On this Good Friday during Easter week I am reminded that many ancient traditions had death and resurrection stories, including the Maya-Lenca. This one comes straight from the Popol Vuh, Part 3:

When One and Seven Hunahpu went back before One and Seven Death, they were asked:

"Where are my cigars? What of my torch? They were brought to you last night!"

"We finished them, your lordship."

"Very well. This very day, your day is finished, you will die, you will disappear, and we shall break you off. Here you will hide your faces: you are to be sacrificed!" said One and Seven Death.

And then they were sacrificed and buried. They were buried at the Place of Ball Game Sacrifice, as it is called. The head of One Hunahpu was cut off; only his body was buried with his younger brother.

"Put his dead in the fork of the tree that stands by the road," said One and Seven Death.

And when his head was put in the fork of the tree, the tree bore fruit. It would not have had any fruit, had not the head of One Hunahpu been put in the fork of the tree.

This is the calabash, as we call it today, or "the skull of One Hunahpu," as it is said.

And then One and Seven Death were amazed at the fruit of the tree. The fruit grows out everywhere, and it isn't clear where the head of One Hunahpu is; now it looks just the way calabashes look. All the Xibalbans see this, when they come to look.

The state of the tree loomed large in their thoughts, because it came about at the same time the head of One Hunahpu was put in the fork. The Xibalbans said among themselves:

"No one is to pick the fruit, nor is anyone to go beneath the tree," they said. They restricted themselves; all of Xibalba held back.

Popol Vuh, the Maya Book of the Dawn of Life. Trans. by Dennis Tedlock. 1996.

In this story the resurrection happens in the form of calabash squash. Central America is precisely where squash were first domesticated.

I believe parts of this history allude to historical fact, some parts are symbolic to agriculture and some are symbolic to astronomy.

On the historical side, I think that there was a leader of the Hunahpu family - the 1 Hunahpu is more of a family reference than an actual name of one person. I believe that this person was tested through a series of astronomical tests by the archenemies - the previous passage spoke of being put through five tests. I think the reference above to the cigars going out means that an astronomical event involving Venus or Mars did not occur as 1 Hunahpu said that it would. I think another translation for the word torch (chaj in Quiche) is 'red object' (chak in Chorti), which seems to provide a clue toward Mars. 1 Hunahpu came to be reverred so much because it was his insight and error that allowed future Maya-Lenca astronomers to advance beyond the Xibalban lords. Still to this day (possibly 9,000+ years later) Maya communities visit the cemetery on Hunahpu day.

In terms of when this occured, I think that the Popol Vuh uses the convention of family name then date, in many cases where two names are presented together. In this case the date referenced was 7 Hunahpu, a day in the 260 day calendar, but also a day in the Mars retrograde long-count calendar, which would be the equivalent of about 7500 BCE.

I also believe that the place that this occurred is eastern El Salvador. I think that the town of Corinto (corintoy in Chorti) translates as 'place of game sacrifice'. This is near to La Gruta del Espíritu Santo, which I think was the original site symbolized later as Xibalba. In fact a few kilometers west of Corinto is a village named Calavera, which means 'skull'. I would propose that this is the precise place where 1 Hunahpu's skull was placed. By the way, it's not clear that it was placed on a tree, the original words are unclear.

In addition to the other meanings described here, I think that the Popol Vuh provides a date for when squash was first domesticated. In that sense the 7 Hunahpu date, 7,500 BCE, may correspond more as a date for squash than as a date for the story of 1 Hunahpu. That is certainly possible. Evidence of squash and corn were both found in the Rio Balsas site in western Mexico which dates to 6,700 BCE.

By using an easy name/date convention, such as "1 Hunahpu 7 Hunahpu" to associate with squash, it was simple for future generations to know when squash was domesticated. Unfortunately it appears that the Mars calendar fell out of use a few hundred years before writing became common, so there is no written or oral record of its use, except, I believe, in the Popol Vuh.

The story of the Hunahpu's head growing into a squash is full of irony and humor, based on word play, which is so common to the Maya. In the Popol Vuh, recorded in Quiche Maya, the name of 1 Death is 1 Kame, which means death or dead person. In the Yucateca calendar, this day sign is Cimi, which also means death. However, Yucateca derived from Ch'orti' (Cholti) Maya, and in Ch'orti' cimin or tzimin means 'tapir'. This makes sense as tapir is the symbol for death and sacrifice in Maya cosmology and tapir is a fitting animal to symbolize the cave-dwelling Xibalbans. I would guess that tzimin might be a word that came across from Asia and originally meant bear.

Well the word used for squash in the Popol Vuh is tzima, clearly a play on tzimin. It still means 'thick-skinned gourd' in Ch'orti'. To name a squash after your enemies and then say your dead leader's head turned into a squash that then grew into a plant and reproduced at great length, was an ultimate insult and spoke of the Maya superior abilities in agriculture as well as language.

Finally, one can see traces of the story of 1 Hunahpu in the Day of the Dead tradition of Mexico and now the United States. The prominent use of the skull in Day of the Dead festivities is a reminder of Hunahpu's sacrifice but also ongoing life in the form of squash vine. Just as Hunahpu's people were able to laugh at the purveyors of death, today celebrants of the Day of the Dead are able to laugh at death.

Of all the celestial objects, the Maya have held the Milky Way with the most reverence. The Maya have many names for the Milky Way, depending on its position in the sky which changed throughout the night and by season. Those names include Canoe Paddler, World Tree, Crocodile or White Boned Serpent, and Lying Down Sky, with World Tree being the most common. The Maya created images of the World Tree intersected at the top by the solar ecliptic, in the appearance of a Christian cross.

The Milky Way was called yaxte' in Ch'orti' Maya, which means clear tree or living tree. Yaxte' is also the name for the ceiba tree, one of the most sacred trees of the Maya. Images of the World Tree are modeled after the ceiba.

Within the Milky Way, one spot has had special meaning for the Maya, an area devoid of the same star haze as the rest of the Milky Way, located between the constellations of Scorpio and Sagittarius. This happens to be the center of the galaxy where a massive black hole is located. For the Maya this spot was associated with creation, especially the creation of the Mayan world. Other names or symbols that the Maya gave it include the void, cleft, black hole, the mouth of the crocodile, the mouth of the jaguar that leads to the underworld, and the great cleft of the Great Mother. Most likely the Maya daysign Ik' or Ik'ar, which means air or wind, represents the center of the galaxy.

The Olmec and Maya also determined that it is the location where two great celestial objects become perpindicular – the solar elliptic and the galactic elliptic. This will occur on December 21, 2012, just as the Olmec and Maya predicted over 2000 years ago. In fact it was through figuring out the orbit of Mars that the Maya were able to establish the location of the galactic plane and determine the 2012 convergence. The Maya interpret this event as the sun being reborn and ushering in a new age. In 2012, the sun and our solar system will be touched by the galactic force – i.e. the mass of the galaxy concentrated at the center of the galaxy and the plane of the galactic elliptic, the combined forces that interact with every star in the galaxy. The sun and its solar system are being renewed and regenerated with the force, the energy, and the volition of the galaxy, as embodied by the black hole at the center of the galaxy.

Before discussing how the Maya discovered the galaxy’s center, a description of the black hole there would be helpful. The galaxy center black hole is by far the largest body in the galaxy in terms of mass. It is estimated to be 4 million solar masses (4 million times greater than our sun). For comparison, the star with the largest mass has between 100 and 150 solar masses. This means that the black hole at the galaxy center is at least 25,000 times more massive than the largest star in the galaxy.

In physical terms, this black hole affects our solar system by its gravity and by the various radiations that it emits. Due to its mass, it has by far the largest gravitational field in the galaxy. For the most part, this is a constant force. The large distance between it and our solar system limits its gravitational on our solar system. However, its gravitational pull is greatly augmented by the stars that are within the galactic elliptic. This combined gravity does have a pull on the sun and planets. In fact, it causes the extreme elongation of Mars’ orbit, something which the Maya discovered thousands of years ago, as we will see. And I think that we are able to sense this gravity under special circumstances like meditation. I also believe it is this gravity acting upon the planets and each human that causes astrology "to work".

Black holes also emit radiation and cause radiation to be emitted from their surroundings. Black holes emit thermal radiation, known as Hawking radiation, which has a very low temperature. The galaxy center black hole also likely emits electro-magnetic radiation of two frequencies – x-rays and radio waves. In addition, there are likely gamma rays which have the same frequency as x-rays. All three of these radiations are caused by the same thing – matter being sucked into a black hole. The most common of these are gamma rays, caused by the matter entering the black hole, similar to solar flares. It appears that the galaxy center black hole also radiates x-ray radiation. Scientists have determined flares of x-rays from the dust cloud near the black hole. X-rays come from the electrons of the matter and gamma from the nucleus. In 2005 scientists discovered radio waves coming from Sgr A*, the astronomical name for the black hole at the center of the galaxy. While this radiation can be sensed with radio telescopes, perhaps someday we will learn that humans can also sense it if especially intuned.

The pre-Maya/pre-Lenca discovered the center of the galaxy in another way: watching the motion of the planets. I believe that they made this discovery in about 8500 BCE in El Salvador. Mars has an average synodic period of 779.93 days – the time it takes until it turns backward, retrograde, again. It has a very elongated orbit, meaning that its synodic period can vary anywhere from about 750 to 810 days. In the time of pre-Maya, Mars’ synodic period was 779.96 days but declined to about 779.93 days sometime in the millennium prior to 0 CE, most likely due to a meteor collision.

Using fingers and toes as counters, as well as sticks, rocks, and face and body paint, the pre-Maya/pre-Lenca counted how many days between the retrograde motions of Venus and Mars. After many years of watching Mars, using tattoos and body scarring to keep track, and passing knowledge to next generations, they determined that its synodic period is divisible by 20, the base of their counting system. There were 39 of their 20 day weeks in the Mars synodic period. The 780 days became three 260 day years eventually, divided into 20 13-day weeks.

Here’s where the center of the galaxy comes in. The pre-Maya/pre-Lenca figured out that the Mars retrograde always happened within the same four 13-day weeks of their calendar, but when the Mars retrograde occurred when Mars was close to the Milky Way, it happened at the beginning of those four weeks. And when Mars turned retrograde very close to the center of the Milky Way, it would occur one day earlier than it ever had before, tracked by body scarring or tattoos and by oral tradition. This would happen about every 52 years. This formed the basis for the original Mars long-count calendar that preceded the current solar-based long-count calendar that has been used since at least 500 BCE, when the accuracy of the Mars calendar was altered due to something like a meteor strike. My earlier blog entry explains in much more detail about the Mars long count calendar.

It was this knowledge, demonstrating their mental prowess, which allowed the pre-Maya/pre-Lenca to overcome their Xibalba enemies and become the leading people in the Americas.

The shamans interpreted these discoveries as proof of god. The first proof of god was that the synodic period of Mars was divisible by 20, the number of fingers and toes of human beings. Second, when they determined that the blank spot in the Milky Way caused the irregularity in Mars’ synodic period and caused their long-count calendar to click one day backward, they know that the location of this god was at the center of the galaxy.

The center of the galaxy, 4 million solar masses, whose elliptic will cross the solar elliptic on December 21, 2012, and which emits four kinds of radiation that have been reaching the surface of the earth since earth came into existence, was one of the first powerful gods of the pre-Maya/pre-Lenca people and still is today.

The Lenca are one of the oldest First Nations in the Americas. They have lived continuously in eastern El Salvador since about 8,500 BCE and are a sister people of the Maya. Following the collapse of Copan in the 9th century, the visiting Lenca royalty returned to eastern El Salvador and re-formed the Lenca nation. This royalty, led by Princess Antu Silan Ulap, initiated the resistance against the Spanish conquistadores in 1526, continued by Lempira.

We were fortunate to have a member of the Lenca royalty visiting the San Francisco region early last week, Antonio Chevez. Antonio currently lives in Australia, having been forced into exile soon after El Salvador's civil war ended in 1992. While staying close to his spiritual roots, Antonio takes a modernizing position for indigenous, saying that the Maya and Lenca were at the cutting edge of technology for thousands of years so why shouldn't they continue to accept and develop new technologies. In addition, the Lenca were always known for their ability with language, collectively speaking most languages in the Americas, so modern Lenca should be speaking the world's major languages. The Lenca were also among the primary traders in the Americas, bridging the gap between North and South American products.

The Lenca people and especially the royalty have maintained the traditions through oral history. Antonio was raised by his grandmother and heard many oral traditions and histories growing up, including the creation story. He assumed they were the stories everyone heard.

One of those stories is the Moloilu, a sacred reading, done in a group, which leads to enlightenment, attaining duality. We read the Moloilu with Antonio. It speaks of the 13 levels of heaven and Akú, the provider god. In Ch'orti' Maya, Moloilu (morohiroh) means "open-eyed gathering."

Antonio described the Lenca story of the creation of humans. The creation grandmother had atol (corn paste) and cacao paste, but these were not sufficient to create humans, so she called on her animal friends:

• First came the armadillo which gave a spine and structure to humans
• Then the rabbit gave sexual organs to humans, as well as joy, laugh, and dance
• Next the jaguar gave its belly to humans, as well as speed and a beautiful spotted pelt
• The fourth animal to help creation grandmother was the turtle which gave humans its heart as well as love
• Then the monkey came to give its fingers and toes, writing, math, and wisdom
• Finally the eagle flew in and made a nest on the head of human-in-formation. He left strings inside the head which are the dreams, deep thoughts, and angst that humans have.

Ideally humans are born which each of these six animal spirits. Typically people are strong in two of the six, and these combinations make up the personality types. If a child is too strong in one, the parents and elders will take actions to diminish it. And if a child is weak in one area, parents and elders plan activities that will strengthen that animal, including contact with the actual animal.

Finally, Antonio spoke of the human sacrifice cult in Mexico from about 1300 CE to 1525 CE. This was a cult of the Aztecs and their predessors, including the Tapanec and Mexica. In my own research I have identified the Tapanec and Mexica as coming from the northwest coast area of Nayarit and Mazatlan, Mexico ("Mazatlan" later became "Aztlan"), and were an ancient Quiche Maya remnant who lost some of the Quiche ways over the years.

As the Tapanec and Mexica came to power they enforced the human sacrifice cult. Many neighboring groups suffered great losses and many fled, causing a flow of Nahuat refugees to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. In El Salvador the Nahuat were called Pipil and settled in the west of the country while the Lenca remained in the east.

The Maya, in their ages-old oral history, the Popol Vuh, said that they were born out of the blood of the sea serpent and the blood of the tapir. The sea serpent represents the Mayan ancestors who were sea-farers. The tapir represents the Xibalbans (Xibahkhans) who were land dwellers and ruled the Xibalba cave that is described in the Popol Vuh. The Popol Vuh mentions an early Maya leader, One Hunapuh, marrying a tapir woman Xib’aqiyalo. This would be the mixing of the blood of the sea serpent and the tapir, as mentioned in the Popol Vuh.

Earlier I had described that the tapir people captured the sea serpent people and held them captive in the Xibalba cave, the Gruta del Espíritu Santo in northeastern El Salvador. The sea serpent people escaped along the Torola River and eventually lived for several hundred years on Isla Tigre and other islands in the Golfo de Fonseca. The capture and escape of the sea serpent people occurred in about 8,850 BCE, based on the dating code used in the Popol Vuh, “1 Tapir 7 Tapir” (translated as 1 Death 7 Death in Tedlock). 7 Tapir is the date reference in the phrase and the corresponding date is found in the Mars retrograde long-count calendar. It is likely that the sea serpent people arrived to El Salvador at about this same time and were soon captured by the tapir people who were patrolling the region.

I am now ready to describe where the tapir people came from and where the sea serpent people came from. This story will describe much of the peopling of the American hemisphere. It will be easier to start with the sea serpent people. I will start by going to one of the earliest sites anywhere in the Americas, Monte Verde, Chile.

Monte Verde is an ancient site of living space with remains of various tools, equipment, living structures, and edible plants. The oldest layer of remains has been dated to about 12,500 BCE. The site appears to have been lived at for much of 2,000 years. One very interesting things about the site is that there are remains of over 50 different edible plants which were gathered from up to 150 miles away. The social organization and the testing and categorizing of plants shows a level of scientific and social sophistication and is a precursor to the people who would initiate agriculture several thousand years later.

The discovery and dating of Monte Verde ended once and for all the theory that the first people to enter the western hemisphere were the Clovis people between 10,000 and 9,000 BCE. Several Northamerican sites provide evidence of being even older than Monte Verde. Now the predominant theory goes that one group of these early northamericans quickly migrated to the southern tip of South America. This theory has too major problems: no intermediate sites have been identified and the quick pace of that migration over such a large and difficult distance in the short time of several hundred years or even a couple thousand years would be unprecedented.

Contrary to that theory, this blog will show conclusively that:

• the Monte Verdians arrived by sea from Asia rather than by land
• the Monte Verdians spoke a language very similar to one still alive today and
• that language is the root language of most Native American languages
• that language has been deliberately preserved relatively unchanged for more than 14,000 years
• the place names around Monte Verde and other early South American sites have been preserved for more than 12,000 years.

Working with Ch’orti’ Maya over the last two years I have had a sense it was a very old language from the way that words are built with older one-syllable cognates. In addition it is common for other cognates to be built from the root cognates by slightly varying the sound, while the meaning is complimentary but distinct. But when I heard the report of the discovery of the oldest mine in the Americas – at least 12,000 years old and located at the coastal city of Taltal, Chile, I began to realize just how old. Taltal means ‘arrival’ in Ch’orti’ Maya. (Actually arrival is ‘tar’ in Ch’orti’ but it is likely that at an earlier time the ‘l’ and ‘r’ sounds where equivalent, similar to some east Asian languages like Japanese. Looking at the place names surrounding Monte Verde confirmed that in fact proto-Ch’orti’ was the language spoken by these First People.

Monte Verde is just a few miles north of the Reloncaví Sound in southern Chile. It is on a creek called Chinchihuapi which flows out of the Llanquihue Lake to the Maullin River. Two prominent volcanoes, Osorno and Calbuco, are located across the lake from Monte Verde.

Let’s take a look at the various place names in the area and see what they mean in the ancient language, that is, proto-Ch’orti’ Maya:

Chinchihuapi – the creek where Monte Verde is located. A creek with continuous flow and many rapids.

Chin: throb, vibrate, rustle
Ch’i : smallness
Wahpi: continue, keep on

Or “small rustles continue”, i.e. a small river with continuous rapids.

Chinquio – a small village on the tidal Reloncavi Sound close to Monte Verde.

Chin: throb, vibrate, rustle
K’ot: arrival

Or “surf arrival”. Chin makes sense as surf, a continuous vibration. Curiously this would make Chinchihuapi “continuous little surf”. I recognize that K’ot is a little far from quio, but it is plausible. It may have been Chinko before being changed to Chinquio in the Spanish era. And the 't' could have been dropped from the end previously. Another possible meaning for the last half of the name is similar: ki’ (heart) + och (entrance), but is more abstract than most names used. I understand that 14,500 years ago the ocean level would have been about 100 feet lower and Chinquio would not have been on the shore. However, I believe that Chinquio represents the place on the shore at that time where the “surf arrival” occurred.

Llanquihue – This the beautiful lake to the east of Monte Verde with the two volcanoes on the far shore.

Yam: round, circular
Kihb: anything raised
Weh: fleshy, pulpy

“Raised round flesh”. Specifically a breast, which would describe Osorno, the volcano behind Lake Llanquihue. Instead of kihb, it could be ki’ (heart) or “round heart flesh” which has nearly the same meaning. And instead of yam it could be yan (unequal) or “unequal raised flesh” which would accurately describe the two volcanoes together, since they have quite different shapes.

Osorno – This is the large volcano cone on the far shore of Lake Llanquihue.

Os: fit; fitting into
Or: head, important
Noh: great, enlargement

Or “enlargement fits (over) head" or "enlargement fitted over main base". The Osorno volcano is a more recent volcano which formed on top of an older volcano with a mostly buried 6 kilometer wide caldera. This meaning of Osorno demonstrates a keen eye and a scientific sophistication among the First People.

Calbuco – Refers to the large irregularly shaped volcano south of the Osorno volcano. But it also refers to an island and town south of Monte Verde off of Reloncaví.

Kar: edible leaves and shoots (the ‘r’ and ‘l’ were interchangeable)
Buk’: reed, cane

Or “edible shoots/cane”. This is probably the most interesting place name around Monte Verde because there are two occurrences of it separated by over 20 kilometers. They were clearly trying to mark the locations of a certain kind of edible plant so that they would be remembered.

Colegual – This is a village on the shore of Reloncaví Sound, east of Puerto Montt

K’or: carrying, transport
Wahr: fanning, fan (the ‘w’ sound became a ‘gu’ in some derivative languages)

Or “fan transport”. This one is not so clear but I believe that ‘fan’ here may refer to sail and this may be a place where the sail rafts were maintained and where they debarked from when traveling out on the ocean.

Lenca – This is a village on the east shore of Reloncaví Sound, many kilometers from Monte Verde.

This is not a Ch’orti’ word but, obviously, a Lenca word. Since the Lenca language did not start evolving until about 8,500 BCE in El Salvador, this place name could only have come from a visit or a migration by a group of Lenca sometime much later. This seems to indicate a continued awareness by the Ch’orti’ and Lenca when they were in El Salvador of their place of origin in the hemisphere. No doubt that place was revered.

Monte Verde

Monte and verde are obviously Spanish words, but let’s take a look at monte. It is curious for showing up so often in Mesoamerican sites, including Montecristo (El Salvador), Monte Alto (Guatemala), and Monte Alban (Mexico). I believe that the Spaniards may have been replacing a similar Ch’orti’ word. In Ch’orti’ no’n is “we” and perhaps in an earlier time “our” as well. Te’eh means “trees” or “forest”, so one can see that no’nte’eh could mean “our forest” which sounds very much like “monte” or woods in Spanish. It also may explain why monte is more likely to mean mountain in Spain Spanish and woods in Latin American Spanish.

The first inhabitants of South America, arriving by surf to Monte Verde, lived alongside a stream that constantly rippled, like a little surf. They saw a beautiful volcano formed over an older volcano that reminded them of a woman’s breast. They found edible plants, over 50 varieties, a practice that they were already accustomed to in Asia where they came from.

And they traveled overland to Argentina and by sail raft to northern and far south Chile, to Peru, and to Venezuela. In the next few weeks we will explore these places that they traveled to, which will make it even more clear that these first inhabitants spoke a language similar to modern day Ch’orti’, and that ancient language was what they spoke in Asia before they set sail for the Americas.

Bariloche, Argentina, is a charming city in the beautiful southern Andes, especially popular as winter sports destination. Bariloche is a very old destination, dating back about 14,000 years. Its roots are connected to Chile and the Pacific Ocean.

The First Peoples from Asia arrived along the coast of Chile in about 12,500 BCE and settled at a site now called Monte Verde. Based on a study of the place names around Monte Verde, as well as other early South American sites, I determined that the place names are in a proto-Ch’orti’ (Maya) language. The language that the First Peoples spoke in Asia before leaving for the Americas was proto-Ch’orti’. Later, one group of these proto-Ch’orti’ speakers arrived at present-day El Salvador and become trapped in the Gruta del Espíritu Santo before escaping and founding the Maya-Lenca nations.

Proto-Ch’orti’ was the language the First Peoples spoke when they visited and camped out at Bariloche. There is an obvious clue that this area was settled or visited by the same people who were at Monte Verde: the common presence of the word component “huapi”. The Monte Verde site is on the Chinchihuapi Creek and Bariloche is along Nahuel Huapi Lake. “Huapi”, spelled “wahpi” in the Wisdom Ch’orti’-English dictionary, means “continue” or “keep on” in Ch’orti’. [Click to enlarge map.]

I will examine Bariloche along with four place names around it: Nahuel Huapi Lake; Dina Huapi, a town along the lake several miles northeast of Bariloche; Con Con, a small place halfway between Bariloche and Dina Huapi; and Nirihau, a small place a few miles east of Bariloche. I’ll take a look at the meaning of each of these place names using Ch'orti' meanings.

Bariloche

Bar: weight, heaviness (also bares means “make heavy”)
Lochi: arc, bow, bend, flex, fold

Bariloche means something like “heavy fold” and probably refers to the mountain folds that form peninsulas and islands in Nahuel Huapi Lake.

Nahuel Huapi Lake

Na’: round bowl
   or naht – distant
Wehr – rip, tear (the ‘r’ and the ‘l’ were equivalent at that time)
   or wet – companion, neighbor
Wahpi – continue, keep on

The most likely meaning is “Continuous (long) rip in the bowl” which would be referring to the long tear that the lake seems to make in the mountains. An alternate meaning is “keep distant from companions” which would refer to the distance between companions at Monte Verde and the lake.

Dina Huapi

T’in – inner side of arch, concave bend
Wahpi – continue, keep on

This is not completely clear, but appears to be “continuous concave bend”, which could be a reference to the banks of the lake much of which are lined with high hills.

Con Con

Kohn – small stream

A double kohn would be a very small stream.

Nirihau (also spelled Nirihuau)

Niri – cure
Ha’ – water
Wa’ – being

The most likely meaning is “curing water”. Nirihau is located at the source of a stream that flows in to the lake. Thus, it would be referring to the quality of the water at the Nirihau spring. If, instead, the original place name is Nirihuau, then the meaning would be “being cured”, which is quite similar to former meaning.

There are more place names surrounding Bariloche to be explored but this small sample should make it clear that Bariloche was part of the Monte Verde cultural complex in the 12,500 to 10,500 BCE period. I know that many of the names in the area also might have significance in Mapudungun (Mapuche), but they may have adopted meanings to existing place names.

One branch of the Monte Verde culture might have remained in southern Chile and the Bariloche area of Argentina, but it is clear that the main settlement - the one that maintained the Ch'orti' language line, at least, moved in about 10,500 BCE. Next I’ll explore the various migrations of the Monte Verde First People, starting, surprisingly, with the far north of the continent.

One of the most intriguing archeological sites in the Americas is Taima-taima and associated sites in northwest Venezuela. The site, discovered before Monte Verde, Chile, was the first definitive proof that the Clovis culture was not the first in the Americas. The Taima-taima site was dated to 12,000 BCE, two thousand years earlier than the Clovis culture, with human habitation continuing until about 8,000 BCE.

Taima-taima and other nearby sites included the activity of mastadon butchering. Based on skeletal remains, this was a place where many mastadons were killed. This is the southernmost find of mastadons. They were more commonly found in southern Northamerica and Central America. In fact no other mastadon fossils have been found between Honduras and Venezuela. Mastadons are about the same size as elephants or woolly mammoths but are not very closely related. The mastadon's tusks could be as long as five meters. The tusks curved up but not so much as the mammoth. When a mastadon reared its head the tusks would be pointing nearly straight out. Imagine how intimidating!

Based on an analysis of the meaning of the place name of Taima-taima and associated sites, we can now determine who settled here. It was likely not the same people who butchered mastadons in Northamerica and eventually developed the Clovis points.

The Taima-taima people are the same as the Monte Verde culture in southern Chile. In both cases the place names are proto-Ch'orti' words. Looking at the map to the left [click to enlarge], shows that the only feasible way for a group from Monte Verde to reach Taima-taima, nearly from one tip of the continent to the other, was by boat (sail-raft) around the continent. Both sites are a few miles from navigable ocean water.

This means that the Monte Verde culture sailed through the Magellan straits about 13,000 years before Magellan. Perhaps they should be renamed the Mapuche straits. They sailed up and around the Atlantic side of South America. Likely they also sailed up the Pacific side to Baja California and California's Channel Islands.

We will look at seven place names around Taima-taima. Four are within a few miles of Taima-taima while the other three are spread out somewhat but also have evidence of habitation at about the same time as Taima-taima or just later. El Jobo appears to date almost as early as Taima-taima, about 11,000 BCE. It is located about 120 kilometers southwest of Taima-taima. A famous projectile point has been named after El Jobo. The Jobo and nearby Pedregal valleys have many points and cherts which date from this period.

Cucuruchú is a site about 170 km south-southwest of Taima-taima. A fossil of the Panamerican Ground Sloth (Eremotherium), which went extinct in about 9,000 BCE, was found there. There are also man-made tools of the same period there.

To the northwest of Taima-taima about 75 kilometers is another important site of Cayude. It is located on the Paraguaná peninsula. Cayude appears to be from a slightly later period, about 9,000 to 8,000 BCE. It is unique among the sites in having some points that are similar to Northamerican Clovis points.

Around Taima-taima are three other related sites that all date from the same time: Mauco, Taratara, and Mataruca. All of the sites are located within three miles of the Atlantic Ocean. Mauco, like Taima-taima, is a site of mastadon remains. Taratara and Mataruca are current-day villages which have names that date back to the time of Taima-taima in 12,000 BCE.

Let's take a look at all of these seven site names and their meanings in Ch'orti', proto-Chorti was the ancient language of the First Peoples in the Americas.

Taima-taima - An early village and butchering site of mastadons within a mile of the Atlantic coast of Venezuela

    Ta': excretion or remains of plants or animals
    Mah: fault, false, evil

Or "remains of the evil animal", which would mean mastadon remains.

Mauco - Another village and early butchering site of mastadons, also about a mile of the Atlantic coast

    Mauh: evil, wicked, unsocial
    K'o': tooth

Or "evil tooth" (evil-toothed), which describes the mastadon.

Taratara - A village about two miles southeast of Taima-taima.

    Tar: arrival

Or "arrival arrival". Clearly this is the area of the coast where the First Peoples first landed. The name Taratara is essentially equivalent to Taltal in Chile. (The l's and r's were one sound to the First Peoples.)

Mataruca - A village about two miles southeast of Mauco.

    Mah: false, evil
    Ta': plant or animal remains
    Luki: hook

Or "remains of hooked evil one". This may refer to a speared mastadon rather than a hooked mastadon.

Jobo - A village in the Pedregal valley 120 km southwest of Taimataima.

Hop(b): jump, leap
Po': deep hole  (also could be spelled bo')

Or "jump in deep hole". This most likely refers to a deep hole that was made to trap mastadons. Note that the 'j' is the Spanish letter that would correspond to the ch'orti' 'h'. Also that the p and b are somewhat interchangeable for the ch'orti'.

Cucuruchú - A village about 170 km southeast of Taima-taima

Kurkur: pronged, pointed
Ruch: gourd, gourd container

Or "pronged gourd". In Spanish cucurucho means 'cone', no doubt coming from ch'orti'. Some other powerful words are embedded in Cucuruchú, including kuhr - vagina, kur - penis or pointed object, and uchur - spirit. This helps explain a Mexican slang for cucurucho of a couple that displays a lot of tenderness.

Cayude - A village 75 northwest of Taima-taima on the Paraguaná peninsula.

Kaih: begin
Ut: any round fruit or ute: tree

Or "begin fruit" or "begin tree", which appear to be a reference to the first use of a certain kind of fruit/fruit tree.

Cayude, with its Clovis-type points dating to 8,500 or 8,000 BCE, likely point to contact with Central American cultures. This contact was likely by a combination of boat and overland. The Central Americans also descended from the proto-Ch'orti' speakers and may have settled in Central America from Venezuela. However, it appears more likely that they move from Chile or Peru to Central America. These Central Americans may have learned the Clovis technique from the Xibalba culture which was already present before the proto-Ch'orti'-speaking culture arrived.

Finally, looking at the location of modern day indigenous languages we can gain a clue about which languages descended from the ch'orti' root present at Taima-taima and Jobo. Taima-taima, Cayude, and Cucuruchú all are in the Equatorial linguistic area. This includes the language sub-groups of Macro-Arawakan, Jibaro-Kandoshi, Kariri-tupi, and others. The Jobo area seems to correspond to the Macro-Carib linguistic area, which includes the language sub-groups Andoke, Bora-Uitoto, Carib, Kukura, and Yagua.

All of the languages of Central and South America can be traced back to these early migrations of proto-Ch'orti' speakers. From Venezuela we go next to Colombia. Eventually the proto-Ch'orti' speakers settled in El Salvador and their descendants became the great Maya and Lenca nations.

Nearly as old as the Monte Verde site in southern Chile and equally old as the Taima Taima and related sites in Venezuela are a series of sites, El Abra-Tocancipá high in the Andes mostly northeast of Bogotá. Just as the Monte Verde culture sailed counter clockwise around South America from Chile around the Cape of Magellan past Brazil and the Amazon to Venezuela, they continued on to the Caribbean coast of Colombia, went up the Magdalena River, and then by foot arrived to the altiplano. Comparing the proto-Ch'orti' language of Monte Verde with the place names of the Colombian sites confirms that these were the same people.

Earlier I confirmed that the Monte Verde people arrived by sea from Asia to southern Chile and that they lived in a broad area that included Bariloche, Argentina. They circumnavigated South America, with a group settling in Venezuela. Later, in about 9,000 or 8,500 BCE one group of these proto-Ch'orti' speakers would travel to El Salvador and then settle in the islands of the Gulf of Fonseca, the beginning of the Maya and Lenca identity. (español)

The Colombian sites are all located on the Andean altiplano with most about 50 kilometers northeast and one site about 25 kilometers west of Bogota. The Abra site near Tibitó is a series of caves and rock shelters at an altitude of 2,570 meters. The first settlement has been dated to 12,400 BCE, within a few hundred years of Monte Verde. Bone fragments come from mastadons, the American horse, and deer. Perhaps it was in pursuit of the horse that the early MonteVerdeans arrived to Tibitó. The horse became extinct in the Americas by 6,000 BCE, if not earlier. By the way, the horse is originally an American animal and made it to Asia, it is speculated, by crossing the Bering Strait during the last Ice Age. Another cave near Tocanpicá has tools that date to 11,000 BCE.

To the south, a site near Tequendama, near the Bogotá suburb of Soacha, also has tools from the same time period. Many of these were brought from the Magdalena River valley, 50 kilometers west. This shows additional proof for a close relationship with the Magdalena River.

Like the sites of Monte Verde, Bariloche, and Taima Taima, many of the place names surrounding these sites are from a proto-Ch'orti' language, demonstrating that it was all the same people in the various South America sites and that the Ch'orti' Maya language is the closest relative of the base language of all the South American indigenous languages. It also means that Ch'orti', the language closest to the holy language used at the classic era Mayan sites, is the closest relative of the language spoken in Asian by the people who crossed the Pacific. Let's look at the meanings of the place names in Ch'orti':

Tibitó - A contemporary village and site of an ancient rock shelter about 50 kilometers north of Bogotá and 70 kilometers east of the Magdalena River valley

Ti: in, on, within
Bitor: any kind of rounded crest

Or "within a rounded crest" which likely describes the rock shelter. The 'or' at the end was replaced by 'ó'. This is the only occurence of Tibitó.

Cajica - A contemporary village near the Tibitó site, with a very old name.

Ka'h: remembrance
Ik'ar: wind, breeze

Or "remembering wind", perhaps a breeze that reminded the settlers of Taima Taima or Monte Verde. This is the only occurence of Cajica.

Tocancipá - A contemporary small city near the Tibitó site.

Tok' - Breaking off, chipping, flint stone
K'an - need, desire
Sihb(p) - increase, swelling
Pa' - food

Not such a clear meaning, but could mean, "Chipping stone tools for need to increase food." This is a more abstract meaning than typical. Another possible mearning using different cognates is "breaking yellow sticks". This is the only occurence of Tocancipá.

Siria - A village just northeast of Tocancipá.

Sir - raising or lifting
Siri - lift up
Ah - one who

"One who is lifted up" or "anointed". There are five occurences of Siria in Latin America, three of which in Colombia. While some may be a modern reference to the country of Syria, it is more likely that all are based on this Ch'orti' word reserved for special people, those who are enlightened, those who discovered agriculture, etc.

Tequendama - A rock shelter and waterfall 25 kilometers west of Bogotá with tools dating back to about 11,000 BCE.

Ta - (locative)
Ker - separating
Tama - in, within, at

Or "separating to the interior". This likely signifies a new community distant from the previous base settlements. Tequendama is about 40 kilometers southwest of the earlier sites of El Abra and Tibitó. There are five occurences of Tequendama in Colombia and nowhere else in the world and each could signify a new settlement distant from previous settlements. One alternative meaning for Tequendama is base on the syllable quen, the only other Ch'orti' word similar is kene', which means banana. There is a slight chance this name refers to a plant or fruit, where the name was later used for bananas when they were introduced to Central America.

Soacha - A city, suburb of Bogotá, close to the site of Tequendama.

Sohi - bend, curve
Ch'a' - horizontal, lying down
Cha' - two, second

"Horizontal curve" or "two curves/bends". Soacha is not an exact match so it is possible it is not proto-Ch'orti' in origin. This is the only occurence of Soacha.

Chusacá - A contemporary village close to Tequendama and Soacha.

Ch'u - anything hanging, hanging fruit
Chu' - breast, milk, milky sap
Saka - white seed

"Hanging white seed" or "Sappy white seed". These are consistent meanings. This could refer to the pitaya, pitahaya, chirimoya, or platonia. There were several white fruits in northern South America. This is the only occurence of Chusacá, but there is a Chusacay in Peru.

While other early settlements of the First Peoples are all coastal, the Colombian ones are in the interior. How did they get there? The common wisdom among anthropologists and archeologists is that they walked overland from the north across the Darien Strait from Central America. However, there are no other settlements for thousands of miles to the north from the same time period, placing this assumption in doubt.

I think that the arrival to the Abra Valley of Colombia was primarily by ocean, just like Taima-Taima in Venezuela. The Magdalena River (right) is key. It is navigable for hundreds of kilometers starting at Barranquilla on the Caribbean coast to the high altiplano in the south of the country. It is easily navigable to Honda, directly west of the Abra Valley. The first inhabitants traveled counterclockwise around South America, whether originating from Monte Verde or from Taima-Taima is not clear. They may have reached the Darien Strait and then turned backed to the first major river and went upstream. Likely from Honda they left the boats and climbed up straight east to the altiplano, settling in the desirable Abra Valley.

Like Taima-Taima and Monte Verde, the first peoples of Colombia spoke an archaic form of Ch'orti' Maya, based on the place names. Today many Macro-Carib speakers live in the altiplano, with some neighboring Chibchan speakers. The Chibchan arrived at a later time from Central America. It is clear that they were formed at about the same time as the Maya and Lenca in the Gulf of Fonseca. It is most likely that the Abra Valley is the source of the Macro-Carib languages. Earlier I had speculated that El Jobo, Venezuela, might be the source, but the Abra Valley seems much more likely.

Taltal, Chile. First mine in the Americas. First red ochre. Rock, bone, body and face paint. Taltal is one of the most important historical sites in the Americas. An iron oxide mine or quarry was begun in 10,000 BCE and continued for 1,500 years. The next oldest mine in the Americas dates to about 2,500 BCE. The iron oxide or red ochre from Taltal was likely carried thousands of miles to California's Channel Islands, and possibly to Japan and Taiwan. Taltal may stand as much in the tradition of red ochre mines of Australia that date to ~40,000 BCE and of South Africa that date to ~90,000 BCE, as it does to later mines in the Americas. Red ochre was considered a life giving substance.

Red ochre is a well-known red dye used for the purpose of body and face painting, as well as rock painting. Red ochre mines dating to 40,000 to 60,000 years ago have been found in Australia. I believe that Taltal indicates a continuous cultural use of red ochre from Australia to East Asia to the Americas.

The Taltal mine was discovered in the last couple years. Examining the meaning of the place name of Taltal and surrounding place names it is clear that it fits within the cultural tradition of Monte Verde, 2000 km to the south in southern Chile, and sites we have examined in Bariloche, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia. Given the similarily between the place names at Taltal and the modern Ch'orti' Maya language it is very possible that it was the ancestors of the Maya who were at Taltal before they moved north to El Salvador in about 8800 BCE.

There are few indigenous place names around Taltal, Chile. But let's look at three local place names: Taltal, Huentelauquen Cove, and Choapa River, as well as Coquimbo, the administrative region were Taltal is located. Taltal today is small city of 10,000 on the Pacific coast of the desert north of Chile. It lies at the mouth of the Choapa River, which flows down from the Andes Mountains to the east. A small peninsula to the west of Taltal gives form to the Huentelauquen Cove. Taltal is located in Coquimbo Region. Let's take a look at the meaning of these names in one of the oldest languages in the Americas, Ch'orti' Maya.

Taltal - Small city in northern Chile and location of a red ochre mine dating to 10,000 BCE.

Tal: arrival (in Ch'orti' it would be tar but in archaic Ch'orti' the 'l' and 'r' would likely have been interchangeable)

Clearly Taltal means 'arrival', and being on the coast indicates a sea arrival. Whether the arrival was from the deap sea or up the coast from Monte Verde can't be determined, but given the language links with Monte Verde, that seems most likely.

Choapa - The name of the river that flows into the Pacific Ocean at Taltal.

Choh: growth of plants
Ah: one who
Pa': food

Or "one who gathers (or grows) food from plants". There is another possible meaning:

Cho': dye
P'aj: brown

The brown dye would refer to the reddish-brown dye of the iron oxide mine at Taltal.

Coquimbo - The administrative region in northern Chile that contains Taltal.

Kohk: cut or broken part of
Inbon: many, much, excessive, increasing
Po': deep spot, hole, well (the 'b' and 'p' were interchangeable in archaic Ch'orti')

Or "excessive, deep cut hole" which would refer to the historical red ochre mine or quarry at Taltal.

Huentelauquen - The cove at Taltal.

Weh: flesh, pulp
Te': plant
Lauh: large leaf
Kene': any variety of banana

Or large leaf, fleshy banana plant. While I won't say it's impossible for some variety of banana to have originated in South America, I think it's more likely that kene' was originally a word that referred to fleshy fruit generically, like banana or a palm. Taltal is in the region of the endangered Chilean Wine Palm. I think that Huentelauquen refers to this palm tree. 

The first peoples landed from Asia by boat at Monte Verde, Chile. They quickly spead out with settlements in Venezuela and Colombia. Local place names indicate that they are all linked by a common root language which is most closely linked to Ch'orti' Maya, among modern languages. By 10,000 BCE another settlement from Monte Verde was made at Taltal in northern Chile. From South America one group would migrate to Central America in about 8,800 BCE - the Maya/Lenca ancestors and the ancestors of most of the Central and North American indigenous.

Salvadorans are called 'guanacos' rather affectionately by some, perhaps disparagingly by others. Most Salvadorans are proud of the name. As is turns out, 'guanaco' has a long, important history and demonstrates the centrality of Salvadorans in the history of indigenous in the Americas.

A common word that comes from the same root is guano, which means bird poop, bat droppings, or dung in general and is associated with coastal areas and caves. Merriam Webster says that guano was first used as a word in 1604 in coastal Peru. Of course what they mean is that 1604 is when Europeans first used the word. When we look at the key words associated with guano, the one most likely to share a meaning with guanaco is caves.

As I have pointed out, guanaco means brother or sister, not literally but figuratively, as in one who shares a cave.

Looking for a common root word for caves I looked at the Austronesian languages of southeast Asia, where the first peoples came from. In Malay, gua or guwa is cave and in Indonesian it is goa. We find the root word for cave, whether it was originally gua or guana, preserved in the Austronesian languages, going back 15,000 years, when the first peoples sailed across the Pacific Ocean and landed at Monte Verde, Chile. Interestingly, in Malay gu means "a yoke, a couple, a pair, fellows, mates." Gua and gu seem to share the same relationship in Malay as do guana and guanaco in ancient Amerind.

I am not yet clear why the Andean animal, the wilder cousin of the llama and alpaca, is called guanaco. My guess is that in the earliest times the name was given to all these large animals as a term of endearment. Perhaps some were domesticated that early and even shared the caves in Peru. In any case, this confirms a common root language between the Andes and Central America and the migration of the ancestors of the Central American people from South America.

The prevalence of the Lenca people in carrying the Guana oral tradition forward is shown by the name of the guanacaste tree and villages named Guanacaste throughout Lenca speaking areas. In contrast, the Ch'orti's call the guanacaste, 'conacaste'. I believe that guanacaste means "council of the brotherhood/sisterhood." These council meetings were often held under the great shade of the guanacaste (left), leading to the naming of the tree. The ceiba, another large tree, is used as the symbol of the world tree by Maya. One can't help but wonder if the Lenca used the guanacaste as their symbol of the world tree. It would add layers of meaning to the concept of the world tree.

Guana is a common place name fragment throughout the Americas, showing its continued use over thousands of years among many different language groups:

• Guanacaste province, Costa Rica
• Baia Guanabara, Brasil
• Guanajuato, Mexico
• Guancora River, El Salvador
• Guanaja Island, Honduras
• Guanabacoa, Cuba
• Guana Island, British Virgin Islands
• Guana Island, Antigua (also spelled Guiana)

This latter island is interesting - is the second spelling (Guiana) due to an European error or was it reflecting an inflection or change in the way that guana was pronounced over time? If the latter, then we must begin to see Guyana and possibly Guinea (Bissau), Guinea, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, and Papau New Guinea all sharing in the name Guana - a name brought by ocean travellers who gave the highest honor "brother and sister" to the peoples that they met around the globe.

The term guanaco or at least guana also made it to Europe, starting in the Mediterranean. In Spanish we have the names Juan and Juana, which are clear derivatives of guana. The first peoples visited Europe, especially the Mediterranean, many times. The names Juan and Juana spread to many other languages in Europe and the Middle East. In most cases they are the most popular name, especially the male names. They still retain their original "brother" and "sister" ("of the same cave") meaning. No wonder that Brother John slips off the tongue so easily.

We have moved forward with the movement of the word guana. Now it's time to take a big step back. When researching this topic, I was surprised to be find a resort in South Africa called "Montagu Guana Cave Christian Guest Farm", located in the southwest of South Africa. Ignoring whatever a Christian Guest Farm is, consider the words "Guana Cave". There is a cave in South Africa called Guana, sharing a meaning found in Malay and throughout the Americas. The ancestors of the first peoples in the Americas, like the Austronesian peoples in Asia, left South Africa about 60,000 to 70,000 years ago. The word guana has been preserved for that many years, indicating a deliberate attempt on the part of the first peoples and their ancestors, to preserve key cultural artifacts from the old country, that is, Africa.

Moreover, this offers the strongest evidence yet for a living cultural link between South Africa and the first peoples in the Americas. Other evidence includes:

• Use of ultra long-distance running in both places
• Mining and use of red ochre (iron oxide) body and rock paint
• Clicking sounds in the languages (especially some Mayan languages)
• Potential references in the Popol Vuh to South Africa

Clearly for a Salvadoran to be called a guanaco is no small thing. In fact, figuring out the meaning of 'guanaco' helps answer some of the important questions of indigenous history in the Americas.

Lapa do Boquete is a Paleolithic site dating to about 10,070 BCE; one of the earlies in South America. It is located in eastern Brasil just off the São Francisco River, navigable year-round to the Atlantic Ocean. Lapa do Boquete is on the Peruaçu River, which drains into the São Francisco a few kilometers downstream from the site. There are canyons and caves along the Peruaçu. There are many rock paintings in the area. The area was occupied for several thousand years. The plant and animal remains and the cave paintings are well preserved within the dry caves.

The São Francisco River is navigable for about 300 km upstream from the Peruaçu. It is the longest river entirely in Brasil and the fourth longest river in South America. Its indigenous
name is Opara. It drains into the Atlantic about 100 kilometers northeast of Aracaju. The place names around the Lapa do Boquete site reveal that it is part of the Monte Verde, Chile, linguistic-cultural complex, like early sites in Taima-taima, Venezuela, Tocancipa, Colombia, and Taltal, northern Chile, as well as Bariloche, Argentina. In fact, the place names indicate a special connection with Taltal in particular. This connection makes it highly probable that the settlers of Lapa do Boquete left Taltal, journeyed south by boat along the Chile coast, around Cape Horn, and then northeast along the coasts of present-day Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. They finally arrived moving upstream along the São Francisco River.

Three place names will be looked at: Opara, the indigenous name for the São Francisco River; Itacarambi, a town along the Opara north of Lapa; and Jatobá, a town on the Opara south of Lapa.

In order to evaluate the meanings of these place names, I will use a modern Ch'orti' dictionary. Ch'orti' is the closest language to the root language of the Maya and still contains many of the basic cognates in common with the language brought over by boat from east Asia.

Opara - The indigenous name of the São Francisco River

O - No meaning. Probably added later
Parar - latticed

Opara likely means "latticed" or "woven" referring to its weaving through the Brazilian countryside.

Itacarambi - A town on the banks of the São Francisco River

Ihta'n - sibling, relative
K'ar - opening, fissure, throat
Aambi' - last year, a year ago

Meaning "relative from the opening a year ago". The key for this name is opening or fissure. This clearly is indicating the iron oxide mine at Taltal, Chile, a hand-dug open pit mine close to the Pacific Ocean. While aambi' might mean literally "a year ago" it could mean "in the not too distant past". While Itacarambi could be indicating a visit from Taltal it seems much more likely to indicate a recent move from Taltal, a move away from relatives.

Jatobá - a town south of the Lapa site on the São Francisco River

Hat - A splitting
Tohb - Anything shelled, pods
Buh - Legume, hardnut, berry
Bah - Deep yellow or brown

Meaning "split shelled nuts" or "splitting deep yellow pods". Both are similar meanings indicating some type of shell, pod or nut, perhaps yellow-brown in color, that was split here. Unlike Itacarambi, there are many Jatoba place-names in Brazil, which makes sense given its more common meaning.

The meanings of the three place names near the Lapa do Boquete site indicate that it was settled by the same cultural group that settled Monte Verde and Taima-taima and was very likely settled by a group from the site of Taltal in northern Chile. It is likely that later the Taltal group migrated to El Salvador to found the Mayan and Lenca peoples.

One of the more amazing ancient sites in El Salvador are the stones that correspond to four ancient sailing rafts. The stones are located about five kilometers inland from the Toluca Beach, east of La Libertad (click to enlarge). While there is no official dating, my research indicates a date of approximately 8,800 BCE. And my research indicates that the sailing party arrived from either Chile or Peru.

The stones are lying in tall grass and are sitting right next to each other, as if they were purposefully placed that way. There are four sets of most of the stones. The stones include anchor stones. The anchor stones are all cut so that some type of rope could be tied around the stones.

There appeared to be more than four anchor stones. Here's another:

There were four stones that were cooking stones. These varied somewhat but all contained a nearly perfectly round pounding hole. Some contained smaller holes that could have been gourd holders (early cup holders) or they could have been bases for poles used for shelter support. Some had shallowly indented work areas and some had a quite deep indentation for cooking or perhaps as seats. These large stones indicate that the rafts were quite large. A raft that was 8 logs wide and 40 feet long, for example, could use a stone like this for ballast to ensure the raft didn't flip over.

This cooking stone (below) has a very different configuration from the one above but still most of the same features.

There was a pounding stone located next to one of the cooking stones:

One of the most surprising stone types to find were sleeping stones. While generally lower than the cooking stones they tended to be larger and might balance the cooking stones in weight, creating large ballast stones on each side of the sail. While some raft travelers may have slept in hammocks, the sleeping stones would ensure that raft travelers would not be sleeping on the wet raft surface. If you look partway down the left side of this stone you can see a stone pillow.

This stone may have been the central mast stone on one of the rafts.

There is at least one stone that appears to be either a day-keeper stone or a navigation stone, with cut marks made on many parts of the stone.

The stones are located in a rather compact area within the tall grass in the photo below. Rather remarkably, to the left of the sailing stones from this angle, are four large round-ish marker stones.

These stones were moved - rolled - to this location from the surrounding area. However this is a not a stoney area - some may have been rolled several kilometers. My opinion is that each of these stones represent one raft, one family, that arrived to El Salvador. They are memorial stones - grandfather/grandmother stones.

The four grandfather/mother stones: (click to enlarge)

I will examine five questions that this site of four ancient sailing stones raises: has the ocean level really gone down? Who were the ancient sailers? Where did the ancient sailers come from? When the sailers land at Toluca Beach? Where did the sailers go from here?

The Ocean Level. The first question raised by the sailing stones is that this implies that the ocean has gone down in the last 11,000 years. In relative terms, on the Pacific Coast of Central America, this is true. The stones are maybe 15 meters above the level of the ocean. A similar marker stone on Isla Tigre, Honduras, which was likely also placed at ocean shoreline level perhaps 500 years later, is about 12 to 15 meters above the ocean level. 

There are at least two historic forces at work. There is a gradual rising of the Pacific coast of Central America as the Cocos continental plate continues to go under the Caribbean plate, which contains all of El Salvador and most of Central America. The western edge of the Caribbean plate, near the Pacific coast, continues to rise through this process. This leads to many earthquakes and volcanos as well as an ocean that appears to be falling.

In reality the ocean has likely risen between 30 and 60 meters in the last 12,000 years, with most of the rising occuring between 10,000 BCE and 6,000 BCE as the ice sheets melted after the last of the Ice Age. It's likely that the Toluca Beach site was submerged by the ocean for many thousands of years and then finally rose out of the ocean 3000-4000 years ago with the rising of the Caribbean plate and continued to rise until recently when recent ocean rising is again reversing the historic trend.

Who were the people who landed at Toluca Beach? Given the two place names in this area - Toluca and Amatal - it is quite clear that these were the ancestors of the modern-day Maya people. Both Toluca and Amatal have significant meanings in proto Ch'orti' Maya. This is similar to all the early South American sites, including the first site, Monte Verde, in southern Chile, and other sites, Taima Taima, Venezuela, Abra-Tocancipa, Columbia, Taltal, Chile, and Lapa do Boquete, Brasil. In the case of Taltal, Playa Amatal shares part of its name: tal means "arrival" in proto Ch'orti'. The shared name suggests a possible link between these two sites.

The Toluca name sounds similar to Tecoluca, a municipality 50 kilometers to the east where the Lempa River drains into the Pacific Ocean. Here is the possible meaning of Toluca in proto-Ch'orti':

T'ohr - anything stacked or piled (the 'l' and 'r' were likely interchangeable at that time)
Uk' - sadness
Kah - beginning, start or k'ah - remembering

I think that the meaning is "remembering in sadness the (horizontal) pile [of stones and rafts]. Perhaps they were sad in leaving behind the old land or were sad for those who may have died on the journey. That both Amatal and Toluca have meanings in proto Ch'orti' answers to a large degree who it was who landed at this beach and left these sailing stones.

Where did the ancient sailers come from?

The two sites along the Pacific coast of South America of a time period of 9000 to 8000 BCE are at Taltal, Chile, and the Guitarrero Cave, Peru. Both the Taltal site and the Guitarrero Cave site have place names consistent with proto-Ch'orti' seen at Toluca-Amatal. The habitation of the Taltal site dates from 10,000 BCE to about 8,500 BCE. The habitation from the Guitarrero Cave site dates from about 10,500 BCE to 5,000 BCE. The Peru site is about 100 kilometers from the Pacific Ocean and the inhabitants there likely maintained contact with the ocean.

The cooking stones shown above are somewhat similar to some of the tacita stones found in northern Chile, several hundred miles south of the Taltal site. Those stones are located at 300 meters above sea level, so they were never used on a raft, but indicate that similar technology was used on land. Here are more photos from a nearby site in Chile.

While the tacita stone sites in Chile and the connection between the names Taltal and Amatal might point toward Taltal, Chile, being the origination of this journey, it could have just as easily been from Peru. The evidence of very early vegetable production in or near the Peru site, starting in 8500 BCE with Aji peppers, is consistent with the very early agricultural production in El Salvador.

When was the journey made? These stones seem to be from an arrival type of journey rather than a short visit, in which case the stones would have been re-used and the grandfather/mother stones would not have been added. These four stones seem to correspond to the four leaders mentioned in the Popol Vuh (PV): Akbar, Kinche' (Quitze), Ik, and Maix (mentioned as Majukutaj in the PV). Therefore, it seems that this journey can be tied to the events in the Popol Vuh.

In fact the names mentioned above correspond to the shifts on which the raft leaders were the lead raft and carried the navigation stone. Akbar means "night", Kinche' means "handle day", Ik means "evening", and Maix means "not ready yet". The latter name almost appears to be a joke but simply means that Maix was not an experienced rafter and was not yet ready to lead the journey. 

These first people were the ones who experienced the Xibalba cave soon after landing in El Salvador. I have previously dated this experience to 8800 BCE using the Popol Vuh dating system and the mars retrograde long-count calendar.

Secondly, this journey would correspond to a time before corn was first hibridized. The earliest date determined by scientists so far is 6700 BCE in the Balsas River valley of Southwest Mexico. However the date according to the Popol Vuh was approximately 7900 BCE. This raft journey would have to have occured several hundred years before that.

Third, the ocean level itself indicates a very early date for this journey. If the date would have been later than, say, 8000 BCE, this site would have been submerged by the 100 to 200 additional feet of ocean depth as a result of the melting ice sheets following the Ice Age.

For all of the above I would date this raft journey to 8800 BCE, +/- 200 years.

Where did they go from here? It is impossible to know where this group of families went but my guess is that they went east or northeast where the terrain rises more gently than it would inland to the north or northwest. In addition, there is a village called Nuevo Eden, New Eden, about 17 kilometers to the east and just northwest of the international airport. My guess is that Nuevo Eden was the site of their first encampment. But soon after came their encounter with the Lords of Xibalba!

Somewhere around 8800 BCE the two great human groups of the Americas - the super hunters of Northamerica and the sailors and plant specialists of Southamerica - met in El Salvador and began a confrontation that lasted for hundreds if not thousands of years. [click to enlarge map] This confrontation led to the great drama of the Xibalba lords in the Mayan sacred book Popol Vuh. Much of the confrontation of these two groups centered around the Corinto cave or rock shelter, mislabeled the Holy Spirit Cave, (click to enlarge), in northeast El Salvador.

I believe that the Popol Vuh accounts are generally more than symbolic, i.e. the Xibalba Cave really existed. Moreover, since the Mayan ancestors landed their sail rafts in El Salvador, El Salvador is the most logical place for the Xibalba Cave. Various place names, oral histories, and the paintings in the cave all support this idea. 

We begin with the name of the beach near where the Mayan ancestors landed - Amatal. As mentioned earlier, tal means "arrival". Ah-ma means liar or evil one in Ch'orti', so that Amatal means either "arrival to the evil one" or "arrival of the evil one". Since the Mayan ancestors arrived at nearby Toluca, evidenced by the sailing stones and the Mayan name of Toluca, "arrival of the evil one" only makes sense if the "evil one" was encountered by the pre-Maya a few kilometers from where they landed. This is possible but somewhat unlikely in the open spaces along the beach. I think "arrival to the evil one" is a more likely meaning for Amatal ("arrival to the land of the evil one").

The second name that supports the notion of a great confrontation in El Salvador between two groups is the local indigenous name for the cave, Suncuyo. Suncuyo is a Maya name, even though now this is a Kakawira (a Chibchab language group) area with the Lenca nearby. Suncuyo appears to date back to a time when the Mayan, Lenca, and Chibchab languages were still close. Here's what it means in Ch'orti':

sun - foreigner
ku - topple, push, tumble
yo'r - hole, perforation 

Suncuyo is "foreigner tumbling through a hole or over a perforation." What drama! The Corinto cave is covered by a mushroom-like granite cap (above, click to enlarge) which weathered away on two sides forming two caves or rock shelters. The perforation could refer to the edge above the cave where there is a 10 meter drop to the rock shelter floor. However I believe that Suncuyo is referring to another feature of the granite cap - a hole in the granite near the edge of the cap that ultimately opens up to the outside at the bottom (click to enlarge). I believe this is what the Popol Vuh refers to as the Razor House and was very instrumental in the battles between the two sides. When one goes through the hole they go from the upper world (layer) to the underworld (layer).

A third name which provides evidence of a conflict between two groups is the Lenca name for the cave: Ti Ketau Antawinikil (the cave of the human being). This is profound. The Lenca consider it the place where human beings came from. According to a Lenca elder, the name Antawinikil means “first man” or “first humans” in Lenca. The name Ti Ketau Antawinikil has a similar but intriguingly different meaning in Ch’orti’ Maya: “opening in possession of the [Anta] human being.” The strong possessive sense would seem out of place except that the translation of Anta appears to be “forest corn”, making the whole “opening in possession of the forest corn humans.” (A’n means “spring maize” and tah means “forest”.) This would then indicate that the cave belongs to the forest (wild) corn people as opposed to some other people – people who did not grow or gather corn (or teosinte) in the forest.

Who were the group of humans opposing the pre-Maya? First, it seems clear that they were hunters. There are at least two hunter paintings in the cave, unusual in Mayan caves or rock shelters. In the photo at right on can see the most prominent and dramatic paintings in the cave. [click to enlarge] At the bottom is the white outline of a hand centered within an indentation. It is the sign of the ruler of the cave. Directly above it in yellow is a clear depiction of a hunter. The hunter is carrying a spear or related object in his right hand. For a time, the hunters were the rulers of the cave. To the left is another painting that appears to be a hunter. [click to enlarge] It is highly likely that this hunter group came into the Americas from the north and were in Northamerica for some time. They would be the hunters of the Clovis points.

Miguel Amaya, a Kakawira leader from nearby Cacaopera, says that the area from Cacaopera to Corinto [see map at top], especially along the Torola River, was an ancient hunting ground with numerous animal bones found, including one that local people believe was a mastodon. The mastodons could have been driven south and east by the Northamerican hunters.

More evidence of a Northamerican hunter presence at Corinto cave comes from Taima Taima, Venezuela, a very early site which was settled by relatives of the pre-Maya/Olmec sailors who arrived in El Salvador, based on language similarities. Taima Taima is a mastodon kill site dating to 12,000 BCE which showed no signs of Clovis points from the period of 11,500 BCE to 9,000 BCE when they were common in Northamerica. But one nearby site, Cayude, shows Clovis points sometime after 9,000 BCE. It would appear that the pre-Maya, after their encounter with the hunters, sent a delivery of Clovis points to their cousins in Venezuela. The 9000 BCE date or soon thereafter for the Cayude Clovis points corresponds with my estimated date of 8800 BCE for the first encounter between these two people.

The Popol Vuh reinforces the idea that the Xibalba cave was a cave of hunters by having one of the sections of the cave named the Jaguar room. I believe that the four families were held captive in the Jaguar area and that is how they gained their name as the Jaguar people. One of the four leaders, Maix (Not Ready Yet), is not named as a Jaguar in the Popol Vuh but his lineage, the Olmec and the Lenca, certainly share the Jaguar totem. I think the Jaguar area begins at the left in the photo and continues further to the left [click to enlarge]. The Bat area where the hunter leaders may have slept was just right of center.

A second characteristic of the hunters seems to be their tall stature. The local legend states that the first people to inhabit the cave were giants. Local legends are usually based on some actual human experience that later turned into legend. This is especially true in a place with a very strong oral history tradition like Central America. The legend also states that there were three giant men and four giant women, perhaps indicating that there were generally more women than men among the hunters. A (probably) modern add-on to the legend states that the giants were from outer space.

The legend is reinforced by the presence of either natural or cultural cave features that appear to be very tall ghost-like people (left). This cave feature is near the exit of the cave on the west end. These cave features are perhaps seven or eight feet tall. To me they appeared to be a natural feature rather than cultural. Their style was also very different from all the other paintings, although that could be explained if the tall people made them.

Next to these "giant figures" are a series of many other "figures" along the west wall, where most of them are obviously natural rather than cultural (right, below). Whether or not the paintings are cultural should not determine the possibility that the hunters were much larger than the pre-Maya/pre-Olmec.

The other evidence for tall hunters is from the Popol Vuh, which states that the pre-Mayan/pre-Olmec leader One Hunahpu (Ahchuk in Ch'orti') married a woman named Xb'aqiyalo, translated as Egret Woman. This refers to a foreign woman with tall legs. Apparently One Hunahpu married one of the tall women from the other group of humans. The Xb'aqiyalo name has a double meaning of Xibahkha, which I believe is the Ch'orti' spelling for Xibalba, the Mayan name for the people in the cave.

Other evidence for a tall opposing group of humans comes from local traditions and folklore. The Ch'orti's practice a dance in eastern Guatemala which involves two giants, one white, one black. The giants move around very slowly until finally the black giant slays the white giant. This represents the death of One Hunapuh (Ahchuk) by the Xibalba lords in the Popol Vuh. The Dance of the Giants is documented in The Esotericism of the Popol Vuh by Raphael Girard. In the dance, the black giant represents Xibalba and the giants mentioned in the Popol Vuh, Vukup Cakix, Zipacná, and Caprakán. The black giant has a large headdress with a tall shaft. Two additional dance figures represent the Mayan twins, one has a sun identity and one the moon. The black giant then dances in battle against the moon twin. The twins cut each other up and when the black giant sees they are still alive says, "cut me up too." They do and he is killed. This is very similar to a story in the Popol Vuh.

Another bit of evidence for a group of tall opposing people comes from two more traditional dances involving giants in Nicaragua, an area where the pre-Olmec, pre-Lenca were present. In Leon it's the dance of the Gigantona (the giant woman). Her identity seems to be more that of a very tall colonial white woman, but it's possible this modern interpretation is covering up an indigenous gigantona story and dance that dates back to Xibalba. Further south in Diriamba there is the dance of El Gigante (the giant). His identity seems to be that of the giant in the biblical David and Goliath story, which is very similar to the moon twin vs black giant dance mentioned above. The dance also brings in the Moors vs. Christians dance found elsewhere in Central America. Both of these components of the dance may be based on older indigenous dances that date back to Xibalba.

Who made the paintings? My quick view of the cave indicated that white might be the bottom layer of paint in the cave. I believe that white was the color of paint used by the hunters and that all the other colors were used by the sailing people, the pre-Maya and pre-Olmec, once they had fully secured the cave at least a thousand years later. In addition to the white hand outlined above, the two figures in white are some of the only white painting. They appear to have headdresses that are like two feathers. White paint most likely came from calcium carbonate deposits which is often formed by marine sediments. It is possible it was found in the Gulf of Fonseca region which is about 50 kilometers the cave.

I believe that the colored paints - the browns, reds, oranges, and yellows - were all done by the sailing people. These colors all correspond to red ochre or iron oxide. There might be substitutes for one or two of these colors but probably not all four. The only identified iron oxide mine in the Americas before 1000 BCE is at Taltal, northern Chile. The sailing people may have come from there and it is highly likely that they maintained contact with Taltal by sail. I think that the colored paintings were done after the sailing people secured the cave a long time after the first encounter. However, I think its probable that these sailing people found a local source for iron oxide, since there is a high level of iron in the soil in eastern El Salvador and into Honduras. More research is needed on this question. For example, did these people discover and utilize the iron oxide at Agalteca, Honduras, 130 kilometers northwest of the cave? 

When did this encounter occur? I believe that this encounter dates to 8,800 BCE (+/- 200). This is based on the belief that the pre-Maya/pre-Olmec associated the tall hunters with one of the 20 Mayan day signs, the day sign Death. And that the day signs and the tzolkin 260 day calendar were in use by 7,000 BCE if not before. In addition, the Mayan-Olmec ancestors developed a long-count calendar based on the retrograde motion of Mars within the Milky Way.

The mars retrograde calendar is referenced within the Popol Vuh. For example: "And these are the lords over everything, each lord with a commission and a domain assigned by One and Seven Death." The format is that the first name refers to who - One Death, which would be the leader of the hunters, and the second name refers to when - Seven Death. The first time that Mars turned retrograde (in over 13,000 years) on the day sign Seven Death would have been about 8,800 BCE. Thus the pre-Maya associated Seven Death with the events that took place on the approximate date we know to be 8,800 BCE. Those events, based on Popol Vuh narratives, include their sail landing and subsequent capture by the tall hunters led by One Death.

It is also interesting that the Lenca name for the cave, mentioned above, can be understood in Ch’orti’. These are languages that diverged between 8,000 and 12,000 years ago according to linguists (some linguists mistakenly believe they are not related), which would seem to indicate that the cave name dates to that same period before the two languages were divergent.

What the encounter consists of? Most of the information about the encounter comes from the Popol Vuh, which indicates that the hunters were very violent and that conflict lasted for a very long time. I believe that the sailing people were able to escape the cave after a few months and journeyed around for many years before settling in Isla Tigre, Honduras, and then to four islands in El Salvador. They went to islands because the hunter people were afraid of water, which is what Xibalba means: "those afraid of water". 

A major confrontation took place when One Hunaphuh (Ajchuk in Ch'orti') went to the cave at the time of Seven Hunaphuh. The Popol Vuh says: "One and Seven Hunapuh left, guided down the road by the messengers. And then they descended the road to Xibalba." One Hunapuh refers to one of the pre-Mayan leaders. Seven Hunapuh refers to the date 7,500 BCE in the Mars retrograde calendar, 1,300 years after the initial capture and escape. The Popol Vuh then says that the sons of One Hunapuh defeated Xibalba - the hunters - once and for all - killing them all. This might be literal that it was the sons but it could some later generation. My best guess is that by 7,400 BCE the Mayan-Olmec ancestors (the jaguar people) secured the cave. The pre-Olmec/Lenca people became the caretakers of the cave although much later the Kakawira people, who also shared the same history of being captured in the cave, came back from Nicaragua, became the caretakers of the cave, and took up the jaguar practice.

There is a second rock shelter on the opposite side of the granite cap, (right), called Torro (Bull) Cave by locals. It has similar rock paintings, although fewer. There were no bulls in the Americas at that time. The animal closest to the bull are the tapir (danta). The image of the tapir is associated with the Death day sign which is itself associated with Xibalba, so it is not surprising that the cave may refer to the tapir.

The relationship between the Lenca-Olmec ancestors and the hunters seems different than the relationship between the Maya ancestors and the hunters. I believe that this stems from the captivity. Maix, the Lenca-pre-Olmec leader, means "not ready yet," referring to his young age and the lack of confidence that he could lead the raft flotilla. I believe that Maix was the generic "hunapuh" leader that the Popol Vuh refers to as marrying Egret Woman, a tall hunter woman. The Lenca believe that the painting at left [click to enlarge] represents the first Lenca man and women. In the Lenca tradition the oral history is passed on woman to woman. Egret Woman began that oral tradition and she told a different history about the hunters than what the Maya youth would hear. The Lenca today say that their oral history states that they were always there in eastern El Salvador. That's because Egret Woman may have said, "We were here already when you sailing people came. We've always been here for as long as we can remember." As the Popol Vuh says, they are a people formed by the blood of the tapir and by the blood of the sea serpent.

Finally, going back to the sailing people who landed on the central El Salvador coast, how did they end up in the hunters' cave? Given the conflictive nature of their encounter, it is highly unlikely it was voluntary, which would indicate that they were captured. Later events seem to indicate that they were captured before they knew much of anything about the region now called El Salvador. So they were probably captured within 70 kilometers of Toluca Beach.

I believe that once they placed the four grandfather stones at Toluca Beach they moved east since the incline to the northwest and north is quite steep within a few kilometers. They may have made their first campsite at Nuevo Eden, five miles north of Comolapa International Airport and 15 to 17 kilometers east of the Toluca Beach site. Eden (eten) means "the clearing" in Ch'orti', with a connotation of human-made. In another 45 kilometers they would have reached the Lempa River. I believe that once they made rafts and poled their way across the river the Xibalba hunters lay in ambush on the other side. Captured, they were marched to a cave that their descendants would rename about 1,400 years later Suncuyor "foreigner tumble hole."

8800-8700 BCE: Tobacco, Back Packs, Artificial Lagoons, and the 20-Day Calendar

Earlier I have written about how the sailing people came from South America to El Salvador, were captured by an opposing group of humans and taken to the Corinto cave, escaped from the cave and wandered around eastern El Salvador for many years until they found a citadel which was Tiger Island in the Gulf of Fonseca, Honduras. It is clear from the Popol Vuh that none of original four leaders lived to see the move to Tiger Island. With this post I will add some detail to the period of the escape and up until the move to Tiger Island, based on my trip one month ago. This part of my research is ongoing.

As I have mentioned, the two biggest pieces of evidence that the four sailing families were captured and soon escaped from the Corinto cave are that three of the four sailing leaders seemed to gain the jaguar moniker while being held captive in the jaguar room of the cave and that one of the four leaders - I believe Maix (Not Ready Yet) since his name implies he is the youngest - partnered with Xbakiyalo (Egret Woman) whose name implies she was a tall foreign woman associated with Xibalba. Without having been captured there would have been little opportunity for Maix to partner with Xbakiyalo.

When the sailing people escaped the Corinto cave they ran to the west toward the Torola River (click to enlarge). In the photo they would have been coming from the right, through the area known as Calavera (Skull) and once they reached the river they would have followed it to the left.

From the place names and location of Nuevo Edén de San Juán (New Eden of St. John) and the village Jardín (Garden), it seems likely that the sailing people followed the Torola River (to the right in the photo) as far as they could to the west until it entered the Lempa River (Jardin of Nuevo Eden) (just left of center in photo). This would have been a 60 kilometer journey with little rest. Eden or eten means "the cleared area" in Ch'orti' Maya. It seems likely that these places would not have received the names Eden and Jardín unless they maintained local history of being an important origination place in addition to likely having the indigenous name of Eten (one of the first clearings/campsites).

Important in the photo (click to enlarge) is the guanacaste tree in the mid-foreground, showing that it is likely native to the area. This is known as conacaste by the Maya. It means "breaking off from the cave tree" or "breaking off the cave tree". I believe it is the former meaning and supports the idea that the sailing people had just left the Corinto Cave. Nuevo Edén de San Juán is a very hot area and the presence of a large shade tree like this would have been very welcome to the despondent sailing people. It is still known as the tree of life among the Lenca people and some Maya closer to El Salvador. Perhaps they tried the seeds of the guanacaste and became sick - they can only be eaten after being boiled. Flowers, left, Jardín de Nuevo Edén.

It was while they were are at Nuevo Edén de San Juán that the sailing people found out an important characteristic of the hunter people from the cave. Eventually the hunter people found their location and the sailing people retreated with all their children into the Lempa River. As sailing people they knew how to swim. The hunter people pursued but could not swim and were swept up into the river downstream. Others quickly left. The sailing people had a new name for the hunter people - Xibalbha - "those who are afraid of water."

But it was very hard for the families to do this with young children. I think that this was the place that the first gift was given, Auilix. Ah-wir-ix (or ah-wil-ix) has a double meaning in Ch'orti': "the on-the-go wing" and "the woman's wing". Both describe what I think Auilix was - a mini raft that was used to transport babies and small children in the water when the sailing people were being pursued by the hunter people. The woman probably grabbed on to the wilix while in the water, both for support and to watch the baby, making the wilix look like a woman's wing. And it could be carried on the back like a backpack. Perhaps the first backpack. No doubt the wilix saved many lives. They may have had a saying like, "Tomorrow's men and women were saved by the women with the wing that extended from their side."

While they were at Nuevo Edén de San Juán and subsequent wondering they ate whatever they could find. The Popol Vuh mentions that they ate the larva of the yellow jacket, wasp, and bee. They probably also found honey.

The sailing people needed to find better security than the Lempa River. For much of the year it was too shallow to be a deterrent to the hunters. They probably sent scouts out looking for any other body of water. The closest ones are the Laguna de Alegría (Usulutan) and the lagoons near Santa Clara (San Vicente), across the Lempa River. Apparently they went to the Laguna de Alegría in the Tecapa volcano. It is a hot spring fed crater lake - nice for bathing and washing but not so good for drinking. Tecapa is about 40 kilometers south of Nuevo Edén de San Juán.

Considering Tecapa: te' means "plant" and kap means "clench in teeth" and kapar means "suck" in Ch'orti'. This seems to indicate that this is the area that the Mayan-Olmec ancestors found tobacco. Both of the Mayan gods Hacawitz and Tohil seem to be associated with tobacco or smoking in the Popol Vuh. I believe that the Tecapa volcano is Hacawitz. This is borne out by its name: hak means "beginning" but a double meaning is ha'hk', which means "gasp" or "suck". K'ah is "happiness" or "content" and witz is "mountain". So Hacawitz means "happy beginning mountain" but also "happy sucking mountain" - a reference to tobacco. The happy mountain explains the names of the Laguna de Alegría (joy)(left) and the nearby town of Alegría. No doubt tobacco brought pleasure. More than pleasure, tobacco smoke was used to commune with the spirit world. But one also paid a price.

Perhaps people abused the tobacco plant. It seems soon after finding tobacco they instituted the Tohil god. Toh means "payment made" and hil means "rest or remainder". It is clear from the Popol Vuh that it is associated with tobacco. There are several references to Tohil giving fire. And it says that Tohil demanded suckling from the side and under the arm. I believe this is a reference to the coughing that comes from the smoke and the cancer that can be caused by tobacco.

Given that one of the 20 day signs is named after Tohil - Tojma'r in Ch'orti' and Tok in Quiche, what Tohil seems to mean is that people gave their 19 days of hard work, and then on the 20th day they brought the remainder of their labor - the blood of animals that they killed - to give to Tohil and in return they received tobacco to be used only on that day. The Ch'orti' word for rest, as in relax, has the same root as hil, suggesting that the Tohil day was also a day of rest. In this sense the payment made was the 19 days of labor and the reward was a day of rest.

Both Hacawitz and Tohil were represented by stones. No doubt that the Hacawitz stone looked like a volcano. But it likely was shaped like a flat-topped volcano like Tecapa pictured above.

The relationship between the Tojma'r day sign and Tohil the god implies that the pre-Maya were using a 20 day calendar no later than this date and possibly it was instituted at Tecapa. This seems likely since a 20-day calendar is generally not in use in South America, where the sailing people had come from only a few months or years before. The change to a 13-day calendar rotating within 20 day signs over the course of  260 days (tzolkin) seems to have come later.

The Popol Vuh: "And then Hacawitz was placed at the top of a great pyramid. Hacawitz is the name of the mountain today, and it became their citadel." Unlike Tedlock, I read kaqja (k'ahk'kah) to mean volcano not pyramid. It is "fire, light, heat" and "beginning". So more precisely it was the beginning volcano -- the first place that they lived in El Salvador for more than a couple years.

After many years the Mayan-Olmec ancestors left Hacawitz-Tecapa. One possibility is that the hunters - the Xibalbha lords - overran Tecapa, seeking the tobacco. The Popol Vuh says that the "tribes" (Xibalbans) took up Tohil (tobacco). There is a reference to a later battle taking place at Hacawitz. I think that the Mayan-Olmec ancestors may have gone to the shore of Olomega Lake (meka = "carry in one's arms"). Olomega, above, is 45 kilometers southeast of Tecapa. It is the only sizeable lake anywhere near Tecapa.

I believe that it was about this time that the Mayan-Olmec ancestors went to dig out and damn the Laguna de Jocotal, in an effort to create another body of water where they would be safe from the Xibalba lords who were afraid of water. Jocotal (left) is located 20 kilometers directly west of Olomega, a distance that could be covered in one day. Jocotal: hokot' = excavated, hollowed out; tal = arrival, place, or, ahl (ahr) = time, occasion. (Ch'orti') So Jocotal either means "arrival to the hollowed out place" or "time of the hollowing out". The former meaning leaves a question whether Jocotal is a natural lagoon while the latter meaning is clear that it is made by humans. I think this is the place referred to as Great Hollow (Nim xol) in the Popol Vuh which is mentioned as being visited both before and after the time living at Tulan. It would have been on the trail to the west (now more or less the Carretera del Literal).

One other place that I think the Mayan-Olmec-Zapotec ancestors lived at or visited before going to Tulan is Tihuilotal, a small village today about 10 kilometers east of Olomega. It might have been the only good source of clean, year-round drinking water (well, right) within easy walking distance from Olomega. It has a year-round spring still used today for washing and drinking water and a nearby natural bathing hole (see below) that also has water year-round according to local people. I believe that this is the bathing place in the Popol Vuh that the three gods (or bearers of the gods) go to where the two Xibalban maidens try to seduce them.

There are two other clues that Tihuilotal may have been special this early in history. Even though it is a rather plain and ordinary small village, it has a very special place for the Lenca and is a place where the Lenca royal house(s) has lived. For example, it is the place that the Lenca crown princess Antu Silan Ulap retreated to after she became pregnant while leading the Lenca resistance to the Spanish from 1525 to 1529. She turned over the leadership of the resistance to Lempira and stayed in Tihuilotal to raise her baby.

The second clue comes from Tulan itself, Isla Tigre in the Gulf of Fonseca. There is a village directly on the east shore of the island called Tiguilotada, the most likely place for the first settlement on the island. The name seems to have been borrowed from Tihuilotal. Tiguilotada means "origin land in the flattened (cleared) forest" while Tihuilotal means "wing arrival to the cleared land", referring to the wilix, the on-the-go wing, the baby raft. Either one (or both) could have been the Ahwilix Place mentioned in the Popol Vuh.

How many years did the sailing people spend in eastern El Salvador before moving to Isla Tigre? Because the original leaders did not live to be part of the move to Tulan/Isla Tigre, I would say a minimum of 40 years. However I don't think it was more than 200 years. Since I believe the escape from the Corinto cave took place in 8800 BCE based on the Mars retrograde long-count calendar, this would place the move to Tulan between 8760 BCE and 8600 BCE (+/- 300). The Popol Vuh clearly associates Tulan with the cold, the mini Ice Age that lasted from about 9000 BCE to 8500 BCE. So I don't think the move to Tulan was any later than 8600 BCE.

Triple Star of 8207 BCE - Mars, Jupiter, and Venus
Tulan Zuyua "Inhabit Sacred Foundation"
Beginning of the Jaguar Spirituality

"They got word of a citadel. They went there. And this is the name of the mountain where they went, Jaguar Quitze, Jaguar Night, Not Right Now, Dark Jaguar, and the Tams and Ilocs: Tulan Zuyua, Seven Pehk, Seven Siwan, is the name of the citadel." -- Popol Vuh

From eastern El Salvador, perhaps from Tihuilotal, the Maya scouted around for a place to live. It had to be an island in order to be safe from their arch enemy, the Xibalbhans, who were based at Corinto Cave and maybe at Tecapa volcano as well. The Xibalbhans were generally afraid of water. So the Maya found the islands in the Gulf of Fonseca, especially Isla Tigre, the biggest and tallest of the islands and the one with the near perfect volcano. [click to enlarge]

The Maya lived along the base of the volcano. In Ch'orti', Tulan Zuyua means:

Tulan (turan): "be in a place, inhabit a locality, sit down"

Suy: "base, support, foundation"

Uh: "good, sacred, moral"

Or, "inhabit sacred foundation", with foundation referring primarily to the base or foundation of the volcano. The Maya lived here from about 8700 BCE to about 8200 BCE. As did the ancestors of the Zapotecs, Olmecs, Lencas, Chibchabs, and the people of the Misulmalpan languages.

They built a structure on top of the volcano. Two of the walls are still visible while the other two appear buried under soil. Here's the long wall:

The short wall connects in a right angle to the long wall. They both have rock piles about two feet tall.

The Popol Vuh says that the jaguar spirituality was begun on Tulan Zuyua - Isla Tigre. We also know that from the current name of the island. I did hear one story on the island that it was called Isla Tigre after the pirate Sir Francis Drake who ravaged the island with a fury and anger like a tiger for a few months. I don't find that story convincing, especially since it ignores the indigenous history which tends to be the primary source of place names. Further proof of jaguar spirituality being the source of the name Isla Tigre is a picture of a jaguar carved in relief on a large rock halfway up the volcano, facing east. [click to enlarge] The rock was cut around the jaguar so that it retains the original contour of the rock.

The most striking evidence for the presence of the Maya on Tulan Zuyua - Isla Tigre - is the Tiguilotada rock. (click to enlarge) This rock is located on the east side of the island just off the main circumferential road - probably the old trail around the island 10,000 years ago. The rock is protected by barb wire fence. The rock most likely was located at the seashore at that time, located in a similar way as the sailing stones at Toluca Beach about 10-15 meters above the current sea level. The ocean would have risen above this stone soon after 8200 BCE from the Ice Age melt and it would have remained submerged until perhaps 0 CE (AD) when the rising Central American coast on the Caribbean plate would have lifted the rock out of the water. That is one reason that the rock does not appear very weathered.

The seven or eight markings near the top pointing nearly straight east are a big clue that this rock is an astronomical artifact. But the biggest clue that it is astronomical is the second name associated with the island in the Popol Vuh: 7 pehk, 7 siwan. Let's start with siwan.

si - number, line of objects (in Ch'orti')
wa'an - rising, standing, straight

So seven siwa'an refers to seven rising line of objects. The objects they would have been most interested in were the five visible planets - Mercury to Saturn, the moon and the sun. Using the Solex software developed by Italian professor Aldo Vitagliano, I began searching for a "rising line of objects" event, checking Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions before sunrise, something that happens about once every 20 years. I began my search in 8700 BCE, knowing that this was approximately the time that the Maya moved to the island based on the Mars retrograde long count calendar.

I found the event in 8207 BCE which almost matches the end date (8200) of my estimation of their departure from the island. The Popol Vuh associates the astronomical event with the departure from the island. On October 31 and November 1 of that year five objects are in conjunction - Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, with Mercury just visible before sunset, and of course the sun rising. The seven rising objects. Most impressive of all is a near complete conjunction, both latitude and longitude, of Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, from October 27 to October 31. This would have produced a spectacular "triple star" object for these five mornings.

Further matching the rock with this astronomical event is the order of the objects from south to north. The moon was the most south in latitude, then Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. The triple conjunction planets are obvious on the stone - the tallest, strongest cuts. The sun line is a bit awkward, indicated by its angle pointing back towards the south slightly even given its position to the left of the other lines. This awkwardness reflects the obvious fact that the sun was not present in the sky when the others were visible. While technically south of Mars in latitude, visually Mercury was straight below the Mars-Jupiter conjunction. By placing the Mercury line between Mars and Jupiter it links it to those planets and the triple star. It gives Mercury the role of communicating the news of the triple conjunction to the sun, who it was going to meet. The other lines on the Tiguilotada stone are the planets that were visible on that early morning sky, each quickly etched in place, perhaps later finished.

The Popol Vuh: "They observed a continuous fast. It was enough that they watch intently for the dawning, that they watch closely for the rising of the sun, taking turns at watching for the great star named sun carrier. This one came first before the sun when the sun was born, the newly risen sun carrier. And there, always, they were facing the east, when they were there in the place Tulan Zuyua. Their gods came from there."

The word translated as sun carrier is Iqoq'ij, which means in Ch'orti' "dividing the atmosphere in two." It seems to be referring to a planet(s) appearing in both the morning and evening sky. Scholars believe this is a reference to Venus, but I wonder if it was a reference to Mercury or perhaps to both Venus and Mercury since they both "divide the atmosphere in two."

The Maya would have noticed Venus and Mars in the morning sky prior to the previous new moon. Then Saturn and Jupiter joined the morning sky. Finally retrograde Mercury became visible. On October 10 and 11 a beautiful alignment of the five planets took place, with each planet five to six degrees away from the next and the latitudes aligned so that the five formed a nearly perfect line slightly diagonal. Each day the planets neared closer together, with Saturn eventually being the highest in the sky. 

Of the triple planet conjunction, Venus and Mars came together first on late Oct. 27 at 19 Cancer, 32 minutes apart in latitude. Jupiter was 2 degrees lower in the sky. Venus and Jupiter conjuncted on the afternoon of Oct. 29 at 21 Cancer, separated by only 21 minutes in latitude. Mars was only 45 minutes above the other two. The triple planet conjunction would have been its most impressive on the morning of Oct. 30. The Mars-Jupiter conjunction occurred just after midnight on the morning of Oct. 31, 16 minutes in latitude apart. Venus was 1 degree 16 minutes below the two.

A couple other astrological notes: Pluto was nearly exactly opposite the triple star conjunction at 22:55 Capricorn. The asteroid Vesta was also part of the larger conjunction at 18:4 Cancer. And on early morning of Nov. 1 the Sun was at 8:57 Virgo.

To help visualize this triple star event I prepared a day-by-day graphic with Solex. The sun is at the right as a reference point even though it would have been below the horizon. Down in the sky, to the east, would be to the right in the graphics. However, to place the east on the right I had to flip the latitudes so that south is up and north is down. For example, on Oct. 31, the moon is to the south of the planets not north. [click to enlarge]

The sky continued to be very interesting for months. At the end of November, the moon moved by the four planets lined up on Nov. 17. On January 29 of the next year, there is nearly a triple conjunction of Venus, Mercury and the Moon. And on Feb. 6 Venus and Mercury form a double star, while the other three planets continue to be lined up higher in the sky.

People in every part of the world would have seen this planet formation of 8207 BCE. At least one group recorded it so we could rediscover it.

This may have been the start of the Haab' calendar which forms a solar year of 18 weeks of 20 days each, plus five (or six) extra days. The five extra days would have been to celebrate the five days of the Venus-Jupiter-Mars triple star. And the New Year would have been November 1, the day of the stone-making, and the start of the dry season in Central America. Hab means "discontinued" or "abandoned" in Ch'orti', so it was an early calendar that did not stand the test of time.

Returning to seven pehk, seven siwan. Pehk means shouts, calls, or greetings. Greetings may be most appropriate in this context. Seven greetings facing the east to the seven rising objects: Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and Sun. Soon after greeting the seven rising objects the Maya planned their next move off the island.

The Popol Vuh says: "And here is the dawning and showing of the Sun, Moon, and stars. And Balam Quitze (Kinche'), Balam Akbar, Maix, and Balam Ik were overjoyed when they saw the sun carrier. It came up first. It looked brilliant when it came up, since it was ahead of the sun. After that they unwrapped their copal incense, which came from the east, and there was triumph in their hearts when they unwrapped it. They gave their heartfelt thanks with three kinds at once:

• Mixtam Copal is the name of the copal brought by Balam Kinche'.
• Cauiztan Copal is the name of the copal brought by Balam Akbar.
• K'ab'awil Copal, next, is the name of the copal brought by Maix.

The three of them had their copal, and this is what they burned as they incensed the direction of the rising sun. They were crying sweetly as they shook their burning copal, the precious copal."

One copal incense for each of the three planets of the triple star: Venus, Jupiter, and Mars. It's not clear if the types of copal each matched a planet. Mixtam means "inner bark" so it was some type of bark that was burned. K'ab'awil Copal refers to a sap or resin. And cauiztan: Ka means "beginning", Witz means "mountain" - uitz is pronounced witz. Tan is powder or poltice. As already discussed the beginning mountain is hacawitz, which is the Tecapa volcano, in the Usulutan department of El Salvador. The plant they encountered at Tecapa was tobacco, which they later finely chopped and dried to make into a powder-like incense and used for spiritual purposes.

How did they get tobacco on Isla Tigre? Which brings us to the Xibalbha lord who showed up dressed like a bat. That's a story for the next blog post.

Honduras: Parrots, Jaguars and Pumas Were Tamed by 8200 BCE

We have already discussed how the Mayan ancestors arrived by sail raft from South America in about 8900 BCE, leaving their sailing stones at Playa Toluca, El Salvador. Then they were captured by a group of tall hunters - those of the Clovis points - and taken to Corinto cave. They were able to escape and wandered around eastern El Salvador for maybe 100 years, discovering tobacco at Tecapa volcano. They also determined that the hunters were afraid of water so they were safe on islands, which led them to Isla Tigre, Honduras, where they began jaguar spirituality, and were witness to the amazing planetary alignment of September to November, 8207 BCE.

Joining the Maya on those early mornings watching the planets on the eastern shore of Isla Tigre were many animals:

"And then, when the sun came up, the animals, small and great, were happy. They all came up from the rivers and canyons; they waited on all the mountain peaks. Together they looked toward the place where the sun came out.

"So then the puma and jaguar cried out, but the first to cry out was a bird, the parrot by name. All the animals were truly happy. The eagle, the white vulture, small birds, great birds spread their wings, and the penitents and sacrificers knelt down." -- Popol Vuh

I believe that this is symbolic language revealing that these animals were domesticated on Isla Tigre. How else could these animals come out to watch the sky with the Maya? The phrase to cry out indicates the process of being domesticated, to cry out meaning to beg. This makes it clear that the parrot was the first to be domesticated. But the jaguar and puma also cry out, indicating that they were domesticated on Isla Tigre, giving another meaning to the name of the island.

The jaguar or ah-wa'ar in Ch'orti' means the onlooker or the bystander. This could describe many domesticated cats. It's not clear which puma is referred to here - the cougar or the jaguarundi - which means "extended jaguar". It is doubtful that any lines of the domesticated big cats from Mesoamerica live to this day but it might be interesting to test some DNA. We do know that Columbus was given a tame bobcat when he visited Mexico. Interestingly, this seems to means that wild cats were domesticated in the Americas before the Middle Eastern wildcat was domesticated in Turkey/Syria, providing our current day line of cats.

When the Popol Vuh mentions eagles, vultures, small birds, and great birds spreading their wings I think this is a reference to their use in sacrifices. This is a separate thought from the jaguar and puma - I don't think that these birds were domesticated.

The red or scarlet macaw is the most common parrot in this part of Central America. Appropriately it is the national bird of Honduras. I think the scarlet macaw was the first animal to be domesticated in Honduras and the Americas. Supporting evidence comes from the name macaw. Breaking it down in Ch'orti':

mak - an enclosing, a covering
kah - beginning

So macaw means "beginning of the enclosing" or the first domestication. This supports my interpretation of the Popol Vuh above. In a related passage the Popol suggests that the bird's beak - the warning calls of the domesticated birds - saved the people from the jaguar, puma, rattlesnake, and pit viper.

The fact that the Popol Vuh mentions the domestication of animals within the context of the sighting of the seven rising objects demonstrates the importance of animal domestication in the conceptualization of Mayan culture and beginnings.

Phase 1 of the Mayan Culture

Previously I detailed the amazing planetary show of October-November 8207 BCE that the Maya were watching on Isla Tigre, Honduras. The Maya had already acquired many cultural components by that time, including the gods Ahwilix (a baby raft), Hacawitz (a flat-topped volcano where they discovered tobacco), and Tohil (the tobacco god), jaguar spirituality, the domestication of animals, and cultivation.

So when the planetary show happened the Maya took it as a sign, a new sun, as the Popol Vuh says. In order to understand more deeply what this new sun meant, I have calculated the astrological chart with the help of Solex software.

In addition, Ceres is at 27 1, Gemini, Pallas is at 27 42, Scorpio, and Vesta is at 18, 3, Cancer. This is day -1276244.5 Julian. Venus and Mars were conjunct on Oct 27 at 18, 59 Cancer; Venus and Jupiter were conjunct on Oct 29 at 21, 9, Cancer; and Mars and Jupiter were conjunct on Oct 31 at 21, 25 Cancer.

The main two subjective decisions I made with the chart were whether to make the chart for Oct 31, when the Moon was part of the multi-conjunction in Cancer, or Nov 1, when the moon had passed. I decided to go with Nov 1, which is mainly due to my interpretation of the Tiguilotada stone where the moon is a much shorter line than Venus, Jupiter, and Mars, which I think means it wasn't part of the conjunction being recorded. The second decision was whether to make the ascendant at sunrise or before sunrise when the planets could be seen. I decided that it should be when the planets are visible since the name of this event was "Seven Greetings, Seven Rising Objects".

What does the chart tell us? I'm not an astrologer, but I would say the multi-conjunction in Cancer, a water sign, highlights the importance of water to the Maya and with Jupiter part of it, could indicate foreign travel by water. The multi-conjunction takes place in the 11 house, which emphasizes friendship and social organization. Pluto is opposite the multi-transit, emphasizing the transformational nature of the Maya. The Mars-Pluto opposition, which normally might indicate violence, is tempered by Venus and Jupiter. Finally the Virgo rising sign and Virgo sun indicate attention to detail and a scientific disposition. The Uranus-Neptune opposition indicates curiosity, keen intuition, and proclivity to the psychic.

Communication with the Mayan ancestors is facilitated for those with bodies making strong angles with the angles indicated in the chart.

The 20 day signs of the Maya are well known and they form the basis of the 260 day tzolk'in calendar. The Yucatec version of the names are the best known, with some using the Quiche names. The much later Aztec names are used by others. The Ch'orti' names are much less known.

These are the 20 Ch'orti' day signs that I was provided in 2010 during my visit to Jocotán, Guatemala, and the Comunidad Linguística Ch'orti' (Morwa'r Ojroner Ch'orti'). The Ch'orti' names would be the original names. The Quiche and Yucatec day sign names would have begun to diverge from the proto-Ch'orti' sometime after 2000 BCE when those two language groups were formed.

Hopefully the Ch'orti' day signs will begin to be used by scholars and practitioners of Mayan spirituality.

Of the 20 Ch'orti' Maya tzolk'in day signs, Ch'i' provides the most evidence for the evolution of Mayan thought. The change in the day sign name demonstrates this evolution.

Ch'i' or "Growth". Growth is a rather abstract and advanced thought. It is likely this concept did not develop until after 2000 BCE, whereas the day sign names likely were developed by 7000 BCE from Lago Güija. I believe that the Yucatec name Manik' is the original name. Manik' or Manix is the name of the hunter people who confronted the Maya at the Corinto cave. They were also known as Xibalbha - "those afraid of water". The Popol Vuh talks about the manikins - the "manik sticks", referring to the tall nature of the Manik. The Manik were the first or original people of the Americas and likely date back tens of thousands of years. One can see their likely linguistic trace in Lake Manix at the Calico Early Man Site in southern California.

Further proof that this day sign had been Manik and that Manik corresponds to the hunter tribe at Corinto cave is that the Nahuat name for this day sign in the Aztec calendar is Mazatl, which means deer, a symbol for hunting and the hunter. In addition, this day sign is the sign of the Lord of the Hunt.

Naming a day sign after the Manik was a great honor to give to one's former enemies. Then to reassign Ch'i' or "growth" to the day sign actually further honors the Manik, symbolizing the ability of anyone, even one's enemy of 1,500 years, to grow. It equally symbolizes the ability of the Maya to grow beyond seeing the Manik or any people as enemies, beyond seeing the offspring of the Manik, whether in Northamerica or Central America, as enemies or inferior.

It is possible that there is a relationship between the Mayan Ch'i' and the Chinese concept Chi. However, the meanings are somewhat different. Mayan Ch'i' means growth while the Chinese Chi means breath or life force - which seems to correspond more to the day sign Ikar or Ik. Ch'i' is well integrated in the Ch'orti' language, so if there is a relationship it is likely from the Mayan to the Chinese.

The tile or letter that corresponds to Ch'i' (above) in written Mayan appears to be the symbol for the Chinmaya Mudra, a Hindu-Buddhist meditation hand pose. Even the name Chinmaya provides a strong hint of Ch'i' and the Maya. The Chinmaya Ch'i' symbol shows that one does not need to be bound by one's past, by one's ancestors' enemies. And it shows that all people, including those known as hunters and as the lords of Xibalbha, can evolve and grow.

Tobacco by 8200 BCE in Honduras

Both logic and the symbolic language of the Popol Voh indicate that the Maya had begun to cultivate tobacco by no later than 8200 BCE on Isla Tigre, Honduras. Isla Tigre is a volcanic island in the Gulf of Fonseca between El Salvador, and Nicaragua. (Click to enlarge.)

Earlier I posted about the Mayan ancestors arriving by sail raft to Toluca, El Salvador in about 8900 BCE, being captured by a hunter tribe and taken to the Corinto cave, escaping and then for safety living next to water since the hunters were afraid of water. One of those bodies of water was the Laguna de Alegría inside the crater of the Tecapa volcano in Usulután department (see map). Tecapa means "suck plant clench in teeth" in proto Ch'orti'. Suck could also mean gasp or breath in. Tecapa is where tobacco was found. This place and especially the shape of the Tecapa volcano became a spirit-god for the Maya called Hacawitz. Hacawitz has a double meaning: "beginning happy mountain" and "gasping happy mountain". Again there is the component gasping or sucking which links it to Tecapa and tobacco. The component "happy" links it to Alegría which means happiness or joy. Why did tobacco give joy to the Maya? It helped to relieve hunger, it relaxed people, and it enhanced their spiritual experiences.

The Popol Vuh tells us that the Mayan ancestors made two commemorative stones at Tecapa, one for the flat-topped volcano shape (Hacawitz) and one for tobacco (Tohil). Tobacco was used for spiritual purposes to commune with the spirits and the planets. And soon for personal use which was soon regulated by the Mayas 20-day calendar. But they weren't the only ones using tobacco for personal use. The Popol Vuh is clear that the hunter tribe, the Xibalbhans, also took up tobacco. And it mentions Hacawitz (Tecapa) being the scene of a battle. I believe that the hunter tribe took over Tecapa volcano in order to access the tobacco and the Mayan ancestors were forced to retreat, eventually to Isla Tigre, called Tulan in the Popol Vuh.

They needed tobacco for their spiritual practices and some people for personal use. But they had none.

"They walked in crowds when they arrived at Tulan, and there was no fire. Only those with Tohil had it: this was the tribe whose god was first to generate fire. How it was generated is not clear. Their fire was already burning when Jaguar Quitze and Jaguar Night first saw it." -- Popol Vuh (Pg 152, Tedlock)

When people arrived on Isla Tigre there was no tobacco. But soon one tribe generated fire, that is they produced tobacco by gaining plants or seeds from Tecapa. Fire is symbolic language for tobacco throughout this section of the Popol Vuh. So soon after the Maya arrived on Isla Tigre the first group began to cultivate tobacco. But it appears that their cultivation was not sustained.

"And this was the warming of the tribes. They were pleased by their fire. After that a great downpour began, which cut short the fire of the tribes." (Popol Vuh, Pg 153, Tedlock)

A drenching rainstorm washed out the tobacco plants. They most likely sent messengers to their enemies at Tecapa to negotiate or trade for tobacco plants or seeds. They replanted (or transplanted) tobacco.

And hail fell thickly on all the tribes, and their fires were put out by the hail. Their fires didn't start up again. So then Jaguar Quitze and Jaguar Night asked for their fire again. 'Tohil, we'll be finished off by the cold,' they told Tohil. 'Well, do not grieve,' said Tohil. Then he started a fire. He pivoted inside his sandal." (Popol Vuh, Pg 153-54, Tedlock)

This passage seems to have a double meaning. One literal - it was cold. Several scientists believe there was a mini Ice Age for several hundred years between 9000-8000 BCE or that the major Ice Age didn't end until 8000 BCE. (E F Legner, J Oosthoek, T Blaylock) It seems that either some cold spells or a full-fledged mini-Ice Age affected the Maya and their tobacco on Isla Tigre between 8800 BCE and 8200 BCE. Once again after their tobacco plants died they negotiated with Tohil, perhaps now representing the controllers of tobacco, their enemies at Tecapa, the Xibalbhans.

I wonder about the translation of the phrase "He pivoted inside his sandal," which is, in part, xubak ulok. Like Tedlock I think that xu (xuy in Ch'orti') refers to drill or perforation. Bak means bone and bak uyok is leg bone. So xubak ulok appears to refer to a process of drilling or perforating with a long (leg) bone. Alternately it could be drilling by stepping on a (spade-like) tool with one's leg. In either case it refers to a process of planting tobacco. This is supported by the double meaning of the phrase: pak' means planting or cultivation. The b and p sounds do not seem to be differentiated in proto Ch'orti'. This makes it clear that xubak is referring to drill planting with a bone or other tool. This must have been a major advance in these earliest attempts to figure out cultivation. There might also be a double meaning with ulok. Uh means "good" or "sacred" and lok' means "leaving, departure, escape" and could refer to the new plant leaving the seed and then escaping the soil into the air.

But they failed again. Their fire went out. Their tobacco plants died. A messenger arrived from the Xibalbhans at Tecapa to negotiate allowing the Maya to gather seeds from the tobacco plants around Tecapa.

"'Truly, since you have your god, your nurturer, and he is the representation, the commemoration of your Maker and your Modeler, don't give the tribes their fire until they give something to Tohil. You don't want them to give anything to you. You must ask for what belongs to Tohil; to him must come what they give in order to get fire,' said the Xibalban. He had wings like the wings of a bat." (Popol Vuh, Tedlock, Pg 154)

Some have considered the sudden appearance of the messenger with wings to be a reference to the devil. But there is an easy explanation. The Xibalbhans watched the Maya use ah wilix, the child-raft to allow the Mayan children to escape with their mothers when the water-weary Xibalbhans approached. With the wilix in mind, they constructed an adult-sized raft (not much wider than the body). A volunteer not so afraid of the water paddled the two or three kilometers from Isla Zacate Grande (present day Coyolito, left, background) to (present day) Amapala, Isla Tigre (foreground in the photo). Once on Isla Tigre, he tied the raft to his body so that each end of the raft was sticking out from his body, like the wings of a bat.

This appearance of the messenger of the Xibalbhans is confirmed by the name of the present-day municipal seat of Amapala. Ah ma means "the bad one" and par or pal is lattice and parar is latticed. (In proto Ch'orti' the l and r and indistinguishable.) So Amapala means "the lattice of the bad one" or the Xibalbha messenger with a raft. This meaning of Amapala is ironic given the more recent history of the terrorizing of the place by "Sir" Francis Drake and other pirates.

In the Popol Vuh paragraph above I see a transformation of Tohil from a stone representing tobacco to the actual people who oversee the production of tobacco, whether the fledging cultivation efforts on Isla Tigre or the maintaining of the wild tobacco plants at Tecapa. Since the Maya are not producing tobacco at this time, the Xibalbhans control Tohil from Tecapa. So when the messenger tells the Mayan leaders to not take the payment made (Tojmar) by the Mayan-related tribes and instead give the payment to Tohil, he is suggesting that the Xibalbhans at Tecapa should receive that payment since that is where Tohil resides.

"Because of the cold all the tribes were going along doubled over, groping along when they arrived. ...There was great pain in their hearts; they had covetous mouths and covetous faces. ...'And what would you give us for taking pity on you?' the tribes were asked. 'Well, we'd give you metal,' said the tribes. 'We don't want metal,' said Jaguar Quitze and Jaguar Night. ...'Don't they want to be suckled on their sides and under their arms?' said Tohil." -- Popol Vuh (Tedlock, Pg 154-55)

The Popol Vuh again mentions the cold. This could be literal but is also a reference to being without tobacco. One can imagine a person with a tobacco addiction doubled over looking for a butt on the ground. The phrase "they had covetous mouths and covetous faces" (chikimaj kichi' chikimaj kiwach). I think is better translated "they pretended to make fire and to blow air on the fire," with fire or heat (k'ix) having a double meaning for tobacco. [Note: chikir is "clownish, funny"; mah is "false"; k'ix is "heat, warmth"; chi is "person, who"; and wahri is "blow air on".]

Then we see the tribes who did not speak Mayan anymore suggest that they would give metal for tobacco. It is the Chibchan speakers in Colombia who first produced metal in the Americas. The Chibchans originated on Isla Tigre with the Maya. They are who the Popol Vuh calls the Tams and Ilocs - the Chibchan and Misumalpan peoples, respectively. For the Miskitos and others their origin story seems to include a place like Isla Tigre.

Tedlock's translation of tu'nik as "suckled" does not seem right. He interprets suckled then to refer to cutting out the heart - human sacrifice. But in Ch'orti' t'unih is "be lustful" or "craving". So Tohil is asking why they don't want to crave the tobacco in their sides and in their lungs. People became addicted to it.

"After that they got warm, but there was one group that simply stole the fire, there in the smoke. This was the Bat House. Chamalkan is the name of the god of the Cakchiquels. ... They went right past in the smoke then, they sneaked past when they came to get fire. Those fiery Cakchiquels didn't ask for their fire. They didn't give themselves up in defeat." (Popol Vuh, Tedlock, Pg 156)

The Cakchiquels, one of the Quiche-related Mayan groups, have a special place in the history of tobacco. This is indicated by their god, Chamalkan, which means "smoking tobacco learning" with a double meaning of "desire smoking tobacco". What I think this refers to is that the Cakchiquels learned how to smoke tobacco so that it didn't damage them and cause them to crave the tobacco. Alternately it could refer to the Cakchiquels being the first to cultivate tobacco. Tohil does appear to be the god especially close to the Quiche peoples.

It is not coincidence that the word chamal or chamar - "smoking tobacco", is so close to the word for death - chamer. The Maya realized very quickly that tobacco was a plant that caused death and, as Tohil, demanded sacrifice.

All of this narrative clearly relates to tobacco and clearly took place on Isla Tigre. The only way that tobacco could have been on Isla Tigre was to go to Tecapa each year to have a load hauled by people back to the island or to begin to cultivate it themselves. Given the language of "their fire went out" or in this last passage, "after that they got warm," it seems clear that they experimented with cultivating tobacco and finally got it to grow successfully. This means that tobacco was the first plant successfully cultivated by the Maya. It happened before 8207 BCE, since that is when the seven rising and triple star event occurred.

"But they were people of genius in their very being when they came away from Tulan Zuyua, 'Seven Greetings, Seven Rising Objects', so says the ancient text." -- Popol Vuh

The Olmec/Lenca were one of the four jaguar founders of the Mayan culture on Isla Tigre, Honduras. The Olmec and Lenca, along with the Ulua, are one people and separated when the Olmec moved from eastern El Salvador to the Veracruz, Mexico, Gulf Coast likely in about 1800 BCE (with a possible stop on the northern Honduras coast).

They came on the same rafts as the Maya to El Salvador, perhaps from Taltal, Chile, and had the same experience as the Maya being captured and taken to the Corinto cave by the Xibalbhans, escaping and finding a joyful home at Alegria/Tecpan, then relocating to Isla Tigre, where several events and accomplishments marked the founding of the Mayan culture: the domestication of animals, including parrots, jaguars, and pumas, the cultivation of the first wild plant - tobacco - used for shamanic purposes, and the triple star, seven rising object event of 8207 BCE which marked the new calendar and the new sun.

Due to the rising ocean level from the glacial melt they were forced to move off Isla Tigre and the triple star gave them the astrological symbol that called for the move. Some peoples - the Tams (Chibchans) and the Ilocs (Misumalpan languages) - rejected the Mayan culture, including the vision of creating agriculture, and moved east and south. Later one Misumalpan group, the Cacaopera, would decide to return to El Salvador and re-embrace Mayanism.

But the Olmec and Lenca people embraced the new Mayan culture and each of the four founding lineages found a sacred island to live on. These islands spread the width of El Salvador. The Olmec and Lenca chose Olomeguita and Estrechura, twin islands in Lago Olomega, about 20 kilometers southeast of the present-day city of San Miguel and 15 kilometers north of the present-day Pacific Ocean coast. In the photo the islands are on the left foreground while Chaparristique Volcano is on the right.

The Olmec and Lenca come from the founding heritage of Maix (Majukutaj in the Popol Vuh), which means Not Ready Yet in English. Maix was called this because he was the youngest of the four rafters who made the journey and was not yet ready to lead the group of four rafts. Maix, not yet with a partner, likely found a partner in the weeks or months that they were held at Corinto cave. The Xibalbhans, likely known to themselves as the Manik, were a tall people, sometimes called giants. Maix's partner was probably the woman called Egret Woman in the Popol Vuh, probably for her long legs. It is possible that the Manik were lighter skinned. So the Olmec and Lenca tend to be taller and possibly lighter skinned than some other Mesoamericans.

Egret Woman must have seen the approval of the spirits to have a partner with a name, Maix, so close to the name of her own people, Manik. The oral tradition of the Manik resides with the woman and the Olmec and Lenca people may be filled with Manik stories. Where the other Mayan groups had hostile relations with the Manik, the Olmec and Lenca likely had much better relations. They were probably encouraged to select the island closest to the Manik and the Xibalbha cave, about lake is about 60 kilometers south of the cave.

What links the Olmec to Lago Olomega and the Lenca? The first is the reference in the Popol Vuh to the "Oloman" (Tedlock, pg 149), the first half a clear reference to the Olmec. The last syllable "man" is a link to the Manik and to the Lenca who are known as the managuara. Man appears to have the meaning of hand. In Ch'orti' man means exchange or trade, an action which could be linked to the hands. Ma'nah means "work for hire" which also could come from a root of man = 'hand'. Later the Popol Vuh makes a second reference:

"When we divided, there at Tulan, at Zuyua ... And again, some of the people stayed there in the east; Sovereign Oloman is their name. 'We left them behind,' they said. It was a great weight on their hearts." (Tedlock, pg. 162)

This clearly places Oloman in the east, within the region of Tulan Zuyua, Isla Tigre, which has been the region of the Lenca for more than 10,000 years. Thus, the link of the Oloman with the Lenca and with the Olmecs.

Isla Olomeguita, Lago Olomega

Here is my attempt to construct the meaning of Olomeka (and Olmec). I believe that "Olo" is a transmutation from the proto Chorti "Teo", which meant "island." This most comes from "Olo" being associated with the island on Lake Olomega, called "Olomeguita". This could indicate that the lake was named after the island rather than the other way around. In addition, when the four lineages left Isla Tigre they went to four islands where they would be safe from the Xibalbhans who were afraid of water. These four islands were all named with the prefix 'teo': Teotipa, Teopan, Teoakan, and Teomeka. Mek'e means to "embrace, wrestle, carry in one's arms or on the hip." This could have been a reference of carrying children to the island on one's hip or in one's arms. One might be able to wade over to Estrechura Island like this but it would only work to Olomeguita Island when the lake level is really low. Teomeke is a beautiful name - island of the embrace or carry in one's arms to the island. Perhaps the Olmec were honoring Teomeka - Olomega - when they built La Venta on an island.

A little tour of the islands. A view from Olomeguita to the rest of the lake:

Drying fish, an old practice on Olomeguita (right). There are 17 families on Olomeguita and they say people have always lived there. Half of the island consists of the houses, packed tight, and a school. The other half of the island is a large hill planted with corn. Every family owns at least one boat.

(Below) The view of Estrechura Island from Olomeguita Island - twin islands.

The southern part of Estrechura Island to the right and hills beyond the southern lakeshore in the background. Estrechura may be close enough to the lakeshore to wade across.

On Estrechura island there is a curious rock with three sides carved with various figures. It is carved in the same style as Igualtepec at Lago Guija, linking the two sites. The locals call this rock the "devil's rock" for the carving at the left. Unfortunately it has been chalked and painted which can make it hard to tell what is the original carving. The two sets of arms could be what makes the carving devil-like. This does recall the story of the Xibalbhan who arrived on Isla Tigre with a surf-raft tied to this waist that made him look like a bat. Is this rock carving placed here because of a similar visit by the Xibalbhans to this island? Or is it to simply retell that story to future generations?

Here is one of the sides of the same stone. The most interesting aspect of this carving is that the figure on the top appears to be sitting on a circle or a wheel. This may be another retelling of history, although I am not aware of any Popol Vuh stories that speak of a wheel, cart, or chariot. One would need more specialized tools to discern the original carving and then begin to interpret it.

Finally, here is the third side of the Estrechura carved stone. This side resembles the Igualtepec carvings the most.

There is one nearby geographic feature that appears to indicate a high level of technology among the Olmecs before they moved to Mexico - the many apparently human-made lakes and lagoons. There are two scattered lagoons to the west of Olomega - Laguna Jocotal to the west, south of Chaparristique volcano, and Laguna Aramuaca toward San Miguel. To the east about 12 kilometers are a series of four named lagoons: Managuara, Maguique, Pilon, and Negritos, and two smaller ones.

Laguna Jocotal is the largest of the lagoons, perhaps 1-2 kilometers wide and 3-4 kilometers in length. The formation of the lake is clear from the name: (in Ch'orti' Maya)

Hok'ot - excavated, hollowed out
Tal - arrival, place

So Jocotal means "hollowed out place", implying hollowed out by people.

The meaning of Aramuaca is not so clear but appears to include spiders.

Ahr - time, occasion
Am - spider
Muak - serious ailment
or Waka' - bark string, cord

So it either means "time of serious ailment spider" or "spider web occasion." Neither meaning speaks about the origin of the lagoon.

Managuara is an important name in the Lenca tradition. There are two possible meanings for Managuara: (Ch'orti' Maya)

Man - buy, trade
Ma'n - workman
Ma'nah - work for hire
War/warar - brilliance, light, radiance
Ah wara' - visitor, loafer

So Managuara could mean "trade with visitors" - certainly the Lencas are known for having traded with people in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and beyond. Or it could be "workers (enjoying the) light/sun". Was Laguna Managuara built so that the common people, the workers, could enjoy the sun and cooling off in the lagoon, while building the other lagoons or while gathering fish, etc. Or was it the sight of an international market, where visitors came from Honduras, Nicaragua, and beyond?

Laguna Maquigüe has perhaps the most revealing name:

Maki - Plug up, surround
Weh - Flesh, pulp, food

Maquigüe means to plug up for food (fish). The lagoon must have been stocked with fish and then harvested over the years by the Olmec and Lenca ancestors.

Three of the lagoon names make it clear that the lagoons were human-made and two uses seem apparent - fishing and recreation. These lagoon names make sense in Ch'orti' which means that the Olmec/Lenca language (Mixe-Zoque) had not yet diverged significantly when the lagoons were built. This might place the lagoon building closer to the 8200 BCE settlement date of Olomega rather than the ~2000 BCE date when the Olmec left for either northern Honduras or Veracruz, Mexico.