THE MAYA, OLMECS, TOLTECS, MYTHICAL CIVILIZATIONS, AND THEIR ANCESTRAL WISDOM

 “The Cholq’ ij, or Tzolquin it is our Calendar

that synthetize the whole of Maya’s life,

like an education that direct, guide,

and provide a living Knowledge to the Maya,

it correct, and orientate us

in our conduct towards  others,

and every aspect of Existence.

The Cholq’ij  it is the synthesis

of Maya Cosmology,

Philosophy, and Science,

this Cosmology we inherited

from our ancestors,

and we keep cultivating…”

 

Uk’u’x’ Mayab’ Tinamit

(Heart of the Maya people)

One of the problems of studying ancient civilizations, it is of course the centuries, or millennia that separate us, specially when their original language, and writing is lost, then the only resource we have it is the tedious study between the symbols of the lost language, with known more contemporary languages in some form related that we may posses the knowledge to decipher, and interpret, like the famous Rosetta stone in Egypt that the French Champollion discovered in Egypt.

The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek, Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts (with some minor differences between them), it provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Considering that approximately 800,000 Mayan speakers exist now days, how can we explain the mystery that shroud the Maya up as of today, when the Maya ruins had been study systematically since the late 1800 by European, and American archeology experts like: Stephens, Catherwood, Rafinesque, De Rosny, Kingsbourough, Pío Pérez, Brasseur de Bourbourg, Maudslay, Morley, Thompson, etc.

Simply put this Eurocentric individuals would never think of asking the living Maya!

After all what possible they could find of this poor mostly illiterate  peasants?

Hubris! The study of the Maya would had been better advanced if they had bothered to link them with anthropological studies of the people in question. Eurocentric scholars are trying to learn from the dead, rather than from the living.

The Romantic Knorozov

In a novelized story Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov At the closing stages of the war in May 1945, Knorozov and his unit supported the push of the Red Army vanguard into Berlin. It was here, sometime in the aftermath of the Battle of Berlin, that Knorozov is supposed to have by chance retrieved a book which would spark his later interest in and association with deciphering the Maya script. In their retelling, the details of this episode have acquired a somewhat folkloric quality, as “…one of the greatest legends of the history of Mayan research”. Before dying Knorozov recanted this story, and confessed he got the Villacorta’s codices Mayas in a more conventional way…

Knorozov’s key insight was to treat the Maya glyphs represented in de Landa’s alphabet not as an alphabet, but rather as a syllabary. He was perhaps not the first to propose a syllabic basis for the script, but his arguments and evidence were the most compelling to date. He maintained that when de Landa had commanded of his informant to write the equivalent of the Spanish letter “b” (for example), the Maya scribe actually produced the glyph which corresponded to the syllable, /be/, as spoken by de Landa. Knorozov did not actually put forward many new transcriptions based on his analysis, nevertheless he maintained that this approach was the key to understanding the script. In effect, the de Landa “alphabet” was to become almost the “Rosetta stone” of Mayan decipherment.

A further critical principle put forward by Knorozov was that of synharmony. According to this, Mayan words or syllables which had the form consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) were often to be represented by two glyphs, each representing a CV-syllable (i.e., CV-CV). In the reading, the vowel of the second was meant to be ignored, leaving the reading (CVC) as intended. The principle also stated that when choosing the second CV glyph, it would be one with an echo vowel that matched the vowel of the first glyph syllable. Later analysis has proved this to be largely correct.

Upon the publication of this work from a then hardly known scholar, Knorozov and his thesis came under some severe and at times dismissive criticism. J. Eric S. Thompson, the noted British scholar regarded by all as the leading Mayanist of his day, led the attack. Thompson’s views at that time were solidly anti-phonetic, and his own large body of detailed research had already fleshed-out a view that the Maya inscriptions did not record their actual history, and that the glyphs were founded on ideographic principles. His view was the prevailing one in the field, and many other scholars followed suit.

The situation was further complicated by Knorozov’s paper appearing during the height of the Cold War, and many were able to dismiss his paper as being founded on misguided  Marxist-Leninist ideology and polemic. Indeed, in keeping with the mandatory practices of the time, Knorozov’s paper was prefaced by a foreword written by the journal’s editor which contained digressions and propagandist comments extolling the State-sponsored approach by which Knorozov had succeeded where Western scholarship had failed. However, despite claims to the contrary by several of Knorozov’s detractors, Knorozov himself never did include such polemic in his writings.

American Prehispanic cultures

Cultures that may be considered advanced or civilized include: Norte Chico,Cahokia, Zapotec, Toltec, Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Purepecha, Chimor, Mixtec, Moche, Mississippian, Totonac, Teotihuacan, Huastec people, Tarascan, Izapa, Mazatec, and the Inca.

The Olmec

The Olmec civilization emerged around 1200 BCE in Mesoamerica and ended around 400 BCE. Olmec art and concepts influenced surrounding cultures after their downfall. This civilization was thought to be the first in America to develop a writing system. After the Olmecs abandoned their cities for unknown reasons, the Maya, Zapotec and Teotihuacan arose.

The Toltec

The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican  chronology (ca 800-1000 CE). The later Aztec  culture saw the Toltec as their intellectual and cultural predecessors and described Toltec culture emanating from Tollan (Nahuatl for Tula) as the epitome of civilization, indeed in the Nahuatl language the word “Toltec” came to take on the meaning “artisan”. The Aztec oral and pictographic tradition also described the history of the Toltec empire giving lists of rulers and their exploits. Among modern scholars it is a matter of debate whether the Aztec narratives of Toltec history should be given credence as descriptions of actual historical events.

“The Toltec were wise. Their works were all good, all perfect, all wonderful, all marvelous… They invented the art of medicine… And these Toltec were very wise; they were thinkers, for they originated the year count… These Toltec were righteous. They were not deceivers. Their words [were] clear words . . . They were tall; they were larger [than the people today]… They were very devout… They were rich. (Sahagún, 1950–1982: book 10, 165–170)”

The Maya teachings

When the rains do not fall on time, or any other so named natural disaster occurs, if you ask a Maya Elder he will reply: “No hay respeto” (There is no respect)

Respect for superiors

Among the Quiche, prioritizes respect for superiors, mostly grandparents, parents, uncles and authorities, and also respect for  Mother Earth, water, moon, sun, air, animals , plants and especially the Creator and Maker, who is God. This respect is manifested when a person younger should clear the way so you can pass the old man takes off his hat, bowing to the superior, to greet him with great reverence.

You should not laugh after the game, because the person may think ill more, today these customs are being lost, as young people have other ideas.

The old man is no longer respected, rather than make way superior, it is he who must make way for the young.

It does not remember the ancestors, and no respect for sacred places and customs are not made to Mother Earth and God the Creator and Maker.

It is believed that as a result of the loss of these values ​​and disobedience, disorder arises in the villages.

In our people, Mother Earth can not protect their children, and no longer produces. It is believed that this is the same disregard for it. “There is no respect”.

Modern Man is mindless, he lacks proper attitude, and awareness to see the consequence of it’s actions, guided by greed, ignorance and selfishness.

Indigenous Shamanism

A shaman is a man capable of going from one area to another (physical and spiritual), but to achieve this requires the separation of spirit from your physical body (the container of the spirit).

The separation of spirit and body, is given in different ways and by various circumstances of life, these detachments of the body can be both voluntary and involuntary, including involuntary (and to which every human being is susceptible and is considered normal)is the dream. Volunteer detachments, are exceptional and can only be made by those who have been elected by the sacred beings and after initiation of management preparation of divine forces, these initiates, can handle powers “superhuman” (under a state of trance), these specialized in external things of the spirit called Nagual (as the Nahua, creators of the term and also used by the Maya).

The term Nagual has suffered over time, various distortions, which were begun by the friars in the colonial times, taking different paths to the primary meaning (or original) of the term, therefore, now adopted the term ” shaman “(Shaman Hispanicized, Siberian word that is now known universally, data taken from the magazine published by the UNAM in 1998).

The trance, required for spiritual practice is the result of acetic, as examples fasting, abstinence, self-sacrifice, the ingestion of psychoactive substances and so on., Entering trance, the shaman is clear from the waking state, which keeps the body and is able to see what things to “watch” can not., in turn, has the power to transform into animals or natural phenomena (such as lightning or managing events, such as “graniceros” able to handle this event ). Shamans are disease, can cure or can lead, have powers to both doctors, also divination.

Shamans know that many human diseases are diseases of the spirit, so-called psychosomatic illnesses, these are the conditions that serve the shaman with the aid of divination, such as products psychoactive sacred plants and beverage content intoxicating.

The ancient Mesoamerican shaman regarded the two natures, the bad, responsible for causing disease and disaster and the good, that I was able to address them and bring good fortune to men.

The most important and wise shamans among the Nahua people even superhuman powers that made him different animals was called the nahualli, general term used to refer to any shaman with the power of transformation.

The bad shamans had as their protective Nahualpilli, who is but one aspect of the god Tezcatlipoca. Among those were the bad nahuales Tecotzquani (calf eats) the Tlatecólotl (male owl, remember that the owl or owl was a sign of death among the Nahua) and Teyolloquani (eats hearts).

Among the good shamans, we find the Paini (who drinks a potion), the specialist in the treatment of diseases of the spirit with the divine consultation use for hallucinogens. Paini was consulted only in extreme cases, when other methods of healing had failed. It should be noted here that belief away from “popular” today about the shamans used hallucinogens as “drug consumption” is false, hallucinogens as peyotl (peyote) or teonanácatl (meat of the divine) were use sacred and all responded to a religious ritual as a specific use, for therapeutic purposes or divination.

There was also the ticitl (which makes medicine), which is a healer specializing in medicinal herbs, potions, etc. incisions.

How is a shaman? It is important to understand that a shaman was not just anyone who knew of medicinal herbs or psychoactive substances in general, a shaman was the result of a long religious learning and a process of initiation, where the future shaman died and descended into the underworld , where he was granted his powers of divination and knowledge required for their medical functions with sacred herbs and medicinal and finally, any professional instruction requiring a shaman.

The diagnosis was given by a divination ritual, where various elements could be used individually or together, have for example the information through the corn. The divination by water, the ritual calendar, interpretation of dreams, omens and signs of nature, ropes and knots and finally and only in cases required by their complexity, eating mushrooms, Toloache, etc. Snuff ritual.

The ticitl or doctor who specializes in dream interpretation is called Temiquiximati (knower of dreams), he held holy books with the meaning of dreams and if the dream was not found in the book, had supernatural powers (thanks to Tezcatlipoca) that allowed him the interpretation.

To the Maya, the issue is similar to the Nahua, they had different types of shamans. According to the Quiche and Cakchiquel Maya were called Nawal Winak (person nagual man) may like the Nahua shamans down to the underworld and become the Jaguars (Balam, which means jaguar, is also the name used to soothsayer, sorcerer) and see in the dark, in secret, at night, but even they can also ascend to heaven.

They had in their possession a “wrapper” ritual, which contained items needed for their profession as bones of a jaguar, eagle, deer legs, stones of different colors, quetzal feathers, snuff, self-sacrifice thorns, weeds and so on.

For the Maya, the shamans were priests of the highest order (even the rulers were great shamans), their main gods were Itzamná in its role as god of medicine and Ixchel, the goddess of health and medicine, both represented as two old men of great wisdom.Among the types of shamans are the H’men (the animal becomes), the Ah Yaah Pul (the caster disease), Uaiaghon (witch).

When the Spanish conquistadors arrive in Mesoamerica, shamans are identified as witches, they are related to the concentration of European witchcraft by the similarities that have, they believe demonic practices and therefore heresy. Shamans are then pursued by the settlers, forcing them to continue their practices in secret.

With the Spanish influence (or force it) traditional shamanism, begins a period of neglect because of their persecution or syncretism with Christianity.

Mayan Cosmogony

The Mayan religion was based primarily on the phenomena (so interpretive) nature, has concluded that the Mayans had the concept that the earth was flat and the sky was supported by four brothers named Bocaboob, each of them stood at a pivotal point where he was a ceiba tree and a color: red to the east, west black, yellow and white south to the north and a final color is placed at the center of the earth, green.

I saw the sky divided into thirteen layers, or strata, where he lived and ruled each of their gods. These were the gods of goodness and light. The thirteen “worlds” Oxlahuntiku (Oxlahun means 13, and you mean the god Ku).

Below our world, believed that there were also nine layers called Bolontikú is, the abode of the nine gods. The gods of “up” working for the good and lavish below to neutralize it, thought all the calamities were produced by them such as diseases, pests, droughts, wars and so on. this is about the Mayan concept of God and the devil.

The humble and uneducated people, he argued that the world was sustained by a huge lizard that lived in the water, this belief is not validated by the priests and educated people as invalidating the concept of the nine layers of the underworld.

The main God (according to some scholars) would Hunab Ku (Hunab, alone and god Ku), omnipotent deity who ruled the world, assisted by a number of secondary deities, but in the Popol Vuh  Tepeu and is mentioned as the progenitors of Gucumaz creation.

Among the gods of heaven (sky) Kin was the sun, the moon Uh, the planet Venus Noh Ek, the North Star Xaman Ek and others of lesser importance.

The phenomena of nature were also gods, so we have first (and important) to Yum Chac the rain god, the god of wind Ik Yum Kak and the god of fire.

Human activities also had their gods, Yum Kax was the god of fields and agriculture, the god of war was called Ek Chuah, the wisdom was represented by the god Itzamna, the goddess of suicide (in reference to human sacrifice ) was Ix Tab and death god Ah Puch among many others.

Besides these gods, each day of the month (20) had its own deity as well as each month of the year (19).

Some historians claim that the Mayan deities represent their groups, as a kind of Christian Trinity. In turn, believed that the spirit was immortal and life in the hereafter, depend on the behavior shown in this world. The good souls went to rest in the shade of a huge tree called Yaxché (the ceiba) where there was peace, tranquility, abundant food and drink, while the wicked were going to a lower place they called Metnal which is the “hell” of great need, hunger, cold, tired and sad and were tormented by the “demon” which called Hun-hau.

Priests:

The priests had an important role in Mayan society, as well as being highly respected for his wisdom and class, acted as advisors to top executives. These priests had scientific knowledge, especially in astronomy, predicted the celestial phenomena and kept track of time admirably, and it knew the secret of the complicated writings of their ancestors. A part of his preparation, had a very chaste life because they could not have a woman and underwent rigid disciplines such as self-sacrifice in the form of abstentions and long fasts, the bleeding nose, ears, pierced cheeks, tongue, penis and so on.

Maya Elder answers

But what say these codices and those prophecies?

One of these secret codex says that in 1475 the Supreme Council of the Maya Wenk’al gathered revealed that began a cycle of 520 years, ending in the spring of 1995, to coincide with the end of that dark period Spanish would bring to this country years later,something we also knew that would happen. So they began to hide their sacred texts. Remember that Columbus come to America in 1492, and Cortes to Mexico in 1519. These wise Mayans prophesied that from 1995 the Itza was the age of knowledge.

Then the Mayan culture reborn again, some of them again, and humanity would begin to awaken your light body asleep, receiving the energy of Hunab Ku. Between 1995 and 2012 mankind will receive the light of knowledge from the heart of the galaxy, and transcend their shadows becoming luminous bodies. They say that when 144,000 human beings, the number of days corresponding toa baktun, awaken their light bodies, the Earth will enter another dimension. And all the Mayan centers have to fulfill its sacred role in the moment, Chitzen Itza, Uxmal, K’ab, Etznah, Palenkua. Here you can receive the light of knowledge and become luminous beings. The sleeping body of mankind must awaken. This is thereason that from the spring of last year, have begun to return time Mayan splendor of his people, to surrender the keys to effective will this awakening your old secret knowledge. These sacred knowledge will prepare us for the age of Itza, an age of knowledge,as I say will begin in late 2012. specifically on December 21.

From You all finally depends  what happens to humanity in 2012. I’m telling you that something will happen and we can be, or not prepared for that event.

There is a flow of events that you can not master. We are all in a river there, who knows where it will lead. It is your decision what to do or not do within that river. Oppose its current, or flow with it, or you will be carried away.

You are the seeds within. We are in the beginning of the renaissance of the Mayan civilization. And you all can be Maya. Being Maya is not a racial issue, but Spiritual. Maya is one aligned with the Earth and the universe.

Palenkua other temples.

The Temple of the Jaguar, which he said symbolized an ancient knowledge but useless. He said that the son of Pakal Votan had been called Kan Balam, the jaguar-serpent, giving rise to a time related to Kukulkan, the feathered serpent, which meant the end of the lineage of the Bah Balta, stone jaguars, who came of the Olmecs. Also the board of the Warriors, where we said we would meet someday to die on your feet and be reborn to a new life. As he passed the Temple of Inscriptions, said it was the most important of all.

This temple is all that the Maya kept before leaving.

It is said that in the year 830 AD the Maya mysteriously left Palenkua, as with other major Maya ceremonial centers.

They had accomplished their task, and left. Where?

To a  place of origin, where they came from, but as I said were not leaving here before your knowledge.

‘In places like this, and said extending its arms to all the premises of Palenque, and stones in their codices, in the trees, the candle, and in another dimension, a sort of large library where you can find all the knowledge accumulated by the people.

How to decode this information?

Is a burning question and I urge you to find the answer, find the middle. Maybe the plants and fungi will open the door to the vast library of knowledge. The messages are delivered, the visions come, and soundless words are heard. The real human beings, those beings alive and awake, fully alive  experience what is beyond reality, closed flat to modern culture.”

Other Maya points of view:

“They are putting words in our mouths,   they do not or even speak, or understand our Maya languages, they speak things that are not, right now we are finishing the fifth sun, is not the first time this has happened several times.

The government of Guatemala, which seeks to attract more tourists to have more income, use this as  propaganda. We do not do business with our culture.

Mark my words:  2012 will arrive and  nothing is  going to happen, the sun will rise on December 21, and what they will tell the world is that the Maya are liars!

Documentaries on the Maya do not reflect reality, what we say is that it ends the fifth sun and the sixth start, but is not but a cycle 2012. What we  are entering is a period of purification.”

Another says:

“Nothing is going to happen in 2012. There is no Mayan prophecy about 2012. In addition to the Chol Qij the Mayans have various other calendar counts of lesser mantic importance. One of these is the Long Count, which is a continuous count in days since August 9th, 3114 BCE. The Long Count will reset to zero-zero-zero-zero-zero on December 21, 2012. But this is just a major calendar change – their equivalent of Y2K – with no more spiritual significance than the change of millennium had for us. This 2012 thing is being touted by some non-Mayans as a kind of New Age version of the Rapture: a miraculous transformation of human consciousness which sweeps humanity up into the clouds to escape the coming tribulation. But things don’t happen that way in real life. If there is a fundamental transformation in human consciousness, the way it will probably occur is that the environment and civilization will deteriorate over the next few decades. And then people will draw together and open their hearts to one another, as they do in the face of any natural catastrophe such as an earthquake or flood. When people lose their faith in the system and start listening to their own hearts is when the system will change.”

More:

“First we need to make clear, it is not a prophecy, but a mathematical Astronomical calculus. it is not a dream, vision, or revelation, but a Cosmology based in the Maya view of Life with a cyclical recurrence, and with the Mythology unique to this vision, a period of 5, 125 years that end on December 21, 2012.  And the beginning of a similar period that will start that day based in the Maya  Cosmovision.

What would happen that day?

Not much, it will be a day no different to January 1, 2000  when two millennium ended, but it was not the end of the World, but the beginning of a new millennium, that day came, and went, and the sky didn’t open, neither we saw Angels blowing trumpets, the World didn’t came to an end despite the many  prophets of disaster who thrive on morbid pessimism. However crisis of wars, economical upheavals, and environmental disasters caused by our collective lack of regard for our fellow Human, and our Mother Earth seem to have accelerated to the point that a New Consciousness is being born in many individuals, an awareness that a new Social system is needed, not based in materialism, greed, and profit, but based in respect not only to other fellow Humans, but to Nature, and our Mother Earth.

Something similar will occur in December 21, 2012, a new generation of individuals will rise, with new values, the old people predators of men will not be tolerated, a new Mankind, with a new vision is already being born as we speak, respectful of   the Natural laws that govern Universal Life, wise, and committed individuals will become Spiritual teachers, not only in a Religious sense but in a Worldly, Social, and political way. Mother Earth will also take measures to alert us of oncoming disaster if we do not change our wrong ways, we will continue to suffer, until we get it. As simple as that!

For the indigenous People of the World like the Maya, this changes are not a tragedy, but the validation of our ancestral values, and Cosmology, that would prevail, despite the hubris  of those who attach themselves to the old order of mindless mercantile consumerism, over exploiters of Natural resources patrimony of Mankind, not a money making machine for a few privileged. This is a call for those who live in  unnatural ways; overcrowded in contaminated,  highly technified, but unsustainable cities, sucking like vampires the resources of underdeveloped people, just to enjoy a few comforts, and expensive trinkets, but paying a high price in dehumanization, and moral degradation, they sacrifice for trifles what is really essential for Men; Wisdom. Not to talk about their responsibility in their many crimes, against the people who suffer war, famine, and many other calamities, who die, to sustain their selfishness, and the Ecological crisis of our Mother Earth.

Only respect for every one of the aspects that conform Human living, and the laws of Nature, along with sound Spiritual values, will be able to restore the Harmony, Order, and equilibrium inherent in the Cosmos.”