Yesterday, my latest book on the Mayans arrived from Amazon--The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel--it is a translation of a book written by a Mayan prophet, Chilam, around the end of the 15th century. For someone fascinated with Mayan culture as I am, this looks like it will be a somewhat difficult, but worthwhile read.
The first thing I have noticed in the book is the description of the four sacred colors. According to the Mayans, red represents east, white-north, black-west and yellow-south. After I read that, I remembered that the native American Indians also had four sacred colors and I began to wonder if there were any similarities. A little bit of research has brought up these facts: For the Navajo, white-east, black-north, yellow-west and blue-south. So none of those match up...For the Apache, white-north, yellow-east, green-south and black-west so two of these directions and colors are the same for the Apaches and Mayans of white-north and black-west...For the Cherokee, blue-north, white-south, red-east and black-west which means two of the four colors also match for the Cherokees and Mayans of red-east and black-west.
I think it's fascinating that these groups of people who lived thousands of miles apart still had something in common like their sacred colors. What it means if anything, I don't know but it intrigues me nonetheless.
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