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R.B. Superstition in Ancient Times and in New Age Philosophy Since the inception of human intelligence, the passage of time was of paramount importance to our lives. The cognitive processes that conferred the powers of observation, memory, and deduction to the human race allowed us to take note of the very regular patterns of day and night, which naturally led to the creation of timekeeping systems. Whether this system was written down or passed through the generations orally, the mere existence of the linguistic capacity to express time is concrete evidence of the centrality of timekeeping in human life across cultures. Concurrent with the ability to reason came the ability to believe in things that could not be observed. This took form in the conception of religion, of metaphysics, and of superstition. The belief in what is—at least, in the eyes of science and rationalism—absurd permeates throughout human history. These two things—the passage of time and superstition—are often linked in the human mind. The most readily recognizable example in our own contemporary society is the superstition surrounding Friday the 13th, a day linked with bad luck. The Mayans and Aztecs had analogous beliefs within their own societies for certain days inside their calendric system. Surprisingly enough, the dawn of New Age philosophy has created a place for the Mayan calendar system within the superstitions of their contemporary beliefs. So not only is the Mayan calendar integral to understanding some of the superstitions regarding time that the Mayans themselves had, but it is also integral to understanding a modern subculture’s beliefs and superstitions about time as well. However, before we can begin taking a look at the various beliefs regarding time in both cultures, we must first understand the structure of the Mayan calendar, both in terms of its yearly cycles (as is required for the understanding of ancient superstitions) as well as in terms of its entire course from the beginning of its cycles to its ultimate end (in order to understand the New Age interpretation of this old calendar system). The Mayan calendar is laden with levels of organization, just like our own Gregorian calendar. Where our calendar organizes time in periods of days, weeks, months, and years, the Mayan calendar performs the same basic function, albeit in a different manner. In the Mayan calendar, the day, called kin, was the primary unit of time. Other periods of time distinguished by the Mayans were as follows:
There were twenty named days, beginning with Imix and ending with Ahau. When Ahau was reached, the cycle began once more with Imix, much like how in our calendar system, when Saturday is reached, we begin once more with Sunday in the start of a new week. However, unlike in our system, the Mayans attached a numerical prefix to each of their days—ranging from 1 to 13—which led to the development of a 260-day-cycle which the Aztecs (who later used the Mayan calendar) called the tonalamatl (the Mayan name for the cycle has not been identified). This 260-day-cycle is sometimes referred to by scholars as the Tzolkin ‘count of days’ and it began on 1 Imix and ended on 13 Ahau, before passing back onto 1 Imix. However, a full understanding of the complete calendar must take into account the civil year of 365 days, called the haab. These 365 days were broken down into 18 months of 20 days each, and a 5-day month that ended the civil year. The days in each month are numbered from 0-19 (or, in the case of the 5-day month Uayeb, 0-4). Both the haab and tzolkin were interwoven to create a combinatorically complex succession of days called the “calendar round.” To understand the concept of the “calendar round,” one must first visualize the two “years” (haab and tzolkin) as interlocking gears, each cog of which represents the way a day is named in each system. The tzolkin gear would have 260 cogs, ranging from 1 Imix to 13 Ahau, and the haab gear would have 365 cogs, ranging from 0 Pop (the first day of the first haab month) to 4 Uayeb (the last day of the last haab month). The way that the two gears interlock dictates that only 52 of the 260 tzolkin days can ever fall on 0 Pop—analogous to our New Year’s Day, and referred to by scholars as a year-bearer. These days were Ik, Manik, Eb, and Caban, and are prefixed by any number from 1-13, which gives a total of 52 different year-bearer possibilities. The “calendar round,” then, is a 52-year-period wherein all year-bearers have been seen at least once. Mathematically, this can be seen when finding the least common multiple of both 260 and 365 (the number of days in each different “year”), which is 18980 days—or 52 years. In other words, using the gear metaphor, the tzolkin gear will make 73 complete revolutions to complete the calendar round, while the haab gear will make 52 complete revolutions. Now that we have seen the basic structure of the Mayan calendar, I will introduce various superstitions—from the Mayans themselves, from the Aztecs (who used the calendar), as well as from modern New Age philosophy that has surfaced over the last few decades. For the Mayans, the originators of this calendar, the mathematics behind the formation of the haab were quite clear. The organization breaks down in using 18 20-day months, however, as it does not correlate well with the solar year. As aforementioned, there is a 5-day month that marks the end of the year called Uayeb. These five days were regarded as especially unlucky and ill-omened. It was during this period that the Mayans were wary of sudden death, pestilence, wild-animal attacks, natural disasters, or freak accidents. These superstitions carried over to the Aztecs: people born during this period were destined to live impoverished, unfortunate lives. There was also a prophetic quality to these days: they were said to set a pattern for the rest of the year, so many people did not engage in conflict lest they wish to live an entire year of fighting and quarreling. The Aztecs also had a special belief regarding the “calendar round.” Recall that the “calendar round” is the 52-year period in which all the possible year-bearers are used. With this in mind, every 52 years marks the end of one of these “calendar rounds,” which the Aztecs gave the name xiumolpilli, meaning “year bundle.” This was represented by two glyphs: the first glyph was that of a knot in a section of rope, indicating that the 52 years had been tied together; the second glyph was of a fire drill and stick for kindling the Sacred Fire. The Aztecs believed that the end of the world would come at the end of one of these 52-year periods. On the last day of the xiumolpilli, the entire population of Tenochtitlan was said to retreat to the hills to wait for the dawn. If the sun rose the following morning, the Aztecs knew that they had been granted 52 additional years of life, and there was much rejoicing. The Mayans had a similar belief to the Aztecs, but instead of using the end of the “calendar round” to mark the possible end of the world, they instead chose the end of a much longer period of time to mark the transformation of this world into another. The “long count” period encompasses 1872000 days in length. According to the Mayan sacred book, the Popol Vuh, the world that we are living in is the fourth world; the other three worlds that preceded this one were imperfect creations by the gods. When the “long count” ends once more, say the Mayans, there will be another worldly transition: this world will end in catastrophe, and the gods will create another, fifth world. Of course, this would mean the end of the line for humanity. Interestingly, the end of the “long count” is fast approaching: it has been calculated to come to an end on December 4, 2012! New Age philosophy has picked up on this notion. While New Agers do not necessarily believe that the world will come to an end on December 4, 2012, they do believe that something incredible will happen, something that will change the way we think, or the way that the world will work—something radical. The renewed interest in the Mayan calendar and in this date in particular is due to the astrological significance of the date. The New Age beliefs that have surfaced in our own age of scientific enlightenment and advancement goes to show that our basic fascination with time remains unchanged, even after all these years. The power of belief and the passage of time will always be an integral part to human culture, and will always be somehow intertwined. Even as our understanding of our world continues to increase, there will always be something unexplainable; there will always be gaps in our knowledge. In this case, we must resort to injecting the thick caulk of beliefs and speculation into the cracks of our empirical foundations, no matter how outlandish it may seem. It may seem silly now to return to the old beliefs in this day and age, but I think there is something to be said about this: regardless of the belief, we are being that require belief in something to look forward to, or in some cases, to dread. It is the hope for the future or the stress we place on ourselves when faced with a seemingly unavoidable faith that allows humanity to progress as it does. Caroll, Robert Todd. “Mayan prophecy.” The Skeptic’s Dictionary. 2005. 9 Oct. 2005 <http://skepdic.com/maya.html>. Kochan, Miriam, and Lionel Kochan. Maya Cities. Translated by Paul Rivet. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1960. "Maya calendar." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 9 Oct 2005. 10 Oct 2005 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maya_calendar&oldid=30640082>. Morley, Sylvanus Griswold. Revised by George W. Brainerd. The Ancient Maya, 3rd ed. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1956. Morley, Sylvanus Griswold. An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs. New York, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1975. |