“How Did the Maya See and Interpret Sky Phenomena?” Anthony F. Aveni Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of Astronomy, Anthropology and Native American Studies Colgate University for SAA Symposium on “Celestial References in Mesoamerican Creation Stories” Vancouver, 26-30 Mar 2008 DRAFT WORD COUNT: 3443 DO NOT QUOTE 1
This famous passage from the Annales de Cuauhtitlan (Vol. 3, Appendix) offers perhaps the most detailed account of an astronomically observable manifestation of the Mesoamerican myth of Quetzalcoatl: They said that Quetzalcoatl died when this star became visible, and henceforward they called him the lord of the dawn (Tlahuizcalpan teuctli). They said that when he died he was invisible for four days; they said that he wandered in the underworld, and for four days more he was bone. Not until eight days were past did the great star appear. They said that Quetzalcoatl then ascended the throne as god. (author’s italics) The motion of the planet Venus provides the obvious celestial metaphor for acting out the career of the hero who disappears in the desert, is cremated by his servitors, and is then resurrected in the eastern sky as morning star from the smoke that issues from his body (Nicholson 2001: 16). Why Venus? Unlike the other bright planets, Venus always stays close to the sun and consequently close to the twilit horizon. Once it disappears in the west as evening star it returns to our world just ahead of the rising sun in the east, becoming most luminous in the first few days after it reappears as the morning star – a perfect visual fit with the narrative of the myth of rebirth. What is most striking about the passage from the Annales is the specific reference to the eight-day period of disappearance in the underworld. Astronomically speaking, it refers to the interval surrounding inferior conjunction, when the planet is lost from view in the glare of the 2
sun as it passes from its evening to its morning star aspect. When I traced the actual movement of Venus on the sky as it might pertain to specific prognostications in the Maya Venus Table in the Dresden Codex and its relationship to the Lunar Eclipse Table in the same document (Aveni 1992), I discovered that Venus disappearance intervals around inferior conjunction (i.e. between ELAST and MFIRST) vary substantially, depending largely upon the season of the year in which they occur. The variations I computed ranged between zero and 26 days, the former occurring in February, and the latter in August (Aveni 2001:94, Fig. 41). This variation occurs because the zodiacal band of constellations, which traces the path of Venus among the stars along the ecliptic, tilts at different angles relative to the horizon at various times of rising/setting of the planet over the year. This effect either hastens or delays the planet’s progress through the disappearance interval. I was surprised to discover that the long term average disappearance period around • 0 ± 0 d inferior conjunction turns out to be precisely eight days (8 d • 3 p.e.). Thus, the celestial reference in the Annales cannot be casual. It must have been based on extensive sky observations of a fairly rigorous nature over a long period of time. And so, an interesting passage about the heroic demi-god, transformed to become a denizen of the Mexica cosmos, yields unanticipated information about the nature of precise knowledge in that culture. Further evidence of close Venus-watching in Mesoamerica is extant in the connection between Venus and the tonalpohualli/tzolkin. I found that the time Venus spends in the sky either as morning or evening star, also a highly variable-interval, averages 263 days (Aveni 2001:87). This may have been one among a number of factors that lent importance to the adoption of the 260-day cycle in Mesoamerica (Aveni 2001: 139-148). At least it has helped to validate an interesting statement about Venus that appears in the ethnohistoric record. I had first 3
learned of it some 30 years ago from Doris Heyden, who referred me to a publication by Zelia Nuttall (1904: 498), who provides the full quotation. In reference to Motolinia’s writings, this statement suggests that the Mexica were well aware of the astronomical basis of the sacred day count: Next to the sun they adored and made more sacrifices to this star than to any other celestial or terrestrial creature. The astronomers knew on what day it would appear in the east after it had lost itself or disappeared in the west, and for the first day they prepared a feast, warfare, and sacrifices. The ruler gave an Indian who was sacrificed at dawn, as soon as the star became visible… In the land the star lingers and rises in the east as many days as in the west – that is to say, for another period of 260 days . Some add thirteen days more, which is one of their weeks… The reason why this star was held in such esteem by the lords and people, and the reason why they counted the days by this star and yielded reverence and offered sacrifices to it, was because the deluded natives thought or believed that when one of their principal gods, named Topiltzin or Quetzalcoatl, died and left this world, he transformed himself into that resplendent star…. (author’s italics) Here is yet another instance in which an ethnohistoric document implies that care and precision in the observation of nature were part of framing a myth so that it could be reenacted in a visible celestial context. 4
That Mesoamericans would go through the trouble to set such a pristine cosmic stage makes sense given the elaborate nature of their rituals and the fact that many of them were likely conducted out of doors amidst assembled throngs in large open spaces fronting their ceremonial buildings. In these theaters, where culture confronted nature, a re-enactment of the mythic past would play out beneath a planetarium-like sky. The role of the professional skywatcher would have been to see to it that the celestial luminaries made their appointments on the ritual stage at the appropriate times and in their proper places. (For examples involving timed celestial events associated with ritual, see Aveni 2001: Ch. 5). Concerning the nature of indigenous precise knowledge, I have always been fascinated by the way Mesoamerican documents repeatedly employ special numbers (e.g. 13, 20, 52, 65, 260) to signify sacred cycles both in the long and short term. For example, Vail (2004) offers an interesting example of how certain almanacs in the Madrid Codex can be interpreted to function either as day or year counts. The chronology of the Quetzalcoatl myth as recounted in the early colonial sources offers another example. Here I will employ Nicholson’s (2001:16) recounting, which divides the myth into 17 successive episodes, only the last ten of which concern us here: …(8) Quetzalcoatl’s happy reign of 160 years is interrupted by the appearance of a rival, the god Tezcatlipoca, who is bent on mischief; (9) after disguising himself as a pauper, transforming himself into various fearful shapes, stealing and hiding Quetzalcoatl’s powerful rain-producing magic mirror, and destroying his effigy in the temple dedicated to him, Tezcatlipoca succeeds in his goal of driving Quetzalcoatl and his people from Tollan; (10) the latter and a few attendants travel to Tenanyocan, 5
where they reside for some time, then to Colhuacan for an even longer time, then over the mountains of Cuauhquechollan, where Quetzalcoatl successfully establishes himself, adored as their sole god, for 290 years; (11) leaving behind a lord named Matlacxochitl, Quetzalcoatl moves on to Cholollan, where the great pyramid, built by the giants, is raised in his honor; (12) after 160 years in Cholollan, he flees to Cempohuallan, where he resides 260 years before his old antagonist, Tezcatlipoca, arrives to further persecute him.” Then comes the final episode in which Quetzalcoatl disappears from the scene. While I have yet to find an interpretation of the numbers 160 and 290 in the context of observable Venus periods, I think it is quite likely that the last number, read as 260 days of real time instead of years of mythic time , was intended to map out, in microcosm, the movement of the planetary deity over the precise interval during which he appears in the evening sky as seen from a fixed location, in this instance Cempohuallan. I believe that this statement is yet another example of embedding precise astronomy in mythic form. Recent research suggests that ceremonial architecture and associated iconography may constitute another text – call it a ritual stage – related to the reenactment of creation mythology. Thus Masson and Peraza (2007) propose that the story of the voyage of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca into the underworld, where they defeat a crocodilian monster and recreate the earth out of his dismembered cadaver, is precisely articulated in the arrangement of burial shaft temples at Mayapan. 6
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