Defcon 2012

Here's some of what can be found around the web attempting to set the record straight about Columbus.

Huffington Post

Steve Covieo

The Truth About Columbus

Why We Should Abolish Columbus Day

What Should Replace Columbus Day!

Brad Meltzer's Decoded: 2012

So here we go again...except that this particular episode focuses more the Hopi prophecies, and how they supposedly tie in with the Mayan Baktun 13 countdown.  This sort of voyeurism into the traditions of Native American, perhaps gets to me the most!  On the one hand, Natives are completely ignored and live is impoverished world of invisibility, on the other, white people have a tendency to put Native sacred belief on a kind of pedestal that they think they have the absolute right to stare at any time that they want.  Shows like this one does just that.  Though I appreciate the decision that some Hopi tribal members made to talk to these people, after all it is their belief system.  But a few years back, some guy claiming that he understood Hopi beliefs so well that he could see all kinds of ancient contact with aliens; he managed to get an much respected tribal elder into a conflict with his own people over the issue, basically destroying the elder's credibility in the Hopi traditional world.  Which is a big and deal and huge shame, because the Hopi have managed to preserve more of their culture than many other, much larger native groups!

Over at the History Channel's website they have a good article on Columbus as Governor!

2012: Apocalypse Of The Dead

As can be seen in the original poster, and the trailer, for this zombie flick, it was just a rebranding of an already existing film.  Slap a 2012 on it and throw it back out there!  But actually, it's not really a bad zombie film, and stars Ken Foree, who I am a fan of.  Loads of Ken in this one!  It doesn't have a thing to do with Mayans or 2012 for that matter; it's actually set in eastern Europe, but we are doing zombies tomorrow, celebrating the return of "The Walking Dead,"  so I am using the renaming of this as an excuse to indulge in a little early zombie action.  If you have an Amazon Prime account you can watch it here rental free or add to a Blu Ray Watchlist.

As every one knows, you kill a zombie by "removing the head or destroying the brain."  Turns out the favored method of human sacrifice amongst the Maya in the hey-day of their civilization was beheading.  This way especially true for the captain of the losing team in the ball court!  The above relief is from Chichen Itza and depicts the severed head of one such fated captain off to the left.  More on Mayan Human Sacrifice.  One Columbus fact:  he was the first European to see Mayans.  During his fourth voyage to the Caribbean in 1502, he spotted extremely large canoes that could hold up to 40 people in what would turn out to be off the coast of the Yucatan.  Recently the Yucatec, a Mayan speaking group from what is now southern Mexico, have reclaimed their traditions on the sea.  Below is an image of one such modern sea canoe.

Brad Meltzer's Decoded: 2012--The Beginning

Well, here we are again with another Columbus Day....I HATE this day!  So, I'm going to spend it making fun of all the hoopla that people made of the whole Maya 2012 end of the world stuff that was going on last year.  This show is a good example of both the super silliness of the whole matter.  On the one hand, they are talking about real issues that exist completely outside of the Maya long count calender, like solar flares.  On the other, it is a great illustration of how white people think of Natives on this continent.  Example:  they talk about the end of the Maya civilization, and in the same sentence they say "if the Mayans where still around, what would they think of this?"  Well guess what (!) THEY ARE STILL AROUND, go ask them!!  So there is this special kind of discrimination that is reserved for native of the North American continent, that of utter disregard and invisibility.  They keep talking about the last page of the Dresden Codex, one of the very few precious Maya sacred books to have been saved from the flames, as end of the earth by flood.  What these people of not getting (and they even show the wrong page as "the last page") is that the flood that is depicted is started by the gods of fire and sun, and the rain god goes overboard to put out that fire.  What we know now, is that the end of the building period of the Maya, what killed that off was way too many ruling elite, far too many working folks and tons of deforestation that caused massive droughts:  sound familiar??  The Maya, if you look at them today, have learned their lesson the hard way.  If they as a people, have anything of significance to offer the rest of the world, it's that lesson!  Not some BS obsession with their long count calendars!  [Note the plural] If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can watch it here or add it to a Blu Ray Watchlist.

This the actual last page of the Dresden Codex

HERE is why we have only got 3 Maya codices left in the world.  Oh yeah, Columbus did all of indigenous people such a favor by getting lost in the Caribbean.....let's all party down!

2012 (2009)

2012: Apocalypse Of The Dead (Zone Of The Dead) [2009]

This is an extremely good example of a film deliberately being rebranded because of the 2012 craze.  It is, in fact, a perfectly decent shoe-string budget zombie film, originally Zone Of The Dead, that takes place in Serbia and involves Interpol agents attempting to move an ex CIA spook type, when all of a sudden everyone finds themselves surrounded by slow moving (or in some cases not so slow moving) grunting people who do not respond to commands or questions.  Of course, they are zombies...but only the spook knows what they really are.  

I'm actually kind of surprised that no one made a serious pitch to actually make a 2012 zombie film.  When watching this for the first time, anyone expecting any 2012 tie in would understandably be confused.  There is some mumbo-jumbo about a "day" and a "prophecy," but these are presented as Serbian Church teachings that are only barely mentioned.  So, someone, somewhere, heard these, and thought, "hey he said "prophecy" once:  let's put this on television as a 2012 thing---totally makes sense!."  As I mentioned, as a zombie flick, it's really not bad.  It's big claim to zombie fame is that it stars Ken Foree, who is really well known amongst us horror fans as a main character in Romero's Dawn Of The Dead (and as a cameo in the 2004 remake), and lately of Rob Zombie films.

Mayan Apocalypse 2012: National Geographic

This is probably the most serious thing posted here today.  It's actually a pretty decent little documentary put together by Paul Murton for the National Geographic Channel (which re-airs tonight @ 10 PM EST).  He examines all sorts of phenomena related to human reactions to the date.  In all seriousness, I would personally love a good documentary the focuses on modern Maya Calendar Keepers--one that shows the Mayan understanding of the year/the date; which differs quite a bit from the commercial side of it that has been splashed all over the Internet of late.  But this will do nicely.  A couple of the topics that he hits on include so-called "prepers," religious takes on it as separating of good from evil, or as one guy calls it "the separation of the righteous and unrighteous" (which is bunk!), etc.  Murton's response to this is to actually seek answers among the modern Maya.  There he finds that Maya who are aware of what is happening in places like the US are commercial exploitation of this calendrical concepts.  It is this commercialism that I am really trying to make light of here today...since this is not supposed to be a serious blog in the first place.  What is scary about this documentary (since that is the basic criterion of the blog in the first place) is the appropriation of one groups important sacredness and turn it into something rather monstrous and yes, scary.  I do recommend giving this one a look.  For the Maya, this is really a date of celebration. So my attempt in being silly about this date is to encourage a little light celebration of the day, since we have had a week of horror from last Friday!  BTW the Mayan date on their Calendar Wheel today is 4 Ahaw, 3 K'ank'in.

Nostradamus Effect: 2012 Extinction

Embed Curtesy Of Hulu

Ancient Aliens: The Mayan Conspiracy

This is a very silly show that I get a kick out of watching.  It fascinates me because it goes out of it's way to show some of the most amazing and astonishing accomplishments of human civilizations all over the world...but, of course, they all have to be the work of aliens that visited various ancient peoples....if that were the case, why the differences in these cultural accomplishments?  They try to point out that these differences are less than their supposed similarities (pyramids being the ultimate example), when, in fact, all one has to do is watch to see that the differences matter a great deal more than the real or imagined similarities.  In this, the old, really over tired notion of "King Pacal"--real name Ki'nich Janaab Pakal, is supposedly see in an ancient flying machine on a large stone burial sculpture.  This is really a depiction of Lord Pakal descending into the traditional death vase....but it doesn't stop the from fashioning a "flying machine" out the pict (see below).  This was first put forward by Erich von Däniken, who incorrectly stated that it was fro Copan; it is in fact from Palenque.

If you look carefully at the "seat" on which Lord Pakal is resting on, you will see the image of the Death God--not utilized on the model.

2012: Doomsday (2008)

The above title post is a bit confusing since obviously today is supposed to be doomsday and the year is most decidedly 2012!  Actually this is a made for Syfy movie that was ostensibly made to cash in on the 2012 Phenomenon.  That would have been fine, I have a lot of schlocky love for a lot of their really bad Saturday afternoon fare...however this is something that I really didn't expect from them....I rapture film.  It's Christian propaganda film, based on the idea that what the Mayan Long Count calendar was really counting down to was the taking up of all the true believers, and all us sinners are to be left here to face Christian "end times."  Some archaeologists find a crucifix in a ancient Maya temple and start babbling something about Christians being there long before the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century.  I don't know who these earlier Christians could have been, since the religion is only 2,000 years old and the Long Count had been counting down 3,000 years before Jesus was born.... It doesn't make any sense.  The long count calendar ran out about a little over 3 hours ago, according to the winter solstice....looks like everyone is still here, whether anyone likes it or not....  Wish I could recommend this a "fun Syfy crap"--but it's not.  Even the daughter of The Monkey's Mickey Dolenz, Ami, can't save this one!

The Statues Of El Baúl In Guatemala

Today Is

12.19.19.4.15 Long Count Calender

12 Men 3 Wayeb Calendar Round

264 Days To Baktun 13

Early Stele Preservation

Once a much larger archaeological city ruin, the whole southern part of the acropolis was deliberately destroyed in 1997, part of the so-called "urbanization" of the area.  In fact, it was destroyed for no particularly good reason to expand a city that did not need to expand in that direction.  The city is quite old and was founded during what is known as the Formative Period, which just precedes the important Classic era.  The this reason, a great deal of the statuary has a look that appear non-Mayan on first observance.  Further examination reveals some Mayan styles emerging that would be perfected and decimated during the Classic period and recognizable as strictly Maya in origin.  El Baúl is part of the larger Mayan archaeological "zone" known as Cotzumalhuapa; the ballcourt is still in existence and some parts of the northern acropolis has been excavated; but most of the city remains under sugar cane fields--a non-native crop from Asia.  The vast majority of what is left of the city on any kind of display for tourism are carved stele and statues.  The site is near an active volcano, and it is suspected that it was abandoned long before the dawn of a cohesive Maya civilization because of the volcano.  Here is a gallery of the unique works from this little known early Maya city.

Here is an illustrated detail of the above Stele, the engraving is easily recognized as being in the Maya style.