The Mayan Prophecies Part I

Some time ago, I promised to introduce my readers to the Mayan prophetic tradition. Now it is time.

It is hard to think of a term more fraught with controversy than “Mayan prophecies.” Individuals with extremely marginal claims to be connected with the Maya – or sometimes with no claims at all – purvey various and sundry so-called “Mayan prophecies” to the New Age community at large. Under the circumstances, it may surprise many people to know that there is in fact a whole body of literature comprising the authentic prophecies of the Mayan people. They were written down in a series of manuscripts called the books of Chilam Balam. These were “knowledge books” kept in secret by Yucatec Maya shamans during the dark days of the Spanish Conquest. The ancient prophecies recorded in the Chilam Balam books were an attempt by these village shamans to preserve the wisdom of their ancestors.

Let it be understood that the Chilam Balam manuscripts are more than a group of old books sitting in museums. There is one Chilam Balam manuscript which remains in the hands of traditionalist Maya. These individuals, however, are extremely private, even secretive, so I shall not reveal their precise location. For now, it is enough to note that the tradition lives on.

But the Mayan prophecies are anything but straightforward. One evening, while I was living in the traditionalist Mayan town of Momostenango, I paid a visit to my friend, the internationally known daykeeper and spiritual guide Rigoberto Itzep Chanchavac. I found him in his study, perusing a copy of the Chilam Balam books. Don Rigoberto set the book aside, shaking his head. He remarked, “This is the most difficult literature in any of the Mayan languages.”

Thus it is with a certain amount of trepidation that I approach the subject. But I am going to give it a try.

For purposes of prophecy, the Maya used a twenty-year cycle called a k’atun. The “years” of a k’atun were 360 days rather than 365, so in our Gregorian calendar a k’atun is actually 19.7 years – interestingly enough, this is the length of the Jupiter-Saturn cycle which Western astrologers still use as a cornerstone for the prediction of political events. There were 13 k’atuns in a prophetic cycle, thus comprising 260 of such 360-day years. The k’atuns were named according to their number. Due to the mathematical properties of the Mayan Calendar, the k’atuns always unfolded in a particular order: 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 13. Each k’atun had its own prophecy, which was usually expressed in poetic or metaphorical (i.e. shamanic or visionary) language.

Scholars have argued endlessly about the age of the k’atun prophecies. Were all of them invented in colonial Yucatan, reflecting the conditions during the Spanish Conquest, or do some of them extend far back in time? I believe there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that at least some of the k’atun prophecies are of very great antiquity indeed.

The k’atun prophecies contained in the Chilam Balam books also have a formal structure; each one is comprised of a collection of elements. These are:

1. The sacred place or geomantic center which served as the locus for the k’atun’s energy. This was known as its hetz’ and literally means its “seat.” In ancient times, royal Mayan lords were seated upon special ceremonial mats. Such a mat was a hetz’, so this term tells us that each k’atun was regarded as a special entity, like a noble or an aristocrat. A cycle of sacred time is a royal personage. The various sacred centers which “seated” the k’atuns probably played an important role in the concept of Mayan geomancy or sacred earth teachings; someday the relevant patterns of sacred space may be unraveled by scholars.

2. Each k’atun also had a ruling deity. For instance, K’atun 7 Ahau was ruled by a god called Ek Chu Uah, while turbulent 8 Ahau was ruled by Kinich Kak Mo. For the most part, we no longer know what these god names mean, or who these deities were. Kinich Kak Mo seems to have been a bird deity, perhaps related to the arrogant macaw bird who perched at the top of the world tree and believed himself to be God. As for Ek Chu Uah, this may be the constellation we know as Scorpio. In fact, it is likely that many of the k’atun deities are in fact constellations, myths in the sky, for the term which means “ruler of the k’atun” is sometimes written u ich ti y ahaulil, which simply means “the face in the lordship,” but some versions say u ich ti y ahaulil tu canil, which more specifically means “the face in the lordship on high” or “the face in the lordship above,” implying that the k’atun rulers are in heaven, among the stars. But too many of these deity names are just letters scrawled on old paper, and we have forgotten their meanings.

3. There is also the food (uah) and drink (haa, literally “water) which characterized each k’atun cycle. Metaphors involving food are common among the Maya to this very day; during my months in Momostenango I don’t actually recall any time when spiritual teachings were given unless food was also present. The mystical code language which Jose Arguelles called “the language of Zuvuya” (a Nahuatl version of the word which is more properly spelled Zuyua in the Chilam Balam books) did in fact exist, but was largely a secret metaphorical way of speech involving images based upon food. When a Mayan lord asked for the green blood of his daughter and for her arm, he was speaking Zuyua to ask for green Mayan wine and the branch of a balche tree. The “food and drink” of any k’atun is part of its essential prophetic meaning.

4. The “burden of the k’atun” was the heavy load of history which the k’atun lord bore upon his back, like the cargo of stones strapped to a man’s back which is so often seen in ancient iconography to represent the burden carried by time. The word for “burden” or “cargo” was kuch.

5. The “word” (thaan) of the k’atun was the essential prophetic utterance, perhaps descended from the mu’ut or prophecy which may have been uttered by shamans at ceremonies held as far back as Classic Period times. The thaan of the k’atun is always expressed in mystic poetry. For example, the thaan for K’atun 8 Ahau is “the shields descend; the arrows descend” (Emom chilal, emom halal). The thaan or essential prophecy for K’atun 4 Ahau is “the quetzal bird is coming; the blue green bird is coming” (Ulom kuk, ulom yaxum).

Now we can begin to look at the text for an actual k’atun prophecy, paying attention to all the components.

8 Ahau k’atun
Was the ninth part of the k’atun to be counted.
Izamal was the seat of the k’atun.
They were to arrive for the second occasion.
Descended are the shields; descended are the arrows
Over Champoton, where
They are planting their carvings in the walls
To end the desire
Of Kinich Kak Mo
To be the seat where the k’atun cycle returns.

The introduction to the text tells us that this is a prophecy for 8 Ahau K’atun. The Chilam Balam books usually count the k’atuns beginning from 11, thus 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, 12, 10, and then 8 makes 8 Ahau K’atun the ninth one in the series. Izamal is the hetz’ or geomantic sacred center where the energy of the 20-year cycle had its focus in terms of earth energies. In all likelihood, the phrase “descended are the shields, descended are the arrows” constitutes the thaan or genuine prophetic utterance for the k’atun, since this is a rhymed couplet written in a metaphorical or visionary style. Kinich Kak Mo, as mentioned, was a very tricky deity, a Yucatec version of the arrogant macaw who saw himself as God; no wonder the text speaks of a necessity to end his selfish desires. Each scribe recorded the prophetic essentials of the ancient texts but also included his own commentary on current events, as if to let other shamans know how the ancient prophecy was working out this time around; references to “arriving for the second occasion” or strife in the neighborhood of Champoton probably comprise such commentary.

The Maya regarded K’atun 8 Ahau periods as times when empires fell, typically due to war and strife – “the arrows and shields descending.” They may have had good reason to believe that the prophecy was true.

The 8 Ahau k’atun of 672-692 may mark the time when refugee groups from the constant “star wars” that ravaged Classic Maya kingdoms like Tikal, Calakmul and Palenque made their flight into Yucatan. Equally importantly, archaeologists now date the collapse of Teotihuacan, the great “city of the gods,” to the middle or end of the 7th century, which makes this 8 Ahau cycle an excellent candidate for the fall of that empire as well.

The K’atun 8 Ahau of 1185-1204 is the date traditionally given for the fall of Chichen Itza. One of the Chilam Balam chronicles places the event in 1194.

After the fall of Chichen Itza, the states of the Yucatan reconstituted themselves in a confederacy called The League of Mayapan, with that city as the central point of administration. But the League of Mayapan also fell due to internecine strife, an event which most scholars place in the middle of the 15th century, bringing us once again to an 8 Ahau k’atun( 1441-1461).

During the 8 Ahau k’atun of 1697-1717, the last independent Mayan kingdom, the city of Tayasal on Lake Peten Itza near Tikal, finally surrendered to the Spanish. Why? Because their king pointed out that it was an 8 Ahau k’atun, thus time for his empire to fall, as empires always fell at such a time.

One may well ask: Is this pattern – if indeed it is a pattern rather than mere “coincidence” – applicable only to Mesoamerica, or does it have a universal, global significance? While I make no pretense to having studied all the 8 Ahau k’atuns which have occurred since the Mayan “creation date” of August 11, 3114 BC, there are at least two which stand out strongly due to their powerful significance for the history of the world at large:

In the 8 Ahau of 354-34 BC, the world’s mightiest empire was Persia. In this K’atun 8 Ahau, it was conquered by a monarch from the second-rate Greek kingdom of Macedon; he consequently became known as Alexander the Great.

In the 8 Ahau of 416-435 CE, barbarian incursions brought the Roman Empire crashing down, thus initiating what Western historians commonly refer to as “the Dark Ages.”

Let us examine the most recent occurrence of an 8 Ahau k’atun, which began on November 2, 1953, and ended on July 19, 1973. The K’atun 8 Ahau of 1953 to 1973 begins with the conclusion of the Korean War and ends just before the fall of Saigon. During the first half of these twenty tuns, the United States was at the apex of its time of hegemony over the globe. It was the superpower of superpowers.

Many historians have theorized that it was the Vietnam War that brought the “American Empire” to an end. College students and minorities launched themselves into protest and rebellion. In terms of the Mayan prophecies, the turbulence of the 1960s was not the beginning of a “revolution,” but the foreseeable end of a tottering giant.

By the end of the k’atun, it was plain that the United States could not win the war in Vietnam. The developing “Third World” had flexed its muscles against the empire and had achieved success. The global hegemony of the United States had come an end. While that nation would continue to be a major world power, it would never again enjoy the reign of absolute dominance which it had come to enjoy from the beginning of the 20th century to the end of the Vietnam War. The “shields and the arrows” had “descended.”

While it is reasonable to assume that the end of the 5,125-year cycle in 2012 was intended to indicate a major change in cycles of history, it is silly to assume that it was ever meant to be an “end date.” The Maya recognized cycles within cycles, some of them infinitely longer than the one that extends from 3114 BC to 2012 CE. That span of years is made up of 13 bak’tuns, a unit of time which is comprised of 20 k’atuns. The prophetic k’atun cycle weaves in and out of the larger cycle of bak’tuns but is separate from it. There is every reason to believe that the Maya believed that humanity would still be here and that the prophetic cycle of 13 k’atuns would still be rolling through its courses at the end of the 20-bak’tun cycle in 4772 CE.

In our next article we shall examine the prophecies for K’atun 6 Ahau (1973-93) and K’atun 4 Ahau (1993- 2012).
But we can also study the k’atun prophecies for the k’atuns that come after Dec 21, 2012 CE. The Maya left us prophecies for all of these time periods.

From December 2012 until 2032 will be K’atun 2 Ahau: “Halfway down is its food, halfway down is its water.”

From 2032 until 2052 will be K’atun 13 Ahau: “For five days the sun shall be eclipsed. Then it shall be seen again."

From 2052 until 2072 will be K’atun 11 Ahau: “The heavenly fan and heavenly bouquet shall descend. The drum and rattle of Bolon Oc Te shall resound.”