Aztec World Ages and the Calendar Stone
Michael Swanton
mwswanton at yahoo.com
Tue Jan 22 07:47:58 UTC 2008
It is well known that many indigenous pictographic
texts explicitly record quantities and sequences
related to astronomical observations and calendrics,
and that other non-quantitative imagery often has a
numerical dimension.
Outside the Maya region, what Mesoamerican codices
explicitly record astronomical observations?
--- Galen Brokaw <brokaw at buffalo.edu> wrote:
> Dear Michel and Listeros,
> I don't have an answer to Carl's question, but I
> would contest Michel's
> assertion that Brotherston's analysis is "pure
> numerology" that has
> "nothing to do with Mesoamerican culture, history or
> cosmovision." In
> the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I
> studied under
> Brotherston in graduate school, and I admire his
> work. However, I think
> that I am fairly intellectually independent. With
> that disclaimer, I
> would argue that to dismiss Brotherston's analysis
> in the way that
> Michel does is problematic for several reasons.
>
> There is certainly a lot of pseudo-scholarship on
> Mesoamerican cultures,
> and, Michel, I share your frustration with it; but I
> don't see how
> anybody could say that Brotherston's work falls into
> that category. It
> is very misleading to say that his work, or even
> this particular
> analysis, is a search for "cryptic codes, hidden
> messages, or mystic
> signs." The implication is that indigenous texts are
> transparent and
> that numerological readings of them are on a par
> with Western
> numerological beliefs that have survived among small
> groups in modern
> European and Euro-american societies. First of all,
> there are many
> aspects of Mesoamerican iconography that we don't
> understand. And there
> is a fundamental difference in the cultural
> importance of the modern
> minority beliefs in new-age numerology and the
> dominant numerology of
> ancient cultures in both Mesoamerica and Europe and
> the Middle East. In
> Hebrew numerology, for example, it was believed that
> there was an
> inherent relationship between numbers and the
> letters of the Hebrew
> alphabet; and this was part of a dominant cultural
> perspective. It is
> important to note that in the Hebrew tradition, this
> numerology informed
> the production of texts in various different ways.
> This does not
> necessarily mean, as some people believe, that the
> Bible contains some
> sort of hidden code that predicts the future if we
> could only figure out
> how to decode it. But I think it is generally
> accepted that Hebrew
> literacy had a numerical dimension that manifested
> itself in significant
> ways. It is believed, for example, that there are 22
> books in the Jewish
> canon because there are 22 letters in the Hebrew
> alphabet. This doesn't
> mean that identifying this numerical dimension of
> the text holds the key
> to some sort of mystical knowledge or even a hidden
> message, but it
> certainly gives us a more thorough understanding of
> Hebrew textuality;
> and in some cases, it may appropriately contribute
> to the way in which
> we understand certain texts. "Numerology" does not
> have to have the
> pejorative sense that it often has in modern Western
> culture. In any
> case, whether you call it numerology or not, the
> fact is that in
> Mesoamerican cultures indigenous numeracy is very
> complex (in many ways,
> even more so than in Western cultures), and it plays
> an important role
> in the integrated realm of politics, economics,
> religion, history, etc.,
> and hence in the technologies of communication in
> which knowledge was
> inscribed. It is well known that many indigenous
> pictographic texts
> explicitly record quantities and sequences related
> to astronomical
> observations and calendrics, and that other
> non-quantitative imagery
> often has a numerical dimension. To be sure, the
> extent to which
> iconographic imagery is infused with indigenous
> numerical significance
> gets a bit tricky. It is often much less explicit,
> and hence more
> controversial. I think this is part of Brotherston's
> argument that Carl
> is trying to corroborate: for example, the numerical
> correlation of the
> Fire Lord and Sun God to the numbers one and four
> respectively. In
> general, though, trying to understand the
> significance of indigenous
> numeracy through the way it informs and is reflected
> in indigenous texts
> is not merely a "game of numbers and concepts."
>
> To dismiss Brotherston's analysis because you are
> not familiar with any
> sources that might justify his interpretation begs
> several questions. Of
> course, it is always important to be judicious in
> areas where there is a
> dearth of evidence. If Brotherston did not base his
> argument on an
> analysis of indigenous sources, then a
> non-substantive "lack of
> evidence" argument might seem compelling. But in
> fact there is abundant
> evidence for reading the numerological dimension of
> these texts. The
> argument Brotherston presents is based explicitly on
> a correlated
> reading of numerous indigenous texts. In the pages
> to which Carl refers,
> he is reading the Sun Stone, of course, but also the
> Mexicanus Codex,
> the Tepexic Annals, the Rios Codex, the Paris
> screenfold, the
> Cuauhtitlan Annals, the Vaticanus screenfold, and
> the Borgia.
>
> Based on the casual way in which you dismiss
> Brotherston's analysis, I'm
> assuming here (perhaps incorrectly) that you are
> familiar with both
> Brotherston's book and the texts that he cites. If
> so, the implication
> of your general dismissal of his argument is that
> although you
> acknowledge that these sources exist, you don't feel
> that they justify
> Brotherston's reading/interpretation. But you don't
> say anything
> substantive to back up this refutation. It certainly
> may be possible to
> refute Brotherston's argument, but in order to do
> so, you would have to
> actually formulate your own interpretive argument
> based on your own
> counter-reading of the texts that he cites and
> possibly others that he
> doesn't. In other words, you would have to engage
> his argument and his
> indigenous sources. Maybe you have already
> formulated such an argument.
> If so, that would be an interesting and legitimate
> contribution to a
> scholarly discussion. But you can't just refute him
> based on your own
> merely asserted authoritative knowledge of the
> corpus of Mesoamerican
> sources, particularly when Brotherston's argument is
> explicitly based on
> an analysis of numerous primary texts. Regardless of
> whether or not
> Brotherston's analysis is accurate, he has clearly
> done his homework,
> and it is unfair and irresponsible to dismiss his
> work if you haven't
> done yours.
>
> Michel, I hope you don't take this personally. Even
> if Gordon weren't a
> mentor and friend, I would caution everyone against
> refuting other
> people's work in such a casual, non-substantive way.
> Even in the case of
> the type of pseudo-scholarship that you mentioned, I
> think that it is
> normally better to just ignore it. I must confess
> that I have been
> guilty of doing the same thing for which I'm
> criticizing you with what I
> felt was pseudo-scholarship. So this criticism is
> something that I have
> self-reflexively applied to myself as well, for
> whatever that is worth.
> I recognize that there are times when
> pseudo-scholarship gains a lot of
> ground in the popular imagination and may even start
> encroaching on more
> serious academic work. In those cases, it may be
> necessary to identify
> it as such. But to the extent that it actually
> achieves some sort of
> encroachment or legitimacy, it also deserves
> substantive refutation at
> least once.
>
> Again, however, I have a hard time seeing how anyone
> could classify
> Brotherston's work as pseudo-scholarship. One of the
> premises of his
> work is that we should take indigenous texts
> seriously, and that is what
> he does in _Book of the Fourth World_; and he does
> it in a serious and
> scholarly way. In a book as broad-ranging as _Book
> of the Fourth World_,
> it would probably be hard to get everything right,
> and Brotherston would
> probably be the first to recognize that. And I'm
> sure that some of his
> arguments are controversial. But I don't think that
> there is any way
> that you can call him a pseudo-scholar or layman. I
> have a lot more that
> I could say about the theoretical and methodological
> framework, but I'll
> stop here.
>
> Galen Brokaw
>
>
>
>
>
> Michel Oudijk wrote:
> > This is pure numerology and has nothing to do
> whatsoever with
> > Mesoamerican culture, history or cosmovision.
> At least, I don't know
> > of any indigenous sources, present or past,
> that justify this game
> > of numbers and concepts. This search for
> encrypted codes, hidden
> > messages, or mystic signs is a 'cosmic dragon'
> created by pseudo
> > scholars and laymen without any kind of
> theoretical or
> > methodological framework.
> >
> > Michel R. Oudijk
> > Seminario de Lenguas Indígenas
> > Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas
> > Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
> >
> >
> >
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:16:01 -0800
> > From: ahchich1 at yahoo.com
> > To: Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > Subject: [Nahuat-l] Aztec World Ages and
> the Calendar Stone
> >
> > Dear Friends,
> >
> > I have a question concerning the possible
> span of a world age as
> > numerically recorded on the Aztec
> Calendar Stone. Gorden Brotherston in his
> > Book of the Forth World (see his fig. 54
> and pages 298-299) believes
> > that the Aztec scribes encoded
> mathematically the time spans of world ages
> > into the stone via the "mixcoa" or
> cloud serpents that frame the
> > outer rim of the great stone. I am
> not an Aztec scholar so I can
> > not refute or verify his
> interpretation. I hope those of you who are
> > familiar with Aztec signs and
> iconography can tell me if his reading
> > is at least plausible.
> >
> > Here is what he writes on page 299 of the
> work:
> >
> > "Just as the Era Four Ollin visually
> frames the proceeding four world
> > ages at the center of the sunstone, so
> its length is recorded on the rim
> > as we saw, in ten lots of ten Rounds
> imaged as cloud-snakes that issue
> > from the squared scales of sky dragons to
> > right and left. Now as we
> > noted above, the heads peering from the
> dragons' maws below belong
> > respectively to Fire Lord (left) and the
> Sun (right), who are One and Four in
> > the set of thirteen Heroes. Hence, each
> endows its dragon and the
> > Rounds on its back with number value, a
> capacity they and others among them
> > display, for example, in the Pinturas
> transcription of the world-age
> > story. As One, Fire Lord simply confirms
> the 5,200-year total; as Four,
> > Sun multiples it to 20,800 to the
> remaining four-fifths of the Great
> > Year [26,000 years]. Hence:
> >
> > 1x10x10x52R00
> > 4x10x10x52 ,800
> >
> > 26,000
> >
> >
> > In the Cuauhtitlan Annals transcription of
> the Sunstone cosmogony, the
> > four-fifths of the Great Year is noted as
> "CCCC mixcoa," that is, four
> > hundred cloud-snake rounds."
> >
> >
> > My questions are these:
> >
> > Do the Fire Lord and the Sun God have
> numerical equivalents of 1 and 4?
> >
> > Are the 10
> > glyphs bordered by ten dots on the backs
> of the Serpents
> > glyphs/names for the 52 year period?
> >
> > Where else in Aztec lit. is it mentioned
> that the so called cloud
> > serpents manifest or are seen as
> representing a world Era?
> >
> > Finally is Gorden Brotherston still
> amongst the living so I might ask
> > him directly?
> >
> > IF GB is correct, then I believe there are
> are interesting parallels
> > that can be made to the art, numerology
> and iconography of other
> > MesoAmerican cultures.
> >
> > I look forward to your answers.
> >
> > Carl Callaway
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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