0:04

As we approach the date of the total solar

0:06

eclipse in April , it's interesting

0:08

to find out how ancient cultures reacted

0:11

to such a phenomenon . I'm Mike Landis

0:13

, ut Tyler Radio connects with University

0:16

Social Sciences Professor , dr Thomas

0:18

Guterjohn , to find out how

0:20

did they ?

0:21

react . That's such a fascinating

0:23

question , Mike .

0:24

It's the only kind I ask , it's true

0:27

.

0:29

Navajo people , for example , are

0:31

really fascinating in many ways . They

0:34

have an animistic religion , which

0:36

means that they ascribe souls

0:39

to everything . They ascribe souls to animals , to plants , to rocks

0:41

. They ascribe souls to animals , to plants , to

0:43

rocks . There's no

0:45

word for religion in

0:47

the Navajo language because everything

0:50

is religion and they

0:53

traditionally fear

0:55

eclipses and

1:08

it's thought to be a time to stay home and not go outside and not be unsafe , and

1:10

that the world , hopefully , will reset itself afterwards . But they're not really

1:12

sure . So it's frightening . And Navajo newspapers , when

1:15

Eclipse was there a few months back

1:17

, literally

1:19

the headlines say stay home

1:22

. The Maya people , like all

1:24

people who lived outside

1:26

most of the time , because everybody before air

1:28

conditioning did , were

1:31

astute observers of the stars . They had a

1:33

calendar that goes

1:35

back to 3,113

1:37

BC and a specific

1:40

date . As you

1:42

know , 0 AD . Ad is the birth

1:45

of Christ . This is their equivalent

1:48

and that calendar is so accurate

1:50

they don't use leap years

1:52

. They don't need leap

1:54

years because their calendar was more accurate

1:56

than ours is . They

1:59

built huge edifices

2:01

. Obviously . The

2:03

idea behind building

2:05

these giant pyramids was

2:07

to show off how powerful you were . Not

2:09

much unlike you know what

2:11

we do with skyscrapers , but

2:15

some of them , many of them . I

2:18

suppose the more accurate

2:20

thing would be give you a number , a few

2:22

hundred of them are

2:25

called e-groups and they're designed

2:28

to track the

2:30

sunrise across the eastern

2:32

sky from the summer

2:34

solstice to the winter solstice

2:36

and through the spring and fall equinox

2:38

. This is within the Maya culture . That's within the Maya

2:41

culture . We've actually

2:43

excavated one of those e-groups in our work

2:45

. Okay , and

2:48

even more spectacularly and

2:51

famously , at the site of Chichen Itza

2:53

in Yucatan , there's

2:55

a huge four-sided

2:57

building in the middle of a plaza with

3:00

90 steps on each

3:02

of sorry 91 steps

3:04

on each of four sides all

3:07

coming together at one landing . So

3:09

91 times four

3:11

plus the landing on top is

3:13

360 days . And

3:16

on the equinoxes

3:18

the sun rises in just exactly

3:21

the right way to take

3:23

. The edge of the building cast shadow

3:25

over the staircases . That looks like

3:27

a snake crawling down the staircases

3:29

. Oh , my goodness . And these things were

3:32

them , showing off

3:34

how much they already knew . They

3:36

weren't experimental . We think of an observatory

3:40

as a place we experiment and learn . They

3:42

weren't doing that , they already knew

3:44

it and they commissioned these giant buildings

3:46

to show it off .

3:49

If I'm reading all of this correctly , if I'm hearing

3:52

it all correctly , it sounds like they embraced

3:54

this business of eclipses and that sort of

3:56

thing where other cultures , other ancient cultures

3:59

, may not have .

4:01

Well , yes , but I think most

4:03

native cultures anywhere probably

4:06

embraced it a great deal that you'd have

4:08

to live in it , to

4:11

be part of it .

4:13

you know , without the modern communication systems , Well

4:15

, what I'm thinking of is you were talking about the Navajo that went inside

4:17

almost like a Navajo Passover . You

4:19

know , let's just wait until it's over with and then we can come

4:22

back .

4:23

That's a perfect analogy . It's much

4:25

like a Navajo Passover . But

4:27

again , the one thing that's kind

4:29

of missing out of all of these systems

4:31

of knowledge worldwide

4:34

is that nobody was

4:36

predicting eclipses . It's too

4:38

complicated . We

4:40

can , because we understand the

4:42

solar system and the world in a different

4:45

way , but they

4:47

weren't being able to do that , so they generally

4:49

came as a surprise . Nothing

4:53

else came as a surprise . Nothing else came as a surprise . The Maya

4:55

could track the synaptic period of Venus across

4:58

the sky and predict that , but that happens

5:00

all the time . They

5:02

had 3,000 years , 5,000

5:04

years of experience to

5:06

map it with where eclipses

5:08

were more , from their point

5:11

of view , erratic , and we just don't see that in

5:13

their writings of predictions of eclipses were more , from their point of view , erratic

5:15

, and we just don't see that in their writings of predictions of eclipses

5:17

.

5:17

It's interesting that a number

5:19

of years ago in Denver , I watched the

5:21

first time I'd ever taken the time to really watch

5:24

a solar eclipse take place and

5:26

not a total eclipse , obviously , but just the

5:28

whole business . And

5:30

what I found interesting was

5:32

we were on a worked at a

5:34

station that had a big rooftop patio and

5:36

it was filled with virtually everybody in

5:38

the station that wasn't keeping it on the air and

5:41

we're , all you know , looking up , we've got our glasses

5:43

on , we've got you know , so forth and so forth . We're taking pictures

5:45

and this sort of thing , and I'm thinking isn't

5:48

it amazing that in this day and age

5:50

that there are still things that create

5:52

wonder , absolutely

5:54

?

5:55

Absolutely , absolutely . I

5:58

just came back from a short spring

6:00

break trip to Oregon and

6:03

wonder was

6:05

all over us about

6:07

what constitutes

6:10

national beauty . A gorge

6:12

cut into mountains by water

6:16

, a beach , a

6:18

gash

6:20

into the surface

6:22

of our planet ? We find beautiful

6:24

. But we can go to

6:26

those things . I can see pictures of

6:28

them on Google and go . I wish to go see

6:30

that and I will drive there Right

6:33

. There's something special

6:35

about the wonder of an eclipse

6:37

, especially when you

6:39

don't know it's coming .

6:41

Well , that's true , but even if you do know it's

6:43

coming . When I say that about wonder

6:45

, I'm thinking that , with

6:48

Google , for instance , I mean anything , pretty

6:50

much anything you can possibly think of that

6:52

you want to know about , other than

6:54

the meaning of life . You can type that in

6:57

and get some sort of an answer . I mean , whether you

6:59

accept the answer is another matter , but

7:01

you can get some sort of an answer . It's

7:03

surprising in a nice

7:05

way , and sort of heartening

7:08

, to know that there are still things

7:10

that humankind in this day and age

7:12

can look to and say , wow

7:14

, that's amazing , Absolutely

7:17

, you know .

7:18

My only disagreement is I bet if you typed in

7:20

what is the meaning of life , you'd get an answer there .

7:22

Well , I know you'd get an answer , but you have to decide

7:24

whether you want to accept it . That would be pretty complicated

7:26

. It would be , it would be Well , so let's

7:28

talk . I mean , we were just talking

7:31

among ourselves earlier about

7:33

the flowers of East Texas and the wild birds

7:35

and what a beautiful time that

7:37

is and that creates some semblance

7:39

of wonder . An eclipse , a total

7:41

eclipse , not only creates

7:43

a sense of wonder , it creates a sense

7:45

of commerce . You know Tyler's

7:47

planning on doubling his population

7:49

.

7:50

Oh sure .

7:50

And making . I think Tom

7:52

Perryman said we'd be making hundreds of millions

7:54

of dollars Now whether that's true or not really isn't

7:56

important and said we'd be making hundreds of millions of dollars Now whether that's

7:58

true or not really isn't important , but it says

8:01

something about that . People will flock

8:03

to see something that is not on Google

8:05

, that is not available on their tablet or their

8:07

phone or their laptop or

8:09

their desktop . That

8:14

it's something beyond all of that and it's real and it's out there and you have no control over

8:16

it . You just have to sit and wonder

8:18

.

8:19

You're absolutely right and , as

8:21

I said , I just returned from a sightseeing

8:24

tour of Oregon where I knew

8:26

things were going to be but there was no immediacy

8:28

to it . I could have done that anytime , but

8:31

there's such an immediacy to people coming from

8:33

wherever I'll say California

8:35

because maybe they are to here

8:37

, because this is the one moment they

8:39

can do this , the one moment

8:41

they can be out and experience it . The

8:46

Columbia Gorge in

8:48

Oregon probably will be there for

8:51

the rest of my life and I could do it anytime

8:53

. But this is such a different experience

8:55

for them because they're rushing to

8:57

come here , they're

8:59

coming to , they filled all

9:01

the hotels . I know police

9:05

and people like that are concerned about people camping

9:07

in parks To see

9:09

the eclipse . To see the eclipse , and how do

9:11

they control people coming in . It's

9:13

such a very different experience because it

9:15

is so momentary

9:17

.

9:25

I wonder , you know cops and emergency personnel will tell you that boy when the full moon

9:28

happens , that's when you know people are getting stabbed , shot and babies are born

9:30

. I mean it's a crazy time because of maybe

9:32

because we're made up of so much water in

9:35

our human body and tides and

9:37

all of that sort of thing . But I wonder

9:39

if there's any historical information about

9:41

specific events that took

9:43

place during an eclipse , or before

9:46

or after an eclipse , any kind of human

9:49

interaction response to it ?

9:51

Well , there

9:55

are some ideas and

9:57

I'll I'll just give you one . Um

10:00

, one of the ideas about the

10:02

human responses to eclipse is

10:04

that , uh , kind of an old

10:06

idea about how Maya Kings

10:09

ruled . How

10:11

do you convince thousands

10:14

of people Well , in their

10:16

case , millions to build you a new hundred foot pyramid and well

10:18

, in their case , millions to build you a new 100-foot pyramid

10:20

? And

10:24

when this was written

10:26

by a guy named Sir

10:28

J Eric S Thompson , he

10:31

thought he understood how the Maya

10:34

rulers controlled people . He

10:36

thought they could predict eclipses

10:39

. So when

10:41

the Meyer rulers would stand on top

10:43

of a temple in front of the throngs of people

10:45

in the plaza and say , build me

10:47

a new pyramid or I'll make the sun go

10:49

away tomorrow , and

10:51

everybody goes , oh , come on right , I

10:53

think that's not going to happen . And the next day the sun

10:56

goes away and everybody's

10:58

like okay , how big

11:00

did you want the pyramid ? How ?

11:02

tall .

11:03

Now we now know that their

11:05

predictability about eclipses wasn't anything

11:08

nearly what he had thought it would be

11:10

, but what an interesting

11:12

idea . And the

11:14

idea speaks to how people

11:16

control resources

11:18

themselves and other people and it's so

11:21

much about knowledge , it's

11:23

just so much about I know something's going to happen

11:25

that you don't , and

11:27

I can even pretend I made it happen .

11:30

Any final thoughts to share about this upcoming Eclipse

11:32

event and how it relates to our

11:35

far distant past and how it relates

11:37

to our far distant past .

11:37

I will just say the one thing that always

11:40

strikes me , because I was

11:42

in a partial eclipse here in Tyler many

11:45

years ago and

11:51

it's always talked about as a visual thing . It's always talked

11:53

about as the sky gets dark , the sun

11:55

goes away , but

11:57

it also gets cold . The sun goes

11:59

away , but it also gets cold . The temperatures drop

12:02

. I recall when I was in front

12:04

of the College of Arts and Sciences building in

12:06

a partial eclipse , stopped

12:08

as I got out of my car I'd kind of

12:10

forgotten it happened and watched

12:13

the wet water

12:15

on leaves and grass

12:17

actually turn into ice for

12:19

a few minutes . Really , yeah

12:22

, so it's going to drop 20 degrees , 30

12:24

degrees . When I imagine that

12:26

full body experience

12:29

of upsetting everything that you think

12:31

you were doing , your normalcy

12:34

, is just gone , I'm kind

12:36

of overwhelmed with how overwhelmed people

12:39

in the past must have been .

12:41

Thanks for listening as UT Tyler Radio

12:43

connects with University Social Sciences Professor

12:45

, dr Thomas Guterjohn . For

12:47

UT Tyler Radio News , I'm Mike

12:49

Landis .