Barbara Tedlock has produced a work that will be required reading for Mayanists and that should also be of interest to nonspecialists. In this study of Highland Maya horology, she explores the calendrical concepts of the Quiché Maya of Momostenango in relation both to pre-Hispanic ideas about time and to a contemporary system of divination. The author and her anthropologist-husband were initiated as diviners and dream interpreters in 1976. This experience, which Tedlock likens to an ethnomusi-cologist’s learning to sing or play an alien music, gives her a special perspective on the “practice” underlying the conceptual system.
Following a brief history of the Quiché, Tedlock relates the details of her apprenticeship as a “daykeeper” (ajk’ij), which included discussing dreams, memorizing prayers, and manipulating the diviner’s seeds and crystals, as well as intensive training in counting and interpreting the days of the divinatory calendar. The fact that this 260-day cycle is not fully described until later in the book causes some confusion here, but Tedlock argues convincingly that the divinatory calendar has no “first day” and that divination always “takes account” of the current Mayan solar year. She dispels the myth that the 260-day calendar is “shamanic” while the solar calendar is “priestly” and seriously questions the use of these terms as polar opposites, pointing out that the Quiché “daykeeper” is better described as a “shamanic priest.”
Chapters 5, 6, and 7 are the heart of the book. Tedlock first reviews the 20 day names, describing the mnemonic phrases associated with each and telling how these phrases are used, together with the 13 day numbers, to answer questions about ritual, health, finance, and marriage. Each number plus day name (e.g., 7 Aj, 13 lx) has several possible meanings and each is associated with rituals at a particular class of shrines. Day names also carry generalized fortunes for those born on them, like our popular astrology; however, there are no exclusively lucky or unlucky days. The “face” of a day can always be modified by ritual, and a warning—if heeded—can be turned to a favorable outcome.
Chapter 6 describes the shamanic use of the “speech” of the blood, i.e., internal sensations that are conceptually allied to sheet lightning over a holy lake. According to their locations in the body and direction of movement, these sensations give the diviner information about past and future events, and they indicate appropriate curative or expiatory rituals. This practice is not the same as the “pulsing” that has been described for other Highland Maya groups, and Tedlock’s comparative observations will be of interest to medical anthropologists. She also describes the micro- and macroscopic correspondences between the human body and the Quiché universe as these relate to temporal concepts.
Chapter 7 brings all these elements together. The careful reader will be able to follow the interaction of divining procedures (grasping and sorting sacred seeds and crystals into piles) with the 260-day calendar as the shaman-priest attempts to answer specific questions while attending to the indications given by movements of his or her blood. All these features, and dreams as well, join to produce the “understanding” (ch’obonic) that enables the diviner to give advice. Quiché understanding, Tedlock argues, is dialectical rather than dualistic, for the key terms encompass and flow into one another just as one day influences the next and as one casting of lots modifies another. She terms this a pattern of “imbrication” (p. 177), and discusses its appearance in other parts of Quiché culture.
In this brief space I can only hint at some of the other interesting aspects of the book, e.g., the suggestion that Mesoamerican “syncretism” may often have been quite deliberate, the implications of divinatory mnemonics for Mayan epigraphy, or the questioning of Victor Turner’s distinction between divination and revelation (a discussion that I do not find entirely convincing). Time and the Highland Maya is a seminal book that should arouse considerable controversy. Tedlock has certainly clarified some important aspects of Quiche horology and shown it to be part of a larger cultural configuration.
This is a cultural study rather than an individual account, but if the author had taken (or been allowed) another 50 pages, one would appreciate a stronger sense of the individual reality of her subjects. Even the examples of divination are highly generalized, and one misses a feeling for the character of the diviners or their clients, despite the numerous fine photographs. Tedlock surely has this information, and perhaps she will publish it elsewhere. For now, we must be thankful for this clearly written and well-produced account of a system of thought that is both coherent and beautiful.
