred on a day 4 Ahaw,
and the first katun after creation was completed on 2 Ahaw.
This
determined the sequence of katuns. For a full
description
of the calendar, see Note
on the Maya Calendar.
.
Katun
prophecy
The u kahlay katanob
was
used both to record historical events (just as we often refer to the
decade
in which an event occurred), and to predict the character of future katuns.
For
the Maya, time is cyclical: Events in one
katun were expected to
mirror those of another with the same position in the cycle of 13.
Our knowledge of katun prophecy
comes primarily from the Books of Chilam Balam, manuscripts
written
in the native language using the Latin script after the Spanish
Conquest.
The Chilam Balam, "Spokesman of the Jaguar", was charged with
both
recording the past and present for the instruction of his successors,
and
predicting the character of future
katuns from his knowledge of
the past. Books from eleven maya towns in the Yucatan
have
survived.
The oldest manuscript
likely dates to no later than 1595, but they were recopied and expanded
down to at least the end of the 18th Century.
It is important to understand
that the sequence of katuns did not dictate specific events:
The
cycle determined only the quality
or
character
of each katun.
Katun
prophecy
was not a simple matter. The Chilam Balam was required to
interpret
the past to divine the future, not simply read a prognostication from
an
ancient book. According to the
Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin,
prophecies
where made in a trance state, during which a deity spoke to the
unconscious
Chilan.
The passages in the Books
of
Chilam Balam
that contain katun
prophecy also allude to history,
contemporary events, and ritual prescriptions. Although this mixing of
history and prediction makes it difficult to sort out the the fate of
each
katun,
it is possible to extract a summary account of the character of the katuns.
The
following summary was made by Sir J. Eric Thompsonfrom the
Books
of Chilam Balam of Chumayel and Tizimin:
Katun
Wheel (Chilam Balam of
Chumayel)
11
Ahau. Niggard is the katun; scanty are its rains . . . misery.
9 Ahau. Drought, famine.
7 Ahau. Carnal sin. roguish rulers.
5 Ahau Harsh his face, harsh his tidings.
3 Ahau. Rains of little profit, locusts, fighting.
1 Ahau. The evil katun.
12 Ahau. The katun is good. 10
Ahau Drought is the charge of the katun.
8 Ahau. There is an end of greed; there is an end to causing
vexation
. . . much fighting
6 Ahau. Shameless is his speech.
4 Ahau. The Quetzal shall come . . . Kukulcan shall come.
2 Ahau. For half the katun there will be bread; for half the
katun
there will be water. 13
Ahau There is no lucky day for us.
.
As
an example
of the full text of a katun prophecy, consider the first
prophecy
for katun 11 Ahaw in the Book of Chilam Balam of
Chumayel:
Katun
11 Ahau is established at Ichcaanzihoo [Merida]. Yax-haal
Chac is its face [the Green Rain God, Lord of the Katun]. The
heavenly
fan, the heavenly bouquet shall descend. The drum and rattle of Ah
Bolon-yocte [the regent or priest of the Katun] shall
resound.
At that time there shall be the green turkey; at that time there shall
be Zulim Chan; at that time there shall be Chakanputun
[symbols
of times when the people were driven from their homes into the
forest].
They shall find their food among the trees; they shall find their food
among the rocks, those who have lost their crops in katun 11 Ahau.
(p. 133).
A
second
prophecy for the katun, presented in a later chapter, contains
the
phase used in Thompson's summary, "niggard is the katun; scanty are its
rains."
Lord of
the Katun (Chilam Balam of
Chumayel)
Although
the
chilans' cyclical concept of
time dictates that the character of every
katun
with the same name will be similar, the prophecies also likely
contain
information that relates to specific cycles of the u kahlay
katunob.
Roys
found evidence in the text of the Chumayel that the first
series
of katun prophecies refers to the 13th Century. Linda Schele
has
shown that the Lords of the Katuns likely have astronomical names,
representing
astronomical events associated with the katuns over which they
preside.
Schele and Roys fix the first series of prophecies in historical time
by
equating katun 4 Ahaw to 1224-1244 AD.
Katun Prophecy in the Glyph Books
Two
of the surviving pre-Conquest Maya glyph books, called Codices,
include what appear to be a pages devoted to the u kahlay
katunob. The Paris
Codex contains a full set of 13 katun pages, but they are
badly
damaged. The Dresden Codex has a page that appears
to
concern katun 11 Ahaw, probably originally part of a
complete
set of katun pages.
The
first glyph on the part of page 60 of the Dresden Codex illustrated
at the left reads 11 Ahaw. The second glyph in the second
column
is the katun glyph. According to Landa's 16th Century
account,
images of two deities were set up in katun rituals. The
glyph at top of the second column includes the logograph Yax,
and
may name Yaxal Chak, the Lord of katun 11 Ahaw. He
is
likely illustrated standing on the dias, above a deer sacrificed in the
katun ritual.
The glyph at the top right reads Bolon (9) Ok-te, the katun
regent.
Elsewhere on the page, Sir J. Eric Thompson identified glyphs he read
as
"war" and "drought." Note the armed warrior threatening the katun
Lord. This is consistent with the dire prophecies for
this katun in the Books of Chilam Balam.
.
.
The return
of Kulkulcan and the coming of Christianity
.
"As
the Mexican people had signs and prophecies of the coming of the
Spaniards
. . . so also did those of Yucatan. Some years before they were
conquered
by Admiral Montejo, in the district of Mani, in the province of Tutul
Xiu,
an Indian named Ah cambal, filling the office of Chilan
.
. . told publicly that they would soon shift to fresh
calendar
bearers, and be ruled by a foreign race who would preach a God and the
virtue of a wood which in their tongue he called Ua hom che, meaning
a tree lifted up, of great power against the demons." --
Friar
Diego de Landa, Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan, (1556)
.
The most famous of the katun
prophecies
in the Books of Chilam Balam are predictions of the coming of
Christianity
and the Spanish Conquest, purportedly made decades, or even centuries,
before the arrival of the Europeans in the Yucatan. The most
complete
version of the prophecy is attributed to "Chilam Balam, the
singer,
of Cabal-chen, Mani," a chilan who the Books tell us
lived
shortly before the Conquest, in the katun 2 Ahaw which
began
in about 1500.
The singer of
Cabel-chen's prophecy
is for katun 13 Ahaw, which ended about 1539. Cortez
reached
Mexico is 1519, near the beginning of the katun; The Spanish
established
themselves at Merida in the Yucatan at the end of the katun.
The Book
of Chilam Balam of Chuyamel records the prophecy thus:
The
prophecy of Chilam Balam, the singer, of Cabal-chen,
Mani.
On [the day] 13 Ahau the katun will end in
the
time of the Itzá [a people of the Yucatan], in the time of
Tancah
[Mayapan, the last Maya city to dominate the Yucatan], Lord.
There
is the sign of Hunab-ku [the one true God] on high. The
raised
wooden standard [Christian Cross] shall come. It shall be
displayed
to the world, that the world may be enlightened, Lord. There has
been a beginning of strife, there has been a beginning of rivalry, when
the priestly man shall come to bring the sign [of God] in time to
come, Lord. . . .
Receive
your guests, the bearded men, the men of the east, the bearers of the
sign
of God, Lord. Good indeed is the word of God that comes to
us.
The day of our regeneration comes. . . .
The
First Tree of the World [The World Tree, a symbol of the cosmos
associated
with the Christian cross by the Maya] is restored; it is displayed to
the
world. This is the sign of Hunab-ku on high.
Worship
it, Itzá. You shall worship today his sign on high.
You shall worship it furthermore with true good will . . . You shall be
converted to the word of Hunab-ku, Lord; it came from
heaven.
Believe
in my word itself, I am Chilam Balam, and I have interpreted
the
entire message of the true God. (Chapter XXIV)
This
prophecy
is the last of a series of five reproduced in the Chuyamel and
several
other Books of Chilam Balam. They are contained in
separate chapters from the other katun
prophecies in the Books.
As we have them,
these prophecies have almost certainly been re-worked after the time of
the
events they predict, by Maya writers who had accepted at least a
semblance
of Christianity. .
"[When
the world was created] a pillar of the sky was set up . . .
.
The [great] green [ceiba] tree of abundance was set up in the
center
[of the world]". (Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel)
The
World Tree is the most pervasive Mesoamerican symbol of the creation
and
ordering of the world. It is the axis of the Earth-Sky. Its roots
lie in Xibalba, the Underworld, and its top reaches into the
heavens.
After the Conquest, the World Tree came to be identified with the
Christian
Cross. The Cross, conceived as a living thing, continues to
figure
in Maya religious practices that combine Christianity and native
traditions.
See Raising
the
Sky: The Maya Creation Myth and the Milky Way at this web site for
more about World Tree symbolism.
Right:
The World Tree is symbolized in the heavens by the Milky Way
.
In
fact,
the oldest sources are not the Books of Chilam Balam, but
accounts
of Spanish missionaries, who were understandably interested in
encouraging native
prophecy of the coming of a new religion. However, the consensus of
opinion
is that the prophecies do preserve an an authentic native
tradition.
After a careful survey of sources, Alfred Tozzer concluded that "These
prophecies were doubtless adapted by the Spanish to proselytizing
purposes
but they seem fundamentally to have been native accounts of the return
of Kulkulcan, one of the culture heroes of the Mayas, and
corresponding
to Quetzalcoatl of the Mexicans."
The
role
of the legend of Quetzalcoatl's return in the conquest
of
the Aztecs is of course a well-known theme.
It
is worth noting that most of the prophecies of the new religion in the
Books
of Chilam Balam are much less specific than the account of the
"singer, of Cabal-chen," whose original prophecy may have been
influenced
by accounts of the arrival of Europeans in the Caribbean.
The oldest, and possibly most authentic, attributed to the priest
Napuctun, reads:
It
shall burn on earth; there shall be a circle in the sky. Kauil
[A deity whose image was erected on ritual occasions] shall be set up;
he shall be set up in front in time to come. It shall burn on
earth;
the [very] hoof shall burn in that katun, in the time which is to
come.
Fortunate is he who shall see it when the prophecy is declared, who
shall
weep over his misfortunes in time to come. (Chapter
XXIV)
In
addition,
only the prophecy of the "singer, of Cabal-chen" is
unequivocally
associated
with katun
13
Ahaw,
when the Spanish in fact arrived in the
Yucatan. This is interesting because elsewhere in the Books
of
Chilam Balam,
the return of Kulkulcan
is identified with katun
4
Ahaw.
It
is possible that, under missionary influence, the authors of the
Books
not
only substituted the Christian God for
Kulkulcan,
but also shifted
the
katun to which the prophecy originally applied.
The
Maya long count
measured the time elapsed since creation of the present world.
Classical
Maya creation accounts suggest that this world began after dissolution
of a previous world that had lasted 13 baktuns. The baktun
is 20 katuns in length. The tzolk'in date at the
beginning
of the long count was 4 Ahaw. The count will reach a total of
13 baktuns
again on a katun 4 Ahaw end date, in 2012 AD
(according
to he GMT
correlation
between the Maya and European calendars).
No
Maya text actually tells us explicitly what the Maya believed would
transpire
in 2012 AD, but the the end of the cycle was no doubt regarded as a
highly
significant time of transition between epochs. According to
the Books of Chilam Balam, Kulkulcan will return in katun 4
Ahaw
. Prophecy of the return of this deity, transformed in
the Books into predictions of the coming of Christianity,
may have originally been inspired in part by the coming end of the long
count cycle. ..
Katun 4 Ahau
. . . . The katun is established at Chichen Itzá.
The
settlement of the Itzá shall take place [there].
The
quetzal shall come, the green bird shall come. Ah Kantenal
shall come. Blood-vomit shall come. Kukulcan
shall
come with them for the second time. [It is] the word of
God.
(Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, XXII)
Antonio
Mediz Bolio, Chilam Balam de Chumayel, (SEP, México
1985).On-line
excerpts from this Spanish translation, including the prophecies of a
new
religion.
Eugene
R.
Craine and Reginald C. Reindorp (trans.),
The Codex Pérez and
the Book of Chilam Balam of Maní, (University of Oklahoma
Press,
1979).
Victoria
Bricker and Helga-Maria Miram (trans.),
An Encounter of Two Worlds:
The Book of Chilam Balam of Kaua, (Tulane University, 2002).
M. S.
Edmonson
(trans.), The Ancient Future of the Itza: The Book of Chilam Balam
of
Tizimin, (U. of Texas Press, 1982). Includes
the tzolk'in almanac presented here, and katun prophecies.
M. S.
Edmonson,
"Some Postclassic Questions about the Classic Maya" (Fifth
Palenque
Round Table, 1978).
Includes
discussion
of evidence of persistence of Classical calendar divination through the
Postclassic into the Conquest era.On-line
at Mesoweb.
M. S.
Edmonson,
Quiche
Dramas and Divinatory Calendars, (Tulane University, 1997).
M. S.
Edmonson,
The
Book of the Year: Middle American Calendrical Systems, (University
of Utah Press, 1988).
Diego de Landa, Relacion
de
las cosas de Yucatan (1556), English translation by W. Gates, Yucatan
Before and After the Conquest (Dover Press, 1978).On-line
English translation. See in particular Landa's reference to prophecies
of a new religion (chapter XI), and the U
Kahlay Katunob(chapter XLI). Original Spanish
text On-line
John L. Stephens, Incidents
of Travel in Yucatan, (1843, Dover reprint, 1963).Appendices
supplied
by Pio Perez include an augural almanac, and an excerpt from the Chilam
Balam of Mani
recounting pre-Conquest history of the Yucatan arranged
by katuns.
Barbara Tedlock, Time
and the Highland Maya, (University of New Mexico, rev. 1992).
Account
of the calendar lore and augury of Quiche shamans in Highland
Guatemala.
See a detailed review
and discussion of this book on-line.
Maya
World
Studies Centre, Maya
Divination by the Maya Calendar Web page online.Describes
Maya divination, and includes a good survey of the contributions of
Tedlock
and other Mayanists.
Charles A. Hofling and Thomas
O'Neil, "Eclipse Cycles in the Moon Goddess Almanacs in the Dresden
Codex"
in The Sky in Mayan Literature, ed. Anthony Aveni ( Oxford
University
Press, 1992). Discussion of the
"Moon Goddess" chapter of the Dresden Codex, including
translation
of the tzolk'in auguries.
A. Aveni, S. Morandi, and P.
Peterson.
"The Maya Number of Time", (Archaeoastronomy no. 21,
1996).On
variations in
the structure (and associated auguries) of tzolk'in almanacs
in
the codices: A partial explanation of discrepencies.
Gabrielle Vail.
"Evidence
of haab associations in the Madrid Codex", (Rev. Esp. Antropol. Am.
30, 2000).
Vail argues
that
day auguries in at least some almanacs in the codices are linked to
full
calendar round dates rather than tzolk'in dates alone.
See
also her discussion of the structure of almanacs in the codices at the
Maya Codices
Project
web site.
Michael Finley,
"Structure
of Tzolk'in Almanacs in Maya Glyph Books"A brief note on
the structure of augural almanacs in the codices at
this web site.
J. Eric Thompson, A
Commentary
on the Dresden Codex, (American Philosophical Society, Memoir no.
93,
1972).
.
Includes the
summary
of katun prophecies reproduced above, discussion of the katun
page
in the Dresden Codex.
See the full katun
page on line at Andreas
Fuls' Dresden Codex web site.
Khristaan D. Villela and Linda
Schele, "Astronomy and the Iconography of Creation Among the Classic
and
Colonial Period Maya" (Eighth Palenque Round Table, 1993)
Includes Schele's evidence that katun prophecies are
linked,
via astronomical imagery, to specific historical cycles of the
katuns.
On-line
at Mesoweb.
Alfred M. Tozzer, A
Maya
Grammar, (Dover reprint, 1977).Includes a survey
of post-conquest Maya literature, including the Books of Chilam
Balam.
Good
discussion of the provenance and problems in translating the prophcies
of a new religion.
Miguel
Leon-Portillo, The Broken Spears : The Aztec Account of the
Conquest
of Mexico, (Beacon Press, 1992).
.
Includes
Aztec prophecies of the Spanish Conquest. See a
summary of Aztec
accounts of the Conquest on line at Mexico Connect.
Brant Gardner, Quetzalcoatl
and the Myth of the Return, 1998. This interesting
on-line
article presents the dissenting view that the prophecies of the
Conquest
and coming of Christianity were essentially a product of Spanish
propaganda,
not native tradition.
The Real Maya
Prophecies:
Astronomy in the Inscriptions and Codices
