Measures of Maya Life
The Maya counting/measuring system is recognized as one
of the most accurate known to man. The Dresden Codex has a very complete
compilation of astronomical sightings. Their tropical year differs less than 20
minutes from our modern calculations done with computers. Such accuracy could not
have been done by random pen and ink calculations alone. Nor could it have been
done without a thorough education in astronomy.
Although little known, there is such an item as an abacus used within the
Meso-American cultures. A recent book explaining the usefulness of the Maya
abacus is called "Nepoualtzitzin, Contemporary Nahuatl Mathematics" published
by the Public Secretary of Education of Mexico. The author Lic. Romero Murguia
sent me an abstract of this book recently. There is one small sentence about the
origins of the Nepoualtzitzin (prehispanic computing system) which reads:
The origin of this prehispanic computing system has been traced
from its Olmec roots.
The word Olmec within itself has the clues of the system: OLLIN which means:
movement, and MECATL: ("Mecate") a henequen rope, a line or "lineage",
and "measure" (because the rope is used to measure). . . . so another meaning
of Olemca, besides referring to the people that used to live in the
"Country of Rubber" (Ollin-Ulli - Hule) could be "the Measurers of Movement."
(cosmic movement).
In the Mixtec Codex, the Vindobinennses, several of the figures are measuring
stone for the pyramids. They are using ropes. 
In the Tepantitla complex at Teotihuacán, the mural also contains
a verification of the concept of "measuring (something) with a rope." On the
mural, the figure is shown standing half way up the side of the mountain
It was then I remembered a vase displaying cords which blocked out the
gods of the Underworld. Then came "What if. . .?" What if the most important
phrase in the above quote is not the explanation of Olmec, but the small note
attached: "Because the rope is used to measure".
Much has been said about ropes from Heaven (U-tab: cords of the sun) without
any real knowledge of what it means. Here a native Meso-American using ancient
calculations, just happened to remember that a rope is used for measuring and
added the phrase to the abstract as an afterthought.
With this simple phrase, one can now understand if the gods of the underworld
are constellations or star units (i.e. the sun). They were "tied together" into
rope blocks, as a year bundle is measured or counted. Even though the "rope" was
known to be an important symbol to ancient Meso-Americans, it has only been
assumed to be the mystical union of man and gods just as an umbilical cord
connects a child to its mother. Yet here it is part of the solar year binding
bundle concept.
The gods of the underworld (star forms under the earth), on the vase shown
here, are involved in a time element. That time element is portrayed by the
activities of the headless bird, with the head of Ka'wil hanging from a cord,
and the tail of the "cigar cricket" found in the of the Tapachula jungles of
Chiapas, Mexico.
The cigar cricket is an oversized brownish insect with transparent wings which
has a great hole in its abdomen, large enough for a the little finger to be
inserted. Hence its name "cigar." For a bird to have this shape, we must
consider a "smoke hole" of some sort, which appears on this bird (outlined in
red) not only in its tail, but also at the tips of its wings. Historically, a
great bird with smoke or fire steaming from its tail and feathers is nothing
more than a great comet. Few of us have ever seen such a comet except in
photographs. And although those photos are beautiful and colorful, such a comet
has not been visible to the naked eye in the last sixty years.
The text describes this bird as the Muan bird or the owl, but does not explain
about the hole in the tail and wing feathers, nor the cigar element in the forehead
of the bird. The other figures on the vase are the Cauac Monster (earth), the Young
Sun God, the god known as GI, thought to be the decapitator god, and the Jaguar
God of the Underworld. The glyphs starting at A1:
(A1) Missing),
(B1) 12 or 13 Muan (month)
(C1) was born,
(D1) Personal name,
Title?,
(E1) 5 sky (title?),
(F1) Cauac variant (as Nominal phrase)
and ends with
(G1) Caan (Sky).
. . .(Tercera Mesa Redonda de
Palenque, 1978)
The headless bird is portrayed in every part of the New World, while the
Ka'wil cigar head is shown on many carved stone panels. Old codices show either
the bleeding neck of a bird form, or a monster-like head held by the hairs.
With these forms, it has been believed that there is a "decapitator" ceremony
in their religion. Men are supposedly decapitated for the sake of religion
instead for political executions or for their henious crimes. The "cigar"
designation, also shown as a prominent form in the headdress of God K, but has
never been explained except as a smoking element. Here it has a connection with
the shape of a cigar and the acceptable but invisible concept of fire within it.
The cigar element is also associated with the Twins of the Popol Vuh. It does not
necessarily have to refer to the insect as a whole unit, just its rear end that
looks like a cigar with the fire dug out of it.
Now, if the rope image is part of a counting or measuring system for the
smoke or fire tailed bird, then there is a good chance there are numbers involved
in the presentation on the vase. The E-1 glyph indicates "5 sky" as a possible
title. But it seems that no one has considered that 5 sky might also read "Fifth
Heaven" which in Aztec lore contains " Smoking stars or comets." (Leon-Portilla,
p. 49-52) The glyphs do tell us that the "earth and sky" were involved in the
event portrayed on the vase, but because Aztec lore is considered separate from
Maya glyphs, there is no connection made here between the two cultures.
Shown on this vase, there is a rope concept for "binding" the both earth
and sky elements together: that of the Young Sun and the Sun of the Underworld,
the Jaguar. There is also a smoking concept verified by the insect form of
Chiapas, together with the Aztec designation of the fifth level of Heaven to
"prove" that the event is celestial. As for numbers, I count twenty-one
sections to the rope which attaches the bird's head to its body. However, this
does not give us any recognizable count in Maya astronomy. Twenty would be twenty
months of the year. Would twenty-one be the number of months the comet was
viewed from the earth as it lost its head?
In spite of the lack of numerical information other than the numbered
layer of Heaven, this is a vase commemorating a comet which, flying as a bird
with fire from its wings and from its tail, lost its head. Only a god can lop
off the head of a fiery comet. There is no human decapitation ceremony here,
only a sky event. This event can be found in most of the cultural myths
of the world, but because symbols are used in most cases, one must decipher
the symbols before the whole story can be read. In the Maya languages, part
of the glyphs should be read as individual words, but there are some glyphs
that can be read as whole concepts, sentences if you will. Linda Schele
discovered such a glyph when she heard the phrase "to touch the earth" and
was told that it actually meant "to be born."
I also found a phrase that I have seen on several glyphs, that of a square
eye, which is a phrase I
heard at a baptismal party from a gentleman of Texcoco. It means: "to be amazed,"
or in today's vernacular,
"I can't believe what you just told me!" It could relate to how far a ship traveled,
or how a man ran ten
miles in a quarter of an hour, or much simpler, how a diver entered with the water
without a splash.
How many more insignificant phrases can be found in the glyphs that can explain
the text we want to
read?