email,
Here's what I mean by point of view.
Katun 11 Ahau. Niggard is the katun; scanty are its rains . . . misery.
Katun 9 Ahau. Drought, famine.
Katun 7 Ahau. Carnal sin. roguish rulers.
Katun 5 Ahau Harsh his face, harsh his tidings.
Katun 3 Ahau. Rains of little profit, locusts, fighting.
Katun 1 Ahau. The evil katun.
Katun 12 Ahau. The katun is good.
Katun 10 Ahau Drought is the charge of the katun.
Katun 8 Ahau. There is an end of greed; there is an end to causing vexation . . . much fighting
Katun 6 Ahau. Shameless is his speech.
Katun 4 Ahau. The Quetzal shall come . . . Kukulcan shall come.
Katun 2 Ahau. For half the katun there will be bread; for half the katun there will be water.
Katun 13 Ahau There is no lucky day for us.
Now, Katun 11-Ahau: Apparently food is scarce during this katun and invading foreigners arrive and disperse the population. There is an end to traditional rule, there are no successors. Since this is the first katun it always opens up a new era. It was during the span of this katun that the Spanish began their takeover of Yucatan and imposed Christianity on the natives.
Katun 13-Ahau: This is a time of total collapse where everything is lost. It is the time of the judgment of "God". There will be epidemics and plagues and then famine. Governments will be lost to foreigners and wise men, and prophets will be lost. So as you can see here, this applies to THIS period in time, in which this is the end of this Katun, and the whole damn thing is going to start over on December 21, 2012; the beginning of the new long count.
The Mayan prophecies were announced five years before the beginning of each katun. The Maya were a ceremonious people, and they lived their lives by the numbers, predicting their history and then living it, on the assumption that fate was dictated by cyclical repetition.
So now, we can look at this in two different ways. We can say that the Mayans predicted their future, and then lived it, or we can say that all of this is farce and hindsight is always 20/20. It all depends upon your point of view.