Parallel scenes from three carved bones from Tikal Burial 116: (a) frst scene, TIK MT-38a; (b)
second scene, TIK MT-38c; (c) third scene, TIK MT-38d. (https://www.academia.edu/44046566/Disaster_Deluge_and_Destruction_on_the_Star_War_Vase)
Ever since I proposed that the Paddler Gods, "companioned" (that is, in conjunction) on the Creation Day, were Mercury and Venus (see https://firstjaguaronelord.blogspot.com/2021/12/creation-day-8-september-3114-bc-and.html), I've been intrigued by the Tikal bones. Three of these portray a canoe journey of the Maize God and various animals. I did not know enough about these bones to venture making any kind of guess as to their meaning until I read Marc Zender's excellent "Disaster, Deluge, and Destruction
on the Star War Vase", published in 2020.
Zender has shown that this canoe event involved "a heavenly ‘deluge’... at the core of the ‘star war’ verb." He relates the scene portrayed on the Tikal bones to one depicted on the Star War Vase.
Rollout image of the Star War Vase. Photographs by the author, orthorectifcation and composition
by Simon Martin.
The first thing that occurs to me is that if we are talking about Mercury and Venus as the Paddlers, then the canoe of the Tikal bones with its seven passengers pretty clearly must represent the ecliptic - or a portion of the ecliptic - and the seven visible planets. It is probable that the Maize God is, in this context, the Sun. It has been surmised that he may also stand for the dead king Jasaw Chan K'awiil I (Ruler A).
The next question I asked myself was this: where might the ecliptic canoe carrying the Sun God and the other planets encounter a heavenly Flood? The only place I could think of was the Scorpius-Sagittarius head of the Milky Way, a watery place designated as Matwil or 'Place of Cormorants' by the Maya of Palenque (https://firstjaguaronelord.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-gods-of-palenque.html).
The calendar round date 6 Akbal 16 Zac is critical to our understanding of this astronomical motif. As Zender points out, the date is applied to the action on the vase as well as to that on all three Tikal bones. Clearly, something very important was thought to have happened anciently, in the remote mythical past, on this particular date. It involved the Sun being subjected to a deluge, i.e. his exposure to or submersion in the Scorpius-Sagittarius end of the Milky Way.
Unfortunately, the number of possible dates for 6 Akbal 16 Zac are many. Without the patience to sift through every single one of them, I found myself looking for other clues. The first was that the various canoe scenes all present us with a different ordering of the passengers. And that means that each has a different ordering of the planets. The only possible conclusion we can reach regarding this change of order is that each scene shows a different 6 Akbal 16 Zac occurrence.
Now, we know (I'm here going by CHRONICLE OF HTE MAYA KINGS AND QUEENS by Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube) that Ruler A celebrated his accession on 682, while his son and successor acceded to the throne in 734. The 6 Akbal 16 Zac dates that occurred during Ruler A's reign were as follows (NOTE: I am using the FAMSI converter at http://research.famsi.org/date_missing_parts.php; different correlations used there still result in 4 dates happening within the lifespan of Ruler A):
09.12.14.07.03 Sunday, September 5, 686 AD 6 Ak'bal 16 Sak
09.14.11.17.03 Wednesday, September 12, 723 AD 6 Ak'bal 16 Sak
09.14.17.00.03 Wednesday, September 5, 728 AD 6 Ak'bal 16 Sak
09.15.02.01.03 Wednesday, August 30, 733 AD 6 Ak'bal 16 Sak
It is possible, therefore, that the three different occurrences of the 6 Akbal 16 Zac event portrayed on the bones can be assigned to three of these dates.
However, that doesn't really help us with learning more about the original mythological event that underpins the significance of 6 Akbal 16 Zac.
This is where I come back to the image found on the Star War Vase. Why two Maize Gods? And why are they, as it were, divided or separated from each other by the monkey? As remarked upon above, the monkey is one the seven visible planets. But here he seems to play another role: that of a celestial marker of some kind.
Suspecting that the deluge event was the Sun entering the Milky Way, I began to wonder if the two Maize Gods might perhaps be the Sun of Summer and the Sun of Fall, with the Fall Equinox differentiating them. Could I find an instance, then, when the Fall Equinox fell at or very close to the point where the Sun entered Matwil at a 6 Akbal 16 Zac date?
Well, there was one such:
01.11.18.06.03 Saturday, October 14, 2485 BC 6 Ak'bal 16 Sak
(Correlation 584281)
This appears in the sky like this:
The moon is not significant here, being at 0.1% illuminated fraction or 0.2d before new moon at noon. It is new moon at 3:40 p.m., well before it sets. And we must bear in mind that the planets on the ecliptic canoe travel east to west, despite the fact that as the days progress, the sun enters and sinks deeper into the Milky Way. The Sun was at the equinox point on the 12th, and enters the Milky Way between the 15th and the 16th. Between the 14th and the 15th, Jupiter is right next to the sun.
What we have, then, is this:
Mercury Mars Sun/Jupiter Venus
We may compare this with the configuration of the Star War Vase:
Paddler Dog Two Maize Gods/Monkey Paddler
Once again, I realize this might all be coincidence. However, there does appear to be a distinct correlation between the planets and the figures on the vase.
Jupiter as a monkey is rather surprising. But I do recall that the days for monkey in the Aztec and Maya calendars - Ozomahtli and Chuen, respectively - have a connection with the Nahuatl god Xochipili. This 'Flower Prince' deity has strong solar associations. Otherwise, we find monkeys in Aztec religion more closely associated with the wind god, Ehecatl, who was an aspect of Quetzalcoatl. Dennis Tedlock thought that the monkey twins in the POPOL VUH were the planet Mars.
THE AUTUMN EQUINOX AND TROPICAL STORMS/HURRICANES
Historically, September (of the Autumnal Equinox) was the worst of the storm and hurricane months. The following selection is from
"Historical records of hurricanes in the North
Atlantic are reasonably accurate after about 1871,
though accuracy is suspect until airborne tracking
began in the 1940s.1
Records indicate that 56 hurricanes struck the Yucatan Peninsula between 1871
and 2005, not including an even larger number of
less-severe tropical storms (Neumann et al. 1999;
Pereira and Vester 2000; Boose et al. 2003; NOAA/
NHC 2006). Thus, on average, hurricanes strike the
Yucatan Peninsula about once every 2.5 years. Furthermore, hurricanes or tropical storms strike on average one per year. Yet, these averages mask considerable irregularity in frequency. Within the period of
record there are years with multiple hurricane strikes
and periods of up to eight years without a single
strike. September has experienced the most frequent
and strongest hurricanes, with slightly lesser rates of
occurrence in August and October; however, hurricanes can and have struck the Yucatan Peninsula in
June, July, and November (Boose et al. 2003)."
Interestingly enough, in Taino religion the great spirit of the year dies on the Autumnal Equinox:
"The dance of the Sun’s Path is celebrated by observing the four seasonal stations of the year: Spring Equinox (considered the birth time of Lord Yoka Hu the Spirit of Life), Summer Solstice (considered the moment when Lord Yoka Hu reaches maximum power and glory), Fall Equinox (considered the end-moment in Yoka Hu’s life at the climax of the deadly hurricane season when he dies and begins his journey to the land of the departed ones, the abode of the ancestors, Coa Bay at the very womb of his mother, the spirit Ata Bey), and finally Winter Solstice (considered the moment when Yoka Hu finally reaches the warm nurturing place of re-conception, the place in which he will then gestate in fetal form for about three months until he is again re-born at Spring Equinox just to start the cycle all over again)."
"We believe that Yoka Hu is born of his Earth-and-Water Mother, Ata Bey, at Spring Equinox. He rises to full maturity and strength at Summer Solstice and then decilnes during the stormy, hurricane-blown weeks at the end of the summer season to finally die at the Autumnal (Fall) Equinox.
The Autumnal Equinox represents the moment when our beloved Life Spirit, Yoka Hu begins his journey to the realm of the dead. He descends to the watery underworld at the center of Ata Bey's womb
called "Coa Bay", a place that can be accessed spiritually through sacred caves. Yoka Hu goes there to be finally re-united as a germinal embryonic being with his mother's uterus. At Winter Solstice, this powerful male spirit overcomes the rigors of Death and Hardship that characterizes the hurricane-driven late Summer and Fall. There he awaits rebirth during the dry Winter months, a period of time which, in the Caribbean, hold very little rainfall and constrain the ability for plant-life to regenerate. Finally in the
Spring Equinox Yoka Hu is re-born from his mother's womb and the cycle begins all over again.
The first ceremonial date is the date of Fall Equinox itself, usually around the 20th or 21st of September. That is the actual date when Yoka Hu dies and crosses over. Yoka Hu is an agricultural plant spirit (his name means "Soul of the Yuca Plant"), a spirit that represents the natural life-cycle of a plant, from cultivation to harvest. The soul of the Taino's most important food item, Yoka Hu, is the very spiritual manifestation of LIFE iteself because Life depends on the success of the yuca harvest. When the yuca plant is harvested it dies and in death it manifests its ultimate destiny, to feed the people. This moment of destiny is actually the manifestation of sacred personal sacrifice, a concept that plays a very important role in ancient Taino spirituality. The fact that the living of one generation eventually die to contribute to the success of the life of the next generation is a central ideological concept in the cyclical configuration of the spiritual mentality of our ancestors. We honor our Lord Yoka Hu on this day for his personal sacrifice and thank our Lady Ata Bey for her generosity in offering us the product of her ever-fertile womb, the nurishing gift of divine Life, the fruits of another year's harvest. During this season of storm and death we recognize the fact that the sacred cycle is completed and that this completion, harsh as it may seem, is the moment when the slate is wiped clean to make room for a new
story, a new adventure of Life and Energy...
It is the time of sacrifice when the plant spirits give up their lives at harvest time that we may live. It is the time when we look forward to the celebration of the ancestors in November’s Day of the Dead...
The second ceremonial date that emerges during the Fall season takes place at the beginning of November, on a date that we now call "DAYOF THE DEAD".
That day signals a moment when the living render respect and tribute to those who have made the same journey upon the same road that Yoka Hu now finds himself, to the realm of Coa Bay. On the holiday of Day of The Dead we honor the ancestors and other departed loved ones who dwell in Coa Bay. We eat guayaba (guava fruit) in all of its manifestations. We offer the guayaba fruit to the hupias (spirits of the dead) by putting bits of guava or guava paste in front of the memory tablets that we keep to honor our
departed ones. "
[http://www.caneycircle.org/sunpath/, https://indigenouscaribbean.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-meaning-of-autumn-equinox, http://indigenouscaribbean.ning.com/profiles/blogs/2030313:BlogPost:12915]
Could it be that, like the Taino with their god Yoka Hu, the Maya thought that their Maize God had been defeated/died on the Autumnal Equinox?
