「世界最後の日」はマヤの遺跡へどうぞ メキシコやグアテマラにとって「世界の終わり」は観光復活のチャンス (Newsweek Japan 2012年6月27日号 by ジョン・オーティス)

SF作家が家族と共に水没するロサンゼルスを脱出、箱舟に乗り込んだ直後に大津波がエベレスト山をのみ込む　－。映画『2012』のワンシーンだ。 古代マヤ暦が終わる2012年12月21日が世界の終わり、という終末論に触発された映画は大ヒット。 最近の世論調査によれば、世界の10人に1人がマヤ暦の終わりは世界の終わりと考えている。 しかしメキシコとグアテマラにとってはチャンス到来だ。 どちらの国も麻薬絡みの暴力が絶えず外国人観光客にそっぽを向かれてきたが、グアテマラとメキシコ、ペリーズにまたがるユカタン半島はマヤ文明の中心地。 終末論効果で観光客の増加が見込まれている。 「確かに、何かが起きると思って観光客が押し寄せている」とマヤ暦に詳しいシュイ・アダムズは言う。 「終末論を観光客誘致に利用している」と語るのはグアテマラで旅行代理店を経営するジョージ・サンスーシ。 12月にはマヤ遺跡ツアーを企画している。 「でも本気で信じているわけじゃない。世界が終わるなんて話はもうたくさんだ」 グアテマラのベテラン旅行業者エリザベス・ベルによれば2012年終末論は外国人の間にマヤブームを巻き起こした。 グアテマラの人口の約40％を占めるマヤ先住民は長いこと差別され虐げられてきただけに、世界の注目はなおさら重要だとベルは言う。 「自分たちの文化が認められている気がするとマヤの人々は言う。とても重要なことだ。自信につながっている」 古代マヤ人は天文学と数学の高度な知識を持っていた。 月と星の動きを観測して暦を作り、作物の植え付けや儀式の時期を決める際に利用していたと、アダムズは言う。 問題の暦は長期暦と呼ばれるもので周期は5125年。 紀元前3114年に始まって冬至の12月21日で終わるが、世界の終わりを予言した記録は見つかっていない。 終末論を覆す新発見も 12月21日という日付が出てくるのはメキシコにあるマヤの碑文だけで、神々が降臨して世界は闇に閉ざされるという解釈もあるとアダムズは言う。 とはいえ、この手の終末論は1960年代からある。 ニューエイジ関連の本やウェブサイトは、マヤ暦の終わりを太陽フレアや太陽の磁極反転に関する予測と関連付けて、世界の終わりが近い証拠だと主張してきた。 専門家は終末論を一蹴する。 実際はマヤ暦は終わるのではなく始めに戻るのであって、2012年12月21日は千年紀と千年紀の区切りの日のようなものだという。 古代マヤ遺跡の保護に取り組む考古学者のメアリー・ルー・リディンガ一によれば、古代マヤ人は時間の流れを直線ではなく、過去・現在・未来がDNAの二重らせんのように絡み合っていると考えていた。 マヤの創世神話には死に関する記述がなく、「変化と復活と再生だけが描かれている」という。 5月には終末論を覆す新発見も発表された。(New Mayan Discovery: The World Isn't Ending!) 米ボストン大学などの考古学チームがグアテマラにあるマヤ文明の遺跡でマヤ暦を発見。 解読の結果、2012年のはるか先まで続いていることが分かったという。 それでもマヤ暦への関心は強力な呼び水になりつつある。 観光客の大部分は、チチエン・イッツァやトゥルムなどメキシコのマヤ遺跡を訪れる見込みだ。 メキシコでは巨額の投資のかいあって、2011年の外国人観光客は前年より2％増えて約2260万人に達した。 2012月の「その日」をマヤのピラミッドの頂上で迎えたいという観光客も多いらしいが、マヤ暦に詳しいアダムズは逆だ。 「マヤ遺跡には近寄りたくない。どこもディズニーランドみたいになるだろうから」

It's the end of the world as we know it (Global Post by John Otis June 12, 2012)

And Mexico and Guatemala feel fine. The two countries are expecting record tourism as Dec. 21, 2012, and the end of the world, approaches.

ANTIGUA, Guatemala - In the movie "2012," a science fiction writer and his family escape from Los Angeles as the city sinks into the Pacific Ocean, then find safe haven aboard an ark shortly before a tsunami slams into Mount Everest. The Hollywood film was partly inspired by fringe theories asserting that the winding down of the ancient Mayan Indian long-count calendar on Dec. 21, 2012, means the end of the world. Mayan scholars have convincingly debunked this doomsday scenario. Yet 2012 earned nearly $800 million at the box office and helped popularize the notion that something ominous is about to happen. A recent poll showed that one in 10 people across the globe think that the Mayan calendar foresees a December apocalypse. There's been an upside to all this end-of-days hokum: it is expected to result in a surge of visitors to Guatemala and to the Yucatan peninsula in southern Mexico, the heart of the Mayan world. Officials in both countries — which have been hit hard by drug-related violence that has scared away foreign visitors - are predicting tourism will increase. "I know a lot of people who are coming to Guatemala because they think something will happen," said Shay Addams, author of a book and a blog on the Mayan calendar. "I’ve used the doomsday talk as a marketing hook," added George Sansoucy, a former US businessman who now runs a travel agency in the colonial city of Antigua and is promoting December visits to Mayan ruins. "But it's tongue-in-cheek. I mean, how many end-of-the-world scenarios have we had to deal with?" Like the awarding of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize to Mayan activist Rigoberta Menchu, the 2012 speculation has led to a renewed interest among outsiders in all things Mayan, according to Elizabeth Bell, a veteran tour operator in Guatemala. She said this validation is especially important given Guatemala's long history of racism and abuse of Mayan Indians, who make up about half of the population. "The Mayans say they feel an appreciation for their culture, which is extremely important," Bell said. "They have been strengthened." The ancient Maya, who rose to prominence around 250 AD, were avid astronomers and mathematicians who invented the concept of zero. By studying the movement of the moon and stars they came up with a series of calendars, some of which are more accurate than the Gregorian calendar used today. These ancient calendars helped guide the Maya on key decisions such as when to plant crops or schedule ceremonies, Addams said. The current controversy surrounds the so-called long-count calendar, which lasts 5,125 years. It began in 3114 BC and will come to an end on Dec. 21, the winter solstice. Yet there's no record of any Mayan prediction that the world will end. The sole reference to that specific date is on a Mayan glyph in Mexico that, by some interpretations, talks of gods descending to Earth followed by a period of darkness, Addams said. But doomsday theories dating back to the 1960s as well as New Age books and websites have combined this information along with predictions of solar flares and magnetic polar shifts as evidence that the end is at hand. Mayan experts dismiss such talk as idiotic. They point out that rather than ending, the Mayan calendar actually rolls over, like an odometer, and liken the Dec. 21, 2012, date to the end of one millennium and the start of another. Mary Lou Ridinger, an archeologist and board member of the Maya Conservancy, an organization that works to protect ancient Mayan sites, points out that unlike modern societies, the ancient Maya were not linear thinkers. Instead, they viewed the past, present and future as intertwined, like spirals of DNA. In the Popol Vuh, the collection of writings containing the Mayan creation myth, there is no mention of death. "All you see in the Popol Vuh is transformation, resurrection and rebirth," Ridinger said. Also debunking "Apocalypse Now" notions are newly discovered wall writings in Guatemala that show Mayan cycles of time running way beyond 2012. "The numbers we found indicate an obsession with time and cycles of time, some of them very large," wrote archaeologist William Saturno of Boston University in the journal Science, which reported the discovery in May. "So much for the supposed end of the world." (New Mayan Discovery: The World Isn't Ending!) Still, interest in the Mayan calendar is shaping up to be a huge draw. The vast majority of visitors are expected to descend on Chichen Itza, Tulum and other Mayan sites in Mexico, which has spent far more than Guatemala on promoting the 2012 phenomenon, according to Derek Steele, a Guatemalan who runs a marketing services company. A record 22.6 million foreigners visited Mexico in 2011, up 2 percent over the previous year. However, the number of foreign visitors to Guatemala fell by 2.8 percent to 1 million, according to Inguat, the government tourist agency. Although the Guatemala tourist board has formed a 2012 committee, Steele thinks the country is wasting a huge opportunity to boost tourism at a time when drug-fueled violence, often provoked by Mexican cartels, remains front-page news. In fact, Steele is leading a drive to promote tourism in Guatemala — "mala" means "bad" in Spanish — under a new name: Guate-Maya. The nation's 2012 activities kick off in Antigua this month with a conference on the Mayan calendar. But far more tourists are expected to arrive in December. Sansoucy said many want to be atop the Mayan pyramids at Tikal, El Mirador and other sites to mark the moment. But Addams, the author and blogger, will be staying home on Dec. 21. "I don't want to be near any major Mayan site," he said, "because it's going to be like Disneyland."

2012年アメリカ・メキシコ旅行記へ戻る