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8. Implications of the May Model
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chapter 8 Implications of the May Model The Maya geopolitical organizational structure based on the may would have had broad ramifications and implications for other major cultural institutions, including political economy, intra- and intersite relations, and various aspects of ritual. Here I consider the implications of maybased political organization for such institutions as ritual celebrations, the ballgame, warfare, and the nature of rulership itself. Identifying the May According to the evidence, the 260- and 130-tun cycles of the may, folded into 400-tun b’ak’tuns, operated for nearly two and a half millennia , from the Middle or Late Preclassic through the Classic and Postclassic periods into Colonial times. If this is true, why is there no direct mention of it in the inscriptions? Indeed, references to the may in the surviving texts of the late prophetic histories themselves are rather oblique but were teased out by Edmonson (1979). Did the Colonial period Maya intentionally conceal this armature of their politico-ritual organization from the Spaniards? Have we not yet deciphered the glyphs for such organization in Classic period texts? Could it have been discussed in the codices but, for whatever reason, not referenced in stone sculptures? The problem may lie in part in the unclear etymology of the word may, and it might have come to mean different things—or the cycle might have been known by different terms—at different points during the two millennia that it was in operation. Textual references to may are rare and shed little light on this institution as a mechanism of geopolitical structuring. Because one of the meanings of the word may relates to deer hooves (Fig. 8.1), it is useful to investigate references to or depictions of deer and their hooves in the inscriptions. One use of a deer hoof glyph is in the 244 maya political science figure 8.1 Representations of deer hooves: (a) (l–r) the “heir designation” glyph; ‘since he ended the may’? (Palenque Palace House A–D Palace Tablet; after Macri n.d.); deer hoof as numerical classifier? (Copán Stela A); (b) a portion of Madrid Codex, page 49b, showing a deer caught in a tree-snare, with the glyph for “cenote” below a forehoof; note the exaggerated toes (after Vail 1997:Fig. 3–15); (c) deer haunch headdress on Aguateca Stela 2 (after drawing by Ian Graham). so-called heir designation event (Montgomery 2001a:Fig. 9-3); it may refer more broadly to initiation into adulthood for young boys of the nobility , perhaps through deer hunting (Joyce 2000:124–128). The deer hoof also appears on Copán Stela A, where it has been interpreted as a numerical classifier in the sequence of “four sky” glyphs (Schele and [44.200.39.110] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 00:51 GMT) implications of the may model 245 Mathews 1998:161) (see Fig. 6.2). A more suggestive occurrence is on the Palenque Palace Tablet dated to the lajuntun 9.14.10.0.0 (a.d. 721), which appears to read “since he ended the may.” The deer hoof also appears in identical balloon-like headdresses worn by rulers on Aguateca Stela 2 (735) and Dos Pilas Stela 2 (736), both of which appear to show the entire haunch of a deer with the hoof projecting forward over the ruler’s face. The front of the headdress is decorated with the distinctive trapezoidal framework of the central Mexican year sign. Both stelae commemorate a Venus event, presumably the successful war against Seibal. A deer hoof in a headdress also can be seen on a relief panel from Jonuta (Joyce 2000:126). As discussed below, deer hunting appears prominently in certain almanacs of the Madrid Codex and is linked to tzolk’in-based Burner rituals (see von Nagy 1997; Vail 1997; Bricker 1997b). In the codex depictions of deer, the hooves are exaggeratedly large, but the significance of this is not clear other than the meaning of may as “deer hoof.” Occurrences of deer hooves or foot and toe bones (metapodials and phalanges) in archaeological contexts are rarely noted. A comparison of deer parts represented at deposits at four sites in the northern lowlands (Carr 1996:255) indicated that 30 to 40 percent of the fragments represent metapodials and phalanges. Deer toe bones were used by shamans in divining rituals and a cache of nineteen of them, “some worked,” was found in a burial at the Classic site of Holmul (Hamblin...