8800-8700 BCE: Tobacco, Back Packs, Artificial Lagoons, and the 20-Day Calendar
Earlier I have written about how the sailing people came from South America to El Salvador, were captured by an opposing group of humans and taken to the Corinto cave, escaped from the cave and wandered around eastern El Salvador for many years until they found a citadel which was Tiger Island in the Gulf of Fonseca, Honduras. It is clear from the Popol Vuh that none of original four leaders lived to see the move to Tiger Island. With this post I will add some detail to the period of the escape and up until the move to Tiger Island, based on my trip one month ago. This part of my research is ongoing.
As I have mentioned, the two biggest pieces of evidence that the four sailing families were captured and soon escaped from the Corinto cave are that three of the four sailing leaders seemed to gain the jaguar moniker while being held captive in the jaguar room of the cave and that one of the four leaders - I believe Maix (Not Ready Yet) since his name implies he is the youngest - partnered with Xbakiyalo (Egret Woman) whose name implies she was a tall foreign woman associated with Xibalba. Without having been captured there would have been little opportunity for Maix to partner with Xbakiyalo.
When the sailing people escaped the Corinto cave they ran to the west toward the Torola River (click to enlarge). In the photo they would have been coming from the right, through the area known as Calavera (Skull) and once they reached the river they would have followed it to the left.
From the place names and location of Nuevo Edén de San Juán (New Eden of St. John) and the village Jardín (Garden), it seems likely that the sailing people followed the Torola River (to the right in the photo) as far as they could to the west until it entered the Lempa River (Jardin of Nuevo Eden) (just left of center in photo). This would have been a 60 kilometer journey with little rest. Eden or eten means "the cleared area" in Ch'orti' Maya. It seems likely that these places would not have received the names Eden and Jardín unless they maintained local history of being an important origination place in addition to likely having the indigenous name of Eten (one of the first clearings/campsites).
Important in the photo (click to enlarge) is the guanacaste tree in the mid-foreground, showing that it is likely native to the area. This is known as conacaste by the Maya. It means "breaking off from the cave tree" or "breaking off the cave tree". I believe it is the former meaning and supports the idea that the sailing people had just left the Corinto Cave. Nuevo Edén de San Juán is a very hot area and the presence of a large shade tree like this would have been very welcome to the despondent sailing people. It is still known as the tree of life among the Lenca people and some Maya closer to El Salvador. Perhaps they tried the seeds of the guanacaste and became sick - they can only be eaten after being boiled. Flowers, left, Jardín de Nuevo Edén.
It was while they were are at Nuevo Edén de San Juán that the sailing people found out an important characteristic of the hunter people from the cave. Eventually the hunter people found their location and the sailing people retreated with all their children into the Lempa River. As sailing people they knew how to swim. The hunter people pursued but could not swim and were swept up into the river downstream. Others quickly left. The sailing people had a new name for the hunter people - Xibalbha - "those who are afraid of water."
But it was very hard for the families to do this with young children. I think that this was the place that the first gift was given, Auilix. Ah-wir-ix (or ah-wil-ix) has a double meaning in Ch'orti': "the on-the-go wing" and "the woman's wing". Both describe what I think Auilix was - a mini raft that was used to transport babies and small children in the water when the sailing people were being pursued by the hunter people. The woman probably grabbed on to the wilix while in the water, both for support and to watch the baby, making the wilix look like a woman's wing. And it could be carried on the back like a backpack. Perhaps the first backpack. No doubt the wilix saved many lives. They may have had a saying like, "Tomorrow's men and women were saved by the women with the wing that extended from their side."
The translation of Jardin confirms that the wilix originated at Nuevo Edén de San Juán. Har ("weaving") + tihin ("clinging object"). Hartihin is "clinging to a weaving" or lattice, ah wilix. The verb "cling" gives a sense of desperation and helps one imagine escaping the Xibalba just in time into the river with the weaving to support one and one's children. Thousands of years later when the Spanish arrived they heard a name that sounded just like Jardin and gave the caserio that name. There is little else there that would justify the name.
While they were at Nuevo Edén de San Juán and subsequent wondering they ate whatever they could find. The Popol Vuh mentions that they ate the larva of the yellow jacket, wasp, and bee. They probably also found honey.
The sailing people needed to find better security than the Lempa River. For much of the year it was too shallow to be a deterrent to the hunters. They probably sent scouts out looking for any other body of water. The closest ones are the Laguna de Alegría (Usulutan) and the lagoons near Santa Clara (San Vicente), across the Lempa River. Apparently they went to the Laguna de Alegría in the Tecapa volcano. It is a hot spring fed crater lake - nice for bathing and washing but not so good for drinking. Tecapa is about 40 kilometers south of Nuevo Edén de San Juán.
Considering Tecapa: te' means "plant" and kap means "clench in teeth" and kapar means "suck" in Ch'orti'. This seems to indicate that this is the area that the Mayan-Olmec ancestors found tobacco. Both of the Mayan gods Hacawitz and Tohil seem to be associated with tobacco or smoking
in the Popol Vuh. I believe that the Tecapa volcano is Hacawitz. This is borne out by its name: hak means "beginning" but a double meaning is ha'hk', which means "gasp" or "suck". K'ah is "happiness" or "content" and witz is "mountain". So Hacawitz means "happy beginning mountain" but also "happy sucking mountain" - a reference to tobacco. The happy mountain explains the names of the Laguna de Alegría (joy)(left) and the nearby town of Alegría. No doubt tobacco brought pleasure. More than pleasure, tobacco smoke was used to commune with the spirit world. But one also paid a price.
Perhaps people abused the tobacco plant. It seems soon after finding tobacco they instituted the Tohil god. Toh means "payment made" and hil means "rest or remainder". It is clear from the Popol Vuh that it is associated with tobacco. There are several references to Tohil giving fire. And it says that Tohil demanded suckling from the side and under the arm. I believe this is a reference to the coughing that comes from the smoke and the cancer that can be caused by tobacco.
Given that one of the 20 day signs is named after Tohil - Tojma'r in Ch'orti' and Tok in Quiche, what Tohil seems to mean is that people gave their 19 days of hard work, and then on the 20th day they brought the remainder of their labor - the blood of animals that they killed - to give to Tohil and in return they received tobacco to be used only on that day. The Ch'orti' word for rest, as in relax, has the same root as hil, suggesting that the Tohil day was also a day of rest. In this sense the payment made was the 19 days of labor and the reward was a day of rest.
Both Hacawitz and Tohil were represented by stones. No doubt that the Hacawitz stone looked like a volcano. But it likely was shaped like a flat-topped volcano like Tecapa pictured above.
The relationship between the Tojma'r day sign and Tohil the god implies that the pre-Maya were using a 20 day calendar no later than this date and possibly it was instituted at Tecapa. This seems likely since a 20-day calendar is generally not in use in South America, where the sailing people had come from only a few months or years before. The change to a 13-day calendar rotating within 20 day signs over the course of 260 days (tzolkin) seems to have come later.
The Popol Vuh: "And then Hacawitz was placed at the top of a great pyramid. Hacawitz is the name of the mountain today, and it became their citadel." Unlike Tedlock, I read kaqja (k'ahk'kah) to mean volcano not pyramid. It is "fire, light, heat" and "beginning". So more precisely it was the beginning volcano -- the first place that they lived in El Salvador for more than a couple years.
After many years the Mayan-Olmec ancestors left Hacawitz-Tecapa. One possibility is that the hunters - the Xibalbha lords - overran Tecapa, seeking the tobacco. The Popol Vuh says that the "tribes" (Xibalbans) took up Tohil (tobacco). There is a reference to a later battle taking place at Hacawitz. I think that the Mayan-Olmec ancestors may have gone to the shore of Olomega Lake (meka = "carry in one's arms"). Olomega, above, is 45 kilometers southeast of Tecapa. It is the only sizeable lake anywhere near Tecapa.
I believe that it was about this time that the Mayan-Olmec ancestors went to dig out and damn the Laguna de Jocotal, in an effort to create another body of water where they would be safe from the Xibalba lords who were afraid of water. Jocotal (left) is located 20 kilometers directly west of Olomega, a distance that could be covered in one day. Jocotal: hokot' = excavated, hollowed out; tal = arrival, place, or, ahl (ahr) = time, occasion. (Ch'orti') So Jocotal either means "arrival to the hollowed out place" or "time of the hollowing out". The former meaning leaves a question whether Jocotal is a natural lagoon while the latter meaning is clear that it is made by humans. I think this is the place referred to as Great Hollow (Nim xol) in the Popol Vuh which is mentioned as being visited both before and after the time living at Tulan. It would have been on the trail to the west (now more or less the Carretera del Literal).
One other place that I think the Mayan-Olmec-Zapotec ancestors lived at or visited before going to Tulan is Tihuilotal, a small village today about 10 kilometers east of Olomega. It might have been the only good source of clean, year-round drinking water (well, right) within easy walking distance from Olomega. It has a year-round spring still used today for washing and drinking water and a nearby natural bathing hole (see below) that also has water year-round according to local people. I believe that this is the bathing place in the Popol Vuh that the three gods (or bearers of the gods) go to where the two Xibalban maidens try to seduce them.
There are two other clues that Tihuilotal may have been special this early in history. Even though it is a rather plain and ordinary small village, it has a very special place for the Lenca and is a place where the Lenca royal house(s) has lived. For example, it is the place that the Lenca crown princess Antu Silan Ulap retreated to after she became pregnant while leading the Lenca resistance to the Spanish from 1525 to 1529. She turned over the leadership of the resistance to Lempira and stayed in Tihuilotal to raise her baby.
The second clue comes from Tulan itself, Isla Tigre in the Gulf of Fonseca. There is a village directly on the east shore of the island called Tiguilotada, the most likely place for the first settlement on the island. The name seems to have been borrowed from Tihuilotal. Tiguilotada means "origin land in the flattened (cleared) forest" while Tihuilotal means "arrive to slack spring source," referring to the natural springs at Tihuilotal.
How many years did the sailing people spend in eastern El Salvador before moving to Isla Tigre? Because the original leaders did not live to be part of the move to Tulan/Isla Tigre, I would say a minimum of 40 years. However I don't think it was more than 200 years. Since I believe the escape from the Corinto cave took place in 8800 BCE based on the Mars retrograde long-count calendar, this would place the move to Tulan between 8760 BCE and 8600 BCE (+/- 300). The Popol Vuh clearly associates Tulan with the cold, the mini Ice Age that lasted from about 9000 BCE to 8500 BCE. So I don't think the move to Tulan was any later than 8600 BCE.
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