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Some topics of Mesoamerican history & thought
- Olmecs, Zapotecs, Mayan & Teotihuacanos:
"The Olmecs emerged about 1200 BC along the slow-moving rivers of lowland Veracruz and Tabasco... Living in the tropical rain forest, they identified with the powerful animals that, like humans, occupied the top of the food chain—felines, eagles, caimans, and snakes—and recognized that they shared with them the consumption of flesh. And they first gave permanence to practices and preoccupations that endured in Mesoamerica—human sacrifice, bloodletting, pilgrimages, quadripartite division of the world, cave rituals, the offering of caches, and a fascination with mirror among them—until the Spanish Conquest, and in some cases long afterwards."
"By around 600 BC, if not earlier, civilization also rose in Oaxaca among the Zapotecs, who began to reshape the hillside acropolis of Monte Albán into their capital... Toward the end of the Formative era, from 100 BC to AD 300 or what is also termed the Protoclassic, many of the principles and beliefs common to Classic period civilization appear to have come together, particularly along the axis of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and ranging from Atlantic to Pacific Coasts, at places as far-flung as Monte Albán, Dainzú, Tres Zapotes, La Mojarra, Chiapa de Corzo, Izapa, and Kaminaljuyú. Across the region, the Principal Bird Deity—probably the same as Vucub Caquix of the Popol Vuh (the native epic of the Quiché Maya transcribed into the Roman alphabet at the time fo the Conquest)—gained prominence; the Popol Vuh account of origins, humanity's relationship to chaos, and the Hero Twins' harrowing of the Underworld, may have been widely subscribed to."
"It is the special characteristic of their writing that sets the Maya apart from all other Mesoamerican peoples. It is probably the technology of writing itself that enabled them to be what they were."
"During the Protoclassic [100 BC to AD 300], two large centers emerged in Central Mexico, Cuicuilco and Teotihuacan, but the latter gained prominence after volcanic eruptions buried Cuicuilco and its massive platform by AD 100... The tradition of Teotihuacan is what we can call western Mesoamerican, and it emphasizes community over dynastic rule, cyclical time over linear, and offers a separate religious pantheon from that of the Maya and other peoples in eastern Mesoamerica. In fact, an explosion of new iconography and beliefs characterizes early Teotihuacan, developing essentially ex-nihilo. During the Early Classic, the Maya and Teotihuacanos became keenly aware of one another and their separate religious practices. The Maya adopted many Teotihuacan practices, particularly the cult of war, its patrons and regalia, while ignoring others, such as its many female deities."
[***all quotations from Mary Miller & Karl Taube's An Illustrated Dictionary of The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (Thames & Hudson, 1997/2015)]
- Toltecs, Mixtecs and Aztecs:
"The decline of the Teotihuacan and the Maya cities left a power vacuum in Mesoamerica by the 9th century... The period seems to have been a time of great interregional interchange, and both Maya iconography and formal concepts became part of a new Mesoamerican synthesis that may have been possible only with the demise of Teotihuacan. By 900, however, a new force had appeared on the scene: the Toltecs... From their high, arid, cool capital of Tula (or Tollan), they took on aspects of the Teotihuacan heritage that served their purposes."
"In Oaxaca, the Mixtecs rose to power during the Postclassic [900-1500 AD (?)]. They took over some of the ancient places sacred to the Zapotecs, and they they began to inter their noble dead in the old Zapotec tombs at Monte Albán. At the time of the Spanish Conquest, they kept genealogies documenting both continuity and internecine strife over generations."
"After years of nomadic wandering, a warlike group of Nahuatl speakers founded their capital on an island in Lake Texcoco in 1345. They called themselves the Mexica and their city Mexico-Tenochtitlan, or Tenochtitlan. Since the 19th century, the Mexica have usually been grouped with other Nahuatl-speakers in the Valley of Mexico under the name of Aztecs... Inheritor of the rich and complex Mesoamerican past, the Aztecs shared many gods with the civilizations that had gone before, but they honored Huitzilopochtli, their own solar cult god, above all... The Aztecs turned their swampy island into a city whose beauty and complexity dazzled the Spanish conquerors, who also marveled at the cuisine, the gardens, the exotic animals kept in a zoo, and the fastidiousness of the populace. Like Venic, Tenochtitlan was laid out along canals..."
"During the pioneering investigations of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the gods of the Postclassic Mixtec screenfolds were thought to be essentially identical to those appearing in Aztec and Borgia groups of codices. However, it has become increasingly apparent that the Mixtec pantheon was distinct from that of Late Postclassic Central Mexico... Although the religion of the Postclassic Mixtecs was by no means identical to that of Central Mexico, a number of Mixtec gods have clear analogues with Central Mexican deities. Thus the Mixtec culture hero 9 Wind is very similar to the Central Mexican Wind god, Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl."
[***all quotations from Mary Miller & Karl Taube's An Illustrated Dictionary of The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (Thames & Hudson, 1997/2015)]
- Figurines, shamanic transformations, the netherworld, mountains and pyramids:
"With the appearance of pottery [2nd millennium BC (?)], ceramic figurines become common at Ocos and other Formative sites. The function of these Formative figurines is unknown; many examples portray youthful, full-bodied women, as if they reflect a concern with human or agricultural fertility. Often beautifully worked, Ocos figurines [as figurines of the Mesoamerican early Formative culture are known] frequently represent curious blendings of human and zoomorphic traits that have no obvious counterparts in the natural world."
"... there are strong indications that the Olmecs had complex concepts regarding shamanic transformation. As among later Mesoamerican peoples, particularly powerful individuals were believed to be able to transform themselves into jaguars."
"The Olmecs regarded caves, or entrances to the netherworld, as powerful and magical places. Similarly, at the junction of sky and earth, mountains were also considered to be particularly sacred places, and it is probable that like later Mesoamerican peoples the Olmecs considered pyramids to be replications of mountains. Mountains that contained springs or caves were particularly revered..."
"Also referred to as Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl, Ehecatl represetns Quetzalcoatl in his aspect of wind... Along with creating the earth and heavens with Tezcatlipoca, Ehecatl also rescued the bones of people from the underworld, thereby creating the present humankind... Due to the common but striking condition of 'breathing caves,' wind is commonly believed in Mesoamerica to derive from the Underworld."
[***all quotations from Mary Miller & Karl Taube's An Illustrated Dictionary of The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (Thames & Hudson, 1997/2015)]
- Iconography and writing:
"Fully present by the Early Formative Olmec, complex systems of Mesoamerican iconography antedated actual writing. Moreover, writing never replaced iconography. In the Classic Maya area, the complexity of the hieroglyphic inscriptions is entirely matched by the attendant iconography, the texts and the pictorial images conveying different qualities of information. Unlike the spicificity of writing, the power of Mesoamerican iconography lies in its subtle ambiguity and ability simultaneously to express different levels of meaning."
"One of the basic structural principles of Mesoamerican religious thought is the use of paired oppositions. In these pairings, there is a recognition of the essential interdependence of opposites... Perhaps the most advanced literary use of paired expressions appears in Nahuatl ritual speech, where a pair of words is used to refer [metaphorically] to a third concept. Known by its Spanish name, difrasismo, this literary device is relatively common in Nahuatl. Among the better known examples are fire and water to allude to war, red and black for writing, and stone and wood for punishment."
"Among the Aztecs, the term for sacredness was teotl which, like the Zapotec pee, referred to an immaterial energy or force similar to the Polynesian concept of mana. In Mayan languages, ku or ch'u means sacredness."
"According to Colonial Yucatec accounts, Itzamna was the high god of the Maya... In Postclassic Yucatán he was considered as the first priest and the inventor of writing. During the month of Uo, priests presented their screenfold books in front of an image of the god. His identification with the scribal arts was also present during the Classic period. In Late Classic vessel scenes, he is often portrayed as a scribe. Moreover, at the Terminal Classic site of Xcalumkin, he bears the scribal title of ah dzib, or He of the Writing."
[***all quotations from Mary Miller & Karl Taube's An Illustrated Dictionary of The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (Thames & Hudson, 1997/2015)]
"Probably most Mesoamerican cultures engaged in this procedure by which a mere mortal became a leader often perceived by the world around him (and occasionally her) to be divine... The candidate would then prove himself in battle and proudly lead captives, living trophies of his prowess, back to the Aztec capital... Once the ceremonies had begun, four or five days of feasting and dancing culminated in the royal procession to five sites within the sacred precinct and environs of Tenochtitlan, at each of which the candidate offered incense, quail and his own blood... With such status, the Aztec king Motecuhzoma II, for example, was neither touched nor gazed upon by his subjects, and according to the accounts written by the Spanish at the time of the Conquest, the tlatoani repelled efforts by Cortés to shake his hand or meet his gaze."
"Huitzilopochtli was the supreme deity of the Aztecs, their chief cult god. Associated with sun and fire and the ruling lineage, his introduction to Central Mexico disrupted other established solar gods and patrons of long-standing lineages, particularly Xiuhtecuhtli and Tonatiuh... Literally, Huitzilopochtli means humming bird on the left or hummingbird of the south. The Spaniards called him Huichilobos and saw him as the devil incarnate, the cause of heart sacrifice, the source of perversion in the New World... he wore on his head a blue-green hummingbird headdress, a golden tiara, white heron feathers, and the smoking mirror more commonly associated with Tezcatlipoca and probably adopted by him... His temple together with that of Tlaloc, formed what the Aztecs called the Hueteocalli, the Great Temple, a double pyramid. Accordig to one account, Tlaloc had risen from a spring to welcome Huitzilopochtli when the Aztecs fled the mainland and arrived on the island in the middle of Lake Texcoco in 1345. Perhaps the very oldest god in the Central Mexican pantheon, Tlaloc offered legitimacy and history to Huitzilopochtli. Together they also suggested Atl-Tlachinolli, or fire-and-water, the Aztec metaphor for war..."
"Flowers were viewed as sacrificial offerings, and according to some stories, Quetzalcoatl led his people to offer flowers and butterflies in lieu of human flesh."
[***all quotations from Mary Miller & Karl Taube's An Illustrated Dictionary of The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (Thames & Hudson, 1997/2015)]
[***concerning
logocentrism, infinitist metaphysics & le grande Zéro, there was a similar predicament among the Incas: "Les villages fournissaient des serviteurs pour les chefs ou pour la cour de l'Inca et étaient, en outre, tenus de présenter à un fonctionnaire de l'Inca toutes les fillettes de huit à dix ans. Les plus jolies étaient envoyées dans un 'couvent' où, sous la direction d'une femme âgée, elles s'occupaient à divers travaux, en particulier au tissage d'étoffes fines en laine de vigogne. Lorsqu'elles atteignaient l'âge de la puberté, elles étaient soumises à une nouvelle inspection. Les plus belles étaient incorporées au harem de l'Inca ou données comme concubines aux nobles et aux hauts fonctionnaires. Les autres, assignées à un sanctuaire, en devenaient les servantes et les prêtresses. Quelques-unes, enfin, étaient réservées pour les sacrifices humains" (Alfred Métraux, Les Incas, Seuil, 1983); "L'autorité de l'Inca s'exerçait sur toute une hiérarchie de fonctionnaires qui s'échelonnait depuis de véritables vizirs, choisis parmi ses proches, jusqu'aux humbles contre-maîtres surveillant le travail d'une équipe de cinq personnes. L'utilisation de ces énormes ressources en hommes et en produits n'était guère possible sans de constants dénombrements et inventaires... Les tukrikuk, ou gouverneurs, étaient chargés de réunir ces données statistiques et de les communiquer à l'empereur lors de la fête de l'Inti-raymi. Les recenseurs étaient des fonctionnaires spéciaux, les quipu-kamayoc, qui enregistraient les résultats de leurs comptes sur des cordelettes à noeuds. Les différences de couleurs correspondaient aux diverses classes de personnes ou d'objets... [des] unités administratives étaient censées correspondre aux lignages (ayllu), aux tribus et aux anciennes provinces. La pachaca, centaine, par examples, était synonyme d'un ayllu. Personne jusqu'à présent n'a réussi à expliquer comment ce cadre décimal rigide a pu être adapté aux structures sociales traditionnelles. Il est difficile de croire qu'il puisse s'agir d'autre chose que de fictions bureaucratiques... Cette tendance à compter par masses plutôt que par unités est loin d'être propre aux seuls Incas... aujourd'hui on tend à souligner les différences locales" (Alfred Métraux, Les Incas, Seuil, 1983);]
[About the Spanish colonisation of these regions: "La conquête de l'empire des Incas par les Espagnols et le régime colonial qui en découla se soldèrent pour les Indiens par la destruction de leurs biens, la perte de leurs traditions les plus sacrées, la plus forcenée des exploitations, l'esclavage et très souvent la torture et le massacre. Il est de mode en Espagne de railler la 'Légende noire' inventée par les hérétiques pour calomnier le noble peuple ibérique. Les détracteurs de la colonisation espagnole sont cependant moins sévères que ne le furent pour eux-mêmes les Castillans témoins de tant d'horreurs et de tant d'oppressions. Qu'on ne prétende point que les seuls disciples de Bartolomé de Las Casas sont ici en cause. La dénonciation, part tant de rudes soldats et d'hommes de lois, des atrocités et des abus dont ils ont été témoins est à l'honneur de l'Espagne. Bien que la Couronne se soit efforcée de protéger les droits des Indiens, on ne saurait absoudre un régime parce que les intentions, et celles-ci seules, de ses dirigeants furent souvent généreuses et justes... D'ailleurs ceux qui, au mépris des documents historiques, exaltent le passé colonial, oublient trop que les abus et les violences dont l'écho nous parvient du fond des temps continuent à être pratiqués en beaucoup de régions par les descendants des conquérants et des colons... Sous le régime inca, les mitayos, c'est-à-dire les assujettis à la corvée, étaient entretenus sur les dépôts de l'État et n'étaient point trop longtemps retenus hors de leurs villages. Les Espagnols utilisèrent à plein la main-d'oeuvre indienne sans aucune contrepartie. La plus terrible mita, celle qui pour les Indiens en vint à symboliser les horreurs de la domination étrangère, fut celle des mines. Un septième de la population totale du Pérou, du Cuzco à Tarija, se relayait dans les mines de Potosi, à 4800 m d'altitude, et dans les mines de mercure... Le calvaire des corvéables commençait avec le voyage, parfois de deux ou trois mois, qui les menait de leur village à la mine. Ils partaient accompagnés de leurs femmes et de leurs enfants, dont beaucoup mouraient en route... Beaucoup n'hésitaient pas à louer leurs femmes et leurs enfants à raison de soixante ou cinquante pesos dans le seul but de se libérer de la mine. Les chefs indigènes étaient battus et torturés s'ils ne livraient pas la main-d'oeuvre exigée. Un Indien rentré de la mine trouva au village sa femme morte et ses deux enfants abandonnés. Désespéré, l'home pendit ses deux enfants 'pour qu'ils ne servent jamais à la mine', et se coupa la gorge avec un couteau" (Alfred Métraux, Les Incas, Seuil, 1983); "... about five hundred years ago the Maya were the most literate people in the Americas, preserving their history and culture with a sophisticated hieroglyphic script in hundreds of folded screen books. The Spanish conquest in the early sixteenth century was a devastating blow to Maya literacy in Mexico and Guatemala. Christian missionaries burned great numbers of hieroglyphic texts in an attempt to eradicate indigenous religious practices. Native scribes were singled out for persecution to such an extent that within one hundred years, the art of hieroglyphic writing had virtually disappeared from among the Mayan people" (Allen J. Christenson, Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2007);]
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