Submitted by Kenneth Johnson on October 6, 2011 - 9:14am

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In response to Fatih’s open letter:

To bestow a ceremonial staff or any other gift upon an individual shows a certain amount of respect, but cannot in any way be interpreted as an endorsement of that person’s opinion.

The fact is, spiritual practices relating to the Sacred Calendar vary largely from one Mayan group to another. Within larger groups such as the K’iche’, they may vary from one lineage to another. For example, in Quetzaltenango, they say that four of the days with a co-efficient of 13 are important for ritual. Their list of such days is Chicchan, Manik, Ben and Men. (I use the Yucatec rather than the K’iche’ names of the day-signs in order to avoid confusion.) In Momostenango, only an hour away, the list is Ik, Muluc, Chuen and Men. Only Men is held in common as a ceremonial day upon both lists, despite the fact that both communities are K’iche’ and are closely linked with each other.

Therefore, I feel that we ought to be cautious in assuming that the bestowal of gifts or someone’s brief appearance in a video constitutes an endorsement for any particular point of view.

The fact is: Many Mesoamerican cultures developed their own cycles of history by various permutations of basic calendar mathematics. The Long Count, with its famous 2012 “end date,” was used by the Classic Maya (c. 200-800 AD), while the post-Classic Yucatec Maya used a “short count” of cycles that were comprised of 260 tuns. The Aztec concept of the Five Worlds of Emergence uses an entirely different version of cyclic history, based upon multiples of the 52-year Calendar Round. An entirely new “vision of history” commonly called the Gran Uayeb and based upon a quite different permutation of Calendar integers is currently gaining popularity among Guatemalan Daykeepers.

In light of all this, I have no difficulty if Mr. Calleman wishes to create his own cyclic vision of human history by employing similar permutations of basic calendar mathematical values. I hope that he will someday provide us with a detailed explanation, based upon epigraphic evidence, as to why he feels the GMT correlation is wrong and prefers his own “end date.”

Having said that, let me also say that I emphatically do NOT regard Dec 21, 2012 as an “end date.” It marks the end of 13 b’aktuns. Because the so-called “Creation Date” of August 11, 3114 BC marked the end of a previous cycle of 13 b’aktuns, we simply ASSUME that a “world cycle” was supposed to be comprised of 13 b’aktuns. This is by no means certain!!! The Aztec “Leyenda de los Soles,” for example, records world ages of differing lengths. We currently have no way of knowing whether the Maya intended the same. The fact that King Kan Bahlam II of Palenque carved a date for October of 4772 AD on his father’s tomb suggests otherwise. This date, by the way, would mark the end of 20 b’aktuns, a perfectly logical formulation for the Maya.

The notion that the Maya perceived an “end” to the present world cannot be supported. This idea comes from the Aztec “Leyenda de los Soles,” as the legendary epigrapher David Stuart has recently pointed out in his book “The Order of the Days.” Actually, the Popol Vuh states that previous worlds were destroyed because the gods had failed to create a perfect being. It is said that the gods were pleased when they created the human beings of the present world. Hence the implication is rather that the world shall continue.

I have had occasion to mention Mr. Calleman’s contention that the tzolk’in will come to an end to any number of traditional K’iche’ and Tzutuhil Daykeepers. They all agreed that such a notion is ridiculous in their own view, and absolutely contrary to Mayan cosmovision.

The only authentic prophecies we have from the pre-contact Maya are those contained in the books of Chilam Balam, as Dr. Sitler has recently pointed out in an MCP blog. Actually, these manuscripts were written down a couple of centuries after European contact, though they are believed to embody much older material. They are related to what I have described as the “short count” and the most recent ones may be summarized as follows:

K’atun 8 Ahau (1953-73) “The arrows and shields will descend.”
K’atun 6 Ahau (1973-93) Rulers and leaders will speak “madness and lies” and there will be a great deal of fornication. (Oh Watergate! Oh Disco!)
K’atun 4 Ahau (1993-2012) There will be epidemics and the Feathered Serpent will return.
K’atun 2 Ahau (2012-2032) Half empty and half full.

From this it will be seen how difficult it is to extract much information from the remaining Mayan prophetic writings. Regarding Dec 2012, the only direct reference is from Tortuguero Monument 6, which merely says “Bolon Oc Te Ku will descend.”

While Mr. Calleman prefers to regard Bolon Oc Te Ku (literally 9 Foot Tree God) as a plural with reference to the 9 Gods of the Underworld, this is by no means certain. It might have been written in the singular; as David Stuart points out, the inscription is too badly eroded for us to be completely sure. In any case, the idea of “13 Heavens and 9 Hells” is Aztec, and once again we merely ASSUME that the paradigm was the same among the Classic Maya. The renowned scholar and linguist Victoria Bricker has raised some doubt as to whether or not this is true.

Finally, there is a reference to the descent of Bolon Oc Te Ku in the books of Chilam Balam in connection with the time period called K’atun 11 Ahau (next occurrence will be 2052-72). While it is difficult to be sure of close comparisons between a 7th century monument like Tortuguero 6 and the much later Chilam Balam books, it should be noted that the Chilam Balam manuscripts speak of Bolon Oc Te in the singular and remark that his “rattle and his fan” resound upon high, which indicates that he is in the garb of a ritual performer. His ritual probably relates to world renewal, for there is some evidence that a symbolic World Tree was planted by some Mayan societies during rites of world renewal, which is possible, considering the fact that the “te” in his name means “tree.”

While Mr. Calleman certainly has the right to use calendrical math in establishing his own vision of historical cycles and to use his cycles as a predictive tool, this should not be mistaken for something which is “Mayan.” I still hope to hear a detailed explanation regarding his variant “end date.”