was mayan astrology based on astronomy?
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answers:
Ian say: I agree with az_lender About 15 years ago I heard hippies starting to say stuff like "I'm a celestial white Jaguar in the Mayan tradition" This all seemed to be based on stuff they read in New Age books which quoted no sources, and provided no evidence whatsoever that this was an authentic pre-Columbian Mayan tradition. I had a Guatemalan Mayan friend at the time and she said she had never heard of any of this stuff before.
With Western, Indian and Chinese astrology, we have written evidence of the beliefs going back to ancient times. We can see how they developed. We don't have this for Mayan astrology. Much of
Mayan culture was destroyed with the conquistadors, forcible conversion to Christianity etc. It's hard to imagine something as complicated as Mayan astrology surviving 500 years without being written down in some form (so evidence please!), and if it did survive in secret, underground, we would expect to see a variety of related traditions and interpretations, not just one.
Around the same time, I saw a tabloid newspaper article about "Native American astrology" which looked like Western astrology, except that instead of signs named after zodiac constellations derived from Greek mythology (Leo, Aries, Aquarius, Gemini etc.) it had zodiac signs named after North American animals (moose, beaver etc.). Again, no sources quoted, no back up information (which native American tribe? who recorded the tradition, how does it relate to other aspects of Native American culture? etc.)
The Mayans did have very sophisticated astronomy, but I can see no evidence that they used it for for pop psychology or fortune telling in the manner of Western astrology.
In other words I think Mayan/native American astrology is fakelore.
Incidentally, one time a guy was talking enthusiastically about Mayan astrology, so I took his book, asked everyone in the room for their date, place and time of birth. Then I used the book to cast their Mayan horoscopes. Everyone agreed with the resulting list of personality traits which I read out to them, one said it was uncannily accurate.
Then I told them the truth: I had just been reading out pages at random. The same criticisms can be leveled at western astrology, that it feeds people vague flattering platitudes which they will agree with and believe apply only to them.
I find astrology interesting, and I approach it with an open minded scepticism. It's irrational, there could even be a grain of truth in some of it. There is increasing evidence that the moon affects plants and animals, less good evidence that it affects people. Schools divide children by age with a September cut off and there is evidence that children born in summer who get thrown into primary school classes with children up to a year older, suffer loss of confidence as a result, get poorer exam results, have less chance of becoming CEO's. The effect of being born in autumn and spending formative months indoors or in Spring and going out in a pram in the sunshine may also be significant. It may even work because we believe in it. Tell people that they are a prim tidy Virgo or an outgoing Leo all their life, it may have an affect on their personality.
Astrology as folklore in itself is interesting: The fire signs are all symbols associated with heroes (Hercules, Jason, Cheiron the tutor of young heroes), the air signs are Greek socio-political symbols (Justice, legitimised homosexuality, twin kingship), the earth signs are fertility symbols etc.
Nowadays with the internet there is a real danger of authentic traditions being forgotten as we get swamped by fakelore. With the touch of a button we can tell millions of people that "a blue moon means two full moons in one calendar month" or "saying cheers and clinking glasses together is a traditional way to avoid murder by poisoning". There is an uglier side to all this:
Fakelore also gets used by modern religious cults to give weight to their ideas, which helps them to exploit and abuse. There is a strong link, reinforced by social media, between belief in these kind of ideas and far right politics. Express interest in the unsubstantiated and irrational online, and like as not, you will also be exposed to a lot of conspiracy theory and crypto fascism. It seems to me that some people are using facebook algorithms to identify people with poor critical thinking skills. From an academic anthropological or folklore point of view it's a pain in the ***.
Call it out.
And prove me wrong if you want. Anyone with any information about the history of Mayan astrology, documented evidence of these beliefs from before the 1960's, how it relates to other aspects of Mayan culture etc. please provide it. I've asked before and just had a deafening silence.
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David say: Yes. Why do you ask?
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Adullah M say: If there were no astronomy there would be no astrology.
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westville sal say: No
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nineteenthly say: Yes.
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ngc7331 say: nope. astronomy and astrology are two entirely different things.
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∅ say: all astrology is a combination of astronomy and mythology.
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az_lender say: The "Caracol" observatory at Chichen Itza seems to demonstrate that the Mayans had a considerable knowledge of astronomy. The structure includes many sight-lines for solstices, equinoxes, and the extreme northern and southern positions of Venus. We can't know anything about Mayan "astrology," which would require written texts interpreting celestial influences. It seems Venus may have had a religious significance to the Mayans, but we don't know just what it was.
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Tom S say: Before about 500 years ago there was no real distinction between astronomy and astrology.
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dhnhx say: elhxrucu
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