Jaguar Prophets

OK, OK, I know this is a rather dramatic picture above, and it is not really the Jaguar Prophet I mention in this post, but I liked it! It is called Jaguar Moon, and I am using it.

Despite all the hurly burly that surrounds the supposed doomsday of 12/21/12, if we look at factual Mayan sources, there are only a couple that even mention it.  The end of the Long Count calendar is mostly a non-event to ancient and contemporary Mayans. Let us look at a few source materials that do mention the date.

There is a group of prophecies that were made after the Spanish conquest of the Mayans that were translated to a sort of abbreviated Spanish.These prophesies were given by Chilam Balam, or the Jaguar Prophet. I have to say there is a lot of argument over the translations and meanings of the passages in the documents. But one passage does indeed mention the 13th b'ak'tun, which is the doomsday date. I won't reproduce the passage here, as few of you read ancient Mayan, (;)) but an archeaoastronomer, Maud Worcester Makenson, has translated the passage to mean the following :

"Presently B'ak'tun 13 shall come sailing, figuratively speaking, bringing the ornaments of which I have spoken from your ancestors.........Then the god will come to visit his little ones. Perhaps 'After Death' will be the subject of his discourse."

As you can see, that translation can easily be manipulated by Doomsday theorists into talking about the end of the world. But more recent translations suggest that the Doomsday date is not even mentioned in the prophecies. Another translator takes the passage to mean:

.                      "...like the coming of 13 sail-ships. When the captains dress themselves, your fathers will be taken".

Again if I want to read Doomsday into this I could. But more likely it could have referred to the Spanish conquest of the Mayans. Or it could be the lyrics to a David Bowie song .

I mention this just to show how source texts can easily be corrupted by sensationalists for their own purposes. Next post we will look at another source for the widespread doomsday theory. 

J.T. Turner

Mayanist