If the Aztecs conquered Europe
Revisionist history with an acute vision‘Mirror’ shows a Europe conquered by invaders from the Americas.Villacis proposes this alternate history in a mock museum exhibit that documents the conquest of Europe by the Aztecs through an array of fake artifacts and explanatory captions written in the simplistic, knowing tone of museumspeak. This is what Mexican schoolchildren might have seen on a field trip to the local museum had their Aztec ancestors colonized Europe, instead of the other way around.
In this world, there are no more Christians, leaving modern-day Amexicans to speculate about what god the natives of "U-rop" might have worshipped. "Entglitcz" is a lost language and Shakespeare completely forgotten. The Aztecs are just as cruel in victory as the Europeans were, enslaving the natives to build new cities on top of the ones they have destroyed.
6 comments:
Writerfella here --
Interesting, and writerfella may look up this particular work. However, writerfella knows that there was a Native invasion of Europe between 1000 AD and 1300 AD. In the chronicle of the 'Red Paint People', archaeologists and anthropologists tracked a mysterious set of circumstances. The as yet unnamed tribe was called the 'Red Paint People' because they buried their dead under layers of liquefied iron ore, which dyed the skeletons red. The oldest of such graves were discovered in the Kentucky-Tennessee region and thus they are suspected to have been an offshoot of the Mound Builders. Oddly, the graves occur in a trail that leads northward toward the Great Lakes, with each successive discovery being dated as younger than the ones further south. Surely enough, younger and youger dated graves proceed northward into what is now Canada and even are found on islands in the Arctic Circle. The story might have ended there had not 'Red Paint' graves been discovered in Scandinavia, still younger than the North American graves. The most recent discoveries followed a trail of 'Red Paint' graves into the Netherlands, until the very last and most recent of such graves were found in Ireland. Recorded history does not reflect what became of the invaders from the New World and only the trail of graves remains to prove that it occurred. Doubters, if there be any, are referred to where writerfella found the information: NOVA on PBS...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
I hadn't heard of the "Red Paint People," so I Googled them. Neither the top site nor Wikipedia mentions any voyages to Europe. If such voyages did occur, they were more likely to be exploratory or trade missions than an "invasion."
In any case, it's more proof that Native cultures were far more sophisticated than we give them credit for. Which makes portrayals such as those in Apocalypto all the more wrong and stereotypical.
Anyway, "The Art of Smoking Mirror" looks fascinating. Since it's here in LA, I'll see it and report on it eventually. I hope to talk with the artist and get an exhibit catalog of it, or perhaps a copy of the graphic novel in progress.
Writerfella here --
Boy oh, boy, here comes classic 'circular argumentation' again in that, though the subject had NOTHING whatsoever to do with APOCALYPTO, it still is treated as though it did. Okay, then let's include 'Pirates' and 'mascots' and 'stereotypes' and the disregard for Native filmmaking, and then make it an all-around 'button-pushing' response. Hell, we even could work in global warming and the 2000 Presidential election, and wow! -- what a fine piece of thinking it could be! Erich Von Daniken would be overjoyed!
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Writerfella here --
POSTSCRIPTUM -- Luckily, writerfella has that very episode of NOVA caught on tape, and he very much would be willing to supply a dub to whomever is interested. Thus, these were not 'voyages' but rather were more likely 'treks' of genuine exploration and they would not have occurred without some very serious reasons behind them. Thus, they cannot so easily be dismissed as some accident of history. Consider that the invasion of Natives from the western hemisphere would have been met by the diseases that later would destroy countless millions of their counterparts, and you will see that it was audacious indeed but also very unwise.
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Fans love Indian mascots and Mel Gibson makes Apocalypto movies because they don't know about Cahokia or the Iroquois League or the Maritime Archaic culture. What's so hard to understand about that?
Everything I write about on this site is connected or I wouldn't be writing about it. See Culture and Comics Need Multicultural Perspective 2000 and Why Write About Native Americans? for some of my statements about how things are connected.
I'll try to catch a repeat of the Nova episode on my TiVo. If I can't, I may take you up on your tape offer.
Writerfella here --
That NOVA comes from 1997, so I will dub it for you on my Go-Video. I haven't yet gotten into DVD recording, though I will, so it must be VHS...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
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