Yesterday the male kid hip-checked me in his enthusiasm to get into the closet where we keep the art supplies. His mission: obtain glitter glue. He put it and some water in two plastic bubbles that the Play Foam came in, and after taping it together put the entire thing on top of a flashlight. He said it was his crystal ball.
According to the professor of ancient history who gave us a tour of the Mayan civilization (via the American Museum of Natural History), the future of the world is probably okay for a while.
We met at the meteor -- actually not arbitrary. She started us off by pointing to the meteor and positing that while things change (sometimes drastically) nothing really "ends." That meteor is sitting in our museum still existing in some form.
To Mexico. (She said it was okay to pick his nose because he's a replica.) Apparently you don't start talking about the Mayans without first acknowledging their "Mother Culture" the Olmec civilization... where this fellow originates. This carving is huge. There's a counterculture that uses the size/weight to support the theory of aliens being responsible for its existence, because the Olmecs did not use wheels or draft animals. However interesting the alien theory is, the professor pointed out that there was a river nearby that very likely contributed to its movement. I liked this professor a great deal because she was knowledgable, yet frequently said things like: we aren't really sure why they did that... I like it when my kids hear that. She said that they aren't really sure who/what these big heads are. The most accepted theory is that it is a way to honor a king. The helmet he is wearing is most likely what that they wore during their "ball games."
The ball games were crazy. Most likely used to settle a conflict, two men (usually leaders) would enter the court and use their hips to whack forty-pound rubber balls up and down the court. These belts might have been used to somewhat protect their bodies against the impact of the balls.
At the end of the game a human would be beheaded. There are two opposing theories: one theory is that the loser would be beheaded. The other theory is that the winner would get whatever he was playing for, but then get beheaded as a gesture of great honor -- he would pass to the other side during the height of his glory. It takes some mental adjusting to understand the latter theory.
We had to do a lot of mental adjusting during the class. My daughter chose not to do any mental adjusting/accepting in regards to the chihuahuas. Apparently chihuahuas were the only domesticated animals... and they wanted them really chubby... plump...
"When she asked us what we had for lunch today to prove her point about meat everybody should have said, 'salad' to prove that the chihuahua thing was not okay." The Girl
I wish I didn't know the answer to this question: what are the scale/feather things on his armor? Answer: bits of dried human skin that had been dried and would make a chinking sound when he walked. Nice.
By our standards, it was indeed a gruesome civilization. The Aztecs and the Mayans were quite similar -- with the two most obvious differences being where they were located geographically (the Aztecs more northern in central Mexico; Mayans southern -- into Guatemala) and the amount of human sacrifices/religion. While the Mayans did participate in human sacrifices on certain ritual days, the Aztecs sacrifices hundreds daily -- so that the sun could win the battle against darkness. The sacrifice consisted of pulling out the still-beating heart while people held on to the four limbs. Nice.
The Mayans participated in blood-letting: the king/leader would tie/tourniquet the end of his tongue and cut it so that blood could drip into a cup that would then be consumed by somebody else. Most likely enough blood was let for the ruler to feel light-headed and receive visions.
So what did all of this have to do with the end of the world? The Mayans were chihuahua-eating, death-ball-playing, human-sacrificing worshippers of a god who wore scales made of human skin... OR, domesticators of animals, conflict-solvers, star-gazing religious scholars... It's apparently a matter of perspective. What is agreed upon is that some calendars that they created are "accurate," and by some estimates tomorrow (actually today -- Eastern time), 12/21/12, is the end of the 13th baktun. Significant because of a glyph found that said that at the end of the 13th baktun there would be a return of a king... but no specific mention of the world ending. When a baktun ends it's pretty much the equivalent of a calendar year ending (but instead of 12 months it's 144,000 days).
On the coffin of Pakal, lord of Palenque (died in the year 683 AD), there is an inscription that says that he will return 2,000 years from now. Clearly the Mayans did not think that the end of the 13th baktun signaled the end of the world... but rather the transition into the 14th baktun.
The idea of transitions was the central theme. As we were looking at a reconstructed burial site the professor talked about the idea of an apocalypse and how that somehow got tied into all of this. She said that an apocalypse meant that a veil was being lifted -- a moving on that would happen to all people -- not necessarily at the same time. For the many people that have already died throughout history, an apocalypse has happened.
We talked about their thoughts on the afterlife and the gods that they worshipped -- as depicted in their sculptures (carved with rock, not metal).
At one point she said: "Imagine walking through the jungle and in the midst of the foliage seeing this..."
And she pointed to this enormous sculpture (you can't tell in this crappy picture, but it's about twenty feet tall). Now, I am not the adventurous type -- I'll choose a book in front of a fireplace in a English country cottage over hiking Machu Picchu any day -- BUT, the visual that I got when I imagined what she told me to imagine was rather exciting. Having somebody to build context around pieces in a museum is a priceless experience (for the record, the class was $25/kid -- parents were free).
The main take-aways that our professor impressed upon us:
1. When you google "Mayan calendar" you will get this:
And that's not a Mayan calendar. It's an Aztec slab used for that still-beating-hearts pulling-out business. She made it very clear that a lot of "information" that is on the news and pops up on the internet is NOT accurate... so we should all take the time to learn how to acquire knowledge. We can't be knowledgable in all things, but we will at least understand how one finds out the best information available.
2. The Mayan people never had one cohesive empire. There were many different groups that could be found in various cities. In the larger cities there were Mayan areas similar to China Town. Each of these groups could have different traditions, beliefs, and values. That is why it is hard to make generalities about "Mayans."
3. We know that at one time the civilization had approximately two million books. There are 8 in existence. There were precious few oral traditions that were recorded hundreds of years after the conquest with Latin letters in the Mayan language. The material culture of the Mayan world supports the stories. It isn't much to go off of. Why the academic carnage? The Spanish came and they were afraid. They burned or destroyed most everything. Unquestionably, the civilization was different than certain sensibilities, but as our teacher pointed out -- we would be able to understand so much more if those books weren't destroyed. Fear and ignorance leads to destruction which causes more fear and ignorance.
4. The Mayans didn't evaporate in 900 AD. That's when the decline of their civilization occurred. There are still Mayans and a Mayan language alive today. Things don't just go away. They change. They transition.
Perhaps 12/20/12 was the end of our world as we've known it, and 12/21/12 -- as the beginning of the new baktun -- will be the beginning of the end, what with global warming, or nuclear accretion, or rampant mental illness/cancer/autoimmune diseases... Will our apocalypse be explosive and wide-spread, or quiet and individual. We don't know.
What I do know is that transitions happen, and one of the most obvious human transitions is from childhood with family of origin, to adulthood. I'm grateful for the time I get to spend learning with my little ones. I'm grateful for fun and beautiful things that make us feel good.
Today after The Boy's knitting lesson his so-amazing knitting teacher gifted him and his sister an origami bird kit. It was fun to look at the origami tree at the museum after our class and see what masters of origami can make. We will start with a crane, and see where it takes us.
Every year at the tree there are new creations and little signs encouraging a search-and-find. We found the apple, but not the angler fish. I was pleased to see that there was a reference to collective nouns (you blog-readers that have been with me since the beginning will remember this). If the world did end now, at least I would die knowing that with this picture my blog made a nice tight connected circle. That's perfection.
When we first moved to the city it was November and a trip to the natural history museum was one of the first outings that I took alone with the two babies. I still remember how rich and full the experience felt. In front there were two enormous topiary dinosaurs holding wreaths. I thought that the dinosaurs were permanent and just the wreaths were seasonal. Imagine my dismay when a couple of months later the dinosaurs came down! For the next few years we celebrated the arrival of the dinosaurs -- one time we even got to witness the workers building them with the greenery around the wire skeletons. And then the renovation began. The dinosaurs didn't come. Then they didn't come again. Last year the external renovation was done, and yet the dinosaurs didn't return. That seemed like a bad sign to me. Christmas-time used to bring an enormous Christmas tree with blue lights and instrument ornaments to Lincoln Center, but once the renovation that happened there was complete that tradition was not picked back up again. Perhaps the dinosaurs would become as extinct as that blue-glow Christmas tree...
