Sunday December 31, 2006
A new year recalls past cultural arrogance
Tonight, at midnight, we replace the 2006 calendar with a 2007 calendar.
All right, I probably won\’t do it at midnight. I probably won\’t change calendars for several days. But the act of changing calendars makes the transition from one year to another more physical, and makes me think about differing concepts of time.
Jews are still in the year 5767 since creation.
The Chinese will soon start their year of the Pig or Boar, 4704.
For Muslims, who number their years from Mohammed\’s hejira from Mecca to Medina, it is currently 1427.
By the ancient Mayan calendar, New Year\’s Day will be 12.19.13.16.19. More significantly, 2007 is just five years from the end of a “Great Cycle” of 5125.36 years. On the winter solstice, December 21, 2012, that cycle will end – like a car odometer reaching 99,999 and resetting itself to zero.
The Maya had an amazing complex interlocking system of three separate calendars. They could identify any date with precision. Including dates far in the future.
There have been a host of theories about what\’s supposed to happen in 2012. Some forecast the end of the earth. Or maybe a door into the heart of space and time will open. The cosmos will be recreated. The earth\’s magnetic field will reverse…
Some even suggest that human nature might undergo some massive moral shift.
An astonishing calculation
But why did the inventors of the Mayan “Long Count” calendar choose that date to end their calendrical series?
One possible explanation is astronomical. According to one set of observations, on that day, the path of the sun across our sky will cross precisely the equator of our galaxy, directly in line with the centre of the galaxy.
Let me explain that a little more. Our galaxy has at least 200 billion stars, roughly clustered into a disk like a Frisbee. It\’s also spinning like a Frisbee, around a central axis. Our own solar system lies about 26,000 light years – not much, in astronomic terms — from the middle of that disk.
Imagine that Frisbee spinning horizontally. When we look out towards the edges of the disk (its equator) we see far more stars (the Milky Way) than if we look up or down.
At sunrise on December 21, 2012, our planet\’s orbit, the sun\’s path, the galactic equator, and the galactic axis will all intersect. Because of a wobble in the earth\’s axis, this alignment apparently happens only once every 25,800 years.
Will this coincidence affect the entire universe? I doubt it. The sun\’s path, called its ecliptic, is an imaginary line. So are the galactic equator and the galactic axis. To have three imaginary lines intersect – and only from the perspective of an insignificant planet orbiting a relatively unimportant star – strikes me as hardly cosmos-shattering.
What fascinates me, though, is that a supposedly primitive people could calculate so precisely this astronomical coincidence over 2000 years ago.
Despised by the conquerors
The first specific record of the Mayan “Long Count” calendar shows up in 32 B.C. But there are indirect references indicating it existed as far back as 355 B.C.
So, some 15 centuries before Copernicus realized that the earth orbited around the sun, generations before the Roman empire discovered the concept of zero, 100 years before Euclid developed his principles for two-dimensional geometry, the primitive predecessors of the Mayan empire accurately calculated a four-dimensional galactic event some 84,000 days in the future, and set the end date of their calendars accordingly.
Astounding, isn\’t it?
Tragically, the region\’s Spanish conquerors didn\’t think so. On July 12, 1562, Diego de Landa, the Roman Catholic Bishop of the Yucatan, burned every Maya scroll he could find, along with 5000 idols, in a huge bonfire.
He wrote, "We found a large number of these books… and, as they contained nothing in which there was not to be seen superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they [the Maya] regretted to an amazing degree and which caused them great affliction."
Only three scrolls escaped. Thanks to them, we can decipher some Mayan writing and astronomy.
Diego de Landa\’s contempt for Mayan knowledge has its parallel today. He assumed that his culture had a monopoly on knowledge. Any other culture, any other faith, deserved only to be overcome. By persuasion, if possible. By force, if necessary.
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For a lighter look at ethics, faith, and life, I recommend Ralph Milton\’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it at the Wood Lake Books home page in Ralph Milton\’s Site, or by sending a note directly to ralphmilton@woodlake.com.
It\’s also worth pursuing Richard Fairchild\’s United Online site. Another site worth visiting is David Keating\’s \”SeemslikeGod\” page.
I hear the same message proclaimed in the present-day ravings of Franklin Graham against everything Islamic.
In the conviction of English speakers that they need no other language, no matter where they travel.
And in the American obsession with building fences to keep out unwelcome elements. Especially Hispanic elements.
I find it wonderfully ironic that American contractors building the fence to keep out illegal Mexican immigrants knowingly hired illegal Mexican immigrants to do the work.
Canada has been praised as a cultural mosaic, a mix of cultures, which does not require every person to pass through a melting pot. The federal parliament recently recognized the Quebecois as a nation within Canada. Toronto has more Italians than any other place outside Italy. In Vancouver, the most common second language is Chinese.
But I hear people insisting that a cultural mosaic is unworkable. A misconception. A disaster waiting to happen. Some even write letters to the editor, insisting that a nation must have uniformity to survive.
Wake up, folks! We already live in a cultural mosaic. It\’s called “the world.”
The people of this planetary mosaic speak hundreds of languages. They adhere to dozens of religions. They belong to thousands of tribal cultures and traditions.
Europe is a mosaic of languages and cultures. So is Asia. So are the Pacific islands.
To insist that only an English-speaking, quasi-democratic, industrialized, nominally Christian civilization has all the answers is as short-sighted, racist, arrogant, and self-centred as Diego de Landa\’s desire to wipe out Mayan knowledge.
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Copyright © 2006 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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