On this Good Friday during Easter week I am reminded that many ancient traditions had death and resurrection stories, including the Maya-Lenca. This one comes straight from the Popol Vuh, Part 3:
When One and Seven Hunahpu went back before One and Seven Death, they were asked:
"Where are my cigars? What of my torch? They were brought to you last night!"
"We finished them, your lordship."
"Very well. This very day, your day is finished, you will die, you will disappear, and we shall break you off. Here you will hide your faces: you are to be sacrificed!" said One and Seven Death.
And then they were sacrificed and buried. They were buried at the Place of Ball Game Sacrifice, as it is called. The head of One Hunahpu was cut off; only his body was buried with his younger brother.
"Put his dead in the fork of the tree that stands by the road," said One and Seven Death.
And when his head was put in the fork of the tree, the tree bore fruit. It would not have had any fruit, had not the head of One Hunahpu been put in the fork of the tree.
This is the calabash, as we call it today, or "the skull of One Hunahpu," as it is said.
And then One and Seven Death were amazed at the fruit of the tree. The fruit grows out everywhere, and it isn't clear where the head of One Hunahpu is; now it looks just the way calabashes look. All the Xibalbans see this, when they come to look.
The state of the tree loomed large in their thoughts, because it came about at the same time the head of One Hunahpu was put in the fork. The Xibalbans said among themselves:
"No one is to pick the fruit, nor is anyone to go beneath the tree," they said. They restricted themselves; all of Xibalba held back.
Popol Vuh, the Maya Book of the Dawn of Life. Trans. by Dennis Tedlock. 1996.
In this story the resurrection happens in the form of calabash squash. Central America is precisely where squash were first domesticated.
I believe parts of this history allude to historical fact, some parts are symbolic to agriculture and some are symbolic to astronomy.
On the historical side, I think that there was a leader of the Hunahpu family - the 1 Hunahpu is more of a family reference than an actual name of one person. I believe that this person was tested through a series of astronomical tests by the archenemies - the previous passage spoke of being put through five tests. I think the reference above to the cigars going out means that an astronomical event involving Venus or Mars did not occur as 1 Hunahpu said that it would. I think another translation for the word torch (chaj in Quiche) is 'red object' (chak in Chorti), which seems to provide a clue toward Mars. 1 Hunahpu came to be reverred so much because it was his insight and error that allowed future Maya-Lenca astronomers to advance beyond the Xibalban lords. Still to this day (possibly 9,000+ years later) Maya communities visit the cemetery on Hunahpu day.
In terms of when this occured, I think that the Popol Vuh uses the convention of family name then date, in many cases where two names are presented together. In this case the date referenced was 7 Hunahpu, a day in the 260 day calendar, but also a day in the Mars retrograde long-count calendar, which would be the equivalent of about 7500 BCE.
I also believe that the place that this occurred is eastern El Salvador. I think that the town of Corinto (corintoy in Chorti) translates as 'place of game sacrifice'. This is near to La Gruta del Espíritu Santo, which I think was the original site symbolized later as Xibalba. In fact a few kilometers west of Corinto is a village named Calavera, which means 'skull'. I would propose that this is the precise place where 1 Hunahpu's skull was placed. By the way, it's not clear that it was placed on a tree, the original words are unclear.
In addition to the other meanings described here, I think that the Popol Vuh provides a date for when squash was first domesticated. In that sense the 7 Hunahpu date, 7,500 BCE, may correspond more as a date for squash than as a date for the story of 1 Hunahpu. That is certainly possible. Evidence of squash and corn were both found in the Rio Balsas site in western Mexico which dates to 6,700 BCE.
By using an easy name/date convention, such as "1 Hunahpu 7 Hunahpu" to associate with squash, it was simple for future generations to know when squash was domesticated. Unfortunately it appears that the Mars calendar fell out of use a few hundred years before writing became common, so there is no written or oral record of its use, except, I believe, in the Popol Vuh.
The story of the Hunahpu's head growing into a squash is full of irony and humor, based on word play, which is so common to the Maya. In the Popol Vuh, recorded in Quiche Maya, the name of 1 Death is 1 Kame, which means death or dead person. In the Yucateca calendar, this day sign is Cimi, which also means death. However, Yucateca derived from Ch'orti' (Cholti) Maya, and in Ch'orti' cimin or tzimin means 'tapir'. This makes sense as tapir is the symbol for death and sacrifice in Maya cosmology and tapir is a fitting animal to symbolize the cave-dwelling Xibalbans. I would guess that tzimin might be a word that came across from Asia and originally meant bear.
Well the word used for squash in the Popol Vuh is tzima, clearly a play on tzimin. It still means 'thick-skinned gourd' in Ch'orti'. To name a squash after your enemies and then say your dead leader's head turned into a squash that then grew into a plant and reproduced at great length, was an ultimate insult and spoke of the Maya superior abilities in agriculture as well as language.
Finally, one can see traces of the story of 1 Hunahpu in the Day of the Dead tradition of Mexico and now the United States. The prominent use of the skull in Day of the Dead festivities is a reminder of Hunahpu's sacrifice but also ongoing life in the form of squash vine. Just as Hunahpu's people were able to laugh at the purveyors of death, today celebrants of the Day of the Dead are able to laugh at death.
Good day! I can clearly notice the fact that you undoubtedly get the sense of what you are telling about. Do you have a degree or an education which is somehow related with the topic of this article? Waiting forward to hear from you.
Posted by: SomeDaySomeSay | 12/19/2012 at 01:01 AM
I do not have a degree related to what I write about in the blog. I have learned through living in El Salvador, a careful reading of the Popol Vuh and other texts, and detailed analysis of place names.
Posted by: Tim Lohrentz | 12/19/2012 at 08:38 PM