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The Maya Civilization · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody chuck here. Before we get going with the show,
0:03
Speaker 1: I want to plug a little podcast appearance that I
0:06
Speaker 1: made especially for uh the old movie crushers. I was
0:09
Speaker 1: on a movie podcast called it Too Scary, Didn't Watch,
0:13
Speaker 1: and it is a lot of fun. And the basis
0:15
Speaker 1: of the episode basically is three very very funny women
0:20
Speaker 1: who one of them likes to watch horror movies and
0:23
Speaker 1: the other two hate to watch horror movies. So one
0:27
Speaker 1: of them watches them and then tells the other two
0:30
Speaker 1: about it, and it's really a lot of fun. It's
0:33
Speaker 1: become one of my favorite podcasts that I listened to,
0:36
Speaker 1: and I reached out to them and they were kind
0:38
Speaker 1: enough to have me on as a guest, so you
0:40
Speaker 1: get to hear me uh completely recap the horror movie
0:46
Speaker 1: or kind of edge of your seat thriller slash horror
0:50
Speaker 1: movie Don't Breathe. And I had a really great time
0:55
Speaker 1: on the show. They're wonderful, they're funny, and we had
0:58
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of laughs. So check out
1:01
Speaker 1: and just you know, subscribe as what I say, listen
1:04
Speaker 1: to Too Scary, Didn't Watch, and check out my episode
1:08
Speaker 1: on the movie Don't Breathe, which just came out a
1:11
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago. Alright, on with the show Welcome
1:16
Speaker 1: to Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
1:26
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck
1:28
Speaker 1: and Jerry's here too. Um, and that makes this stuff
1:32
Speaker 1: you should know, the anthropology edition. That's right. And I
1:38
Speaker 1: would argue our one to three maybe four Maya adjacent podcast. Well,
1:49
Speaker 1: we did the mind calendar. Yeah, the world ending in.
1:53
Speaker 1: I mean I think we did that back then, right,
1:56
Speaker 1: is right around that. That's the benefits of having a
1:59
Speaker 1: show run this line. I think we did that in
2:03
Speaker 1: That's what I mean, but leading up to Yeah, not
2:06
Speaker 1: after the fact, because that would be very us uh.
2:09
Speaker 1: And then of course we did our our episode where
2:12
Speaker 1: we traveled to Guatemala. It's sort of like our two
2:14
Speaker 1: part travel diary where Jerry spoke and um, you know,
2:19
Speaker 1: Guatemala is partially where the Mayan people lived and live.
2:26
Speaker 1: So maybe we should just start out by since I
2:28
Speaker 1: said lived and live, dispelling some myths. Well, hold on,
2:32
Speaker 1: we did another one last December. I believe did climate
2:36
Speaker 1: cause the fall of the Maya civilization? All right, so
2:40
Speaker 1: this is the fifth one, easily maybe I'm not sure
2:44
Speaker 1: I lost count since you were talking. Well, I was
2:47
Speaker 1: inspired because, as you know, I just recently took a
2:51
Speaker 1: trip to Kintana Rue in Mexico, and uh that saw
2:56
Speaker 1: some Mayan temples, and so there's a couple of episodes
2:59
Speaker 1: coming out of that rip because it was just one
3:00
Speaker 1: of those inspiring trips where you're you know, when you
3:04
Speaker 1: go someplace where your your endorphins are firing in your
3:07
Speaker 1: brain is doing things that usually doesn't do. Those are
3:10
Speaker 1: the best trips, you know, you come back. I wanted
3:13
Speaker 1: to eat different foods and talk about different things, and
3:16
Speaker 1: I love those trips wearing cats. I didn't get any clothes,
3:22
Speaker 1: but we did get Ruby a couple of really pretty
3:25
Speaker 1: traditional Mexican dresses. Oh that's cute. Does she like them?
3:28
Speaker 1: She loves them because they are colorful and have flowers
3:31
Speaker 1: embroidered and stuff. Yeah. So. Um. There are a lot
3:35
Speaker 1: of different groups that lived over the millennia in UM
3:39
Speaker 1: Mexico and Central America. UM, but the Maya stand out
3:44
Speaker 1: in particular for a number of reasons. Um. They had
3:48
Speaker 1: one of the most developed alphabets um or systems of
3:52
Speaker 1: writing ever in the ancient history of Central America. Or Mesoamerica. Yeah,
3:59
Speaker 1: they came up with zero independently, almost almost almost a
4:04
Speaker 1: thousand years before it was introduced to Europe. Not not
4:08
Speaker 1: the europe didn't come up with themselves like it was introduced,
4:11
Speaker 1: but they the Mayans figured it out independently. They also
4:15
Speaker 1: had some really top notch calendars, which we talked about
4:19
Speaker 1: in that one episode UM and that we're based on
4:22
Speaker 1: um really advanced astronomical observations. So they were. And then
4:27
Speaker 1: not to mention, they also have the romance of having
4:29
Speaker 1: like lost civilizations, like entire cities swallowed up by the
4:35
Speaker 1: jungle and lost for a thousand or more years. Those
4:38
Speaker 1: are that's like so Mayan, you know, so um. For
4:42
Speaker 1: all those reasons and more, they definitely kind of just
4:44
Speaker 1: stand out in a field of pretty interesting cultures. Uh,
4:49
Speaker 1: if I may say so, Yeah, I think that's why
4:52
Speaker 1: we keep going back to them. They just fascinate me
4:56
Speaker 1: the more I read about them. And uh, at some
4:59
Speaker 1: point I've heard it's a decent movie, but it's not
5:03
Speaker 1: the most accurate. But I was reminded today of the
5:05
Speaker 1: Mel Gibson directed film Apocalypto. Man, it's almost a snuff film, dude.
5:10
Speaker 1: I saw the one human sacrifice scene, and I'm like,
5:15
Speaker 1: it's awful. It's super realistic. Yeah, it's way too stantographic. Director.
5:22
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's like, yeah, he's super obsessed with violence.
5:25
Speaker 1: It's crazy. Have you seen we were heroes? No? But
5:30
Speaker 1: what I thought he did, Haxall Ridge, I don't know
5:32
Speaker 1: if you did or not. I know he definitely did.
5:34
Speaker 1: We were heroes about the early early day. We were heroes?
5:37
Speaker 1: Is that what it was called. Yeah, it was the
5:40
Speaker 1: early days of Vietnam and it's like brains blowing out
5:43
Speaker 1: onto the camera lens in front of the Ridge was
5:45
Speaker 1: supposed to be really violent too. It's just occurred to me.
5:48
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've seen any Mel Gibson directed film. Uh,
5:52
Speaker 1: we were heroes. No, we were soldiers. One of the two.
5:56
Speaker 1: It's Thanks for Soldiers. We were soldiers. Um meet me
6:00
Speaker 1: in St. Louis. I think that's the name of it.
6:05
Speaker 1: Super violent. But some of the myths we can dispel.
6:09
Speaker 1: First of all, I kind of teased one out that, um,
6:12
Speaker 1: the Maya are still around. That it's not like, you know,
6:16
Speaker 1: people talk about the fall of the Mayan civilization. It's
6:18
Speaker 1: not like a meteor came down and did the dinosaur
6:21
Speaker 1: treatment on them. There are still Maya today, and you know,
6:26
Speaker 1: some would argue that their civilization civilization didn't really collapse
6:29
Speaker 1: so much as just became sort of a uh, suburban
6:34
Speaker 1: sprawl in a way. Yeah. I mean a lot of
6:37
Speaker 1: them speak some of these ancient languages and tongues that
6:39
Speaker 1: have been around for a very long time. They carry
6:42
Speaker 1: on a lot of the ancient traditions that were passed down.
6:45
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's definitely inaccurate to say that the Mayan
6:49
Speaker 1: civilization just went away, just disappeared. It just dispersed instead,
6:54
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh. It is also incorrect to just say
6:58
Speaker 1: the Maya were this one sort of unified historic people
7:03
Speaker 1: that we can talk about as being one thing. Um,
7:06
Speaker 1: we're talking about a lot of different like dozens and
7:09
Speaker 1: dozens of cities and city states, um that you know,
7:15
Speaker 1: they had a lot in common. Sure, and they did
7:17
Speaker 1: trade with each other and did some of the same things,
7:20
Speaker 1: but they also were at war with each other almost constantly, um,
7:24
Speaker 1: between themselves. And you you can't just and we're talking
7:28
Speaker 1: about hundreds and hundreds of years like they're definite. They're different,
7:33
Speaker 1: very specific periods of Mayan culture and depending on when
7:37
Speaker 1: you're talking about some cities may be bigger than others,
7:40
Speaker 1: others maybe um not not quite as large yet. So
7:44
Speaker 1: you can't really just say I believe Libya helped us
7:48
Speaker 1: with this when I think she got from a website
7:52
Speaker 1: called Mexicolore with an E they said just saying the
7:56
Speaker 1: Maya is trying to invent a name for like the
7:59
Speaker 1: Free to the Italian, the Spanish and the Romanian people
8:02
Speaker 1: all is one. It's just there. They were not just
8:05
Speaker 1: one people, know, and they didn't see themselves as one people.
8:08
Speaker 1: They probably saw themselves as members or citizens of their
8:10
Speaker 1: particular city state. But the reason that we today and
8:14
Speaker 1: researchers and archaeologists who you know, investigated the Maya to
8:18
Speaker 1: begin with, considered them one group is for two reasons. One,
8:23
Speaker 1: they inhabited a really specific um geographical location covered southern Mexico, Guatemala,
8:30
Speaker 1: parts of Honduras, Sal Salvador, UH and Belize Peninsula specifically
8:36
Speaker 1: yeah um so and like in that area, not kind
8:40
Speaker 1: of spread out like that was the Maya's area UM.
8:44
Speaker 1: And Then number two, even though they consider themselves separate
8:48
Speaker 1: um and and not like members of the same whole
8:51
Speaker 1: group that inhabited the area. They exchanged, Like you said,
8:54
Speaker 1: they traded, they exchanged ideas, um, scientific breakthroughs art um.
9:00
Speaker 1: So their their culture to those of us on the outside,
9:03
Speaker 1: looks like one homogeneous, cohesive culture, when really it was
9:07
Speaker 1: a bunch of different cultures influencing one another and creating
9:10
Speaker 1: kind of this meticulture that we consider the Maya today. Right, UM.
9:15
Speaker 1: If you know, I talked about the different periods that
9:17
Speaker 1: we can talk about. The first one was the pre
9:21
Speaker 1: Classic period. Uh. And we'll talk a little bit about
9:24
Speaker 1: each of these, but the Classic period is going to
9:25
Speaker 1: be most of the focus. That's sort of the golden
9:28
Speaker 1: age of the Maya. Uh. But in the pre Classic period,
9:32
Speaker 1: this is where they started to um get involved in agriculture.
9:37
Speaker 1: They started to um cultivate through burning land. Uh. And
9:43
Speaker 1: you know, as we covered in the episode on UM,
9:46
Speaker 1: you know how they went away. I believe we talked
9:49
Speaker 1: about burning crops as being you know, a lot of
9:52
Speaker 1: people think that was significantly bad for them in the
9:55
Speaker 1: long run, um over a population to be sure, and
9:59
Speaker 1: eventual uh food shortage when they had food surplus for
10:02
Speaker 1: so long. But they started out as always with the
10:06
Speaker 1: three sisters growing those beans and maize and squash, and
10:12
Speaker 1: then the Middle Pre Classic we're talking about a thousand
10:15
Speaker 1: to three hundred, they started spreading out a little bit
10:19
Speaker 1: in that territory, the same territory that would eventually be
10:24
Speaker 1: like the classic most robust Mayan cultures UM. And they
10:29
Speaker 1: also at that time, in the Middle Pre Classic, about
10:33
Speaker 1: twenty three years ago, that's when they started to build
10:38
Speaker 1: like architecture, not the stuff that you would see in
10:41
Speaker 1: the classical period, but it was like the beginning of it,
10:43
Speaker 1: literally the foundation, because they actually started they built um
10:46
Speaker 1: new structures over old structures. But this is kind of
10:49
Speaker 1: where it was born. Yeah, and all this if it
10:52
Speaker 1: sounds like it's happening very organically, is because it did.
10:56
Speaker 1: Um Lvia is you know, points out that these these
11:00
Speaker 1: city centers, in these city states, it wasn't some and
11:03
Speaker 1: we we know now more than we ever had before.
11:05
Speaker 1: We got a lot of stuff wrong over the years,
11:07
Speaker 1: um science and archaeology, but we were pretty squared away
11:11
Speaker 1: at least, you know, we're up to date on the
11:14
Speaker 1: latest uh like truths about the Maya. But they think
11:18
Speaker 1: they used to think they were so organized they would
11:20
Speaker 1: plan out these cities, but they really sort of grew
11:23
Speaker 1: organically because they were good at what they did and
11:26
Speaker 1: they could really farm the heck out of the land
11:29
Speaker 1: and support a lot of people. So it just sort
11:31
Speaker 1: of happened organically. I mean, they clearly were a culture
11:34
Speaker 1: that knew a good idea when they saw it. So
11:36
Speaker 1: like an elevated highway, um causeway, it's wide and can
11:41
Speaker 1: afford a bunch of traffic between one city state to another.
11:44
Speaker 1: That's just a good idea. So if you build one that,
11:47
Speaker 1: there's the other city states can say what other city
11:50
Speaker 1: states can we link to? And before you know it,
11:52
Speaker 1: basically every city state and I think there were four
11:55
Speaker 1: great ones in total at the height of the Maya
11:57
Speaker 1: classical period, are connected by ways. So of course today
12:01
Speaker 1: it looks like, surely this was planned, some great centralized
12:05
Speaker 1: government planned this out and they must have been amazing. No,
12:09
Speaker 1: there's another way to do. It's almost like an emergent
12:11
Speaker 1: property of a hive mind. A bunch of people no
12:14
Speaker 1: good idea when they see it, and they put it
12:15
Speaker 1: to use, and over time it just builds up and
12:18
Speaker 1: up and up and becomes so complex that it looks
12:21
Speaker 1: to people that come later like it couldn't have possibly
12:24
Speaker 1: happened organically even though it did. That's right. Uh. And
12:28
Speaker 1: we've talked a little bit before about the size of
12:31
Speaker 1: these I guess, I mean people have called them empires
12:34
Speaker 1: for these civilizations. Um, there were about forty cities in total.
12:38
Speaker 1: I mean you said for within that there were all
12:41
Speaker 1: these smaller cities each of these And they're not sure
12:45
Speaker 1: so that the number ends up being a bit of
12:48
Speaker 1: a swing. But five thousand and fifty thousand people and
12:52
Speaker 1: total maybe up to fifteen million people. Uh. They've done
12:56
Speaker 1: studies that found I believe it was like double the uh,
13:00
Speaker 1: double the size of medieval England at the time. Uh
13:03
Speaker 1: and and farley more densely populated than medieval England, like
13:08
Speaker 1: legitimate cities. Yeah, did I say four. I meant to
13:11
Speaker 1: say forty. Oh did you say for No? I think
13:14
Speaker 1: you said I said for no. No No, No, you did
13:16
Speaker 1: say four. But I thought you just meant there were
13:18
Speaker 1: four main areas. There were at least forty great cities.
13:24
Speaker 1: That was what I was trying to say. I think
13:26
Speaker 1: he said for But yeah, we'll go. One of the
13:29
Speaker 1: things that made the city so striking, though, Chuck, was, um,
13:33
Speaker 1: the elaborate architecture, you know, and because it was all
13:37
Speaker 1: made from well not all of it, but a lot
13:39
Speaker 1: of it was made from cut limestone blocks, which, by
13:42
Speaker 1: the way, they used harder stones to cut the limestone
13:45
Speaker 1: because in the area that the maya Um occupied there's
13:49
Speaker 1: no metals that are easily accessible. Um. There are also
13:53
Speaker 1: no draft animals, so they did everything with like stones basically,
13:57
Speaker 1: and with human labor, not with animal labor. So um,
14:01
Speaker 1: what they did is all the more impressive when you
14:03
Speaker 1: realize that because they built these huge temples in huge
14:07
Speaker 1: pyramids that are just amazingly well designed and well built,
14:11
Speaker 1: so so much so that they still survive today. But
14:13
Speaker 1: then on top of it, when you start to investigate
14:16
Speaker 1: the way that they're oriented, you're like, oh, my goodness,
14:19
Speaker 1: each of these staircases is completely in line with each
14:22
Speaker 1: of the four cardinal directions. How do they do that? Um?
14:25
Speaker 1: Or if you stand on this one temple at Cheetz
14:27
Speaker 1: and itsa and you look at the other three temples,
14:30
Speaker 1: depending on whether it's a salstice or equinox, the other
14:33
Speaker 1: temples are in line with the rising sun. How did
14:35
Speaker 1: they do that? So yeah, So, in addition to just
14:37
Speaker 1: the visual amazement that you get, UM, the kind of
14:41
Speaker 1: intellectual amazement of how they were designed and implanned is
14:44
Speaker 1: even more impressive. Yeah, and you can stand on these
14:48
Speaker 1: things because they're still there. Uh. A lot of the
14:51
Speaker 1: civilization has gone now. But you know, if you go
14:54
Speaker 1: down to the Ukndam Peninsula and you visit to Loom
14:57
Speaker 1: or someplace like that, I highly encourage you to take
14:59
Speaker 1: one of those doors and go see these temples. Uh
15:03
Speaker 1: or well, we're not exactly sure what they were. We
15:06
Speaker 1: think that they're temples. Uh. Sometimes they are called palaces,
15:09
Speaker 1: but it's pretty clear from like the size of the
15:12
Speaker 1: rooms that they weren't for the hierarchy. You know, it
15:16
Speaker 1: was a very um, very hierarchical society. But they don't
15:21
Speaker 1: think like that the kings lived in these temples that
15:23
Speaker 1: are still, these pyramids that are standing. It was probably
15:26
Speaker 1: for ceremonies. Uh. This may have been where I guess
15:30
Speaker 1: we have to talk some about the ritual sacrifice. This
15:34
Speaker 1: is where a lot of that took place as well. Yeah,
15:36
Speaker 1: particularly the temples and the pyramids. Um, but they they Yeah,
15:42
Speaker 1: we should talk about sacrifice at some point in time.
15:45
Speaker 1: Will pepper it in? Okay, But the something you talked
15:48
Speaker 1: about I want to kind of flesh out a little
15:50
Speaker 1: more is the hierarchical society. So again, there wasn't some
15:55
Speaker 1: one great central government that organized all these city states.
15:59
Speaker 1: In some of the city states, not all, there was
16:02
Speaker 1: a strong centralized government, a leader of priestly class, a
16:06
Speaker 1: divine king or something who ruled over that city state
16:10
Speaker 1: with an iron fist and by divine right um and
16:13
Speaker 1: could say I'm going to kill your kid um, to
16:16
Speaker 1: sacrifice them for a bountiful harvest, for more rain or
16:20
Speaker 1: something like that. It was that that level of control,
16:23
Speaker 1: that level of hierarchy, and it was really rigid. But
16:26
Speaker 1: again to kind of underscore how each of these cities
16:29
Speaker 1: was kind of independent in its own kind of thing.
16:31
Speaker 1: Not all of them had a hierarchical structure like that. Yeah,
16:35
Speaker 1: And I think I think that's one reason they were.
16:39
Speaker 1: It seemed like I saw a couple of like documentary documentary, documentary,
16:44
Speaker 1: video high I am new to Earth, I'm new to YouTube. Uh.
16:52
Speaker 1: It seemed like they were always at war with one another.
16:57
Speaker 1: And I think that, Um, I think that was just
17:00
Speaker 1: sort of the nature of the hierarchy of these places,
17:02
Speaker 1: Like I feel like these it just seems like these
17:05
Speaker 1: kings were always at war with another king over something. Yeah,
17:10
Speaker 1: and apparently the first the first researchers who started to
17:14
Speaker 1: investigate the Maya. I think it started in eighteen thirties,
17:18
Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties when Westerners, when Europeans first started to well,
17:22
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that because the Spanish war
17:24
Speaker 1: aware of them. When say Western Europeans, this includes Spain, say, um,
17:29
Speaker 1: you are new to Earth to northern Europeans. How about
17:32
Speaker 1: the English? The English first stumbled upon you know, Mayan
17:37
Speaker 1: cities um. From from from that point on, for a
17:41
Speaker 1: very long time, researchers just assumed that the mines were
17:45
Speaker 1: this really advanced, intelligent, peaceful culture. Um. And it wasn't
17:52
Speaker 1: until later that we started to find more and more
17:54
Speaker 1: things like fortresses and battlements, um, defensive walls. Were like, oh,
18:00
Speaker 1: actually there was a lot of warfare. And then as
18:04
Speaker 1: we got to know more and more and cracked their language, UM,
18:08
Speaker 1: we're like, oh wow, this is a deeply violent group
18:11
Speaker 1: of of cultures that that really killed a lot of
18:15
Speaker 1: one another in some really brutal ways too. Right, But
18:19
Speaker 1: we did mention they also traded with one another. So
18:22
Speaker 1: what wasn't like there was just a guarantee that their
18:24
Speaker 1: closest neighbor they were going to do battle with. Um.
18:27
Speaker 1: They traded all kinds of things. They traded. Uh, it's
18:31
Speaker 1: an area very rich in jade apparently, obsidian UM. Obviously
18:36
Speaker 1: things that are a little more commonplace like salt, uh
18:39
Speaker 1: and and seeds and grains and things like that they
18:41
Speaker 1: would trade. But copper and jade and obsidian were sort
18:46
Speaker 1: of the money things that you would trade. And they traded,
18:50
Speaker 1: like you said at the beginning, they traded ideas and
18:53
Speaker 1: cultural ideas, and they traded art with one another. They
18:56
Speaker 1: had a lot of influence, and this was in one
18:59
Speaker 1: of the documentary videos that I saw on online. Uh,
19:05
Speaker 1: the Olmec civilization was somewhat was the civilization that they
19:09
Speaker 1: um really really borrowed from or not borrowed from. But
19:12
Speaker 1: we're influenced by I guess yeah. The Old Mec I
19:14
Speaker 1: was reading are considered one of six pristine civilizations, meaning
19:18
Speaker 1: they just grew up out of whole cloth. Um. They
19:21
Speaker 1: weren't influenced by other civilizations or other groups six, including
19:26
Speaker 1: I think the Um, like Sumerians, they think, maybe the Egyptians.
19:32
Speaker 1: I can't remember a few others UM, but the Old Yeah,
19:36
Speaker 1: the Old Mecher considered pristine civilization. That's pretty cool. Um,
19:42
Speaker 1: So I say we take a break and come back
19:45
Speaker 1: and talk about the religion and the science of the Maya.
19:48
Speaker 1: What do you think about that, Chuck, let's do it.
20:01
Speaker 1: So you mentioned religion and science, we'll talk about that now.
20:17
Speaker 1: Previous to the break, you mentioned the priestly class. From
20:21
Speaker 1: what I saw, the priestly class was basically the highest
20:25
Speaker 1: class under the ruling class. Uh. And and I guess
20:28
Speaker 1: in a lot of older civilizations that's sort of the case,
20:32
Speaker 1: is the religious leaders were I had so much influence
20:36
Speaker 1: and we're just under the king and had a lot
20:38
Speaker 1: of influence on the king as well. But there was
20:41
Speaker 1: that priestly class who organized these ceremonies in these rituals.
20:46
Speaker 1: They were the ones who developed the mathematical system and
20:49
Speaker 1: the astronomy that we talked about, and they were able
20:52
Speaker 1: to accomplish some pretty amazing things. Uh, not only with
20:57
Speaker 1: math in their alphabet, but with astronomy. They were able
21:00
Speaker 1: to accurately predict solar eclipses. And this is in I mean,
21:05
Speaker 1: I guess depending on which period you're talking about, like
21:08
Speaker 1: thousands of years ago. Well, I think we've entered the
21:10
Speaker 1: Classic period, which I think was from the second century
21:13
Speaker 1: to the ninth or tenth century CE. Okay, so that's
21:17
Speaker 1: when most of the astronomy and the math and sort
21:19
Speaker 1: of sciences were advanced. Yeah, but yes, but again for comparison,
21:23
Speaker 1: at this time, England is in smack in the middle
21:26
Speaker 1: of the dark ages um, while the my priestly class
21:31
Speaker 1: are predicting solar eclipses and can accurately tracks Venus is
21:35
Speaker 1: transit around the Sun. Um. So they use this information,
21:40
Speaker 1: this astronomical information, their ability to use math um, they're
21:45
Speaker 1: they're like extensive calendars. They use that for those rituals
21:49
Speaker 1: and for those um those like the to basically reinforce
21:54
Speaker 1: their priestliness like what we would recognize as mathematicians and
21:57
Speaker 1: astronomers today. Imagine if if you know, an astronomer said,
22:02
Speaker 1: you know, this comment is going to pass by Earth
22:04
Speaker 1: in two days. It's going to be amazing, and also
22:07
Speaker 1: the Sun God will be driving it like a chariot,
22:11
Speaker 1: so everybody don't leave your house that day, Like you're
22:16
Speaker 1: you're really on the money on one part of that, right,
22:19
Speaker 1: But I mean that that's kind of like what they're
22:21
Speaker 1: priestly class did they were right, but the interpretation was
22:24
Speaker 1: wildly different from you know what we interpret things as today. Yeah. Um,
22:29
Speaker 1: they had a solar calendar. And again we did a
22:31
Speaker 1: whole episode on the Mayan calendar, but it was very
22:33
Speaker 1: advanced for the time. Uh. They had eighteen months on
22:36
Speaker 1: their calendar, twenty days per month, with a five day
22:41
Speaker 1: unlucky period each month, which is pretty funny. No, I
22:44
Speaker 1: think that was every year there was a five day
22:46
Speaker 1: unlucky period. It was once a year, not once a month.
22:49
Speaker 1: I think so, I think so. I think I didn't
22:52
Speaker 1: do the math, Chuck, I'm no Mayan priestly class guy. Uh.
22:56
Speaker 1: And then they also had an overlapping calendar or two
23:00
Speaker 1: d in sixty day sacred calendar. This had thirteen cycles
23:05
Speaker 1: in twenty named days. And as we all know, in
23:09
Speaker 1: twelve it was the Mind's never said that the world
23:12
Speaker 1: was going to end in twelve. This was just internet
23:15
Speaker 1: hokum basically because their calendar was ending. Yeah. It wasn't
23:18
Speaker 1: like made up entirely from scratch like the old Mixed Civilization.
23:22
Speaker 1: It was based on like a misinterpretation, a misreading, uh,
23:26
Speaker 1: an exaggeration like in twelve the mind long count calendar
23:30
Speaker 1: like reset. It was a thing, and to the Maya
23:35
Speaker 1: that may have included some sort of apocalyptic thing, but um,
23:40
Speaker 1: it wasn't like the end of the world. It was
23:42
Speaker 1: like a resetting of the world order as we understand it,
23:46
Speaker 1: and that got turned into The World Is Ending starring
23:49
Speaker 1: John Cusack. Should we talk about the creation story? I
23:54
Speaker 1: think we should. It's pretty cool. Uh. There were a
23:58
Speaker 1: couple of sacred texts that's survived. As we'll see later,
24:02
Speaker 1: a lot of their written history was burned by Christian
24:05
Speaker 1: missionaries who said, you don't need that stuff anymore. You're
24:08
Speaker 1: gonna be like us, very sadly, but there are some
24:12
Speaker 1: texts and cotuses that survived. In a couple of them,
24:16
Speaker 1: the Popo Vu and the chill Um Bollum had these
24:21
Speaker 1: creation stories wherein there was a god of wind and
24:25
Speaker 1: sky called Hurricane Hurricane, and there was a ciba tree
24:30
Speaker 1: planted on the earth to create space between the earth
24:34
Speaker 1: and sky for people and animals and plants and things
24:37
Speaker 1: to grow. And humans came third after the plants and animals.
24:41
Speaker 1: But in the text it said that they were made
24:44
Speaker 1: out of mud. It's soundfamiliar, uh, And they could speak
24:49
Speaker 1: but could not think or move, which sounds like a
24:53
Speaker 1: lot of modern day Americans. Yeah, all they could say
24:56
Speaker 1: is please kill me. Uh. So the god said, oh,
25:00
Speaker 1: that's not good, so they destroyed them with water. Then
25:02
Speaker 1: they tried again, created a man from wood and woman
25:05
Speaker 1: from reeds, and they were sort of like functional humans evidently,
25:10
Speaker 1: but were immortal and didn't have souls. So the god said, well,
25:13
Speaker 1: that's no good. Yeah, that that'll do if you're made
25:18
Speaker 1: of well I guess I thought if they were made
25:21
Speaker 1: of mud that would do, but I guess wooden reeds
25:24
Speaker 1: boiling water would in their minds, that would kill them.
25:26
Speaker 1: It sounds more tortuous, but it didn't kill all of
25:28
Speaker 1: them because some people survive some of the reed and
25:31
Speaker 1: would people turned into monkeys also very interesting in terms
25:36
Speaker 1: of like evolutionary theory. Uh. And then finally they got
25:40
Speaker 1: it right in their minds. They created what we think
25:43
Speaker 1: of modern humans in their creation story from maize dough
25:48
Speaker 1: and their own blood. But then the gods thought, hey,
25:52
Speaker 1: there a little too scary smart, So they might threaten
25:56
Speaker 1: us one day, but we won't destroy them. We will
25:59
Speaker 1: just cloud their minds in their eyes and make them
26:02
Speaker 1: not as smart. And that's their creation story. Yeah, it's
26:06
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Yeah. Um. They they had a pantheon of
26:09
Speaker 1: gods um, much like the Greeks had um that were
26:13
Speaker 1: dedicated to like a sky god or rain god. Um.
26:17
Speaker 1: There were like more than one creator god um. It
26:21
Speaker 1: depends on what period of the Maya civilization you're talking about,
26:27
Speaker 1: which one was more important than another. One might be
26:29
Speaker 1: a little more important to one city state than another. Um.
26:32
Speaker 1: So they kind of just jockeyed in and out of importance.
26:35
Speaker 1: But they were still generally the same pantheon. And again,
26:39
Speaker 1: in addition to art and um and like other ideas,
26:44
Speaker 1: their religion was traded amongst themselves and with outside groups
26:47
Speaker 1: as well. That's right, Like they would trade God's right. Yeah,
26:52
Speaker 1: like I'll trade you a rookie shawl for eight eight
26:55
Speaker 1: tops cucko khan. Uh. This part this next are really
27:00
Speaker 1: sort of gets me going intellectually, is when we talk
27:04
Speaker 1: about their system of agriculture. Uh. They were great, great farmers. Um.
27:11
Speaker 1: You know, some say too great and that they over farmed.
27:13
Speaker 1: I guess that would make them that great farmers because
27:15
Speaker 1: I don't know about over farming, but they were really
27:18
Speaker 1: good at making things grow and and depending on where
27:22
Speaker 1: you were, which mind culture you were talking about. Uh,
27:25
Speaker 1: that was it could be very very dry if you
27:28
Speaker 1: weren't near water, if you were inland, and they have,
27:30
Speaker 1: you know, rainy season in your dry season. They have
27:33
Speaker 1: to contend with that dry season, and they did so
27:36
Speaker 1: by building these huge underwater cisterns that would collect enough
27:42
Speaker 1: water to basically last them about half of a year. Yeah. So,
27:46
Speaker 1: like every built structure was engineered so that anytime it
27:50
Speaker 1: rained during the rainy season, that water got channeled right
27:54
Speaker 1: into that underground cistern. And it wasn't just carved out
27:57
Speaker 1: of limestone, chuck. I mean it was they carved it
27:59
Speaker 1: out of a bedrock and then covered it up, but
28:02
Speaker 1: they also covered it with stucco so that it would
28:05
Speaker 1: be waterproof and could hold enough water to keep everybody
28:08
Speaker 1: going for the rest of the year. So cool. They
28:12
Speaker 1: had um aqueducts in one of the city's Uh. I
28:16
Speaker 1: would pronounce that pelink polink polink. Okay, you say that
28:24
Speaker 1: as if you know for sure I've heard the word before. Polink. Plus,
28:27
Speaker 1: it's fun. It's more fun to say than polink. That
28:30
Speaker 1: sounds like a Internet challenge from you know, several years ago. Yeah,
28:40
Speaker 1: it's really I don't know. I've never done an Internet challenge.
28:42
Speaker 1: I always think it's funny when they pop up. So
28:45
Speaker 1: the Polink challenge went away. But the Polink A they
28:48
Speaker 1: had a system of aqueducts and they actually I mean,
28:54
Speaker 1: in my mind, I don't know what the Chinese were doing.
28:56
Speaker 1: It seems like they invented everything. But in my mind,
28:58
Speaker 1: they created water pressure. They're the first people I heard
29:02
Speaker 1: of to create water pressure, right, using like a drop
29:05
Speaker 1: in elevation and a narrow conduit for yeah, and then
29:10
Speaker 1: little kids would just dance and play in front of it. No,
29:13
Speaker 1: that wastes the water. Um. There's also like great use
29:16
Speaker 1: of filtration to which is amazing if you think about it.
29:19
Speaker 1: But two cal Um they use zeolite and quartz zeolites
29:24
Speaker 1: kind of like a clay like silicate um and quarts
29:27
Speaker 1: as courts um. The thing is is neither one of
29:30
Speaker 1: those are found at too cal Um. They're found kind
29:34
Speaker 1: of far away, So they were purposefully put in their
29:37
Speaker 1: water reservoirs. Uh. And the reason why that's so impressive
29:42
Speaker 1: is because zeolite and quarts are used today to filter
29:46
Speaker 1: microbes out of water. Yeah, and they figured it out.
29:50
Speaker 1: They think probably they just realized that the natural aquifer
29:53
Speaker 1: around the zeolite cory tasted better, was clearer, that kind
29:58
Speaker 1: of thing. So they just quarried the zeolite and moved
30:01
Speaker 1: it over to their own reservoir. It's possible it's a
30:04
Speaker 1: pretty good gas. We just don't know for sure how
30:06
Speaker 1: they got the idea. We just know they didn't. Yeah,
30:09
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of it seems like just brilliant innovation,
30:12
Speaker 1: and a lot of it seems like just good common sense. Yeah,
30:16
Speaker 1: it really does. They knew a good idea when they
30:18
Speaker 1: saw one, that's right. They also had irrigation canals. Uh,
30:22
Speaker 1: they had tiered agriculture fields that were cut into the hills,
30:25
Speaker 1: so it would prevent erosion, it would prevent flooding, and
30:29
Speaker 1: water would just sort of drained down like a beautiful
30:31
Speaker 1: champagne fountain. Yeah. I mean, that's terraced farming, and that's
30:35
Speaker 1: been like invented multiple times by different cultures independently. It's
30:39
Speaker 1: just again a really good idea, wonderful idea. They also invented,
30:44
Speaker 1: or at least employed, raised beds for farming. Uh So
30:49
Speaker 1: if they're you know, they wanted to keep things a
30:51
Speaker 1: little dryer, they would build a raised beds and then
30:54
Speaker 1: you could still have wildlife underneath aquatic wildlife. Yeah, I
30:57
Speaker 1: think they were actually doing aquaculture too. They were raising
31:00
Speaker 1: the fish and the turtles, and that the swampy area
31:03
Speaker 1: next to that, next to the raised beds. Wonderful idea.
31:06
Speaker 1: So they also did what you mentioned before, slash and
31:09
Speaker 1: burns called milpa. It's where you take a section of rainforest, cut,
31:14
Speaker 1: cut it down, leave the vegetation in the trees in place,
31:17
Speaker 1: and burn them there, and then the resulting ash covers
31:21
Speaker 1: the dirt and you plant directly into the ashy dirt.
31:24
Speaker 1: You don't till the soil, and it's really really good
31:27
Speaker 1: at fertilizing um an area without any kind of inputs,
31:32
Speaker 1: certainly no fossil fuel based industrial inputs, and it keeps
31:36
Speaker 1: the land going for about two to three years. But
31:39
Speaker 1: then after that it gets depleted, which means that you
31:42
Speaker 1: have to take that plot of land and leave it
31:45
Speaker 1: fallow for about fifteen years. So if you do some
31:49
Speaker 1: pretty quick back of the envelope math, you have to
31:51
Speaker 1: have a tremendous amount of land to to cycle through
31:55
Speaker 1: so that you can leave each spot fallow for about
31:58
Speaker 1: fifteen years. They need a lot of land or very
32:01
Speaker 1: low population. And that's one of the reasons why some
32:04
Speaker 1: people say must have we must have covered it in
32:07
Speaker 1: our episode from back in December. But some people say
32:10
Speaker 1: that's what led to the clin of the Maya. They
32:13
Speaker 1: over farmed, they over slashed and burned. Their population got
32:16
Speaker 1: too big to support through slash and burn agriculture because
32:19
Speaker 1: it just requires too much land because of the fallow
32:22
Speaker 1: period you have to have. Was that December, I believe so.
32:28
Speaker 1: I mean, the years are running together these days. Crazy.
32:32
Speaker 1: I would have guessed that was seven years ago. I'm
32:34
Speaker 1: pretty sure it was December. Another thing that they did
32:39
Speaker 1: was sports ball. Yeah. I don't know what it is, Chuck,
32:43
Speaker 1: but talking about this particular game is always annoyed me.
32:48
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know, but I've always hated
32:51
Speaker 1: this game because we talked about it before we have Yeah,
32:55
Speaker 1: and plus, I mean it's a big anytime you talk
32:57
Speaker 1: about the Maya, you can't not talk about it. You know,
33:00
Speaker 1: why would it annoy you? I don't know, anno easy
33:04
Speaker 1: that they did it. It's just an annoying game. I
33:07
Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, well, they had a ball game, uh
33:11
Speaker 1: called either poc to poc or pocket talk. And you know,
33:15
Speaker 1: it's sort of like, I'm of the belief that most
33:18
Speaker 1: of these sports games are pretty similar soccer, hockey, basketball,
33:24
Speaker 1: American football. They they're all sort of the same, which
33:27
Speaker 1: is they sort of simulate war, like here's our side,
33:31
Speaker 1: here's your side. We're gonna try and go on your
33:33
Speaker 1: side and do something, and you're gonna try and come
33:35
Speaker 1: to our side and do something, and we're both going
33:38
Speaker 1: to try and prevent one another from doing that thing,
33:40
Speaker 1: whether it's putting a puck in a net or a
33:42
Speaker 1: soccer ball in a net, or a basketball in a hoop,
33:45
Speaker 1: or a football in an the end zone. And this
33:48
Speaker 1: may or may not take place during a ten cent
33:50
Speaker 1: beer night too. But they had a game all long
33:55
Speaker 1: window way of saying, they had sort of the proto
33:58
Speaker 1: version of this game where they have been able to
34:02
Speaker 1: sort of reconstruct how it might have been played, except
34:05
Speaker 1: they did not use these a little rubber ball that
34:08
Speaker 1: they used by mixing latex with juice from a morning
34:11
Speaker 1: glory vine to make it bounce here, and they wore
34:14
Speaker 1: padding like you would in football American football. That's news
34:17
Speaker 1: to me. I didn't realize that they were padding. Does
34:20
Speaker 1: that annoy you. It's okay, I'm neutral. Uh. And then
34:25
Speaker 1: the key here with this game, though, it makes it
34:27
Speaker 1: so different is uh, they didn't use their hands or
34:30
Speaker 1: their feet. They would use their mainly their hips, I think,
34:34
Speaker 1: but their elbows in their knees as well to move
34:37
Speaker 1: this ball until you, uh, in a very kidd itch
34:40
Speaker 1: like move, quidditch like move, throw it through two stone rings.
34:44
Speaker 1: You almost just got us torn to pieces. I'm really glad,
34:46
Speaker 1: I think yourself. Yeah, maybe it's them. It's quidditch, right, Yeah,
34:52
Speaker 1: so it's close quidditch. So maybe it's the use of
34:56
Speaker 1: the hips. It just seems really painful and that they
35:00
Speaker 1: should have been like this really hurts. Let's try our
35:02
Speaker 1: hands or our feet instead. It seems intuitive to use
35:06
Speaker 1: hand and feet. Yeah, and not hips. There's no other
35:09
Speaker 1: game in the history of games as far as I know,
35:11
Speaker 1: and I know a lot about games um that used
35:14
Speaker 1: the hips. Um, but it's twister they did, or maybe golf.
35:20
Speaker 1: It's all in the hips. M. I've been playing on
35:23
Speaker 1: golf again lately, Oh you have. Yeah, I got back
35:27
Speaker 1: into it after like a twenty year layoff. Oh that's right,
35:30
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, are you still loving it. I'm having fun.
35:33
Speaker 1: That's a lot of fun. Good way to spend some
35:35
Speaker 1: time with friends. That's what tiger Wood says, and he
35:39
Speaker 1: also says must dominate. All right, let's take a break
35:44
Speaker 1: and let's come back and talk about the supposed fall
35:49
Speaker 1: of the civilization right after this. Okay, So we talked
36:13
Speaker 1: about all these different periods, um and the end of
36:17
Speaker 1: the ninth century is typically considered the end of the
36:21
Speaker 1: Maya classical period, what you referred to earlier as the
36:24
Speaker 1: Golden Age of the Maya, and for a lot of
36:26
Speaker 1: people that equates with the fall of the Maya civilization.
36:30
Speaker 1: That was it. That's when their cities were abandoned and
36:34
Speaker 1: reclaimed by the jungle. That's when their ideas and thoughts
36:38
Speaker 1: and languages and culture were lost. And that was that
36:41
Speaker 1: was when the Maya became a loss civilization. And like
36:44
Speaker 1: we said at the outset, that's just not true. I mean,
36:46
Speaker 1: the Maya is still around today. But in addition to
36:50
Speaker 1: being more of a dispersal than a fall um, that
36:54
Speaker 1: didn't happen all at once to all of the Maya
36:57
Speaker 1: city depending on where you were the Maya territory. Some
37:01
Speaker 1: of those cities not only kept on going just fine.
37:04
Speaker 1: New ones were developed, like way after this this supposed
37:09
Speaker 1: fall of the Maya civilization. Yeah, which that's really interesting
37:14
Speaker 1: to me. In fact, we get Maya, I don't think
37:16
Speaker 1: we said from Maya Pan, which was one of the
37:20
Speaker 1: last ones, and that was founded in twelve sixty three.
37:23
Speaker 1: So this was after the supposed you know, fall of
37:26
Speaker 1: the Mayans and the classic period um one of them.
37:30
Speaker 1: In fact, the last one to fall, which is in
37:32
Speaker 1: modern i Guatemala today, was almost in the eighteenth century.
37:36
Speaker 1: It was in six when the Spanish finally took the
37:40
Speaker 1: final um Mayan city basically, and we mentioned the Spanish
37:45
Speaker 1: because they were, uh, they were the big reason why
37:49
Speaker 1: things stopped. It wasn't. I mean, there was a dispersal
37:52
Speaker 1: for sure, But when the Spanish came and the Christian
37:55
Speaker 1: missionaries came is when things got really ugly. And they
38:00
Speaker 1: basically said, we're going to squash your culture, We're going
38:03
Speaker 1: to take away your language, we're going to burn your
38:05
Speaker 1: written history, and you're going to be like us now right,
38:10
Speaker 1: you're gonna be Roman Catholic and you're gonna like it um.
38:13
Speaker 1: And as we learned in Guatemala, um the modern Maya
38:19
Speaker 1: uh and the Maya. From this colonial period, UM got
38:22
Speaker 1: into syncretism, which is where they took their original traditional
38:27
Speaker 1: religion and meshed it with the forced upon them Roman Catholicism,
38:33
Speaker 1: so that they associated saints with specific deities like Um, Mashamo,
38:39
Speaker 1: the the may A deity who helped me quit smoking. Yeah,
38:42
Speaker 1: good old Mashamo. Yeah, he was associated with St. Simon,
38:46
Speaker 1: and you would go to him and say, I have
38:48
Speaker 1: this vice I need to I need to get rid of.
38:50
Speaker 1: Please help me Mashamo. You give him a cigarette and
38:52
Speaker 1: some I think maniac root wine or liquor, and uh
38:57
Speaker 1: light a candle and he would take care of you.
39:00
Speaker 1: I forgot all about Mashamo. Oh how could you? That
39:03
Speaker 1: was one of the Yeah, that was a long time ago.
39:07
Speaker 1: And uh we obviously shout out our friends at co ED, Uh,
39:12
Speaker 1: the charity organization that we've been working with for years
39:15
Speaker 1: who got us down there to begin with. So just
39:18
Speaker 1: go check out their their work and uh sponsor a kid,
39:22
Speaker 1: give them a access to books and education. Yep, co
39:25
Speaker 1: ED you see dot org right, Yeah, go check them out. Um.
39:30
Speaker 1: So you said that the Spanish missionaries, the Franciscans in particular, um,
39:35
Speaker 1: were the ones who came in after the leading tip
39:38
Speaker 1: of the spear, the conquistadors who would come in slaughter
39:42
Speaker 1: a bunch of people, subjugate them, and then the Franciscans
39:44
Speaker 1: would come in and rebuild them in the European style
39:48
Speaker 1: and voiced you know, um, the Spanish language on them,
39:52
Speaker 1: Roman Catholicism on them, um. And that the Maya kind
39:56
Speaker 1: of adapted with syncretism, right. But one of the big
39:59
Speaker 1: ways you you get rid of somebody's culture getting rid
40:02
Speaker 1: of their writing. And I think you said it earlier,
40:05
Speaker 1: but the Franciscans burned almost all almost every book as
40:10
Speaker 1: far as we know, except four of those codices were burned,
40:15
Speaker 1: destroyed by Spanish missionaries in the colonial period when they
40:19
Speaker 1: were trying to subjugate and convert the Maya um. Which
40:23
Speaker 1: is extraordinarily sad because it just makes you wonder how
40:27
Speaker 1: much history and and cosmological thought was just totally lost
40:31
Speaker 1: forever through that. Yeah. I mean they wrote a lot
40:34
Speaker 1: of books, uh. And those codices were made from fig
40:38
Speaker 1: tree bark and they were folded accordion style, and you
40:42
Speaker 1: can there's some of that stuff that's that's carved into
40:44
Speaker 1: monuments that you can still see, uh, some of us
40:47
Speaker 1: painted on walls and pottery that you can still see
40:50
Speaker 1: that survived. But just those four, uh survived and these
40:55
Speaker 1: were basically post just after the end of the Classic period. It.
41:00
Speaker 1: So there is good stuff in there about you know,
41:02
Speaker 1: prophecies and medicine and their history and astronomy and science
41:06
Speaker 1: or religious rituals and stuff like that. But again, like
41:10
Speaker 1: you said, I mean, like who knows how much we
41:12
Speaker 1: would understand if if they hadn't have just torched everything.
41:15
Speaker 1: Well so, and then the surviving stuff, um, the surviving
41:18
Speaker 1: writing and the hieroglyphics that mayan Um system of writing
41:22
Speaker 1: that was so developed, Um, it wasn't cracked until uh,
41:27
Speaker 1: not that many years ago, I think the twenty one century.
41:30
Speaker 1: And there's a really great nova Um episode on PBS
41:34
Speaker 1: called Cracking the Maya Code. And it's just almost like
41:37
Speaker 1: this thriller where like a group of like linguists got
41:40
Speaker 1: together and um figured out you know what it meant
41:44
Speaker 1: without a Rosetta stone, nothing like that. They just had
41:47
Speaker 1: to make conclusions and assumptions, and um, they finally figured
41:52
Speaker 1: it out. But um, one of the other things that
41:55
Speaker 1: happened to one of the remaining kind of bits of
41:59
Speaker 1: written information was on the hieroglyphics stairway at Copon. Another
42:04
Speaker 1: great city, one of the temples Chuck was a pyramid
42:09
Speaker 1: and it had the staircase and the staircase was made
42:12
Speaker 1: of limestone blocks with hieroglyphics carved into it that told
42:15
Speaker 1: the story. But unfortunately, the first archaeologists who excavated it
42:19
Speaker 1: back in disassembled the staircase to examine it, and when
42:24
Speaker 1: they put it back together again, I guess they realized
42:27
Speaker 1: that they hadn't noted where it was originally, so they
42:30
Speaker 1: put it out of order. So whatever it was trying
42:33
Speaker 1: to say is lost to history forever thanks to archaeologists.
42:37
Speaker 1: And they said, it says there's a lady who knows
42:40
Speaker 1: all that glitters is gold, and as she winds on
42:44
Speaker 1: down the road, and they're like, no, no, it's all
42:47
Speaker 1: out of order. There's something about a bustle in your
42:49
Speaker 1: headgerow that doesn't make any sense. It still doesn't make sense. Uh.
42:55
Speaker 1: The um colonial period that came much much later, the
43:00
Speaker 1: agenous languages were um discourages. One way to say it
43:04
Speaker 1: kind of squashed is another way. Uh. And then finally
43:07
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies and eighties, there was a revival
43:11
Speaker 1: of the Maya and Guatemala to basically say, you know,
43:15
Speaker 1: our language is important, our cultural rights as indigenous people
43:20
Speaker 1: are important, and they made some concessions. They're they're not
43:24
Speaker 1: officially believe Guatemala still has not accepted any of the
43:29
Speaker 1: indigenous languages as official co languages like it does with Spanish,
43:34
Speaker 1: but uh, they are acknowledged, they're part of the national
43:38
Speaker 1: identity and Guatemala and I believe that you can receive
43:43
Speaker 1: public services in your native language, in indigenous tongue, even
43:46
Speaker 1: though they're not official languages. They still guarantee that. Yeah,
43:50
Speaker 1: that's really something. And that also actually comes after a genocide.
43:53
Speaker 1: There was a genocide against the Maya by the Guatemalan army,
43:57
Speaker 1: which presumed that the typical indig and it's Maya in
44:01
Speaker 1: Guatemala supported the guerrillas in the late seventies early eighties,
44:06
Speaker 1: and something like two hundred thousand Maya indigenous Maya were killed,
44:10
Speaker 1: uh in nineteen between nineteen eight and ninety three, and
44:14
Speaker 1: another one and a half million um just disappeared and
44:18
Speaker 1: are presumed to have been killed. And they keep finding
44:20
Speaker 1: like mass graves that that definitely underscore the fact that
44:24
Speaker 1: they were killed. So almost two million people were killed
44:28
Speaker 1: in three years in tiny little Guatemala um. So so
44:32
Speaker 1: much so that like there was a substantial hit to
44:35
Speaker 1: the Maya population in that country. Um, but they managed
44:39
Speaker 1: to hang on and stay around and maintain links to
44:42
Speaker 1: their you know traditions still. Yeah, I mean, if you
44:46
Speaker 1: go there today, you will see uh traditional mind people. Sometimes.
44:51
Speaker 1: Uh the women might be wearing to the traditional clothing,
44:53
Speaker 1: which is beautiful. Uh. Eat some of that food, is
44:58
Speaker 1: my advice. Sit down with some of them, have a
45:02
Speaker 1: conversation if you can. I guess we should finish up
45:07
Speaker 1: with a little bit about human sacrifice instead of that
45:11
Speaker 1: lovely note. Ye. So there's a great article in the
45:14
Speaker 1: Economists called who did the Maya Sacrifice? And there was
45:17
Speaker 1: another one in Reuters called Ancient Maya Sacrifice Boys not
45:22
Speaker 1: Virgin Girls colon study. But there was this you know
45:27
Speaker 1: notion that I mean, sacrifice happened in numerous ways. There
45:33
Speaker 1: was blood letting. Sometimes. There was the ball game that
45:36
Speaker 1: we spoke of. A lot of times they would play
45:38
Speaker 1: the game against another city state and someone in that
45:42
Speaker 1: city state would die if they lost and be sacrificed. Uh.
45:46
Speaker 1: Sometimes they would sacrifice children like you spoke of. They
45:51
Speaker 1: would uh throw them in the sootes which are the
45:54
Speaker 1: swam in them when I was in Mexico, and it's
45:57
Speaker 1: an amazing experience, but UM, to know that that kind
46:00
Speaker 1: of thing happened there is a little sobering, to say
46:02
Speaker 1: the least. But the underground, you know, pools uh in
46:06
Speaker 1: these caves and uh, there's no way getting around it.
46:09
Speaker 1: You know, they sacrifice people, and so they you know,
46:13
Speaker 1: they definitely did it with uh when at war, they
46:16
Speaker 1: would a lot of times sacrifice someone from another city
46:20
Speaker 1: state to sort of appease the gods and not their own.
46:23
Speaker 1: But they thought, maybe we can find out, um, who
46:25
Speaker 1: these people were. And there's a lot of gobbady cookie
46:29
Speaker 1: science that we won't get into and how they did it.
46:33
Speaker 1: But they looked at their at these uh at teeth
46:37
Speaker 1: and from examining the teeth in the isotopic ratios, they're
46:41
Speaker 1: able to basically determine where people came from depending on
46:45
Speaker 1: uh the enamel of their teeth. And what they ended
46:47
Speaker 1: up finding out was what they called it was anywhere
46:51
Speaker 1: and everywhere where Who these people were. There were half
46:54
Speaker 1: of them were locals, about a quarter were from some
46:58
Speaker 1: distance others from hundreds of kilometers away, and they were, uh,
47:04
Speaker 1: you know, there were children, there were boys, there were girls,
47:07
Speaker 1: there were adults. It was sort of all over the map.
47:09
Speaker 1: So I think they were hoping for sort of like
47:11
Speaker 1: a tidy little answer there and they did not get one. No,
47:15
Speaker 1: But didn't they say that it was ultimately mostly younger boys,
47:20
Speaker 1: like teenage boys. Well that was that was the Reuters study,
47:24
Speaker 1: and that was um when they would specifically, I think,
47:28
Speaker 1: throw children in the sontes to call for rain. I
47:33
Speaker 1: think they used to think that those were, uh, they
47:35
Speaker 1: sacrificed virgin girls. And what they found out that was
47:38
Speaker 1: because I think they had ja jewelry and things like that.
47:41
Speaker 1: But they said no, they found out that they were
47:43
Speaker 1: in fact mostly young boys, right, And they would throw
47:46
Speaker 1: them in the semeotes because those were considered portals to
47:50
Speaker 1: the underworld and they were sacrificing not just for rain,
47:54
Speaker 1: but also just to keep things going. Like they they
47:56
Speaker 1: believed that the gods were nourished by human blood, and
48:00
Speaker 1: by sacrificing humans, the sun would come up, crops would grow,
48:05
Speaker 1: night would come and turn into day again. Um, like
48:08
Speaker 1: the world would just keep functioning as a as a
48:11
Speaker 1: matter of nourishing the gods with human blood. Yeah. I mean,
48:14
Speaker 1: it's definitely something to keep in mind when you go
48:18
Speaker 1: to tour and swim in a soote. It's a you
48:20
Speaker 1: should always sort of respectfully think about that kind of stuff.
48:23
Speaker 1: I think. And don't look down. Don't look down, you're
48:27
Speaker 1: down already. Don't look up. That's where the bats are.
48:30
Speaker 1: Did you go scuba diving in it? No? Uh, we
48:34
Speaker 1: went on a great tour and ended up being just
48:36
Speaker 1: the three of us and this one other woman is
48:38
Speaker 1: very nice lady from Dallas. Uh, And we were the
48:41
Speaker 1: only ones down there, and our guide was this awesome dude,
48:44
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, you just it's like caving. You
48:47
Speaker 1: go deeper and deeper and deeper about in knee deep
48:50
Speaker 1: in water this cool, beautiful, perfectly clear water with blind
48:55
Speaker 1: fish all around you. Uh. And then you get to
48:57
Speaker 1: the sort of the swimming hole part. Uh. There are
49:00
Speaker 1: others not taste down there that you can scuba dive
49:03
Speaker 1: in and zip line in and the inner tube and
49:05
Speaker 1: there's tons and tons of people, but this one was
49:08
Speaker 1: way off the beaten path and very quiet and very
49:11
Speaker 1: private and uh, more of a historical educational type of
49:14
Speaker 1: tour was great. Yeah, a little in fact that may
49:17
Speaker 1: invented the zip line so that they could zip line
49:20
Speaker 1: in the scene note taste. But he gave us these
49:23
Speaker 1: um waterproof flashlights. You know, it's our way around. And
49:26
Speaker 1: I was floating. He gave us about thirty minutes just
49:29
Speaker 1: to sort of swim and float in this one main
49:31
Speaker 1: swimming cavern. Uh. And it's they electrified it down there.
49:35
Speaker 1: They had these colored lights. It was really spectacular. But
49:38
Speaker 1: I was laying there and I was floating, and I
49:40
Speaker 1: saw these big sort of look like portals. There's these
49:42
Speaker 1: little indentations in the ceiling above me, and I was like, oh,
49:46
Speaker 1: I wonder what's in those? And it turned on the
49:49
Speaker 1: light and it was like twenty bats just hovered and
49:53
Speaker 1: sort of shaking and shivering together. Uh. And yet there
49:57
Speaker 1: is no more natural instinct than to get out from
50:00
Speaker 1: under that hole. Like a bat's gonna just fall on you. Like, no,
50:04
Speaker 1: they fly, he kind of. But your instinct is like
50:07
Speaker 1: every time one of us walked under one was like, oh,
50:09
Speaker 1: I don't want to be under that, right. Yeah, it's
50:12
Speaker 1: very cool though, Yeah, ah, you got anything else? I
50:16
Speaker 1: got nothing else? Well, Chuck's got anything else. I don't
50:19
Speaker 1: have anything else, and since uh that's the case, it's
50:21
Speaker 1: time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this our
50:27
Speaker 1: second kidney donation email. We did one in our last
50:33
Speaker 1: episode we just recorded, and this one is from a
50:35
Speaker 1: kidney donor and it's pretty great. Uh. He discovered our
50:39
Speaker 1: podcast six years ago and said, about seven years ago,
50:43
Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to sign up to donate my
50:45
Speaker 1: kidney to a stranger. I was fortunate enough to be
50:48
Speaker 1: a universal donor. Our blood type was a match, and
50:51
Speaker 1: the ride started. It took blood work every two weeks
50:54
Speaker 1: for four months to get cleared. I met the recipient
50:57
Speaker 1: and his family. They had two young kids, so it
51:00
Speaker 1: made my decision that much easier and I would do
51:02
Speaker 1: it again in a heartbeat. Some interesting facts the remaining
51:07
Speaker 1: the remaining kidney can grow up to larger to make
51:10
Speaker 1: up for the missing friend. I don't think we said that. No,
51:13
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I was also curious at the
51:16
Speaker 1: time how they decided which one to take. They scoop
51:19
Speaker 1: out the one that has the longest yurager because it
51:22
Speaker 1: makes for an easier transplant. Uh. Here's another one. One
51:27
Speaker 1: part was not mentioned is the six inch incision at
51:31
Speaker 1: the waistline where the surgeon reaches in almost elbow deep
51:36
Speaker 1: to grab the kidney. Isn't that something? Yes, he very
51:43
Speaker 1: very clean arms. He said he made the mistake to
51:46
Speaker 1: watch a video surgery video after he had it done. Yeah,
51:50
Speaker 1: it's probably, he said, Now that I'm a living donor,
51:54
Speaker 1: I'll be at the top of the waiting list of
51:55
Speaker 1: ever needing a kidney. I'm not sure if this is
51:58
Speaker 1: the case everywhere, but would help others, uh, if it
52:01
Speaker 1: would help others that are on the fence about it
52:02
Speaker 1: to know that. Uh. And our seven year transplant anniversaries
52:06
Speaker 1: in May, so I had to write in and give
52:09
Speaker 1: kudos for the great episode. And that is from Shane
52:12
Speaker 1: Green and Candy and New Hampshire and Shane. We usually
52:17
Speaker 1: don't do shout outs, but I think the rule now
52:19
Speaker 1: is if you'd give a kidney, then you get some
52:22
Speaker 1: shout outs. Because Shane wrote back after I said he
52:25
Speaker 1: was going to be on listener mail and said, UH,
52:28
Speaker 1: please shout out the Dartmouth Hitchcock Transplant team. Please shout
52:32
Speaker 1: out Donate Life, which helped pay for Shane's bills while
52:36
Speaker 1: he was out for five weeks. UH, and most importantly
52:39
Speaker 1: my family that backed me up, my lovely wife Bree
52:43
Speaker 1: and my daughter. Maybe we are all listeners and our
52:46
Speaker 1: anniversary is coming up soon. So as from Shane Green,
52:50
Speaker 1: he sent a picture of him and Big Mo, his
52:53
Speaker 1: transplant friend. He was six ft six that's why they
52:58
Speaker 1: call him Big Mo. And it's just a great story.
53:01
Speaker 1: It's amazing you did that, Shane. Yeah, Shane, way to go.
53:04
Speaker 1: You definitely get shouts out any time for that, just
53:07
Speaker 1: right in next time you're like, I'm in the move
53:09
Speaker 1: for a shout out. Yeah. If you want to add
53:13
Speaker 1: a nice cheese steak the other day, right exactly. Um,
53:16
Speaker 1: if you want to be in touch with us, like
53:18
Speaker 1: Shane didn't let us know something amazing you did, we
53:21
Speaker 1: might give you a shout out to who knows? You
53:23
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeart
53:26
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
53:31
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
53:35
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
53:38
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.