A CHINA-MAYA CONTINUUM?
The apparent similarities between Mayan and Chinese civilisations have been
recognised by many experts and scholars on the one hand, while on the other hand
several Maya specialists reject the notion that Mesoamerican culture was anything
other than purely indigenous in origin. However, many theories have been
propounded suggesting a link between China and Central American, especially
Mayan, civilisation through either contact and diffusion or at least proposing a basic
homogeneity or common cultural predisposition of both peoples. The late and great
China scholar, anthropologist and archaeologist K.C. Chang invented the term
“China-Maya continuum” to support the latter idea, which has not yet gained general
acceptance. There is also a popular theory associated with Gavin Menzies in his work
“1421” that a Ming fleet reached and influenced later Mayan society, which was then
in decline.
The Mongoloid peoples of America, the “Amerindians” did of course, originate
from East Asia – a fact that any geneticist can prove from their DNA –but they
arrived in America via the then Bering Strait land bridge at a very early date, probably
during the Pleistocene around 20,000 years BP or even much earlier according to
recent archaeological findings. Naturally this occurred at a time which was preNeolithic and separated by a long period from the flowering of Mesoamerican
civilisation in the Pre-Classic, Classic and of course Post-Classic eras (the classic
period of the Maya took place between 200 – 900 AD approximately).
Therefore it is hardly surprising that it has been proposed by some that ChinaMesoamerica links happened again before the efflorescence of the Mayan civilisation:
there is currently a theory that there existed an Olmec-Shang contact. The Olmec is
usually seen as a mother-civilisation in Mesoamerica which gave birth to many later
aspects of Central American civilisation. The Olmec dates from about 1200 BC,
contemporaneously with the Shang dynasty of China and some see direct diffusionist
contacts. However, there is little more than sheer speculation about this: the evidence
only amounts to vague similarities. It is disputed that the Olmec ever had a writing
system, although 150 or so “glyphs” have been tentatively identified as a version of
the Chinese Shang script. It has been suggested that the symbols for sun, sky, trees,
water, rain, sacrifice and religion are very close to the Chinese character equivalents
but this is debatable. There are some common features in both civilisations i.e. the
veneration of ancestors, the possible use of a “proto-writing system” used for religion,
ritual and politics, rather than trade and economic records (as in Sumer), there seem to
be ritual objects wrapped in cinnabar etc. But it should be borne in mind that the so
called Olmec “glyphs” may not be proper writing at all, only motifs, or at best a kind
of story-telling pictographic system not unlike that used by the Naxi people of South
China. It appears that a genuine writing system was not developed until the rise of the
Zapotecs in Oaxaca (from about 500 BC – still undeciphered). There are no bronzes,
oracle bones or turtle-shell divination practices either, which one would expect if
contact with China had been established. Moreover, there is no proof of the
transmission or existence of any artefacts hailing from the Old World, including
China, whatsoever. Similarities and parallels can be found if sought e.g. the ziggurats
of Mesopotamia and the pyramids of Egypt resemble the later Mayan pyramids but
this could be coincidence or could just reflect a human way of thinking, rather than
the result of contact. Certainly there is no proof of an Olmec-Shang linkage.
43
The Maya civilisation of Mesoamerica represents the flowering of urbanisation,
culture and development, with the most sophisticated of all the native American
writing systems. Nowadays at least 85% of the Mayan glyphs have been deciphered,
revealing a true script, both phonetic and semantic. Of the 800 or so glyphs, there
have been found semantic logograms (somewhat like Chinese) and 100 odd phonetic
syllabic signs. These logograms, also like Chinese, appear to be “soldered together”
i.e. consist of elements in a composite unit, unlike Egyptian hieroglyphs, and employ
the rebus principle for recording different meanings with the same sound sign.
Consequently the Maya glyphs were far more phonetic than Chinese characters and
also more pictorial.
Michael D.Coe, the noted Mayanologist, mentions several resemblances between
the Mayan and Chinese worlds. For example, he suggests that the sequence of
animals in the 20 days of the 260 – day calendrical cycle of the Maya is very similar
to that of the Chinese and South East Asians, also very like the Chinese Heavenly
Stems and Earthly Branches. David Kelley claims that this sequence is far too close
to be a coincidence. Furthermore, the four cardinal points of the compass which are
associated with colours, gods, plants, birds and animals have much in common with
the Chinese system of correlation in the Five Agents (or Phases “wu xing”) system
whereby colours are related to divine rulers, attendant spirits, animals, grains and
compass directions etc. In Mayan cosmology the four compass points plus centre,
although correlated with five colours, as in China, do not share the same colours.
Both the Chinese and Mayan civilisations see a rabbit on the face of the moon,
associated with a woman weaving at a loom. Other similarities are apparent; the use
and veneration of jade, especially the practice of placing a jade bead in the mouth of
the deceased, the same intricate calculations for the prediction of solar and lunar
eclipses, the notion of cyclical (as opposed to linear) history comparable to the Indian
kalpas, the use of bark-paper, the importance and development of mathematics and
astronomy, monumental architecture etc. The Chinese “taotie” depicting monsters
and fabulous animals, in addition, resemble strongly the Mayan masks of the Puuc
style, while the view that the world, heaven and underworld, in fact all nature, is
interrelated , is shared by both peoples.
Needham, the great Chinese scholar, mentions around 30 cultural parallels
between China and the Maya, e g drums, tripod pottery, games, computing devices,
musical instruments, the use of jade, carrying-poles, neck-rest pillows and so on.
Menzies sees later connections in natural dyes, lacquer work, jewellery and copper
artefacts, even seeing highly dubious etymological derivations from Chinese, which
he claims is the result of Ming maritime forays in Central America (which is disputed
and highly unlikely). His best-selling book “1421” proposes the popular notion that
the Chinese had circumnavigated the world a century before Magellan, stumbling
across the Maya in the process. This theory has yet to be proved scientifically and
remains rather unconvincing. This so-called contact was naturally at a period when
Mayan civisilation was in decline and any China-Maya resemblances existed prior to
any putative Ming Chinese arrival on the scene. Nevertheless, his book has been
received well and has achieved a huge commercial success.
However, Needham has postulated an earlier contact between the Maya and the
Chinese around 700AD which might be responsible for some of these similarities.
44
There could conceivably have been trade links between China and Maya e.g. Menzies
mentions the discovery of a Chinese junk laden with the Chinese goods. Recently a
“copy” of a map showing the Americas and New World has been found in China but
this dates from 1763 and there may be no original as there could well be no original
map.
K.C. Chang has a refreshingly new idea about the resemblances of the Maya and
Chinese; instead of postulating a diffusion of ideas and practices through later contact
he surmises a China-Maya continuum which does not necessitate actual subsequent
interface, which has not been proved, but which proposes a basic predisposition or
cultural precondition of mutuality prior to the migration of the Amerindians to
America. Chang suggest, for example, that the monopolisation of writing by the
ruling class in Maya society mirrors ancient Chinese practice. He implies that a kind
of semi-theocracy was practised by both peoples in antiquity. However, Coe makes it
plain that he considers the Classic Maya not to be ruled exclusively by priests and did
not have a genuine theocratic government. Nevertheless, the rulers in different eras of
Maya history and in other Mesoamerican civilisations did present themselves as
intermediaries at least between the human and divine world (like the Chinese
Emperors) and performed sacrifices (even auto-sacrificial blood-letting sacrifices) on
behalf of their subjects. Both societies, in addition, practised human sacrifice.
Chang sees religion and ritual as more important than economic transactions in the
formation of writing and civilisation in ancient Chinese and Mayan society in
contradistinction to the Sumerian model. Thus Chang considers the parallels between
the two peoples not to be a result of later diffusionism but as belonging to a common
China-Maya continuum, a common basis of characteristics and tendencies, dating
perhaps back to the Palaeolithic.
There is a multiplicity of divinities in both cultures-a vast pantheon, albeit
differing a great deal from each other. However, the Mayan deities represent the
unity of opposites and function as the “embodiment of the cosmic principle of
duality”. Duality is therefore enshrined as the ultimate reality, rendering all else
illusion. Each god had several avatars; each male god would have a female consort as
well as many other reflexes. This is vaguely reminiscent of Vajrayana Buddhism
where the buddhas and bodhisattvas also have female counterparts, often linked in a
sexual embrace. Similarly the green Buddha Amoghasiddhi embodies the unity of
opposites and Chinese Daoism is comparable.
To return to the theme, K.C.Chang’s hypothesis is not intended simply to link the
China and the Maya but more as an alternative model to the Sumerian one to explicate
and understand a transition to civilisation which might apply to such disparate areas
as Egypt, the Indus Valley, South East Asia and Central America in general (whether
Olmec, Maya, Toltec or Aztec).
Therefore the notion of a broad continuum between China and Central America
especially but also a study of the cultures of many other peoples in Asia reveals
fascinating parallels and hints at a common set of underlying cultural predispositions,
inclinations and world-views, especially religious ones rather than economic ones as
in Sumer. This idea must be more acceptable than the as yet unproven theory of later
45
actual physical contact, although the startling Mayan and Chinese similarities remain
baffling.
46