The Indigenous History of El Salvador

Eclipse - Time for a Trade Mission to #Honduras, #Guatemala, and #Mexico

The tides are slackening again along the Central American Pacific Coast and the Mayans of 3000 years ago would have known, in similar conditions, that a lunar eclipse would occur on the next 10 day, 10 Ocelot (December 31), and that the normally high tides on a 10-day would be extremely slack. They would have known that the next two 10-days, 10 Deer (Jan. 13) and 10 Flower (Jan. 26), normally high tide days, would also have slack tides. In fact, they would have known, through hundreds of years of observing the ocean, that the next good day for ocean fishing, crabbing, and other shoreline harvesting, would not happen until 10 Reed (February 8, 2010), 51 days from now.

As the early Mayan civilization began to specialize 3000 years ago, people learned to take advantage of the slack tide eclipse periods by concentrating on agriculture, hunting, and long-distance trade. This is the dry season when agriculture slows down in Mesoamerica, which means that the coastal Mayans would have used this eclipse period for long-distance trade trips to Copán, Honduras; Tikal, Guatemala; Yucatan; Monte Alban in the Oaxaca valley; the Olmec coast of Mexico; and Teotihuacán in central Mexico.

It is time to pack up and prepare for a trip - by canoe and later balsa raft along the coast or overland on foot into the highlands of Guatemala and Honduras! The Chorti Mayas would have been trading cacao, salt from the Usulután coast, quetzal feathers from the Ahuachapán forests, obsidian from nearby Ixtepeque and Quelepa, and dried ocean fish.

We might think of the Mayan calendar as a New Age phenomena, but for the early Mayans it had not only spiritual meaning but also was a guide to know the ocean, moon, and stars, so that ocean fishing and salt production could be maximized - a guide to civilization itself.

Today is 11 Wind, 11th Day in the Week 1-Tooth / 1 Grass (this 13 day week never has an eclipse but every other year precedes an eclipse)
11 Ik (Maya) - Wind, breath, or life. Glyph might be the tree of life
11 Ehecatl (Nahuat) - Wind god
Direction: North

Acajutla High Tides: 4:14 AM and 4:47 PM
Semi-diurnal Tide range: 1.60 meters average and decreasing. (Difference in High/Low Tides)

Keywords: Pack up and take a long trip. Remember to take something to trade.

The Rhythms of Life and the Mayan Calendar

The Mayans were simply amazing mathematicians and scientists. They observed patterns and rhythms meticulously over days, weeks, months, and years. It is likely that their writing system was created in order to record their scientific observations. They tracked every movement in the sky, on land, and in the sea to determine if there were patterns. Those who saw the patterns could predict the future and gained great power.

The sun and moon cycle are the most obvious and like most ancient civilizations they developed a sun calendar of 365 days, with some adjustments, and a lunar calendar of 29 or 30 days. Then they developed a Venus calendar, tracking how many days it was an evening star and how many days a morning star. Next they began to track the eclipses. They did this by noticing that eclipses always occurred in multiples of every 5 or 6 lunar cycles. An eclipse period lasts up to 30 days and usually contains at least one partial solar eclipse at full moon and one partial lunar eclipse at new moon, although they are usually only visible on part of the earth.

One Mayan text was a notation of lunar months of 29 or 30 days and then grouped the lunar months into series of either 5 or 6 months each. This is clearly an eclipse tracker and this is how the Mayans were able to predict eclipses hundreds and thousands of years into the future. Now with super-computers, modern scientists have created a better predictor, but it took over 2000 years.

The Mayans also developed a Long Count, which was a way to track dates. It is about a 5,200 year calendar that began in 3114 BC. There is much speculation on why that date. The Aztecs did not use the Long Count calendar so it is much harder to determine actual (Gregorian) dates on Aztec writing.

One other calendar used by the Mayans was the 260 day calendar or Tzolk’in calendar, also called Chol K’ij, the organization of time. The Aztecs later adapted it. The Mayans set up this calendar since it corresponds to the eclipse cycles. Each eclipse cycle is approximately 173.3 days long, so that there are three eclipse cycles for every two calendar cycles. Coincidentally, the Mars cycle happens to be about 780 days, to that the Mayans also were able to predict the motion of Mars in the sky – for example when it turned retrograde – using three cycles of the Tzolkin. The Tzolkin can accurately predict eclipses and Mars’ motion for over 100 years, which could explain why certain Mayan kings re-set the Tzolkin calendar. Most ethnologists believe it was to establish a new reign and new identity. I believe it was to recalibrate the calendar to the eclipses. Perhaps the king before was put out of power in shame for having wrongly predicted the motion of Mars. (Too bad we couldn’t have used that one to get rid of ‘W’!)

The Tzolk’in 260 day calendar consists of 13 day weeks, which rotate over 20 different day signs. No one has quite figured out why they used a 13-day calendar. What rhythm in life, in the sky, on land, in the sea, has 13 days? I think it has to do with where the Mayan civilization began, along the Pacific Coast of El Salvador and Guatemala. If you fish or sail in the ocean you might know. Next time…

First posted, Dec. 2, 2009 on BlogBox