HISTORY
-
Relationship to the Seminole
- Relationship to the
Miccosukee
- 1833 Map of Florida
-
Cultural Archives
-
Scientific Accomplishments of
Seafaring Chontal Maya
-
Ancient
Trading / Current Colonization Routes
(bearing
ancestral and cultural
ties to the land)
- Calusa
Territory
-
Miccosukee Deity (the feathered
or winged serpent)
The
Little Known Scientific
Accomplishments of the
Seafaring Chontal
Maya from Northern Yucatan
By: Douglas T. Peck
(Reprinted by
author's permission)
The precocious Chontal
Maya/Itza centered in the
northern Yucatan were far ahead of
their contemporary neighbors in the
arts and science including writing,
mathematics, and public architecture
(Peck 2000:6-22). This study will
show that the seafaring and
mercantile oriented Chontal
Maya were also a worldly
element of the
Maya civilization who
traveled and spread their cultural
influence not only throughout
continental Mesoamerica, but
ventured across the seas in
exploration voyages to the islands
of the Caribbean and to the shores
of Florida. Consistent with this
accomplishment, the Chontal
Maya had developed naval
engineering, metallurgy, tool
design, and woodworking and ship
building capabilities that enabled
them to construct the large
composite seaworthy vessels
required. Their accomplishments in
mathematics and astronomy also
enabled the Chontal
Maya to develop a
sophisticated method of celestial
navigation for their overseas
voyages.
This is
contrary to current consensus among
Maya scholars who view the
Maya as largely sedentary and
introverted people with no knowledge
or interest in the world beyond
their own known continental borders.
This narrow view was initially given
impetus by the fact that Spanish
explorers were firmly established in
the northern Caribbean for nearly a
quarter of a century without
obtaining knowledge of the
Maya civilization only a few
days sail to the west. However, a
severe scrutiny of extant
documentary and archaeological
evidence indicates there was
pre-Columbian contact between the
Maya on the Yucatan and the
Indians of the Caribbean and Florida
which could only have been
accomplished in planned voyages by
people of substance in large and
seaworthy vessels.
Historical Evidence of Pre-Columbian
Contact by Canoe Between
the
Maya on the Yucatan and the
Taino in the Caribbean
contained in Columbus s 1492-1493
Diario or Log.
Columbus was the first European to
reveal that the Indians of the New
World were a seafaring trading
peoples who roamed throughout the
islands in large trading canoes.
Columbus s reports concerned only
the trading voyages of the Taino in
the Caribbean islands he had
discovered in his four voyages.
Although the Taino told Columbus
about overseas contact with the
mainland of both Florida and the
Yucatan he did not recognize it as
such. The reports of Columbus that
follow are from his Diario or
log as summarized by Bartolome de
Las Casas.
i
Columbus s
first report of what can be
construed as a large Taino trading
canoe was on 27 November, 1492, when
he was on the northeast coast of
Cuba. At this point the summary of
his log reads: .... there he found a
handsome dugout or canoe, made of
one timber as big as a
i
The summary of Columbus s log was
apparently made in the early
sixteenth-century by Las Casas from
Columbus s copy of the log while
gathering notes for his Historia
de Las Indias. Las Casas s
Historia was not published until
1875 and did not contain this
complete summary of the log. Martin
Fernandez de Navarette discovered
the Las Casas summary in a private
library in Spain and published it in
1892 followed to date by several
translations of varying reliability.
The three translations used to
develop this part of the text are
the Beckwith and Farina (1990), the
Dunn and Kelley (1989), and the Jane
and Vigneras (1960). The earlier
translation by Cecil Jane is used
where his more literal translation
is the more accurate and the others
are used where there is no conflict
or when more appropriate.
f usta
of twelve rowing benches, drawn up
under a shelter or shed made of wood
and covered with big palm leaves, so
that neither sun nor water could
damage it (Beckwith-Farina 1990:
133; Dunn-Kelley 1989:187; Jane-Vigneras
1960:78). The European fusta of a
size to accommodate twenty-four
rowers amidship plus passengers or
cargo space in the ends, would have
been about forty feet long. Later
(30 November) and while still
exploring Cuba, Columbus reported
that near a large river that
Figure 12
A Taino log canoe as pictured in
Girolamo Benzoni,
La Historia del Mondo Nuovo,
Venice, 1563.
emptied into the sea they found a
handsome dugout or canoe ninety-five
palmas in length, made of a single
timber, and in it a hundred and
fifty persons would fit and navigate
(Beckwith-Farina 1990:137;
Dunn-Kelley 1989:189). The length of
the Mediterranean palm (palmas) was
about ten inches (Kelley
1987:122-123), which would make the
reported length of the canoe about
seventy-nine feet. This length as
well as the number of people the
canoe could carry can be assumed to
be one of Columbus s numerous
exaggerations to impress the
sovereigns. Most Spanish observers
of the time place the maximum number
the larger canoes could carry at
around thirty persons, and this
seems a more reasonable figure.
The Carib
and Taino Indians in the islands
constructed and shaped their canoes
using a controlled-fire followed by
scraping away the charred wood with
a stone or shell cutting
tool(Hartman 1994; Leshikar 1988;
Stowe 1974; Wilbert 1977). The fire
and scraping method was used to fell
the tree, shape the ends and hollow
out the interior since the Indians
had no metal tools. This slow and
inefficient use of fire to eat away
at the wood required close attention
and monitoring of the fire for long
periods of time to produce even the
smaller canoes. Johannes Wilbert in
his comprehensive study of early
aboriginal water craft determined
that nearly an entire year was
needed to complete a canoe using the
fire and scraping method (Wilbert
1977). The log canoes
constructed by this method would
have been relatively heavy round
bottom canoes unstable and unsafe
for extensive overseas voyages yet
there is evidence that such voyages
did occur (Farina-Triolo 1992:93).
At one time Columbus spoke of as
many as 120 canoes full of people
crowded around his vessel, but these
were the smaller individually owned
canoes used for fishing and limited
coastal travel. Less frequently does
he note the large trading canoes and
these must have been community
property under control of the
cacique to warrant the
extensive effort and manpower for
their construction and utilization.
On several occasions in Columbus s
Diario or log of his 1492
voyage there are indications that
the Taino Indians had knowledge of
both the
Calusa in Florida and the
Maya on the Yucatan and tried
to tell Columbus about these distant
lands. On 30 October, 1492, when
traveling west on the northern
shores of Cuba, Columbus sent Martin
Alonso Pinzon in the Pinta on ahead
to see if he could locate the great
oriental king that Columbus believed
was somewhere in the area. When he
returned, Pinzon reported: The
Indians said that behind that cape
there was a river, and that from
that river to Cuba it was a four day
s journey. He [Pinzon] said he
understood that this Cuba was a city
and that land was a very
extensive mainland [Tierra Firme],
which stretched far to the north,
and that the king of that
land was at war with the Gran
Khan, whom they called Saba and by
many other names (Jane-Vigneras
1960:49, emphasis added). This
sentence is ambiguous, but the
reference to a very extensive
mainland which stretched far to the
north, could only be referring to
Florida since the Indians knew that
Cuba was an island. The Gran Kahn or
great king probably referred to
Calus (called Carlos by the
Spaniards), the king of the powerful
Calusa,
who held all of southern Florida in
his tributary realm (Goggin 1964;
Hahn 1991; Widmer 1988). Hernando de
Escalante Fontaneda confirmed this
prehistoric canoe travel between
Cuba and Florida in his Memoirs
Respecting Florida, when he
stated: Anciently, many Indians from
Cuba entered the ports of the
province of Carlos [Calus] (True
1944:29). At this early stage the
Spaniards were confused over whether
the Indian s
Cuba was a city or an island
which contributes to the seeming
ambiguity of this passage. The
Indians expressed finite distances
in the time it took a canoe to
travel the distance, and the four
day passage to Florida is a
reasonable amount of time for the
passage.
Later, on
11 December, when on the northwest
coast of Espaola (Haiti), Columbus
received his first indication that
he was close to the mainland
(Yucatan) and an advanced people
(the
Maya), but he failed to
recognize it (Jane-Vigneras
1960:92). At this time Columbus was
searching for the island of
Baneque (identified as Great
Inagua) which he had been told
earlier (quite erroneously) was the
source of the Indian s gold.
However, the Indians must have
realized that Columbus was looking
for gold far in excess of the small
amounts available in the islands,
and tried to tell him of a far
distant mainland they called
Bohio in which they described a
wealthy and advanced civilization.
Columbus misinterpreted what the
Indians were telling him in this
instance because of his
misunderstanding of the Indian s use
of the word Bohio. The Indian
word Bohio is a generic term
meaning house, home, or dwelling
place, rather than a geographical
place name. Las Casas understood
this error by Columbus and placed a
marginal note at the first mention
of Bohio that reads: The
Indians of those islands called
their houses Bohio. The
Admiral [Columbus] did not
understand it well (Jane-Vigneras
1960: 206). When on Cuba, the
Indians applied Bohio to
Espaola, and in this case when on
Espaola, they applied it to the far
distant mainland. In interpreting
what the Indians were telling him,
Columbus implied the Indians were
telling him about Espaola or
Baneque and the Caribs when it
is apparent that they were trying to
tell him about the Yucatan mainland
and the
Maya. As summarized by Las
Casas, here is what the Indians had
to say:
They [the Indians] told him that the island was very
great and had very large mountains
and rivers and valleys, and they
said that the island of Bohio
was larger than that of Juana which
they call Cuba, and that it
is not surrounded with water.
It appears that they meant it was
the
mainland
and that it is here, behind this
Espanola, which they call
Caritaba, and it is of
infinite
extent,
and it appears like they are
harassed by an intelligent race,
.... (Jane-Vigneras 1960 :92,
emphasis added).
At this
point the paragraph picks up on a
long discussion of the Caribs and
their unsavory habits, and therefore
implies that Columbus thought these
were the peoples and lands that the
Indians were
Figure 13
This drawing of
Maya warriors from a low
relief sculpture in a temple in
Chichen Itza
in northern Yucatan shows why the primitive
Taino Indians in the islands would
refer
to the
Maya on the mainland as
clothed people and an advanced
intelligent race.
talking about in the preceding
remarks. Currently most Columbian
scholars cling to Columbus s
interpretation and believe that the
Bohio the Indians were
describing was Espaola or another
island rather than the mainland and
the
Maya. ii
A seemingly valid reason for this
view can be found in a reading of
Columbus s log. The Indians first
used the term
Bohio when Columbus was on
Cuba and they used it to describe
Espanola. This was followed by three
other cases where the word Bohio
was reported by Columbus as the
Indian name for Espanola. However,
in this case the Indians could only
have been referring to another and
distant
Bohio when they said it was not
surrounded by water, was of infinite
extent, and that it was behind this
Espanola (i.e., the Yucatan
mainland). And further, when the
Indians stated that the inhabitants
of this distant mainland are
harassed by an intelligent race, the
logical conclusion is that they were
referring to the advanced
(intelligent)
Maya on the Yucatan which is
the nearest point of the mainland.
Another unrelated report supports the fact that the
Taino Indians had contact and
definitive knowledge of the
Maya on the Yucatan. In the
log entry of 6 January, 1493,
Columbus quoted the Indians as
stating that the island of Espanola
or the other island of Yamaye
[identified as Jamaica] was distant
from the mainland ten days
journey in a canoe, which must be
ii
This common consensus against Taino
contact or knowledge of the
Maya on the mainland was
given undue authority in the most
recent and widely accepted
translation of Columbus s log
(Dunn-Kelley 1989:217). Although
tierra firme
is correctly translated by
Dunn-Kelley as the mainland in
several other places in the text, in
this instance, and this instance
only, it is translated as land mass
to incorrectly infer the Tainos were
referring to just another of their
islands rather than the mainland
(not surrounded by water). And
gente astuta is translated as
cunning instead of intelligent to
force the passage, without
foundation, to seemingly apply to
the cunning Caribs rather than the
intelligent
Maya.
60 or 70 leagues [about 224 nautical
miles], and that there the people
were clothed (Beckwith-Farina
1990:233; Jane-Vigneras 1960:140,
emphasis added). These clothed
people on the mainland were
ostensibly the
Maya on the Yucatan but the
distance reported by Columbus falls
far short of the actual distance. In
this instance Columbus
underestimated the speed of the
canoes which could cover far more
distance in ten days than his
estimate, but the question is moot
since the evidence shows the Indians
were referring to the
Maya in Mexico and the
nearest point to be reached by canoe
is the Yucatan.
Evidence
of Prehistoric Contact by Canoe
Between the
Caribs in the Caribbean and the
Maya on the Yucatan
There is also evidence that the
Caribs were capable of making long
distance canoe passages which
reached the shores of the Yucatan.
The cannibalistic tribes known
collectively as the Caribs began
their migration northward through
the islands from the shores of South
America about 1000 AD, replacing the
Arawak speaking peoples generally
referred to as the Taino (Keegan
1992; Rouse 1960, 1986). In the
immediate pre-Columbian period (ca.
1300-1492) the Caribs in their
gradual movement north through the
islands, had reached and settled as
far north as the eastern shores of
Puerto Rico and adjacent islands.
The Caribs were a bellicose and
warlike people who were not
interested in trade but only in
captives to satisfy the requirements
of their cannibalistic culture. And
it was this requirement that
promoted the ability of the Caribs
to undertake long overseas voyages.
Columbus reported that the Taino
Indians in both Cuba and Espanola
had experienced raids by the Caribs
and were deathly afraid of them
(Jane-Vigneras
1960:68-69,74,85,146). The current
popular and politically correct view
is that the Caribs were not a
populous ethnically distinct people,
but just a minor offshoot of the
Taino with very little indication
that they were true cannibals (Arens
1979; Boucher 1992; Hulme-Whitehead
1992). This unfounded and inaccurate
historiography summarily dismisses
the first-hand reports of
cannibalism by the earliest Spanish
explorers and with patently invalid
speculation asserts the Spaniards
made up the story to justify
enslaving the Caribs.
iii
Diego
Alvarez Chanca, a physician on
Columbus s second voyage, in
speaking of the Caribs wrote: One
and all make war against all the
neighboring islands, traveling by
sea a hundred and fifty leagues to
attack with their many canoes, which
are like a small fustas of a single
piece of wood (Farina- Triolo
1992:93). The Spanish leagues
reported by Chanca equals about 480
nautical miles which would indicate
that the Caribs were probably more
competent in long distance travel by
canoe than the Taino further north.
These long distance canoe passages by Caribs reported
by Dr. Chanca also reached the
Yucatan and are confirmed from an
independent source in the Book of
Chilam Balam of
Chumayel,
one of the most accurate and best
preserved of early
Maya historical documents
(Edmonson 1986:62; Roys 1967:55).
This book of
Maya history although written
in Spanish after the Spanish
occupation contains much of the
ancient history of the
Maya recorded in the original
codices destroyed by Bishop Landa
and other clerics in the early days
of the Spanish occupation (Landa
1941). The pertinent portion of the
text, written in the
Maya poetical couplet
tradition reads:
iii
The anthropologist Louis Allaire
refutes this popular view in his
article on the Caribs in, The
Indigenous People
of the Caribbean,
summed up by: I find no evidence
whatsoever to suggest that the
Caribs were in reality a group of
Tainos living under different
socioeconomic conditions and
mistakenly identified as a different
race by Europeans to justify their
raiding them for slaves ( Allaire
1997:18). Another comprehensive
study repudiating the popular view
of the Caribs as a minor offshoot of
the Taino and not true cannibals is
contained in ,
Terrae Incognitae (Peck
1999:1-11).
Five Ahau there came
The foreigners who ate people
And foreigners without skirts
Was their name
The country was not conquered
By them.
The
chronological position in the text
of Five Ahau would place the Carib
incursion between 1200-1380,
probably in the latter part of this
period, around 1300. This incursion
or invasion would have been more
than just a small raid or it would
not have been included in this
sacred book of history, which dealt
only with major events having an
impact on
Maya history. Another item
that indicates this may have been a
large formidable force rather than a
hit and run raid is the wording: The
country was not conquered by
them (emphasis added).
Roys has suggested that this incursion was by the
Miskito (Mosquito) Indians who lived
on the southern border of
Maya territory, but the
historical facts do not support such
a conclusion (Roys 1967:142). The
Miskito Indians were not cannibals,
but were a relatively peaceful
people with whom the
Maya had maintained a close
trading relationship. They would not
have been called foreigners who ate
people. Roys may have felt compelled
to offer this unfounded comment
because of the consensus among
historians that the Caribs were
incapable of making such a long
voyage or mounting such a strong
attack.
Evidence of Contact Between the
Maya on the Yucatan and the
Calusa
in Florida Contained in the Log of Juan Ponce de Leon s 1513 Voyage
There is
evidence recorded in the log of
Ponce de Leon s 1513 voyage that his
Indian guides had knowledge of the
Yucatan and the exact direction in
which it lay.
iv When he left Puerto Rico, Ponce
de Leon was seeking the wealthy
island or land of Beniny (Beimeni)
which he thought lay northwest of
the Lucayans (Bahamas). Following
that northwest course he discovered
Florida, landing on the east coast
near Melbourne Beach (Peck
1992:140-146; Peck 1993:19-64).
Recognizing that Florida was not the
wealthy land of Beniny, he continued
his search which carried him to the
southwest coast of Florida in the
territory of the
Calusa Indians.
On
departing the west coast of Florida,
Juan Ponce resolved to return to
Espanola and San Juan [Puerto Rico],
with the intention of discovering on
the way
some islands of which the
Indians that they carried gave them
information
(Davis 1935 :20-21; Kelley 1991:46,
emphasis added). When departing
Florida at the Tortugas, Juan Ponce
s Indian guides must have convinced
him that the wealthy land he was
seeking lay not to the northwest,
and they pointed to a southwest by
west course that led straight to the
Yucatan. That southwesterly course
is not the direction to Espanola or
San Juan nor are there any islands
in that direction, so it is quite
reasonable that the islands [lands]
of which the Indians they carried
gave them information, were the
lands of the
Maya on the Yucatan.
Diego
Velasquez confirmed this wide
geographical knowledge of the
Florida Indians in a 1514 letter to
King Ferdinand when he stated: He
had been told by chiefs and Indians
that on occasion, certain Indians
had come from the islands beyond
Cuba toward the side of the north
iv
A summary of Ponce de Leon s log of
his 1513 voyage is contained in
Herrera s Historia General
(Herrera 1944). Three English
translations are used in this study
(Scisco 1913; Spofford 1935; Kelley
1991). The translation and
commentary by James E. Kelley Jr. is
superior to other translations
available as it was made from the
original 1601publication, includes
the Spanish text adjacent to the
English translation, and contains
copious footnotes explaining
possible differences in sixteenth
century word usage. For a
reconstruction of the voyage from
the log, see, (Peck 1992:133-154).
[i.e. Florida] navigating five or
six days by canoe and there gave
news of other islands that lie
beyond
(Mendoza-Pacheco 1864:428, emphasis
added).
Ponce de Leon started the voyage with two Taino Indian
guides and picked up three more
Indian guides in Florida, one from
the east coast and two
Calusa Indians from San
Carlos Bay on the west coast. Since
Juan Ponce changed his course toward
the Yucatan only after leaving the
Florida west coast, it was probably
the
Calusa guides who told him of
the Yucatan and pointed out the
correct course. Though Juan Ponce
sailed for two and one-half days on
a southwest by west course toward
the Yucatan, the strong Florida and
Gulf Stream currents bent his course
around to the northwest coast of
Cuba, which he could not identify,
so he gave up and returned to Puerto
Rico.
The
tantalizing question from this
scenario is, - how did the
Calusa guides obtain this
knowledge of the Yucatan and the
Maya? In Ponce de Leon s
initial encounter with the
Calusa, he stated that they
attacked his vessel with eighty well
armed canoes, but did not give the
size of the canoes. At a later date
the Spanish navy ensign, Juan
Rodriguez de Cortaya, in a friendly
visit to the village of Carlos, the
Calusa cacique, noted that he
was met by more than sixty canoes
and Carlos was in a large canoe
carrying forty people (Hahn
1991:10). The
Calusa probably had the
capacity for limited ocean passages,
but all indications are that their
use of their log canoes was
restricted to local fishing and
maintaining communication and
control of their large tributary
realm in south Florida. Although the
Calusa could and did reach
Cuba, the strong northerly flowing
currents between the Yucatan and
Florida (two and one-half to three
knots in the axis) would make canoe
passage far more feasible from south
to north. This together with the
fact that in prehistoric times the
advanced Chontal
Maya centered in the Yucatan
had large well-built seaworthy
vessels and an established interest
in foreign trade and exploration
would indicate that prehistoric
contact between the
Calusa and the
Maya probably originated with
the seafaring Chontal
Maya.
The Chontal
Maya Motivation and
Capability for
Eastward Exploration Across the Open
Sea
The large seaworthy vessels that the
Chontal
Maya had developed for their
coastal trade would have given them
the capability for exploration
across the sea, but they would have
needed a strong motive to embark on
a voyage into unknown and dangerous
waters. The ancient and well-known
Maya mythology of the
god-king Kukulcan gave them this
motive. Kukulcan was the principal
god of the Chontal
Maya in the late Formative
period and his homeland called
Tlapallan was located in the sea
east of the Yucatan (Prescott
1969:38-39; Peck 2000:1-6). The
strongest motivation for venturing
eastward into unknown seas would
have been a religious pilgrimage to
Tlapallan, the homeland of their
revered god-king Kukulcan. A
secondary motive for the mercantile
oriented Chontal
Maya would have been to
establish a trading port or colony
in this exotic land. Mythical lands
beyond the horizon have inspired sea
voyages throughout history from
Jason to Odysseus to Pytheas to St.
Brendan and even Columbus who sought
the mythical isle of Antillia in the
Atlantic on his way to the Indies.
In like manner, the Kukulcan
mythology could have inspired some
enterprising Chontal
Maya ruler or nobleman
merchant to send long overseas
venture would have required large,
well designed and finely
constructed, seaworthy vessels such
as those of the
Maya, as opposed to the
primitive log canoes possessed by
the Indians of the islands and
Florida.
The
Development and Construction of the
Large
Maya Trading Vessel
Used in Their Overseas Voyages to
the Caribbean and to Florida
There
is a mistaken belief that the
Maya did not possess
functional metal cutting tools and
like the Taino and Caribs were
limited to primitive stone tools for
construction of their trading
vessels. This study will show that
the Chontal
Maya were a worldly and
sophisticated seafaring people who
were not limited to primitive stone
tools, but with their expertise in
metallurgy had developed efficient
bronze cutting tools with which they
constructed large composite
seaworthy vessels, far superior to
the primitive log canoes of the
islands.
The limited information concerning the log canoes of
the Indians of the Caribbean and
Florida necessarily came to us
through reports and observations of
the first European explorers, since
the
Figure 14
The
top two drawings show
Maya war vessels used in the
Chontal
Maya conquest
of the Yucatan. The lower drawing is
from a tomb in Tikal and shows a
paddler
god steering a deceased ruler into
the
Maya watery otherworld or
Maya Heaven.
Indians had no written language and
no means (or ability) to picture
their canoes. Unlike the Indians of
the Caribbean and Florida, the
advanced
Maya had a written language
and were adept in pictorial art.
However, the
Maya written history in
hieroglyphics recorded only the
accomplishments of their kings in
war and provided a picture of their
religion, and there is little
mention of such a mundane subject as
their trading vessels and the
merchants who pioneered and pursued
this trade enterprise. Also, while
the stone hieroglyphics on their
buildings and monuments have
survived, there is not one single
intact example of their perishable
large seaworthy trading vessels.
Accordingly, the
Maya pictorial art in their
paper codices, their painted murals,
and their incised or low relief
sculpture must be examined to piece
together a
picture of what the
Maya vessels looked like and
how they were constructed.
The several drawings of
Maya vessels in Figure 14
illustrate the typical configuration
and design features that were common
to larger vessels throughout the
Maya territory. A close
examination and analysis of these
and other extant related
Maya art reveals that their
larger vessels had several vital
features of a well designed and
finely constructed seaworthy vessel.
First, the extended freeboard and
high prow and stern would preclude
the entire vessel being carve out of
a single tree trunk (as often
reported by early historians). The
extended prow and stern must have
been fashioned from several planks
and fastened with wood pegs and
adhesive caulking on the lower main
structural part of the hull which
was carved from a single tree trunk.
And these added appendages were not
just for decoration as they had
several functions which constituted
good boat building practice that any
naval architect would be quick to
recognize. The extended and upswept
bow and stern appendages would have
provided the necessary displacement
in the ends to allow the vessel to
rise to a head or following sea
without being pooped or swamped.
Another function of the high
appendages is to provide a safety
factor in the event of a capsize (a
not uncommon event in a narrow
unballasted vessel). The
displacement (or flotation) of the
appendages would stop a capsize at
90 degrees preventing a complete
rollover, and then make righting the
vessel easier by pushing up on the
arm provided by the appendage.
Drawings showing
Maya warriors standing in war
vessels loaded with booty indicates
the vessels had considerable
inherent athwart-ship stability. And
this stability is from efficient and
seaworthy underbody design and
construction, not present or
possible in the primitive Indian log
canoes of the islands, constructed
using the primitive burn and scrape
method. for a round bottom vessel
(commonly associated with the Indian
canoes) to obtain this same built-in
stability would require a
considerable amount of ballast. The
design alternative to provide this
inherent stability would be to
flatten the bottom. This would
provide a hard chine configuration
of the underbody, giving the same
athwart-ship stability without the
use of ballast. And this inherent
stability of the flat chine
underbody, common also to early
Greek and Roman vessels, would have
been learned by experience in the
some thousands of years the vessels
were in use (Bass 1972:37-86). The
works of Sahagun (1946), a Spanish
friar who lived among the Mixtec
early in the Spanish conquest
period, reported that they used
flat-bottomed canoes in the central
Mexican basin. The Mixtec were close
neighbors of the Chontal
Maya and probably learned
this design feature from the early
seafaring
Maya traders. The drawings in
Figure 14 also show the entire free
rail. This addition follows good
boat building practice as in a
modern vessel and provides a hull
that is not only drier, but adds a
safety factor in providing the
needed outboard righting
displacement to prevent capsize or
swamping in heavy seas offshore.
These carved additions to the upper
freeboard of the vessel are common
only to the
Maya, but the pointed paddles
shown in figures 8 and 14 were used
throughout Mesoamerica and the
islands (Cushing 1973; DeBooey 1913;
Leshikar 1988). The pointed paddle
was ostensibly developed from
experience by all aboriginal
cultures of the Americas. The
pointed shape makes entry into the
water at the forward end of the
stroke easier, as well as easing the
force necessary to retrieve the
paddle at the end of the stroke. In
the middle of the stroke, the wide
part of the paddle would be fully
immersed, giving maximum forward
driving action. From an engineering
standpoint the pointed paddle is
hydrostatically far superior to the
shapeless blunt rectangular paddle
used to propel canoes in the modern
world. The long handled paddle in
use by the oarsman in the Chichen
Itza mural (Figures 8 and 14) would
have been used in relatively shallow
water as both a paddle and for
poling along the bottom. When the
canoe was used for long trading
voyages, the paddlers would kneel or
sit amidship in the canoe and use a
much shorter paddle.
The odd
shaped one-sided paddle shown being
used by the paddler god in the lower
drawing of Figure 14 is troublesome
because it would twist in the hands
of the user and be quite ineffective
as a paddle. And it is not a mistake
of the artist as this style of
paddle appears on
other drawings by different artists
who drew the paddles accurately with
the identical shape. The answer to
this enigma is quite simple. They
are not paddles at all, but steering
oars used much like a rudder to keep
the canoe on the desired course.
Directional control of a flat bottom
vessel is extremely difficult, which
Figure 15
A scaled model (1"=1’) of a large
Maya trading vessel based on
current research illustrating the
seaworthy features of a modern
vessel. This particular vessel would
have been about forty-five feet long
with a beam
of six feet and probably propelled
by ten to fourteen paddlers plus a
helmsman at the steering oar.
is why naval architects or builders
down through the centuries have
provided flat (or nearly flat)
bottom boats with either a rudder or
steering oar. And the curved shape
of the
Maya steering oar closely
corresponds to the shape of proven
efficient steering oars developed
for the ancient Phoenician, Greek,
and Egyptian sail and rowing vessels
(Bass 1972:16,27,43,46,141).
Although the pointed paddle is used
throughout Mesoamerica, the steering
oar as shone is common only to the
Maya. The foregoing design
features of a typical Chontal
Maya vessel establishes it as
a well constructed composite
seaworthy vessel rather than just a
primitive log canoe.
Columbus
described one of these offshore
trading vessels in detail in the
account of his fourth voyage (1502)
when anchored at the island of
Guanaja in the Bay of Honduras.
Columbus (as related by Ferdinand)
described the
Maya vessel thus:
There arrived at that time a canoe long as a galley and
8 feet wide, made of a single tree
trunk like the other Indian canoes;
it was freighted with merchandise
from the western regions around New
Spain [Mexico]. Amidships it had a
palm-leaf awning like that which the
Venetian gondolas carry; this gave
complete protection against the rain
and waves. Under this awning were
the children and women and all the
baggage and merchandise, cotton
mantles and sleeveless shirts
embroidered and painted in different
designs and colors, hatchets
resembling the stone hatches used by
the other Indians but made of good
copper, crucibles for smelting ore,
wine made from maize that tastes
like English beer, and cacao beans
as currency. There were twenty five
paddlers aboard but they offered no
resistance (Keen 1959:231-232).
Judging by
the comparison to a Spanish galley,
the number of paddlers, the
dimension of the beam, and the
amount of passengers and
merchandise, the length of the
vessel would have been around fifty
feet. Possibly because Columbus did
not recognize it as such, some
scholars have argued that this
cannot be positively identified as a
Maya vessel and may have come
from
some nearby island. Both the size
and the exotic merchandise aboard
would categorically establish it as
a
Maya vessel from the mainland
rather than a vessel from one of the
nearby islands peopled by simple and
relatively primitive fishermen. The
model of a typical
Maya trading vessel shown in
Figure 15 is probably very similar
to the one seen by Columbus in the
Bay of Honduras.
The Record of
Maya Metallurgy and the
Production of Bronze Cutting Tools
The foregoing analysis indicates
that the
Maya produced well-designed
and finely-built seaworthy vessels
that were fully capable of the long
ocean passages to the islands of the
Caribbean and to Florida. The
demonstrated fine woodworking
capability of the
Maya would categorically
indicate that they had sharp and
efficient cutting tools to build
their large intricate vessels. But
there is a consensus among current
anthropologists and archaeologists
that the
Maya
possessed only crude stone cutting
tools and thus would be limited to
the primitive construction methods
in use by Indians of the islands.
This erroneous and unsupported view
is given undue authority in the
fifth edition of
The Ancient
Maya, which contains the
seemingly unequivocal statement
that, the
Maya had no metal tools
(Sharer 1994: 39,641-642). Another
widely read work related to the
Maya gives undue support for
this view by asserting: The Mayas
were good makers of canoes, though
it was a sphere in which they
were less accomplished than the
Tainos
and the Caribs
who made vessels capable of carrying
a hundred and fifty people in
hollowed-out ceiba tree trunks
(Thomas 1993: 89, emphasis added).
Apparently Thomas based this
conclusion on Columbus s incorrect
and grossly exaggerated size of the
primitive island log canoes,
together with being unduly
influenced by the current consensus
that the
Maya were limited to stone
tools and the same primitive
construction methods used in the
islands. This study will show that
the Chontal
Maya were not limited to
primitive stone tools, but with
their expertise in metallurgy, had
developed efficient bronze axes,
adzes, chisels, and some type of
impact drill, which they used in
construction of their large
composite seaworthy vessels.
Much of the argument that the
Maya did not have expertise
in metallurgy and production of
bronze stems from the fact that the
mines that produced the copper and
tin (the alloyed components of
bronze) were located in mountainous
areas far from the
Maya lowlands. Just a
superficial knowledge of how the
bronze age flowered along the shores
of the Mediterranean and in the
deserts of the Middle-East, far from
the existing mines of copper and
tin, reveals this to be a flawed
argument with no merit. There is
ample evidence to show that both the
Olmec and Chontal
Maya traders were capable of
moving items of considerable bulk
(i.e., unworked raw metal ingots)
over long distances. The irrational
belief that the origin of refined
metallurgy necessarily stemmed from
the vicinity of the raw metals has
pervaded most
Maya historiography on the
subject. Adams alleges that
metalworking first appeared in
western Mexico about AD 800 and was
probably introduced from South
America because of archaeological
finds of worked metal artifacts at
an Andean site that was dated to 800
BC (Adams 1991:284). There is also a
strong consensus that most advanced
metalworking was spread throughout
Mesoamerica from the Tula area in
spite of the fact that no worked
metal has been found at the site.
While noting that superior examples
of metalworking are known from the
Yucatan, Adams asserts, without a
supporting argument, that the
Maya had to have learned the
technique from the Mexicans (Adams
1991:284). Sharer supports this
belief that the Itza on the Yucatan
were relatively incapable of
metalworking and reports that most
metal objects found probably reached
Chichen
Itza as articles of trade (Sharer
1994 :719). The unclear and poorly
supported origin of
Figure 16
Mixtec woodworkers showing
Pre-Columbian tools of their trade
and their handiwork.
Redrawn details from Sahagun s
Florentine Codex.
metallurgy in Mesoamerica fails to
throw a shadow on the conclusion of
this study that the Chontal
Maya possessed well-made
efficient bronze cutting tools to
construct their large composite
trading vessels. With their other
advanced accomplishments in mind, if
for a doubtful reason the
precocious, wealthy, and powerful
Chontal
Maya lacked expertise in
metallurgy and metalworking, they
could have imported the finished
products or hired and installed the
craftsmen to do the work.
Academic acceptance of the view that the
Maya did not possess bronze
tools is based on an argument from
silence because archaeologists in
their numerous investigations in
Maya territory have yet to
uncover a single bronze cutting
tool, but stone tools are abundant
and readily found. The few
Maya metal artifacts that are
available for study have largely
been found by archaeologists in the
tombs of
Maya kings. These limited
metal artifacts in the tombs of
kings were ceremonial medallions and
jewelry made from pure soft copy
since pure copper will take a
polishing shine that rivals gold.
The archaeologists then come to the
invalid conclusion that the only use
of metal by the
Maya was for ceremonial
medallions and jewelry from soft
copper rather than functional bronze
tools for the workers. A noble
Maya king would hardly carry
the unsightly and unpolished hard
bronze tool of a worker or slave
into his grave, so this rationale
has no merit. The valuable and
scarce axes and other bronze tools
of the workers would not have been
abandoned or buried for
archaeologists to find at a later
date, but would continue in use
until this scarce metal was melted
down to make more modern tools or
implements and thus would lose their
early
Maya identity.
Sahagun, a Spanish friar who lived among the Mixtec in
the early sixteenth-century has
pictured their typical cutting tools
in his Florentine Codex
(Sahagun 1963). The Mixtec (Zapotec
in the formative period) were close
trading neighbors of the Chontal
Maya and these pictured tools
were ostensibly similar to those in
use throughout Mesoamerica. The
tools pictured by Sahagun, shown in
Figure 16, were those in use at the
time of the Spanish conquest, but
probably date to a much earlier
period. The drawing on the left
shows a woodworker felling and
trimming a large tree with an axe
that is in reality a large broad
faced straight chisel with a well
designed and functional lashed on
handle. Another illustration in the
Florentine Codex (not shown)
pictures this same type of straight
chisel being used with a separate
wooden mallet to carve an
elaborate wooden figurine. The
drawing on the right shows what
appears to be an adze used in
construction of the canoe in which
it rests. The adze appears to have
been fashioned from a molded curved
and shaped cutter with a similar
lashed integral wood handle. Two
woodworkers in the background carry
two squared beams with a row of
drilled holes (probably drilled with
impact drills) to receive wood pegs
for joining to another member.
v
The clean cuts on the tree, the
precisely squared beams with drilled
holes, and the intricate carved
eagle head on the canoe, could only
have been accomplished with sharp
bronze cutting tools and would be
impractical with the use of stone
tools.
Peter Martyr in his De Orbe Nova
gives positive evidence that the
natives of Nueva
Espana
had alloyed bronze cutting tools
when he indicated they used well
sharpened axes, then stated they had
alloyed [i.e., bronze] hatchets
[axes] used by the natives to cut
down trees (Martyr 1970:194,216).
And Bernal Diaz noted these alloyed
metal tools when he reported that in
the native market there are for sale
axes of brass and copper and tin
(Diaz del Castillo 1956:217).
Columbus reported the large
Maya canoe in the Bay of
Honduras contained hatchets made of
good copper [i.e., bronze] and hawk
s bells of copper (a soft copper
bell will not ring, but a bronze
bell will) and crucibles to smelt it
(Keen 1959: 232). Yet current
archaeologists are reluctant to
accept historical evidence of bronze
tools because none have been found
in archaeological investigations and
steadfastly insist that the
Maya had no metal tools
(Sharer 1994:39,641-642).
Even though
no archaeological finds have
confirmed that the
Maya had bronze tools, it is
rather inconceivable that for the
many centuries the precocious
Maya smelted copper in their
crucibles, they would not have
discovered that adding a small
amount of tin would produce hard
bronze for their tools. Although the
cited evidence indicates that the
Maya had the capability and
did produce bronze, it is also
evident that the production of
bronze was on a small scale and
limited to woodworking or limestone
cutting tools and not available in
the large quantity required for
weapons of war as in European bronze
age societies. The foregoing
evidence supplied by the first
Spanish explorers, who reported on
prehistoric
Maya metallurgy and use of
metal tools, refutes the current
consensus that the
Maya had no bronze cutting
tools and were limited to stone
cutting tools. Instead, the evidence
indicates the Chontal
Maya had both the expertise
and ample bronze tools to construct
their large offshore trading
vessels.
The current consensus of most historians,
anthropologists and archaeologists
is that the
Maya
canoe routes and travels were
limited to the coasts and inland
rivers of Mexico and Central America
and long overseas voyages to the
islands of the Caribbean and to
Florida were neither feasible nor
conducted. Yet the foregoing
evidence suggests that the Tainos in
the northern Caribbean and the
Calusa in Florida had
knowledge of the Yucatan and its
people. The question remains of how
this knowledge was obtained.
The Archaeological and Documentary
Evidence of Cultural Contact
Between the
Maya on the Yucatan and the
Tainos in the Caribbean
The early Spanish explorers noted that the
Maya of the Yucatan had
traveled to the
v
The impact drill
resembles a long slender chisel
except there are two opposing
cutting edges at right angles
instead of the one edge as in a
standard chisel. The drill is driven
into the wood (or soft green
limestone) by a wood or metal
mallet, rotating it a few degrees
with each strike of the mallet. In
Europe the drill was used since
ancient times until introduction of
the rotary drill (sometime in the 18th
century) and can still be found in
specialty hardware stores in Europe
and some undeveloped countries.
Manufacture would have been well
within the metalworking capabilities
of the
Maya. Martyr was probably
referring to use of an impact drill
when describing a bored hole in a
yoke to harness slaves when he
stated: Boring a hole through one
side of the beam, they pass a cable
to which slaves are harnessed as
though they were oxen (Martyr 1970:
194).
islands of the Caribbean in
pre-conquest times and knew the
direction, distance, and details of
the inhabitants. The friar Juan Diaz
with the 1518 Grijalva voyage to the
Yucatan wrote: The Indians [Maya]
assert that
Figure 17
Chart showing the extensive
prehistoric trade and exploration
routes of the Chontal
Maya. (red arrows &
emphasis added)
people were near who used ships,
clothes, and arms like the
Spaniards, and that a [Maya]
canoe could go where they are in ten
days, a voyage of perhaps 300 miles
(Diaz 1942, Wagner 1942:72). The
fact that the
Maya knew of people in
distant islands who used ships,
clothes, and arms like the
Spaniards, is not surprising since
the Spaniards at this time had been
firmly entrenched in Espanola, Cuba,
and Puerto Rico for over 26 years.
And the fact that the Taino Indians
in the islands and the
Maya on the Yucatan, not only
gave accurate details of the people,
but also gave the identical distance
(ten day canoe trip) between the two
points (Beckwith-Farina 1990:233),
suggests that canoe travel and
contact between the two peoples was
a reality. The chart in Figure 17
shows the Chontal
Maya coastal trade routes and
the routes for their overseas
voyages to the islands of the
Caribbean and to Florida.
Archaeological investigation together with the reports
of early Spanish observers also
provides evidence that the culture
of the islands of the Caribbean was
influenced by contact with the
Maya. This evidence of
Maya cultural influence is
confined to the northernmost large
islands of the Antilles most easily
reached from the mainland. Both
Oviedo and Las Casas describe a
Batey or ball-court and the way the
game was played by the Indians of
Espaola and Puerto
Rico (Alegria 1983). These
descriptions follow very closely the
ball court and game which was common
to
Maya culture. Archaeological
excavations at the Salt River site
on St. Croix have revealed a
ball-court lined with carved stone
slabs and located adjacent to
pyramidal shaped mounds containing
burials with accompanying ceremonial
artifacts (Hatt 1924). These finds
resemble
Maya practice rather than
general Taino practice. But the most
telling evidence of
Maya
contact and influence has been the
recent archaeological finds by
Charles Beeker in the Dominican
Republic. Beeker found a prehistoric
Taino village which had a deep
cenote filled with sacrificial
objects, several large plazas, and a
large ball-court lined with tall
limestone columns. These artifacts,
and the sacrificial cenote and
ball-court, are tied to
Maya, not general Taino
tradition (Beeker 1997).
This
cultural influence could have
stemmed from Chontal
Maya/Itza trading colonies
established at the height of their
power and expansionist movement into
the Yucatan and beyond (ca. AD
100-400). With the decline and
retrenchment of the Itza (ca. AD
600-900) the colonies in the islands
would have been abandoned and the
remaining Mayas melded into the
Taino population. Then over a period
of time the memory of the
Maya from the mainland would
have been retained only in their
oral mythology, hence the Indian
myth of the exotic land of Beimeni
sought by Ponce de Leon.
The Archaeological and Documentary
Evidence of Cultural Contact
by Sea Between the
Maya on the Yucatan and the
Calusa in Florida
The possibility of prehistoric
Maya travel to Florida and
influencing the culture of the
indigenous
Calusa was first voiced in
the late 1800s when Frank Hamilton
Cushing embarked on the first
serious archaeological investigation
of the prehistoric Indian culture in
southwest Florida (Cushing 1973;
Gilliland 1975). The primary
prehistoric sites which Cushing
investigated were in the realm of
the
Calusa Indians on the west
coast of Florida from Charlotte
Harbor south to Key Marco. Cushing
uncovered many significant artifacts
and remains that indicated the
prehistoric
Calusa were not the
previously believed primitive
nomadic hunter-fisher-gatherers but
had a well established society
living in settled villages and ruled
by a highly organized political
hierarchy of nobles and chiefs (Goggin
1964; Hahn 1991; True 1944; Widmer
1988).
Cushing was an eccentric self-taught archaeologist who
used methods of investigation that
are frowned on today, but he opened
the door to an expanded
archaeological investigation of
Florida s prehistoric sites that
continues to this day. From the
analysis of his finds on Key Marco,
together with his comprehensive
study of Indian culture of the
entire Mesoamerican area, Cushing
saw signs that the
Calusa Indian culture had
been strongly influenced by the
northward movement of peoples
through the islands and through
Central America and the Yucatan.
Cushing initially received
considerable support for this theory
and stated in his 1896 paper
presented to the American
Philosophical Society that: I am not
alone in thus having found a decided
correspondence between the arts of
the ancient Floridians and other
southern Indians and those of
ancient Yucatan (Cushing 1973: 409).
However, Cushing s theory soon lost
favor among anthropologists who
pointed out some rather glaring
errors in the dating and validity of
some (but not all) of his findings.
Following this, the consensus of the
academic community soon fell back on
the previous stand that contact by
sea was highly improbable and if
there was contact at all it had to
come by way of the long land trail
around the western and northern
shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
The next and more recent support for the theory is found in
the archaeological investigations of
William H. Sears (1977,1982) in the
Fort Center site just north of Lake
Okeechobee in the
Calusa area. In this
investigation of an ancient
Calusa village, Sears has
uncovered several cultural traits
that can be traced to the Yucatan
Maya rather than the
Mississippian Indian culture farther
north. In the prehistoric period
maize was grown at the site
in raised, watered and fertilized
man-made hummocks, a method common
to the
Maya, but not used by Indian
cultures farther north. Another
technique possibly obtain from the
Maya was the method of
soaking maize kernels in a lime-masa
process that swelled the hard stored
maize and removed the outer skin.
Again, this
Maya technique known to the
Calusa
was unknown to the Indians further
north. Current consensus is that
maize first appeared in the Mid-West
and Mississippi valley at an unclear
date during the prehistoric period
then moved south into Florida, but
the early dating of the Fort Center
maize suggests it was the other way
around.
Sears has
also identified the design of early
historic
Calusa sheet copper symbol
badges at the Fort Center site as
being typical of the Olmec style
jaguar wearing a headdress with a
geographical four direction symbol
common throughout the Olmec area
(Sears 1977:9, 1982:60). While Sears
speaks of this acculturation as
possibly being through the Antilles,
it is manifestly apparent the maize
and the method of cultivation and
processing, as well as the jaguar
symbols would have come primarily
from the Yucatan area.
Another
indication of
Maya influence on the
Calusa Indians was contained
in the detailed reports of the first
Spaniards to encounter them in the
early sixteenth-century. Pedro
Menndez de Avils in his 1573 letter
to the king reported that the
Calusa Indians sacrificed
captured slaves to their gods in
periodic religious ceremonies
(Connor 1925:35; Solis de Meras
1964:140). The ritual sacrifice of
captive slaves to their gods is
confirmed in an unsigned
sixteenth-century
Memorial
reporting on the religious customs
of the
Calusa. This Memorial
has marginal notes signed by Juan de
Velasko and considered by most
scholars to be the work of Hernando
d Escalante de Fontaneda. The
Maya tradition of ritual
sacrifice of captives to their gods
was a well established
Maya practice (Martyr
1970:228-232; Sharer
1994:68,143-144,543-544) that
appeared only in the
Calusa religious tradition
and was not prevalent in the Indian
cultures to the north.
The cited
archaeological evidence together
with evidence in sixteenth-century
historical documents suggests a
strong possibility of cultural
contact between the
Maya on the Yucatan and the
Calusa in south Florida.
There is also considerable
historical evidence in the art work
of the prehistoric
Maya and the art work of the
Indians of Florida and the
southeastern states that suggests
the assimilation of cultural traits
from the more advanced
Maya on the Yucatan. Figures
18, 19, 20, and 21 reveal this close
similarity of prehistoric Florida
totems, religious icons, ceremonial
garments, burial customs, and raised
pyramidal temples and burial mounds
to those of the
Maya that strongly suggest
assimilation from the Yucatan rather
than independent development.
The art work from the Yucatan and Florida in Figure 18
shows this similarity of the
ceremonial garments and their hand
held totems. Note the similarity of
the face masks which left the mouth
and lower part of the face uncovered
and provided a protruding beak for
the nose. The capes of the
Maya and the Indian figures
are also similar in providing
representations of wings. And
the noble from the Florida Lake
Jackson mound has on sandals that
are patterned after the
Maya
sandals (see Figure 9) rather than
being barefooted or wearing the
usual soft deer-skin moccasins.
The winged
and plumed rattlesnake emblem shown
so profusely in Chontal
Maya/Itza art (figures 1, 2,
7, 8, 9, 10) also appears in
prehistoric art of the Indians of
northern Florida and southern
Georgia. The art style depicting the
rattlesnake emblems understandably
differs between these two
Figure 18
Comparison of the ceremonial dress
of nobles from southeastern states
and the Yucatan. The top
two drawings embossed on sheet
copper are from the Lake Jackson,
Florida mound (left) and the
Etowah Mound, South Georgia (right)
and redrawn from (Brown 1994). The
lower drawing is
from a rubbing of a base relief
sculpture in Chichn Itz.
Figure 19
The top drawings of feathered and
winged rattlesnake emblems are from
Indian mounds in
the southeastern states and Florida
and are from (Brown 1994) and from (Spinden
1975).
The lower drawing of a
Maya warrior with his symbol
of a stylized winged rattlesnake is
from a detail in a larger drawing in
the temple of the Jaguar in Chichen
Itza.
widely separated
peoples. But the unique features of
wings, feathers, and plumed topknot
as
applied to the rattlesnake emblem is
common to both art forms. Herbert J.
Spinden in his monumental study of
Maya art documented this
similarity of the feathered and
winged serpent (rattlesnake) totems
in
Maya art and the art of the
prehistoric Indians of the
southeastern United States. Spinden
also noted that not only are
feathers and wings added to the
snakes body, but that the head
contains a plumed topknot or feather
crest typical of the
Maya quetzal bird (common to
the Yucatan and not Florida or the
southeastern states) which played
such a prominent role in
Maya
mystical religion (Spinden
1975:33-34,243). But these
significant cultural similarities
between the
Maya and the Florida Indians
have been buried in a 1913 book on
Maya art so they are given
little attention by anthropologists
and historians. Figure 19
illustrates the unique features of
wings, feathers, and a plumed
topknot applied to the body of a
rattlesnake that is common to both
the Chontal
Maya and the Indians of
Florida and the southeastern states.
Figure 20
The drawing on the left is a
Calusa bird-god with spoken
words depicted by the string of
balls
emitting from its beak. Drawn from
one of Cushing s (1894) artifacts
recovered from the Key
Marco site. The drawings on the
right are animal-gods depicted on a
Mixtec/Zapotec codex in
the British Museum, London, that
show the identical string of balls
to indicate spoken words.
The style of the religious art of
the
Maya and the
Calusa in South Florida also
reveals a striking similarity as
they both depict the spoken word as
a string of small balls emitting
from the mouth of a pictured god.
This again is so unusual that it is
unlikely that it was an independent
development. Figure 20 illustrates
this point with examples of art from
both the
Calusa from Florida and the
Mixtec/Zapotec from northeastern
Mexico. However, the most numerous
extant examples depicting speech in
Maya art are scrolls issuing
from the mouth of the god. But these
scrolls date from the late classic
period and use of the small circles
or balls appears to be from an
earlier period and tied to the Olmec/Chontal
Maya area. In this regard,
note that the Olmec feathered
serpent in Figure 1 was emitting a
multitude of small circles which
could be interpreted as speech.
The
Calusa drawing of the bird in
Figure 20 was described by Cushing
as being a kingfisher or blue jay
and by most later scholars as a
picture of either a woodpecker or
blue jay. It is none of these. It is
a
Calusa anthropomorphic
bird-god that is speaking to the
people. The large eye is that of a
human, not the small beady eye of a
blue jay. The muscular legs and
talons are those of an eagle or
hawk, not the spindly legs of a
smaller non-carnivorous bird. And
the religious symbols pictured in
the background look surprisingly
like the steering oars of the
Maya pictured in Figure 14,
although Cushing relates them only
to the pointed paddles of the
Calusa. This was not just a
decorative picture of a particular
bird, but a revered icon of one of
their sacred anthropomorphic gods
who was
Figure 21
The Indian mounds recently excavated
at Lake Jackson, Florida, showing
the close similarity to the
stone pyramidal temples of the
Maya on the Yucatan. A
typical
Maya temple at Chichen Itza
on the
Yucatan is shown on the inset on the
right. Drawing of the Indian mounds
is from (Brown 1994).
speaking. The drawing on the right
side from a Mixtec/Zapotec codex
depicts a monkey-god, a snake-god,
and two jaguar-gods, who are also
speaking through the identical
string of small balls as pictured on
the
Calusa drawing.
But the most striking similarity between the
Maya and the Florida Indian
cultures was their construction and
use of the four-sided pyramidal
temple and burial vaults as
illustrated in Figure 21. While the
Maya constructed their
temples of limestone, the Florida
Indians used what building material
was available - shells in the low
and sandy South Florida, and packed
clay in the higher ground further
north. The Florida temples were
necessarily less imposing in size
and appearance to those of the
Maya, but their basic design
and method of construction and use
was identical.
In both cases the small original temple and burial
vault was left intake and the next
generation or dynasty built their
structure on top of the old one
(Brown 1994:59; Coe 1997:63,95;
Sharer 1994:270). Thus with
succeeding generations, the temple
and burial mound grew in size, but
retained the same four-sided
pyramidal configuration.
Another feature common to both the
Maya and Florida Indian
construction was a flat top
surmounted by a roofed temple and
broad steps (to accommodate ritual
processions rather than individuals)
on one or more sides leading to the
building on top. Fray Lopez in his
1697 visit describes the
Calusa temple mound in Carlos
s village with these words: It is a
very tall and wide house .... in the
middle of a hillock or very high
flat-topped mound, and on top of it
a sort of room [made] of mats with
seats all closed within. One can
imagine the purpose [ritual temple]
it serves as they dance around it.
The walls are entirely covered with
masks, one worse than the other
(Hahn 1991: 159). Archaeologists in
describing a cluster of mounds in a
prehistoric Florida village
frequently assert the largest or
highest mound in a village contained
the house or dwelling of the
cacique. However, this description
by Fray Lopez indicates that the
largest mound in the village was
reserved for the temple of their
gods as in the
Maya tradition.
This discussion of prehistoric Indian mounds has been
centered on the Florida Indians,
with emphasis on the
Calusa, as geographically the
nearest and most probable point of
contact. However, it should be noted
that similar prehistoric mound
building was practiced by Indians
who peopled the Mississippi drainage
plain (consequently known as the
Mississippian culture) as far north
as Illinois and Ohio (Swanton 1946).
The current consensus is that the
Mississippian mound building
preceded that of the mound builders
in Florida, but this study suggests
that the first mounds, influenced by
the
Maya, were built by the
Calusa and the mound building
culture moved north at a later date.
As noted earlier this agrees with
Sears s (1982) findings that the
cultivation of maize first appeared
in the
Calusa area then moved north
to the Mississippi plain.
When
considered individually it can be
argued that the similarity of one
particular trait or work of art is
weak or invalid evidence of
acculturation. But it is the
considerable number of cultural
traits from independent sources that
strongly suggest cultural contact
between the
Maya on the Yucatan and the
Calusa of Florida. Scholars
who accept the postulation of
Maya influence on the culture
of the Florida Indians or those
further north differ as to whether
the route of acculturation was by
land or sea.
The Case for
Maya Cultural Influence
Traveling by Sea Rather than by Land
Proponents for the land route see
these cultural traits progressing
north from Mexico through Texas, New
Mexico, Arkansas, and Louisiana to
the Mississippi plain then east and
south to Florida. At first glance
this theory is compelling, but just
a superficial study of how ancient
cultures have spread from an initial
flowering shows that deserts and
inhospitable terrain can be just as
great an obstacle as the misnamed
barrier of the sea (Dillehay
2000:60-70). Early reports of the
Spanish historians Bernal Diaz and
Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo indicate
that the northernmost extent of the
Mexica culture (the western
relatives of the
Maya) did not extend far
beyond the present day Tampico,
where one encounters the arid and
inhospitable western desert of
northern Mexico and southwest Texas
(Diaz del Castillo 1956; Oviedo
1944). It is over 700 miles (along
the coast - much longer if through
New Mexico) from this northern
outpost of the Mexica to the
Mississippi River plain, home of the
Mississippian peoples.
One would think that some vestiges of the Mexica
language and cultural traits would
have been left behind to influence
the peoples of this intervening
land-bridge area, but such is not
the case. A detailed description of
the Indians who lived in this area
in the early historic period is
contained in the report of Alvar
Nunez Cabeza de Vaca who made an
eight-year trek through the area
following Panfilo de Narvaez s
ill-starred expedition to North
Florida (Bandelier 1922; Bishop
1933). The Indians Cabeza
encountered west of the Mississippi
Delta and into the southwestern
desert were primitive and barbaric
peoples speaking many different
tongues. In the extensive
southwestern desert area, Cabeza
describes the land as largely
uninhabited and offered little
sustenance and the few primitive
peoples to be found were nomadic
with no settled villages. It is
apparent that the peoples of this
area showed no cultural traits that
could be traced to Mexica or
Maya influence. However,
there is some cultural similarities
between the Mississippian peoples
and the prehistoric people of New
Mexico farther west. But this
similarity is not as prominent and
probably originated at a much later
date than the postulated movement by
sea from the Yucatan.
This study has shown that in prehistoric times the
Taino Indians had knowledge of the
peoples of Florida and the Yucatan,
that the
Calusa had knowledge of the
Maya on the Yucatan, and the
Maya on the Yucatan had
knowledge of the islands and peoples
of the Caribbean. This exchange of
knowledge could only have been
derived by planned passages of large
seaworthy vessels carrying
articulate passengers of some
substance, as opposed to simple
fishermen accidently blown by storm
Figure 22
Chart showing how a
Maya vessel steering eastward
(bold dashed line) seeking
new lands would be swept northward
by the prevailing ocean currents.
Chart
showing currents in knots is a
scaled detail from NOAA Pilot Chart
168910.
(emphasis supplied)
The Taino and Carib Indians in the
islands and the
Calusa in Florida had a
limited capability for this long
distance travel, but their
relativelycrude round-bottom canoes
were far inferior to the large well
built vessels of the
Maya on the Yucatan. And
further, any sea travel is much more
feasible from south to north due to
the strong ocean currents that would
affect such a voyage. Figure 22
graphically illustrates how the
ocean currents would affect travel
between the Yucatan and Florida.
Accordingly, the precocious Chontal
Maya from the Yucatan with
their more stable and seaworthy
vessels, backed by centuries of
documented interest and experience
in long distance trading voyages,
are the most likely candidates to
have provided this early cultural
contact between the Yucatan and
Florida.
The bold dashed line in Figure 22 represents a
postulated voyage of a Chontal
Maya vessel steering in an
easterly direction possibly seeking
the homeland of their revered
god-king Kukulcan. The track of the
voyage as shown was plotted by a
professional navigator using
dead-reckoning navigational
computation on a full size NOAA
navigational chart containing the
strength and direction of the ocean
currents. The plotted hypothetical
track was based on the premise that
the Chontal
Maya would have departed
during the summer months from Isla
Mujeres, their most easterly port on
the Yucatan, and navigated (without
benefit of a magnetic
compass) into the rising sun at a
speed of about 2.5 knots. The sun
rises well north of geographical
east in the summer months so the
Maya explorers would be
steering the vessel in an
east-northeasterly direction. The
strong northerly currents which
frequently equaled or exceeded the
speed of the vessel vectored the
east-northeast heading through the
water to a plotted
north-northeasterly course over the
bottom.
At first glance it would appear that the most logical
and easily reached land would be the
extreme western end of Cuba, but
there is a sound and demonstrable
reason why this is not true. The
Maya
seafarers could not have
reached the shores of Cuba from the
Yucatan because of the cited strong
northerly flowing ocean currents.
Yet there are scholars who postulate
that in ancient times there was a
movement of aboriginal peoples from
the Yucatan to Cuba (Wilson
1997:1-3). The current academic
consensus is that the islands of the
Caribbean were peopled by several
waves of ethnically distinct people
from the northern shore of South
America (Keegan 1992:1-19; Wilson
1997:20-69). The little-known and
enigmatic primitive hunter-gatherer
people known as the Siboney or
Guanahatabey were crowded into the
western end of Cuba by the northward
movement of the Taino during the
formative period Keegan 1992:1-3).
The western end of Cuba is devoid of
any signs of an advanced culture
from the Yucatan, and if prehistoric
Maya
related artifacts are to be found in
Cuba they would probably have
originated in the
Maya trading colonies on
Hispaniola and St. Croix. The
postulated plotted track of the
Maya vessel passed about
thirty-four nautical miles west of
Cuba and ended in the Florida Keys
in the vicinity of the Marquesas
Keys. The Florida Keys were peopled
by the Cuchiyaga Indians, a
tributary tribe of the powerful
Calusa and the
Maya explorers would have
realized the small keys of the
primitive Cuchiyaga were not their
goal. When asked about the home city
of a mighty king, the Cuchiyaga
would understandably refer the
Maya to the headquarters or
capitol of the powerful king of the
Calusa on Mound Key near the
present city of Ft. Myers Beach. vi
From the Keys the
Maya
may have made the jump across
Florida Bay or most likely they
would have paddled along shore
possibly guided by the Cuchiyaga.
The realm of the
Calusa is not only the most
logical and navigationally feasible
destination of the
Maya explorers, but is also
the area that contains the most
evidence of possible
Maya cultural influence.
Figure 23 shows the headquarters or
capitol of the
Calusa on Mound Key in Estero
Bay near Ft. Myers Beach, Florida.
This postulated history of prehistoric cultural contact
by sea between the
Maya on the Yucatan and the
Indians of the Caribbean and Florida
has not been supported by direct
archaeological finds of such
voyages. Instead there is limited
but significant related
archaeological finds and the strong
circumstantial evidence of
similarities in the surviving art of
the period, augmented by documented
historical reports of early Spanish
explorers, that presents
considerable circumstantial evidence
that such voyages did take place.
Yet, while there is evidence that
Florida and southeastern Indian
culture was influenced by
Maya travelers, there is no
evidence in
Maya written history that
these travelers, whether explorers,
adventurers, or traders, ever
returned to the Yucatan.
The reason for this lack of evidence indicating the
return of the seafaring travelers
can be explained from two different
standpoints. The first is that
Maya written history is
woefully incomplete due to the
wholesale destruction of ancient
Maya codices by Bishop Diego
Landa and
vi
Carlos (Calus), king of the
Calusa, was the only one
among many Indian chiefs or caciques
that the Spaniards
referred to as a king. Fontaneda
describes him thus: The
Calusa king is called
mayor y gran Senor (chief and
great Lord) in our language; and the
cacique is the greatest of the
kings, having the renown of
Montesuma (True
1944:28). The powerful
Calusa were a dominant force
that held most of Florida south of
Tampa Bay subject to their
rule. An indication of their power
is the fact that in the more than
three centuries of occupation in
Florida, the
Spaniards were never able to subdue
or subjugate the
Calusa under a succession of
kings called Carlos (Goggin
1964; Hahn 1991; Lewis 1978;
Marquardt 1992; Widmer 1988).
Figure 23
Detail from a current nautical chart
that shows Mound Key, the capitol
and ceremonial center
of the
Calusa, in Estero Bay between
Ft. Myers Beach and the mainland.
The outline drawing
of Mound Key has been enhanced to
show the several temple and burial
mounds and the
man-made canal and interior canoe
port built in the prehistoric
period.
other clerics in the early days of
Spanish occupation (Landa 1941,
1978). The second and most plausible
answer is that the prehistoric
seafarers did not return
because they were absorbed into the
Florida and eventually the
southeastern Indian culture and lost
their identity. These exotic clothed
people appearing out of nowhere in
gayly painted canoes would be looked
upon and treated with respect and
reverence as gods or priestly
nobles. That, together with the fact
that there was no need to return
since they had not discovered any
valuable trade items, would induce
the travelers to forego the long
journey back south and stay and
enjoy their new found prominence and
stature. And being absorbed into the
life and probably the priesthood of
the indigenous Indians would explain
the similar
Maya ceremonial dress,
religious traditions, totems,
flat-top temple mounds, and burial
customs found in Florida.
Development of Celestial Navigation
by the
Maya of Northern Yucatan
The
Maya
seafarers in their voyages to
the islands of the Caribbean and
Florida would have been out of sight
of land for as long as ten days
(Beckwith-Farina 1990:233; Jane-Vigneras
1960:140; Wagner 1942:72). Without
the benefit of a magnetic compass,
these long voyages would have
required some form of celestial
navigation. The
Maya
seafarers would have used the
rising and setting Sun for
orientation in the morning and late
afternoon and maintained their
course at midday by adherence to
wave patterns in the same manner as
ancient Polynesian navigators (Lewis
1972; Peck 2001:145). Maintaining
their desired course at night would
have required reference to the
circumpolar stars and planets with
which they were thoroughly familiar.
But familiarity alone with the stars
and planets is not enough for
celestial navigation.
Maya science
related to the cosmos is tied
inexorably to their religion and to
their concept that the relationship
of the movement and relative
position of the planets and
constellations (viewed as
embodiments of their gods)
influenced and even controlled
events and fortunes on the earth.
For this reason the
Maya developed their science
of astronomy so they could predict
the movement and relative position
of the heavenly bodies accurately on
any particular calendar date. In
this respect, it is similar to
European astrology that gradually
moved from folklore art and myth
beginning in ancient times and
evolved into the science of
astronomy around the
fifteenth-century, which then
provided the mathematical data
required for the development of
celestial navigation.
Archaeological investigations as
well as the documentary evidence
contained in the Dresden and Madrid
codices indicate that the
Maya of the northern Yucatan
were far more advanced and active in
the science of astronomy than those
elsewhere in Mesoamerica. A study by
archaeastronomers of the unique
round buildings at Edzna, Paalmul,
Dzibilchaltun, Mayapan, and the
Caracol building in Chichen Itza
revealed that they were used for
celestial observations and were
probably the source of the advanced
mathematical tables and data in the
Dresden and Madrid codices (Aveni
2001:15, 169-199, 271-276; Aveni,
Gibbs and Hartung 1975:977-985;
Coggins and Drucker 1988:17-56;
Kelley 1975:257-262 ). Thus accurate
astronomical data essential to the
development of celestial navigation
was available to the
Maya concurrent with and
possibly before its availability in
Europe. Although the same
astronomical data was available to
both the
Maya and Europeans, their
basic application of that data for
celestial navigation took a
different approach.
An
elementary form of navigation was
performed by ancient navigators in
Europe, the Middle East, and the
Orient long before the introduction
of the magnetic compass. These early
navigators in the northern
hemisphere would have used some of
the circumpolar celestial bodies,
but their primary reliance was on
the North Star (Polaris) to
determine the north azimuth from
which they could extrapolate the
other cardinal points of east, west,
and south. A similar use of the
North Star for navigation would have
been unworkable for the
Maya because of their more
southern location. The already weak
Polaris would have been much lower
on the horizon and more difficult to
see with the naked eye because the
light from the star must pass
through more of the earth s hazy
atmosphere. Instead of a star to
mark true north there was a dark
void at the
Maya
celestial pole with only a few
obscured and scattered stars. The
weak Polaris and some of its equally
weak neighbors would have been
barely visible in this north void so
would hardly qualify as equivalent
to one of the many far more
brilliant stars or planets that were
named as
Maya
gods. This dark northern void is
illustrated in Figure 24 although
the dark void is necessarily shown
in white.
The
direction of north, or the north
celestial pole, was pictured on the
Tablet of the Cross at Palenque not
as a star, but as a dark void, and
was revered by the
Maya in their creation myth
as the
Figure 24
The night sky on the left, at 20
degrees latitude when Scorpius is
opposite the north celestial pole,
was redrawn from the
Maya Cosmos. God C on the
right was redrawn from the Dresden
Codex.
heart of heaven from which the gods,
Itzamna and the First Mother and
First Father, emerged from the
otherworld to create the Earth and
the cosmos (Freidel-Schele-Parker
1993:69-73; Schele-Freidel
1990:244-246). When the first father
created the sky, he set the crown or
heart in the north void and gave the
stars and planets a circular motion
around this dark celestial pole.
The
Maya recorded the orderly
procession of their many observed
and recorded stars, constellations,
and planets around the north
celestial pole with mathematical
precision and this would have
pointed to the celestial and
geographical north without the
necessity of observing the weak
Polaris in the obscured area. And
Polaris in this early period did not
indicate true north, but had a
procession of nearly four degrees
around the celestial pole.
Recognizing this, the early European
navigators had evolved a complex
method, known as the Regiment of the
North Star, in which they used the
stars in the constellation Ursa
Minor (in practice only Kochab) to
extrapolate the sidereal angle to
the north celestial pole (Taylor
1958:147,158; Waters
1958:43-45,136).
There is no
mention of the existence of the
North Star or the existence of a god
of the North Star in the complete
prehistoric
Maya lexicon of known gods
and symbols (Miller and Taube 1993).
Yet there are prominent
Maya scholars who report that
god C in the Dresden Codex
represents the god of the North Star
(Coe 1993:177; Coggins 1988:140;
Galindo 1994:100; Sharer 1994:529,
535,579). There is a
Maya hieroglyph for all of
the cardinal directions including
north, but
Maya scholars are too quick
to make an unsupported assumption
that any reference to north is a
reference to the North Star. This
historical error probably stems from
Spanish influence of
Maya traditions during the
colonial period. It is only in
Yucatec dictionaries of the colonial
period that Polaris is referred to
as the star of the north and as a
guide of merchants (Lamb 1981:
233-248;
Milbrath 1999:273). Milbrath
reported the modern Lacadon stated
that Polaris is known as the North
Star (Milbrath 1999: 38), but this
late surviving enclave of
Maya probably learned this
designation during their many
generations under Spanish occupation
and influence. This current
historical misconception that the
prehistoric
Maya knew of and revered a
relatively insignificant and
obscured star, which was known in
latitudes further north as Polaris
or the North Star, is an example of
how undue application of modern
cultural norms and knowledge can
adversely influence the
interpretation of prehistoric
Maya mysticism and science.
Without the
pivotal factor of a North Star as a
basis for their celestial
navigation, the
Maya
nevertheless had developed the
knowledge and data of the cosmos
that allowed them to pursue a
different but effective approach. In
Maya religious dogma, the
First Father created the sky and
divided it into eight partitions
consisting of the four cardinal
points of north, south, east, and
west, with four more intermediate
points at northwest, northeast,
southwest, and southeast (Freidel-Schele-Parker
1993:71). This partition of the sky
can be seen on several works of
Maya art and is best
illustrated in some detail in the
Madrid Codex. The depiction of the
partition of the sky in the Madrid
Codex is weathered and damaged with
some portions missing or indistinct.
An interpretation of how the
original undamaged illustration
would have appeared in the codex is
shown in Figure 24. An analytical
examination of the drawing reveals
that it is much more than just a
depiction of the eight partitions
created by the First Father. This
detailed drawing from the Madrid
Codex has all the elements and
mathematical data required for
celestial navigation.
The Madrid
and Dresden codices are filled with
accurate mathematical tables
pertaining to the orbital movement
and calendar timing of celestial
bodies. It is significant that these
documents have been traced to
northern Yucatan, the homeland of
the seafaring Chontal
Maya who made the long
overseas voyages requiring celestial
navigation. And it is in northern
Yucatan where there is also a
proliferation of buildings that have
been identified as celestial
observatories, in particular the
Caracol in Chichen Itza, the capitol
of the seafaring Chontal
Maya/Itza
(Aveni 2001:15,169-199,271-276;
Aveni, Gibbs and Hartung
1975:977-985; Coggins and Drucker
1988:17-56).
The
depiction of the sky in the Madrid
Codex shows each cardinal point
represented by two gods associated
with that particular direction. The
north void is represented by two
gods that appear to be the morning
and evening star (Venus) with the
world tree or tree of creation
between them. This is in consonance
with the
Maya myth of creation where
Itzamna and the First Mother and
Father emerged from the dark north
void. The intermediate points of
northeast, northwest, southeast, and
southwest, are shown by four
parallel dotted lines. The space
between three of the four dotted
lines is filled with numerous
mathematical numbers interspersed
with a few scattered symbols. The
meaning or function of this detailed
display of mathematics has not been
interpreted. But the placement in
the drawing suggests the display
could easily constitute a numerical
grid of the sky to locate stars,
planets, or constellations, and
record their angular declination in
relation to their azimuth position
on a particular date.
The fact
that each intermediate point is
represented by four lines instead of
one is significant. This suggests
that later
Maya astronomers had further
divided the original eight
partitions provided by the gods into
twenty segments (four cardinal
points plus sixteen intermediate
points) to make their astronomical
observations and data more
definitive and more accurate. This
is quite logical since the
Maya vigesimal mathematical
system is based on advancing the
numbers beyond the decimal by a
power of twenty rather than by ten
as in our decimal system. In this
regard, it should be borne in mind
that the artist s drawing in the
codex is meant to be a schematic
illustration of religious
Figure 25
The figure on the left shows the
partition of the sky as redrawn from
the Madrid Codex and the figure on
the
right is a stylized drawing of an
astronomical observatory as redrawn
from the Post Classic Codex Borgia.
significance rather than an accurate
depiction of the astronomer s
worksheet. For this reason, the
artist felt compelled to show the
appropriate gods at the four
cardinal points and this crowded the
four intermediate points into the
inappropriate parallel lines shown.
The worksheet of the astronomers
would not have shown the artwork
depicting the gods and so the twenty
indexed increments of the sky would
have been spaced evenly around the
perimeter of the sky as though the
viewer was in the middle of the
figure looking at the sky overhead
with the controlling index point in
the revered dark void of the north.
The
worksheets of the European
mathematicians who first developed
celestial navigation around the
fifteenth century used this basic
concept, but divided the sky into
thirty-two increments (based on the
thirty-two point magnetic compass of
the period) with the index point on
Polaris or the North Star. Another
difference in the European system
was that the mathematical data for
computation of declination was
contained in tables in their
nautical almanacs rather than on the
azimuth indexed worksheet as
pictured in the Madrid Codex. The
mathematical tables in these early
European almanacs contained many
errors as they were based on the
error-filled Almagest
of Claudius Ptolemy (circa AD 150),
and there is every indication that
the mathematical data contained in
the
Maya codices was probably
more accurate (Brown 1949:74-78).
The mathematical tables in the
Maya codices have not been
fully read or interpreted. Their
accuracy is presumed from the
ability of the
Maya to accurately predict
eclipses, conjunctions, and the
orbital path of the planets.
The
Maya advanced knowledge of
astronomy and the sophisticated
mathematical system of predicting
the orbital path of the stars,
planets, and constellations in their
relative position in the sky on any
one date would have made celestial
navigation an easily attained art or
science.
However, the
Maya system of celestial
navigation would not have followed
the European model which obtained a
latitude/longitude line of position
(LOP) computed from the observed
celestial
body s sidereal angle with the
horizon. The
Maya concept of the celestial
cosmos as related to navigation
centered around the city at which
the observations had been made, and
all points in the sky or on the
surface of the earth or sea were
relative to that point rather than a
numerical latitude or longitude. The
Maya navigator was not
interested in a finite point he
could place on a chart, but only
where he was in relationship to the
port or city from which he had
departed. This concept of navigation
in which the position of the vessel
is related only to its point of
departure is not unique or common
only to the
Maya. It was the same basic
concept known as dead reckoning
navigation, used by early European
navigators for centuries before (and
even after) acceptance of the
latitude/longitude method of fixing
a position on the face of the earth
(Peck 2001:145-149).
The
celestial navigation of the
Maya navigator crossing the
open sea seeking new lands would not
be tied to any one particular star
such as Polaris or the North Star.
Instead he would view the entire sky
as a charted and indexed map with
which he was thoroughly familiar.
The
Maya navigator was not
concerned with his position on the
face of the earth, but only his
spatial relationship with his point
of departure and whether he was
receiving good omens for the voyage
from the gods of the sky.
Notes
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