The Indigenous History of El Salvador

The Popol Vuh, Theology in a Time of Disease

[Este mismo cuento en español.]

I have discussed how the early Chorti Mayans of coastal El Salvador and Guatemala discovered or highlighted the discovery of soaking corn in ash in about 1500 BC, and their promotion of this discovery led to one of the fastest civilization expansions in the history of the pre-modern world.

However, this expansion was only possible with an ideology or theology attached to it. By about 1700 BC, the Chortis were rapidly advancing due to improved agriculture from constantly improving corn and bean production through selective hybridization. In addition, their efficiency at fishing and ocean harvesting was greatly enhanced by their discovery of the 13 to 14 day tidal cycle, which led to the creation of the Tzol'kin calendar.

Finally, their correlation of eclipses with 52-day periods of slack tides and very poor fishing, allowed them to begin long trade journeys to central Mexico, the Veracruz coast, the Peten, and the Yucatan without missing out much on the best fishing. On these trade trips, the Chortis, the master agriculturalists, were always pushing the latest corn hybrid and encouraging more corn production. Corn seed from the most recent harvest was likely one of their major trade products on these trips.

Yet, by 1500 BC or just before then, they faced a major crisis in the legitimacy of their leadership. That was because the very same Chorti elite, those who consumed the most corn, were becoming diseased. They became weak and they became lesioned, with bloody sores all over their bodies. Not only that, but the people in their communities and the people who they convinced to give up hunting and gathering and produce more corn were also becoming diseased. They didn't know yet about pellegra (also called pellagra), the disease caused by niacin deficiency common among those who rely on corn as a staple in the diet.

But due to this disease, throughout Mesoamerica people were rejecting Mayan leadership, rejecting corn and the agricultural lifestyle, and reverting to hunting and gathering. Neighboring peoples who relied on hunting were defeating the weakened Mayan and mocking their diseased leaders. No doubt, civilization was delayed by hundreds of years by pellegra. The Chortis had discovered what seemed to be a cure, but many did not believe them. That is, they did not believe until the Mayans developed a story, a narrative, that explained meaning and truth, despite the scourge of pellegra. This narrative is best described by the Popol Vuh, the sacred text relayed by the Quiche after the arrival of the Spanish.

The early chapters of the Popol Vuh read like a description of the symptoms of pellegra and in each case the conclusion is that the creator beings failed. That is, it wasn't the fault of the people who became diseased nor was it the fault of the Mayan leaders who promoted a new lifestyle. One chapter describes humans who were dry, with no sweat and no blood. Dry is also a word meaning extreme skinniness in Mesoamerica and weight loss and weakness is one symptom of pellegra. Another chapter describes the rain washing away the substance of the skin and organs of the humans - a symptom of pellegra is the wasting away of the skin.

Yet another chapter goes into horrid detail of symptoms of dementia, with the animals speaking back to the humans, even the corn grinding stones - the metates and manos - speaking back and saying that they would grind up those who usually did the grinding. Dementia is one of the advanced symptoms of pellegra.

The Popol Vuh explains that all of these attempts to create human beings failed. A new attempt to create humans was made and it was successful. In this way, the Mayan creation story is parallel to the Poton Lenca creation story of central and eastern El Salvador that I have already described. Ixbalanque, one of the hero twins (the other is Hunahpú) in the Popol Vuh, represents the diseased leader who had lesions all over his body.

By associating this hero, Ixbalanque, with the jaguar, the most powerful animal in the Mesoamerican ecosystems, but also an animal with spots (similar to lesions), the Mayans were legitimizing their diseased leadership. The jaguar people are the powerful people with the lesioned leadership. Many people had to die before the gods revealed the secret of corn soaking, thus the concept of sacrifice was incorporated into the cosmology.

Most importantly, the Popol Vuh reassures people that it is not the fault of the people in the first agricultural villages that they were hearing voices, that they were lesioned, that they were weak and dying. Nor is it the fault of the corn or the agricultural way of life. Rather, it was the fault of the creator beings. Now they had finally succeeded with a new being, a being made of corn dough, corn that has been cured of the disease by soaking it in ash. The narrative of the Popol Vuh helped to convince both the Chorti Maya villagers and neighboring peoples to trust the diseased Chorti leadership and to accept the strange new practice, sent by the gods, of soaking corn in ashes.

[PostScript, Jan. 27, 2010. To remember those who died in this epidemic and to give thanks for the one true answer to overcoming it, the Mayans put a touch of ash on their foreheads.]

It Took a Directiva to Create the World

One of the surviving creation stories from El Salvador is the Lenca creation story. It is a story about Akú, the creator who is frustrated in his/her efforts to create the world. Nothing seems to go right while Akú is working alone. But as soon as Akú forms a council, the Kanel, or directiva, he/she begins to make progress. In fact, each Kanel is given a consort. I read this to be a directiva. So, not only does Akú create a directiva but then each directiva (Kanel) member is part of a directiva themselves.

After five days of fruitless work, Akú created the four divine beings that were collectively called, Kanel to assist in surveying the measurements of the first square of the universe called Anamerike or Ajkmerike. The task was so great that an assisting consort was created for each one of them. Together, they celebrated council and after meditating on the task at hand, in unanimity they decided to create a circle of time.

This is so Salvadoran! If you can’t get something done, call a meeting. For those of you not familiar with the rural organized communities of El Salvador, such as those of CRIPDES, let’s just say that directivas kick butt. They get things done. One person in charge of each thing happening in the community and each one representing a certain portion of the community. The directiva brings the community together and organizes the collective action, whether that is working in the fields, forcing the army to leave the community, or campaigning against domestic violence.

I really like how the Lenca creator is not able to create the world, at least not right away. Akú tries many different things until finally something – the directiva – works. The story provides some clues to the most valued attributes among the Lenca: humility, patience, experimentation, teamwork. “Akú made a mountain but this crumbled on itself.” How many creation stories include such a clear admittance of failure. The Lenca are not afraid to fail, to learn, to try again, this time with a team.

First posted, Dec. 9, 2009 on BlogBox

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