The Short Count and the Books of Chilam Balam
When the Itzá and Mexica influences became dominant in the Yucatán around A.D. 1000, the keeping of the Long Count, which had already started to fall out of usage, went into serious decline. This was largely because the Itzá only used the 52-year–based calendar round.
In a compromise between the different cultures of the two calendars, it was the distinctively Mayan Long Count that lost out. What replaced it was the Short Count. This abbreviated version is often illustrated as a wheel of 13 katuns that make a circle of 260 years. The Mayan priests just shifted their focus from the Long Count cycle of the 13 baktuns to the smaller scale of the Short Count of 13 katuns and continued their ceremonies and divination as normal.
Adapting to the Short Count
Both the Short Count and Long Count cycles end on the sacred day of Ahau, which is critical to the prophetic tradition of the Maya. The records of these Ahau katun prophecies were recorded in the Books of Chilam Balam. The Chilam Balam were the hierarchy of jaguar priests that made divination and prophecy, sometimes by standing by the side of a sacrificial victim as their life was taken.
The Books of Chilam Balam has several different versions. Each is named after the town their manuscript was found in, like Chumayel, Tizimin, and Mani. They are the only actual written record of Mayan prophecy that still exists.
The Books of Chilam Balam contains some glaring errors, and the influence of the Spanish is in evidence in some parts, but they are, in large part, authentically Mayan. The prophecies range from the near apocalyptic to the reasonably positive, but tend toward the subject matter of daily life, such as famines, war, harvests, and political stability.
The Chilam Balam were responsible for making the particularly important prophecy that accompanied each 20-year katun period. These predictions were based upon what had happened in similar cycles and the results of their ritual divination. Each katun would be named after the number of the Ahau day on which it ended. For example, we are currently living in the katun 4 Ahau, the very last and 260th katun of the whole Long Count.
Some writers have argued that we can extrapolate from these katun prophecies of the Maya and apply them to our own times. The results are often unconvincing and discrimination is required to make any such equivalence. The evidence that the Chilam Balam still knew much about the 5,125-year cycle is debatable, but there are at least a couple of instances that seem to reference 2012 and the times we are now living in.
The Coming Religion of Hunab Ku
One of the most important and most quoted prophecies of the Chilam Balam talks about the coming religion of Hunab Ku. This prophecy is predicted for the katun 13 Ahau, which is the last in the Short Count cycle of 260 years. This prophecy was given for the period
“At the conclusion of the katun 13 Ahau, the Itzá will see . . . the sign of Hunab Ku, the erect tree which will be shown so that the world will be enlightened . . . confusion will be finished when the bearer of the cross comes to us.” — The Book of Chilam Balam of Mani (Craine/Reidorp)
This is widely interpreted to refer to the coming of Christianity. The prophecy then asks the Itzá to receive the “bearded ones” as the messengers of a new god whose “commandments . . . will be good and (whose) new truth will be substituted for the old one. The Itzá will accept and worship the one True God who comes from heaven.” A parallel between the god of the Spanish and the Mayan creator god Itzamna is drawn, and it appears to be a sincere plea to the Itzá to adopt the faith of the invaders. A different version from Chumayel, however, adds the following paragraph:
“. . . they twist their necks, they wink their eyes, they slaver at the mouth, at the rulers of the land, lord. Behold, when they come, there is no truth in the words of the foreigners to the land.” — The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel (Roys)
So the Chilam Balam seem to be saying something like, “Accept the religion of the Spanish, even though they are completely untrustworthy.” What can be confusing is that the Itzá and Spanish are fairly interchangeable in the prophecies. The same insults that had been used to describe the Itzá in older prophecies are even used to describe the Spanish, including the phrase “two day ruler,” a term used to denote the inexperience and lack of wisdom demonstrated by both sets of invaders.
What does Hunab Ku mean?
Hunab Ku is often translated as meaning “One God,” but can also be interpreted as “One Sun” or “One Ahau.” One Ahau is also the sacred day of Venus. Yucatec Mayan elder Hunbatz Men translates Hunab Ku as meaning the “giver of movement and measure.”
The prophecies of the Chilam Balam contain multiple levels of meaning, and reading them too literally can make them seem contradictory. In general, the prophecies are disdainful of both the Itzá and Spanish, even though the later ones are frequently addressed to the Itzá. The Chilam Balam themselves were largely drawn from the Tutul clan of the Xiu tribe, which may explain the snobbery toward the less calendar-literate Itzá.
Though the times they record are often gloomy, the prospects of the future appear even worse. As one Chilam Balam, Natzin Yabin Chan, puts it: “Itzá, hate your gods, forget them because they will be destroyed by the foreign god you are going to worship.”
There have been a lot of attempts to interpret the prophecies, but the language of the Chilam Balam is filled with subtlety, double meanings, and metaphors. As it says in The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, “Who will be the prophet, who will be the priest who shall interpret truly the word of the book?” That is still open to question, but anyone who wants to explore real Mayan prophecy further should start with these books.
The End of the World?
There is a prophecy in one of the books of Chilam Balam that some commentators think may well relate to the end of the thirteen-baktun count in 2012. The clue for this comes from the text of the prophecy. It talks about “tying up the bundle” of thirteen katuns, but gives the date for this happening as 4 Ahau. The thirteen katuns actually end on a 13 Ahau day; it is the thirteen-baktun calendar that ends on 4 Ahau. This is the date equivalent to December 21, 2012. The prophecy effectively predicts an end to the world.
“In the final days of misfortune, in the final days of tying up the bundle of the thirteen (baktuns) on 4 Ahau, then the end of the world shall come and the katun of our fathers will ascend on high.” — The Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin (Makemson)
This is as close to a written prophecy about 2012 that can be found in the books of Chilam Balam, or indeed any of the other surviving books of the Maya. It begins in the Makemson translation:
“Presently the Baktun thirteen shall come sailing . . . bringing the ornaments of which I have spoken from your ancestors. Then the god will come to visit his little ones. Perhaps ‘after death’ will be the subject of his discourse.”
This does suggest that the Maya thought the world would be destroyed in 2012, but they also believed that when the world was destroyed, it was remade and created anew. This could be interpreted as a worldwide disaster, rather than an apocalypse. The prophecy finishes:
“These valleys of the earth shall come to an end. For those katuns there shall be no priests, and no one who believes in his government without having doubts.” — The Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin
What makes this convincing is that after 2012, we will be entering into a new time, uncharted by the Maya, for which “there shall be no priests.” But this is not always interpreted as an age without religion. It is also, of course, very true that faith in government is at a historic all-time low. This example of the Chilam Balam's art seems to be the one that has the most relevance to the coming end of the Long Count in 2012.
