E-Paper
Not over till it’s over
In the darkness before dawn Friday, spiritualists prepared white clothes, drums, conch shells and incense ahead of the sunrise they believe will herald the birth of a new and better age as a vast, 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan calendar comes to an end.
In the darkness before dawn Friday, spiritualists prepared white clothes, drums, conch shells and incense ahead of the sunrise they believe will herald the birth of a new and better age as a vast, 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan calendar comes to an end.
No one was quite sure at what time the Mayas’ 13th Baktun would officially end on December 21. Some think it already ended at midnight Thursday. Others looked to Friday’s dawn here in the Maya heartland. Some had later times in mind.
“Wait until the dawn on the 22nd. That is when we Maya will speak,” Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu said in Guatemala, another Maya area.
There were some who wouldn’t feel safe until the sun sets over the pyramids in Yucatan peninsula, Maya heartland.
Mexico’s best-known seer, Antonio Vazquez Alba, known as “El Brujo Mayor,” said he had received emails containing rumours that a mass suicide might be planned in Argentina.
He said he was sure human nature represented the only threat Friday. “Nature isn’t going to do us any harm, but we can do damage to ourselves,” he said.
