Re-birth of the Maize God

Mother of Maize
and
The Old Fire God.
(Courtesy of L. Schele)

  How could the Maize God be reborn?  Maybe, when ground, maize becomes tortillas or tamales, but they were always there to begin with. Roasted, it becomes a great snack, but it is still maize on the cob.  Maize is common corn kernels, at times as different colors, but it is still maize. The problem that arises when one thinks of re-birth it has to be a GREAT change . . . in personality, or in form.

      The Maize God was on his way north with four other sky creatures, so that he could be reborn in the north or in the northwest. First, it should be useless kernels, maize that could never be used for anything other than to feed livestock. Only then is a re-birth possible.  Just as  the human condition demands a great sacrifice of self so that a new more useful life can emerge, the maize must become useful.

K-1892 The birth of the Maize God

      Justin Kerr's notations for this plate that shows the birth of the Maize God  and is called the  Resurrection Plate.His notations say: the Maize God (Hun Nal Ye) is resurrected by his sons Hun Ahaj and Yax Balam. But after the Kaye Almere Read wrote in 1998, it was clear that the dotted persona was the diseased sun god, with splotched skin lesions,¹ not Hunahpú, at all, but the real sun that we do know with its very familiar sun flares that are sent away from that orb periodically.


 To paraphrase the second half of the visual glyphs [not the phonetic version] together with the caiman and his companion within the carapace of the turtle:   Hun Ahaj  [First Lord] and Yax Balam  [New (Green) Sky Jaguar] were the progenitors on/in the  [turtle-place, i/e.: wet lands] when the Maize God was re-born; after the smoking star (comet) carried death from the sky.

The above picture was redrawn by Karle Taube for Dennis Tedlock's Popol Vuh and is much clearer than here. Tedlock wrote a caption for this plate and it reads very differently:

Their father is put back together by them: Hunahpu left and Xbalenque (right) resurrect their father. He takes the form of a maize god in lowland Maya art, here emerging (or sprouting from a cleft in the back of a turtle: the earth)²    

      It is true that the two figures at the front and back ends of the turtle shell were killed by Hunahpú and Xbalenque, the Twins are not resurrecting the father (who was a skull hung in the Milky Way  tree [in that story, a magic corn stalk]. The father could not be resurrected because his bones had not been found. It was for this reason that the Father had to remain in the sky without his body [as the nebula NGC7000?]. The Twins informed their father that he would be honored above all as the Heart of the Sky.

And since the Maize God traveled behind Seven Macaw and in front of the Howler Monkey are both Itzamna as the Iguana, and  Xolotl, as the dog. All had different functions when they would reach Tamoanchan, the Paradise of the Gods. Yet with all the clues as to the function of the Maize God scattered in various cultural myths and traditions, it is difficult to find any solid reference as to why the Maize God even had to be re-born.

     According to the Popol Vuh,  Seven Macaw became bright as the moon, then, as the sun, while the Howler Monkey was going to live in the Northwest, at the very top of the "Tree of the Beautiful Rose," [according to the Aztec version of two gods who finally helped the sky to be raised by becoming trees, one was that of the Rose, and the other, that of the Warrior].²

    "The Tree of the Rose" was part of the Seven Macaw dwelling place-to-be in the Tree of the Milky Way, above Scorpio as seen  in Justin Kerr's K-1226 (above) and verified by Sahagún in Libro Siete, Capitulo 4, #4 of the Florentine Codex, as the location of the Great Star, which also can be found in the bowl tied on top of the Old Fire God's forehead. (See  Posting  for 3/22/12, Tuesday: The Track Gets More Complex.)   On page 264 of the Florentine text:  Bk VII, Chap. IV, Nbr. IV: Sahagún summarized all astronony statements found in Chapters III and IV by stating:  

     " IV: About these stars, that in some parts are called the Wagon, the people call them Escorpión (Scorpio) or Alacrán and they are called such in many parts of the world."²

      Even though the above quote tells nothing about the Maize God's journey with Seven Macaw to the northern skies,  it does menttion that Scorpio (a constellation inferred) is important to the "Tree" that is the 'home-to-be" of Seven Macaw. The only confirmation that Seven Macaw and the Maize God had any connection at all is when the Paddler Gods took them in the canoe up the Sky River, now called the "Milky Way." It is the spiral of our galaxy that is thought to hold up the sky.

       Hunahpú, brother of Xbalenque, is believed to be the Venus planet in the morning sky, and as the "Sun" that was born on the first day of the present era. It was the "sun" (comet) from the northwest that met the true sun midway across the sky as if it was a mirror image returning to his home in the east. That strange passage of the Sun after its birth. Those who research this trajectory, alter the text to read from the "east" where the sun actually rises every morning. The Mopán Maya tale in which 

Lord K'in, [the sun]goes from his home in the east to the center of the sky and then back to the east again. It appears that he goes clear across the sky because he has placed a mirror at the center (Thompson 1930:132). To interpret the movements of the sun in this manner is to model it on Venus as morning star which both rises and sets in the east. (Tedlock, 1996: 304, n. 160)

 So the Maize God was re-born after his arrival from the northwest, and after his association with Seven Macaw of the blue Turquoise Teeth.  Reading the Popol Vuh, it tells us that the "turtle was hung above the ball court" and when Xbalenqué hit the turtle shell with a stone, it broke into a thousand pieces," as if [they] were seeds" 

When the Lords of Xibalba returned, they exclaimed, “What is this we see?” Then they began to play again. Both of them tied. PresentlyXbalanqué threw a stone at the turtle, which came to the ground and fellin the ballcourt, breaking into a thousand pieces like seeds, before the lords.⁵  

     When the debris [pieces of the broken shell], the trajectory of the third run of the double comet was now closer to the horizon. And as such, it became "the Birth of the Sun" in the Popol Vuh. The translators were told  "What you see is not the real sun."  Because of this, the original text is always justified to make sense without checking facts about the northwestern entry point of comets that enter our atmosphere. The translators just did not understand.

     So they allowed that since the sun as we know it never rises in the northwest, the terminology of the northwest within the original language of the Popol Vuh, was misinformation. and permission was granted that all further translations would be able to use the word 'East' because it is obviously an error. Yet the "mirror" was there only because the brilliance of the comet, outshone that of the normal sun as the two met in the middle of the sky. 

     When the Old Fire God [the ball or the player Hunahpu himself] came too close to earth, it burned every land it passed over.  Corn cobs left for the animals blossomed into popcorn kernels.  The miracle of re-birth was POPCORN that enabled the starving people in the caves to survived until the "comet ball player" in the sky finally went on its way never to return. 

     Thus the Old Fire God and Mother of Maize became one in a marriage of fire that allowed the Maize God to be re-born.  It became the main festival of the Aztec world and many other tribes.

Sahagún, Vol. I, Book I, Capitulo X, 4,p. 50 , 5: Y por esto las hacían fiesta y en esta fiesta ofrecían en su templo, o en las encrucijadas de los caminos, pan hecho de diversa figuras, Unos, como mariposas, otros de figura del ray que cae del cielo, que llaman xonecuilli, y  también unos tamalejos que se llaman xucuichtlamatzoalli, y maíz tostado que llaman ellos izquitl.   [izquitl - popcorn flowers.]

The Conclusion

     Since the festival of the Fire God included Izquitl [after he married the Mother of Maize] there had to be a special gift given by the groom to the bride. In a marriage on earth, usually a child is born after nine months. So one can take the nine months as a real time span and say that the Sun from the west came upon the western horizon so close to the earth that it created deserts where there was none and dried up a huge portion of the earth, especially those parts that had been inundated by a flood that surged over the mountain tops.

     Maize that had been useless for human consumption had been stored for the animals and with the flood, was spread out in the mud and debris left by the waters of the sea.  when the Sun from the west passed over and dried the mud flats, the maize burst into bloom as beautiful flowers in the dead earth. The new children of the Mother of Maize; the rebirth of a new Maize God created by their sky marriage.

      Men who had survived in the caves, came out on to the seared earth, saw that their hard work during the year in the milpas had been utterly destroyed.  As they walked dejectedly back to the caves their eyes downcast, they came upon the "flowers" peeking out of the dried earth. Someone tasted one and found it to be just like food. Did they race back to the caves with the newly flowering cobs in their hands, where their starving wives and children were waiting for news that the milpas were safe and ready for a good harvest? 

      The women and children were as joyful as their men when they saw the new food. They all gave thanks to the Maize God for his rebirth, the Maize mother who gave a new kind of birth and the new husband, the Old Fire God, who helped to create these new maize children.  When their world returned to normal, they did not forget, the Old Fire God, nor his new wife, nor his new maize children. They created festivals for all using the very flowery maize that saved their lives after the disaster.

 ___________________

¹   Kaye Almere Read (1998). Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos. Bloomington & Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana University Press, pp 49 58.

²   Tedlock, Dennis (1996) Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 140.

³    Sahagún, Bernardo de (1956). Historia General de Las Cosas de Nueva España. México, DF, México: Editorial Porrua, SA Book VII, Capitulo III, IV.

⁴   Phillips Jr., Henry (1883) History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings Translated and edited by Henry Phillips Jr. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society XXI:616-651, 1883. (edited  for FAMSI by Alec Christensen) p. 35:  Appendix:  Note 21.

⁵  (1954) Popul Vuh “The Book of the People”  Translated into English by Delia Goetz and Sylvanus Griswold Morley, from Adrián Recino's translation from Quiché into Spanish  Plantin Press, Los Angeles [1954, copyright not registered or renewed] p. 148, Web version.

The Marriage of Nature and Humans

       Have decided one should get a view of what the native populations think about their land, their volcanoes and such, especially those in Mesoamerica.

       The New York Times News Service reporter, commented about the dangers of the volcano, Popocatepetl,  and also poked around talking to ordinary people on the street. He found that even the food vendors had information about the volcano and how they all felt about it.

      "Rosario Jesus, 55, during his stop for tortillas in San Cayetano, was one of many who joked that, Don Goyo, the more familiar name for the volcano,  “is a friend when he’s quiet but not much of a friend when he’s mad.”


        Like many others around here, she noted that 2012 has been a particularly bad year "in the marriage of nature and humankind," noting that strange weather patterns have been occurring all over the world. It seems that maybe we have been too busy looking at the 10 o'clock News and not sensing what Mother Earth has been doing around us.

The "marriage" and "anthromorphic" concepts between the land and the human condition is a fitting comparison.


One that the ancient Maya have been well aware of for many centuries, but  every once in a while a volcano would get angry, or a great storm at sea would reach land.  Or, as in the Popol Vuh a great star in the sky would explode.  The land, the sea, and the sky have not always been in synch. It appears to be even less so now.

The 360-Day Year: How it Was Butchered

From; Wauchope, R. (1975) Handbook of Middle American Indians  vol 14:  Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources, part 3, Austin, T exas: Inioversity of Texas Press. Fig. 73 #2: after Valadés,  Rhetorica cristiana, 1579.  

        Since the meteorite that hit the world was calculated to have arrived about 65 million years ago, no one yet has explained the collective memories of the world who have described the greatest disaster ever to befall it. Humans, even if they existed 40 mya could never have recalled an event that occurred at least 25 million years earlier in earth time.

     And again, why were the calendars of the Maya re-created to read differently then the original researchers were able to determine, just by reading both the myths and texts that were available to them? Why would there have been such a "cover-up" of the data that, by the way, is still available to all? (See the above calender from 1579 or so.)  The Veytia Chart is an excellent example of the native calendar even in 1579 and later scholars such as: Manuel Leon-Portilla, Jacques Soustelle, the Madrid Codex, have since confirmed such a calendar.

     Since a 13-month year would only make a 260-day calendar, the actual number of months has to match Sahagún's number of months, i.e. 18 months,  Yet, somewhere along the line, someone decided that the only calendar of worth was the 260-day calendar of the horoscopes.

      Such calendar features were never useful to history nor have they been useful in any modern calendars, no matter how many rulers believed [or still believe] in the "luck of the [good] stars and the "evil portends" of the bad ones.

      

     These concepts would only agree with the gestation period of a pregnant women, AND with the church doctrine, that Mary's Immaculate Conception was in March and Christ's birth was in December. However, this is NOT a religious or a medical definition blog.

      The 260-day horoscope calendar is the only other "numeration" that gives us any verification that the 13-week is also the four agricultural seasons, from burning the milpas, planting the maize, and the final harvest, with a whole extra season to celebrate a good harvest to be eaten, sold, or traded for necessities, and to thank their God for it.

      The five extra days were added outside of the four quarters,  even though they had to be taken into account after the years that produced no food. Yes, the skies had changed and the growing season also had to be accommodated to fit these odd days that had been added to the years.  

      The current concept of the calendar in Mexico proper is touted by those who learned the calendar from their parents and ancestors.  Near El Tajin, the Voladores spin from their poles and the waiters and concessions nearby are equiped with some excellent information based on the ancient glyphic calendar system:

       The four flyers, who are hand-picked to start their training at age 10, circle the pole 13 times each, he says, giving a total of 52 revolutions. The number 52, aside from being the number of weeks in a year, was important in Mesoamerican culture, which had two calendars -- the 365-day solar year and a 260-day ritual year. The calendars coincided every 52 solar years.……………" (See Flights of Fancy, JOURNEYS - THE SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY: BRENDAN SAINSBURY at  Side Panel)

       Nevertheless, it was still necessary to retain the old calendar of the Maya (and the Aztecs, Mixtec, etc); otherwise, the glyphs and ancient histories in the Codices and on monuments can never be read properly. The horoscope has its place in the world, of course; but if the 13 are the number of weeks in a season, not the numbering of days, and the 52 revolutions are the current 365.25 number of weeks in a year, does one follow the 20 days per each of the 18 months that is found in the Codices, or are scholars to follow the information given out for the later centuries in Mesoamerica?

     The ancient solar calendar, world wide, was originally 360 days, even in those  codices. And, as above, in the VII century AD, the Copan Academy of Science changed the calendars to fit a 365-day year.  Is that information to be destroyed by an overabundance of computer calculations that does not know to differentiate between the centuries of change? Even the Julian count does not accommodate the archaic calendar since it does not know when or how the calendar had to be altered to begin with.

       So when was it decided that the original calendar had to be ousted? As far as I have been able to research the calendar, there is a new note in Jose Castillo-Torre (1955. 193) Por la Seňa de Hunab Ku in which he gives some very interesting data about the first day of the first month of the year 1583/4.

      It has been believed that Hunab Ku was a New Age movement in Mexico that is way off base from the original beliefs of the native population. Yet, this particular book is a very short but concise history of various monks, and locations in Mexico up until the calendar was completely altered by the church in 1583/4 AD.

        The method used by the church at that time, was ;first to create month names so that it would make it easier to match the Eurasian years.  Then it was necessary to choose the first day of the first momth.  The name of the first month of the year was 0 POP from the date July 26 the Eurasian year.  The first day had to be a match so it became One IMIX from the Eurasian date February 8.

        Now how that was supposed to "match" the Eurasian year, I do not know and Jose Castillo-Torre could not explain it either.  He was just a historian who wrote out the data he had researched and when he could not explain it, he only added all his references in the back of the book so that anyone could do the research on their own. The new search might pick up information that his had missed.

   

    

There were Five More Days in The Year? Really?

FIg. 01:  When the sky was raised, Two trees it held up:
that of the Beautiful Rose Tree and that called the Tree of the Warrior (Orion)
[The square eyes on the faces indicate surprise about the event.]

   No one really reads the Madrid Codex any more.  Figures used for the calendar entries are  almost useless in identifying even the well-known Blue Star [with its turquoise colored teeth] found in the other codices, AND in the Popol Vuh.  Even so, it goes into great detail about the journey of the heavenly "bees" that caused great blisters, similar to hot resin or splashing, burning turpentine on both man a beast. M-109 appears to be when the main "bee god" leaves his home and leads his heavenly citizens to the Planet Earth, Yet, it was not until after the heavenly "bee" homes were cut with axes.

    Even so, a common "pendulum" problem is found only illustrated as the six Tikal Bones with the Paddler Gods and their broken canoe as it "waffles like a pendulum" in the waters of the mythical star river called the Milky Way.

    A grandfather clock is different, it is moving in relation to the wound-up spring inside the clock that is turned with a key every night. It is completely dependent up the holder of that key. If the key is not used by the person to tighten the spring, the clock will stop of its own accord.

    But where the planet Earth is concerned, there is are two-whammies to consider. One, that it orbits around the sun during a year; and, two, that it also spins in a lop-sided circle every 24 hours.  So in effect, we have a circle within a great oval. It is similar to the cog-like composites of the Maya calendar and how it handles the uneven day count (of 13 days) with the wildly different month count (of 20 months), that includes a larger cog of Katuns.

    WOULD IT NOT BE INTERESTING IF it were in fact 13 MONTHS OF 20 DAYS EACH? One could probably then connect the information better to our own calendar years. But that is too simple an explanation. NEVERTHELESS, it is well documented that the calendar of Meso-America had been redesigned so many times that even Bishop Noriega of the Spanish church in Mexico in the XVIII century could not keep up with the changes made.

    He, in frustration, wrote of those multiple changes his Despedida to the parishes within his See.  For that matter, the Madrid Codex, shows that there were 20 days in each calendar month that began with Imix. But Imix was not a month, instead it seemed to start a 20-day cycle, having 18 "months" in one year of 360 days.  That would have made it 180 days for one half of a year with a quarter of the year (as three of our months) or 90 days.

     That, in turn, would have agreed with the cycles of the year  (1) burning [90 days], (2) planting [90 days], (3) harvesting [90 days] and (4) 70 days for preparation for a grandiose "Thank you" festival for the Maize God [to be held during the last 20 days of the year]. A much more sensible calendar with a serious purpose. The above change to the calendar, even adding the five extra days would not be a disaster. And it would probably help in re-establishing proper year counts.

     Respected researchers in the scholarly world actually did discover the 18 months of 20 days in each month. They are: Sahagún, J. Soustelle, M. Leon-Portilla,  José Castillo-Torre, the hidden narrators of the Popol Vuh, [as an astronomy book] together with the Madrid Codex, is to mention just a few.

     Who was it that chose to ignore these venerable scholars in favor of a more modern translations? By returning to  their investigations, would that not create better calculations of the Maya calendar system?

The Paddler Gods And Their Transportation

       Are the Tikal Bones giving us more information than is expected? Do the Fisherfolk of the Milky Way (estuary) have any purpose, or were they just a notice to the readers of the glyphs that the waters where the canoe is located, is part of the god-world of the stars?

Fig. 01:  MT 51A. Canoe breaking up going forward;
 

Fig. 02: MT 38D

Fig. 03:  MT 38C. Canoe breaking up moving backward  ards

Fig. 04: D-MT 51B

Fig. 05: MT 38B. Half-drowned gods recovering in the boat,

Fig. 06:  Fig 07:  F-MT 38A.  The new boat with recovered gods.

[All six bones can be found in Kelley, (1977, 234-5) Fig 80]

     Who supplied an alternate transport for the travelers? The Paddler Gods are no longer in the broken canoe which moved forward and then backward  (to and fro) the same direction as the Milky Way when  it broke apart.

Are the Paddler Gods the Twins of the Popol Vuh

     What we don't know about the Milky Way, even when the records tell us differently.


 If the Milky Way broke in half, and the sky fell down, as reported by the Aztecs, the half of the Milky Way they were traveling on was the that of the "beautiful rose tree."  The other leg of the Via Lacta was the Tree of the Warrior (the constellation Orion.)

Fig. 07:  Dickenson, Terrence, (1998,109) Nightwatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe.
Willowodale, Onatario, Canada: Firefly Books, Chart 10

    The interesting thing about this view of the Via Lacta (The spiral of the Milky Way) is that it contains all of the constellations mentioned as the two trees.  Orion is on the right, and Cygnus with Deneb is a bit above Orion on the left. 

    Now, if one considers that the Via Lacta (Milky Way) is still circling the earth as it once did, but instead of completely around the Equator, as it once was, [i.e, like a small "o" with the Earth, as a dot in the middle ], it is now changed it shape to be like  a capital "O," or better still, like a narrower "0."  It now has a 23.5 degree slant for Winter and another for Summer.

      It does not take much imagination to remember that which we know.  That  the Milky Way does not change position at all nor does the Sun. It is the Earth that moves from one tilt [side] to the other [side].

Fig. 08:   Earth's New "Tilt"  23.5 degrees north and 23.5 degrees south of the Equator

With the sun no longer struggling to shine while being half hidden by the Milky Way Stars.

     With the North Pole reaching for the sun (on the left) it is June 21st.  and upwards, toward the North Pole and the summer Triangle, it has left winter with Orion in Peru  On the right side, winter is returning to the North Pole with Orion, and pushing the Sun down into Peru with the Summer Triangle, south of the Equator.

Fig. 09: The 90 degree change between
our Summer and Peru's Summer Triangle

     When there is a change in the seasons, the southern area is ALWAYS sees the reverse of the Northern area. It is as if the tilt of the earth only sees one spiral of the Milky Way, no matter which way the earth is tilted. As seen in Fig. 09, the tilt of the Summer Triangle is only a change of 90 degrees  in the direction that the arrow is pointing.
  
     That is a difficult thing for us to understand because we see two separate spirals (so we thought) of the Via Lacta.  When, in fact, there is only one spiral involved with the planet Earth.


     The passengers in the canoe were going around the earth, until the sky fell. Then they were heading northward, carrying the Howler Monkey (the sounds of a comet/meteorite coming in low on the horizon) from his northwestern home in the sky. Xolotl, (or Xbalenque) the other half of the double comet will sacrifice himself and fall into the sea, in order to save the sun. The Iguana will remain with its tail in the earth and his head in the heavens, while the Maize God will make sure that the survivors will have food by his rebirth, until lthe crops will grow again in drier soil. Seven Macaw with supply the Twins of the PV with the debris (his turquoise teeth) while other differently named gods and goddesses with do the same for other tribes in the area.


      Did anyone notice that the Fisherfolk in the Milky Way (estuary) supplied their BOAT for the travelers? The Paddler Gods are no longer in the broken canoe which moved forward and then backward  (to and fro) as the Milky Way as they knew it broke apart 

What did the Aztecs say about it all?

In the Aztec world, the Four Suns are noted with the Second and the Third Suns having odd numbers for the years, but when 364 and 312 years are combined they equal 676 years.  In other words the two events, the fire (rains) fell, then the flooding occurred when the dust of the comet turned into the larger meteorites of the star debris as it fell into the ocean and the gulf.

Ehecatonatiuh (Sun of the Air) (364 years)

(Symbol: the head of a crocodile, the earth)

“Second Epoch [was] at the end of which humanity was destroyed by violent winds. The gods transformed human beings into apes, in order that they might cling better and not be carried away by the hurricanes, thus originating the similarity between the human race and the simians…This was because large forests had been found razed by tornadoes”

___________________________

Quiauhtonatiuh (Sun of Celestial Fire and Rain (312 years)

 (Symbol: A turquoise headdress with fire from the eyes.

             

“Third Cosmogonic epoch [was that] in which everything was extinguished by the rain of lava and fire. Men were transformed at this time into birds, thus saving themselves from the slaughter… in our territory and also on account of the discovery of huts and skeletons under layers of lava and ashes. They justified this belief due to the many signs of volcanic activities.”

___________________________

Atonatuih (Sun of Water) (676 years)

“This means the fourth epoch, represented by the head of Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of water, feminine aspect of Tlaloc, at the end of which everything perished in the terrific storms and torrential rains that covered the earth. Reaching the peaks of the highest mountains the gods changed men into fishes to save them from this universal deluge…” “The discovery of different fossilized species of marine fauna on the top of the mountains, created the basis for this belief. ”

________________________________

Ocelotonatiuh (Sun of Jaguar) (676 years)

[It] “was the first and most remote of the Four Cosmogenic epochs, in which the giants who had been created by the gods, lived. They did not plow the soil but lived in caves, ate wild fruit and roots. They were finally attacked and devoured by the jaguars. The basic epoch of the Aztecs goes back to the quaternary, since they discovered bones of pre-diluvium animals buried in deep gullies below dense lythospheric layers.” (National Museum of Anthropology. Adrián García Valadés y Silvia Gómez Tagle. 1st edition. México DF México: García Valadés Editores.) 

    

Hence, the second and third Suns become the third 676 years.  All four even appeared numerically in the same sequence indicated by the Hopi, the most important was the last, mraning what has been found on the earth as our Cretaceous Period of Geology, was under the great flood that was titled the Fourth Age. In this way, the First Age, that of Atonatuih (Sun of Water) (676 years) became the new Fourth Age.

The Hopi had been told the numeration of their nine prophecies had to be followed by making the Ninth prophecy into the first historic statement of the nine, since the first eight were actual occurrences of the migration across North America.

Edmund Nequatewa (1967) stated:  

               So if he [Bahana] ever did come there were to be sure to ask him about his 
               books  which they thought would contain his secrets and it was said that the 
               book of truth would not be on top, but at the very bottom.  After all the other 
               books.

        Nequatewa, Edmund, (1967) Truth of a Hopi: Stories Relting to the    origin, myths, and clan  histories o f the Hopi, Flagstaff, Arizona: Northland Publishing in cooperation with the Msueum  of  Northern Arizona [p. 41] 

Don't want to believe that the Aztec and the Maya were cognizant of the events of the disaster. Don't have to. . . it is enough that the records are available, nor only in the Mesoamerican world, but also in the North American world of the Hopi who also state, again at the end of their prophecies, not in the beginning, that:

                                 You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, 

                                  above the earth, that shall fall with a great crash. 

                                  It will appear as a blue star. 

                                  These are the Signs that great destruction is coming. 

                                  The world shall rock to and fro.   

                                                                                           Ghost Wolf, R. (2005)

                                                                                      <http://www.crystalinks.com/hopi3.html>

So should we worry about the 2012 event that is included in the prophecy of the Hopi?  I don't think so since the "blue star" is not in the sky, nor are the double comets of the Maya Popol Vuh, or Mary Miller and Karl Taube's description of Tlaltecuhtli's demise in the heavens.

The Popol Vuh, A Misunderstood Astronomy Book

If you can find the book by  José Castillo-Torre (1955) called Por la Señal de Hunab Ku:  Reflejos de la Vida de los Antiguos Mayas. Mexico, DF,  Mexico: Libreria de Manuel Porrúa, SA, you might compare what is written (beginning with the prologue  Prayer to Father Sun and Mother Moon,) and see how scholarship has changed things drastically in the last sixty years.

I am prone to believe Jose, than others because it seems to match the actual events found in the Popol Vuh  after combining the causes and the effects, that are stated first as factual (i.e burning rains), then as symbolically (ie. as bees, wasps whose stings that "burn" painfully after having been stung.) But it does not mention the Popol Vuh directly,  only inferring that problems were  solved after the major event in the sky that affected their agriculture planting schedule.

We can then, jump ahead into the 20th century,  to discover just what our astronomers actually know about, not a nova that has exploded, [they do have that information] but how it began to shine in the sky until it was so bright that it seemed to be another moon, then another sun, until it finally disintegrated in the sky.  An e-zine called SPACE.com recently during the first week of April, 2012, had their Staff write up  Top 10 Star Mysteries: about  Super Novas in  general.  Number 3 reads:

         "…gravity’s inward push tears apart the star’s innards. The explosion propels jets 
          of high-energy light and matter out into space."  

The first part is correct, the nova is torn apart from its innards. But we find that: "Since Johannes Kepler’s supernova was spotted in 1604, astronomers haven’t witnessed one in our own galaxy." from its beginning to its demise. There are no records in modern astronomy of the whole sequence of events from the birth of a nova to its demise.

No wonder, no one wants to believe that a myth such as the Maya Popol Vuh,  the Hopi Prophecies, or even the Rg Veda from India could contain specific grains (actually huge boulders) of information that have been ignored for centuries. Sure there had been children's stories about Chicken Little to ridicule the older folk who kept telling their families, and anyone else that would listen, that some day "the sky might fall in on their heads again."

The picture above, on the Web March 28, 2012 [news.com.au,  http://www.news.com.au/world/man-literally-stuck-in-the-mud/story] is about a man who slipped and fell into the mud but thanks to  Emergency Personnel, and one quick-thinking man who helped to clear his airways so the  man could breath, and survived after being 40 minutes in the mire, encased in mud.

The Popol Vuh has such a story, about "a [single] man of mud" who survived long enough to rise up, even with his twisted neck, to ask for help in a garbled voice.  However, he slid under the muck too soon for the awe-struck Maya search party. It all happened so suddenly, that the Maya probably had thought the apparition was an old creation of their gods sent as a warning that one must never forget the gods of the Earth, Sea and Sky again.  After all, there had been a great flood that came from the sea after the rains of burning resin or turpentine fell from the sky.

The other event that happened shortly afterward, was after the Birth of the Fifth Sun had been around long enough to dry out the land.  The searchers then could climb the mountains. What they found were both men and animals so "dried out" from the sun that they called these broken bodies "wooden manikins."

We believe photographs of men or animals (a horse had also fallen into a mud hole and struggled for its life, but in a different news blurb on the same day.) However, we no longer believe such tall tales of people who could rise out of the mud, or that what appeared to be carved wooden figures might have been real people who were thrown up on the mountain sides, yet washed completely free of the mud as the water flowed down the mountain and back to the sea.

March 28, 2012:  Man trapped in mud survives. Web March 28, at  ws.com.aus, http://www.news.com/au/world/man-literally-studk-inthe--much/story 2012,

Today, one can call 911 and get professional emergency help. Centuries ago, there was only the acceptance that God had sent punishment to mankind because they were forgetting to honor Him.

We believe in our 911 numbers, just as the ancients believed in their God.

And if the Popol Vuh is a true story of astronomy, it is the only full history of the birth of a nova to its final destruction.  They had the time to search the skies for years, even centuries before their records were completed. However, to teach the general public what they knew so well, they had to create a story of truth and symbolic language components, just as they did with their hieroglyphics.

It is a wonderful story, an amazing story that is so accurate it has no comparison, except within the myths of the world, for the simple reason that many countries and many different cultures viewed the same awe-inspiring sights during those years ages ago.

One must remember that Astronomy is actually a world-wide system. The sky covers the whole world, not just one aspect of it.  Each story may be different, but it is what happened during the catastrophic event that changed the world from a 360 degree year to a 365 degree year.

So, Where Could the Maya have gone?

"…These are the words:                                    
                 If they are not understood by the  chiefs of the towns, ill-omened is the star adorning the night. Frightful is its house. Sad is the havoc in the courtyards of the nobles. Those who die are those who do not understand; those who live will understand it."
                                                       Roys, The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel 

The ill-omened star in the sky is specifically mentioned as part of the disaster. Apparently, it has been in the sky for some time and as it changed its face, the astronomers began to worry. They finally sent out messages to all that the population should find a Maya "bomb shelter" [to use a modern concept] but since men had to work the fields and the women had to made sure the men were well-fed for their jobs, not many paid attention to the priests.

The chiefs of the town had already built strong buildings of stone, probably upon tall platforms, so they were not too concerned with the warnings of the astronomer/priests. Since hurricanes in the area sometimes flooded the land, they were safe in their stone houses high above the plains. There was plenty of room for refugees whose homes could not sustain the great winds. The people of the plains understood that their daub and wattle homes would melt with the torrential rains and flooding.  They appreciated the concern of their chieftains who created a high place for all to weather such hurricanes.

The chiefs knew that stone was much stronger than the lesser houses of the villages around them. Even their corn grinding metates were larger and more weighty.  A huge metate, that normally could never have been lifted by one person, was found on its side near those immense destroyed "safe"  platforms of stone work by the present day archaeologists in the Yucatan. These new investigators in the area also found plates and bowls smashed helter-skelter around areas that seemed to be kitchens. These shards are called sacrificial offerings to the gods when a new structure was to be built over the older one. When, in fact, if an  earthquake occurs, walls tremble and shelves do not keep their contents.  Plates, bowls, and pitchers, all made of baked clay, fall to the ground and break.

Regardless of circumstances, new buildings had to be constructed; bigger, stronger, taller. Men were constantly attempting to make their lives conform to the land. Yes, there had to be an offering to God, but only to insure major buildings would be strong and safe, but not  plates which, when broken, normally would be used as land fill since they cannot be re-used for anything else.

So what could have destroyed such buildings? For the answer one must again leave the Popol Vuh, even though they did give the reason that most houses were destroyed, they did not impress upon future readers, the enormity of the event. (To Be Continued.)