Ch'ol Blog 2011, No. 1

Dear friends here we are back on our blog. Sorry for the prolonged silence but we had a busy time.
So combing back I decided to share a new idea I recently has reading once again a great book of a friend of mine called "Continuity and Change in Text and Image at Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico". While describing the texts of the Chilam B'alam I noticed that the expressions used in the text for "Great Decent" and "Small Decent" are maybe actually not well understood since the sixteenth century. 
You'll ask what does Ch'ol has to do with Yucatan... well in this case it is at least a good introduction to the expressions used for left and right in Ch'ol. 
These two directions are called ñoh k'öb' for right and tz'eh k'ób' for left. The reason for this comes from the way the ancient Maya understood their world. North and south are for us above and down while East and West right and left. The Maya saw (and still see) all this turned by 90°. For them South is right and North is left. Actually ñoh k'öb' for right and tz'eh k'ób' for left mean right hand and left hand.

Now the interesting thing is that the  "Great Decent" (Noh emal) and "Small Decent" (Tz'e emal) came one from the south west and the other from B'akalar or better the south east. 
Now what happens if you sit in Yucatan and you want to tell me that these folks where coming from over there (the south) the croud that came with the "Small Decent" (Tz'e emal) would come from you Left Hand Side, while those coming  "Great Decent" (Noh emal) would come from the Right Hand Side!

Yes, exactly like in Ch'ol! So since David Stuart proved that Noh k'ab' and Tz'eh k'ab where around already in Classic time... I'd say that this is what is meant with Noh emal and Tz'e emal, it's the people that come from the right side and those that came from the left. 

Stick around, there will be more Ch'ol news in these days.....