The Indigenous History of El Salvador

1 Etz'nab' - Study or Forget

Study or Forget. Chorti': Etz'nab', Kiche: Tijax, Yucatec: Etz'nab, Nahua/Aztec: Tecpatl. Based on correlation 584188.

Etz'nab' is a compound word. It comes from ehtz' - observation, study, imitation - and nahp - forgetfulness, a forgetting. (Note: in Chorti' the b' and the p are equivalent.) While there is no 'or' between them I believe it is understood. The two concepts are a duality - one or the other - study or forget about it. The word ehtz' itself probably comes from the word eht, which means trial or test.

The Etz'nab' day was probabaly named soon after the night of November 21, 7915 BCE, when Mars turned retrograde on the tzolk'in date of 5 Etz'nab' (what would become Etz'nab'). The Mayan leader and shaman, 7 Hunapuh, had predicted to the arch-enemy Xibalba that Mars would not turn retrograde until the next night. As punishment he was killed, pushed through the hole in the escarpment near the Corinto Cave called the razor house - a 30 foot drop with razor-sharp rocks on the sides. Study or forget about it. Based on his experience, those who followed studied the Mars cycle very closely. Eventually they used that knowledge to defeat the Xibalba.

The glyph on the Mayan symbol is that of razor edges and the Aztec name means flint or flint knife. Both are symbols of the razor house that was the consequence for 7 Hunaphu for forgetting instead of sufficiently studying.

Eta'nab' calls us to be prepared and to be exact. It is a time when there may be direct blows or attacks. With preparation, study, and observation we can respond calmly. Joe Louis and Dan Rather both have the 1 Etz'nab' day sign.

1 Etz'nab' corresponds to the period 3716 to 3684 BCE in the Mars retrograde calendar.

This 13-day week:

1 Etz'nab', Tuesday, April 23

2 Kawe't, Wednesday, April 24

3 Ahchuk, Thursday, April 25

4 Imi'x, Friday, April 26

5 Ik'ar, Saturday, April 27

6 Akb'ar, Sunday, April 28

7 Kach, Monday, April 29

8 Chichan, Tuesday, April 30

9 Chamer, Wednesday, May 1

10 Ch'i', Thursday, May 2

11 K'anir, Friday, May 3

12 Tojma'r, Saturday, May 4

13 Tz'i', Sunday, May 5

The Mayan Long Count Calendar Turned Over September 17 Not December 21

The Mayan long count calendar is a 5,125 year calendar that turned over in 2012 to start a new 5,125 year cycle. But instead of turning over on December 21, the common perception, it happened on September 17. This is because the calendar was initiated 105 days sooner in 3114 BCE than commonly believed. Instead of an August 11, 3114 BCE start date the Maya began the calendar on April 28, 3114 BCE. Some Maya consider the calendar cycle that just ended to be the fourth "world" or age. We have just started the fifth age. The third age started on November 1, 8208 BCE.

There are two key pieces of evidence that point toward an April 28 start date: the Mars retrograde long count date of the 8208 BCE third age start and the astronomical characteristics of April 28, 3114 BCE that match those of the start of the third age in 8208 BCE. After discussing those two pieces of evidence I will test the April 28, 3114 BCE start date by looking at planetary alignments for ruler accession dates, assuming that start date.

The Maya moved to Isla Tigre, Honduras in about 8600 BCE. It was the key place for the development of the earliest Mayan culture - where they learned cultivation, where they tamed animals, and where they began counting days with the 260-day tzolk'in and tracking time with the Mars retrograde long-count calendar. As they made preparations to leave the island, a spectacular alignment of planets began forming in the early morning eastern sky over more than four weeks in late September and October 8208 BCE.

First the planets lined up vertically in a near perfect line, bottom to top, of Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus. By October 28 Jupiter, Mars, and Venus were nearing each other both vertically and horizontally and began a five-day triple-star event. Saturn was just above and to the north of the three. By October 31 the moon joined the conjunction to the south. Mercury was halfway down the sky, a messenger to the sun. The next day was considered the start of the new age, the third world.

During the planetary alignment, the Mars retrograde calendar was set at 3 Tojmar (Muluk), as it had been since November 28, 8246 BCE, 38 years earlier. It finally moved in 8199 BCE, but jumped two spaces. When it jumped two spaces the previous placement was considered to be placed on both 3 Tojmar and the next sign 2 K'anir (Lamat). There are two examples in the Popol Vuh where this is true.

The triple star of 8208 BCE was the event that caused the day sign K'anir ("yellow star") to be named. Tojmar day already had a name. The day signs were named for events that happened during the Mars retrograde marker rather than for events that happened on that day in the tzolk'in itself.

The Mars calendar needed to be aligned at 3 Tojmar - 2 K'anir in 8208 BCE, rather than some other numbers of Tojmar and Kanir, because that is the only alignment that allows 7 Chamer (Cimi) (Death) to occur within the 800 years before the triple star. Seven Chamer indicates the approximate time when the Mayan ancestors arrived to El Salvador and first met and were captured by the Xibalba. The Popol Vuh clearly associates 7 Chamer with Xibalba. There was a good chance that the Mayan ancestors came from Taltal, Chile, a site which was abandoned in about 8500 BCE. An alignment of 3 Tojmar for November 28, 8246 BCE, gives a Mars retrograde period for 7 Chamer of 8688 to 8641 BCE.

It is possible that November 28, 8246 BCE was 2 K'anir instead of 3 Tojmar. Then the 8208 BCE triple star would have been considered jointly 2 K'anir - 1 Ch'i' (Manik'). The biggest evidence against this is a poem in the Popol Vuh that provides the line: xtoj xk'anil, which means "movement into Tojmar, movement into K'anir." This references the movement of the Mars retrograde calendar through two signs - Tojmar and K'anir - during the time that the Maya were developing gunpowder around 7700 BCE. If November 28, 8246, is 2 K'anir, then Tojmar and K'anir would not move together from 7692 BCE to 7677 BCE, whereas if November 28, 8246 BCE, is 3 Tojmar then Tojmar and K'anir do move together from 7692 BCE to 7677 BCE. Furthermore this would mean that twice in a row - from 8246 to 8199 BCE and from 7692 to 7677 BCE - Tojmar and K'anir would move together in the Mars retrograde calendar, giving more prominence to the poem line xtoj xk'anil.

The most accepted correlation of the long count calendar with the western calendar is the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson (GMT) correlation of 584283. Assuming that November 28, 8246 BCE was 3 Tojmar, there are three principal options for lining up the long-count calendar and tzolk'in with the western calendar:

• GMT -365, correlation constant 583918
• GMT -105, correlation constant 584178
• GMT +155, correlation constant 584438

The first option has some appeal being one year off. But the middle option, correlation constant 584178, is the closest to the GMT correlation. More importantly, correlation constant 584178 provides a start date of the long-count calendar - the beginning of the fourth age - of April 28, 3114 BCE, a day with astronomical features that come close to matching those of November 1, 8208 BCE, the beginning of the third age.

These three events were equivalent 45 minutes before sunrise on both April 28, 3114 BCE and November 1, 8208:

• Venus and Jupiter were closely aligned with exact conjunction the day before;
• The moon was a few degrees past the Venus and Jupiter conjunction with exact conjunction the day before;
• Mercury was visible about half-way between the Venus and Jupiter conjunction and the horizon, a messenger to the sun.

These three events may happen only once every 200 years. While a Venus - Jupiter conjunction happens nearly once per year, it is rarer for them to be aligned horizontally at the same time. Add in a moon conjunction and Mercury in the same early morning sky and it is rare event. The Maya would have recognized the importance of a sky that matched the story of the 8208 BCE sky. From the Popol Vuh we know that the oral history of the 8208 BCE sky was kept alive.

The Maya had already figured out the math of the new long-count calendar and they were waiting for a sign to start the new calendar. The Venus-Jupiter-Moon-Mercury alignment of late April 3114 BCE was the sign from the spirit world to start the long-count calendar. April 28 was 4 Ahchuk, the Observer, in the tzolk'in (Ajaw in Yucatec). Thus, the correlation constant of 584178 is correct.

In order to determine the end date of the fourth age that just ended, the date when the long-count calendar turned over, one further adjustment of the tzolk'in needs to be made due to the ten-day skip in October 1582 CE. The adjustment needs to be made because many scholars and online Mayan calendars do not take account of the skipped ten days. Taking account of the ten-day skip, means that after 1582 CE the correct correlation for the tzolk'in and the long count calendar is GMT -95, correlation constant 584188.

The April 28, 3114 BCE start date of the Mayan long-count calendar would mean that the calendar turned over to 0.0.0.0.0 on September 17, 2012, not December 21, 2012.

A Study to Test out the Hypothesis

I set up a study to test out the veracity of the 584178 correlation constant. The hypothesis is that the Maya would have used planetary alignments in their selection of a date used for the accession of a new ruler. The alignment that I used is the most obvious - a conjunction between any of the five visible planets, the sun, and the moon (the "luminaries").

I found 64 accession dates from 15 sites, including 16 from Palenque and 8 each from Tikal, Copan, and Yaxchilan. Most of the accession dates are from The Ancient Maya, 5th Ed, by Robert J. Sharer. Because of the low number of accession dates I could not create a random sample but rather used the entire sample. I would invite additional accession dates from readers. I then created a random sample of 100 dates with a random number generator of Julian dates between January 1, 320 CE and December 31, 780 CE (Gregorian), which is about range of dates from the accession sample.

I checked conjunctions between the seven luminaries: sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. An 8 degree orb was used, consistent in both the accession sample and the comparison group. I checked both the early morning sky and the evening sky - midnight to midnight in Mesoamerica (using today's time zones). The following measures where used:

• total conjunctions
• whether each conjunction was present on the date
• for each luminary, whether it was involved in at least one conjunction on the date
• for each luminary, total number of conjunctions on each date

Results

The Maya did use luminary conjunctions as they were choosing ruler accession dates: for the 64 accession dates there was an average of 1.97 conjunctions per date compared to 1.40 for the comparison group (significance at 99% certainty using a two-tailed t-test). Saturn was involved in a conjunction in 41% of the accession dates compared to 21% of the comparison dates (significance at 99% certainty using a chi sq test). It was unusual for Mayan accession dates not to have at least one conjunction: only 9% had no conjunctions compared to 22% of the comparison group.

Total and Average Number of Conjunctions by Luminary, Mayan Accession Dates and Comparison Group, with T-test P-value

Luminary	Acces- sion Date Conjunc- tions n=64	Aver- age per Date	Compar- ison Group Conjunc- tions n=100	Aver- age per Date	P-value in T-test
Sun	46	0.72	55	0.55	0.159
Moon	31	0.48	38	0.38	0.282
Mercury	49	0.77	54	0.54	0.064 *
Venus	42	0.66	49	0.49	0.162
Mars	36	0.56	35	0.35	0.076 *
Jupiter	17	0.27	27	0.27	0.959
Saturn	31	0.48	22	0.22	0.006 ***

* Significant at 90% level.
** Significant at 95% level.
*** Significant at 99% level.

The Moon-Saturn conjunction was the most common Saturn conjunction, used in 14% of accession dates compared to 4% of the comparison group (significance at 95% certainty using a chi sq test). Since the moon conjuncts Saturn every 29 days, this would have been the easiest way to ensure Saturn's involvement in an accession. Two other conjunctions were significantly more common among the accession date sample than the comparison group sample at the 90% certainty level: Venus-Mars (16% to 7%) and Mercury-Saturn (9% to 3%).

Total and Average Number of Specific Luminary Conjunction Pairs, Mayan Accession Dates and Comparison Group, with Chi square test P-value, for P < 0.20

Luminary Pair Conjunc- tion	Acces- sion Date Conjunc- tions n=64	Per- cent of Dates with Conjunc- tion	Compar- ison Group Conjunc- tions n=100	Per- cent of Dates with Conjunc- tion	P-value in Chi Sq test
Moon-Saturn	9	14%	4	4%	0.020 **
Venus-Mars	10	16%	7	7%	0.077 *
Mercury-Saturn	6	9%	3	3%	0.080 *
Mars-Saturn	4	6%	2	2%	0.157
Moon-Jupiter	3	5%	11	11%	0.158
Sun-Moon	5	8%	3	3%	0.163

* Significant at 90% level.
** Significant at 95% level.

One surprising result is the complete lack of Jupiter conjunctions in the 16 ruler accession dates at Palenque. This compares with 31% of the non-Palenque accession dates having a Jupiter conjunction and 22% of the comparison group with a Jupiter conjunction. Compared to the comparison group, the lack of Jupiter conjunctions at Palenque has a p value of 0.000, which makes it extremely unlikely to be a random event. The Palenque accessions take place over 369 years so it was a practice consistently followed for a long time.

Conclusions:

1. The Maya timed ruler accession days to maximize luminary conjunctions, especially Saturn.
2. The Maya were using a long-count that began on April 28, 3114 BCE and ended on September 17, 2012 CE, with a correlation Mayan-European of 584178 (-105 days). It is with this correlation that the above significant findings take place.
3. The Mayan 4th age begun on April 28, 3114 BCE had a planetary alignment similar to that of the beginning of the 3rd age on November 1, 8208 BCE: very tight Venus-Jupiter conjunction in the morning sky with the moon just past and Mercury half-way to the sun.
4. The Mars retrograde calendar is a reality. The 584178 correlation gives a Mars retrograde date of 3 Tojmar - 2 K'anir at the time of the November 1, 8208 BCE planetary alignment. This alignment gave name to the day sign K'anir (yellow star). This also places the Popol Vuh-referenced Mars retrograde date of 7 Chamer (death) at about 8700 BCE, the time that the Mayan ancestors first met their deathly enemies, the Xibalban hunters.

1 Chichan - Protective Ring

Giant Serpent. Chichan (Ch'orti'), Kan (Quiche), Chikchan (Yucatec), Coatl (Aztec). When the Mesoamerican ancestors, including the Maya, arrived in El Salvador in about 8700 BCE they were quickly captured by the Xibalbha, symbolized by the daysign 7 Chamer (Death) in the Mars retrograde calendar. The Mayan ancestors escaped and made their way the conjunction of the Lempa and Torola Rivers. They were somewhat safe because the Xibalbha could not swim and if they approached the Mayan ancestors would retreat into the Lempa River.

After several years they found a better spot - the Tecapa volcano, which had both a crater lake they could retreat into and a protective ring of the volcano, which they named the chichan, the giant serpent. They named the day sign that followed 7 Chamer in the Mars retrograde calendar, 6 Chichan, to honor the protective ring of the volcano that surrounded them, protecting them from their Xibalbha enemies. (The Mars retrograde calendar goes backward through the tzolk'in at the average pace of one sign per 26 years.)

The next time that the Chichan sign was indicated in the Mars retrograde calendar was about 8130 BCE and the four Mesoamerican lineages, including the Maya, had each moved to an island home. Three of the four island homes were in lakes surrounded by a ring of mountains: Guija, Coatepeque, and Olomega. The protective ring of the mountains looked like the body of a giant serpent forming a ring around the lake. This was especially true of Coatepeque (right). In the case of Tehuacan, where the Zapotec ancestors lived, the island was in the middle of the Lempa River near its Pacific Ocean mouth. For the Zapotec ancestors, the Lempa River was the giant serpent that protected them.

Later in 7836 BCE when the San Diego volcano erupted at Guija causing a mudslipe, flood and tzuhnami, some of the imagery of the giant serpent may have changed to that of dragon.

Chichan is the merging of the elements of earth and water. It signifies unity as a ring and protection. Mohandas Ghandi was born on a Chichan date and the United Nations became effectively operational on a Chichan date.

Chichan is opposite Tz'ikin - Clay and Sticks - in the tzolk'in. In 130 days, one-half the tzolk'in, we arrive at 1 Tz'ikin. Tz'ikin looks back at human evolution, the origin of people, the suffering of people. The protective ring of Chichan allows us to look to the future.

In the Mars retrograde calendar the date associated with 1 Chichan is 3336 BCE.

1 B'i'r - The Course

"The Course, the Route." B'i'r (Ch'orti'), E (Quiche), Eb (Yucatec), Malinalli (Nahuat-Aztec)

Using a GMT correlation of -95, the 13 day week of B'i'r begins today. In the Wisdom Ch'orti' dictionary B'i'r is spelled "Bihir". B'i'r is the itinerary, the circuit, the path, the road, the way. It refers especially to the treacherous course by water through islands, rocks, and steep cliffs as the Maya sailed to various parts of the world, such as the Straits of Magellan or the Caribbean islands. The left-hand part of the Mayan glyph for this day depicts the water path around a jutting peninsula. The Quiche name for this day, "E" would be "tooth" in Ch'orti', where teeth symbolize the sharp points and islands that the Maya encountered while sailing. A related word in Ch'orti' would seem to be eht which is "trial" or "test".  The Aztec name which means "twisted" also refers to the twisted course that they often needed to take through close straits and islands. The Aztec glyph appears to be a reed sailboat.

B'i'r has to do with maps, with navigation, with creating itineraries, with stories of journeys passed down through the generations, with solving hard problems, with finding a way out of seemingly intractible situations. B'i'r is twisted; it is a trial, a sharp tooth that gets in our way, a "beer" at the end of a journey.

B'i'r is in between B'atz and B'ahk' in the tzolk'in which illustrates what the Maya provided on their courses on the ocean - their civil engineering capacity of B'atz and their cultivation knowledge of B'ahk'.

In the Mars retrograde long-count calendar this day corresponds to 2973 BCE.

1 Kawe't - Irrigation for our neighbors, our companions

"Our neighbors, our companions." Kawe't (Ch'orti'), Kawuq (Quiche), Kawak (Yucatec), Quiahuitl (Nuhuat-Aztec)

Using a GMT correlation of -95, the 13 day week of Kawe't begins today. Kawe't is about our neighbors, near and far. Seeing all as neighbors and all as companions. The Maya are somewhat unusual in having a sacred symbol or sign be based on neighbors, someone who is non-Mayan. This is the most generous of signs and a time to assist others, rebuild neighborhoods, organize, and create companionship outside one's family or circle.

The Maya created a sign for their neighbors because they truly believed in getting to know and sharing with as many different groups and tribes as they could. It is essential to who they have been and who they are.

The Aztec symbol for this day sign is revealing - the head of Tlaloc. Tlaloc translates as tal - arrival; ahl - time of; ok' - dividing in two, "time of the arrival of the dividing in two". This refers to cutting a path for a river or canal so that water to come to a dry region. The Maya did that many times for their neighbors. The Mayan glyph appears to have water drops on it which people have assumed were raindrops, so this sign has often been interpreted as rain or storm. But the meaning is irrigation and rivers.

In the Mars retrograde long-count calendar this day corresponds to 2641 BCE to 2609 BCE.

1 Tz'ikin - Sticks and Clay

Sticks and Clay. Tz'ikin (Ch'orti'), Tz'ikin (Quiche), Men (Yucatec), Cuauhtli (Aztec)

Tz'ihk is clay or made of clay. Kin is sticks or grass blades. Tz'ikin celebrates the creation of humans - coming from sticks and clay and at death returning to sticks and clay. It also symbolizes the evolution of human beings.

This day sign gained a second meaning early in the Mayan timeline. Tzik is to count in Ch'orti' and k'in is day or sun. The second meaning for this day symbolizes when the Maya first started keeping track of days and using the tzolk'in calendar. This probably happened during the Mars long-count date of 9 Tz'ikin, which lasted from 8402 BCE to 8355 BCE. This would place it at Isla Tigre, Honduras. Tz'ikin may symbolize the oldest calendar used among humans.

Tz'ikin gained a third powerful meaning during the next time that it was the Mars long-count marker, 2 Tz'ikin from 7849 to 7834 BCE. The flood and tzuhnami at Lago Guija occurred during this time, on November 1, 7834 BCE. This is known because the Day of the Dead originates with that flood and the Ch'orti' term for Day of the Dead is sik'in, which means "series of days". More importantly a term was selected that sounded nearly identical to the Mars long-count day marker - Tz'ikin and sik'in. The Popol Vuh notes that the flood marked the end of the age of the stick humans - this primarily means that the 2 Tz'ikin (sticks and clay) long-count date was nearly at an end, but also symbolized the end of the humans of sticks and clay and the beginning of the humans of corn.

There is strong evidence for the Tz'ikin and sik'in (Day of the Dead) connection in the Ch'orti word for funeral or death ceremony, which is tz'i'k'in. Further evidence is provided by the Mayan glyph for the day which is a symbol of a dead person. The Aztec glyph is a flayed human face with an eye torn out. This symbolizes the bodies that washed ashore after the flood that the eagles (cuauhtli) and vultures picked on. These bodies came to look like the skeletons that are still used today to symbolize the Day of the Dead.

1 Tz'ikin corresponds to the period in history of 6777 BCE to 6587 BCE in the Mars retrograde long-count calendar.

1 Ik'ar - The Wind Carrying to the Void

Wind. Ik'ar (Ch'orti'), Iq' (Kiche), Ik' (Yucatek), Ehecatl (Aztec).

This is one of only three sign names that is essentially the same in the three Mayan languages in which the tzolk'in is normally presented. Ik'ar and the related syllable Ik' have numerous meanings in Ch'orti' - Ik'ar meaning wind, breeze, or evil wind. Ik' can mean air or atmosphere. It is likely that Ik' also referred to the void in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. And it's likely that Ik' at one time meant dark and evening, two of its meanings in Yucatec.

Ik' was one of the four founders of the Mesoamerican people and in that contest his name meant Evening (the time when the winds start blowing). Each of the Mayan founders took turn leading the raft flotilla. Ik' two the second hardest shift, the evening shift. Eventually the Ik' lineage settled at the mouth of the Lempa River at a place called Island of Learning or Tehuakan. Because of the quickly rising ocean the Ik' lineage settled in highland Mexico, calling it Tehuakan and eventually became the Zapotecs, Mixtecs and one of the sources of the Nuhuat peoples. The Maya called the Ik' lineage the "wind hunters".

Ik'ar is very similar to aether. Ik'ar is associated with the zodiac signs Gemini and Aquarius. You can hear Ik'ar in Icharus who flew up to the heavens.

The first six days of Ik'ar week at the present are part of the Ajmok-Tojmar-Ikar eclipse period and only solar eclipses with a Saros number of 149 or higher or lunar eclipses with a Saros number of 141 or higher occur in Ik'ar.

1 Ik'ar corresponds to the period in history of 6461 BCE to 6271 BCE in the Mars retrograde long-count calendar.

1 Ajmok - The Falcon Man that Eats the Sun

The Wounded Bird Man. Ajmak (Quiche), Kib (Yucatec), Cozcacuauhtli (Aztec). The tzolk'in day sign of 1 Ajmok or 1 Ahmok (in Ch'orti') sets the tone for the next 13 days. Like many of the day signs, Ajmok has a double meaning. The straight forward meaning is "the sick one or the wounded one" and may refer to the suffering of those who became sick in general or it could refer specifically to an early Maya birdman who was wounded when he or she fell to the earth.

The second meaning for this sign comes from Ahmo' which means the large bird man or the falcon man. This helps explain the Aztec sign of the vulture for this day. The Maya believe that a falcon god or falcon man flies up to the sun and eats the sun thus causing a solar eclipse (or alternately to the moon for a lunar eclipse). This falcon man is called Ahkilis. The tzolk'in glpyh (above left) has been described as an empty shell, which symbolizes both an eclipse and the number zero. I believe that it was several nearly consecutive eclipses that took place during Ahmok week over several years or generations that allowed the Maya to time the frecuency of eclipses. This took place between 3300 and 3100 BCE, when eclipses visible from Central America often occurred during Ahmok week. This led to the 4th Sun on April 28, 3114 BCE and the long count calendar, which is in essence an eclipse calendar. The days of the calendar named Ahmok were used as markers to help remember when the eclipses would occur.

Like the previous ruler of the 13-day week, Ak'bar, Ajmok is ruled Saturn. Ajmok can also be spelled Ah Mok. Cib, the Yucatec version, means "swelling" in Ch'orti', so it is a compatible meaning as Ajmok.

The Mars retrograde long-count date that corresponds to 1 Ajmok is 2750 BCE.

Note: The names of the Ch'orti' day signs come from the Ch'orti' Linguistic Institute, based in Jocotan, Guatemala.

1 Ak'bar - Akbar and Chomija, a story of greatness

Night. Aq'ab'al (Quiche), Ak'bal (Yucatec), Calli (Aztec). The tzolk'in day sign of 1 Ak'bar (in Ch'orti') provides the tone for the next 13 days. Ak'bar was one of the eight great founders of the Mayan people and considered the greatest of them all. The Ak'bar lineage consisted of Ak'bar on the male side and Chomija on the female side. Ak'bar is the name of the leader of the flotilla of four rafts that made the journey from South America to Central America in about 8900 BCE. Ak'bar means "night" and the name corresponds to Ak'bar taking the night shift of the leading the rafts - the most difficult and arduous shift.

The Ak'bar lineage eventually settled at Lake Guija on the Guatemala and El Salvador border and then became the source lineage for most of the Mayan settlements and Classic-era sites. The Ch'orti', Huasteca, and Yucatec Mayan peoples are some of the Mayan ethnicities that come from the Ak'bar lineage. 

The Ak'bar lineage was also called Nijayib' in the Popol Vuh. This means "shaking fast" in Ch'orti' and describes the state of the members of the Ak'bar lineage in the midst of the fasts that they would make. This daysign has the most Saturn overtones of the daysigns: providing compassionate leadership based on self-discipline and self-sacrifice. Somehow European models of Saturn leave out the compassion.

Any discussion of the Ak'bar daysign can not leave out Chomija, named as the female partner of Ak'bar in the Popul Vuh. Certainly on the raft ride to Central America, Chomija played an equal or nearly equal part as Ak'bar, since sleep was due to both. But the female energy of the Maya really came alive on Isla Tigre. It was the women who first began to domesticate animals - first the macaw parrot and then the puma and jaguar, according to the Popol Vuh. Chomija's name means "puma housecat". Chomija is the bridge which gets us to the Aztec Nahuat name for this sign: Calli or "house". Ak'bar is also know as Ak'bar Bajram or Night Jaguar. It was Chomija who tamed the jaguar and made it into a house creature, Calli.

Ak'bar and Chomija, "Night and Puma Cat", the great ones.

The origin of Ak'bar in the Ch'orti' language comes from ak' - "covering" - and bar - "weight" or "heaviness". Night is like a heavy covering.

There will never be an eclipse during an Ak'bar week, in our era. Mars always stations direct in Ak'bar or the previous 13-day week, in our era. The Mars retrograde long-count date that corresponds to 1 Ak'bar: 2500 BCE.

The Maya Discovered Center of the Galaxy Through Orbit of Mars

Of all the celestial objects, the Maya have held the Milky Way with the most reverence. The Maya have many names for the Milky Way, depending on its position in the sky which changed throughout the night and by season. Those names include Canoe Paddler, World Tree, Crocodile or White Boned Serpent, and Lying Down Sky, with World Tree being the most common. The Maya created images of the World Tree intersected at the top by the solar ecliptic, in the appearance of a Christian cross.

The Milky Way was called yaxte' in Ch'orti' Maya, which means clear tree or living tree. Yaxte' is also the name for the ceiba tree, one of the most sacred trees of the Maya. Images of the World Tree are modeled after the ceiba.

Within the Milky Way, one spot has had special meaning for the Maya, an area devoid of the same star haze as the rest of the Milky Way, located between the constellations of Scorpio and Sagittarius. This happens to be the center of the galaxy where a massive black hole is located. For the Maya this spot was associated with creation, especially the creation of the Mayan world. Other names or symbols that the Maya gave it include the void, cleft, black hole, the mouth of the crocodile, the mouth of the jaguar that leads to the underworld, and the great cleft of the Great Mother. Most likely the Maya daysign Ik' or Ik'ar, which means air or wind, represents the center of the galaxy.

The Olmec and Maya also determined that it is the location where two great celestial objects become perpindicular – the solar elliptic and the galactic elliptic. This occurred in about 2008, close to when the Olmec and Maya predicted over 2000 years ago. In fact it was through figuring out the orbit of Mars that the Maya were able to establish the location of the galactic plane and determine the convergence. The Maya interpret this event as the sun being reborn and ushering in a new age. During these years, the sun and our solar system will be touched by the galactic force – i.e. the mass of the galaxy concentrated at the center of the galaxy and the plane of the galactic elliptic, the combined forces that interact with every star in the galaxy. The sun and its solar system are being renewed and regenerated with the force, the energy, and the volition of the galaxy, as embodied by the black hole at the center of the galaxy.

Before discussing how the Maya discovered the galaxy’s center, a description of the black hole there would be helpful. The galaxy center black hole is by far the largest body in the galaxy in terms of mass. It is estimated to be 4 million solar masses (4 million times greater than our sun). For comparison, the star with the largest mass has between 100 and 150 solar masses. This means that the black hole at the galaxy center is at least 25,000 times more massive than the largest star in the galaxy.

In physical terms, this black hole affects our solar system by its gravity and by the various radiations that it emits. Due to its mass, it has by far the largest gravitational field in the galaxy. For the most part, this is a constant force. The large distance between it and our solar system limits its gravitational on our solar system. However, its gravitational pull is greatly augmented by the stars that are within the galactic elliptic. This combined gravity does have a pull on the sun and planets. In fact, it causes the extreme elongation of Mars’ orbit, something which the Maya discovered thousands of years ago, as we will see. And I think that we are able to sense this gravity under special circumstances like meditation. I also believe it is this gravity acting upon the planets and each human that causes astrology "to work".

Black holes also emit radiation and cause radiation to be emitted from their surroundings. Black holes emit thermal radiation, known as Hawking radiation, which has a very low temperature. The galaxy center black hole also likely emits electro-magnetic radiation of two frequencies – x-rays and radio waves. In addition, there are likely gamma rays which have the same frequency as x-rays. All three of these radiations are caused by the same thing – matter being sucked into a black hole. The most common of these are gamma rays, caused by the matter entering the black hole, similar to solar flares. It appears that the galaxy center black hole also radiates x-ray radiation. Scientists have determined flares of x-rays from the dust cloud near the black hole. X-rays come from the electrons of the matter and gamma from the nucleus. In 2005 scientists discovered radio waves coming from Sgr A*, the astronomical name for the black hole at the center of the galaxy. While this radiation can be sensed with radio telescopes, perhaps someday we will learn that humans can also sense it if especially intuned.

The pre-Maya/pre-Lenca discovered the center of the galaxy in another way: watching the motion of the planets. I believe that they made this discovery in about 8500 BCE in El Salvador. Mars has an average synodic period of 779.93 days – the time it takes until it turns backward, retrograde, again. It has a very elongated orbit, meaning that its synodic period can vary anywhere from about 750 to 810 days.

Using sticks and clay circles, the pre-Maya/pre-Lenca counted how many days between the retrograde motions of Venus and Mars. After many years of watching Mars and passing knowledge to next generations, they determined that its synodic period is divisible by 20, the base of their counting system. There were 39 of their 20 day weeks in the Mars synodic period. The 780 days became three 260-day years eventually, divided into 20 13-day weeks.

Here’s where the center of the galaxy comes in. The pre-Maya/pre-Lenca figured out that the Mars retrograde always happened within the same four 13-day weeks of their calendar, but when the Mars retrograde occurred when Mars was close to the Milky Way, it happened at the beginning of those four weeks. And when Mars turned retrograde very close to the center of the Milky Way, it would occur one day earlier than it ever had before, tracked by oral tradition. This would happen every 15, 32, or 47 years - when Mars turned retrograde in Scorpio or Sagitarrius. This formed the basis for the original Mars long-count calendar that preceded the current solar-based long-count calendar that has been used since at least 3100 BCE. My earlier blog entry explains in much more detail about the Mars long count calendar.

It was this knowledge, demonstrating their mental prowess, which allowed the pre-Maya/pre-Lenca to overcome their Xibalba enemies and become the leading people in Central America.

The shamans interpreted these discoveries as proof of a universal force. The first proof of universal force was that the synodic period of Mars was divisible by 20, the number of fingers and toes of human beings. Second, when they determined that the blank spot in the Milky Way caused the irregularity in Mars’ synodic period and caused their long-count calendar to click one day backward, they knew that one location of this universal force was at the center of the galaxy.

The center of the galaxy, 4 million solar masses, whose elliptic recently crossed the solar elliptic. It emits four kinds of radiation that have been reaching the surface of the earth since earth came into existence. And it was one of the first powerful "gods" of the pre-Maya/pre-Lenca people and still is today.