Chamula Astronomy

The Chamulas live in the community of San Juan Chamula and the surrounding coutryside located on a rugged plateau in the mountains of Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. The closest city to San Juan Chamula is San Cristóbal de Las Casas, fewer than ten miles away.

It has been reported that the inhabitants considered themselves to be at the centre of the universe. Their church enclosed what they thought to be “the navel of the earth.” The Sun passed through the underworld at night and emerged at dawn on the third and holiest layer of the sky. The stars and the Moon belonged to the second layer. The circular paths of the Sun and the Moon bound the whole of the layered creation together. These orbits brought order and holiness to the cycles of day and night, dry and wet seasons, and years and generations. In the nearby village of San Andrés Larrainzar, the sky was said to be a multi-tiered pyramid supported by a giant tree. Venus led the way of the Sun across the sky.

Although these ideas appear to be very simple explanations, the knowledge of Venus, the stars, and the constellations elsewhere among the Maya – of which the Chamulas are a part – is found to have been very advanced. Various customs of the Chamulas, including a calendar board, suggest that they, too, possessed a knowledge of astronomy.