The Madrid Codex: New Approaches to Understanding an Ancient Maya Manuscript

Chapter 10: The Inauguration of Planting in the Borgia and Madrid Codices

The Inauguration of Planting in the Borgia and Madrid Codices CHRISTINE HERNÁNDEZ AND VICTORIA R. BRICKER Just prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the early 1500s, the Aztec in highland central Mexico and the Maya of northern Yucatán were, like all Mesoamerican civilizations, populous agricultural societies that relied upon a triad of maize, beans, and squash for their subsistence. Mesoamerica enjoys a subtropical climate with marked wet and dry seasons. Although two or perhaps three crops per year could be grown in certain instances, in the high, arid elevations of central Mexico or on the karstic plains of northern Yucatán, where permanent surface water is limited, daily stores depended upon the harvest of major crops normally grown only once a year (Madsen 1969; Manrique C. 1969; Page 1933; Ravicz and Romney 1969). Planting, therefore, had to coincide with the start of the rains. Timing, on the part of both farmers and Mother Nature, was critical to ensure a successful harvest. In pre-Columbian times farming, like many other daily activities, was guided by a 260-day ritual calendar kept and administrated by a hierarchy of C H A P T E R 1 0 CHRISTINE HERNÁNDEZ AND VICTORIA R. BRICKER 278 priests. Both priests and lay diviners consulted codices (Durán 1971:398). Codices are painted screenfold manuscripts, or “books,” that contain astronomical tables, divinatory almanacs and tables, and calendrical and religious lore that guide observations and prognostications and determine the proper and propitious days on which to carry out activities. As Durán (1971:396) describes for the Aztec: These characters [tonalpohualli signs] also taught the Indian nations the days on which they were to sow, reap, till the land, cultivate corn, weed, harvest, store, shell the ears of corn, sow beans and flaxseed. They always took into account that it had to be in such and such a month, after such and such a feast, on such and such a day, under such and such a sign. All this was done with superstitious order and care. If chili was not sown on a certain day, squash on another, maize on another, and so forth, in disregard of the orderly count of the days, the people felt there would be great damage and loss of any crop sown outside the established order of days. Even to this day, modern Nahuas believe that work, particularly farming activities , must be started on a specific day lest the outcome be unfavorable because a project was begun on an “unlucky” day (specifically a Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, or Sunday in the Western calendar) (Sandstrom 1991:120). Some of the most recent research on the codices has focused on relating the calendrical structure of divinatory almanacs in the Maya Madrid Codex (e.g., Bill, Hernández, and V. Bricker 2000; V. Bricker and Vail 1997; Vail 2000, 2002a) and in the central Mexican Borgia Codex (Hernández 2003) to their pictures and, in the case of the Madrid Codex, to their captions as well. Divinatory almanacs appear to occur in sections devoted to a common iconographic theme, many of which are concerned with seasonal activities or “stations ” of the solar year (V. Bricker 1997b). Investigations of the Madrid Codex, for example, have identified groups of almanacs devoted to planting, harvesting , beekeeping, deer hunting, and Uayeb rituals (e.g., Bill, Hernández, and V. Bricker 2000; V. Bricker and Vail 1997; Vail 2000). Two recent studies by V. Bricker (1998) on the Madrid Codex (Codex TroCortesianus 1967) and by Hernández (2003) on the Borgia Codex (Codex Borgia 1976) have focused specifically on the calendrical structure of almanacs relating to activities and events that anticipate the start of the agricultural season. These studies demonstrate how a series of almanacs could refer to specific dates within the agricultural season of individual years in a single Calendar Round cycle.1 The research presented here connects and expands upon these initial studies through the identification and investigation of some hitherto unrecognized iconographic and calendrical ties between the agricultural sections of the Madrid and Borgia codices. THE INAUGURATION OF PLANTING IN THE BORGIA AND MADRID CODICES 279 ANTECEDENTS Pages 24–29 of the Madrid Codex (Figure 10.1) represent a section of divinatory almanacs portraying agricultural activities that include planting seeds, watering plants, and various animal and insect pests attacking plants. The two principal figures that appear in these almanacs are Chac...