Mayan Doomsday 2012

Ceremonial Black Cup

Ancient Mayans seemed to think the world—at least as we know it—would end on December 21, 2012. The time for the predicted disaster has come and gone. The Mayans, like many of the ancients, were accomplished astronomers. Perhaps a slight adjustment in the universe occurred since the prediction. Maybe we’ll never know.

A similar civilization existed in the Midwestern part of the United States, from settlements near the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. These early Americans built large villages along the main rivers beginning around 800 A.D., though there were humans in the area as long as 8000 years ago. The Spiro Mounds in eastern Oklahoma is but one of these settlements.

Thousands of artifacts have been collected at the Spiro Mounds, including intricately engraved seashells. Anthropologists call the early Americans that populated these settlements Mississippians. One of the artifacts found at Spiro, and at other Mississippian settlements, was the black cup. During rituals, Mississippians would drink strong, highly caffeinated teas from the black cup until they vomited, ridding their bodies of evil and facilitating the ability to predict the future.

In my book,  Morning Mist of Blood, gumshoe detective Buck McDivit meets Esme, a mystic, healer, and possibly the last of the Mississippians. With her assistance, he takes a dream walk, visiting the Great Spirit in his cabin. Together, they puff a cloud blower and drink from the black cup until Buck gains insight into the mystery he is trying to solve.

It’s December 21, 2012, and the world hasn’t ended. It doesn’t mean the ancient Mayans, Incas and Mississippians didn’t have considerable knowledge about the world as we know it. It simply means the asteroids, or whatever celestial objects were supposed to collide with our planet became somehow shunted by a millisecond or so.

Many of the heavenly secrets discovered by the ancients are lost to us forever. I’m planning a trip to Spiro during the spring equinox to communicate with the spirits and try to solve a few mysteries. Meanwhile, I’ll take a puff from my cloud blower and slug another shot of strong coffee from my black cup. Maybe by midnight, I'll have a few predictions of my own, to make.

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