Summary of Historias del Universo Maya (Tales Of The Maya Skies)

00:00:00 - 00:30:00

This video tells the story of the ancient Maya people, their customs and their astronomical beliefs. The music in the background portrays the importance of these traditions to the Maya. Today, we start our day like our ancestors did, waiting for the first light of the day. In the Maya world, sunrise was a sacred event, and it was a time to pray for a new day.

• 00:00:00 The author tells the stories of the Maya sky, which are both ancestral and mystical, combining scientific and mythical teachings to create wise teachings. These stories are told by her grandmother, who learned them from her ancestors, from generation to generation. The beginning of time, according to the Maya, was when the sun and moon only existed in silence in the waters of creation. Our gods, the heart of the sky and serpent-embroidered goddess were resting wrapped in their green, blue, and iridescent green plumage. The gods began to move these waters and wondered how we could create the world where we started. They started by establishing the four cardinal points - north and south - and east and west. This and east were established first. [Music] The earth cried out the gods and the earth emerged from the depths. They called the first mountain and it emerged on its own. Thus the beginning of the Maya world was born. From this land, I will tell you the stories of the universe Maya. The movements of the sun, moon, and stars guided the life of my ancestors. We lived close to the equator in the lands now known as Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. I
• 00:05:00 This video tells the story of the creation of the world, including the story of the three stones, or "pebbles of creation" - known as the "stones of the creation" in Maya culture. These stones are believed to be the source of human life, and are located at the center of a household's cooking fire. The video also tells the story of the gods and their creation of humanity. The first gods, who used clay to create people, eventually became frustrated with these rigid beings and tried using wood. However, this also proved unsatisfactory, as people became rigid and unresponsive. The gods then turned to a plant - the maize plant - and created humanity from it. These first people were brave and risked their lives by playing with the fearsome lords of death. Eventually, one of the brothers became the sun, and the other the moon. The brothers' wings and tails, made from their father's hair, still fly in the sky today.
• 00:10:00 The video tells the story of the twin brothers who traveled inside the mountain to the dark land and arrived at the great game of ball at Xibalbá. The lords of death were eager to play, knowing they would win over these young ones. The gods were fierce players, but the twins didn't give up easily. With ajo (a type of chili) and ballan (a type of drum), they used their skills and strengths to win. They found their father at the game, and placed their head on the earth. Now everything was complete, and the creation of the earth and sky was complete. It is said that when the first sun rose, my ancestors emerged from the darkness and praised this miraculous light with the setting of the sun. They counted the first day by watching the first moon as it jumped like a rabbit in the sky at night. The sun rose again, and they saw it traverse the sky like a radiant flower, giving life to everything that grew on the earth. This is how my ancestors used the sun and moon to measure time. For survival on this earth, my ancestors had to know when the seasons were changing. They knew when the seasons came by the tilt of the earth and the light of
• 00:15:00 The video tells the story of how ancient Maya skywatchers learned about the sky. They started by observing the horizon, marking the place where the sun rises in the east using sticks and shadows. They then tracked the sun's movement day-by-day, marking its path with markers dipped in blood to indicate the summer solstice's trajectory. As the sun moved towards the north, they continued tracking it by recording its movement towards the south during the winter, when it brought strong rains. This is how they began their long journey of discoveries, building their first observatories to study the sky. Their skywatchers marked the sun's equinoxes twice, knowing that night and day are equal at the time of an equinox. They also discovered the longest day of the year, the summer solstice, and the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. My ancestors' mathematicians were the first to create and use the zero, which allowed them to count days until reaching millions. This mathematical knowledge and astronomical observations led to the creation of a very precise and complex calendar. The cenital solar (solar cenital) indicates the center of our magnificent city of Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán Peninsula in
• 00:20:00 The Maya used a 365-day calendar based on the movements of the sun. On this day, the sun sets in the west and the serpentine light of its stairs snakes its way down to the bottom of the well of Chichen Itzá to bring a water gift to our people. Just as the god serpent-emplumed our rulers were concerned for the needs of the people, when the cenital sun reached the halfway point of the sky, Maya rulers celebrated the beginning of our solar calendar with offerings to the gods and deities in return for the beneficial rains they sent for more than 2,000 years. Our astronomers have long observed the sun, moon, and planets, and their remarkable record of precise cycles is one of the achievements of our sky observers that is particularly extraordinary. One of their skills was to predict a total solar eclipse, which could be seen from the same place on average once every 370 years. To see a total solar eclipse, you need to be in the right place at the right time.
• 00:25:00 The video discusses the ancient Maya people's understanding of the sky, and their use of astronomy and mathematics to predict events like eclipses. One of their most important achievements was creating a long calendar that stretched back over 5,000 years, and which still plays an important role in modern Maya culture.
• 00:30:00 This video tells the story of the Maya people, their customs and their astronomical beliefs. The music in the background portrays the importance of these traditions to the Maya. Today, we start our day like our ancestors did, waiting for the first light of the day. In the Maya world, sunrise was a sacred event, and it was a time to pray for a new day.