HOME / INITIATIVES / HISTORICAL WORK / ELEVATING OBSERVERS OF THE NIGHT SKY / EONS RESOURCES /

Abya Yala

Wolbach Library staff have begun collaborating with UNAM Boston and the Instituto de Astronomía to expand on the content provided below and to connect with Indigenous communities whose perspectives on the night sky have traditionally been overshadowed in contemporary discourse about astronomical pursuits. We look forward to sharing new information from that collaboration in the near future.

Names Matter

Presently, there is an ongoing cultural movement amongst Indigenous communities and groups who descend from Indigenous cultures across the Americas to reconnect with their ancestral heritage and cultural identities to help rectify the harm that colonialism and neocolonialism have inflicted on their communities. Part of this movement involves acknowledging their colonized homelands by their ancestral names.
 

Abya Yala

  • Abya Yala is used today by Indigenous ethnic communities in North and South America to refer to the landmasses generally known as the Americas/America. 
  • Abya Yala is a term derived from the Guna language of the Kuna people Indigenous to Panama and Colombia translating to “land of fertile blood.” 
  • Although exclusively originating within the Indigenous Kuna people of Panama and Colombia, Abya Yala is also used by several contemporary Indigenous peoples such as the Mapuche of Chile, the Quechua of Peru, and the Mexica of Mexico.
  • Anahuac
    • Anahuac refers to the south-central valley region of Mexico, the heartland of the Aztec Empire.
    • Anahuac is a term derived from the Nahuatl language of the Mexica Aztecs, meaning "The Land Between the Waters."
    • Anahuac was the origin of the Nahua tribal civilizations, including the Mexica (Nahua Aztec)
      • Before the Mexica established their civilizations in present-day Mexico, the neighboring regions of southern Mexico, Guatelama, and Belize were home to the Maya civilization. and before the Maya, the Olmec.

Celestial Mythology Snapshots

The cultures of the Mexica, Maya, and Olmec civilizations, in the geographic areas of present-day Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, have all maintained and recorded culturally significant mythologies related to their respective religious and cultural practices. Although each of these civilizations is distinct and existed at different periods before Spanish colonization in the early 16th century, some of their cultural and ancestral cosmologies contained similar themes and characterizations of sacred deities.

K'iche Maya

  • The K'iche Maya civilization of present-day Guatemala conceptualizes the Milky Way galaxy as an underworld realm called Xibalba, the "Place of Fright." 
    • Xibalba is described as the domain of a group of Maya deities called the Lords of the Underworld.
  • The Popol Vuh, a sacred Maya text, contains various legends surrounding the mythos of the K'iche Maya civilization; several of these stories describe various Maya deities who often represented celestial phenomena, such as the legend of the Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque who respectively represent the Sun and Moon, sky and Earth, and day and night.
     
Junajpu and Xbalanq´e. Painted by Lacambalam. Motif taken from an ancient Maya ceramic.
Hero Twins, Lacambalam.

Mexica

  • Quetzalcoatl (Kulkucan to the Maya) was an Aztec god known as the “Feathered Serpent” who symbolized death and resurrection.
    •  Quetzalcoatl together with his twin brother Xolotl (the dog-headed god of fire and lightning), represented the planet Venus.
  • According to mythology, Quetzalcoatl‘s nemesis was Tezcatlipoca, the god of jaguars (whose spots symbolized the starry sky), obsidian, night, and the Earth.
    • Tezcatlipoca tricked Quetzalcoatl into getting drunk and committing sinful acts, forced Quetzalcoatl to look upon himself in his obsidian mirror, and banished him from his kingdom in the city-state of Tula.
    • Stricken with deep shame and regret, Quetzalcoatl lit a pyre and committed suicide, after which his ashes and his heart ascended to the heavens and he fully transformed into the deity Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, who solely represents the morning star, Venus.
  • Mexica Asterism examples

Current and Future Astronomy in These Areas

Contemporary astronomical research associated with the following entities has the potential to contribute to a pattern of encroachment and disenfrachisement of local Indigenous communities and a disregard for their cultural traditions.

  • Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) Alfonso Serrano in Parque Nacional Pico de Orizaba, Sierra Negra, Puebla, Mexico
    • The world’s largest single-aperture telescope
  • Tonantzintla Observatory in San Andres Cholula, Puebla, Mexico
    • Located at El Instituto Nacional Astrofísica, Óptica, y Electrónica 
    • Historically significant area of mountain ranges and volcanoes
  • New Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) in northern Mexico
    • Future centimeter-to-meter wave interferometer
    • Multiple locations in continental North America