Don Alejandro Speaks About the Dreamspell Calendar

This is an extract from the The Mayan New Dawn -DVD where Dr. Carl Calleman interviews Mayan elder and
13th generation shaman Don Alejandro Perez Oxlaj.

Calleman: In the modern world new calendars have sometimes been invented that are sometimes called Mayan, such as for instance the Dreamspell calendar, the calendar of Argüelles. What do the Maya think about such calendars?

Don Alejandro. Look my Brother. If you want to be a good writer just do a job well done. We the Maya, cannot add a day or take a day out, or change or modify anything in the calendar So when people do such things they confuse the people.

I tell you one thing: The Maya say that the Mayan calendar or the Mayan science only the Maya understand. In other words, the Maya they have a reason for everything, but other people who don’t know the beginnings or the principles, they try to do things according to what they think is right for them. What they are doing is confusing people.

One that speaks like this is Mr José Argüelles. He came to visit us and he talked to us and he told us that he wanted to have permission to publish the Calendar of the 13 moons. We said to him that he didn't have the right to change our calendar, because in the first place he is not a Maya and secondly he is not a Mayan authority either.
Then he did another mistake that was even bigger: Before he came to us, he went to ask for permission from the United Nations, and then he went for permission to his 13-moon calendar to the Pope. But we the Maya believe that what is ours belong to us. The UN has nothing to do with us and even less the Vatican. More than that, the Vatican has some things that belong to us and they should return these things to us, rather than modify our calendar.

So we told Argüelles, we don’t need to change our calendar just because of some crazy ideas that he has that will confuse the people. You for instance are Swedish. If I come to tell you that you cannot speak your language any more and that you have to learn this other language, what power do I to change yours? What is yours is yours and what is in your country you know the value of.There are many writings in other languages, in Swiss, in French, in German. It could be something good, but I don’t know this since I don’t speak this language. The same way it is with the Mayas. You know we have great, beautiful and important writings that is written in codices, but only the Mayans and the true elders can give true explanations to what it says.