All of the Mesoamerican civilizations, Olmec, Toltec, Maya, Zapotec and Aztec, used essentially the same astrology. Although the names of symbols varied, the concepts remained, for the most part, the same. The Maya developed the most extensive and complete astrological system in the New World and much of the reasoning behind this computer program is based on their tradition. The Aztecs were, however, the predominant civilization at the time of the Spanish Conquest, and they have left us many valuable records of how the Mesoamerican astrological system worked as well. Both Maya and Aztec names and concepts are thus used in this truly Mesoamerican astrology program.
At the core of Mesoamerican astrology are the 20 day-signs (tonalli in Aztec). Like the 12 signs of the Western zodiac, these are signs descriptive of both personality and potential. In other words, the signs can be used to describe a person, or they can describe an event. In the Western 12-sign zodiac, the signs are spatial and spread across the sky along the path of the Sun, Moon and planets. The Mesoamerican day-signs are very different. They are actually blocks of time. Each sign lasts only one day until it comes up again twenty days later. Like our 7-day week, which is astrological and named for the planets, the Maya, Toltecs, Zapotecs, Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures used a 20-day week for astrological purposes.
There is no known reason why there were only 20 signs. Perhaps Mesoamerican astrologers had discovered an important biorhythm or cycle. Besides the 20 day-signs, they also used a 13-day cycle (the trecena) that was treated like a sign itself. The 20-day and 13-day cycles intertwined with each other producing a 260-day cycle. While the days of the 20-day cycle each have a name, the days of the 13-day cycle are numbered from 1 to 13. If you start both cycles together, the first day of the 20-day cycle coinciding with the first day of the 13-day cycle, it will take exactly 260 days for all possible combinations of day and number to occur. This period, 260 days, is the length of the sacred astrological calendar of the Maya and Aztecs on which this program is based. The Maya name for it is tzolkin, the Aztec tonalpouhalli.
The 20 day-signs each have a name, a direction, and a symbol. The names
of these with a brief meaning are listed below:
| Alligator | East | protective and dominating |
| Wind | North | agile, clever and multifaceted |
| House | West | deep, thoughtful and conservative |
| Lizard | South | active, dynamic and sexual |
| Serpent | East | powerful and charismatic |
| Death | North | sacrificing and helpful |
| Deer | West | cooperative and nomadic |
| Rabbit | South | clever and playful |
| Water | East | emotional and imaginative |
| Dog | North | loyal and helpful |
| Monkey | West | clever and demonstrative |
| Grass | South | careful and useful |
| Reed | East | knowledgeable and crusading |
| Ocelot | North | intelligent and secretive |
| Eagle | West | free and independent |
| Vulture | South | authoritative and wise |
| Earthquake | East | intellectual but practical |
| Knife | North | self-sufficient but romantic |
| Rain | West | helpful and healing |
| Flower | South | loving and artistic |
You may have noticed that each of the signs is connected to a particular direction. The signs of the east are initiating and forceful. Those of the north are intellectual and critical. Signs of the west are cooperative and compromising. Signs of the south are emotional and reactive.
The day-sign a person was born under is the named day that occurred on his or her birthday. It delineates the most obvious personality characteristics and traits and appears to agree to some extent with the Ascendant and Sun in Western astrology. A person is also born during one of twenty 13-day signs, time periods that begin with a day-sign linked to the number 1. The 13-day period delineates the more subtle, possibly subconscious, personality qualities. It shows deeper instincts and yearnings. This period seems to correspond to some extent with the Moon in Western astrology.
In addition to the day-sign (tonalli) and 13-day period (trecena), Maya-Aztec Astro-Report computes and delineates the 9-day cycle of the Lords of the Night and the 52-year cycle. The Lords of the Night seem to reveal much about the darker or hidden sides of personality and the numbered year of birth gives information about the general conditions of the time. In some ways, this yearly cycle is like popular Chinese astrology. The combination of day-sign and 13-day period, Lord of the Night, and birth year yields a complete personality description, perhaps as good or even better than does the Sun, Moon, and Ascendant in the Western 12-sign zodiac. Delineations of the phase of Venus, the most important planet in Mesoamerican astrology, build further on this astrology reading.
Because the day-signs signify general meanings and themes as well as personality configurations, they were used by the Aztecs for divination. As with the I Ching, a random drawing of beans or stones would allow a reader to find one of the 260 sign/number combinations and thus an answer to a question. Even today, the 260-day astrological calendar is used by Maya daykeepers in remote parts of Guatemala and Mexico. The divination section of this program utilizes computer technology to randomly select the sign/number combinations that may yield insights into a question asked.
Because the Maya and Aztecs did not have a developed writing system, and because most of their astrological knowledge was destroyed by the Spanish friars, little was known about this great product of their, and other Mesoamerican, cultures. The delineations used in this program were arrived at after several years of historical investigation, deep thought and trial-and-error experimentation. Long lists of persons famous or known to the author, and born under the same day-sign, were compared with each other. Eventually, this process led to some key concepts about each of the signs, and the results, in the form of personality descriptions, are found in this program. The meanings for the signs when used in divinations were extrapolated from this information also.
We hope you find Maya-Aztec astrology to be not only interesting and fun, but helpful and a source of insight into your life. For more information on the subject, see the bibliography in Appendix A.
The Spanish conquest of the Native American cultures of Mesoamerica brought an end to at least 2,000 years of astrological study and practice. The destructive actions of the friars left only a few tantalizing fragments of what was once a complex and sophisticated sky and number knowledge. In the 20th century, archaeologists and astronomers began to piece together the remnants of this body of knowledge, but they have focused on the social roles and technical aspects. In the final academic analysis, it has become apparent that the Maya, Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures used astronomy for astrological purposes. But since archaeologists and astronomers are not astrologers, they have not been able to penetrate the practical essence of the core elements of this venerable astrological tradition. They often do not separate the purely calendrical from the purely astrological. This situation, as it should be, has been left to the astrologers, the authors of this program.
While the elements of Maya and Aztec astrology may seem foreign to those who know only Western techniques and traditions, it is nonetheless a kind of astrology that can stand on its own, or be integrated with better-known systems. The programs are simple to use and we hope they will make the Native American astrological tradition familiar to a wide range of people and also stimulate thinking about astrology in general.
The program also calculates and delineates the Lord of the Night at birth, and the number of the birth year itself. Critical days, a kind of predictive technique based on a person's birth, is also present.
In addition, it includes three divination techniques. In type 1, a single symbol is randomly generated to answer a question. Type 2 utilizes three symbols, and type 3, five. A printing option allows the user to print out an entire divination, including the question itself and relevant explanatory text, from start to finish.
The Calendar Calculations module allows the user to do many things. In general, in and of itself, this module does more than other commercially available programs on the Mayan Calendar. It can generate an ephemeris of the day-signs, of any length, which can be viewed on screen, or written to a file on disk that can be printed later. The Venus cycle and a Long Count calendar, the core of ancient Mayan mundane astrology and what is poplularly known as the "Mayan Calendar," can be computed and printed as well. Experimenters will find the base-date change option interesting as it allows one to shift the Aztec/Mayan calendars relative to the modern civil calendar.
The Maya-Aztec Astro-Report is an MS-DOS based program, meaning that it must be run from an MS-DOS window under Windows 95 or Windows 98. However, it can be installed to run from the Windows Start-Up menu, and can also be started from on icon on the Desktop. (See the Installation instructions for more information.) While the program may lack the more "elegant" interface of a Windows program, most of its functions can still be controlled with the mouse. A Windows-based version of the program is currently being developed.
To install the program onto your Windows system, follow these steps:
You may also add the program to the Windows desktop as described below.
This does not imply that the authors believe that the Aztec/Mayan calendar base dates necessarily began at noon GMT; the Julian day numbers are simply being used in a counting algorithm that allows the start of the Aztec day to be set arbitrarily. (No one has yet arrived at a definitive answer as to when the Aztec day began refer to the section on The Problem of the Time of Birth for more information.) However, consistency is important. If one assumes that day 1 of the Aztec calendar began (for example) at midnight CST of a particular date, then all future Aztec dates must also be regarded as starting at midnight CST.
The Calendar Calculations module includes an option that allows you to force Gregorian notation for all program dates. Refer to the section describing calendar calculation options for more information.
You should enter B.C. dates into the program by preceding the year number with a minus sign (-). It is important to remember that the program expects astronomical year notation for these early dates, that is, the year before 1 A.D. (1 B.C.) should be entered as 0, 2 B.C. as -1, 3 B.C. as -2, etc. (Be aware that some authors, e.g., Aveni, use astronomical notation in conjunction with B.C. dates; his 3114 B.C. is equivalent to -3113.)
Type:
AZTEC
and press Enter.
This will load the program and bring up the main menu.
It is also possible to start the program from the Windows Programs menu or through the Aztec icon. Refer to the installation instructions for more information.
Below this are listed the six ways in which this can be done. You are able to use either words or digits and you may separate each piece of data with a period, comma, slash, or simply a space.
After you enter a birth date, press Enter. You must enter the year using dall 4 digits; for example, if the year in question is 1950, you enter 1950, not 50! If you want to enter a B.C. year, use astronomical notation; for example, if the year in question is 1950 B.C., enter -1949. The program will now compute the day- sign and the day number of the 260-day sacred calendar on which the birth occurred. These will appear in the upper of two windows. Also found here will be the Julian Day number of the birth date.
The lower window shows what keys are used to display information relevant to this date:
Enter displays a day-sign interpretation. F2 displays birth year interpretation. F3 displays birth "week" or trecena interpretation. F4 displays Lord of the Night interpretation. F5 displays Venus phase interpretation. F7 displays technical information used in calculations. F8 prints the entire interpretation or reading Esc returns you to the main menu.
You can then access for interpretation the 1, 3, or 5 day/number combinations on screen. Press Enter to display the text. In the case of 3 and 5 position readings, press F2 to advance the highlighter to the next position, press F3 to return it to the previous position. Press F8 if you want to print the entire reading, including any questions or titles you have previously entered. Press Esc to exit the module.
To work with the Calendar Calculations module, press the Dn Arrow key to move the selection bar on the main menu down to this option and then press Enter. A menu will be displayed indicating seven choices. Move the light bar and then press Enter to access any of these options.
This module computes ephemerides or calendars. It also lets you select screen or printer outputs (option 4) or create a file on disk where computations will be written (option 6). Calendar Calculations Menu
baktun.katun.tun.uinal.kinNote: separate each factor with a period or space. A date in the modern civil calendar will then be displayed. Option 3 will also display the number of days since the Long Count began (see option 7) and the Julian day number.
The 365n column is the position number of the day in the 365-day civil year, while the 260n column is the position in the 260-day sacred year.
The last columns display the Mayan day and month, which represent subdivisions of the 365-day civil year into eighteen 20-day uinals and one 5-day period (called uayeb). For more information on this notation and the month names, refer to the sources given in the bibliography.
A number of correlations between the 260-day calendar, the Long Count and the modern civil calendar have been proposed by astronomers, archaeologists, and cultists over the years. Maya-Aztec Astro- Report is set to use a correlation that works well astrologically and is also historically consistent. This correlation is known as the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation. Eight other correlations are listed plus a user-defined option. Keep in mind that if a base date is changed, the results of an Aztec astrology reading will differ.
Note that base dates may be entered in either month/day/year format or in Julian-day format. You can also change either base date using the Setup Options in the main menu, and save your changes to the program configuration file.
Researchers generally agree that the zero date of the Long Count coincided with the Maya day 4 Ahau (4 Flower) and the Maya day/month 8 Cumku. (The latter is the position in the 365-day civil calendar.) By default, Maya-Aztec Astro-Report automatically calculates the start date of the 260-day calendar based on this correlation. When the default Sacred Calendar base (SCB) date is in effect, the base date is displayed with the message Linked to LCB (4 Ahau 8 Cumku).
You can, however, change the start of the 260-day calendar to any date you want, thereby allowing the Long Count and 260-day calendar to vary independently of each other.
In the Calendar Calculations module the base dates currently in effect are always displayed at the bottom of the screen. The Long Count base date is abbreviated as LCB; the 260-day or Sacred Calendar base date is shown as SCB.
If you choose Y to make all dates Gregorian, all calendar dates entered into and displayed by the program will be treated as Gregorian (New Style) dates. This option is most useful if you are working with research sources that use an all-Gregorian notation. The most notable example is Anthony Aveni's Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico, which expresses even pre-1582 dates in Gregorian form.
In the Calendar Calculations module a message is displayed at the lower right-hand corner of the screen informing you of which option is in effect.
Note: If you change this option in the Calendar Calculations module, it will also affect date notations in the other modules that do date calculations (i.e., the Aztec Astrology Readings module and the Predictive Techniques module).
A second option here is to request headings for printouts.
The Setup Options selection on the main menu allows you to customize many of the operating features of Maya-Aztec Astro-Report. You can change an option temporarily, causing it to be in effect for only your current session with the program, or you can save your changes permanently.
After modifying any of the following options, press the F9 key and type Y to save the changes you've made for subsequent runs of the program.
Note: The program saves its setup options in a file called AZTEC.CFG. If this file is not found at program start-up time, the program displays an error message but continues to run using default values.
The following is a description of the Setup Options Menu choices:
To specify the current directory, that is, the same directory as the program (.EXE) file, enter a period (.). This will be displayed in the Setup Options Menu as Current Directory.
The program understands normal DOS pathnames, so entries like \TEXT or C:\TEXT are acceptable.
The name and birth date are requested in the first two lines. The user then has a choice (Y or N) as to whether or not the supplemental text will be printing along with the standard delineation (the same as in Main Menu/option 2: Aztec Astrology Readings). The default here is "Y" for yes. The next choice involves the critical days (the same as in Main Menu/option 3: Predicitive Techniques). If the default "Y" is chosen, a start date and the number of years for the list is requested in the next two lines. The default for these last two items is the current date and 5 years.
The historical, archaeological and ethnographic accounts of the nature of the day-signs being extremely sketchy, the author conducted two experiments in hopes of acquiring a better understanding of the symbolism. The first and most controversial was a series of psychic experiments. The author and Angela Cordova, a practicing psychic, utilized dowsing, dream programming, automatic writing and channeling to generate words and images supposedly connected to each sign. One product of this experiment was a set of symbolic paintings, done in a post-conquest Aztec style, of the day-signs. Art was the end product of this psychic investigation.
The second experiment involved making a list of approximately 400 known and unknown persons born under each of the 20 day-signs. Using what might be termed astrological pattern perception, something similar to the mental activity of a jazz musician during improvisation, the author located what he believes are key psychological themes for each day-sign. Also, alongside each person's name, Western astrological data was penciled in and considered in the effort to focus on the material. Perhaps the real key to understanding the signs came about as a result of these linkages or correlations between day- signs and Western astrological symbols. When it became apparent that most people born under the day- sign Wind had Gemini/Mercury and Pisces/Neptune in some sort of emphasis in their birth charts, insight into the core issues of that sign became possible. Not all day-signs were this simple, however, and, for some, much hard thinking and sorting out were necessary.
The author realizes how unscientific the above approaches are, but, in the opinion of many, they have led to delineations of the day-signs that are accurate about 90% of the time. If the author were supported by academic institutions (as an astrologer he is not allowed inside the gates except in disguise as a historian or anthropologist), he would have also attempted more scientific experiments like correlating the results of psychological tests with the day-signs of actual people. Perhaps this will be done in the future, time and money permitting. In the opinion of the author, the day-sign of one's birth has a Sun-sign/Ascendant-like effect on the personality. Day-sign characteristics seem to describe the style of the ego that holds the personality together, and this is something easily discerned by others. Perhaps it could be said that the day-signs reveal something about ego-strength, overt behavior patterns and temperament.
Several of the very few surviving written records of the Maya and Aztec contain tables showing the sequence of the 260-day astrological calendar. Typically, the total number of days are quartered, and each quarter contains 13 columns of 5 days. Without going into further detail, suffice it to say that the 13-day periods, or trecena, were utilized as a means of organizing the cycle. The records of a few friars shortly after the Spanish Conquest support the importance of the trecena. Each trecena was believed to exert an influence on a birth, as did the day-sign itself. For example, if someone were born on the day 2- Wind, they would not only be influenced by that sign, but also by Alligator, as 2-Wind is the second day in the trecena that begins with the day 1-Alligator. The sign that leads each trecena, the sign with the number 1 attached to it, <169>rules<170> the entire period, in much the same way that a planet is said to rule a sign.
In the opinion of the author, the trecena, or 13-day period, appears to have a lunar influence and describes a person's needs, responses, reactions, interests, emotions, etc. It represents a portion of the personality that does not always express itself directly, but which still may be a major factor in terms of motivation and desire. It may be the case that persons born during the night are more strongly affected by the sign ruling the trecena. Those born on a day-sign attached to the number 1 are influenced by the pure form of that sign. On both an outer and inner level they display the qualities of their sign.
There is an interesting astronomical correlation to these 13-day periods. It takes the Sun about 13 days on average to cover the same distance along its apparent path, the ecliptic, as the Moon does in one day. In other words, the trecena are something like the Hindu or Chinese lunar mansions, except that it is only a time period, not a specific region in the sky. In the opinion of the author, the trecena are important in analyzing eclipses, conjunctions and other planetary configurations. Perhaps this set of 20 time-based signs will eventually become part of the mundane astrologer's arsenal of techniques.
According to the Dresden Codex, an ancient Mayan manuscript that is one of the most authoritative sources on Mayan astronomy and astrology, the cycle of Venus began when its rays first appeared in the twilight of dawn. This event usually occurs several days after the inferior conjunction of Venus with the Sun. The inferior conjunction is so named because Venus, the lesser body, passes in front of the Sun, the greater body. In this conjunction, Venus, which disappears in the rays of the Sun for over a week, comes closest to the Earth. The Maya allocated exactly 8 days for this phase of the Venus cycle. After its heliacal rising, the second phase of the Venus cycle, its phase as a morning star, commenced. The Maya allocated 236 days to this period.
As Venus ends its time as a morning star, it once again disappears into the rays of the Sun. As it moves to conjoin the Sun again, it does so at its greatest distance from Earth. The conjunction in this part of its cycle is called the superior conjunction, because here Venus passes behind the Sun. The Maya allocated 90 days for this third phase of the cycle, a phase where Venus is not visible. After it emerges from behind the rays of the Sun, Venus begins its phase as an evening star, a phase for which the Maya allocated 250 days. These four phases of the Venus cycle, 8 days, 236 days, 90 days and 250 days add up to 584 days, the full cycle of Venus. The duration of these phases is a symbolic approximation of the astronomical facts, which actually vary somewhat from cycle to cycle.
The ancient Mesoamericans may have believed that the cycle of Venus depicted the experiences of the god Quetzalcoatl in his descent to Earth. The first rising of Venus as a morning star symbolized his arrival on Earth. During the morning star phase, Quetzalcoatl was overcome by desire and lust and committed sins; he pushed against the boundaries of society. During the disappearance of Venus at superior conjunction, a warlike athletic duel with the Sun took place. And during the evening star phase, Quetzalcoatl, now fully sober, walked the Earth until his sacrificial death during the inferior conjunction. He was then reborn as the new Venus and the cycle began again.
Aztec Astro-Report calculates the phase that Venus was in at your birth according to the figures used and recorded by the ancient Maya. For each phase, both programs offer a brief interpretation of the possible significance of Venus in your life.
In the Mesoamerican system, the day-signs are linked to the four directions in two ways. First, each of the twenty days takes on a direction in the sequence East, North, West, South. Alligator, the first sign, is East, Wind is North, House is West and Lizard is South. The next sign is Serpent and it is linked to the East, Death to the North, and so on. The four directions cycle five times through the twenty day-signs.
Secondly, the sign that rules the thirteen-day period of birth is influenced by its directional association also. For example, a person born on 2-Wind would be influenced by the North, but because 2-Wind is the second day of the thirteen-day period beginning with 1-Alligator, a sign of the East, that direction would also have to be taken into consideration in evaluating the personality. Several combinations are therefore possible, adding to the considerable variations provided by the day-sign and thirteen-day period mixtures. For example, a person born on the day 5-Serpent (the fifth day of the thirteen-day period ruled by 1- Alligator) is East/East, a strong emphasis on that direction. The other combinations, East/North, East/West and East/South, make up the family of directional mixtures possible when a sign of the East is the day-sign. The same four combinations are possible for each of the other three directions yielding sixteen possible variations.
The Mesoamerican directional system is parallel to the systems in other astrologies. East is the direction of the emerging self, West the direction of encounter and relationship, North is challenging and requires knowledge, South is emotional and volatile. The directional aspects of the day-signs were used in ancient times to locate the year itself, a cycle of 52 years (4 x 13) being required to complete a cycle. This is described below.
East: creative/mental -- fertile/abundant North: violent weather -- barren/dry/cold West: wild/losses/illness -- cloudy/evil South: good business/health -- variableA second factor is the cycle of 52 years. In this longer period, 13 repetitions of the basic 4-year cycle are counted. As each year arrives, it is identified with a number and a direction. Four cycles of 13 years each make up the 52-year calendar round or Xiuhmolpilli.
Not all ancient Mexican cultures applied the cycle of years the same way. There was a lack of consensus about which year was linked to which number. The Aztecs used Reed (east), Knife (north), House (west), and Rabbit (south). The Classic Maya used Caban (east), Ik (north), Manik (west), and Eb (south), which correlate with Earthquake, Wind, Deer, and Grass. During Postclassic times the pattern was changed. The Classic pattern is used by the Quiche Maya who have kept the astrological traditions alive in Guatamala. The author believes that the year correlation established by the Classic Maya and continued by the Quiche Maya works.
Four and eight-year cycles have been found in nature by cycle researchers, a strong suggestion that there may be a real material basis to the cycling of the years. It is also interesting to note that the Olympics and United States presidential elections are held in the same year, years that are ruled by the east, according to the Quiche. Further, the Chinese cycle of 12 years correlates with this pattern if you look at it as three groupings of a 4-year cycle.
The Lords of the Night are not a calendar per se, but a kind of symbolic cycle. The Maya linked the Lords to the Long Count. We know that on August 11, -3113 the ninth Lord was ruler. Starting from this date we run a 9-day cycle along with the day-signs which allows the program to find the ruling Lord of the Night for any date. The 260-days of the tzolkin do not mesh perfectly with the 9-day cycle and it takes 9 cycles of 260 (2,340 days or 6.4 years) before the same combination occurs again.
Much less is known about how the Aztecs used the cycle. It appears that they ran the 9-day cycle against the 260 days and had the last two Lords ruling the last of the 260 days. In this manner the cycle would start again at the same place. In Maya-Aztec Astro-Report we have chosen to follow Maya usage.
Some writers have suggested that the Lords of the Night are actually a division of the nightime hours. Like the planetary hours of Western astrology, the night was divided into 9ths with the 5th Lord's rule centered around midnight. In this line of reasoning the day was divided into 13 hours.
In the opinion of the author, the 260-day calendar functions like a gigantic biorhythm and contains within it rhythms of 13 and 20 days. In the literature on Western biorhythms (those of 23, 28 and 33 days), it is assumed that these personal rhythms begin on the day of birth but it is usually not clear if they begin at the time of birth or not. One writer says, People born very late at night have biorhythms more characteristic of the following day than of the day officially recorded as the day of birth. (Gittelson, 1977, p. 24.) Other writers on biorhythms and circadian cycles mention that cell division in mammals is lowest at approximately 10:30 at night. This late-evening shift appears to correlate with day-sign interpretations, that is, someone born an hour or two before midnight (daylight saving time accounted for) generally has the characteristics of the day-sign for the next day.
It was from these lines of thinking that the 65-day critical-day cycle came to the author. In ancient times, the 260-day calendar was divided into both fourths and fifths for ceremonial and practical reasons. The division into fourths was called the burner periods, though scant is known about them except that they were ceremonial days and fires were probably lit. Now these 65-day intervals were for the entire calendar itself and would consistently fall on the same days: 4-Dog, 4-Eagle, 4-Flower and 4-Serpent. Testing this concept on an individual basis led to the creation of the Predictive Techniques option. Essentially, what we have here is a 65-day biorhythm that takes on the form of a four-phase cycle. The quartering of the 260- day period does seem to reflect the conjunction, square and opposition symbolism of Western astrology. Other predictive techniques are presently being studied and may appear in future versions of the program.
The second problem has to do with the apparent primacy of the Mesoamerican longitudes. Obviously, the day in Mexico is not the same day in China. Morning in China on January 1st is evening in Mexico on December 31st. Asia is a day ahead of the Americas. What bothers the author is that persons born in Japan, China and Australia do seem to have the personalities of the day-sign of the previous day. Further, their Western astrological charts reflect this in their sign and planet structures. This phenomenon implies some sort of centering power of the 90th meridian, Central Standard Time. Users of the program may want to make this conversion for persons born in Asia, or look at both day-signs.
The Maya conceived of time as made up of various cycles of days. The day itself was the time unit on which all other periods rested, and kin, the Mayan name for the day, also meant Sun and time. Twenty days, called uinal, was the sequence of the named days or day-signs. 360 days, called a tun, was the next larger time unit, and is essentially a numerologically workable period for the year.
After the tun comes the katun, or 20 tuns (20 x 360), of 7,200 days. This unit was probably the most important of the longer time units. The change from one katun to another was celebrated by the erection of inscribed stones, which have become a source of astronomical and historical data. The katun is close in length to the Jupiter/Saturn synodic period of 7,253 days, a period of time that holds importance in Western mundane astrology. Also near this figure is the cycle of the Moon's nodes (6,585 days) and the Metonic cycle (6,939 days). The author speculates that the Maya sought numerologically clean or ideal figures that approximated natural astronomical cycles.
From the several books of Chilam Balam, we know that the post- classic Maya kept account of the cycle of 13 katuns, or 13 roughly 20-year periods. They had correlations established between each particular katun and the social, cultural and meteorological events that occurred during its time. For example, the 8th katun of the series (katun 8-Ahau) usually coincided with the destruction of established order. The cycle of 13 katuns takes 256.26 years, a figure remarkably close to the Uranus/Pluto synodic period which is 254.98 years. As it turns out, Uranus/Pluto conjunctions have been occurring in katun-8 Ahau for a long time, though they also occur in the 5th and 7th katuns. After the katun comes the baktun, a period equal to 20 katuns, or 144,000 days or 394.26 years. This period, too long for any one human life, was 1/13 of a creation epoch, a period of 5,125.37 years. Now 5125 years itself is 1/5 of a cycle of creations and it turns out to be almost exactly the length of a precession cycle! The Maya determined this cycle of the fixed stars relative to the equinoxes to be about 25,627 years. The actual figure is more like 25,695 but they were well within the ballpark. In Western astrology, this cycle is divided into 12ths, creating the so-called ages, i.e., Age of Aquarius, etc. In essence then, the mundane astrology of the Maya was based on a kind of ideal fragmentation of the precessional cycle that utilized at least several natural planetary cycles.
If one baktun is equal to 20 katun, and there are 13 baktun in a creation cycle, then there are 260 katuns in this same period. Sound familiar? In essence, the creation epoch is one gigantic 260-day astrological calendar where the day becomes a katun of 7,200 days. It is this concept that forms the basis of Arguelles' The Mayan Factor and was, in part, behind the Harmonic Convergence of 1987. But before taking this further, let's return to a few more formalities.
The Maya had a conventional way of noting dates. As with the modern civil calendar, all dates refer back to a starting point. 1990 means 1990 years since the supposed birth of Jesus. According to archaeologists and archaeoastronomers, the Mayan starting point began somewhere around August 11, -3113 (Gregorian). This date, the exact location of which has occupied the time of many Mayanologists, is called the zero date of the Long Count. The Mayan dating convention followed this pattern:
baktun #. katun #. tun #. uinal #. kin #.For example, the date, June 27, 1990, would be expressed in the Mayan Long Count as 12.18.17.3.5, or 12 baktuns, 18 katuns, 17 tuns, 3 uinals and 5 kin since the Long Count began. This convention is used in Aztec Astro-Report in the Long Count calendar/ephemeris and date correlation options.
As was mentioned, there has been controversy over the exact starting point of the Long Count. A number of proposals were forwarded during this century, but one, the Goodman/Martinez/Thompson (GMT) correlation, seems to have established itself as the correct one in recent years. In this correlation the Long Count zero date is given as Julian day 584,283, plus or minus a day or two. This means that on this day, which corresponds to August 11, -3113 (Gregorian), Mayan calendrical notation would appear as 0.0.0.0.0. The 260-day sacred calendar day-sign of this day was 4-Flower (4-Ahau in Maya) and the first day of the new era, 0.0.0.0.1, was 5-Alligator (5-Imix). (Note: Since this is not the day 1-Alligator, the day on which the 260-day calendar begins, the program does not list the Long Count date as its base date.)
The Long Count is actually coming to another zero date in December, 2012. This means that the last katun, one that probably stands symbolically for the day 13-Flower, began on April 6, 1993. The Harmonic Convergence was in part an announcement for this event, and it also marked the completion of nine 52- year periods (the convergence point of the 260-day and 365-day calendars) since the Spanish Conquest.
It is not known exactly how the ancient Maya or Aztec used the Tonalpouhalli as a divination device, though it is known that certain persons specialized in this activity. Ethnographers working in the remote areas of Guatemala and Mexico report that contemporary daykeepers have a formal divination procedure that requires memorization of the 260-day calendar and a bag of small crystals, seeds or beans. When a question is asked, the daykeeper grabs a handful of beans and counts them out in piles of four. If he ends up with 1 or 3 beans in the last pile, it is an indication that the divination should be abandoned. If 2 or 4 are left, then it may proceed. The number of piles are then counted and added to the current date in the 260-day calendar. The resulting day and number contains in its symbolism the answer to the question.
Like the I Ching, Runes and Tarot, the selection of the answer comes about through a process that bypasses the rational mind. The tossing of coins or Runes, the shuffling of cards or the random grab into a bag of seeds is an act over which the rational mind has very little control. Traditionally, it was believed that the answer was found by a spiritual entity involved by the questioner. From the author's perspective, the subconscious is the force behind the right selection of a symbol. In Aztec Astro-Report and Aztec Astrology a random-number generator is the final decider, but the user must choose 5 numbers from 1 to 260 and he must press Enter after each one. So, even with computers, there is considerable interaction between person and device.
The program has three divination formats. The one question/one answer format is self-explanatory. The three-step format is a traditional one used by Runesters and card readers. The five-step, directional format was inspired by the cosmic diagram of the Fejevary-Mayer Codex. In this and other cosmograms of the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican societies, East is at the top, North to the left, etc., and the center holds it together. This format offers a fairly complex reading, though it also requires more knowledge of the symbolism and an ability to improvise with the interpretations.
The text for the divinations was based on the author's experiences with the symbolism in personal divinations. Having previously created a card deck for the 20 main symbols (The Aztec Circle of Destiny) and using 13 wooden chips for the numbers, he recorded many divinations and compared them with the results.
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