Maya - Aztec Vocabularies

     The Popol Vuh has some very interesting names for the gods who are roaming the earth as people.

     A while back I made two notes on my computer and did not look at them again until tonight. One was for Maya and the other was a manuscript from an Aztec Codex. The spelling of the two names were not the same. One could not do a comparison of them using a dictionary in any of the Maya dictionaries, and look them up in a Nahuatl dictionary.

     Yet, when the two are put together, as Zipacna and Çipaqli, or Cipacuatli, it does not take a genius to see that the two languages are speaking about the same entity. 

     CHAPTER  2. Of how the World was created and by whom. begins on page 617 and Chapter 3 does not begin until page 619  So the entity  Çipaqli, or Cipacuatli =  alligator, fish or earth" is mentioned after the quote below but more information about the creation is also mentioned in the first part, especially the presence of the comet that shone brighter than the noonday sun and overshadowied its journey to the west: 

"When this was done all the four deities took notice that the half sun which they had created gave but very little light, so they resolved to make another half sun, so that it should illumine the whole earth. When Tezcatlipuca saw this he became himself a sun in order to give light, as we represent him in painting, and they say that what we see is only the brightness of the sun and not the sun himself, because the sun rises in the morning, traverses till midday, and then returns to the east in order to start again next day, and that which is visible from noon till sunset is its brightness, and not the sun itself, and that at night it neither shows itself nor has motion. So from being a god Tezcatlipuca made himself a sun, and then all the other deities created giants, who were very large men, and of such extreme strength that they could tear up trees with their hands, and they lived on the acorns of evergreen oak trees, and nothing else…"

      The above quotes are straight out of the Dennis Tedlock's story line in the Popol Vuh, [except for the minor detail that anyone who knows about oak trees, know that they are never EVERGREEN]. The bolded version is the part that can be found on page 73, but the rest of the two italicized sections are then moved over to page 161 with Tedlock's explanation on the top of page 304.

It is only his reflection that remains. What might be behind this statement is revealed by the contemporary Mopán Maya tale in which Lord K'in, the sun, goes from his home in the east to the center of the sky nd then back to the east again. It only seems that he goes clear across the sky because he has placed a mirror at its 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's inference to the Planet Venus is a mistaken view of the words spoken by the translator, Andrés Xiloj. Taken literally, it would be the presence of a comet that had passed overhead and put the Lord K'in, the true sun to shame.

     The comet had the name of Quetzalcoatl with Xolotl in Aztec, but in Maya it was Hunahpú and Xbalenqué. Zipacna's story actually begins on page 81 about Seven Macaw and later his encounter with the four hundred boys; until he met the Twins and died at their hands on pages 84-88. The Twins had been upset by the deaths of the 400 boys and vowed to end Zipacna's life.

     A bit below the aboves is here continued on page 618 as:

"…Presently they created a man and a woman; the man they called Vxumuco, and the woman Çipastonal,  and to them they gave command that they should till the ground, and that the woman [618] should spin and weave, and that of them should be born the Maçeguales, and that they should find no pleasure, but should always be obliged to work; to the woman the gods gave certain grains of maiz, so that with them she should work cures, and should use divination and witchcraft, and so it is the custom of women to do to this very day. Then they created the days which they divided into months, giving to each month twenty days, of which they had eighteen, and three hundred and sixty days in the year, of which will be spoken subsequently. Then they created Mitlitlatteclet and Michitecaçiglat, husband and wife, and these were the gods of the lower regions (infierno), in which they were placed; then the gods created the heavens below the thirteenth, and then they made the water and created in it a great fish similar to an alligator which they named Çipaqli, and from this fish they made the earth as shall be told; and to create the god and goddess of water…"

     In this part of the creation the year, months, and days has been identified as 360 days in the year in spite of the current version of 365.22 days that we now accept as factual.

    At the end of this very long paragraph the identification of Çipaqli, or Cipacuatli is made, but the 400 boys are left out of the story in Aztec as well as the Maya Twins.

     The epigraphers would understand then, that the "ç" became "Z" and the "L" became "N" according to the Chinese inability to pronounce the "L" even though they have many words that begin with "L,"  but never any at the end. And the "Q" would never be a problem. It can be equated with a hard "Ch" as the the Aztec variation of Çipaqli's name. However, it is usually the fault of the translator who use the variant spellings, not native spellings.

     Yet, it is strange. When would the Aztec/Maya languages ever pick up an Oriental language problem in pronunciation? Could the stelae with Oriental eyes that are found in Copan have anything to do with it?

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Tedlock, Dennis [1996, 77] Popol Vuh   Zipacna and his brother Earthquake

Phillips, Jr, Henry [1883, 618]  History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings, (Edited by Alec Christensen   and also known as the Codex Ramirez,) Çipaqli, or Cipacuatli =  alligator, fish or earth"

The Three-Times-Around "Sun"

 "The visible Sun is not the real one."
Dennis Tedlock (1996, 161)

       "The visible Sun is not the real one." The argument is  "But we only see one sun!"  On April 24, 2013,  INAH put in a Bulletin, several new pictures from  La Huasteca Veracruzana. their explanation was perfect. It is an astronomical figure with a blazing sun in the headdress. The problem seldom addressed with such new items, is the story that is so prevalents around the world,  It is the Aztec double comet Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl or the double comet from the Popol Vuh, Hunahpú and Xbalenqué. without the story, the glyphs make no sense at all.

       

         However, the crude Quetzalcoatl image, is not the Sun. In the hand, there is a group of three sticks, that indicates three round trips in the sky, aided by the back pointing scroll and the huge wings on the entity's back. The skull-like face indicates that this entity was either from the West, the land of the dead;; or it was a destroying element in the sky.  Actually, once the story is understood as an astro-physical event, it refers to both the Northwest origin and the destructive quality of the blazing birth of the Fifth Sun.

        The next offering is that of a very thin stick with a dark tip on top of the whirling element. Next to it are the long legs of a bird, the arms above have what might be considered tiny wings. And both are next to another ball of fire (a sun-like element).

       

        The whirling element is found both in Nasca, Peru as a monkey [again the Maya Northwest]. It is also found in the Nuttall Codex on page 34 at the bottom right  No connection?? Definitely a sky connection. According to the Popol Vuh, the spinning star—called a Toddler Star by NASA [1]—is not a Toddler  [a young star of about two years +/-],  instead it is part of the destruction of a blazing star. [Next to the bird image above].  The Nuttall shows this set of images very well, but in its own distinct style:

7 Macaw as the Hand of God nebula
with the red blazing area above itBut there is only a hand with fingernails 

under the blue and red ball!

     One must turn the hand glyph sideways and see the bird with its crest as a hand. [The Hand indicates another star form to be discussed later.] Once the icons are identified separately, one can see the story better. And it seems to be what the crude glyphs on the stones are telling us.

       [1] The “Toddler Star” can be found as the Orionis V-1647 star in the mddle of the McNeil Nebula. An excellent simulation was made by NASAgoddardspace.com as 100_0567 10-1.mov.

    The idea that it was a star beginning its life, just indicates that they did not understand the Asstronomy descriptions in the Popol Vuh. However, since the story is never read as astro-physics. It is only considered to be about a mythic creation, who can blame them.

         The Popol Vuh tells the whole story of a nova that began as a Toddler star, [illustrated on one of Justin Kerr's vases {1}], being approved of by the Maya Twins, to its utter desctruction in the second ballgame.  It also tells of the events on earth after the sky explosion. A closer examination of the "hidden" aspects of the text as stated in the very first chapter, should be re-evaluated. 

See also: The Date of 4 Ahau 8 Kumk’u as April 18, 411 AD
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{1}  www.famsi.org/http://research.mayavase.com/kerrmaya.html,  K-7912. A small female child, in the lap of the Star Setter entity, is being viewed by the  twins, Hunahpú and Xbalenqué.  The Sun God is on his throne watching and listening.  There are icons above, that shows G-I as an old entity, a bird [a macaw], a head that indicates a female; a head with moving winds behind as if the head is being propelled forward.  There is no reference here to a Toddler Star, but the child is about two years old. hence, she is a "Toddler."

"Bullas" of the Merchants of Sumer

Author's URL: http://sumerianshakespeare.com/172401.html

e-mail: shukur@sumerianshakespeare.com

Clay bulla and the commoditiy tokens that were inside it. 

The owner’s seal is faintly visible on the exterior of the bulla.
The Sumerian Shakespeare

   A long time ago, while researching  the Great Migration across Asia to Spain, I ran across what was thought to be "The Origin of Writing," [actually this was an accomplishment brought by the gods in many different countries of the world]. It was an interesting book that claimed that there were hundreds of these items called "Bullas" or "balls" filled with iconographic clay tokens, strewn across the desert area to, within and from Turkey.

Sumerian "writing tokens".  Each token represents a different commodities

       These hollow balls were filled with small tokens that appeared to be tiny wine jars, sheep, cloth, anything that was moveable, and sellable.  Eventually, the "bullas" were improved when the token images were pressed into the clay casing on the outside of the orb. It was like an accurate check on what was inside of the balls.

       The theory, back then, was that these items were the origin of writing that eventually turned into cuneiforms scripts across the Middle East and Asia. The strange part of the story, was the multiple "bullas" were found strewn across the desert sands. It made no sense at all. Where they children's toys? [Small children should have been left at home base until they were old enough to be useful on caravan routes.] Or was there another purpose they were scattered in the desert.

       The only other explanation of such a trail across a desert would be a caravan of camels or donkeys that would be carrying such merchandise (ollas, jars of oil, cloth, jewels, and medicines. Sheep that could carry their own weight would have been herded along with the caravans to other markets where money could be earned.

        If this were the case, then the "Bullas" were not the origin of writing, but crude bills of lading that could be counted at the beginning and at the end of the journey to insure that what was loaded onto the camels's backs would indeed arrive safely at their destination, and the merchants there (with a different language) would be assured that the valuable items were intact. 

       A seal of approval from a ruler would have also been included so that the merchants at the caravans destination could be assured that the merchandise was of the best quality. Those without the seal of approval might not be of excellent quality.

        However, a thief is a thief, and usually one who is also in need of such commodities, [i.e. wine, cloth, silks, medicines, jewels, etc] A caravan without guards to protect the merchandise was a foolhardy expedition. Strong men, as guards [or loaders], would not necessarily be educated in. schools to learn to read and write.  By necessity, they should have been proven to be honest, and well-known to the camel drivers. Reading and writing skills were never a pre-requisite for intelligent, strong, able men who understood that money could be made without such schooling.

       Therefore, the "Bullas" would not have been for people to learn to read or write, instead it would have been an easy way to count the merchandise placed on the backs of various camels. A raid on an unguarded caravan would then entail, stripping the camels of their loads, dumping the bulla, with no regard to such "toys,'  unusable to the thieving populations of the deserts areas.

       All along caravan trails, all would have profited from such incursions.  But only if the thieves would leave most of a caravan intact so that the sender would still make a profit, the receiving merchants would be happy that most of the merchandise got through and the thieves would also profit, either by being bribed by an extra camel loaded especially for the random thief who would be smart enough to take only the token camel with its load, as a donation, and leave the rest. 

       The "Bullas" then were only a bill of lading; nothing more.  The bookkeepers at both ends of the caravan journey would be the experts who not only knew how to write in cuneiform, or other language scripts, but who also knew how to calculate prices, weigh loads, and other details that did not entail strength of body, only that of active minds.

      Across the seas, the Meso-Americans also had their own methods of avoiding and/or accommodating thieves, But that is another phase to be handled separately at a later date.

[Note: Don't forget to check out the University of the Aztecs, written earlier. How many of the disciplines were you able to find?]

The Aztec University

This mural is part of the Aztec University system at Teotihuacán

How many disciplines can you identify?
Can you identify more, if the "disciplines" were called "Employment?"

Part of the University advertisement on the wall of
Atetelco at Teotihuacán

        The first discipline that can be identified is the astronomy teacher and his student taking notes, They are in the upper left corner of the mural.

Another discipline that can be identified is the

The teacher is explaining the constellations 

to his student: he who is taking notes.

   

       Another discipline that can be identified is the one above to the right of the mountain. His speech scroll maybe colored blue, so he could be explaining the work done on the snowcap below him. Are they measuring the water flow from the snows on top?

         Is that water to be syphoned into the gardens and farmlands around the flanks of the mountain? The man in the lower right and the man behind him are looking after fruitful plants that include a flowering tree, corn stalks and another kind of plant closer to the mountain.

                                       

        The next is the man to the right and just above the teacher above the mountain. A more complete picture shows him carrying a person, with what appears to be a huge butterfly on its head. The job title here is Porter; a man who is trained to properly carry people on his back over rough terrain.

A Porter

        At his feet is a man discussing crabs [lobsters?] and eels. A man who takes care of fisheries.

       To the right of the gentleman who will take charge of the fisheries, there is an acrobatic troup practicing their singing and dancing abilities.

Acrobats practicing their act.

        Just below, the troupe is a surgeon who takes care of arms and legs.

The Surgeon for Arms and Legs.

      There are more. . . Historians, Mathematicians, both elementary and advanced; Dramatists; Sculptors of stone and wood; and Merchant street sales people. Those that measure the skies and compute the time;  It is also importantt not to forget the ball players. 

      This was apparently an all male school.  The mural has been partially destroyed, but the teachers, with their Tlaloc-type googles, are also included in a panel above all.  They taught the subjects that are illustrated in their speech scrolls. 

  

      Women, could learn, but usually they held down the fort as cooks, tortilla makers, sellers of commodities, i.e.:  fruits and vegetables in the zocalo. They also had small food concessions. They were weavers, and spinners of wool and cotton. Children carried water for cooking and in general ,helped around the house and gardens. Fathers would take their young sons to the milpas to learn the farming methods used for centuries. 

         The Conquest destroyed books and manuscripts. There could be no record that these people were  just as learned as those on the Continent.