This post is part 1 of a series about Venus and the Jaredites. To read the introduction, click here.
Every 584 days, Venus disappears from Earth’s skies for 8 days.
The ancient Mayans were very aware of this fact, as they tracked and predicted the movements of Venus religiously. To them, Venus was the god Kukulkan (Quetzalcoatl), who descended into the underworld for 8 days before being reborn as the Morning Star (1). Sometimes, the Mayans would fight battles during these 8 days so that when they were over, the victor could behead his defeated and captured opponent while the new Morning Star rose from the horizon for the first time (2).
Who knew that Venus had such a gnarly history?
The Mayans waged wars according to Venus and I propose the Late Jaredites did the same thing. This fact about the military and astronomical customs of the ancient inhabitants of the Mesoamerica is where the Venus-Jaredite theory begins.
The reason why is because the final battle of the Jaredites, the one that ended it all for them, lasted a period of 8 days.
No, Moroni does not spell this fact out in the text, but it is true nonetheless and I have proven it here. It was 8 days of fighting. Here’s a graphic I made that shows this (albeit in tiny print), breaking down Moroni’s description day by day:
And if this battle taking place over 8 days isn’t enough to grab your attention—remember what happens when the battle is over?
Coriantumr (the victor) chops off the head of Shiz (the loser).
Don’t believe me? Here’s an excerpt from Ether 15:
30And it came to pass that when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword, that he rested a little, he smote off the head of Shiz. 31And it came to pass that after he had smitten off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised up on his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died.
Is this not exactly what the Mayans did?—the winner decapitating the loser after an 8-day period of fighting under Venus-less skies? This realization is where the Venus-Jaredite theory began for me. If this was such a perfect match, I wondered if any more existed… and to my surprise, amazement, and nerdy joy, there was much more….
(TO BE CONTINUED…)
Sources and Notes
- “A document from Central Mexico written in the late 1500s called the Annals of Cuauhtitlan associates the eight-day period between the Evening and Morning Star phases with the death and resurrection of Quetzalcoatl, a deity known as Kukulcan to the ancient Maya. Kukulcan was the sky god and the most powerful of the ancient Maya deities.” https://www.archaeology.org/issues/44-1211/features/304-uxmal-venus; “Kukulcan was a character who was half jaguar and half deity. His legend, which was well known through out the region, was in many ways similar to the planet venus. That is to say that Venus disapears 8 days every 260 days is a star (for the mayans) that was elusive to the celestial order. Thus demostrated superiority as did Kukulcan. He too rose in the in the east and disapeared in the west to one day reapear in the east.” http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/physics/dsalis/NS/ns/poot/The_mayan_world_of_venus.1.html
- “Detailed pictorial and hieroglyphic evidence from the Maya site of Bonampak, Chiapas, Mexico, demonstrates that a prime time for ritual warfare was at the first appearance of the planet Venus as it emerged from either superior or inferior conjunction as either the Evening or Morning Star. Successful warfare was thought to depend upon the support of the gods of the planet Venus. Mayans usually initiated fighting on the last days of either the superior or inferior conjunction. This timing was important so that the ritual beheading of the captured king could take place in the ritual ball game at the time of the appearance of the planet Venus.” https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/warren/2021-07-12/11_bruce_w._warren_secret_combinations_warfare_and_captive_sacrifice_225-236.pdf
The featured image for this post is titled “Coriantumr and Shiz fighting”, and was found here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/book-of-mormon-stories/chapter-52-the-destruction-of-the-jaredites?lang=eng
Science Is True and the Church Is Too 
Well, I’m interested in the “much more” to come. 😀
It’s interesting to imagine both armies being aware of the tradition–and as the both go about the countryside gathering people to their ranks they’ve got that date fixed in their minds for the showdown.
I remember a little while back you were still trying to discover the impetus for the number eight in Jaredite culture. Is Venus’ transition it, do you think? Or would that be a sign that lines up with already established cultural patterns?
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This is an excellent question, Jack. And I’m not entirely sure what the answer is. It was trying to find all the instances of 8 in Ether that led me to the possibility that the Jaredites were timing things with Venus. This, if true, then brings up even more hidden eights in the story—so I couldn’t properly document all of the 8 occurrences without delving into the Venus stuff, which quickly grew into a huge topic… and here we are.
But if I were to take a preliminary stab at your question…. My first thoughts were that the eights are pointing, for whatever reason, to the Mother Goddess… now I’m wondering if it is just about Venus… but then again, Venus IS named after a GODDESS.
So the short answer is: I don’t know, lol. But overall I do think the 8 phenomenon has to do with an early Jaredite belief in a Mother Goddess, which itself is also a huge topic. But suffice it to say that it explains deseret, the abundance of “lion” names, Venus reverence, and a whole lot of Native American/Mesoamerican mythology and culture…. I hope to find ways to present it all, somehow , someday.
As always, thanks for reading and commenting!
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