By Garrett Kenyon and Javier Cárcamo
Has life on Earth reached the end of the road?
With evidence suggesting human settlement dating back to 18,000 B.C., Guatemala is one of the cradles of civilization. It was the heart of the ancient Maya empire, which flourished in this corner of the world from approximately 1,800 B.C. until the last Maya stronghold fell to Spanish conquistadors in the late 17th Century. Even today, over two dozen ancient Mayan languages are spoken by millions, and their descendants flourish in Guatemala and parts of Mexico.
Over 60 percent of our sponsored families in Guatemala are directly descended from the Maya. And while a debate in Western media about the significance of their beliefs – particularly concerning their calendar – on today’s world raged, their descendants held the answer to the looming question the whole time…
The history of the Maya – and specifically their calendar – enjoyed a surge in popularity in the final years of the 2nd millennium. In a time-honored pattern that recurs in human history at the end of each century, fears of an impending apocalypse reached alarming levels. Y2K, the Nostradamus prophecies and, perhaps the most popular, the Maya calendar which – according to doomsday believers – predicts an uncomfortably close date for the end of humankind: December 21, 2012.
Experts on the Maya culture rushed to discredit this notion, but their voices were largely drowned by the white noise that reached a crescendo in the final countdown to 2000. When that event passed and the much-hyped Y2K failed to materialize, the popular belief in an imminent Armageddon lost some steam – and yet, as the “End Date” of the Maya calendar is nearly upon us, a widespread belief in its cataclysmic significance persists.
Prior to 2012, only one reference to the December 21 date had ever been discovered, found inscribed on the side of a 1,343-year-old tomb in Tortuguero, Mexico. The date marks the end of a period of time for which the Maya created their “Long Count Calendar” to record – a period spanning 5,125.36 years, called “The Great Cycle.” This was but one of the many cycles of time envisioned by the Maya, and only one of the calendars which they used to record – and possibly predict – events in time.
In June 2012, another discovery was made in the ruins of La Corona in Guatemala. The 1,300-year-old inscription again mentioned the end date – but this time researchers say, there was more context to the date’s significance than was previously available. The conclusion of the world’s leading experts on the Maya civilization is that the December 21 date has more to do with ancient politics and the grandiose statements of a leader struggling to maintain power than the end of the world.
But that shouldn’t surprise anyone. The surviving Maya knew all along that their ancestors hadn’t been predicting anything like an apocalypse at the end of the Long Count Calendar. In fact, before the second discovery was made, Javier Cárcamo – one of our staff members from Guatemala – wrote an amazing blog post about what the modern-day Maya really believed was about to happen. What they told him about the calendar’s true significance revealed a nuanced understanding of the ancient civilization that many experts wouldn’t gain for another six months.
Here are some of the sponsored youth, CI-Guatemala staff and volunteers Javier talked to for his article – and a few more he spoke with recently:
"The 13 Baktun represents the change of an era…an opportunity for reconciliation and peace. The Maya predicted that the world would change, motivated by the phenomena of nature and the universe. The Maya were scholars of the universe and its secrets. We believe this is the opportunity for all human beings to forge a better future for present and future generations."
- Dilia Cobox, Service Area Coordinator from Tecpán, Guatemala, and a native of the Maya culture
*Baktun: a cycle of time used in the Maya Long Count Calendar. A baktun is the equivalent of 144,000 days or 394 years.
“I don’t believe the world will come to an end like many people say. What it means is that the Maya calendar ends, but another one begins. Almost like pulling the last page off a calendar and then putting up a brand new one.”
- Adolfo, Sponsored youth from Tecpán
"We respect the culture of our ancestors. Regardless of our current religion, we respect the belief of the 13 Baktun*, but the Maya never said the world would end. They always said "the end of an era" – a change. December 21, 2012, marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new era in the Maya calendar."
- Héctor Roche, CI field officer from southwestern Guatemala, and one of the millions of people who still speak Cakchiquel, one of two dozen living Mayan languages
“This is a sacred moment… I am grateful that my eyes can see. This is something unique in 26,000 years. All the stars in the universe are aligning, and so we are starting a new era in which we reach mental and spiritual clarity."
- Cayetana Puluc, a Quiche Maya midwife with sponsored grandchildren
“Everything, everything that we know happens in phases, and people shouldn’t take the Maya prophecies about the 5th Sun or the 13 Baktun as just an end, but also as a beginning. The end of one era is also the start of another. It’s like going to bed and waking up the next day and giving thanks for having awakened. Everything that surrounds us has a reason for being, and first we have to have respect to be able to understand that our Maya ancestors were wise. Our ancestors dedicated themselves to the study of time. For them, time was very important, as was studying the universe, the stars and numbers. That is how they could calculate things that would happen in the future, thousands and thousands of years later. They knew things that we don’t know now.”
- Doña Bernardina Ojot, a CI volunteer who descends from the Maya, is a widely respected person of authority in her community of San Juan Alotenango, Sacatepéquez
Photos and reporting assistance by Javier Cárcamo, our communications coordinator in CI-Guatemala.
