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Significance of time in Mesoamerican civilization. Linear development, agriculture, seasons, calendar, philosophy of time.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Significance of time in Mesoamerican civilization. Linear development, agriculture, seasons, calendar, philosophy of time.
Paper Introduction:
No other people in history made of time so great a fetish as the Maya (Coggins, 1979; von Hagen, 1961). Without doubt, time - and man's perception of it - has played an important role in the development of civilizations throughout the world (Thompson, 1966). The pre-Columbian Mayan civilization was no exception to the general rule. Instead, it raised the science of time-keeping via the calendar to a level of accomplishment that was as accurate as the sophisticated, verified calculations of today. The question immediately raised, of course, is: Why? Why such a preoccupation with time? With record-keeping? With such single-minded attention to accuracy that the Mayans devised not one but three calendar systems? The answer, not surprisingly for a civilization that never progressed technologically into the post-Stone Age, lies in agriculture.
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R., ed. Those who wrote the calendars and interpreted them formed an eliteminority. (1979). Hammond, N., ed. In the Central American lowland regions, internecinerivalries and still unexplained changes, probably natural disasters as wellas political ones, Mayan hegemony had collapsed as a unifying force by the1 th century (Gyles & Sayer, 198 ). With record-keeping? Moreover, any experienced prophet soon learns to hedge his bets:his authority rests upon a track record of accuracy. With suchsingle-minded attention to accuracy that the Mayans devised not one butthree calendar systems? Seasons - that is, time - carry with them the natural forces thatmake or break agriculture. Austin: U of Texas Press, pp. ReferencesAguiar, W. In order to identifythose times, the Mayans utilized three separate methods of judging time; itwas a compromise among the advocates of the original Olmec model, the Mayanobserved time frame, and influences from later, rising Mesoamericancultures (Coggins). Maya archaeology and ethnohistory. B., & Sayer, C. 21-37.Gossen, G. Finally, as a division of cyclical time-counting, 2 tzolkin years combined to form a katun, and 13 katuns weregrouped together for the Maya "Long Count," a method of calculating longperiods of time (Coggins). No other people in history made of time so great a fetish as the Maya(Coggins, 1979; von Hagen, 1961). Simultaneously, thetzolkin year was also employed, a 26 -day ritual cycle consisting of 13twenty-day months, with references to lunar movement and the synodicalrevolution of Venus. H. In the end, far from predicting theirfuture, the elaborate calendrical forms of the Maya did only what allrecords eventually do: remember the past. The precise grid of time-specific calculations that emerged fromthese endeavors were not mere intellectual gymnastics. Mayan society was rigidly stratified; the commoners who producedthe agricultural goods knew little of the millennial records of the MayanLong Count, which were the esoteric province of the elite (Coggins). (198 ). This"overlay" approach to development was to characterize Mayan civilization.When given the opportunity, new buildings were not simply made asextensions to existing ones; nor were they built as "competing" structures. R., ed. The original complications of the multi-calendaredMayan civilization were the result of ingenious combination of severalvalid methods of observation. E. Maya archaeology and ethnohistory. Each bearer,represented by a calendric number, carries time according to his ability,temper, strength and relation to the bearers that come before and after.In recording time (or tracing time back into earlier history), it becameimportant for the Mayans to observe carefully the bearer of each divisionof time (Thompson). Recording theevents of every time observation into stone, the priests who could read andcomprehend these notations were able to predict weather patterns, tides,eclipses, river floods and so forth with a remarkable accuracy. Rather, when possible, new buildings - pyramids, temples, palace wings -were built on top of the existing structure (Aguiar, 1978). As the Mayan civilization passed its zenithin the Classic period, latter day complications were primarily political innature (Thompson). Much the same as in ancient Egypt, then - an aridcountry dependent upon a single water source - for Mayan agriculture tosurvive, let alone flourish, there was a predominant interest in thenatural forces that affected that water source. (1961). W. In reality, in the highland regions of Mexico theMayan political influence had been overshadowed by the Aztec civilizationfor centuries. (1979). They sow their fields. The Mayan word for maize - "wa" - is synonymous with fooditself; the maize god was honored from Preclassic times (von Hagen).Geography plays a major part in the Mayans perception of the agriculturalprocess. A new order and the role of the calendar: some characteristics of the middle classic period at Tikal. "The country with theleast earth I have ever seen," wrote one early European chronicler of theMaya (von Hagen). Prior to battle, Fra Avedeño met with the Tayasalleaders and pointed out to them that the calendar prophecy "katun 8 Ahau,"the katun of political change, clearly pointed that the time of acceptanceof Christianity had come. Indeed, itshould be noted that archaeological studies of the Maya have undergoneconsiderable revision of recent years because of this proclivity to buildover the past. Austin: U of Texas Press, pp. Cropping cash in the protoclassic: a cultural impact statement. The Mayan philosophy of time as acyclical entity, not surprising in an agricultural society, necessarilybespoke a predestined future. Mayan culture exists today in the same geographical areasof southern Mexico and northern Central America in which it predominated inpre-Columbian days, a combination of temperate highlands and lowland rainforests. 38-5 .Dahlin, B. Fra Avedeño was off by a year, but Tayasalwarriors, well-known for their prowess, put up little resistance becausethey held no hope in fighting the power of the incoming katun (Thompson). Through the region runs a single major river system, the Apasion-Usumacinta and its many tributaries, plus a handful of lesser rivers.Waterways were the linking roads that forged the Mayan civilization.Unfortunately, droughts were frequent and of great intensity. New York: World Publishing.Addendum: The spellings of Mayan words and place-names in this report varyaccording to source. Practically speaking, this close observation by the priest-recordersidentified natural correlations that allowed the priest-prophets to adviseon agricultural strategies. The ancient sun kingdoms of the Americas. It was done at least once: theSpaniards attacking the last bastion of Mayan hegemony at Tayasal, in 1697,employed a friar well-versed in Mayan calendar prophecies, Andrés deAvedeño, to this end. A Chamula solar calendar board from Chiapas, Mexico. Instead, itraised the science of time-keeping via the calendar to a level ofaccomplishment that was as accurate as the sophisticated, verifiedcalculations of today. The elaborate calendar calculations, an intellectualaccomplishment of the first order, were never matched by accompanying risein technological development. Priests were kept busy with the complex task of weighing theconflicting evidence of the previous periods of time. Austin: U of Texas Press, pp. S. Hammond, N., & Willey, G. Priests, peasants, and ceremonial centers: the intellectual history of a model. The rise and fall of Maya civilization. What is an"objective" classification? Mayan calendar chant "For A Hot Country" (Gossen, 1972) On the simplest level, the Mayan calendar performed the basicfunction required from it by an agricultural culture: it identified thebest times for planting and harvesting the crops. The Mayanever developed the wheel, nor its water-delivery technological offspring.Though half the region is rain forest, its thin soil cap overlays alimestone outcrop; water filters through quickly. Whilerecent scholarship has introduced the reasonable probability that there wasa warrior-noble class predominant in civil structure, throughout all Mayanhistory of the Preclassic and Classic periods, the priest class was in themainstream of rule and control. The history of Mesoamerican peoples is nothing if not linear. Justas the Aztecs trace major elements of their civilization to the earlierMayan influence, so, too, do the Mayans trace their beginnings to theOlmec, "the people from the land of rubber" - a probable reference to theGulf Coast (Gyles & Sayer). Without doubt, time - and man'sperception of it - has played an important role in the development ofcivilizations throughout the world (Thompson, 1966). Needless to say, human nature being what it is, it is far easier topredict problems than prosperity. 3- 2 .Coggins, C. J. The Mayans were fortunate in that their Olmecpredecessors had developed the first "objective" classification of time sothat calendars identifying the seasons could be utilized. Maya archaeology and ethnohistory. Believingthat all time is cyclical, the Mayans used their calendrical recordings ofpast events to find patterns of repetition for the immediate future(Coggins; Gyles & Sayer). Hence, as a matter ofretaining power on the one hand, and to keep the commoners bending to thearistocratic will on the other hand, the purity of the Mayan calendar wasinevitably compromised. However, for any ruling class, a too literalacceptance of predestination will soon erode the aristocracy's power: whyshould the farmers sow their fields when the calendar indicates a drought-to-come? The basis of each calendar was the vigesimal (2 -unit)counting system of the Mayas, a sophisticated numerology that incorporatedthe placeholder zero ( ) into their writing centuries before Westernculture was to develop that important mathematical tool. So, too, for the Mayans: the calendrical data to draw from waseventually so immense that the priests ruling (or advising the rulers)could bend history to their own needs. The question immediately raised, of course, is:Why? Nevertheless, as Olmec influence waned, theMaya quickly came to dominate the region and overlay ever moresophisticated refinements atop their predecessors' achievements. Why such a preoccupation with time? Of gods and men: the heritage of ancient Mexico. The strength of their position rested upon the Mayan's basicphilosophy of time. (1972). Hence, in a civilization where agriculture, thenas now, depended upon a reasonably accurate weather forecast, Mayancivilization was well-equipped to meet the challenge. Mystically, though, the "burden"interpretation came to signify the expected good or ill fortune of the yearaccording to the recorded benevolent or malevolent aspect of the bearergod. On what dates in 'un? (1979). Austin: U of Texas Press, pp. The answer, not surprisingly for a civilizationthat never progressed technologically into the post-Stone Age, lies inagriculture. The pre-ColumbianMayan civilization was no exception to the general rule. The spellings selected may not be the same as thoseused in the course's textbooks.----------------------- 1 R., ed. In the month of 'un, what do the people do? All aspects of Preclassic Mayan civilizationtrace back to Olmec roots. Even before the Postclassicalperiod in Mayan history, cacao-growing and its trade had come to dominatethe ruling class's interests, to the detriment of the basic foodstuff-growers (Dahlin). Together, haab and tzolkin intermeshed to form the 52-year Calendar Round (Gossen). The Maya conceived of the divisions of time as burdenscarried through all eternity by relays of divine bearers. Within that context of academic doubt, nevertheless, it has beenpostulated by the majority of researchers that Mayan civilization wasfounded upon an agricultural basis - with maize as the center of thatfoundation. The haab was theMayan solar year, consisting of 18 twenty-day months (36 days), plus aterminal period of five "empty" or "unlucky" days. H. New site discoveries, re-examination of known sites, andreinterpretation of Mayan writing have led to reconsideration of a numberof Cause-Effects of the civilization and its history (Becker, 1979). As a modern-day equivalent, one can easily imagine a round table ofKeynesian, Marxist and Supply-Side economists attempting to influence thePresident's Economic Council by interpreting the same "facts" of U.S.history. Mesoamerican archaeology: new approaches. 1697 is marked as the official end of the Mayan civilization, forthat is the year in which the last Maya kingdom, Tayasal, was taken by theSpanish conquistadors. 217-254.Gyles, A. Maya land. Unlike the Egyptian and the Greek astrologerswho selected observations to fit their myths, the Mayans exhaustivelycatalogued their observations of natural phenomena as the basis for theirelaborate overlay of mythological reasoning atop the entire body ofobserved time. Hammond, N., & Willey, G. New York: Hastings House.Becker, M. Norman: U of Oklahoma Press.von Hagen, V. By that time, however, the connection between priests and thecommoner farmers dependent upon Mayan calendar predictions was all but lostin the previous centuries' decline of the civilization. Hammond, N., & Willey, G. (1966). Mayan civilization can roughly be divided into three periods:Preclassic (circa 1 BC-25 AD), Classic (25 -9 AD), and Postclassic(9 -1697 AD). As power politicscomplicated the calendar, so, too, did population growth, trade and warsdisrupt the ecological patterns that the earlier priests and theircalendars had recorded (Dahlin, 1979). (1978). On 5 'un and 1 'un. New York: Harper & Row.Thompson, J.
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