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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl: [QB] Clyde Winters claims that the Mande, Tutul Xiu, taught the Maya how to write. In order to deal adequately with this claim we need to put it in context both in time and culture. Winters is in the habit of shuffling different time periods as if they were contemporaneous. The accepted chronology for Mesoamerica follows with some key cities and cultures Formative 2000 BC- 0 AD El Manati 1700 Barra – 1600 Ocos- 1500 San Lorenzo 1200 Early Classic 0-300 A.D Teotihuacan 100 B.C- 650 A.D. El Mirador Kaminaljuyu Izapa Tres Zapotes Mojarra Cerro Las Mesas Classic 300-900 A.D Tikal Palenque Copan Uaxactun Yaxchilan Chichen Itza Uxmal Post-Classic 900-1500 A.D. Toltec 900-1100 A.D. Aztec 1325- 1520 A.D. Chichen Itza 900-1520 A.D. Uxmal 1000 -1200 A.D. moved to Mani Mayapan 1100- 1441 A.D. Mani 1200-1520 A.D. Both Chichen Itza were occupied in the late Classic, but the period we are interested in is the Post-Classic. Thompson (p. 117) writes: [QUOTE] There is incontrovertible evidence that Mexican architecture is later at Chichen Itza than the Maya style, and therefore its introduction dates sometime after A.D. 889 or perhaps 909, the latest dates associated with Maya architecture. From various sources we learn that the Itza who were foreigners and spoke broken Maya, settled at Chichen Itza..[/QUOTE]The Post-Classic Period all over Mesoamerica involved a much more militaristic atmosphere than in previous periods. First, the Toltec at Tula, Central Mexico created an “empire” based on long distance trade and control of resources such as obsidian and flint. Their reach can be seen by the Mesoamerican distribution of their characteristic Plumbate ware (found in Uxmal and many other sites). They had a number of characteristics in architecture, religion, and behavior, that were transferred to the Post-Classic Maya. Tula the capital of the Toltec Empire, differed from other Mesoamerican sites because it had flatter pyramids with the roof of the top room supported by stone pillars carved to represent serpents. Also present were chac mools, reclining figures with flat plates to receive sacrificial hearts. The egalitarian nature of the religion can be seen by what are called “mercados” large, rooms with many pillars and low flat roofs where many warriors could congregate for ceremonies. This architecture differed from that of Teotihuacan (large pyramids with plazas below for worshippers) or Classic Maya (very steep pyramids with very small rooms at the top—thus a small number of participants) in neither do we see chac mools or serpent pillars. All these architectural features are found in both Tula (Central Mexico) and Chichen Itza (Yucatan) at approximately the same time. Another clear difference with the Classic Period is the extent and form or human sacrifice. There had always been human sacrifice in Mesoamerica, but the advent of the Toltecs followed by the Aztecs represented a huge quantitative as well as qualitative increase. This can be seen by the “tzompantli” a wall or structure with carved human skulls (representing a real rack with many human skulls; by multiple images of hearts being ripped out of the chests of victims; and by the “chac mool” heart recipients. All of these are found in Tula (Central Mexico) and Chichen Itza (Yucatan) at approximately the same time. Both the religion and social organization changed in the Post-Classic to become more participatory. Rituals were held in large flat-roofed buildings so that warriors could participate contrary to the reclusive Maya religion of the Classic Period. This wider participation an be seen in the existence of elite warrior orders (the Jaguar and Eagle order. Again these are present both at Tula and Chichen Itza. Toltec warriors were characterized by the use of spear throwers, butterfly shaped pectorals, and characteristic helmets- which can be seen in monumental warriors at Tula. Lopez Austin and Lopez Lujan (2001) Describe the influx into Yucatan in the Post-Classic: [QUOTE] p.268-269 Nevertheless, Maya histories, in the Post-Classic, are variations of the same drama, actions of parallel characters in different scenarios, a struggle for control matching two different conceptions of power. On one side, were peoples who wanted to preserve authority based on ethnicity. They were opposed by innovators who, influenced by foreign ideologies, tried to put in place a broader authority, which would include different ethnic groups. We know who the first group was but, who was the second group? For a long time they were called “Mexicans” which is not only an inadequate and confusing term, but anachronistic. Other names such as Toltec, Putun Maya, and Mexica are not convenient either. We cannot use an ethnic name to define a event in which a great number of groups, including the Maya, participated. For the same reason, any linguistic term would also be inappropriate. We could choose neutral terms like “westerners” based on the origin of some of them, but this would be confusing both in World and Mesoamerican historical contexts. They cannot even be called “invaders,” because many of them had lived for centuries in Maya territory. Thus, we find ourselves in the uncomfortable and risky need to coin a new term. According to the written sources, these peoples claimed that their remote ancestors came from the same far away place, Zuyuá or Siwán which, as we will see, was mythical. Since this belief was one of their ideological pillars, however, we propose to cal these people the Zuyuans or Siwans. For several centuries after the end of the Classic, many waves of people migrated from the Gulf Coast to the areas of Chiapas and the Petén. Some of the clearest indications of these migrations are the early sculptures, made by a culture that has been called hybrid (mestiza), at sites on the Pasión River. J. Eric S. Thompson identified their place of origin as the border area between Tabasco and Campeche, and identified the invaders as Putun-Chontal, permeated with Central Mexican ideology. The invading waves followed several routes: toward the jungle, north to the Yucatán Peninsula, or across the course of the Chixoy River toward the high valleys of Guatemala. [/QUOTE]Thus the people coming to Yucatan, what Lopez Austin calls “zuyuan” were a variety of people and included not only the Xius but also the Itzas, the Cocoms and others. Landa’s work deals with Yucatan in the Post-Classic— PERIOD! The earliest evidence of full writing in the Maya area is in San Bartolo (300-200 B.C)- 1000 years before the events described by Landa. Hammond 92006) writes: [QUOTE] The evidence from Cuello suggests that Mesoamerican symbolic systems and media in which they could be expressed and exhibited have their origins in the early Middle Preclassic, from 900 BC onwards; although the actual, rather than putative, manufacture of bark paper for use as a writing medium, and the presence of symbols carrying a linguistic or numerical charge remains speculative, the evidence nevertheless suggests that the Maya, as much s the Olmec, participated in these important cultural developments, and provides time depth to the undoubted later emergence of fully Maya scribal systems such as that now reported from 300-200 B.C. at San Bartolo in northern Peten, Guatemala (Saturno et al. 2006).[/QUOTE]First- let’s copy the relevant passages in Landa: [QUOTE] Some of the old people of Yucatan say that they have heard from their ancestors that this land was occupied by a race of people, who came from the East. and whom God had delivered by opening twelve paths through the sea. (Landa 1973: 11; Tozzer 1941: 16-17. It is believed among the Indians that with Itzas who occupied Chichen Itza, there reigned a great lord, named Kukulkan, and that the principal building, which is called Kukulkan, shows this to be true. They say he arrived from the west; but they differ among themselves as to whether he arrived before or after the Itzas or with them (Landa 1973: 12-13; Tozzer 1941: 20-23). . . .and they had a high priest whom they called Ah Kin Mai and by another name Ahau Can Mai, which means the Priest Mai, or the High Priest Mai. In him was the key of their learning and it was to these matters that they dedicated themselves mostly; and they gave advice to the lords and replies to their questions. . . They provided priests for the towns when they were needed, examining them in the sciences and ceremonies, and committed them to the duties of their office, and the good example to people and provided them with books and sent them forth. . . And they employed themselves in the duties of the temples and in teaching their sciences as well as writing books about them. .. The sciences which they taught were the computation of the years, months, and days, the festivals and ceremonies, the administration of the sacraments, the fateful days and seasons, their methods of divination and their prophecies, events and cures for diseases, and their antiquities and how to read and write with the letters and characters, with which they wrote, and drawings which illustrate the meaning of the writings (Landa 1973: 14-15; Tozzer 1941: 27-28). (from Landa’s unpublished 3rd ed Tozzer Note 154) They had letters and each letter was a syllable and they understood each other by means of them. . . And they say (of Tutul Xiu) that he was very learned, for he taught the natives the letters and the reckoning of the months and years which the lords of Mani were using when we conquerors entered the land. (Relaciones de Yucatan 1:156; Tozzer 1941:28, N. 154). The Indians say that numerous tribes with their chiefs came to Yucatan from the south, and it appears that they came from Chiapas, although the Indians have no more knowledge about it. But this author [Landa} conjectures it because many terms and word constructions are identical in Chiapas and in Yucatan, and because there are in Chiapas many remains of places which have been abandoned. And they say that these tribes wandered around in the uninhabited parts of Yucatan for forty years. . . reached the mountains which lie almost opposite the city of Mayapan and ten leagues from it. And there they began to settle. . .and the people of Mayapan became very good friends with them. . .and in this way those of Tutul Xiu subjected themselves to the laws of Mayapan and thus they intermarried, and as the lord Xiu of the Tutul Xius was such he came to be very much esteemed by everybody (Landa 1973:15-16; Tozzer 1941: 29-31) Herrera 1601 These tribes from the south were the Tutul Xius. (Herrera 4,10,II, Appendix A) tells us that “great companies of people entered from the South from the slopes of the sierras of Lacandon who, they were sure came from Chiapas”, and later, he calls them Tutul Xius. In the Chilam Balam of Mani (Brinton 1882, 100) we read,” This is the arrangement of the katuns since the departure was made from the land, from the house Nonoual, where were the four Tutulxiu, from Zuiva at the west; they came from the land Tulapan, having formed a league.” Nonoual or Nonoualco [BOM located near Xicalanco— where the Chontal Maya come from is a boundary of the languages Maya-Nahuatl] (Herrera 1601; Tozzer 1941; Appendix A pp. 213-220). Among the various documents in the Xiu Ms. is the Xiu genealogical tree which has been publishes in several places. Morley and Roys give a bibliography together with a complete discussion of the genealogy. They write that the tree “was compiled about 1560, perhaps even in 1557. … and there considerable likelihood that it may have been the work of Gaspar Antonio Chi, who was a Xiu on his mother’s side and probably the best educated Maya in Yucatan during the last half of the Sixteenth Century. This tree gives the name of the progenitor of the family as Hun Uitzil Chac Tutul Xiu and that of his wife as Yx.. . .of Ticul.. . at the base of the trees the founder of the family, in association , probably with a Katun 2 Ahau again in the bottom legend referring to the woman at the bottom right, who is said to be the wife of Hun Uitzil Chac. . . . By careful investigation Morley and Scholes have reconstructed the Xiu pedigree from about the year 1000, the time of Hun Uitzil Chac Tutul Xiu, down to the present time with this single lacuna of seventeen generations following the time of founder, 1000, to about 1407.. . [b]The name Tutul Xiu is a Mexican word, xiuhtototl “Turquoise bird” in Nahuatl (BOM from totol”bird” and xiuitl “turqoise”)[/b], according to Spinden.. . . Morley and Roys also point out other evidence of the Mexican origin of the Xiu in the Mexican name of Ah Cuat Xiu, son of Ah Uitz, in the genealogical tree in the Xiu manuscript.. Cuat is a variant of the Nahuatl coatl, and also the crown worn by the founder of the family which strongly suggests the xiuhtzontli or turquoise mosaic crown of the Aztecs which could only be worn by their supreme ruler, the Tlacatecuhtli (Tozzer 1941: 29-30). (Itzamna) The latter, the god of heaven and of the sun, was the most important deity of the Mayas.. .He was the first priest, invented writing and books (Tozzer 1941 p145-146 note 707). During the month of Uo. . . invoking with prayers and devotions an idol named Kinich Ahau Itzamna, who they say was the first priest.. Meanwhile they dissolved in a vessel a little of their verdigris with virgin water, which they said had been brought from the woods where a woman had never penetrated. With this they anointed the boards of their books so as to purify them. This having been done, the most learned of the priests opened a book and looked at the prognostics of that year, and he manifested to those who were present. (Landa 1973: 92; Tozzer 1941: 153-154) [Tozzer points out Note 765 that] It will be remembered (N. 707) that Itzamna was considered to been the inventor of the hieroglyphic writing and here Kinich Ahau Itzamna is the god invoked in connection with divination by means of the sacred book (Tozzer 1941: 153-154)[/QUOTE]Winters consistently uses the logical fallacy of the “excluded middle” as a method of argumentation. It’s always the “Mande or Nothing” but in this case we have overwhelming candidates for the founders of Chichen Itza and Mani. We find that, in the same time frame, Chichen Itza in Yucatan and Tula in Central Mexico have a number of identical architectural features, skull racks, chac mools, human sacrifice by excising hearts, plumed serpents, participation by warriors in religious rituals, elite Jaguar and Eagle warrior societies, and many Nahuatl loan words. Winters claims 1) The Tutul Xiu taught the Maya how to write. Reading Tozzer’s footnote clear reference is made to Tutul Xiu as a single person [b]he[/b] not as a tribe. Also disregards the fact that the Maya had been writing for a thousand years before the events described by Landa. 2) That the Xiu had universities. Nowhere does Landa mention universities. Tozzer pp 27-28 refers to training priest in divination (Hardly a University science) 3) That Tutul Xiu means “Very good subjects of the Order" in Mande. Xiu, "The Shi (/the race)". "The Shis (who) are very good Subjects of the cult-Order Purely invented by Winters- no remotely possible etymology is given. On the other hand, Tutul Xiu “turquoise bird” from Nahuatl (a Central Mexico language) is clearly shown as [b]totol “bird” and xiuitl “turquoise”[/b] 4) p. 86 “The proto-Manding often referred to themselves as Si. In the Manding languages the term Si, means “black, race, descendant and family.” The plural in Manding was usually formed with the suffix /-u/. the term si-u would mean the “Blacks”. The Yucatec Maya, called the people who introduced them to writing the Xiu people. The /x/in Spanish is pronounced as /sh/ in ‘she.’ The Mayan term xiu agrees with the ancient name for the Manding people: Si. The fact that the Olmec people introduced writing to the Maya suggest [sic] that the Olmec peopled [sic] called themselves Xiu (shi-u) ‘the Blacks (Winters 2005: 86). A minor point /x/ in Spanish is NOT pronounced /sh/. Spanish is /j/. Maya is /sh/. (Delafosse 1929: 175) says that to pluralize add /u/ to a noun ending in a [b]nasal vowel and to certain pronouns. [si] is not a nasal vowel[/b]. Further on page 176-177 “Generally it is not necessary to use the plural suffix, unless it is needed to clarify the phrase. And [b]one never uses it when it deals with a name or word that explicitly indicate that it concerns several people or things. One omits the suffix when it follows words that convey a collective meaning [/b].—example of not use “the Europeans do not eat dog meat”. [b]Si[/b] as a people is a collective meaning. The following from Delafosse 1929 are the words for “black” p. 546 negro (fara-fi;moro-fi 548 black (adj,) fi-ni 548 black (color) fi; fi-ma 467 family si(high); si(high)-ya Delafosse 1935 lists meanings of [b]si[/b] they are NOT “black, “family” “race” or “descendant” ] p. 648 si (v intran)— passer la nuit (v trans)- make passer la nuit p. 650 si(high)-- (B&D) Sye(high) p. 653 Si (high) – adverbe superlatif de “noir” (fi-nsi(high)—“tout a fait noir”) si (low) and si —breast, udder p. 654 si (low) and se (low) (noun “straight line”; v. intran—“go straight; v trans- guide straight) Meanings of [b]si[/b] in Brauner (1974) follow Si (1)—- kind, type, race (n) Si (2)-- to grind (v) Si (3)-- to sleep, to spend the night Bird, Charles and Kante Mamadou. 1977. list the following: p. 29 Si (n) hair Si (low) (v)--- age, life Si (low) (v)-- to pass. Spend the night p. 41 black---- fi(low)n (adj) p. 51 family--- denbaya (n) [b]Bottom line[/b] On the one hand we have the consensus view of Mesoamerican scholars and contemporaneous archaeological, historical, anthropological, architectural and linguistical evidence. On the other, claims the 1000 years separating Maya writing and Post-Classic Yucatan can be ignored. Claims based on misleading readings of sources and false Mande linguistics. Bird, Charles and Kante Mamadou. 1977. English-Bambara, English-Bambara Student Lexicon. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Brauner, Siegmund. 1974. Lehrbuch des Bambara. Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzyklopaedie. Delafosse, Maurice. 1929. La Langue Mandingue et ses Dialectes (Malinke, Bambara, Dioula) Vol 1. Intro. Grammaire, Lexique Francais-Mandingue). Paris: Librarie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner. Delafosse, Maurice. 1955. La Langue Mandingue et ses Dialectes (Malinke, Bambara, Dioula). Vol 2. Dictionnaire Mandingue-Francaise. Paris: Librarie Paul Geuthner Norman Hammond. 2006. “Early symbolic Expression in the Maya Lowlands,” Mexicon 28 (#2): 25-28 Herrera, A. 1601 Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano Decada IV, Libro X, Caps. I-IV (Appendix A Tozzer pp. 213-220) Landa, D. 1973 Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan Garibay A. M. Mexico:Porrua Lopez Austin, A. and Lopez Lujan, L. 2001 Mexico’s Indigenous Past Ortiz de Montellano, B.R. (trans.) Norman: University of Oklahoma Press Thompson, J. E. S. 1966 The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization Norman: University Press. Winters, C. 2005 Atlantis in Mexico 1st ed. Lulu Press Tozzer, A. M. ed. 1941. Landa’s Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan.p. 27. Cambridge: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology Harvard. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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