Conflicting Essays in scholarship which have been the most engaging research job I have ever done. I have also added, over the years, queries about our "dated" geology with their "computerized" confirmations together with climate changes denied since 1963. The Ten-O'clock News have been telling us to change our clocks for DSL and back again BUT no one as noticed it has been changed, more than a few years ago, from March 31 and October 31, to a week or so earlier or even a week or so later.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Why Does The Maya Calendar Always Have To Be Adjusted?


The Pik-tun has always a mystery to me, especially when the Maya Calendar had to be 
adjusted around it. [1]
       As I see it, the many times, that I have read about the Pik-tun and its extreme numbers, I sincerely believe that the Maya Calendar is grossly misrepresented. I am in full agreement with Bishop Noriega of the XIX century, [2] who, in his farewell address to the Cathedral of Mexico City,  claimed:
" . . . enough good was brought [here] about Saint Tomé, although it is a shame Gama says that the explanation of the Mexican Calendar was erased, and it is full of crude mistakes . . ."            (Noriega, p. 16)
     He did not say that "St. Tomé brought the good," but what was brought to Mexico was good "about St. Tomé."  I think this was a wise way of saying that it was all created for the good of the people, so that they would believe what they were told.  His note about the Maya Calendar was due to the prisons he visited [or was incarcerated in for a time, since "all his honors and goods had been reinstalled and the possessions he lost were reimbursed due to the dispute about his writings. (p.15)]

       Noriega's main thrust in that statement was not so much St. Tomé's existence or non-existence, but instead, what Gama felt was done to the Mexican Calendar system. Since all calendars come about with the help of the stars and their locations in the sky, it is necessary to know the time period of those years  of study. One must also consider the study of the stars by the astronomers in Meso-America and what and how they learned about the stars that passed over their heads: what was different about them and what was the same.

       In the beginning., Maya houses were designed with square spaces in the roof framing, that made it possible to tie down the palm bunches in such a way that the rains never became a problem in the houses.

     Deliberately, or by accident, the men discoverdd that with a slight push against the palm fronds covering the fram here and there, one could actually see the stars as they passed from one end of the house to the other.  It was a practical way for the farmers, once they learned the star elements, and when they occurred. In this way no matter where they lived, they could see the correct stars for their systematic method of farming. The process was and still is similar to our modern quarterly tax collection methods.

      Every thirteen weeks (one quarter of the 360-day year that they were familiar with) the Maya farmers would perform the following procedures;   
First Quarter:
     Locate new plots on the mountain cliffs. Thus to begin the Tzolkin by  mid-March:
[El primer acto scenográfico de esas ceremionias consistía en la tala {cutting the trees} del monte alto y la roza de las hierbas; {cleared fields} El derrumbe {cliffs} de y la rl monte  y la roza eran el iniciarse el Ttzolkin y duraban hasta mediados de marzo; ]
Second Quarter:
      The burning of the land in order to create the bed of enriching ashes that wil make the milpa productive. the enrichment your fires en the second of April that precedes that which preceded by the the bounty of the rains
[El segundo, en la quenma de la tierra había de ser lecho de ceniza fecunda para las milpas, la quema arremolinaba sus llamas en la segunda quincena de abril que precede a las lluvias;]
Third Quarter:
       The planting of the seeds coincided with the time of the blessings by the sun during his reign at the zenith in the highest part of the sky, and
  [. . .las siembras coincidía con el tiempo en que el sol reinaba cenitalmente en lo más alto del cielo.]
Fourth Quarter:
      That all prayed that the benediction of the sun and by the blessings of the rains… [would bring a bountiful harvest.]
[…que todos quierían que fueran bendecidas por el sol y por la gracia de la lluvias.] [5]
  Conclusion

    The above matches the 360-day year as 4 seasons of 13 weeks of the 365-day year.  And it also matched the 360-day year of 52 weeks of only 20 days each.[6] There would have been no reason to add the Pik-Tun as a different measure to the Maya counting system, since there is no glyph to illustrate that terminology. Adjusting the Maya calendar with "better" (more modern) mathematics, by adding the name PIktun, did not NOT accomplish an understanding of the ancient calendar system,  The crudely compiled Veytia calendar attempted to correlate the 365-day year to the 360-day year. But it has been ignored completely. Why? Because the extra five days were not included in the calendar round.

     Maybe that was the reason why when the disintegrating comet returned to our northwestern shores from the Ring Nebula, no one even considered that the year 2008 was possibly the correct count for our anticipated 2012 event, four years earlier than expected!

 With all the adjustments made over the centuries to try to bring the seasons back into synch with the calendar, one only has to figure the first day name of the four seasons, which probably was found in the Perez Codex. The author, Eugrene Craine and his co-author, Reginald C. Reindorp, translated the burner times, but had no idea what they represented. The burner dates were not understood because they did not match any actual activity since the Conquest.

Addendum
     The sequence of the Calendar serpents in the Madrid Codex was regular for part of the year  they illustrate, but one or two of these serpents did not like facing the same direction, so they turned around and looked the other way. This matches the Hopi Prophecy, thought to be the ninth.  It tells us that "there would be a blue star in the sky, when the earth would rock to and fro."  In that way the earth would be destroyed, [again].  I say "again" because the ninth prophecy of the Hopi was actually the very first historic event that the world recorded after the great disaster. The other eight prophecies are the rest of Hopi history giving an accurate time line [without dates] about the white men and what they accomplished as they destroyed the grassy plains.
____________________________
[1]  Jones, Tom and Carolyn, (1997, app. X, 06) Maya Hieroglyphic Workbook. Glossary. Page. 6 gives us more precise information: "The Piktun occupies [better stated as "has been added as"] the sixth position of the Long Count (LC) and related Distance Number (DN). Hence it is Equivalent to  20 Baktunob or 2,880,000 days but it is rarely used."

[2] de Mier Noriega y Guerra, El D. D. Servando Teresa, (XIX cent,. 13) Carta de Despedida a los Mexicanos, Appendex X, p. 13:  A manuscript was mentioned by Noriega, as being published in 1814.
By the same token on p. 15, Noriega also seems to have insulted those who had to reinstate his honors and goods by calling them of the "cauda clan" of flatterers ex omni et populo..." Caudal in Spanish means "wealth," or "caudal feathers" of a bird, but if one reads "cauda[l]" in English, it means the butt or tail end of a person. i.e. " Butt Heads . , .  However, today, it would be"A--H---s."

[3] Wauchope, Robert (Gen Ed.) (1975, 73-74-75) Handbook of Middle American Indians: Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources, V. 14 part 3, (Vol. Ed. Howard F. Cline) Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. Veytia Calendar, p. 73.

[4] _________(1979, 20-21) The Codex Pérez and the Book of the Chilam Balam of Maní, Translated and edited by Eugene R. Craine and Reginald C. Reindorp. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. (Notes 2-4p. 20-21)  i.e. 10 Oc, 10 Men, 10 Ahaw, 10 Chicchan and by using the same sequence for 4 Oc; 11 Oc, and 3 Oc. It appears that Oc should have been the first day of each season of the 360-day count.

[5] Castillo-Torre, José, (1955) Por la Señal de Hunab Ku:  Reflejos de la Vida de los Antiguos Mayas. Mexico DF, Mexico: Libreria de Manuel Porrúa, SA. Not information for the New Agers, but instead a reference book for the past.

[6] Madrid Codex.  On the pages of the serpent calendars, the sequence was regular for a time, but one or two of these serpents did not like facing the same direction, so they turned around and looked the other way. This matches the Hopi Prophecy thought to be the ninth.  It tells us that there would be a blue star in the sky, when \ the earth would travel to and fro.  In that way the earth would be destroyed, again.  I say again because the ninth prophecy of the Hopi was actually the very first historic event that the world recorded after the great disaster.