Book review excerpt from Tzolkin: Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies (Borderland Sciences Research Foundation) by John Major Jenkins: http://Alignment2012.com
Tedlock, Barbara
Time and the Highland Maya. Albuquerque, New Mexico.
University of New Mexico Press. 1982 and 1992.
I thoroughly explored the value of this incredible book in a book report written November 17, 1991. Here is the majority of it:
The approach of Barbara Tedlock in her anthropological study
the ritual calendar practices of the Quiché Maya is an ambitious and unique
one. It involves traditional anthropological methodology, but also something
beyond that, what she calls "human intersubjectivity" (5). This expanded
approach resulted from her choosing to undergo formal apprenticeship to a Quiché
calendar-diviner, which allowed her "to learn to divine instead of only
learning about divination" (4). Her approach challenges
traditional methods in that she has entered into a cultural context through
her personal experience, refuting the idea that an anthropologist who has "gone
native" (4) has lost their objectivity. She claims that this danger is
a logical construction rooted in Western either-or thinking: "The implication
is that the native way of knowing is somehow incompatible with the scientific
way of knowing, and the domain of objectivity is the sole property of the outsider"
(5). She also cites the work of anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing, who actually
became a Zuni Indian to an impressive extent, yet never ceased to be an anthropologist.
The way in which this approach shapes
Tedlock's book is that it blends objectivity with subjective experience, and
defines an expanded approach, a less ethnocentric approach to understanding
a native religion. As such, her book almost becomes a guide to practical divination.
Yet divination, by way of language usage, is connected to all aspects of Quiché
culture. Tedlock emphasizes an understanding of the native language as another
example of valuable participant-observation.
An approach devoid of a theoretical
framework is particularly important in light of the way the Quiché view time,
space and religion. For example, the word k'ij (kin in the Yucatec Maya language)
means both sun and day. Furthermore, this word serves as a stem for the words
which mean "to worship" and "shrine" (2). The meanings of
their calendar religion is built into the language, and does not require an
abstract system of beliefs. In addition, the Quiché Maya religion springs from
the experience of the tribe, and the practical experience of the calendar priests.
In this way calendar priests, who are potential anthropological "informants,"
will draw upon their practical experience rather than from an abstract doctrinal
framework. If asked "what is the first day of your calendar?", the
daykeeper may use his own birthday, the present day, or your birthday. If pressed
to state an unchangable theory to describe specific calendrical phenomena, the
daykeeper may just invent one on the spot.
This brings up an amazing property
of the 260-day Sacred Earth Calendar: It has uses on many different levels of
society. This has given rise to many theories of its origin. On one level it
refers to the astronomical interval between the day on which Venus emerges as
eveningstar and the day on which it appears as morningstar (implying the well
known mythical journey of Quetzalcoatl through the underworld of Xibalba). On
another level it corresponds to the 9-month (260-day) gestation period. On a
mundane, agricultural level, it refers to the interval between the planting
and harvesting of certain corn plants. In addition, the mythological adventures
of the hero twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque are structured within a calendrical
framework which refers to days on which occur astronomical phenomena involving
Venus, Mars, Mercury, Moon and Sun. Linguistically, the names Hunahpu and Xbalanque
refer to the Sun and Moon respectively. This just goes to show that the Calendar
can have many different applications, or what I call "multiple meanings."
Anthropologists have struggled to promote one theory of the origin of the Sacred
Count of days as "the theory."
But the either-or mentality, as Tedlock shows, cannot be used in the study of
a people who view things in multidimensional, interweaving ways. For example,
in speaking about how the Quiché have embraced Roman Catholic teachings as a
reflection of their own traditional beliefs, yet refuse to "replace them,"
Tedlock writes "This does not mean that innovations [or new ideas or teachings]
are to be resisted but that they should be added to older things rather than
replacing them" (176). Tedlock's teacher sums up this view when he says
"one cannot erase time" (176).
So what we have in Tedlock's study of Quiché religion is
two fundamentally different ways of looking at the world. She has stated the
methodological dilemmas accurately, and has chosen the ambitious approach of
"human intersubjectivity," otherwise known as "participant observation."
She follows the advice for writers of fiction: "show, do not tell."
What is implied is that the reader at best can only have an intellectual grasp
of Tedlock's experience. If one really wants a substantial transformation—an
experience of the flip-side of their Western assumptions—then one must experience
life among the Maya for themselves.
Looking at Streng's categories of ways of being religious,
I think each one applies, and any daykeeper could understand and expound upon
the virtues and limits of any one. Mayan religion springs from the moment, recognizes
each day as unique (as having its own "face"), and absorbs novelty
easily as an extension of what is already known. This may explain why the Maya
have survived continuing attempts to wipe them from the globe, and reveals what
they have to offer us: a more comprehensive view of spacetime (which our modern
quantum mechanics has just touched upon) and a greater capacity to love. Several
incidents demonstrated to Tedlock that her teacher, Andres Xiloj, was not prone
to thinking in either-or terms. For instance, although he knew her to be an
anthropologist, this was not incompatible with becoming a calendar priest. Neither
was being a woman. In fact, the highest level of diviners are respected men
and women who are each known as "mother-fathers."
With her approach of "human intersubjectivity"
Tedlock's finds a religious system completely internally consistent. In other
words, problems and dilemmas would arise only in trying to reconcile Mayan thought
with Western thought—an unnecessary dead end to understanding. In a similar
way, it is extremely difficult to learn Spanish if you always are translating
to English in the back of your head; when you learn to drop your brain-chatter
and think in Spanish, everything falls into place. As shamans have learned to
do, Tedlock's struggles involved learning to be in two realms simultaneously;
in the multidimensional dream-logic of the "spirit-realm" as well
as in the linear domain of rational thought. What Tedlock says throughout her
book is that these two viewpoints can coexist.
The only weak point in this book that I can struggle to
see is that Barbara Tedlock hesitates to fully explore the mystical dimensions
of her experiences—they are still clothed in the garb of scientific exactitude.
The good points are many: