Re-Creating Primordial Time: Foundation Rituals and Mythology in the Postclassic Maya Codices

4. World Renewal in the Dresden Codex: The Yearbearer Ceremonies

97 4 World Renewal in the Dresden Codex: The Yearbearer Ceremonies Dresden 25–28 Pages 25–28 of the Dresden Codex (Figure 4.1) have long been known to concern the ceremonies celebrating the transition from one year to the next, linked to the five days of Wayeb and the beginning of Pop. As Karl Taube (1988:219– 220) has demonstrated, the fact that they occur immediately following the flood scene on D. 74 (see Chapter 5) suggests that the two sections were intimately connected. He proposes that “page 74 introduces and places the Dresden new year pages in a cosmogonic context—the creation of the four world quarters and cosmic trees following the flood” (Taube 1988:220). At an early date, scholars connected the ceremonies cited in Landa’s Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (Gates 1978:61– 68), involving a ritual circuit over a four-year period marking the end of the year, with depictions on pages 25–28 of the Dresden Codex (Förstemann 1906; Thomas 1882; Thompson 1934). Landa’s discussion focuses on a Bakab (one for each of the four years in the cycle) that symbolized the augury of the year, and an image or clay figure (the Wayeb idol), which was transported to the “pile of stones” at the entrance to the town, where a ceremony was performed. Thereafter,itwastakentothehouseoftheprincipal,orritual specialist, where a statue of another god was honored with gifts of food and incense. The ceremony at the entrance to the town involved burning incense and sacrificing a turkey hen, and also appears to have included bloodletting rituals. At the end of Wayeb, the statue of the deity was taken (or returned) to its sanctuary in the temple, and the image (the Wayeb idol) was left at the entrance to the town corresponding to the new year (involving a shift from the southern to the eastern entrance, or from the eastern entrance to the northern, and so forth). DOI: 10.5876/9781607322214.c04 Figure 4.1. Yearbearer ceremonies on D. 25–28. After Förstemann (1880). World Renewal in the Dresden Codex 99 The events described by Landa are depicted on the four pages of the yearbearer almanac , which we believe can be linked specifically to the Wayeb rituals he describes, as well as to a ritual reenactment of the events of creation—the pacing out of space (in the form of a four-part universe) and the setting up of trees to mark the boundaries of the civilized world. These events can be associated with several key dates in the haab: the commencement of Wayeb, the four following days of Wayeb, and the first day of Pop. Before we consider the ceremonies represented on the yearbearer pages in detail, a discussion of the deities represented on them provides a useful starting point (see Appendix 4.1). Overview of Dresden Yearbearer Pages D. 74 (Figure 5.1) and the yearbearer pages together reference the destructive flood and the period of chaos that it entailed, as well as the establishment of a new world order (Taube 1988:chap. 7). This series of events parallels those related in the narrative from the Books of Chilam Balam, in which a flood in K’atun 11 Ahaw, precipitated by the seed corn being taken to the thirteenth plane of the sky, destroys the “coreless” people (see Chapter 3). Following this destruction, the settling of the land by the Bakabs takes place, as does the setting up of trees in the four world directions and the center as both a commemoration of the destruction of the previous world, but also presumably as a means of separating the earth from the sky, which was said to have collapsed as a result of the flood. We suggest that the upper register on D. 25–28 can be associated with the Bakabs settling the land: And then when the destruction of the world was finished [seen on D. 74] They [the Bakabs] settled this [land] so that Kan Xib Yui puts it in order. (Chumayel page 53; translation by Knowlton 2010:65) The hieroglyphic texts on D. 25–28 describe the Mams, who, like the Bakabs, are aspects of the Pawahtuns, arriving in each of the world quadrants, beginning in the south (the quadrant associated with the flood on the previous page). The idea of ordering is expressed by the glyphic captions above the middle register...