Recovering the Lost World,
A Saturnian Cosmology --Jno Cook
Part 20: The Popol Vuh.

[Table of Contents]

$Revision: 21.25 $
Contents of this chapter: [Introduction] [Book 1: Creation] [Northern Gods] [Southern Gods] [Mud People] [Seven Macaw] [Book 2: Seven-Macah] [Celestial Bird] [Zipacna] [Earthquake] [Book 3: The Ballgame] [One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu] [One-Monkey and One-Artisan] [First Ballgame] [Blood Moon] [Hunahpu and Xbalanque] [Later Ballgame] [Planted Maize] [Xibalba] [Houses] [Bowls of Flowers] [Into the Oven] [Book 4: Tulan] [Cornmeal Mountain] [First Four Fathers] [Waiting for Dawn] [Tribal Gods] [The Dawning] [Bundle of Flames] [Book 5: The Quiche Nation] [Endnotes]

This continues the investigation into Mesoamerican 'mythology' started in previous chapters.

Preliminary Note: If you came to this page through a search, and skipped the previous 16 chapters, you may find this text rather terse and filled with inexplicable references to other past events. If you intend to use this material for a school paper, be aware that your teachers will have learned something entirely different from what is presented here.

The "Popol Vuh" need not be read as a metaphorical narrative. If the reader has followed the outline of events as presented on these pages, it will become obvious that the "Popol Vuh" describes the 'creation of the world' in the same terms as nearly all other 'mythological texts' worldwide -- the series of 'mythic' events established for Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, and many other nations. How this could be, how peoples removed by centuries and continents could all describe the same series of incidents, not wholly matching in detail, but certainly in affect, is astounding. Further more, the details rendered in the "Popol Vuh" correspond to details found in Books 10 and 11 of the Maya "Chilam Balam," but mostly transformed into a pleasant narrative.

What is probably more interesting is that a reading of the "Popol Vuh" provides access to many details lacking in other sources -- the starting date of the flare-up of Venus in 685 BC, the length of time of the disappearance of the planets, the relationship of the southern Peratt Column and plasmoids to the appearance of Saturn in the north, the extent and effect of the Younger Dryas.

Introduction

For those readers not familiar with the "Popol Vuh," I will reproduce parts of an introduction by Suzanne D. Fisher, from another work. The following thus recaps the "Popol Vuh" in broad outline and gives some flavor of the contents. [note 1]

"The 'Popol Vuh,' written in the 16th century, was discovered in the possession of the indigenous residents of the town of Santo Tomás Chuilá, today Chichicastenango, Guatemala, by Father Fray Francisco Ximénez, at the beginning of the 18th century. Ximénez translated it and included it in his historic work, but also transcribed the text into the indigenous tongue. This manuscript remained forgotten in the archives of the convent of Santo Domingo until 1854, when it was found by Dr. Carl Scherzer, who published it in Vienna in 1857. Presently it is in the Newberry Library of Chicago."

"Barrera Vásquez and Silvia Rendón, experts on Mayan writings, maintain that the naturally indigenous religious and historical texts were copied from ancient codices, which fact is quite likely, since the quantity of events, names and exact dates contained in these documents could not have been kept entirely in the memory. ... [likewise] the 'Popol Vuh' bears witness to the existence of an ancient book from which the narration of the origin of the world has been taken."

Let me point out that the "Popul Vu" makes reference to four preexisting glyphic documents as its sources, with the following titles, quoted in Dennis Tedlock's translation of 1996 as..

• "The Council Book,"
• "The Light that Came from Beside the Sea,"
• "Our Place in the Shadows,"
• "The Dawn of Life."

What I understand as four separate titles, Tedlock sees as epithets for a single title, the "Council Book." But there are sufficient and expansive details in the narrative to suggest separate books for separate periods of history -- very old history. It looks, in fact, that the above list of books are given in reverse chronological order. "The Dawn of Life" came before the recollection of "Our Place in the Shadows," which is followed by the book of "The Light that Came from Beside the Sea."

Understanding the broad outline of events since the Upper Paleolithic in Europe, it becomes obvious that "The Dawn of Life" deals with events or conditions before 30,000 BC. One of the books of the "Chilam Balam" (Book 11) used the same source. For me to claim an age of 30,000 BC might seem like an extravagant claim, but the details put forth by some pages of the "Chilam Balam" are convincing duplication of what we know was seen in the skies during the European Aurignacian (30 to 28,000 ya), Gravettian (28 to 24,000 ya), and Magdalenian (17 to 14,000 ya) archaeological periods.

As I have pointed out earlier, if Europe had not been depopulated because of climatic conditions in about 10,000 BC, we could hear of their experiences before that time from present inhabitants of southern Europe.

The next book, "Our Place in the Shadows," recounts the 1500 year period of darkness around 10,500 to 9,000 BC, and the subsequent drying up of the South American Jungle with the change northward of the equatorial climatic zone (recounted in the earlier Chapter 5, "Saturn and Archaeology"). We can be almost certain of that, for the very same suggestion is encapsulated in the very first paragraph of the "Popol Vuh" where the authors decribe their intent and the structure for the narrative as..

"And here we shall take up the demonstration, revelation, and account of how things were put in shadow and brough to light by ..."

I don't think that the statement above is a metaphor for some sort of revelation; not if Tedlock includes the word "account." It is followed by a list of Gods representing "Oxlahun-ti-ku," the God or God-group known as "the thirteen" as detailed in the "Chilam Balam." The quotation above deals with an account of how the world became dark, and how it was lighted up again due to action of "The Thirteen."

Although it is never explicitly noted in the "Popol Vuh" that at the first recorded period of history there was light, we can surmise as much from the line..

".. how things were put in shadow and brough to light .. "

It is also never indicated "how" things were put in the shadow. It is unusual not to identify and agent for an action, and this first line almost seems to suggest itself as an introduction to the tale that follows in a manner which indicates that the following is indeed a narrative and not to be taken too seriously.

It is the following book, "The Light that Came from Beside the Sea," which resolves how things were "brought to light." I at first assumed that this would recount the lighting up of Saturn in about 4200 BC (or what I have assumed, from other sources, to be 4200 BC), but in considering the extent of 13 Baktuns of the time period before 3147 BC, it seem more likely that the "coming to light" was not the return of the Sun, that is, the cessation of the years of shadows, but the "First Creation" -- the appearance of the brilliant light of the southern ball plasmoids identified by Peratt. [note 2]

Together with the statement about an account to be given of "how things were put in shadow and brough to light," the sequence of historic eras may reveal some of the underlying philosophy of the Maya, and by extension all of the people of Mesoamerica. Throughout the "Popol Vuh," the Quiche tribe, other tribes, and other peoples, are called "sacrificers and penitents" in relationship to the Gods. Yet nowhere is there any indication of why people should be penitent or should have to sacrifice. It seems to be a given, as if everyone knew why this was a condition for all humans. The only thing which would make sense of this, very similar to the thinking in antiquity elsewhere, is that the humans felt responsible for the changes that had happened in the constitution of the world. Penitent for their wrongdoing, sacrifice was required to maintain the new order established by the Gods with the return of sunlight. [note 3]

The last book, the "Council Book," I would suggest, is a recounting of historical events since 3147 BC, and separately in terms of the Long Count after 747 BC. Especially the last of these two records functioned as an instrument for predicting the future. Because the larger (earlier) portion was in terms of Katuns, the cycle of 13 Katuns became the main instrument of prediction.

Suzanne Fisher continues...

"The Mayans of Guatemala (in the Popol Vuh) tell of the creation of the world in a cosmogonic myth that can be considered as the best structured and most complete. In it they express how creator gods, reunited in council, decide to create the world so that a being who venerates and supports the gods inhabits it. Once the world is organized, there are several attempts to form human beings, that correspond to the cosmic creations and destructions referred to in other myths. They speak also about a deluge, but also of burning resin, that destroys the men of wood because these were not aware of their creators. After this deluge, the gods create the man of maizemeal, the present man, who is the conscious being who venerates and feeds the gods. In this myth, too, there is a fight of the beings of the underworld, the gods of death, with the celestial beings, Hunahpu and Ixbalanque [Xbalanque], who, after conquering death, are transformed into the sun and the moon, starting off the time of the men."

What I will do is to add annotation to summaries and occasional extracts from the excellent translation of the "Popol Vuh" by Dennis Tedlock (rev 1996). The "Popol Vuh" consists of five books, a very sensible division made by one of the first translaters.

Although there is a clear sequence of events corresponding to historical periods stretching far into the past, the Maya, like the other people of Mesoamerica had substituted a repeating series of 13 Katuns which largely obliterated the continuity of history. I have made clear the implications of this in previous text. History was recognized as a continuum but it was disfigured by the qualities of the repeating series of 13 Katuns.

We see the continuity expressed by the fact that the "Popol Vuh" narrative definitely starts at the beginning (in Book 1, below). But the selection of events is not in order, and the authors of the "Popol Vuh" make selections from the various source books as they saw fit. This is compounded by the annoying propensity of Mesoamerican languages to disregard chronological order as really meaningful. (Annoying, that is, to Indo-European speakers.) The narrative not only frequently lists events in complete disorder, but also presents planets as different characters. One gets the feeling that the authors were reading from illustrated records with little awareness of the actual connective sequence, so that, as a notable example, Venus takes on the character of Sovereign Plumed Serpent, one of the original Gods, as well as the celestial twin Hunahpu.

The narrative, in fact, expounds the religious philosophy developed after the event of 685 BC, as it did elsewhere in the world. Although it is not at all clear what this philosophy was, the self-sacrifice of Xbalanque and Hunahpu is obviously integral to it.

Book 1: Creation of the World

This describes the initial meeting of the Gods, where it is decided to create the Earth and inhabit it with animals and humans. The stillness before creation is related, living in the shadows, the long time span, the first two attempts to make humans, and their destruction, the last by a flood. This book mixes the plasmoids of the Peratt Column in the south with planets in the north. Seven Macaw is introduced.

The Northern Gods

What needs to be addressed here are the names and numbers of the Gods. It was not difficult to come up with 13 Gods, as Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam" claims. In Chapter 16, "The Chilam Balam," I added together the planets of the Saturnian stack (six, including Venus), plus the 7 clearly visible satellites to reach 13 in number. This depends on the identification by the "Popol Vuh" of at least five northern planets. But the "Popol Vuh" provides only a list of names, together with epithets, so that it is not easy to distinguish the Gods. My best counting effort is listed below.

The "Popol Vuh" actually lists the most coherent set of names for the Gods, separating the Gods of the south from the Gods of the north, and calling the southern apparitions the "Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth" while calling the northern apparition the "Heart of Lake, Heart of Sea." Only the Gods known as the "Heart of Lake, Heart of Sea" are listed in the opening paragraphs. Since later enumerations almost always list 5 names for these, the count should be modified as shown below. I have therefore introduced some modifiers to clear up the count of Gods of the "Heart of Lake, Heart of Sea." The quoted text is a transliteration of the original, in poetic form, by Tedlock. [note 4]

And here we shall take up the demonstration, revelation, and account of how things were put in the shadow and brought to light by..

the [1] Maker, [2] Modeler,
[also] named Bearer, Begetter,
[3] Hunahpu Possum, [4] Hanahpu Coyote,
[also called] Great White Peccary, Coati,
[5] Sovereign Plumed Serpent,
[collectively known as] Heart of Lake, Heart of Sea,
plate shaper, bowl shaper, as they are called,
also named, also described as
the midwife, matchmaker [Maker and Modeler are called]
named Xpiyacoc, Xmucane,
defender, protector,
twice a midwife, twice a matchmaker.

Tedlock suggests that Hunahpu Possum and Hanahpu Coyoye are likely epithets for the twins Xbalanque and Hunahpu, who do not appear in the list, although they will soon appear in the narrative. Sovereign Plumed Serpent is Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan of the Maya -- Venus. The rest I cannot readily identify, although Xmucane is most likely the planet Uranus, identified as female by 'her' long hair. I was initially confounded that Sovereign Plumed Serpent was included in this list, since Sovereign Plumed Serpent (Venus) did not show up until after 'creation,' that is, after ca 4200 BC. This was resolved when I realized that Mercury should be included in the stack, positioned below Saturn and above Mars. As I will point out in a later chapter, from Upper Paleolithic scultures it looks like this might have happened late in the Gravettian (ca 24,000 ya) or during the Magdalenian period (17,000 to 14,000 ya).

In the Magdalenian, Mercury is identified as the second object from the bottom, and looks in some sculptures (as pregnant figurines) to be considerably displaced from the center of Saturn. This would suggest the existance of a plume, like the later plume of Venus, connecting to Saturn in a swirl from Mercury. This reduces the number of the northern gods to five again, with Mercury misidentified as the later Venus.

From the usage of the names of the gods in the remainder of the "Popol Vuh" it is also almost certain that "Heart of Lake, Heart of Sea" is a collective name encompassing all the names and epithets.

Once it is realized that there are two sets of Gods, at opposite poles of the Earth, identification becomes much easier. The northern Gods, seen from a latitude of about 10 degrees in northern South America, would be seen to rise out of the sea ("Heart of the Sea") on a daily basis but sit in the sky surrounded by a pool of plasma ("Heart of the Lake") or Saturn's rings. The northern Gods likely constituted, from top to bottom, Uranus, Neptune (which after 9,000 BC may not have been visible), Saturn, Mercury, and Mars. This adds up to five. The record of the second creation of Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam" does not include the visibility of Neptune.

That there are five gods in the north can be verified from a pot illustration presented by Freidel and Schele in "Maya Cosmos," as I mentioned in an earlier chapter. The pot present six gods in conference with Jupiter (God L), urging him to start creation. The six Gods have various names, of which God "Three Born Together" is obviously the three plasmoids of the south. Subtracting God "Three Born Together" leaves five gods.

The other set of Gods -- "Three Born Together" -- are collectively known as the "Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth." They are identified in the "Popol Vuh" as Hurricane, Newborn Thunderbolt, and Sudden Thunderbolt. Hurricane is also called Thunderbolt Hurricane, which could also be translated as "one-legged thunderbolt" (Tedlock). These were the three plasmoids of the Peratt Column seen at the south horizon, since 8300 BC, which rose out of the south horizon ("Heart of Earth") on a daily basis and rotated into the sky ("Heart of Sky"). The three southern plasmoids will act in concert repeatedly as the "Heart of Sky." At some point in the "Popol Vuh" a dialog develops between the Gods of the north and the Gods of the south.

The Survey

The first activity of the "Popol Vuh" is the "fourfold siding, fourfold cornering, measuring, fourfold staking," which describes the overpassing brilliant lines of (probably and locally) four of the electron beams of the Peratt Column (described in Chapter 5 and found also in the opening page of the "Chilam Balam"). Thus the history of the world starts in ca 8300 BC. This is clearly not the starting point of either "The Dawn of Life" or "Our Place in the Shadows," both of which are recollections from a much earlier time. The survey of the heavens and earth as a starting point has a certain elegance. It assumes agriculture as the basis of human society, although it becomes clear from the "Popol Vuh" that the Quiche remained hunters until very late.

The "Popol Vuh" next declares the emptyness before creation...

"Only the sky alone is there,
the face of the Earth is not yet clear.
Only the sea alone is pooled under all the sky."

The formless of the world is restated, ".. only murmers, ripples, in the dark, in the night." This is the same understanding derived as the scribe of Book 11 of the "Chilam Balam" had, that all was night at the beginning of the world, in this case even before the world was created. It is a misreading, the result of a record in the book "The Dawn of Life" which for thousands of years never once had reference to the daylight world, or the humans who lived there.

As I have noted earlier, the complete absence of humans in these records is no different from the celestial records drawn on the cave walls of Spain and southern France during the same period of time. Perhaps for a long time after the last of this record was made, the readers knew that this only related to what was seen in the night sky, and they knew that there was no record of the real world of plants, animals, and humans because these never changed. But at some later time this was entirely forgotten. This would certainly be true if the records of the various tribes had a single source from which they were recopied. At that later time nothing could be said about the mundane world, or the existence of humans, for these never occured in the texts. Darkness pervades the world of the "Popol Vuh" throughout all of the narrative until the Sun finally rises. This does not happen until Book 4, after 70 percent of the tale is completed.

The narrative next makes a clear distinction between some of the initial Gods...

"Only the Maker, Modeler alone, Sovereign Plumed Serpent, the Bearers, Begetters are in the water, a glittering light. They are there, they are enclosed in quetzal feathers, in blue-green."

First, this brings out an interesting fine point. Most creation myths simply reduce the time between 10,500 BC and 4,200 BC to a time of darkness followed eventually by a time of a chaotic swirling clouded sky. I have identified references to the darkness and the clouded skies in Book 11 of the "Chilam Balam." If the narrative is in chronological order (which is to be doubted) then what we see here is the period after the Peratt Column, after the "fourfold siding, fourfold cornering, measuring, fourfold staking". In this case, rather than the Gods being obscured, they are seen. [note 6]

Secondly, all five of these Gods appear in a glitter of light and are (as if) "enclosed in quetzal feathers, in blue-green." Since it involves all of the planets, it clearly is a reference to the "purple dawn of creation" which occurs in other creation myths and epics, although the "Popol Vuh" next declares, "thus the name 'Plumed Serpent'."

Third, there clearly are five Gods, not six. The five Gods would seem to be easily accounted for as Uranus and Neptune, with perhaps Saturn as Sovereign Plumed Serpent. Since the Bearers and Begetters are listed in plural form, these are likely Mercury and Mars -- with Venus absent.

On the other hand, that the Sovereign Plumed Serpent is listed, perhaps implies that the "Popol Vuh" does not adhere to chronological order, for in every other retelling of creation, including Book 10 and Book 11 of the "Chilam Balam," Venus is only included in the grouping of planets after the surrounding coma, which had enveloped Saturn, disappears and Saturn lights up -- a switch from a large glow mode coma to a closely held coma in arc mode. In Book 11 of the "Chilam Balam" Venus does not show up until after creation of the rings, as the dragon held by God the Father. This last agrees with what most of the Saturnian cosmologists have also assumed as the order of events -- that Venus was expelled at the time of the creation of the rings, in ca 4200 BC. The phrase, "thus the name 'Plumed Serpent'," is then perhaps a clue to the fact that Venus is not meant by "Plumed Serpent."

More important, however, is that the "Popol Vuh" makes here the distinction between the Gods of the north and the Gods of the south (further below). "Only .. [list of five names] .. are in the water," that is, only these five are seen in the ocean (presumably) north of the original location of the Olmecs before migration to Central America. Directly following the listing of the Gods of "Heart of Sea" the Gods of the south will be listed in almost identical terms.

The "Popol Vuh" now declares, after having listed the five Gods of the "Heart of Sea,"...

"And of course there is the sky, and there is also the Heart of Sky. This is the name of the god, as it is spoken [as it is said to be]. Thunderbolt Hurricane comes first, the second is Newborn Thunderbolt, and the third is Sudden Thunderbolt."

There is no question from this that we are dealing here with two sets of Gods, three in the south which have dominated the time from 8,300 BC to perhaps 4200 BC, and five in the north, which will dominate the skies from 4200 BC to 3100 BC (and were certainly seen earlier).

In the next paragraph the Gods of "Heart of Sea," confer with the Gods of "Heart of Sky." This goes on for some paragraphs, and one gets the feeling that the authors of the "Popol Vuh" are making attempts to relate what really happened according to the ancient records, but it is considerably confused.

"So there were three of them, as Heart of Sky, who came to the Sovereign Plumed Serpent, when the dawn of life was conceived.."

I would suggest that we are now directly before 4200 BC, when Saturn went nova, or at least that the specific information is taken from that era, and maybe from the book "the Light that Came from Beside the Sea."

The description of the northern Gods is here represented by the dominant God, Sovereign Plumed Serpent. What happens here is that the plasmoids in the south either collapsed or suddenly moved north ("who came to the Sovereign Plumed Serpent"). This is a reasonable result of the collapse of the glow mode coma of Saturn. It was likely seen, perhaps over a span of some days -- in a perhaps spectacular display. The plasmoids of the south might have traveled north, even engulfed Earth temporarily, and then moved north or simply disappeared, to soon be replaced by the blazing Saturn with a connection in arc mode to Earth.

The "Rig Veda" relates something of this sort, that is, the travel from the south to the north. A fish tows Manu and his seven sages north to the Himalayas to avoid the flood. The roles are reversed here, since Manu and his seven sages are Saturn and the seven prominent satellites. This leaves the fish unidentified, except to suggest that it is probably the real Saturn in the north enshrouded yet in a coma, together with Uranus. This would have looked more like a white duck or goose than a fish.

To return briefly to the identification of the southern plasmoids, I should note that the opening page of Book 1 of the "Chilam Balam" identifies these three Gods as three trees, partially based on the looks of the nearest plasmoid, but also on the visual stringiness of 56 bundles of electrons which composed the plasmoids and overrode the physical structure. See, in this respect, especially the illustrations of the reconstructed views of the nearby plasmoid by Peratt in his second paper.

"The white 'guaje', the 'ixculun' (and) the gumbo-limbo [tree] are his little hut, ... The logwood tree is the hut [lean-to] of Yaxum, the first of the men of the Cauich family."

--Book 1, "Chilam Balam"

Seen from 10 degrees north latitude the branched tree limb like nature of the near plasmoid would be most pervasively obvious. Seen from 20 degrees latitude north of the equator, the southern composite imagery would not have looked like a tree, and certainly not as a giant man in a striped garment, as was recorded in Australia, but as bulbs or, as I have noted elsewhere, as an oppossum.

Book 11 of the "Chilam Balam" likewise identifies the three Gods as three stones set out beneath the "One Stone," Saturn, far to the south, below the south pole. "Beneath" describes that Saturn, as the terminal point for the streams of electrons, appeared above the streams in the north. The south is not specifically identified, except as suggested by the geometry of being "beneath."

"And then the earth arose because of them, it was simply their word that brought it forth."

I need not point out that here, as elsewhere in the world, the "earth" which "arose" was not where we live, but the 'land' or 'Paradise' above the north horizon. The "Popol Vuh" immediately returns the reference to "earth" back to our globe, however.

The Mud People, The Wooden People

The "Popol Vuh" next launches into the creation of animals, who cannot speak and praise the Gods, and then the first two attempts to make humans, first of mud, which are simply allowed to dissolve.

After the mud people dissolve, and before the creation of the wooden people, the Gods of the south meet again with the Gods of the north..

"When Hurricane had spoke with the Sovereign Plumed Serpent, they invoked the daykeepers, diviners, and midmost seers...."

This time Xpiyacoc and Xmucane are invoked, under a number of dual names, and as suggested by Hurricane. At the end of a long dialogue on methods, Plumed Serpent speaks, reprimanding the "Heart of Sky" (which includes Hurricane)...

"Have shame, you up there [!], Heart of Sky, attempt no deception before the mouth and face of Sovereign Plumed Serpent," they said.

This suggests that the southern plasmoids remained where they were ("you up there"). And so the wooden people were created and populated the Earth. The wooden people are a failure also, for "they did not remember the Heart of Sky."

"The Heart of Sky devised a flood for them," plus destructions by falling tar, by wild animals, and crushing by trees and rocks.

During the destruction of the wooden humans, which included attacks by wild animals and kitchen utensils, the "Popol Vuh" states that "their hearthstones were shooting out." Tedlock illustrates this with glyphic representations of the three hearthstones, which are said to have entered the sky at some time in the past, and constitute three stars of Orion (but only one of the belt stars) in the form of a triangle enclosing M-42, looking like a central fire.

"Some time in the past" is in dispute. Tedlock, in a note, points out that Freidel (et al) "places the event at the beginning of a new age and raising the entire sky rather than just the hearthstones," and claims, that Maya inscriptions of the Classical Age invariable place this at 4-Ahau 8-Kumku -- that is, 3114 BC. Freidel, although he may have "obscured" the dating, is correct in a manner. The three stones in question (in the constellation Orion) are located below the Pleiades (actually slightly removed, below the tail of Taurus), and would only have become visible after the fall of the Absu, in 2349 BC, the date of the "third creation." The "third creation" clearly constituted the new age, and the raising of the (southern) sky. The "flood" mentioned here in the "Popol Vuh" is probably the flood of 3147 BC, not the fall of the Absu in 2349 BC.

Cardona, in "Darkness and the Deep" (AEON V III), quotes H. Osborne, in "South American Mythology" (1970), as..

"Some mythological cycles feature a primitive age of darkness before the existence of the sun, when human beings lived in a state of anarchy without the techniques of civilized life. Sometimes myths in this category appear to embody a confused racial memory of a hunting and food-gathering stage. It is not uncommon for them to be associated with a tradition of the destruction of the primitive food-gathering race by a creator god and the creation of new races"

This parallels the destruction of the manikins, the wooden people, of the "Popol Vuh." If, after the world-wide flood of 3147 BC, the survivors came to inspect coastal areas and survey the carcasses gnawed by scavengers and the remnants of villages, they might easily reach the conclusion that a previous generation of humans had been destroyed by the Gods.

Seven Macaw

The "Heart of Sky" continues to be invoked further into the narrative as a primary God, but at this point Seven Macaw is introduced in a prelude to the next book. He sits at the top of a nance tree, and pretends, very proudly, to be the Sun and the Moon. Seven Macaw is held to be the Ursa Major by the Maya as by archaeologists. I would agree, although the description of Seven Macah, however, hardly qualifies him as simply a seven star constellation.

"So be it [Seven Macah speaks]: my light is great. I am the walkway and am the foothold [the night light] of the people, because my eyes are of metal. My teeth just glitter with jewels, and turquoise as well, they stand out blue like the face of the sky. And this nose of mine shines white into the distance like the Moon."

"And so Seven Macah puffs himself up as the days and the months, though the light of the sun and moon has not yet clarified"

As Tedlock points out, Seven Macah, named 'kakix' in the "Popol Vuh," describes a scarlet macah, which has a white beak.

Book 2: The Fall of Seven-Macah

This part is seen as an interlude, for real humans have not been created yet. It describes the adventures of two hunter boys, Xbalanque and Hunahpu, who strike the plumed bird Seven-Macaw who resides on top of (what will turn out to be) the celestial tree in the north. This places the event in 3147 BC. Seven-Macaw's two giant sons, Jupiter, looking like a green mountain, and Mars, on its 300 years of destructive visits to Earth, are dispatched also. The twins Xbalanque and Hunahpu are gods, yet they have parents, described in the next book.

The Celestial Bird

The action of removing the celestial bird at the north pole is set in July of 685 BC. The removed bird is Ursa Major. The action of the twins in accomplishing this is then moved, with Xbalanque and Hunahpu still as the actors, to 3147 BC, where the earlier celestial bird of the north pole is actually the whole of the Saturnian polar display. Certainly Seven-Macah is pretty, with a display of colorful plumage, pretty teeth, and metal disk around his eyes. Tedlock relates the disks to the eyepatches of scarlet macaws. Birds don't have teeth, though, but this is as likely some reference to the original text which has failed to resonate for us. Most often many of the details of the "Popol Vuh" story can be identified. Tedlock, in fact, furnishes a parallel reading in terms of Tzolkin day names, the cycles of Venus, and geography. Much of it makes sense, but some of it has other sources, which I will point out. Additionally, the constructed narrative -- built around the bare facts -- has all the sense of being of long standing.

In notes by Tedlock it is revealed that Hunahpu's name could be rendered as "First Blowgunner" ("Hun Ahaw" in Yucatec, "One Lord" or "First Lord") as well as having a meaning which reflects an affinity with Venus as the morning star, under the same name. All this is appropriate when it is recalled that in June and July of 685 BC, and as the "Sibylline Star Wars" document of AD 115 also relates, the two entities battling in the skies do so with "long fire-flames." Kugler described his impression as, "the light of the sun was replaced by long streams of flame crossing each other," looking, in fact, like the twins were carrying blowguns.

The name Xbalanque, as I have pointed out earlier (and also based on Tedlock's notes on this), can be understood as "Little Jaguar of the Night." Tedlock points out that the name could also be understood to mean "the sun's hidden aspect," although that just plays on the later association of the blowgunner boys with the Sun and the Moon. In Yucatec the glyph for Xbalanque reads as, "Yax Bolon" which reads directly as "First Nine," but the "nine" head of the glyph is always shown with jaguar spots, which Tedlock understands as a pun on "balam," that is, "jaguar." Completing the glyphic literary device, this would also refer to "Bolon Dzacab," "Nine Lives," the name for Mars since remote antiquity.

This suggests that Xbalanque and Hunahpu are Venus and Mars, and this was my understanding at first. In fact, this is true for their first noted appearance in 776 BC, during the celestial ballgame. Thus in 776 BC Venus and Mars play the role of the father and uncle of Xbalanque and Hunahpu, named One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu, which appear in the next book of the "Popol Vuh." But after 747 BC they clearly are Mars and Mercury, except in the very last instance, in 685 BC, when Mars is away to the west of the Sun, and it is Venus and Mercury which blaze for 40 days.

Tedlock points out that if Hunahpu represents Venus, and Seven Macah is Ursa Major (both of which are correct for 685 BC), then the nance tree which Seven Macaw feeds on, "the great tree of Seven Macaw," is the Milky Way. Tedlock points out that nances start to ripen in June, and notes that in the "Dresden Codex," for the year AD 1235, "the confrontation occurs when Venus makes one last appearance as the evening star... [with the last appearance on about] June 10th, AD 1235." This is also based on seeing Seven Macaw climbing up the nance tree every night. [note 7]

This reflects the efforts by Mesoamerica to come to an understanding of their ancient records. It is perfectly reasonable for the 13th century AD "Dresden Codex" to recasts the events of the remote past to match the Universe as it had been without variation since the 7th century BC. It is also legitimate for the authors of the "Popol Vuh" to construct a narrative from their sources which completely jumbles chronology, especially if the people of Mesoamerica were convinced that events were cyclical in their rotating calendar.

A pottery Image: Hunahpu shoots Itzam-Yeh (Seven-Macaw). The text reads, "Done by Hun-Ahau; on 1-Ahau 3-Kankin he entered the sky, Itzam-Yeh."
-- From David Freidel and Linda Schele "Maya Cosmos" (1993)

Hunahpu shoots a pellet at Seven Macaw, which breaks his mouth, loosening his teeth, and he falls to the ground. As Hunahpu approaches, Seven Macaw rips off Hunahpu's arm. These sort of details -- shooting Seven Macaw in the jaw, having Hunahpu's arm pulled off -- are difficult to trace to known facts from the eastern Mediterranean, India, or China, and it gets more difficult when the authors of the "Popol Vuh" include incidents from other time periods.

But actually, the detail of Hunahpu loosing his arm (torn off "at the shoulder") can be found among the sequence of events of 3147 BC. However, I should point out first, that the protagonists in this instance are not simply moved from the 8th and 7th century BC to a time 2300 years earlier. At this juncture, both of the boys are located in 3147 BC as the very visible Venus and Mars. It is Hunahpu, Venus, who wields the blowgun as the plasma stream connection to Saturn. In the next moment, as Seven Macaw (Saturn) falls (like Osiris fell on his side and died), the plasma connection between Venus and Saturn is interrupted -- Hunahpu looses his arm. About the ripped-off arm, Tedlock writes, "At this point Seven Macaw's behaviour departs from that of an actual macaw...." No kidding!

Seven Macaw, Itzam-Yeh the water wizard, has been identified as God-D, which I in turn have identified as Saturn -- although this would be obvious from the bird imagery and the perch atop a nance tree, which was probably the polar column from before 3147 BC, but became the Milky Way 4000 years later. Note that the text of the pot reads, "he entered the sky, Itzam-Yeh." It was the release of Saturn from its stationary perch in the north which plunged it into the 'skies' of the south.

Seven Macaw goes home, while the boys engage two elderly tooth pullers and bone setters in their plot, Great White Peccary (Neptune) and the long snouted Great White Coati (Uranus). Both were known from much older records, although Great White Peccary had not been seen in the last few thousand years. Both, in fact, are listed among the "Heart of Lake" Gods of Book 1. Now, in 3147 BC, as the Earth suddenly lifted its orbit toward the Sun, they were both seen again, departing from Saturn. Great White Peccary and Great White Coati, under the guise of providing a cure, pull the blue teeth of Seven Macaw, and remove the rings from around his eyes; "the last of his metal came off."

This is an interesting detail, for if Saturn kept his jewels, eye rings, and whatever adornments until he fell in 3147 BC, that means Saturn was still in arc mode plasma discharge to the very last. Perhaps the earlier ring of 56 streamers of electrons in arc mode had stopped (as the "Chilam Balam" reads, "then it was that fire descended, then the rope descended"), but the surface of the planet was still blazing like a sun in 3147 BC.

Eye rings are an unusual form of jewelry, and I can only imagine this as the equatorial rings of Saturn. When Earth changed the inclination of its orbit, and started climbing up toward the Sun's equatorial plane, Saturn would have been seen edge on, and the rings (eye rings) would have disappeared. Similarly, the blue teeth can probably be equated to the inline sight of the core of plasma streamers in arc mode. As Saturn came under the electrical influence of Jupiter, these might have been snuffed out, as would otherwise certainly happen when Saturn started to move away from the Sun. That Itzam-Yeh died is certain, for nothing is ever heard of any activity of Saturn again -- anywhere in the world.

The mention of "metal" as part of Seven Macaw's "brilliance" and "fiery splendor" hint at the fact that the nature of his adornments is a late interpretation. Mesoamerica was a stone-age society which gained only a limited metalurgy by Aztec times.

When Seven Macaw died, because of the removal of his grandeur, his wife, Chimalmat, also died. Chimalmat is held to include the stars of the Ursa Minor, "shield net," in Nahuatl, as noted by Tedlock. But I think this is a later attemp at rationalization. More likely is is Uranus, the planet with the long hair, which was visible near Saturn for thousands of years, and known in the "Chilam Balam" as the sister of Oxlahun-ti-ku, Saturn. [note 8]

With Seven Macaw and Chimalmat dead, the elderly doctors graft the arm of Hunahpu back on him, an event noted in the Bible as the return of Noah's dove with an olive branch in his mouth.

Zipacna

The boys then go to kill the two sons of Seven Macaw, the giant Zipacna, whose name and certainly his habits (says Tedlock) are those of a cayman, and Earthquake. Without a doubt Zipacna is Jupiter, a green mountain, understood in Egypt as the green mummified body of Osiris (directly after 3147 BC). His cayman attributes will be recognized from the depiction of Jupiter in Olmec iconography dating to 685 BC, when the lower mountainous plasma plume is recorded as looking like the down-pointing head of a crocodile with open jaws. This last form will be retained into the era of the Classical Maya, although Zipacna is also depicted as slithering along a river's edge like a real cayman or crocodile.

The other son is Earthquake. "Mountains are moved by him; the mountains, small and great, are softened by him," reads the "Popol Vuh."

But before the blowgunner boys go after these two, we are told of an adventure of Zipacna and the Four Hundred Boys. The Four Hundred Boys are acknowledged to be the Pleiades, but probably could also signify the 400 stars of the south. "Four hundred" is a word for "multitude," often translated from the "Chilam Balam" as "infinite." The incident takes place in 2349 BC, the time of the fall of the Absu and the "third creation," and known to us as the 'flood of Noah.'

The Four Hundred Boys are dragging a log for their house and ask the passing Zipacna to help them, which he does. They decide, however, to kill him, for he is too powerful. They ask him to help dig a hole for the center post and, while Zipacna is down in the hole, they cast in the center post. Presuming Zipacna has been killed (he plays along with the trick), the Four Hundred Boys get on to preparing their fermented maguey drink, which takes three days.

"And then [on the third day] all the boys got drunk, and once they were drunk, all four hundred of those boys, they weren't feeling a thing." That is when Zipacna exploded from the hole, where he had been hiding in a side cavity, and brought down the house on the Four Hundred Boys. The authors at this point note that the Four Hundred Boys became the Pleiades, but wonder if that is just a play on words in Quiche.

The reader will recognize a number of elements from the actual events of 2349 BC. Zipacna reappears after three days. The Four Hundred Boys are stinking of alcohol when they get killed, although the blood in the sky is there only by inference. The Pleiades appear in the south for the first time. The center post of the house is the south plasma plume which appeared soon after and could be seen standing in a hole. The hole is the gap in the Absu at the time of the fall equinox. All these elements are associated with 2349 BC, and with the worldwide celebrations of the Day of the Dead.

Next the blowgunner boys take on Zipacna. "It's mere fish and crabs that Zipacna looks for in the waters ... going around looking for his food by day and lifting up mountains by night." The boys create an artificial crab, and place it in the overhang of a mountain. They meet a hungry Zipacna, and direct him to the giant crab. Amid various sexual inuendoes the "Popol Vuh" tells of how Zipacna approaches the crab (a metaphor for "vulva") by crawling underneath -- up to his kneecaps. The mountain settles on him and he dies by turning to stone.

You will recognize the crab form with two extended claw arms, or the legs of Zipacna, as the "shen" form assumed by the coma of Jupiter when it entered the asteroid belt in about 2900 or 2950 BC -- one hundred and fifty years after 3147 BC. This is the first of the two offending planets to be disposed of by the twins.

Earthquake

The second to be tracked down is Earthquake, who prided himself of his destructions, "I just scatter mountains, and I am the one who breaks them, in the course of the days, in the course of the light" (which means 'all the time'). Notice that if Earthquake (Mars) worked both night and day, he would have been seen both inside and outside the orbit of earth, as I have pointed out in an earlier chapter.

Earthquake is fed a bird baked in clay (the "Popol Vuh" reads "plaster"). Together with the boys he walks east, to view a very large mountain, but Earthquake has weakened from eating the bird baked in 'earth' (plaster). The boys bind him hand and foot, and bury him.

It was the God Hurrican who directed them to go east with Earthquake to look for a mountain and lure him "into sitting down." Tedlock notes that Hurricane may have meant a burial. I cannot place the mountain in the east, for it would have to be Jupiter with its extensive lower coma, but Jupiter had disappeared (in proper actual sequence) into the asteroid belt 100 or 200 or more years before 2700 BC when Earthquake disappears.

The removal of Earthquake to the east seems like the observation over an extended time period of the progressive rotation of the second nodal point of the orbit of Mars. Mars may have been seen crossing Earth's orbit further and further each year, until after 50 years it was just a distant speck. His walk would slow, as it did when seen at a remove from Earth. "In the east" also assumes an outer orbit for Mars, so that when the Earth passed Mars it was first seen in the east. On an orbit with an aphelion much further from the Sun than Earth, it could have looked as if Mars just disappeared into the ecliptic and died. In fact, he should have disappeared in the west. Mars would disappear in the east only when on the part of its orbit inside the orbit of Earth, but visually it would still have looked to be disappearing in the west. The bird covered with earth may signify the pitted lower hemisphere of Mars.

At any rate, note that the death of Earthquake is hardly as spectacular as that that of Zipacna. Earthquake just disappears into the east.

Book 3: The Ballgame

Here the story steps back to relate the demise of the father and uncle of Xbalanque and Hunahpu at the hands of the Gods of Xibalba, the Underworld, who had invited them to a ball game. The severed head of One-Hunahpu, the father of Xbalanque and Hunahpu, is hung from a calabash tree. The tree is visited by Blood Moon, daughter of one of the Xibalban Lords, and is impregnated by the severed head of One-Hunahpu. She goes to live with One-Hunahpu's mother, and bears Xbalanque and Hunahpu. Xbalanque and Hunahpu in turn play a ball game with the Gods of Xibalba, but trick them throughout the games. They eventually offer themselves to be sacrificed, but return magically to signal the start of creation. Although often presented as such, they do not "become" the Sun and the Moon.

One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu

The "Popol Vuh" now recounts three generations of its gods, placed in the time before the First Creation. Two of the original five Gods of the "Heart of Lake," Xpiyacoc and Xmucane, which had been listed as "the midwife" and the "matchmaker," are parents to One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu. These two will be the subject of the first part of this book. Xpiyacoc and Xmucane are probably Neptune and Uranus. Uranus is the woman, because of her long hair.

One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu I simply cannot place, although as soon as they venture into playing ball with the Lords of the Underworld, they are obviously Venus and Mars in 776 BC, using Mercury as the ball, as I have pointed out earlier, although the tradition among catastrophists is that the Moon was the ball. Additionally, the interaction of Mars and the Moon, as well as an electrical interaction between Venus and Mars, are established from Homeric literary sources. Venus and Mars can be placed near Earth in 776 BC, on the assumption of differing ellipticity of their orbits. I would still opt for Mercury playing the role of the ball, since both in 3000 to 2700 BC as well as during the period of 806 to 686 BC Mercury most likely showed up whenever Mars cruised close to Earth. See Appendix A, "Notes on Chronology," and Chapter 16, "The Chilam Balam," for details. I cannot place Mercury near Earth in 776 BC with an ephemeris, for Mercury would have radically changed its orbit in 686 BC as the result of an electrical contact with Earth, and thus its orbit a hundred years earlier is unknown.

One-Monkey and One-Artisan

Before engaging in the ballgame, however, One-Hunahpu marries Egret Woman and begets two sons, One-Monkey and One-Artisan. Egret Woman is probably, again, Uranus, although perhaps not (see below). The two boys are likely to be satellites of Uranus. They appear as the eye-slits of many, if not most, of the Venus figurines during and after the Upper Paleolithic, as I mentioned for an examplary figurine at Dolni Vestonice in Moravia (see Chapter 5, "Saturn and Archaeology").

One-Hunahpa, Seven-Hunahpa, One-Monkey, and One-Artisan play ball together, every day. A falcon, "the messenger of Hurricane," would come to watch them. This is an odd detail, and difficult to place. Perhaps this was the apparition of the giant bird, depicted at Catal Huyuk, and referenced also in the mound at Olmec San Lorenzo and at the construction of Poverty Point, Louisiana. As a messenger of Hurricane, the falcon would have been seen in the south. As I pointed out for Catal Huyuk, the vulture would have been seen in the south as Earth started to fall below the equatorial level of Saturn, between about 9000 BC and about 6700 BC. The hawk, falcon, vulture, or raven shows up throughout the world in the next thousands of years.

Another detail mentioned by the "Popol Vuh" is the death of Egret Woman, the mother of One-Monkey and One-Artisan. If Egret Woman was Uranus, then the identity with a planet, which I suggested above, is incorrect, although One-Monkey and One-Artisan are later told of as living with their grandmother, Xmucane, who I have also identified as Uranus, and who continues to play a major role in the family, as would be appropriate for a planet which remained in view as Earth slipped below the south pole of Saturn.

The First Ballgame

It is the ruckus of their ballplaying which arouses the Lords of the Underworld to action. The "Popol Vuh" lists their names and tasks, representing all the maladies afflicting humans. There are 12 of them, plus the leaders One-Death and Seven-Death. "What is happening on the face of the Earth? They should be summoned to play ball here."

One-Hunahpa and Seven-Hunahpa are playing ball at a ballcourt called "Great Hollow with Fish in the Ashes" when the Messenger Owls of the Lords of Xibalba arrive. Tedlock identifies "Great Hollow with Fish in the Ashes" as a location near Cobán (in the eastern Yucatan). That may have been a later geographical correspondence, but I would suggest a location in the night sky of the south defined by the Earth's shadow on the equatorial rings at the time of the equinox. Of course this had not been seen since the time of the "third creation" in 2349 BC, but it was recorded graphically in the source books of the authors of the "Popol Vuh." It is an image which defines a flat plane between two mountains, or a cleft mountain, and, of course, the ballcourt with its inclined embankments.

Tedlock suggests that the fishes and ashes possibly prefigure the incineration of Xbalanque and Hunahpu in the oven of the Lords of Xibalba, the tossing of the bone ashes into the river of the ecliptic, and the subsequent sighting of Xbalanque and Hunahpu as catfish. That some location in Guatemala ended up named after this event does not surprise me. Ceremonial sites were also named after graphical elements from the books of antiquity. An example is Yaxchilan, whose 'emblem glyph' (and thus it's proper name) seems to be "cleft sky" -- a clear reference to the skies before the third creation, 2349 BC. [note 9]

One-Hunahpa and Seven-Hunahpa follow the messenger owls after stashing their ball in the rafters of their mother's house. Following the owls, "... they descended the road to Xibalba, going down over the edge of a steep slope...." This is followed by Rustling Canyon, Gurgling Canyon, and Scorpion Rapids before they reach and cross the River of Blood and the River of Pus and reach the Crossroads. Tedlock finds a geographical sequence equivalent to the canyons (with some additional details), but switches to a celestial journey at Scorpion Rapids.

It should be obvious that the River of Blood is the remaining ring of the Absu which lasted into the current era. Likewise the River of Pus is the ecliptic, what the Chinese called the Yellow Road. The Crossroads are the same two rivers when these cross at the equinox, forming the Saint Andrew's cross. The colors associated with the four roads (the cross roads) are the traditional Maya directional colors, also mentioned in the "Chilam Balam," and often applied to anything which might be related to the cardinal directions. One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu will move to the west in the sky to reach the night sky or the underside of Earth.

One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu reach the council place of the Lords of Xibalba, but they make mistakes, greeting two manikins, sitting down on a hot seat (a griddle). They are told to enter Dark House for the night, "a house with darkness alone inside." The other four houses are listed, and Tedlock notes that together with the first house these could easily be five of the 13 Maya constellations of the zodiac, under various conditions of the movement of Venus, either the 90 day disappearance after an easterly setting, or the reappearances of Venus on the repeating five year cycle. I agree, with some reservations, and will attemp to tie some of the houses to actual locations in the sky in the five instances of a close approach of Mars during the period of 747 to 687 BC. I should also point out that the five houses which were designed to kill Xbalanque and Hunahpu may definitely be equated to the five graves prepared for Mars at the Olmec site of La Venta -- the last of which is in the form of a giant cayman. The incident of One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu playing ball, or preparing to play ball, represents Venus and Mars in 776 BC. Both disappear after being seen near Earth.

One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu are brought a torch and two lighted cigars, and told to return them in the morning. But the next morning the torch and cigars have been used up, and the Xibalbans announce, "this very day, your day is finished, you will die, you shall disappear...." The "Popol Vuh" continues...

"And then they were sacrificed and buried. They were buried at the Place of Ball Game Sacrifices, as it is called. The head of One-Hunahpu was cut off; only his body was buried with his younger brother."

Blood Moon

One-Hunahpu's head is placed "in the fork of the tree that stands by the road," later identified as located at the Place of Ball Game Sacrifices. It is a calabash tree and bears fruit after One-Hunahpu's head is hung from the tree. It is likely that the tree by the road is a polar plasma plume, and thus One-Hunahpu's head is seen as the ball plasmoid at the end of the plume. The head of One-Hunahpu is, of course, the ball plasmoid at the end of the polar plasma plume.

"By the road" implies the south pole, for the ecliptic and equatorial were not seen in the north, and thus the "Place of Ball Game Sacrifices" is the gap in the Absu seen before 2349 BC, which has the crossection of a ballcourt with embankments on both sides. (This is also the image presented by the glyph meaning 'ballcourt.')

Blood Moon, a daughter of one of the Lords, comes to visit the tree, and the skull of One-Hunahpu speaks to her..

"Why do you want a mere bone, a round thing in the branches of a tree?" said the head of One-Hunahpu when it spoke to the maiden. "You don't want it," she was told.

"I do want it," said the maiden.

The skull of One-Hunahpu spits in her hand and she becomes pregnant with Xbalanque and Hunahpu. Six months later the Lords notice, and after she denies her pregnancy, "there is no man whose face I have known," the Lords command the Messenger Owls to take her away, sacrifice her, and bring back her heart.

"Blood Moon" is actually Saturn in remote antiquity, I suspect at some time after the First Creation. Her name is a play on 'blood' and 'moon.' The severed head, likewise, is Uranus suspended above Saturn at a time when all the Saturnian planets could be distinguished and seen in separation with respect to each other, probably a time before 9000 BC. As usual, the "Popol Vuh" mixes details from events separated by thousands of years.

Blood Moon talks the owls out of their task, substituting congealed croton sap for her heart. Blood Moon goes to live with the grandmother of One-Monkey and One-Artisan, and after being accepted by Xmucane, gives birth to the twins Xbalanque and Hunahpu. Xbalanque and Hunahpu are here most likely Venus and Mars, which show up when Saturn, initially pregnant, goes nova, "they were born suddenly." We can ask, how else is one born? But there was some need to point this out.

The "Popol Vuh" also states, "They were born in the mountains, and then they came into the house." I can't place the mountains, unless this is a representation of the rings of Saturn, or the plasma dome at the north horizon. It is also possible that these are earthly mountains, the mountains of Mexico and Guatemala at a time when the Olmecs had very likely migrated to western coastal Guatemala. From this new vantage point Saturn would no longer rise out of the sea, but would rotate into the sky from behind the local mountains.

Hunahpu and Xbalanque

I won't recall their early childhood, or their contentions with One-Monkey and One-Artisan, who are turned into long-tailed monkeys by Hunahpu and Xbalanque. The monkeys clamber up a tree "the kind called yellow tree." Recall from Chapter 5, "Saturn and Archaeology," the image of three European Gravettian figurines (27,000 to 24,000 ya), each in buff or amber limestone. This is the yellow tree. If, as I have pointed out elsewhere, satellites of these planets were to orbit in and out of the enclosing plasma of the planets, they would most likely look to have long connecting tail to the plasma. Monkeys, indeed.

What stands out, is a later activity, the cultivation of a patch of ground. Hunahpu and Xbalanque arrive with their blowguns, and set a mattock and hoe in the ground, and place an axe in a tree trunk. The gardening implements proceed to cultivate the ground by themselves while the boys go hunting. The cultivation of the patch of ground is paralleled by information of Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam" which details the First Creation..

"Then it was that fire descended, then the rope descended, then rocks and trees descended. Then came the beating of (things) with wood and stone."

-- Book 10, "Chilam Balam"

As I have pointed out, this implies a rotation, or at least a rocking of the Saturnian polar configuration as seen from Earth -- not the rotation of the planet itself, but the rotation of Saturn about the north pole, so that Venus, the stone, and Uranus, the wood, would also rotate. These two might easily pass for a mattock and hoe. (Book 11 of the "Chilam Balam" reverses the assignment to Venus and Uranus.)

The cleared garden, however, is put back to its original state at night by wild animals. Hunahpu and Xbalanque hide out to catch them in the act of reconstituting the garden, but this action is never followed up on, for they catch a rat, who in return for his freedom reveals the whereabouts of their father's rubber ball and gaming equipment among the rafters of their grandmother's house.

The Later Ballgame

One-Hunahpa and Seven-Hunahpa had been told by the Lords of Xibalba to bring their gaming equipment, but they had left it behind, stowed in their mother's house among the rafters. The rat secretly chews through the binding to release the ball.

I would equate the rafters of Xmucane's house to the crossing of the ecliptic and the remaining equatorial ring, and the hung ball as the ball plasmoid at the end of the south polar plasma plume. This equates the release of the ball with a time of the equinoxes, when they would cross to form the rafters. A set of three ballcourt marker at Copan shows the ball suspended from a twisted cord at the north and south markers, each hung from a flanked tree. At the center marker the ball is in play between Hunahpu and One-Death, the later being the chief Lord of Xibalba.

The tree of the north is labeled "Nine Successions," the tree of the south is labeled "Seven Successions." There is no question that these represent the polar plasma plumes, labled with the number of times they made an appearance. (The records of Palenque differ by one count for the northern plasma plume which is called "north-eight-house.")

The rat, in this case, would probably be Mercury, who played the mouse in the 686 BC drama of chewing through the noose of the Sun. The sequencing of the "Popol Vuh" is here not too badly off, for the rat's release of the ball happens between the earlier ballgame of 776 BC and the events of 685 BC, although it misses the four earlier ballgames of Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

The boys take extensive measure to make sure that their grandmother does not see the ball. There is a curious inclusion in the narrative of the boys seeing a reflection of the overhead rat and the ball in their chily sauce, at which they send out their grandmother to fetch water. The "reflection" is likely to be the other plasma plume ball plasmoid seen hanging from the tree of the north. (The rafters would only show up in the south.)

The twins, after sneaking the ball and playing equipment out of the house, go to play ball every day at the court of their father and uncle. Of course the Lords of Xibalba are again disturbed, and send messengers to summon the boys. The messengers arrive at the house of the grandmother, who entrusts the message to a louse, who is swallowed by a toad, who is swallowed by a snake, who is swallowed by a falcon.

The animals regurgetate each other, a pun on 'recall,' but the boys have to kick the toad in the rear to loosen the louse, demonstrating why toads do not have tails. They hurry home and the boys plant a maize ear each, relating their future death and rebirth to the death and sprouting of the maize, and tell their mother and grandmother to watch for such signs. Tedlock relates the ceremonial action to named Tzolkin days, including the disappearance of Venus on a following day. But the maize is planted "neither in the mountains nor where the earth is damp, but where the earth is dry, in the middle of the inside of their house."

The Planted Maize

Tedlock and his informant Andres Xiloj suggest that the 'planted' maize is stored in the attic of the house, and represents a Quiche maize ceremony, the "winel," which, however, involves four plants, not two. Despite the recognition of a current custom and ceremony in the details of the narrative, I think the proper interpretation only becomes clear later. The maize is not planted on Earth, but in the north and south of the sky. These represent the plasma plumes seen directly after the earth shock of 747 BC, when the boys first arrive in Xibalba. These plumes soon disappeared, thus signalling the death of the boys to their grandmother. But 60 years later, in 685 BC, because of the altered electrical field of the Sun, the plumes reappeared, signalling the rebirth of the boys.

"And this is their grandmother, crying and calling out in front of the ears of green corn they left planted. Corn plants grew, then dried up."

"And this is when they were burned in the oven; then the corn plants grew again."

The text reads that the grandmother "deified" the ears and named them. Four names are given, suggesting a connection to the 'winel' ceremonies. I think, though, that the names, which occur in two sets of two, are more likely collective descriptive like "Heart of Lake, Heart of Sea" were. The two sets of names are "Middle of the House, Middle of the Harvest" and "Bed of Earth, Living Ears of Green Corn" -- as if to imply a celestial and an earthly maize manifestation. "Middle of the Harvest" is late summer or early fall, and as "Middle of the House" probably signifies the fall equinox. In parallel, "Bed of Earth" might signify a horizon location above land.

The first use of the four names has only a comma as separator, but the following sentences which explain why the ears are so named, refers to them in the plural, although this does not mean much in translation.

"And she named the ears Middle of the House, Middle of the Harvest, because they had planted them right in the middle of the inside of their home."

"And she further named them Bed of Earth, Living Ears of Green Corn, since the ears had been placed up above an earthern floor."

Meanwhile, after planting the maize ears, the boys hurry to Xibalba.

"They went down to Xibalba, quickly going down the face of a cliff and crossed through the change of canyons [a series of canyons mentioned earlier]. They passed right through the birds -- the ones called throng birds -- and then they crossed Pus River and Blood River....

The "throng birds" have been identified as migrating Swainson's hawks, thus placing the travel of the boys either in spring or autumn. Only spring fits with the close passages of Mars (and Mercury) during the last of February or early March of 747 BC. Mars and Mercury will constitute the first four instances of the twins in Xibalba. The last appearance will be played by Venus and Mercury. [note 10]

Xibalba

Reaching the crossroads, now marked as Black, White, Red, and Green, the directional colors associated with the directional trees noted in the "Chilam Balam" after 3147 BC, 2349 BC, and 1492 BC, the boys send a mosquito ahead to bite the Lords, and as a result learn their names. The boys enter, and, to the chagrin of the Lords, ignore the manikins, greet the Lords by their proper names, and avoid the hot seat.

They are told to enter Dark House for their first night's stay, and, like with their father and uncle, are brought two cigars and a torch, and told to return them next morning. But the boys are more clever, and substitute a macaw feather for the torch and set two fireflies at the end of the cigars.

We should reasonably be able to locate the feather and fireflies with an ephemeris program, even though both the Earth and Mars would still have been on elliptical orbits. There would little chance of locating Mercury correctly in the skies, since, as I have explained, Mercury changed its orbit radically in 686 BC. The problem is, we do not know when the boys entered the five houses, especially if the houses are zodiacal constellation which would take Mars and Mercury below the western horizon. It would in each case be some weeks, or perhaps months, after the first appearances of Mars and Mercury in the sky

The entry into the first house, however, was 7 days after leaving their grandmother. Tedlock counts seven days from mention of a word pun on the Tzolkin dayname 'Aj' and the word 'Ja' -- meaning 'house' -- when the twins instruct their grandmother in the planting of the maize (Tedlock, page 39). Seven days after 'Aj' ('Ben' in Yucatec) is the day 'Junajpu' ('Ahau' in Yucatec). Tedlock relates this, and additional day names, to the Dresden Venus tables, and to the repeating cycle of appearances of Venus, which first rises as the Morning Star on the day name 'Junajpu' -- the name of the twin (Hunahpu) associated with Venus.

I think, however, that the entry into the first house was 7 days after the Earth shock of February 28th, 747 BC (March 8, 748 BC Julian), when they were commanded to appear in Xibalba. Seven days after the first day of the Long Count era, 6.0.0.0.0 11-Ahau, would fall on 6.0.0.0.7 5-Manik. This is not the Tzolkin day suggested by Tedlock. But the actors here are Mars and Mercury, not Venus and Mars.

I would otherwise agree with Tedlock, since nearly 2000 years later the events of 685 BC had been rationalized in terms of the high science of the Maya -- the Tzolkin calendar. Yet this would not have happened without solid data from the records of the past, the "Council Book." It is interesting that most of the concordances found by Tedlock involve the planet Venus, who definitely is one of the twins involved in the immolation of 685 BC. In the intervening 60 year period between 747 BC and 687 BC, using a 365 day Haab year, Venus goes through 7.5 cycles of the repeating series of 5 appearances.

Mars repeats its 780 day synodic period 28 times (28.07), but, more significantly, Mars repeats its synodic period seven times every 15 years, and does this exactly 4 times in the 60 year period between 747 and 687 BC. There may indeed have been a seven day period between February 28 747 BC (March 8, 748 BC, Julian) and the first appearance of the twins in Xibalba, but as likely the 'seven days' represent the completion of seven synodic periods of Mars every 15 years, when Mars again made a close approach to Earth.

Velikovsky had implied a 15 year period between the catastrophic appearances of Mars in the eight and seventh century BC. I would agree to this on the basis of additional data from the Olmec La Venta site, where five 'elaborate' graves were found (and four giant heads). Mars would have approached Earth five times in the sixty year period before the ellipticity of the Earth's orbit changed in 685 BC (or directly after), as I have noted elsewhere.

We thus have to look to the orbit of Mars to find the entry of the twins into the five overnight houses of Xibalba. It should also be noted that only two ball games are described by the "Popol Vuh," whereas the stay in 'test houses' are described five times. For One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu, five houses were described, which to Tedlock represent the repeating five cycles of the appearances of Venus. For Hunahpu and Xbalanque, however, an additional House (Fire House) has been added. Tedlock feels this is an addition to what may have been the original list. I agree, Fire House is not listed as the last house, as would be required if Hunahpu and Xbalanque were to die there. But Fire House possibly is the oven of Xibalba into which the twin jump at the end of the ball games. It would thus be appropriate to have an added house listed for Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

The Houses

We should be able to locate the houses, but it is difficult to guess when a 'house' would appear in the skies. What exactly did the "Popol Vuh" have in mind for the houses? I would assume (like Tedlock) that a 'house' is a zodiacal constellation, but we are hampered by the fact that only some of the Maya zodiacal constellations have been identified. And additionally we do not know when a particular zodiacal constellation would become significant.

To simplify the possible selections I will assume that, since the Earth shock of 747 BC involved the passage of Mars (inside the orbit of Earth) directly in line with the Sun, that the other four close passes of Mars happened in a repetition of this event, every seven cycles of the synodic period of Mars. The actual close passes by Earth may have been off by some days, and it would be unlikely that Mars again passed directly in front of the Sun, but the location of the Sun and Mars in the skies, and the zodiacal constellations where they would be located, would not change significantly even in a few weeks.

Thus we at least have starting points for the events. Two possibilities present themselves. First the possibility of Mars disappearing on superior conjunction with the Sun. This would have happened about 430 days after Mars made an inferior appearance near Earth. After the last inferior conjunction Mars disappear behind the Sun while in Pisces -- which is the Maya constellation Bat. But it is a solitary datum, although the "Popol Vuh" does list a Bat House. [note 11]

The other possibility is that the location of Venus was used at each of the inferior conjunctions of Mars. This method finds two 'houses' appropriately named, but out of order from the presentation in the "Popol Vuh" text -- Bat House (733 BC, Julian) and Jaguar House (703 BC, Julian). (Julian dates are here a year off from Gregorian dates.) We have no identification of Dark House, Cold House, or Razor House with the names of constellations. [note 12]

Bat house is seriously out of order from its presentation in the "Popol Vuh" where it is the last house to be visited. It is in Bat House where the boys decide to sleep inside their blowguns. In this manner it is probably appropriate to appear as the second house in my tabulation, for the 'blowguns' are probably the appearance of plasma plumes at the north and south pole, the result of an increased orbit of Earth after 747 BC. Because the increase in the orbit of Earth was minor, I would assume that the plasma plumes rose only some 5 or 10 Earth diameters, and thus perhaps did not curve into the extended magnetosphere. But Hunahpu sticks out his head to check if it is getting light yet, and looses it to a Snatch Bat. This can be understood as the appearance of a ball plasmoid at the end of one of the plumes, which soon disappeared again. The boys ask Old Man Possum to delay the dawn, and work on finding a substitute for Hunahpu's head. I have covered the appeal to Possum to make the stripes and delay the dawn in Chapter 5, "Saturn and Archaeology," under the heading of the Peratt Column.

Another problem with either of the suggestions listed above is that Mesoamerican practice was to attach significance to the completion, not to the beginning, of events. Thus Bat House would fall into the proper order as the last house, if, after January 26, 688 BC, we allow two weeks for Venus to move into the constellation Pisces, which is Bat House.

Despite this drawback, it seems likely that the torch and the two cigars, which were kept lit in Dark House by the twins, could be found. This event is clearly described in the text as the first of the test houses. I go thus, to the first instance of February 28, 747 BC (March 8, 748 BC, Julian).

Mars will not be seen in the night skies, for Mars is traveling with the Sun. At the end of the day on February 28th, after the Sun, with Mars close by, sets in the west, the torch and the two cigars show up directly above the setting location of the Sun. I'll suggest that the Pleiades represents the torch. Since the Maya had identified the cluster M-42 as a fire within the "three heartstones" of Orion, it seems reasonable to suggest a fire for the Pleiades also -- another close grouping of stars.

Image: A torch and two cigars above Mars and the setting Sun; the Pleiades as the torch, the variable stars Aldebran and Betelgues as the cigars.

The cigar tips might be represented by any of some five bright stars, all located above Mars and the Sun at this date. These are, from west to east: Capella, Elnath, Aldebran, Betelguese, and Rigel. Interestingly, two of these, Aldebran and Betelguese, are both variable stars, and either red or orange in color. They are also well above the equatorial, and thus unaffected by the remaining red equatorial ring, or by the shift in the location of the equatorial with respect to the dome of the stars after 685 BC.

Bowls of Flowers

Additionally, we cannot neglect the four bowls of flowers which the Lords of Xibalba insist on as a prize before the first ball game is played.

"What should our prize be?" asked the Xibalbans.
"It's yours for the asking," was all the boys said.
"We'll just win four bowls of flowers," said the Xilbalbans.
"Very well. What kinds of flowers?" the boys asked Xibalba.
"One bowl of red petals, one bowl of white petals, one bowl of yellow petals, and one bowl of whole ones," said the Xibalbans.

The colors are of course the directional colors, except for west, which would have been black. Now it is possible that what is meant here is the appearance of plasma plumes at the cardinal directions with ball plasmoids (the 'bowls') at the ends of the plumes and trifurcated plumes beyond these (the 'petals'). I can readily imagine this to be the case for the north and south pole, at least directly after 747 BC, but it is difficult to imagine plumes in the east and west. As I have indicated earlier, these might have been the sun-lighted portion of the last equatorial ring seen standing almost upright (at 20 degrees north latitude) in the east and in the west. It is possible that the 'bowls' at the end of the spikes of the equatorial rings is nothing less that the view into the denser portion of an equatorial toroid -- the Van Allen belts, which trap ions and electrons above the equator of the Earth. In the earliest representations in Sumer these are shown as narrow waving flags surmounted by a circle. In Egypt they are the two flag standards on the Palette of Narmer, but with hawks on top.

There may be a much simpler solution, for the "Chilam Balam" claims the descent of Mercury, apparently at the same time as the close passes of Mars. I'll quote the relevant phrases here without comment. See Chapter 16, "The Books of the Chilam Balam," for extensive speculation and comments on the meaning of these lines.

"With it descended Bolon Mayel [Nine Fragrances]; sweet was his mouth and the tip of his tongue. Sweet were his brains."

"Then descended the four mighty supernatural jars [or, two mighty demon bats], this was the honey of the flowers."

"Then there grew up for it the red unfolded calyx, the white unfolded calyx, the black unfolded calyx and the yellow unfolded calyx, those which were half a palm (broad) and those which were a whole palm (in breadth)."

"Then there sprang up the five-leafed flower, the five drooping (petals), the cacao (with grains like) a row of teeth, the 'ix-chabil-tok,' the little flower, 'Ix Macuil Xuchit,' the flower with the brightly colored tip, the 'laurel' flower, and the limping flower."

This cannot be either Mars or Venus, neither of which have a magnetic field, and would not support a 'flower shape' above or below their poles. This is Mercury. Mercury never comes as close to Earth as Mars does, except for a single instance in 686 BC. Here are the bowls of flowers, although I count 8 flower types.

Of course the boys collect the four bowls by having cutting ants steal them during the night from the Xibalbans. Only four bowls of flowers are required. I would suggest that these might have represented prizes for the four games which are played. The first game of 748 BC is played on Earth. The following four, 733, 718, 703, and 688 BC (all Julian), are played in Xibalba. But only three games are mentioned in the "Popol Vuh." The boys lose one game, play one to a draw, and win the game involving Hunahpu's head.

Into the Oven of Xibalba

After surviving the overnight stay in five houses, the Xibalbans attempt to trick the boys into jumping into their oven. But the boys respond with..

"Watch!" they said, then they faced each other. They grabbed each other by the hands and went head first into the oven."

Following Tedlock's suggestion, the day in 685 BC when the boys faced each other, held hands, and jumped into the oven, can be found as June 15, Gregorian. On the same day the Sun and Moon are in almost identical position to each other. I have supplied the details of this in Chapters 11 and 12. June 15 is 40 days, the time span specified by the "Chilam Balam," to the ending date, July 25, of the flareup.

The boys had requested two daykeepers to suggest to the Xibalbans that their bones be ground up and sprinkled in a river. The river, as always and elsewhere, is the ecliptic.

"The bones were ground and spilled into the river, but they didn't go far -- they just sank to the bottom of the water. They became handsome boys: they looked just the same as before when they reappeared."

"And on the fifth day they reappeared. They were seen in the water by the people. The two of them looked like catfish when their faces were seen by Xibalba. And having germinated in the waters, they appeared the day after that as two vagabonds, with rags before and rags behind, and rags all over too."

"They just sank to the bottom" -- of course. The planets may have lost their blazing looks, but they retained their shapes as star-like objects. Neither Venus nor Mercury were near the earth shortly after July 25, 685 BC, so they would most likely, except as noted below, have taken on their star-like shapes like today.

"On the fifth day they reappeared" -- The five day delay is likely a spectacular blazing of the Sun, perhaps lasting five days, and certainly obscuring any planets near the Sun, both during the day and the night. Venus, Mercury, and Mars were all in the same sector of the sky with the Sun. In Chapter 13, "The Sibylline Star Wars," I wrote..

"...the plasmoid would have had a diameter of perhaps 1.5 million miles. That is twice the diameter of the Sun. The plasmoid would have engulfed the Sun. At an estimated length of 15 million miles, the flash of the contact might have lasted 9 hours. It must have been seen all around the horizon, and the Moon [at night] would have lit up spectacularly. This describes the concluding event."

An event which would have made the Sun blaze for nine hours as a minimum, would have also taken some time to completely quiet down to the point where nearby planets could be seen again. But at that time the boys are seen as catfish, and then as covered in rags. Note that the four statements about the appearances of the boys do not make sequential sense -- they are handsome boys before they are catfish.

"[They] looked like catfish.." They did not. Catfish were seen, but these are more likely additional minor plasmoid bolts from Jupiter. Since these would have traveled in the ecliptic, they might easily be mistaken for Venus and Mercury, especially when it was unclear where these planets were. The catfish were seen while the day and night skies blazed with the reaction of the Sun to the initial plasmoid strike from Jupiter. Tedlock relates the catfish statement to catfish in the Great Hollow, and suggests that Xbalanque may have been a bass.

"They appeared the day after that as two vagabonds, with rags before and rags behind, and rags all over too." I would suggest, as always, that this is plasma flaring from the two planets, remnants of the previous flare-up in arc mode, but now reduced to glow mode, and representing plasma plumes pointing away from the Sun and toward the Sun, and "all over too."

As itinerant entertainers the boys entice the Xibalbans into asking to be sacrificed and to be brought back to life. It is done. One-Death and Seven-Death of the Xibalbans then ask to be sacrificed but they are not brought back to life, and with that Xibalba was defeated. The remaining vassals "took the road to the canyon, in one single mass they filled the deep abyss, and they all surrendered.

Hunahpu and Xbalanque set new rules for the behavior of the remaining Xibalbans. "Such was the beginning of their disappearance and the denial of their service." No humans would be attacked anymore.

I have wondered a long time about the Xibalbans, but at this point it becomes clear that the "Popol Vuh" is pointing to Mars and the Maruts which had devastated the world for over 120 years. Indeed, after Hunahpu and Xbalanque went up in snoke, the Earth, because its aphelion relocated and the orbit rounded soon after, was no longer troubled by the companions of Mars.

Book 3 closes with the grandmother Xmucane rejoycing when the maize plants left behind by the twins sprout again. "Corn plants grew, then dried up. And this is when they were burned in the oven: the corn plants grew again." We are seeing the polar plasma plumes, initially after 747 BC when the boys took off for Xibalba, and then again after 685 BC.

The boys also try to revive their uncle Seven-Hunahpu, but they fail. "And then the boys ascended this way, here [that is, toward Earth], into the middle of the light, and they ascended straight on into the sky, and the sun belongs to one and the moon to the other." It does not anywhere in the "Popol Vuh" say that they 'turned into' the Sun and Moon.

Image: The Moon near Venus, the Sun near Mercury, on August 23, 685 BC, Julian (August 16, Gregorian).

The suggestion that the Sun and Moon "belong to" the twins may be from the observation that after the start of the flare-up on June 15, Mercury moves west to the Sun and stood on the right on July 25th and continued to get closer, while the Moon, originally next to the Sun, moved east around the sky (three times) to end up next to Venus on August 16th. At that point the Moon is separated 3 degrees from Venus, and Mercury is separated 4.5 degrees from the Sun. (This could have been seen at sunset on this day.) Interesting! This is why the "Popol Vuh" noted that "the sun belongs to one and the Moon to the other."

Book 4: Tulan and the Seven Caves

Humans are created, this time from maize mash. Wandering tribes visit the Seven Caves and Tulan, the City of Reeds, where they receive their tribal Gods. The Sun still has not risen.

The Cornmeal Mountain

The Gods of the north discover how to make humans from maize meal and water. There is a reference to the location where the maize came from, called "Split Place, Bitter Water Place." Tedlock locates this as..

"The place in question is a high mountain just south of the Pan American Highway and near the Guatemalan border with Mexico, with a cave and a spring on its north side. Today the people of the surrounding region ... reckon it as the origin place of corn [maize]."

Perhaps the location of the origin for humans has been localized in the "Popol Vuh" or at least the source of maize has been found. The text mentions a mountain, filled with maize meal and food stuffs. However, I am more inclined to view this piece of information as anecdotal. (Stela 5, a sculpture at Izapa, dated to about 300 BC, shows the five Gods of creation extracting humans from some sort of tree and mountain.) It is never mentioned again.The "seven caves" are substituted for the location of human origin, a concept held by the Toltecs and also adopted by the Aztecs. It might be suggested that the "seven caves" were added from these later sources, except that the Inca also held that humanity originated from caves, localized by the Incas, as apparently do North American tribes. More on this later.

The maize meal (corn meal) used in the manufacture of humans is provided by Xmucane, the grandmother of the ball-playing twins. This places the maize-dough mountain in the era after 4200 BC.

"And then the yellow corn and white corn were ground, and Xmucame did the grinding nine times."

Andres Xiloj comments that nine grindings seem excessive. Three grindings produces a fine powder. But the text is being misread here. Xmucane did not grind the same maize nine times, but on nine separate occasions ground maize. This is fully in line with the doings of Bolon Dzacab ["Nine-Lives," Mars] during the period of 4200 BC to 3147 BC. Nine times a stream of white powder extended from Saturn to Earth, and nine times Bolon Dzacab ascended the plasma stream to Saturn. The parallel details are given in Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam," where it is noted that...

"Then a mass of maize-dough with the tips of corn-cobs remained here on earth."

The mountain of abundance is identified in like manner by the "Chilam Balam" as a list of food stuffs...

"Then shoots of the yaxum tree were taken. Also Lima beans were taken with crumbled tubercles, hearts of small squash-seeds, large squash-seeds and beans, all crushed."

"He wrapped up the seeds (composing) this first Bolon Dzacab ["Nine-Lives," Mars], and went to the thirteenth heaven."

"Then a mass of maize-dough with the tips of corn-cobs remained here on earth."

The Four First Fathers

The first four people, the first fathers, were created, modeled, at this time. They were named Jaguar Quitze, Jaguar Night, Not Right Now, and Dark Jaguar. This will turn out to be a strange reading of the records of antiquity, for it soon becomes certain that the four first fathers are the four beams of electrons seen overhead in the sky.

"Perfectly they saw, perfectly they knew everything under the sky, whenever they looked."

"The moment they turned around and looked around in the sky, on the earth, everything was seen without any obstruction."

"They didn't have to walk around before they could see what was under the sky; they just stayed where they were."

"They sighted the four sides, the four corners of the sky."

Their vision was perfect, and the Gods soon realize that their sight had to be limited or they would "become as great as gods." Heart of Sky marred their eyes..

"they were blinded as the face of a mirror is breathed upon. Their vision flickered."

Although the maize-mush mountain from which the first humans are derived dates from ca 4200 BC to 3147 BC, the four streaming beams of electrons, which are here equated to the first humans, are dated to the period (as best we know currently) of 8,300 to 4,200 BC.

Daniel G. Brinton, in "The Annals of the Cakchiquels" (1885), writes about the origins of the Guatemalan tribes, based on earlier researches by Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzman (in the 1600's)...

"Indeed, none of these affined tribes claimed to be autochthonous. All pointed to some distant land as the home of their ancestors, and religiously preserved the legends, more or less mythical, of their early wanderings until they had reached their present seats. How strong the mythical element in them is, becomes evident when we find in them the story of the first four brothers as their four primitive rulers and leaders, a myth which I have elsewhere shown prevailed extensively over the American continent, and is distinctly traceable to the adoration of the four cardinal points, and the winds from them."

I would disagree with the "adoration of the four cardinal points." To assign the four brothers or first fathers to the four streaks of electrons passing overhead periodically for perhaps for a period of decades or hundreds of years makes much more sense to me, especially when we see that they have one mother. That these four first humans or first leaders reappear in the legendary records of other Guatemalan nations only goes to prove that they all have a common source. Brinton suggests that these nation have been in Guatemala for 2000 years, based on language differences and their own legendary records, but he could only trace ancestors back to about AD 1380.

The four first fathers received wives, who just "came into being." And people multiplied, not only from the first four couples, but other also. Tribal names and lineages are recited by the "Popol Vuh." "There came to be many peoples in the blackness; they began to abound even before the birth of the sun and the light." All these people were in the east. "The east" is repeated any number of times, plus the identification of "in the grasslands." [note 13]

If this describes the original location of the Mesoamerican people, or, more likely the Olmecs, is would represent northern South America ("grasslands"). It is (somewhat later) associated with a citadel named "Tulan," the place of reeds, as well as "Zuyua," a name which has remained unidentified (except to mean "twisted" as in the linguistic use of riddles), and the "Seven Caves, Seven Canyons." This last is actually the fluted dome of water vapor seen in the far north, rising above the ocean after 4200 BC. The "Seven Caves" belongs to the genesis mythology of other American indigenous people, even if in the "Popol Vuh" it is always combined with the Tulan, the "place of reeds." [note 14]

"Tulan," or Tollan, on the other hand, is most likely the equatorial rings in the south. From the latitude of 7 to 10 degrees in northern South America the reeds, the equatorial rings, would have stood up high in the sky. A migration after 7000 BC to Central America, to a latitude of 15 to 22 degrees north, would have changed the view of the rings, bringing them considerably lower in the sky. There would be no question that the "place of the reeds" had been left behind. [note 15]

Waiting for Dawn

They continue to wait for the first dawning. They pray to the "god in the sky." Hearth of Sky is identified, but so are the entities in the north, with "Newborn Nanahuac" added. Tedlock points out that this is the Aztec deity Nanahuatl, "who throws a thunderbolt to open the mountain containing the first maize," where "Nanahuatl" means "warts" in Nahuatl. This clearly is Mars, seen close enough to Earth to show its pockmarked southern hemisphere. [note 16]

The 'opening of the mountain' is referred in Book 11 of the "Chilam Balam" as "And its word was a measurement of grace, a spark of grace, and it broke and pierced the back of the mountains." This can be explained in context, quoted from Chapter 17, "The Olmec Record of the Past," as follows...

This recounts the lowering of Mars to Earth. ... The plasma dome (or dome of water vapor) in the northeast is described as a mountain or a monument base. "Holes" are bored in the mountain, suggesting that, from the latitude of the Yucatan or Guatemala, Mars would have been seen as disappearing behind the 'mountain' -- "occluded" would be better description. The holes in the mountain are the fluted areas, described earlier.

The Tribal Gods

Still waiting for the dawn, and while in the east, they hear of and go to a citadel. The citadel, here called a 'mountain' is named Tulan Zuyua, Seven Caves, Seven Canyons. And here they receive their tribal gods.

"And they reached there at Tulan, all of them, countless people arrived, walking in crowds, and their gods were given out in order...."

The first four fathers of the Quiche nation receive Tohil (Mars), Auilix ("Lord Swallow," Mercury), Hacauitz (Jupiter), and Middle of the Plain. This last might be the Moon, although it is uncertain. That Tohil is Mars is without question, both etymologically (see Tedlock) and from his functions. Later Classical inscriptions assign this name to the "manikin sceptor," which, although I would assign it to Venus, is identified as God K or God GII, which I have assigned to Mars. Auilix is the swallow, the bird. From eastern Mediterranean use it would have to be Mercury.

The etymology of Hacauitz reduces to "a clear space" and "mountain" ("witz"), meaning a bald mountain. I have little doubt that this is Jupiter in his mountain form, brilliant enough to shine through the rings of the Absu, and can thus be located in a "treeless clear terrain." Middle of the Plain remains unidentified, but whereas Hacauitz shows up most notably after 2349 BC, at the same time that the Moon appears, I would guess that Middle of the Plain is indeed the Moon. Nothing more is ever said of Middle of the Plain. Further references to the Moon are to a Deer God, which I have already noted for Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam."

What is more interesting is that in the paragraph immediately following, the gods of other tribes are listed, the Tams and Hocs. It is Tohil (Mars). The "Popol Vuh" then goes into a justfication of why this was so, that is, why many tribes have Tohil as their God. Other tribes are mentioned, including "the Mexican people." Their languages changed when they left Tulan.

The assignments of the tribal Gods happens after 3147 BC, for they are unknown before that time, but in the "Popol Vuh" narrative the event is placed in remote antiquity, long before Saturn lights up in 4200 BC. We are placed thousands of years earlier, in the time of the 'cold snap' of 10,500 BC to 9,000 BC, called the Younger Dryas. We are notified that there was no fire at Tulan, except that the Tohil tribes had fire, generated by Tohil.

There are constant complaints of the cold, and then of a great downpour (of rain and sleet). The fires go out. The Quiche nation begs Tohil for the fire; it is given. The other tribes ask also, but are forced (by Tohil) to promise to have their hearts removed (in metaphorical language) in return for fire. They agree. This becomes the basis for future human sacrifices. [note 17]

There are more details in this Book. The various people leave Tulan Zuyua, still waiting for the dawn. Their travels are recorded: passing past a place called Great Hallow, a mountain called Place of Advice. "There was nothing to eat, nothing to feed on."

"And it isn't clear how they crossed over the sea. They crossed over as if there were no sea. They just crossed over on some stones, stones piled up in the sand. And they gave it a name: Stone Courses, Sand Banks was their name for the place where they crossed through the midst of the sea. Where the waters were divided, they crossed over."

"Where the waters were divided" describes the Absu at the time of the year near the equinoxes. Moses passed his people through the same divided waters.

They brought their Gods, Tohil, Auilix, and Hacauitz. Middle of the Plain, the Moon, is not mentioned. The tribal Gods are hidden, at the requests of the Gods. All this happens in darkness and cold. It is amazing how much of the "Popol Vuh" is given over to these descriptions.

The Dawning

And then the Sun rose. This is Saturn switching to arc mode in about 4200 BC. The sequence is incorrect, however. In the "Popol Vuh" the Sun rises directly after the darkness of the Younger Dryas ended in 9000 BC. But to have a newly rising sun dispel the darkness makes narrative sense.

"The sun was like a person when he revealed himself. His face was hot, so he dried out the face of the earth."

"..when the sun had risen just a short distance he was like a person, and his heat was unbearable."

"..it is only his reflection that now remains."

The Aztecs also had a notion that the present Sun seen in the sky was only a mirrored reflection of the actual Sun. The source for this came from the same set of ancient documents. As the "Popol Vuh" claims...

"As they put in the ancient text, 'The visible Sun is not the real one.'"

The text here suggests that Earth was relatively close to Saturn initially, and distanced over the next thousand years. The 'Sun,' as noted, rises only part way. At this point in time the tribal Gods suddenly turned to stone, as did many of the dangerous animals.

The tribal Gods are installed in hidden locations, Auilix (Mercury) in a canyon, Hacauitz (Jupiter) on a bald mountain or red pyramid, and Tohil (Mars) in the canyon of another mountain. The locations are named as familiar localities, so that it seems that the narrative is now solidly placed in Guatemala. Interestingly, no mention has been made of Kukulkan (Quetzalcoatl), who is the earlier Sovereign Plumed Serpent, and certainly a major deity in Mesoamerica. It is interesting that the "Popol Vuh" at this point, now that the tribal Gods have been localized, attempt to tell us that Tohil is the same as the God of the Mexican people named "Quitzalcuat." Tedlock disputes this as an error on the part of the "Popol Vuh" authors and suggests it may be political. I agree, but it may also reflect that the authors just did not find any references to Kukulkan in their sources, yet this was a major deity of both the Aztecs and the other Maya.

A people called "Sovereign Oloman" (Sovereign Ballplayers) is mentioned again as staying behind in the east. This is likely to refer to the Olmecs (rubber people, in our naming convention), and would represent Olmec San Lorenzo, La Venta, or Tres Zapotes. It is a reference to the later pilgrimage to the east undertaken by the Quiche, or actually another people who first obtained the insignias of office and the books for their own use.

At this point the translation of 'east' ought to be questioned, for the cardinal direction indicated by 'east' has switched a number of times from true east to north and back. This is, I suspect, the same confusion as in Egyptian mythology, where the phrase "direction where the sun rises" is always translated to "east" in rendering the records into English. The same in Greek, where "the land of the sunrise" -- Europa -- points to the northwest, not the east as seen from Greece. [note 18]

After the images of the tribal gods turn to stone, they still speak to the Quiche nation. They are seen in the form of young boys and, in fact, are seen bathing in the river. The river, of course, is the ecliptic. Without their earlier coma the planets became smaller visually. In the Mayan languages "small," or a diminuative prefix, is the designation for women and children. An enemy tribe sends two young girls, Lust Woman and Wailing Woman, to do their laundry in the river with instructions to seduce the boy-gods. Of course it is avoided through the intercession of the first four fathers.

The remainder of Book 4 is filled with tales of conquest and clever battle tactics. Some of it is reminiscent of the era of 747 to 687 BC, invoking four jars of bees and wasps as a weapon.

The Bundle of Flames

At the end of Book 4 the first fathers prepare to leave "We are going back." The first fathers do not die, they simply disappear, after leaving behind instructions and the wrapped "Bundle of Flames." They say, "We are going back to our own tribal place. Again it is the time of our Lord Deer, as is reflected in the sky."

The reference to "Lord Deer," would place this in 2349 BC when the Moon (Lord Deer) first showed up. It makes little sense chronologically, though. Tedlock hold that "Lord Deer" is likely a day-name designation, one of the four days by which new years are known. It could thus be a metaphor for "the time has come." Tedlock also notes that the place they are returning to is not identified as Tulan, or anywere "east," and is likely the location from which they originally came. For the first fathers, this would be the far south. They also say they are advising those who came with them "from the faraway mountains."

Jaguar Quitze leaves behind a sacred object, the "Bundle of Flames." About the "Bundle of Flames," the "Popol Vuh" reads...

"It wasn't clear just what it was; it was wound about with coverings. It was never unwrapped."

There is no question that the authors of the "Popol Vuh" are with this attempting to make sense of the "Bundle of Flames," which is a representation of the Jovian plasmoid of 685 BC. The indication here is that the Quiche received their religious induction quite late compared to other tribes of the Maya and the peoples of the Valley of Mexico. The authors are misreading, or failing to understand, their sources. From the confusion resulting from the attempts at a narrative from disparate sources it also looks like their books were received at third hand. The "Chilam Balam" records a much more orderly sequence of all the same events (and dated) which are here mixed together from what would have to be the same sources, since the same details are presented. (There is no mention of the plasmoid of Jupiter in the "Chilam Balam," except very indirectly.) But whereas the sequencing of events in the "Chilam Balam" closely matches the chronology already established from eastern Mediterranean sources, the "Popol Vuh" does not. Part of this might be the result of the forced attempt to make a sensible narrative of the story of the ballplaying twins. Even so, there are many details which go to support my original supposition, first gleaned from the "Chilam Balam," that the people of Mesoamerica had records dating back tens of thousands of years. Many details also come forward to augment the established 'mythological' history of the Earth.

Jaguar Quitze, Jaguar Night, Not Right Now, and Dark Jaguar instruct their sons to return, "Go see the place where we came from," by which is meant Tulan (Tollan), and which is accomplished in the next Book.

"The nature of their disappearance was not clear," reads the "Popol Vuh."

Book 5: The Quiche Nation

The second generation of Quiche make a visit to the east to obtain the insignias of chiefdom and copies of the writings of Tulan. The remainder of Book 5 deals with the political history of the Quiche in the last 500 years.

Three of the Quiche nation go east...

"'We are going east, where our fathers came from,' they said."

After listing their names, Noble Two, Noble Acutec, and Noble Lord, the "Popol Vuh" reads...

"So these are the names of those who went there besides the sea."

followed by ...

".. it was these same three who passed over the sea."

These are ambiguous statements, unless it is understood that "besides the sea" is meant as the other side of the sea. But the place is not identified as Tulan, Zuyua, or the Seven Caves.

"And then they came before the lord named Nacxit, the great lord and sole judge over a populous domain. And he was the one who gave out the signs of lordship, all the emblems...."

Tedlock notes that 'Lord Nacxit' is a title held by Quetzalcoatl in Nahuatl (Aztec) texts, and also that there is a Lord Nacxit mentioned in the "Chilam Balam" (Book 8 and 24) where he is associated with the Itzas (who are the misidentified Toltecs).

The insignias of office include a "canopy, throne, bone flute," and other stone-age paraphenalia, but not the "Bundle of Flames" which had been delivered by the earlier first fathers before they disappeared.

"So they came away bringing all these. Then, from besides the sea they brought back the writings of Tulan, the writings of Zuyua. They spoke of their investure in their signs, in their words."

Tedlock points out two things. First, that "their investure" is, literally, "that which has already entered," and, second, that the words "their signs" and "their words" referrs to the characters (glyphs) of the writings of Tulan. It suggests that the three returning Quiche leaders proved that it was their destiny to assume leadership.

"When Noble Two, Noble Acutec, and Noble Lord came back, they resumed their lordship over the tribes."

This starts to sound like Noble Two, Noble Acutec, and Noble Lord are intruders who are imposing their authority. That all this happened in remote antiquity can be gleaned from the fact that the "Popol Vuh" relates..

"This was when they were at Hacauitz. ... And they spent a long time there on that mountain."

As I have pointed out earlier, the mountain called Hacauitz is the lower plasma outpouring of Jupiter. So the location at this point in time, when the emblems of lordship are obtained, is entirely imaginary. The trip east to obtain the "signs of lordship" would have happened before 600 BC as a pilgrimage by another tribe to La Venta by the sea. The other tribe was most likely the people of Monte Alban. But as recorded in the Books of Tulan, it would look as if the Quiche had performed the trek.

The fact that the "Bundle of Flames" can be dated to 685 BC at the earliest, and, significantly, that it is not included with the listing of the insignias of office, is important in establishing the earliest date of a transmission of the Books of Tulan to other tribes in the region. What was still lacking after 685 BC, however, was a universal flux which would allow understanding the graphical books -- a script. The script was developed (as far as we currently can tell) at Monte Alban some time after 600 BC.

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Endnotes

Note 1 --

From Suzanne D. Fisher, translator of the text "Books of the Chilam Balam of Chumayel" by Antonio Mediz Bolio. [http://myweb.cableone.net/subru/Chilam.html]
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Note 2 --

Tedlock mentions in an endnote that in an earlier edition (1985) he translated "The Light that Came from Beside the Sea," as "The Light that Came from the Other Side of the Sea," as other translaters also have done. The older translation seems perfectly reasonable, since this is the description of the "first dawning," and might be understood to represents the time when Saturn went nova in ca 4200 BC.

This would have been seen in the northern skies, and thus above the northern ocean as seen either from the Veracruz region or from an earlier vantage point in northern South America adjacent to the Caribbean. Since all nations made note of the fact that Saturn "turned about itself incessently," it would have touched or dipped into the sea as seen at a latitute of 20 degrees north (Veracruz) or 10 degrees north (Venezuela). "From the other side of the Sea" would have been appropriate.
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Note 3 --

The "Popol Vuh" gives a rather lame excuse for sacrificing victims of other tribes by ripping out their hearts. It involves an unspecific promise to submit to this in exchange for fire, an exchange made in remote antiquity. The whole of this looks concocted, perhaps under the influence of Christianity, for the missionaries and Spanish conquerors banned the practice everywhere.
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Note 4 --

What is interesting about the diverse retellings (the "Popol Vuh" plus the Books of the "Chilam Balam) of these phenomena is that it suggests that there were variations in the glyphic books from remote antiquity, so that perhaps separate groups of allied tribes each kept records. That in turn suggest a widespread and uniform literacy in the Americas in remote antiquity. It is as likely, however, that the diversity of the readings arose from the application of a single script, developed much later, applied with some divergency to the uniform graphical records at hand.

The authors of the "Popol Vuh" obviously read graphic depictions of events in the past, which may not have sported any text. They managed to put together a cohesive narrative from these images, with no regard for the original sequencing. We should be reminded, however, that much of this 'story' preexisted among the Maya already for over a thousand years -- as depicted in murals and vases. In 2009 some excavated carved murals, depicting the celestial twins in activities later recalled by the "Popol Vuh," were dated as being 2000 years old.

It was a story different from the theology of Teotihuacan which seemed to have centered on the sacrifice of Venus to save the world from destruction. The "Chilam Balam" also tells a different tale, closer to what I understand as an actual recounting of the facts.
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Note 6 --

Dwardu Cardona, in "Darkness and the Deep" (AEON III), writes..

"Hesiod tells us that night preceded day: 'From chaos came black night, And night in turn gave birth to day.' Other philosophical myths from Greece, reversing the process described by Hesiod, imply that darkness was first and from darkness sprang chaos. Others claimed that chaos and darkness coexisted, as, for instance, Aristophanes: 'Chaos and Night and black Erebus and wide Tartarus first existed.'"

Cardona notes that these reversals are seen in other myths also.
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Note 7 --

For the year AD 1235 I get a last visibility of Venus in the northwest on June 13, Gregorian (June 6, Julian). By 7 pm Ursa Major is above the pole, then starts to 'fall down' in the west. The tree of the Milky Way, however, is not anywhere near. It stretches across the horizon at nightfall, but stands up straight after midnight and as Ursa Major touches the horizon in its fall. By that time Venus has long disappeared below the horizon. The Milky Way, in fact, does not go through Ursa Major or the polar stars.

If we go by a decorated pot from the Classical Maya era (the "Blowgunner Pot"), the scene changes. Hunahpu is shown on the right of the tree, and the constellation Scorpio is shown at the base of the tree, also on the right. The constellation Scorpio has the same name (and location in the sky) in Mesoamerica as in the Mediterranean region. To the left of the tree is the constellation Rattlesnake, equivalent to Sagittarius.

There are 13 constellations in the Mesoamerican zodiac, representing 28 days each. They are shown in the corrupted "Paris Codex." The assignment of names to the equivalent western zodiac is still uncertain, but Scorpio and Rattlesnake (along with Fish, Peccary, Bat, Vulture, and Jaguar) are well identified.

If the constellations are correctly identified and the tree is the Milky Way, then the view is at the south horizon, not the north. We cannot see Scorpio and Rattlesnake in the north skies. The placement of Venus (Hunahpu) to the right of the tree is correct (except for the timing of the rising of the tree), for the last visibility of Venus in June of AD 1238 would be in the west, actually the northwest, but still to the right of the tree as seen standing up from the south horizon.

The view from the north horizon reverses the constellations if one were to follow the view of the Milky Way overhead, and would be rendered upside-down with additional backward neck-craning. Only by doing the reverse, that is, by viewing the tree from the south horizon, are both the adjacent constellations and Venus placed correctly. Since the Milky Way stretches to the north, the bird Ursa Major would be adjacent to the Milky Way (at some moment of the day or night), although some 30 degrees removed. This also represents how Linda Schele sees the tree. But in other notes (on the images at Palenque) Friedel and Schele are emphatic that Wakah-Chan, the world tree, rose in the north.

Of course, I would like to see recognition of the fact that the tree to heaven and the bird at its top appeared in the north, not the south, and especially that the tree rose from the north horizon. But this seems to have been lost to the intervening years. The actions of Hunahpu and Xbalanque have also been relegated to the mythological past. The "Blowgunner Pot" specifically states the event of blowgunning Seven Macaw as happening in what ought to be 3149 BC. Actually, the pot reads, "He did it, Hun-Ahaw / on 1-Ahau / 3-Kankin / He entered the sky / Itzam-Yeh." Hun-Ahaw is Hunahpu, Itzam-Yeh is Seven Macaw. Friedel and Schele, in a footnote of "Maya Cosmos," suggest a translation of 'Itzam' as 'water wizard' and 'Yeh' as 'giver.' They also report from other sources that in the Classic Period 'Itzam' is used only with the glyph for God D, which I have elsewhere identified as Saturn.

A day of 1-Ahau 3-Kankin can be dated to -1.18.4.5.0; May 28, 3149 BC (Gregorian, August 13 correlation), as was done by archaeologists, 35 years before the retrocalculated date of 3114 BC for the "second creation," although 1-Ahau 3-Kankin recurs every 52 years. The next 1-Ahau 3-Kankin happens on May 16, 3097 BC (Gregorian), 52 years later, and 17 years after the accepted retrocalculated start of the "second creation."

The year 3149 BC is interesting, however, because it might represent the actual closing of the previous era. My estimate of the correct date of the start of the current era, based on subtracting six Baktuns of 400 solar years from 747 BC, was the year 3147 BC. Here we have a Classical Era Maya inscription, suggesting 3149 BC -- two years different, or, if I had properly started with 748 BC, one year. Other than this, I have not been able to backtrack the date on the blowgunner pot. Also, the Haab days were not devised until after 1492 BC.

The named date of 1-Ahau 3-Kankin occurs again on October 1, 655 BC (Gregorian), on 6.4.14.17.0 (August 13 concordance), 30 years after 685 BC.
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Note 8 --

If Ursa Major rotated at the pole, then Ursa Minor would look like a net being cast in a semi-circle each night.
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Note 9 --

See Simon Martin, in "A Broken Sky: The Ancient Name of Yaxchilan as Pa' Chan" (PARI Journal, 2004). Martin does not identify the glyph with the "third creation," however, but he does illucidate the glyph used as the name for Yaxchilan. See also Chapter 19, "The Day of Kan," for additional discussion of the efforts of scribes at Yaxchilan to establish connections with the past.
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Note 10 --

"Migrant groups are noted in the southern states [of the USA] in March. The earliest Swainson's hawks arrive in southern Canada in late March." -- wikipedia
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Note 11 --

The following are the disappearnces of Mars behind the Sun, some 430 days after an inferior conjunction with Earth, based on visual estimates.

Mars and Sun in conjuction -- Julian ephemeris dates inferior conjunction superior conjunction days diff house (ballgames) (house stay) ---------------------- ------------------------ --------- ------- Mar 19 748 BC Pisc May 31 747 BC Gemini 438 * Mar 4 733 Pisc Mat 14 732 Tau/Gem 436 Feb 21 718 Pisc Apr 23 717 Taur 427 Feb 7 703 Aqua Mar 31 702 Aries 417 Vulture (Jan 30 702 Gregorian) Jan 26 688 Aqua Mar 4 687 Pisc 402 Bat (Jan 19 687 Gregorian) * - includes a change in orbit

Only some the 13 Maya zodiac constellations have been identified with western zodiac constellations. Pisces is the Bat; Aries is the Vulture. The data for 733 BC and 703 BC may be in error, if we assume that Patten and Windsor are correct in assuming that the contacts with Mars alternated between a spring and fall date.
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Note 12 --

Visual estimates of inferior conjuctions of Mars inside Earth's orbit ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Julian date Julian day diff Sun in Venus in notes -------------- ---------- ---- ------ -------- ---------------- Mar 19 748 BC 1448293 - Pisc Aqua Feb 28 747 Greg Mar 4 733 1453757 5464 Pisc Pisc Bat House Feb 21 718 1459224 5467 Pisc Aqua Feb 7 703 1464689 5465 Aqua Capr Jaguar House (Jan 30 702 Gregorian) Jan 26 688 1470156 5467 Aqua Aqua (Jan 19 687 Gregorian) Notes: - The difference in Julian days should be 7 multiples of the synodic period of Mars, approximately 5460 days. - The constellation Pisces is the Maya constellation Bat. - The constellation Capricorn is the Maya constellation Jaguar.

Venus would be in Scorpio or Capricorn (Jaguar House) in late October of 733 BC; in Scorpio (Scorpion) or Sagittarius (Rattlesnake) in October of 703 BC.
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Note 13 --

The "Popol Vuh" here also mentions mountain people, all speaking the same language, which may, as Tedlock notes, identify the Quiche. However, the reference to mountains remains. Tedlock also notes that this might be an identification of the Quiche tribes as "rustic and small in numbers by comparison with the lowland Mayans." (And he notes that at a later time the Quiche are described as "adorned with mere animal hides," and as hunters rather than farmers. All this applies during the Classic Era of the Maya. It may also represent the intrusion of occasional references to actual late historical conditions into the story of a mythological past which was being read from source books and was understood to represent the history of the Quiche in remote antiquity, even though in actuality it was a record of the history of another people from who the books were obtained.

As an added note on the confusion which will surround the use of the word "east," it should be noted that a tribe known as "Oloman," a word which in Nahuatl means "ball player" (ollomani), remains behind in the east. Tedlock has another location in Guatemala in mind, but in the current context of Book 4 it is probably a reference to the Olmecs (ball players) of La Venta, who stay behind in the east after the visiting dignitaries of Monte Alban return west with their insignias of office and copies of the sacred books -- a suggested series of event which I have already described in Chapter 16, "The Chilam Balam."
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Note 14 --

Tedlock notes the similarity to the "Seven Caves" as a place of origins of the Toltecs or Aztecs (the Nahua), and point to the fact that many citadels include caverns dug under the above-ground structures of the Maya. At Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico this includes six side chambers, looking in fact much like the chambered barrows of western Europe. From this it might be inferred that the "Seven Caves" originally were part of a Peratt instability of the northern plasma stream after ca 4200 BC, rather than the mountainous vapor dome at the north horizon.
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Note 15 --

Tedlock notes that the "Annals of the Cakchiquels" indicate that there are four locations of Tulan, one in Xibalba, one in the sky, and two on Earth -- in the east and in the west, which inadvertently describes a ring surrounding the whole of the Earth. The Annals also suggest that "Zuyua," as in "Tulan Zuyua" of the "Popol Vuh," is the Tulan of the east, to where the tribes of the "Popol Vuh" travel to obtain their insignias. The "Annals of the Cakchiquels" is another Guatemalan document, originally dating to AD 1571, recounting the history of the Kakchikels nation, and an earlier mythology wherein the people also originated in Tulan in the east, although they originally set out from the west.

Brinton, in his introduction to the "Annals of the Cakchiquels," writes...

"..we hear of the city of the sun god, Tulan or Tonatlan, as the place of their origin, of the land Zuiva [Zuyua] and of the Nonoalcos.."

The separation of the city (Tulan) from a country (Zuyua) makes sense of the use of Zuyua both in the "Popol Vuh" and the "Chilam Balam," although based on Aztec mythology.

In fact, the "Annals of the Cakchiquels" do not use "east" and "west." The "Annals" read...

"And I shall write the sayings of our earliest fathers and ancestors, Gagavitz the name of one, Zactecauh the name of the other; and these are the sayings they spake as we came from the other side of the sea, from the land of Tulan, where we were brought forth and begotten by our mothers and our fathers, oh my children, as said of old the fathers, the ancestors, Gagavitz and Zactecauh by name, the two heroes who came from Tulan and begot us, the Xahila."

Three paragraphs later the "Annals of the Cakchiquels" reads...

"These are the sayings of Gagavitz and Zactecauh, and these are the very words which Gagavitz and Zactecauh spoke: "Four men came from Tulan; at the sunrise is one Tullan, and one is at Xibalbay, and one is at the sunset; and we came from this one at the sunset; and one is where is God."

"Therefore there are four Tulans, they say, oh our sons; from the sunsetting we came, from Tullan, from beyond the sea; and it was at Tullan that arriving we were brought forth, coming we were produced, by our mothers and our fathers, as they say."

Note that the fact that there are four Tulans is an interpretation by the narrator. As I mentioned in the text, the four locations probably describe the equatorial rings. But the city of Tulan is also obviously confused with the location of the origin of the people, the Seven Caves. It is interesting that the document locates Tulan on the "other side of the sea." "...we came from the other side of the sea, from the land of Tulan," and later, "we came to Tulan in the darkness and the night," and, after considerable travels, "and departing they arrived at the place called Tapcu Oloman." They "took counsel there," and "first unloosed our burdens."

As I have pointed out above, "Tapcu Oloman" is the place of the ballplayer. The Kakchikels are here recounting the migration of the Olmecs as their own. The "other side of the sea" might be the Caribbean Sea between northern South America and Central America, just as it may also be the sight north into the Caribbean and the Atlantic, beyond which could be seen the plasma contact location of the stream from Saturn.

Just to add one more twist, "coming from the west" might also represent the migration of the Olmecs into Veracruz, Mexico, from the Pacific coast region of Guatemala.
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Note 16 --

The other name in the list which is new at this point in the "Popol Vuh" is "Falcon," although it is unclear if this is a epithet for Mars and is listed right after "Newborn Nanahuac, Sudden Nanahuac," or for Venus, whose names, "Hunahpu" and "Sovereign Plumed Serpent," follow next. Tedlock in his glossery suggests Venus. An earlier use in the "Popol Vuh" of a facon is the bird which would come to watch One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu, at their ball game, "the messenger of Hurricane, Newborn Thunderbolt, Sudden Thunderbolt," which I suggested was the vulture apparition seen in the south skies between 9000 BC and 6000 BC. In effect this was Saturn moving north from the equatorial region, but actually Earth falling below Saturn's equator. This would have been seen as some huge object traveling from east to west daily or nightly for thousands of year, and progressively moving further north. (See Chapter 5, "Saturn and Archaeology.") The "Falcon" also recalls the Egyptian Falcon deity, which I have suggested is Horus/Mars, although this may also have its genesis in the earlier bird apparition.
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Note 17 --

The same endless rains are recorded as occurring after the darkness in Japanese mythology.
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Note 18 --

Europa, land of the sunrise, either points northwest to the plasma dome seen in the north Atlantic, or to the actual location where the globe of Saturn would first be seen moving up from the horizon if the rotational axes of Earth and Saturn did not line up.
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