Moderators: MichelleH, Minimalist, JPeters
Not only that, but the political climate of counties like Bolivia are historically so volatile, that those dedicated to investigating the likes of the Pokatia Monolith are scared practically to death that the next rogue government will seize the treasures.
Hello effigy. Thanks for your thoughts. Let us know what you think of the artifacts and the translation, if you would.effigy wrote:OK, I've skimmed through the thread. Fact is, the Fuente Magna bowl, and the Pokatia Monolith are old news to me. These were big topics when I owed a 'private' internet discussion forum that included members such as Clyde, Bernardo Biados, Gary "Buck" Buchanan, and Doug Weller.
It's no secret that Clyde is afrocentric. IMHO Bernado should have stayed away from World Mysteries dot com.
People sometimes forget that these artifacts come from a (now) Third World Country. Monies to properly investigate the archaeological treasures of the area are most difficult to come by. Not only that, but the political climate of counties like Bolivia are historically so volatile, that those dedicated to investigating the likes of the Pokatia Monolith are scared practically to death that the next rogue government will seize the treasures. For some time, Bernado and I exchanged emails on a 2-3 time a week basis. He ended up fleeing Boliva, literally in fear for his life when the current government was approaching another coup. Bernado had been Vice President (and director of several top posts) of Bolivia. I have his CV on file.
Marduk -- surely you mean Vai, or Mande Vai? (not vrai)
being able to read Sumerian (proper and proto) no I'm afraid I didn'tDid Marduk give a translation of the Pokotia Stone?
The Club hasn't issued a position paper on this one?Why the reluctance to tell us what your opinions are?
youre a very ignorant man BeagleDirect answers are greatly appreciated
it is a regular amerindian cultural artifact with nothing irregular about it at allThe Club hasn't issued a position paper on this one?
Thank you for gracing this board once again with your usual eloquence Marduk. However, I'm less interested in your reply than some others. Your position on this matter is well known to me, although I'm not sure why you're so reluctant to post them in this forum.marduk wrote:youre a very ignorant man BeagleDirect answers are greatly appreciated
most of the posters in this thread have given you direct answers
but because they don't match yours you claim not to have seen them
did you miss the side by side comparison between proto sumerian, olmec script and the pokotia text
really
if you want to kid yourself that this is in some way important you go ahead
but don't try to pretend that anyone else shares your self perpetuating delusion because they don't
even your best buddy hasn't backed yo on this one
it is a regular amerindian cultural artifact with nothing irregular about it at allThe Club hasn't issued a position paper on this one?
I have already posted the paper thats states that
once again
you failed to read it because you can't accept the simple truth
that says far more about you than it does the fantasy conspiracy club you need to believe in to make the tiny pieces of your mind fit together in a semblence of order
you mean now that you have once again contributed another post that is nothing more than a personal attack you'd like me to ignore itI'd like to get back to learning something about these artifacts.
I have already posted the truth about the monolith several times along with my opinion as have others which you have decided to ignoreYour position on this matter is well known to me, although I'm not sure why you're so reluctant to post them in this forum.
you don't know the half of itI've not known you to have an original thought. But you write that these ideas are derived by "research". I note where you have been called a plagiarist in another forum.
it is only name calling if it isn't justifiedCalling me and other people names does nothing to improve your image here
many of us means who exactlyYou helped Clyde Winters by pointing out Sumerian similarities in the Nazca lines? That doesn't speak well of Mr. Winters as many of us were reading that very thing before you were born.
orthodoxy disagrees with youYou are most certainly not a Sumerologist
perhaps in future before making claims you should look up the long words so you understand what you are trying to refute because you just made a real "Kibid" of yourself there didn't youdefintion sumerology - the study of the history, language, and culture of the Sumerians.
that is quite clearNow - unlike you, I don't know everything
he had people like you in mind when he wrote that Y'knowI know nothing except the fact of my ignorance
Socrates
From 2001- Nubians and Olmecs Web page
[BOM notice that claims made here were clearly refuted in February of 1998, but Winters continues to make them.]
The linguistic evidence (Brown, 1991), forces us to aknowledge that the Mayan term *c'ib is probably derived from Manding *Se'be. This provides the best hypothesis for the origin of the Mayan term for writing given the fact that the Mayan /c/ corresponds to the Manding /s/, and the archaeological an linguistic evidence which indicate that the Maya did not have writing in Proto-Mayan times. And as a result, the term for writing had to have come into
the Mayan languages after the separation of Proto -Maya. This would explain the identification of the Olmec or Xi/Shi people as Manding speakers. In addition to the Manding origin of the Mayan term for writing, there are a number Mayan terms that are derived from the Olmec language .
********
This would also explain why the Maya, according to Landa had Universities where elites learned writing and other subjects. He noted that the Ahkin May or Ahuacan May (High Priest) "...and his disciples appointed the priests for the towns, examining them in their sciences and ceremonies...he provided their books and sent them forth. They in turn attended to the service of the temples, teaching their sciences and writing books upon them"
(see: Friar Diego de Landa, Yucatan before and After the Conquest, (trs.) by William Gates, Dover Publications ,New York, 1978).
There is a clear prevalence of an African substratum for the origin of writing among the Maya. All the experts agree that the Olmec people probably gave writing to the Maya. Mayanist agree that the Brown (1991) found that the Proto Maya term for "write" is *c'ihb' or *c'ib'. Since the Olmec people probably spoke a Mande language, the Mayan term for writing would probably correspond to the Mande term for writing. A comparison of these
terms confirmed this hypothesis. The Mayan term for writing *c'ib' or *c'ihb' is derived from the Olmec/Manding term for writing *se'be'. The ancient Mayans wrote their inscriptions in Chol, Yucatec and probably Quiche.
****
Winters keeps shifting and altering his proposals, he now acknowledges that the Maya inscriptions were in Chol as well as Yucatec and Quiche. I have shown using the Swadesh 100 word list than these languages have nothing in common with Mande. Miguel has shown that Winters’ claims of being “cognate” or “borrowing” terms are also incorrect. A new random group of suposedly Quiche/Mande corresponding words has been added. Given the suspicious nature of the Quiche “sources” I will wager that, again. Both the Quiche and the Mande will have been cited erroneously.
Some citations from legitimate sources have finally been introduced, and, again, I will wager than upon checking they will not support the claims made. As an example, because I have Landa at hand-- Winters said:
>This would also explain why the Maya, according to Landa had >Universities where elites learned writing and other subjects. He >noted that the Ahkin May or Ahuacan May (High Priest) "...and his >disciples appointed the priests for the towns, examining them in >their sciences and ceremonies...he provided their books and sent >them forth. They in turn attended to the service of the temples, >teaching their sciences and writing books upon them"(see: Friar >Diego de Landa, Yucatan before and After the Conquest, (trs.) by >William Gates, Dover Publications ,New York, 1978).
Landa says absolutely *nothing* about universities. The Maya, like the Aztecs, had schools (like all other state level societies) and as in other early societies children of the elite went to them. The exact quote (from a much better translation than Gates, and which I checked personally from the Spanish edition is
“.. they had a high priest whom they called *Ah Kin* Mai and by another name *Ahau Can* Mai, which means the priest Mai, or the High Priest Mai.... In him was the key of their learning and it was to these matters that they dedicated themselves mostly.... They provided priests for the towns when they were needed, examined them in the sciences and ceremonies, and committed to them the duties of their office, and the good example to people and provided them with books and sent them forth. And they employed themselves in the duties of he temples and in teaching their sciences as well as writing books about them≤ (Diego de Landa. 1941. *Landa’s Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan* trans .A. M. Tozzer.p. 27. Cambridge: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology Harvard.;Diego de Landa.1973. *Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan* ed. A. M. Garibay.p. 14. Mexicoorrua.).
Notice not a word about universities. It is also misleading to leave the word “sciences” without qualification because in reality it refers to calendrical, ritual, astronomic and astrological calculations tied to religion. Here, I should point out that the Maya used a base 20 number system and used zero in its full sense in positional notation. Something the Egyptians never knew, much less any so-called “proto-Mande” The calendar was an integral part of Olmec and Maya writing, one more piece of evidence shredding Winters’ claims.
“The sciences which they taught were the computation of the years, months, and days, the festivals and ceremonies, the administration of the sacraments, the fateful days and seasons, their methods of divination, and their prophecies, events and the cures for their diseases, and their antiquities and how to read and write with the letters and characters, with which they wrote, and drawings which illustrate the meaning of their writings.≤ (Tozzer, pp. 27-28; Landa, p. 15)”
Winters also said:
>There is a clear prevalence of an African substratum for the >origin of writing among the Maya. All the experts agree that the >Olmec people probably gave writing to the Maya. Mayanist agree >that the Brown (1991) found that the Proto Maya term for "write" >is *c'ihb' or *c'ib'. Since the Olmec people probably spoke a >Mande language, the Mayan term for writing would probably >correspond to the Mande term for writing. A comparison of these
>terms confirmed this hypothesis. The Mayan term for writing >*c'ib' or *c'ihb'is derived from the Olmec/Manding term for >writing *se'be'. The ancient Mayans wrote their inscriptions in >Chol, Yucatec and probably Quiche.
[C.H. Brown in "Hieroglyphic literacy in ancient Mayaland: Inferences from the linguistic data", Current Anthropology 32 (4) (1991, pp.489 495)--my *Current Anthropology* is in boxes in the attic so that I’ll have to get to library to check unless one of you does]
1) There is nothing new or controversial in the idea that writing began before the Maya or that the Olmec contributed. However, the latest research shows that the calendar and probably writing developed earliest in the Zapotec region (perhaps they too spoke Mande. See J. Marcus, "First Dates," <i>Natural History</i> (March), 26-29 (1991).
2) Very interesting that Winters’ now wants to use a proto-Maya term, because previously he has persistently insisted in using Maya languages with little historical depth (Yucatec and Quiche) rather than the Cholan group (Chol, Chorti, and Chontal) for his comparisons with Mande. This shows a completely ad-hoc approach to the question rather than a systematic scholarly approach. Given Winters’ linguistic naivete there is an urgent need to verify exactly what Brown (1991) said phonetically because the colonial/current Maya languages differ. Remember that in Maya /c/ has the sound of /k/ not /s/ so that sEbE would not be the same. Second, to be fair we should compare the Proto-Mande word for writing circa 500 B.C. Not sEbE which is a 1890 Mande word. Would Winters please provide us with the 500 B.C. Proto-Mande word for writing, or admit neither he nor anyone else knows what it was, that is assuming they had writing in 500 B.C. which is also not proven.
3) Notice the inadvertent (or deliberate) confusing notation. The Bambara word for writing (“ecrire” Delafosse 1929: 442) is sEbE (using the notation I have been using to show accents) se’be’ in this context is confusing because the same notation is used in Maya for glottal stops (which Winters has been repeatedly told by numerous people are <i>CONSONANTS</i> and cannot be ignored or dismissed). The following comes from <i>Diccionario Cordemex</i> 1980 or John M. Dienhart. 1989. <i>The Mayan Languages. A Comparative Vocabulary</i>
to write-- Mande sEbE
Yucatec ts’ib <å> glottal stop. /ts/ is not a phoneme found in Mande
Quiche tsiibaa
Chol tsiba
Chontal te-tsib
As Miguel keeps asking, perhaps Winters can show us documented steps by which sEbE can transform into these Maya phonemes. Or for that matter to protoMaya /k/’(glottal stop) ib’ (glottal stop) or /k/’(glottal stop) ihb’ (glottal stop)
Bernard Ortiz de Montellano
Wayne State University
******
From: gkeyes6988@aol.com (GKeyes6988)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Mande and Maya connections
Date: 25 Feb 1998 06:30:18 GMT
Lines: 40
Clyde Winters wrote:
<snip Miguel's well researched-post>
>Brown's article was in a referred Journal. Are you saying that >the scholars who reviewed his article were all ignorant of Mayan
>linguistics? Now you make it appear that you know more about >Mayan inscriptions than experts in Mayan linguistics.
>C. A. Winters
You know, in each post you only show that you understand even less than we thought.
1. He took issue, not with Brown's reconstruction but with your complete incompetence (or complete dishonesty) concerning the relationships between phonology and orthography. That what you got from his post was that he was claiming Brown was "wrong" is simply pitiful. He said Brown's reconstruction looked fine. He said you were wrong, or more to the point, you don't know what
you are talking about. He clarified some issues about orthography, which point apparently flew right over your head.
2. In your post above, you imply that the question is one of knowledge of "Mayan"insciptions . Brown's reconstruction (and this whole argument) is based in comparative linguistics. The reconstruction is not a Mayan "inscription" nor were the words compared to derive it "inscriptions" save in the sense that
they were "inscribed" by linguists in papers and in lexicons (by a variety of people) using Roman-base scripts.
3. This from the guy who claimed a while back that Mayan epigraphers like Linda Schele can't really read the Mayan script because they aren't doing so with the understanding that it is African. This from the guy who claims we can't really
read the epi-Olmec script (despite it''s recent translation)script because it really isn't Zoquean, but Mande.
But gosh, you've just set out what you seem to think is reasonable criteria above, at least when arguing with someone else. Why are you disagreeing with the experts? And please don't try to set yourself up as one -- your lack of knowledge of things Mesoamerican is demonstrated more painfully in each post.
-- Greg Keyes
********
Greg,
What is even more fundamentally problematical is the Winters has misquoted and misinterpreted his sources. Brown did *not* say what Winters is implying, which makes Winters comment above, even more offensive. More goodies obtained by verifying the sources quoted by Winters--
Sat, 21 Feb 1998 15:22:26 -0600
C.A. Winters said:
>There is a clear prevalence of an African substratum for the origin of writing among the Maya. All the experts agree that the Olmec people probably gave writing to the Maya. Mayanist agree that the Brown (1991) found >that the Proto Maya term for "write" is *c'ihb' or *c'ib'. Since
the Olmec >people probably spoke a Mande language, the Mayan term for writing would >probably correspond to the Mande term for writing. A comparison of these terms >confirmed this hypothesis. The Mayan term for writing *c'ib' or *c'ihb'is >derived from the Olmec/Manding term for writing *se'be'. The ancient Mayans >wrote their inscriptions in Chol, Yucatec and probably Quiche.
A key piece of information that Winters omits is that protoMaya was spoken at the latest some 42 centuries ago [2200 B.C. well before the rise of the Olmecs and of the presumed Mande trip] (Brown 1991:490). Brown specifically says that the protoMaya did NOT have a word for <writing> “It is highly unlikely that Proto-Mayan had a word for “write,” since it is improbable that any writing system was as early as this in Mesoamerica. The first evidence comes from around 600 B.C.--at least 1,500 years after the breakup of Proto-Mayan-- in what is now the Mexican state of Oaxaca [exactly what I have been saying in this ng]. Thus the proposal of a Proto-Mayan word for “write” almost certainly constitutes another example of overreconstruction for this parent language (Brown 1991:490 491).” Winters owes Miguel, the reviewers of *Current Anthropology, and us an apology (lots of luck getting one). In fact, Brown in this article is arguing that the great similarity of the words for “write” in all the Maya languages indicates that it diffused late because most of these languages do not have a long time depth. “I have proposed that the widespread Mayan word for “write” probably originated in a language spoken by bearers of Classic Maya culture or their immediate descendants and diffused there from to other contiguous Mayan languages Brown 1991: 494).” The Classic Period is A.D. 200-900 the Olmec civilization was over by then.
SNIP
>Moreover B. Stross in "Maya Hieroglyphic writing and >MixeZoquean", Anthropological Linguistics 24 (1) (1973, pp.73 >134), mentions the Mayan tradition for a foriegn origin of Mayan >writing. This point is also supported by C.H. Brown in >"Hieroglyphic literacy in ancient Mayaland: Inferences from >the >linguistic data", <i>Current Anthropology</i> 32 (4) (1991, >pp.489 495), who claimed that writing did not exist among the >ProtoMaya.
Again a misdirection of what Brown said. Read the quote above-- at 2200 B.C. no one including the ProtoMaya had writing in Mesoamerica (neither did the LybicoBerbers who according to Wulsin from my previous postwrote about 500 B.C.). Brown is NOT saying that the ProtoMaya got writing from elsewhere which is what Winters would have you believe. Winters is also paraphrasing Strosser in a misleading way. The entire point of Strossπ article is that Maya writing comes, yes from outside, BUT Stross does not leave a void to be filled by Mande as Winters would have us believe. The entire article is an argument that the iconography of Maya hieroglyphic symbols in the Landa alphabet can be better interpreted phonetically using Mixe-Zoque. Exactly what is now accepted by all Mesoamerican scholars, i.e. that the Olmecs spoke Mixe-Zoque and this is what was used to interpret the Mojarra stela. There is no vacuum to be filled by a mythical Mande here. “Abstract.-- This essay proposes a hypothesis that Mixe Zoquean speakers-- more specifically Mixeans-- were involved in the initial stages and subsequent development of the Maya hieroglyphic writing system, traces of which we can see in the inscriptions of the Classical period and in the codices of the Post-Classic and later traditions. The hypothesis is supported by evidence that the well-known ≥alphabet≤ provided by Bishop Diego de Landa contains at leastr some symbols that can be viewed as icons whose phonetic value can be derived more easily from Mixean languages than from Mayan languages (Stross 1982:73).”
>My comparison of Quiche and Yucatec to the Mande languages is a >valid way to illustrate the ancient relationship between the Pre->Classic Maya and Mande speaking Olmec. Archaeologist and >epigraphers no longer believe that the Classic Maya inscriptions >were only written in Cholan Maya. Now scholars recognize that many Mayan inscriptions written during the Classic period were >written in Yucatec and probably the language spoken in the area >where the Mayan inscriptions are found.
Again Winters is misquoting his sources. No archaeologist or epigrapher believes that Winters’ new favorite, Quiche, was used to write inscriptions particularly at any time when remotely an Olmec/Mande might be around. I defy him to produce a direct quotation to that effect. What Winters’ source, Stross says is: ”A number of epigraphers are in fact arriving at the motivated conclusion that Cholan is the major language of the Classic Maya inscriptions [A.D. 200-900] and Yucatecan (or some direct descendant thereof) is the language of the three, or possibly four, extant Maya codices that date approximately to the time of the Conquest, or perhaps sometime earlier [A.D. 1400-1500] (Stross 1982:73-74).” This means, as I have been saying repeatedly to Winters, that if he wants to argue Olmec/Mande influence on the Maya, he must compare his supposed Mande words with Chol, Chorti, and Chontal not with Yucatec and absolutely not with Quiche. Brown (1991:492) says “.. since it is now widely recognized that speakers of languages of the Cholan and Yucatec subgroups of Mayan are direct descendants of the bearers of Classic Maya civilization.” Again Quiche is excluded, and I continue to maintain that 1) Yucatan is not near the Olmec Gulf zone and 2) it is too late (Post-Classic A.D. 1000-1500) to be the direct recipient of Olmec/Mande influence. I have already cited Michael Coe <i>The Breaking of the Maya Code</i> (1992) who flatly says that the classic Maya inscriptions are in Cholan.
One more example of the unreliability of Winter’s citations to accompany Wulsin, Ixtlixochitl, and more to follow. Caveat emptor--
Bernard Ortiz de Montellano
Wayne State University
******
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 12:24:05 -0400
From: bortiz@earthlink.net (Bernard Ortiz de Montellano) To: bortiz@earthlink.net
Subject: Re: Finale Olmec African Civilization Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Organization: Wayne State University
In article <67l26s$h7$1@tensegrity.critpath.org>, aawest@netnews.CritPath.Org (Anthony West) wrote:
>Brian M. Scott (scott@math.csuohio.edu) wrote: : It would be a shame to let the Mad Greek have all the fun, so ...
>: On Sun, 21 Dec 1997 11:41:05 -0600, cwinter@wpo.it.luc.edu wrote:
><snip a lot>
Winters
>: >Thus we have ProtoMayan *c'ihb' and *c'ib'. This /c/ in Mayan is often : >pronounced like the hard Spainish /c/ and has a /s/ sound.
West
>: If you're talking about the glottalized velar stop, it doesn't sound : like [s]. If not, please indicate what sound you *do* mean by <c'>.
>Winters has gotten a pair of old-fashioned terms backwards. "Hard c" describes the sound of the velar stop /k/ in "call." "Soft c" describes the sibilant /s/ in "cell."
>I'm no Mayanist, but in standard Yucatec orthography "c" is always hard. If you find a word "cib" in a modern dictionary it can only be pronounced /kib/.
>There is no modern Mayan orthography "c'." Sometimes you see a backwards "c'" used. It signifies an affricate followed by a glottal stop /ts?/.
>An ancestral Mande form /s-/ would be most unlikely to generate a Mayan form /k-/ or /ts?-/, as these are most unusual sound changes. One would want to see lots of similar correspondences before one would accept it.
>Don't confuse Mayan spelling with Nahuatl spelling, in which "ci-" *is* pronounced /si-/. Mexican languages have different spelling rules, just like European ones. But that won't help a Mayan-Mande comparison.
>- Tony West aawest@critpath.org
>Philadelphia
The situation is even worse than you describe. From now on I think that Mr. Winters should be asked to provide explicit citations for linguistic claims as Weller requested for claims of Otomi-Mande relationships. Winters errs in his claims for the phonetic value of "writing" in at least Yucatec Maya.
see
A. Barrera Vasquez, ed. 1980. *Diccionario Maya Cordemex* Merida: Ediciones Cordemex.
p.882 to write = ts'ib
p. p. 41a describing the phonetics says that /ts'/ is a dental fricative in no way resembling the hard /c/ or sibilant /s/ claimed by Winters.
Additionally, it is time for Winters to also document and cite his sources for the "Mande" glosses.
D. Crystal, 1987. *The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language* points out that Mande has more than 20 languages.
p. 314 Mande group (> 20 languages Bambara, Malinka, Dyula, mende,)
p. 436 Bambara (Mali, Senegal, Burkina-Faso, Ivory Coast)
Dyula (Ivory Coast, Burkina-Faso, Ghana) Malinke (Malinke,, W. Africa)
Mende (Liberia, Sierra Leone)
Winters has already pointed out that the script he "reads" is not Mande but that he "reads" it using Mande syllables. But specifically which Mande language is Winters using. You cannot run around picking and choosing different languages to fit a preconceived reading. Glosses should be referenced to dictionaries and the phonology should also be given. As the case above illustrates-- a bald assertion by Winters is not trustworthy. Bernard Ortiz de Montellano
*********
Winters
>The linguistic evidence (Brown, 1991), forces us to acknowledge >that the Mayan term *c'ib is probably derived from Manding *Se'be.
Scott
You never did explain the symbol <c'>, the function of the <'> in
<Se'be>, or the significance (if any) of the fact that the <S> is
upper-case. If, as the asterisk implies, this is a reconstructed
form, where is the reconstruction to be found?
Winters
> This provides the best hypothesis for the origin of the Mayan >term for writing given the fact that the Mayan /c/ correponds to >the Manding /s/,
What are the phonetic realizations of your supposed phoneme /c/?
Brian M. Scott
******
From: bortiz@earthlink.net (Bernard Ortiz de Montellano) To: bortiz@earthlink.net
Subject: Re: Mande and Maya connections
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology Organization: Wayne State University
On Sat, 21 Feb 1998 22:41:48 -0600, C.A. Winters said:
MASSIVE SNIP
Winters out a lot of assertions concerning African archaeology, linguistics showing that every language on earth is based on Mande (Tocharian, Dravidian, Japanese, etc. Why not Basque, and several hundred New Guinean languages while we are at it?), and New World contacts. As usual, one would need to write volumes in order to disprove all the assertions. After a while this becomes onerous.
An approach I recommend to my students and I commend to readers of the ng-- when numerous claims are made check those which are the easiest to verify or disprove. If the claims are shown to be erroneous or ridiculous, then one can safely assume that those claims which by their nature (time depth, lack of documentation, implausibility, idiosyncratic interpretations of ancient non western art styles, etc.) are also B.S. If you are sloppy on the easy things you are certain to be sloppy on the hard questions. With that in mind, let’s look at just one paragraph in Winters.
Winters
>In the Popol Vuh, the famous Mayan historian Ixtlilxochitl, the Olmecs came to Mexico in "ships of barks"( probably a reference to papyrus boats or >dug-out canoes used by the Proto-Saharans) and landed in Potonchan, which they >commenced to populate.Mexican traditions claim that these migrates from the >east were led by Amoxaque or Bookmen. The term Amoxaque, is similar to the >Manding 'a ma n'kye': "he (is) a teacher". These Blacks are frequently seen in Mayan writings as gods or merchants.
BOM
Total baloney. 1) This shows that Winters knows nothing about Mesoamerica and the written sources and makes elementary mistakes that I would fail my students in their first course on Mesoamerica for committing. *Anyone who knows anything about Mesoamerica would know, at a glance, that Ixtlilxochitl IS NOT A MAYA NAME BUT A NAME IN NAHUATL. Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, a Texcocan 17th century historian (1578-1650) had nothing whatever to do with the *Popol Vuh* a Guatemalan Quiche mythological work from an unknown author. So much for Wintersπ control of the literature.
2) Just like other Afrocentrists (and “Scientific Creationists”) one cannot trust Winters’ quotations or paraphrases of sources. Words are added in and interpretations made that appear to support the pre-conceived thesis. In this case Ixtlilxochitl SAYS NOTHING ABOUT “SHIPS OF BARKS”. The relevant quote from F. De Alva Ixtlilxochitl. 1975 [1608?] *Obras Historicas* ed. E. O’Gorman, vol. 2: 7-8. Mexico: UNAM. [In a passage dealing not with history but with the origin myths of the Aztecs, NOTICE NOT THE MAYAS, including the previous 4 creations and destructions of the earth]. (BOM translation)
“Those that possessed the new world in this third creation were the Olmecs and Xicalancas. According to the stories there are they came in ships or boats from the East to the land of Potonchan. Which they began to people. And on the shores of the Atoyac river which passes between the city of the Angels [the colonial city of Puebla] and Cholula [this is near Mexico City not the Maya area] they met some of the giants who had escaped the catastrophe and extinction of the second creation of the earth [Aztec mythology believed that the inhabitants of one of the creations of the earth had been giants]. These giants being strong and trusting in their strength and size of body lorded it over the newcomers, in such a fashion that they oppressed them as if they were slaves [BOM not a great recommendation for the glory of the Mande/Olmecs]...≤”
3) This passage in Ixtlilxochitl says nothing about the *amoxaque* WHICH IS NOT ANY KIND OF MAYA BUT NAHUATL IS WINTERS’ NOW CLAIMING THAT NAHUATL AND MANDE ARE “COGNATE” LANGUAGES. I can hardly wait. I know a hell of a lot more Nahuatl than Maya, and a lot more Maya than Winters. This term is found in Sahagun’s *Florentine Codex*. Winters is aping Van Sertima or perhaps Wiener with his usual twist. Van Sertima argued that amoxaque really came from Egyptian [funny how pliable and flexible Nahuatl is- it resembles whatever language the current diffusionist needs (Shang Chinese, Egyptian, Mande, Phoenician, Latin, Welsh, etc.), whereas Winters says it is Mande. Both are full of baloney. To begin with 1) neither Van Sertima nor Winters knows enough to see that the word which they copied from the Spanish version not the Nahuatl version of the Florentine codex is misspelled; 2) Neither Van Sertima nor Winters knows that Nahuatl is an agglutinative language that elides letters so that the word they want to derive from either Egyptian or Mande is composed of AMOXTLI (“books”)- HUA (possessive) QUE (plural form) to form AMOXHUAQUE pronounced /amoshwaque/ which has zero resemblance to Winters’ “so called” Mande which would need to be verified in any case given the track record we have seen already.
Given the level of ignorance and incompetence shown in this easily verifiable passage why would one accept any of Winters nebulous claims about Africa, non existent Saharan rivers, idiosyncratic iconography etc. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Here we do not see even ordinary competence.--
Bernard Ortiz de Montellano
Wayne State University
*********
From: cwinter@orion.it.luc.edu (Clyde A. Winters)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Mande and Maya connections
Followup-To: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology
Date: 22 Feb 1998 15:27:08 GMT
You are wrong, the lower level pyramids at Cerros were of Olmec origin and style. These sites were also first settled by the Mande speaking Olmecs.
C.A. Winters
********
From: scott@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M. Scott)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Mande and Maya connections
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 18:17:24 GMT
Organization: Cleveland State University
On 22 Feb 1998 15:27:08 GMT, cwinter@orion.it.luc.edu (Clyde A.
Winters) wrote:
>You are wrong, the lower level pyramids at Cerros were of Olmec origin
>and style. These sites were also first settled by the Mande speaking
>Olmecs.
Sharer (_The Ancient Maya_, 5th ed., p.118) says that Cerros 'began life as a Preclassic village'. (No pyramids yet.) 'eginning about 50 B.C. the small original settlement was buried under a series of monumental platforms and buildings.' That's rather late for Olmec origin, I believe.
Brian M. Scott
******
From: Jeffrey L Baker <jbaker@U.Arizona.EDU>
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Mande and Maya connections
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 12:50:57 -0700
Organization: The University of Arizona
On 22 Feb 1998, Clyde A. Winters wrote:
> You are wrong, the lower level pyramids at Cerros were of Olmec origin
> and style. These sites were also first settled by the Mande speaking
> Olmecs.
>
> C.A. Winters
This is blatantly false. Olmec "pyramids" are notoriously rare. The one at La Venta is oval (or circular). The lower level of the pyramids at Cerros are clearly Maya. The earliest pyramid at Cerros also postdates the Olmec.
Off the top of my head, I can't recall any finds of Olmec artifacts in Middle Preclassic deposits in northern Belize.
Jeff Baker
********
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 23:49:02 -0400
From: bortiz@earthlink.net (Bernard Ortiz de Montellano) To: bortiz@earthlink.net
Subject: Re: Mande and Maya connections (Moving along to Nok?) Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology Organization: Wayne State University
In article <6cngii$rqo$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, cwinter@orion.it.luc.edu wrote:
MAJOR SNIP (to be dealt with later following a trip to the library)
Winters keeps shifting and altering his proposals, he now acknowledges that the Maya inscriptions were in Chol as well as Yucatec and Quiche. I have shown using the Swadesh 100 word list than these languages have nothing in common with Mande. Miguel has shown that Winters’ claims of being “cognate” or “borrowing” terms are also incorrect. A new random group of supposedly Quiche/Mande corresponding words has been added. Given the suspicious nature of the Quiche “sources” I will wager that, again. Both the Quiche and the Mande will have been cited erroneously.
Some citations from legitimate sources have finally been introduced, and, again, I will wager than upon checking they will not support the claims made.
As an example, because I have Landa at hand-- Winters said:
>This would also explain why the Maya, according to Landa had Universities where elites learned writing and other subjects. He noted that the Ahkin
May >or Ahuacan May (High Priest) "...and his disciples appointed the priests for >the towns, examining them in their sciences and ceremonies...he provided >their books and sent them forth. They in turn attended to the service of the >temples, teaching their sciences and writing books upon them"
>(see: Friar Diego de Landa, Yucatan before and After the Conquest, (trs.) by William Gates, Dover Publications ,New York, 1978).
Landa says absolutely *nothing* about universities. The Maya, like the Aztecs, had schools (like all other state level societies) and as in other early societies children of the elite went to them. The exact quote (from a much better translation than Gates, and which I checked personally from the Spanish edition is
≥.. they had a high priestwhom they called *Ah Kin* Mai and by another name *Ahau Can* Mai, which means the priest Mai, or the High Priest Mai.... In him was the key of their learning and it was to these matters that they dedicated themselves mostly.... They provided priests for the towns when they were needed, examined them in the sciences and ceremonies, and committed to them the duties of their office, and the good example to people and provided them with books and sent them forth. And they employed themselves in the duties of he temples and in teaching their sciences as well as writing books about them≤ (Diego de Landa. 1941. *Landaπs Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan* trans .A. M. Tozzer.p. 27. Cambridge: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology Harvard.;Diego de Landa.1973. *Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan* ed. A. M. Garibay.p. 14. Mexicoorrua.).
Notice not a word about universities. It is also misleading to leave the word ≥sciences≤ without qualification because in reality it refers to calendrical, ritual, astronomic and astrological calculations tied to religion. Here, I should point out that the Maya used a base 20 number system and used zero in its full sense in positional notation. Something the Egyptians never knew, much less any so-called ≥proto-Mande.≤ The calendar was an integral part of Olmec and Maya writing, one more piece of evidence shredding Wintersπ claims.
≥The sciences which they taught were the computation of the years, months, and days, the festivals and ceremonies, the administration of the sacraments, the fateful days and seasons, their methods of divination, and their prophecies, events and the cures for their diseases, and their antiquities and how to reasd and write with the letters and characters, with which they wrote, and drawings which illustrate the meaning of their writings.≤ (Tozzer, pp. 27-28; Landa, p. 15)≤
Winters also said:
>There is a clear prevalence of an African substratum for the origin of writing among the Maya. All the experts agree that the Olmec people
probably >gave writing to the Maya. Mayanist agree that the Brown (1991) found that the >Proto Maya term for "write" is *c'ihb' or *c'ib'. Since the Olmec people >probably spoke a Mande language, the Mayan term for writing would probably >correspond to the Mande term for writing. A comparison of these
>terms confirmed this hypothesis. The Mayan term for writing *c'ib' or *c'ihb'is derived from the Olmec/Manding term for writing *se'be'. The ancient Mayans wrote their inscriptions in Chol, Yucatec and probably
Quiche.
[C.H. Brown in "Hieroglyphic literacy in ancient Mayaland: Inferences from the linguistic data", Current Anthropology 32 (4) (1991, pp.489 495)--my *Current Anthropology* is in boxes in the attic so that Iπll have to get to library to check unless one of you does]
1) There is nothing new or controversial in the idea that writing began before the Maya or that the Olmec contributed. However, the latest research shows that the calendar and probably writing developed earliest in the Zapotec region (perhaps they too spoke Mande
2) Very interesting that Winterπs now wants to use a proto-Maya term, because previously he has persistently insisted in using Maya languages with little historical depth (Yucatec and Quiche) rather than the Cholan group (Chol, Chorti, and Chontal) for his comparisons with Mande. This shows a completely ad-hoc approach to the question rather than a systematic scholarly approach. Given Wintersπ linguistic naivete there is an urgent need to verify exactly what Brown (1991) said phonetically because the colonial/current Maya languages differ. Remember that in Maya ≥c≤ has the sound of /k/ not /s/ so that sEbE would not be the same. Second, to be fair we should compare the Proto-Mande word for writing circa 500 B.C. Not sEbE which is a 1890 Mande word. Would Winters please provide us with the 500 B.C. Proto-Mande word for writing, or admit neither he nor anyone else knows what it was, that is assuming they had writing in 500 B.C. which is also not proven.
3) Notice the inadvertent (or deliberate) confusing notation. The Bambara word for writing (*ecrire* De La Fosse 1929: 442) is sEbE (using the notation I have been using to show accents) seπbeπ in this context is confusing because the same notation is used in Maya for glottal stops (which Winters has been repeatedly told by numerous people are *CONSONANTS* and cannot be ignored or dismissed). The following comes from *Diccionario Cordemex 1980 or John M. Dienhart. 1989. *The Mayan Languages. A Comparative Vocabulary*
to write-- Mande sEbE
Yucatec ts’ib <å> glottal stop. /ts/ is not a phoneme found in Mande Quiche tsiibaa
Chol tsiba
Chontal te-tsib
As Miguel keeps asking, perhaps Winters can show us documented steps by which sEBE can transform into these Maya phonemes. Or for that matter to protoMaya
/k/’(glottal stop)ib’ (glottal stop) or /ch/’(glottal stop)ib’glottal stop) [I don’t believe Winters’ transcription of c’ihb’]--
Bernard Ortiz de Montellano
Wayne State University
******
From: gkeyes6988@aol.com (GKeyes6988)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Mande and Maya connections
Date: 25 Feb 1998 06:30:18 GMT
Lines: 40
Clyde Winters wrote:
<snip Miguel's well researched-post>
.Brown's article was in a referred Journal. Are you saying that the
.scholars who reviewed his article were all ignorant of Mayan
.linguistics? Now you make it appear that you know more about Mayan
.inscriptions than experts in Mayan linguistics.
.C. A. Winters
You know, in each post you only show that you understand even less than we thought.
1. He took issue, not with Brown's reconstruction but with your complete incompetence (or complete dishonesty) concerning the relationships between phonology and orthography. That what you got from his post was that he was claiming Brown was "wrong" is simply pitiful. He said Brown's reconstruction looked fine. He said you were wrong, or more to the point, you don't know what
you are talking about. He clarified some issues about orthography, which point apparently flew right over your head.
2. In your post above, you imply that the question is one of knowledge of "Mayan"inscriptions . Brown's reconstruction (and this whole argument) is based in comparative linguistics. The reconstruction is not a Mayan "inscription" nor were the words compared to derive it "inscriptions" save in the sense that
they were "inscribed" by linguists in papers and in lexicons (by a variety of people) using Roman-base scripts.
3. This from the guy who claimed a while back that Mayan epigraphers like Linda Schele can't really read the Mayan script because they aren't doing so with the understanding that it is African. This from the guy who claims we can't really
read the epi-Olmec script (despite it's recent translation)script because it really isn't Zoquean, but Mande.
But gosh, you've just set out what you seem to think is reasonable criteria above, at least when arguing with someone else. Why are you disagreeing with the experts? And please don't try to set yourself up as one -- your lack of knowledge of things Mesoamerican is demonstrated more painfully in each post.
-- Greg Keyes
********
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 17:23:05 -0400
From: bortiz@earthlink.net (Bernard Ortiz de Montellano) To: bortiz@earthlink.net
Subject: Re: Mande and Maya connections
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Organization: Wayne State University
In article <19980225063001.BAA26956@ladder02.news.aol.com>, gkeyes6988@aol.com (GKeyes6988) wrote:
>Clyde Winters wrote:
><snip Miguel's well researched-post>
>.Brown's article was in a referred Journal. Are you saying that the .scholars who reviewed his article were all ignorant of Mayan .linguistics? Now you make it appear that you know more about Mayan .inscriptions than experts in Mayan linguistics.
>.C. A. Winters
>You know, in each post you only show that you understand even less than we thought.
Greg,
What is even more fundamentally problematical is the Winters has misquoted and misinterpreted his sources. Brown did *not* say what Winters is implying, which makes Winters comment above, even more offensive. More goodies obtained by verifying the sources quoted by Winters--
Sat, 21 Feb 1998 15:22:26 -0600
C.A. Winters said:
“There is a clear prevalence of an African substratum for the origin of writing among the Maya. All the experts agree that the Olmec people probably gave writing to the Maya. Mayanist agree that the Brown (1991) found >that the Proto Maya term for "write" is *c'ihb' or *c'ib'. Since
the Olmec >people probably spoke a Mande language, the Mayan term for writing would >probably correspond to the Mande term for writing. A comparison of these terms >confirmed this hypothesis. The Mayan term for writing *c'ib' or *c'ihb'is >derived from the Olmec/Manding term for writing *se'be'. The ancient Mayans >wrote their inscriptions in Chol, Yucatec and probably Quiche.”
A key piece of information that Winters omits is that protoMaya was spoken “at the latest some 42 centuries ago [2200 B.C. well before the rise of the Olmecs and of the presumed Mande trip] (Brown 1991:490). Brown specifically says that the protoMaya did NOT have a word for “writing”, “It is highly unlikely that Proto-Mayan had a word for “write,” since it is improbable that any writing system was as early as this in Mesoamerica. The first evidence comes from around 600 B.C.--at least 1,500 years after the breakup of Proto-Mayan-- in what is now the Mexican state of Oaxaca [exactly what I have been saying in this ng]. Thus the proposal of a Proto-Mayan word for “write” almost certainly constitutes another example of overreconstruction for this parent language (Brown 1991:490 491)” Winters owes Miguel, the reviewers of Current Anthropology, and us an apology (lots of luck getting one). In fact, Brown in this article is arguing that the great similarity of the words for “write” in all the Maya languages indicates that it diffused late because most of these languages do not have a long time depth. “I have proposed that the widespread Mayan word for “write” probably originated in a language spoken by bearers of Classic Maya culture or their immediate descendants and diffused therefrom to other contiguous Mayan languages Brown 1991: 494).” The Classic Period is A.D. 200-900 the Olmec civilization was over by then.
SNIP
Winters
>Moreover B. Stross in "Maya Hieroglyphic writing and MixeZoquean", Anthropological Linguistics 24 (1) (1973, pp.73 134), mentions the Mayan tradition for a foriegn origin of Mayan writing. This point is also
supported >by C.H. Brown in "Hieroglyphic literacy in ancient Mayaland: Inferences from >the linguistic data", Current Anthropology 32 (4) (1991, pp.489 495), who >claimed that writing did not exist among the ProtoMaya.
Again a misdirection of what Brown said. Read the quote above-- at 2200 B.C. no one including the ProtoMaya had writing in Mesoamerica (neither did the Lybico Berbers who according to Wulsin from my previous post wrote about 500 B.C.). Brown is NOT saying that the Proto Maya got writing from elsewhere which is what Winters would have you believe. Winters is also paraphrasing Stross in a misleading way. The entire point of Stross’ article is that Maya writing comes, yes from outside, BUT Stross does not leave a void to be filled by Mande as Winters would have us believe. The entire article is an argument that the iconography of Maya hieroglyphic symbols in the Landa alphabet can be better interpreted phonetically using Mixe-Zoque. Exactly what is now accepted by all Mesoamerican scholars, i.e. that the Olmecs spoke Mixe-Zoque and this is what was used to interpret the Mojarra stela. There is no vacuum to be filled by a mythical Mande here.
“Abstract.-- This essay proposes a hypothesis that Mixe Zoquean speakers-- more specifically Mixeans-- were involved in the initial stages and subsequent development of the Maya hieroglyphic writing system, traces of which we can see in the inscriptions of the Classical period and in the codices of the Post-Classic and later traditions. The hypothesis is supported by evidence that the well-known ≥alphabet≤ provided by Bishop Diego de Landa contains at least some symbols that can be viewed as icons whose phonetic value can be derived more easily from Mixean languages than from Mayan languages (Stross 1982:73).”
Winters
>My comparison of Quiche and Yucatec to the Mande languages is a valid way to illustrate the ancient relationship between the Pre-Classic Maya and Mande >speaking Olmec. Archaeologist and epigraphers no longer believe that the >Classic Maya inscriptions were only written in Cholan Maya. Now scholars >recognize that many Mayan inscriptions written during the Classic period were >written in Yucatec and probably the language spoken in the area where the>Mayan inscriptions are found.
Again Winters is misquoting his sources. No archaeologist or epigrapher believes that Winters’ new favorite, Quiche, was used to write inscriptions particularly at any time when remotely an Olmec/Mande might be around. I defy him to produce a direct quotation to that effect. What Winters’ source, Stross says is: “A number of epigraphers are in fact arriving at the motivated conclusion that Cholan is the major language of the Classic Maya inscriptions [A.D. 200-900] and Yucatecan (or some direct descendant thereof) is the language of the three, or possibly four, extant Maya codices that date approximately to the time of the Conquest, or perhaps sometime earlier [A.D. 1400-1500] (Stross 1982:73-74).” This means, as I have been saying repeatedly to Winters, that if he wants to argue Olmec/Mande influence on the Maya, he must compare his supposed Mande words with Chol, Chorti, and Chontal not with Yucatec and absolutely not with Quiche. Brown (1991:492) says “.. .since it is now widely recognized that speakers of languages of the Cholan and Yucatec subgroups of Mayan are direct descendants of the bearers of Classic Maya civilization.” Again Quiche is excluded, and I continue to maintain that 1) Yucatan is not near the Olmec Gulf zone and 2) it is too late (Post-Classic A.D. 1000-1500) to be the direct recipient of Olmec/Mande influence. I have already cited Michael Coe *The Breaking of the Maya Code* (1992) who flatly says that the classic Maya inscriptions are in Cholan.
One more example of the unreliability of Winter’s citations to accompany Wulsin, Ixtlixochitl, and more to follow. Caveat emptor--
Bernard Ortiz de Montellano
Wayne State University
how many races do you know who in very remote times would be described as:-"Before leaving this region, we should mention a very remarkable story which the natives have received as a tradition handed down by their ancestors for many centuries. It refers to sime giants who they say arrived in their country from over the sea and landed at the point now called Santa Elena, a name given to it because it was first seen by Spaniards on this saints day.As Pedro de Cieza de Leon is the Spanish historian who speaks of these giants at greatest length, having received his version in the very province which the giants visited, it seemed best that I should follow his account word for word, for although Padre Jose de Acosta and the accountant general Agustin de Zarate say the same, their version is very brief. Pedro de Cieza's fuller account in his ch. lii is as follows:
As there is in Peru a story of some giants who landed on the coast at the point of Santa Elena, in the vicinity of Puerto Viejo, I have resolved to mention what I was told about them, as I understood it, without taking into account the opinions of the common people and their various anecdotes, for they usually magnify events larger than life. The natives, repeating a story received from their forefathers from very remote times, say that they arrived from across the sea on reed shafts that were as large as big ships some men who were so big that an ordinary man of good size scarcely reached up their knees: their members were in proportion to the size of their bodies, and it was a monstrous thing to see their enormous heads and their hair hanging down about their shoulders. Their eyes were as large as small plates. They say that they had no beards and that some of them were clad in the skin of animals and others in the dress nature gave them. There were no women with them.
On reaching this point, they set up their camp like a village (and even in these times there is a memory of the site of their houses)
As they found no supply of water they remedied the lack by making some very deep wells, a labor certainly worthy of record, being undertaken by such strong men as these must have been, to judge by their size. They dug these wells in the living rock until they came to the water, and afterwards they built the wells in stone from the water line upwards so that they would last for ages. In these wells the water is excellent and it is always so cold that it is very pleasant to drink...."
"When these great men or giants had thus made their settlement and dug these wells or cisterns, they destroyed and ate all the supplies they could find in the neighborhood. It is said that one of them ate more than fifty of the natives of the land; and as the supply of food was not sufficient for them to maintain themselves, they caught much fish with nets and gear that they had. They lived in continuous hostility with the natives, because they slew the latter's women in order to have them, and they also slew the men for other reasons. But the Indians were not numerous enough to kill these newcomers who occupied their land and lorded it over them; and although they held great discussions about this, they never dared attack them.
"After some years the giants were still in this region, and as they had no women of their own and the Indian women of the neighborhood were too small for them, or else because the vice was habitual to them and inspired by the demon, they practised the unspeakable and horrible sin of sodomy, committing it openly and in public without fear of God or personal shame. The natives say that our Lord God, unwilling to conceal so wicked a sin, sent them a punishment suited to the beastliness of the crime, and when all the giants were together engaged in this accursed practice there came a fearful fire from heaven to the accompaniment of a great noise, in the midst of which a shining angel appeared holding a sharp, bright sword with which he slew them all at a single stroke, and the fire consumed them leaving only a few bones and skulls, which God allowed to remain unconsumed as a token of the punishment. This is the account they give of the giants, and we believe that it happened, for it is said that very large bones have been found and still are found thereabouts and I have heard Spaniards say they have seen pieces of teeth which they thought must have weighed half a pound when whole, and who had also seen a piece of a shin-bone of wonderful size, all of which bears witness to the truth of the incident. In addition to this one can see the places where the sites of their villages were, and also the wells or cisterns they made. I cannot state whence or how these giants came there.
"In the present year of 1550 when in the city of Lima, I heard that when his excellency Don Antonio de Mendoza was viceroy and governor of New Spain, certain bones of men as big as these giants, and even bigger, were found there. I have heard too that in an ancient sepulcher in the city of Mexico or somewhere else in that kingdom certain bones of giants have been found. Since so many people saw them and attest having done so, it can therefore be credited that such giants did exist and indeed they may all have been of the same race.
"At this point of Santa Elena, which is as I have said on the coast of Peru and in the district of the city of Puerto Viejo, there is a remarkable phenomenon: the existence of certain wells or seams of pitch of such excellent quality that it would be possible to tar all the ships one wished with it, since it flows from the earth. This pitch must be from some seam passing through that place: it comes out very hot,etc.
)The Spanish word for gold is Oro. I always find this kind of stuff less than compelling.Aymara terms for gold 'ouri