Dear Milo
Rea Gardner, Feb 4th, '94 (12
Chicchan)
Peter Meyer
sent me the letters of Oct 23rd and Dec 23rd that you wrote to him concerning
things Mayan. I would like to discuss some of the points you bring up. First
off, I think it's wonderful you are teaching children about sundials, time,
astronomy and calendars. Also, deciphering the Dresden Codex, along with
Mayan Calendrics in general, is certainly a rich field to be involved in right
now—many breakthroughs are waiting around the corner. I'll go through your
letters sequentially and bring up issues as I read.
I'm unsure
what you mean by the "fourth Mayan Calendar". Do you refer to the
Grolier Codex? I understand this contains Venus tables similar to those in
the Dresden. The Sky in Mayan Literature is an incredible compilation,
with me since last July. As well, the recent Schele and Freidel offering,
Maya Cosmos, contains many new ideas. I'm
Lounsbury
champions the old Thompson correlation of 1930 (corr# 584285), while Thompson
himself revised it 2 days in 1950 (corr# 584283). This revision occurred as a
result of reevaluating the Landa material as well as the overwhelming
ethnographic evidence of the tzolkin count still being followed in the
Highlands of Guatemala, supporting the 584283.
As far as
Lounsbury's paper on "1.5.5.0", I take note of Lounsbury's reference
to Thompson's dubious claim that 1.5.5.0 was a scribal error for 1.6.0.0.
Lounsbury's discovery here seems valid, but in any case is workable from the
standpoint of either correlation. Why? Lounsbury's support for the old 584285
correlation goes back to at least 1983 with the publication of "The Base
of the Venus Table of the Dresden Codex..." (Calendars of Mesoamerica
and Peru, ed. Aveni). This paper attempts to correlate a 1 Ahau 18 Kayab
date in the Dresden with an actual morningstar appearance of Venus. Lounsbury,
I believe, succeeds in doing this, but the necessity of using the old 584285
correlation number doesn't follow. For several reasons. Yes, on Nov. 20th, 934 A.D. (Julian) Venus does emerge as
morningstar, figured to be 4 days after inferior conjunction. And yes,
according to the 584285 this would have been precisely 1 Ahau 18 Kayab.
But Lounsbury puts too much importance on exact accuracy to support his a
priori assumptions. The date cited represents a Sacred Day of Venus, the
beginning of a new Venus Round period of some 104 years.
Why does he
assume that there must be a 0 deviation at this time? Why not make corrections
half-way through the Venus Round? This would create a mean deviation of 2.6
days when the Sacred Day of Venus came around. And if they used the corrections
that Thompson proposes, implemented after 61 Venus cycles, again we would
not expect a 0 deviation when Lounsbury suggests. Most importantly, the synodic
Venus cycle varies between 580 and 588 days from cycle to cycle. This
suggests that the Maya, rooted in actual observations, understood the approximate
nature of their prediction system; the degree of accuracy that Lounsbury demands
is simply not present. So, as Dennis Tedlock notes in his book The Popol
Vuh (pg 238), "the astronomical basis of his argument could easily
be two days off." (This was relayed to Tedlock in
a personal communication from John B. Carlson). The fact that Lounsbury
pinpointed an actual Sacred Day of Venus should still be recognized; the two
day deviation is irrelevant. Unfortunately, Lounsbury continues his assault
in "A Derivation of the Maya-to-Julian Calendar Correlation from the
Dresden Codex Venus Chronology." (The Sky in Mayan Lit.) Let's
look closely at this paper, and observe Lounsbury's clever technique of circular
logic. (First, you may want to refer to my full argument
against Lounsbury's 1983 paper in the enclosed excerpt from my recent
book).
The deleted analysis of Lounsbury’s 1992
essay was refined and posted online; it is here.
So, if you
are referring to this correlation question when you say that "Lounsbury's
ideas should be stressed rather than Thompson's views," I suggest you
reconsider and remember that there are millions of Maya involved in this issue.
In Mayan Calendrics, Peter Meyer rightly uses "Thompson’s" 584283
correlation of 1950 as a default because it corresponds to the count used by
the present day Maya and is supported by astronomical arguments as well as
ethnographic and historical sources (See Munro Edmonson, 1988 The Book of
the Year).
So I hope
this has been informative for you, and ultimately I don't know where you stand
on these matters. So don’t take offense if I seem extreme—I simply champion the
true count, and have little patience for academics (like Lounsbury) hurling
abstractions from the Ivory Tower while the Maya themselves dodge bullets and
cling to what little continuity of tradition remains for them. And it is rather
amazing to think that the tzolkin calendar still followed in the remote areas
of Guatemala is the last link in an unbroken calendar tradition almost 3,000
years old.
Best Wishes,
Note: This correspondent also wrote to Linda Schele on these matters. She responded with her two famous posts to the new Aztlan e-mail list in 1996. I responded with my “Response to Counterarguments” essay, reproduced in an appendix to Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 (1998).