The Indigenous History of El Salvador

Disappointed at National Museum David Guzman

Yesterday morning I spent wondering around the Museu Nacional David Guzman. I have to say I was quite disappointed. In part because of what is missing - such as no mention about the Lenca at all - and in part due to what is said - for example, the time of the Spanish invasion is mostly glossed over.

It was the official history which can't ignore the fact that indigenous lived here in El Salvador but can tell only part of the story. The official story does not inspire, in fact it seems to do the opposite. It does not motivate Salvadorans by helping them know that they, well, at least some, are descendants of people who helped found one of the greatest civilizations the earth has ever known - much greater than what the Spanish conquistadores ever attained. That is the museum I long to visit. But I guess it won't be named after David Guzman. Perhaps it would be the National Museum of Indigenous Pride Anastacio Aquino.

1 K'ante' in the Mayan-Mesoamerican Calendar

1 K'ante', 1st day in the 13-day K'ante' (Madre Cacao) Week
1 K'ante' (Ch'orti): Madre cacao tree (gliricidia)
1 Q'anil (Quiche); 1 Lamat (Yucateca): Glyph of Venus
1 Tochtli (Aztec): Rabbit
Direction: South

Note: The k'an te' (yellow tree) or madre cacao was the ruler over the third regent or the third age, which ended about 3100 BC. The first age was associated with white, the second age with black, the third age with yellow, to be followed by red. In the Popol Vuh, the hero twins Hunahpu and Ixbalamque lured their older brothers to the k'ante' where they fooled them to put an end to their reign over the third age. The k'ante' provided shade for the fragile cacao trees along the Mayan Pacific Coast. The thicker k'ante' branches were used to make wood fences.

K'ante' is the last week in the traditional 260-day year, culminating with the day 13 S'utz/Ahau.

Astronomy of K'ante' week: Mars appears in the late evening sky as it does every third K'ante' week. During our era of several hundred years, K'ante' week will never have an eclipse, nor will the sun ever be square to the lunar nodes.

Acajutla High Tides: 2:37 AM and 2:55 PM
Semi-diurnal Tide Range: 1.70 meters and increasing (distance between high tide and low tide).

13 Manix in the Mayan-Mesoamerican Calendar

13 Manix, 13th day in the 13-day Sih Muahn (Black Hawk) Week
13 Man ix (Ch'orti'): Worker of the earth; artisan
13 Kej (Quiche) - Deer / 13 Manik' (Yucatec): Glyph of grasping hand
13 Mazatl (Aztec): Deer
Direction: West

Note: This sign is named after one of the four original Mesoamerican leaders, Maza Manix, whose lineage leads to the Quiche' Maya. This leader received the name Maza or "Deer" for copying the deer in trying various leaves, fruits, nuts, and berries to see if they were edible. He/she received the name Manix or "worker of the earth" for having the vision of cultivating edible plants which would lead to establishing a way of life based on agriculture. Both doing art - being an artisan - and working the earth are described by the same verb, man, in Ch'orti' Maya. The glyph of the grasping hand describes an action that could either be artisanal or agricultural.

At some point, mostly likely when their leaders were suffering from mental illness caused by pellegra, the Quiche Maya might have mistakenly changed the name of this day sign from manix to maix, although they retained the 'deer' meaning which they took with them when they were banished to northwest Mexico. Maix means 'not yet' in Ch'orti. The Quiche-written Popol Vuh says that Not Yet was one of the first four people and the founder of the Quiche. But it is possible that the name maix came from an agricultural rhyme associated with it. One can imagine the saying 'maix manix' or 'not ready yet, work the corn some more'. The tzolkin was used a guide to know when to plant and harvest.

This day sign was the first sign of the week and the year for the Quiche's, unlike other Mayans. That makes sense - the previous two days are Serpent and Tapir and the blood of the serpent and tapir are mixed with corn dough to make the first person. It is likely that when the Quiche' were banished by the other leaders that the calendar start date was adjusted from Manix to Imix.

Sih Muahn Week: The black hawk or eagle was the creature that brought the serpent out of the sea or lake and mixed its blood with that of a tapir and corn dough (masa) to make the first Mayans, in the Popol Vuh creation story. The tapir (cimin) symbolizes those that ruled the cave that the pre-Mayan-Mesoamericans escaped from. The serpent (chan) was brought out of the lake by the sih muahn and placed around a crater lake (Coatepeque) to make a rainbow (makchan) that protected the pre-Mayan people.

Astronomy of Sih Muahn week: Mars appears in the late evening sky as it does every third Sih Muahn week. During our era of several hundred years, Sih Muahn week will never have an eclipse, nor will the sun ever be square to the lunar nodes.

Acajutla High Tides: 1:50 AM and 2:12 PM
Semi-diurnal Tide Range: 1.57 meters and increasing (distance between high tide and low tide).

12 Cimin in the Mayan-Mesoamerican Calendar

12 Cimin, 12th day in the 13-day Sih Muahn (Black Hawk) Week
12 Cimin or Tzimin (Ch'orti'): Tapir. Glyph of sleeping head or skull
12 Kame (Quiche') / 12 Kimi (Yucatec): Death
12 Miquiztli (Aztec): Death
Direction: North

In the Popul Vuh, the lords of Xibalba who brutally controlled the cave, were represented by the tapir. The word for tapir, cimin, might originate in Asia from before crossing the Bering Strait and likely meant 'bear'. In ancient mythology bears ruled the caves and hibernated through the winter, hence the sleeping head. As the closest animal to a bear in Mesoamerica, tapirs ruled caves.

Also in the Popol Vuh, the Hawk mixes corn with the blood of a sea serpent and the tapir to make people. The previous day-sign was serpent and it is matched with tapir in the tzolkin. The blood of both the sea-faring pre-Mayan people (sea serpent) and the cave dwelling Xibalbans (tapir) was shed in order for the powerful, knowledgeable Mayan people to emerge. The lords of Xibalba represented the underworld and death, hence this day also meant 'death' in other Mayan languages and among the Aztecs.

Sih Muahn Week: The black hawk or eagle was the creature that brought the serpent out of the sea or lake and mixed its blood with that of a tapir and corn dough (masa) to make the first Mayans, in the Popol Vuh creation story. The tapir (cimin) symbolizes those that ruled the cave that the pre-Mayan-Mesoamericans escaped from. The serpent (chan) was brought out of the lake by the sih muahn and placed around a crater lake (Coatepeque) to make a rainbow (makchan) that protected the pre-Mayan people.

Astronomy of Sih Muahn week: Mars appears in the late evening sky as it does every third Sih Muahn week. During our era of several hundred years, Sih Muahn week will never have an eclipse, nor will the sun ever be square to the lunar nodes.

Acajutla High Tides: 1:02 AM and 1:28 PM
Semi-diurnal Tide Range: 1.41 meters and increasing (distance between high tide and low tide).

11 Chan in the Mayan-Mesoamerican Calendar

11 Chan, 11th day in the 13-day Ik' (the void) Week
11 Chan (Ch'orti'): Serpent
11 Kan (Quiche') / 11 Chikchan (Yucatec)
11 Coatl (Aztec): Head of Serpent
Direction: East

Chan is the totem for the Ch'orti' Maya. This day celebrates Balam (jaguar) Kitze, one of the two founders of the Maya lineages. The Ch'orti'-Cholan, Yucatec, and Huastec Mayas all share lineage from Balam Kitze. This daysign was likely also called Hor Chan, or head serpent, in homage to the founder of the clan. The day Chan is always opposite the day Sih Muahn. Similar to today, Sih Muahn is the 11th day of Chan week. It is a day of opposites, extremes, yin and yang, the dialectic.

Sih Muahn Week: The black hawk or eagle was the creature that brought the serpent out of the sea or lake and mixed its blood with that of a tapir and corn dough (masa) to make the first Mayans, in the Popol Vuh creation story. The tapir (cimin) symbolizes those that ruled the cave that the pre-Mayan-Mesoamericans escaped from. The serpent (chan) was brought out of the lake by the sih muahn and placed around a crater lake (Coatepeque) to make a rainbow (makchan) that protected the pre-Mayan people.

Astronomy of Sih Muahn week: Mars appears in the late evening sky as it does every third Sih Muahn week. During our era of several hundred years, Sih Muahn week will never have an eclipse, nor will the sun ever be square to the lunar nodes.

Acajutla High Tides: 12:10 AM and 12:42 PM
Semi-diurnal Tide Range: 1.25 meters and increasing (distance between high tide and low tide).

10 Kanoa in the Mayan-Mesoamerican Calendar

10 Kanoa, 10th day in the 13-day Sih Muahn (Black Hawk) Week
10 Kanoa (Ch'orti'): Canoe
10 K'at (Quiche') / 10 Kan (Yucatec): Ripe maize
10 Cuetzpallin (Aztec): Blue lizard or iguana
Direction: South

Note: I think that this day sign was originally Katu', the moon deity, and was then transformed to Kanoa or Kanhoh (canoe) between 3000 BC and 1800 BC when the Mesoamericans began their great traveling ventures in dug-out canoes up rivers and rafts over oceans to spread their knowledge of agriculture. There was probably a rhyme associated with this shift, like "Katu' K'anhuh, Katbu K'an a'n, K'aht Kanoa" or "on moon and iguana, cross over with golden ripe corn, by bridge and canoe". Such double meanings and rhymes help explain the Quiche', Yucateca, and Aztec names for this day. Kan also means 'to learn' and Teo-kan (Island of Learning) was one of the first four island civilizations.

Sih Muahn Week: The black hawk or eagle was the creature that brought the serpent out of the sea or lake and mixed its blood with that of a tapir and corn dough (masa) to make the first Mayans, in the Popol Vuh creation story. The tapir (cimin) symbolizes those that ruled the cave that the pre-Mayan-Mesoamericans escaped from. The serpent (chan) was brought out of the lake by the sih muahn and placed around a crater lake (Coatepeque) to make a rainbow (makchan) that protected the pre-Mayan people.

Astronomy of Sih Muahn week: Mars appears in the late evening sky as it does every third Sih Muahn week. During our era of several hundred years, Sih Muahn week will never have an eclipse, nor will the sun ever be square to the lunar nodes.

Acajutla High Tides: 11:53 AM
Semi-diurnal Tide Range: 1.12 meters and increasing (distance between high tide and low tide).

9 Akbar in the Mayan-Mesoamerican Calendar

9 Akbar, 9th day in the 13-day Sih Muahn (Black Hawk) Week
9 Akbar (Ch'orti'): Night (Glyph of razors or jaguar fangs)
9 Aq'ab'al (Quiche) / 9 Ak'bal (Yucatec Maya): Darkness; night
9 Calli (Aztec): House
Direction: West

Note: Today's day sign honors one of the four great ancestors: Balam Akbar or dark jaguar, who was one of the four leaders that founded the Mayan-Mesoamerican civilizations. The nation that he founded was also called the Greathouses, possibly due to the large or long houses that they lived in. This is likely where the Aztec name for this day sign came from. The Greathouses lived near the ocean on El Salvador's eastern coast and became a great sailing people. Most of the great Mesoamerican peoples, other than the Mayans, come from the Balam Akbar lineage.

Sih Muahn Week: The black hawk or eagle was the creature that brought the serpent out of the sea or lake and mixed its blood with that of a tapir and corn dough (masa) to make the first Mayans, in the Popol Vuh creation story. The tapir (cimin) symbolizes those that ruled the cave that the pre-Mayan-Mesoamericans escaped from. The serpent (chan) was brought out of the lake by the sih muahn and placed around a crater lake (Coatepeque) to make a rainbow (makchan) that protected the pre-Mayan people.

Astronomy of Sih Muahn week: Mars appears in the late evening sky as it does every third Sih Muahn week. During our era of several hundred years, Sih Muahn week will never have an eclipse, nor will the sun ever be square to the lunar nodes.

Acajutla High Tides: 11:01 AM and 11:15 PM
Semi-diurnal Tide Range: 1.05 meters and increasing (distance between high tide and low tide).

8 Ik' in the Mayan-Mesoamerican Calendar

8 Ik', 8th day in the 13-day Sih Muahn (Black Hawk) Week
8 Ik' (Ch'orti'): The center of the galaxy; the void. Glyph of the tree of life.
8 Iq' (Quiche') / 8 Ik' (Yucatec Maya): The wind; center of the galaxy
8 Ehecatl (Aztec): Wind
Direction: North

Note: Ik' is the dark spot in the Milky Way, or the Tree of Life, and specifically the center of the galaxy where there appear to be no stars. Also known as the void. Now we know that there is a black hole at this location. When the Mars retrograde cycle happens while aligning with the center of the galaxy, it occurs on the earliest possible date of the tzolkin. This will next happen in early April 2016. This happens due to the elongated orbit of Mars being pulled by the densest mass of the galaxy. This allowed the pre-Mayans to predict the exact day of the turning or retrograde motion of Mars. This is also how the pre-Mayans determined the exact center of the galaxy with such accuracy, i.e. when Mars turned retrograde in that spot it would lower the Mars retrograde calendar before expected or by two days rather than just the typical one. This day might also be known as yaxte', which means 'tree of life'. This was symbolized by the Mayans as the ceiba tree.

The Mayans and Mesoamerican people communicated with the heart of darkness of the galaxy by entering a meditative trance induced by the windy smoke of burning tobacco incense. Later other materials, including copal, were used. The Mayans called this a Tohil bath. Ik' Balam is also the name of one of the first four civilizing humans. Ik's village at the mouth of the Rio Lempa was most likely wiped out in the global flood event of the draining of Lake Agassiz in about 6400 BCE (Before Common Era).

Sih Muahn Week: The black hawk or eagle was the creature that brought the serpent out of the sea or lake and mixed its blood with that of a tapir and corn dough (masa) to make the first Mayans, in the Popol Vuh creation story. The tapir (cimin) symbolizes those that ruled the cave that the pre-Mayan-Mesoamericans escaped from. The serpent (chan) was brought out of the lake by the sih muahn and placed around a crater lake (Coatepeque) to make a rainbow (makchan) that protected the pre-Mayan people.

Astronomy of Sih Muahn week: Mars appears in the late evening sky as it does every third Sih Muahn week. During our era of several hundred years, Sih Muahn week will never have an eclipse, nor will the sun ever be square to the lunar nodes.

Acajutla High Tides: 10:06 AM and 10:18 PM
Semi-diurnal Tide Range: 1.01 meters and at its lowest (distance between high tide and low tide). In 13 days - the 8th day of the next week - the tide range will again have three days of low tides. Being able to predict the tides allowed the pre-Mayans to mobilized resources between fishing and agriculture, as well as to prepare for journeys when low tide ranges meant bad fishing and crabbing.

7 Imix in the Mayan-Mesoamerican Calendar

7 Imix, 7th day in the 7-day Sih Muahn (Black Hawk) Week
7 Imix (Ch'orti'): Breaking open (sprouting) earth; corn
7 Imox (Quiche') / 7 Imix (Yucatec Maya): Breaking open earth
7 Cipactli (Aztec): Alligator
Direction: East

Note: Ix is 'Mother earth', while imix is the sprouting open of the earth, for example, agriculture. This recalls one of the first four islands where the first Mesoamericans began to develop. One was called Teopan (in current day Lago Coatepeque) and means sprouting island.

Imix also was the first word for 'corn'. Later, between 2300 BC and 1500 BC, the crisis of pellegra hit the Mayans-Mesoamericans in El Salvador and along the Guatemalan coast. Pellegra causes lesions, like a jaguar's spots, which eventually could break open, spilling one's blood. The Mayans' cosmology was adapted to account for this crisis. This also caused imix to be associated with 'diseased corn'. Later the discovery of the nixtamal process solved the pellegra crisis and quickly led to the dawning of the next phase of civilization. A new word for non-diseased corn, nar, was adopted, in order to distance corn and the agricultural way of life from the pellegra crisis. 

Sih Muahn Week: The black hawk or eagle was the creature that brought the serpent out of the sea or lake and mixed its blood with that of a tapir and corn dough (masa) to make the first Mayans, in the Popol Vuh creation story. The tapir (cimin) symbolizes those that ruled the cave that the pre-Mayan-Mesoamericans escaped from. The serpent (chan) was brought out of the lake by the sih muahn and placed around a crater lake (Coatepeque) to make a rainbow (makchan) that protected the pre-Mayan people.

Astronomy of Sih Muahn week: Mars appears in the late evening sky as it does every third Sih Muahn week. During our era of several hundred years, Sih Muahn week will never have an eclipse, nor will the sun ever be square to the lunar nodes.

Acajutla High Tides: 9:11 AM and 9:21 PM
Semi-diurnal Tide Range: 1.06 meters and decreasing (distance between high tide and low tide).

6 Sutz' in the Mayan-Mesoamerican Calendar

6 Sutz', 6th day in the 13-day Sih Muahn (Black Hawk) Week
6 Sutz' (Ch'orti'): Bat. Glyph of a stylized bat or chief
6 Junajpu (Quiche') / 6 Ahaw (Yucatec): Lord or chief
6 Xochitl (Aztec): Flower
Direction: South

Originally this sign was likely 'lord bat'. The Mayans and other Mesoamerican peoples came out of two rooms of the Xibalba cave about 11,000 years ago. Three families came from the jaguar room and one family from the bat room. The lead family, who would become the Quiche's, came out of the bat room. The Cakchiquels, who share the Quiche' lineage, are still considered to be bat people. When the Quiches were banished from Tammakchan, the family that would become the Ch'orti-Yucatec lineage took over as lead nation and changed this day sign to the generic title of 'lord' and made it the important position as last day in the calendar. Yet the Quiché took the bat sign with them to Mexico where it was later morphed into Xochitl by the Aztecs (sutz' =~ xoch). The name Suchitoto comes from Sutz'.

The sign carries with it all of the drama of human politics, from the early days as a subject or slave in a cave with bats flying around, to leading the escape of the people, to being forced to leave one's homeland, and the return thousands of years later.

Sih Muahn Week: The black hawk or eagle was the creature that brought the serpent out of the sea or lake and mixed its blood with that of a tapir and corn dough (masa) to make the first Mayans, in the Popol Vuh creation story. The tapir (cimin) symbolizes those that ruled the cave that the pre-Mayan-Mesoamericans escaped from. The serpent (chan) was brought out of the lake by the sih muahn and placed around a crater lake (Coatepeque) to make a rainbow (makchan) that protected the pre-Mayan people. The Quiche and Yucatec names for this day sign both could have been derived from the sound of sih muahn and evolved over time.

Astronomy of Sih Muahn week: Mars appears in the late evening sky as it does every third Sih Muahn week. During our era of several hundred years, Sih Muahn week will never have an eclipse, nor will the sun ever be square to the lunar nodes.

Acajutla High Tides: 8:18 AM and 8:28 PM
Semi-diurnal Tide Range: 1.15 meters and decreasing (distance between high tide and low tide).