I've been watching reruns of Gilligan's Island. Given the oft-mentioned Native islanders, it's had several indigenous-themed episodes.
I didn't recall any Native American content, but I was wondering if such content would show up. The answer is yes...in the Voodoo episode.
Season 3, Episode 5 Voodoo (10 Oct. 1966)A witch doctor wreaks havoc on the castaways after he steals a personal item from each of them and then creates voodoo dolls that bear their likenesses.My comments on this episode:
Mesoamerican archaeology revolutionized on #GilligansIsland! Gilligan finds artifacts in a cave, including a vase that's a "classical example of early Mayan worksmanship."
So the Maya were a seafaring race that reached the Hawaiian islands? Incredible!
The castaways find gold jewelry encrusted with gems, too! Priceless!
Unfortunately, the artifacts are accompanied by a "witch doctor" who practices "voodoo." Even though the Professor says there's no such thing within a thousand miles.
In keeping with the Mayan claim, the witch doctor is played by Eddie Little Sky.Eddie Little Sky was born on August 15, 1926 in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, USA. He is known for his work on A Man Called Horse (1970), Paint Your Wagon (1969) and 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964). He was married to Dawn Little Sky. He died on September 5, 1997 in Pennington, South Dakota.
With the Mayan objects and the Native American actor, there's a pretty clear implication that Mesoamerican religion and culture were equivalent to black magic aka "voodoo."
The episode ends with the castaways returning the artifacts they've taken and Gilligan finding the voodoo dolls. So there's still a Native American "witch doctor" on the loose? Let's hope he's satisfied with the return of his ancestors' items!
In the 1960s, Mayan Indians were driving cars, watching TV, and going to college like everyone else. So this portrayal of a "witch doctor" practicing "voodoo" is horribly wrong. It wasn't true in the classical Maya period and it's certainly not true a thousand years later.
But the episode isn't a total failure. It does identify Mexico as the closest Native American site. And give it a point for using a Native actor to play a Native character. Even if he is a witch doctor.
Historical Atlas of Ancient AmericaWhen Christopher Columbus landed on the Caribbean islands, he found tribes of people still firmly rooted in the Stone Age. Within decades, however, Spanish explorers made contact with cultures in the Mesoamerican isthmus which lay beyond the Caribbean that possessed far greater technological prowess. "The Historical Atlas of Ancient America" describes in vivid detail the highly developed religious, political, economic, and agricultural systems of the wealthy and highly influential Aztec and Maya civilizations, along with those of their predecessors, the Olmec and Toltec. The key features of this title include: superb full-color photographs of temples, towns, and artifacts; timelines that compare developments in Mesoamerica to those in the rest of the world; and, specially created maps that highlight the movements and influences of the Mesoamerican people and identify their major social and cultural centers.
From Library Journal
Hunt, the author of over 15 books on Native America (e.g., People of the Totem), here presents a lay reader's overview of the Mesoamerican cultures from about 1500 B.C.E. to about 1500 C.E. (e.g., Olmec, Maya, and Aztec). After defining terms and giving a summary of the cultures to be presented in a two-page introduction, Hunt moves on to explore each culture in seven enlightening chapters. The energetic and readable text is accompanied by many color illustrations and maps (either in the first two pages of most chapters to pinpoint major sites or within the text to show building locations at given sites). Perhaps the most refreshing quality of this attractive tome is the author's uncompromising honesty whenever little is known. Suitable for both public and academic libraries. --Mary Lynette Larsgaard, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
A very enjoyable and highly informative atlas
By timothy mulvey on February 5, 2013
This book was a joy to read, a great addition to my ancient culture and metaphysical library. I read it just before going to southern Mexico for 2 weeks, it was the perfect Mesoamerica primer for me. Beautiful book!Comment: For most people, this is a great introduction to the field. It breaks down every aspect of Mesoamerican cultures into two-page spreads of easily digestible info.
Two pages per topic is just enough to satisfy but not overwhelm a reader. If someone did a study on breaking a large subject into bite-size chunks to increase readability, this book would be Exhibit A on how to do it.
My only complaint is with the final few pages on Aztec mythology. It's a bit too much on the subject.
Why devote so many pages to the Aztec gods but not the Maya gods? It was almost as if Hunt was trying to fill his page quota. Or as if he were an expert on Aztec mythology and wanted to show off his knowledge.
But that's a minor quibble. This book is a perfect starting place for those interested in the Maya, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican peoples. Rob's rating: 8.5 of 10.
The Hero Twins: Against the Lords of Death: a Mayan Myth (Graphic Myths and Legends)Grade 3-6: Hunaphu and Xbalanque are characters from a Mayan myth in the Popul Vuh. Their special powers include their skills at playing the ball game Pok-ta-Pok. The competitive rulers of the underworld are not happy and challenge the twins to a game, planning to destroy them. After crossing a river of blood and a river of pus (This is so gross, says Hunaphu) to meet the Lords of Death, the young men must survive nights in increasingly dangerous houses, including one filled with razors and one filled with bloodthirsty bats. Readers should delight in the creepy action, especially the final game in which Xbalanque's head is used as the ball. The bright colors and strong lines of the cartoon-style illustrations add to the story's irreverent tone. A narrative of a contemporary boy assigned to read the myth for school begins and ends the story. Though slightly corny, this framing device may draw in readers resistant to the historical or educational theme. Children may not pick this up on their own, but once they begin they'll find much to enjoy. Lisa Goldstein, Brooklyn Public Library, NY
Great book
By Jennifer on May 10, 2013
My seventh graders love it and it is a terrific graphic novel to use to get boys into a new genre.
Grandkids liked it
By jinez on January 8, 2012
Gift for grandkids -- they like visual language and high adventure stories. I like the myths being introduced at such a young age --elementary school ages.
However, reviewer Beverly Slapin notes many discrepancies between the Popol Vuh and Hero Twins. Her conclusion:
By Beverly SlapinThese discrepancies go on and on. Basically, in the Popol Vuh, the Amazing Twins, their grandmother, the lords of Xib’alb’a, the animals—all have magical powers and all are related. In the comic book, their motivations, for the most part, are individual and unrelated and the subtlety, the complexity, the lessons are all gone. There’s no cultural context for anything.
What clinches this parallel reading for me—perhaps the worst part about this graphic novel—is that Jolley and Witt frame the story with the narrative of a white suburban boy’s having to read the Popol Vuh for school. At the beginning, he’s complaining to a friend about his homework assignment: “Nah, I can’t come over tonight. I’ve got this reading thing.” By the end, however, this white boy is totally stoked. He has read the story of the “Hero Twins,” and, before slamming down the phone, tells his friend to get his own book. Besides the fact that it’s highly unlikely that a young boy would be assigned something as complex and multi-layered as the Popol Vuh as individual reading, using a cultural outsider as a framing device around a sacred Mayan saga treats it and, by extension, the Maya, as “other.”
Glossing over or omitting important details of a sacred text—and editing out all Mayan cultural markers of land and community and group responsibility—seem to have been an easy task for Jolley and Witt.
Full of gory details, creepy action, and irreverent language; and illustrated with strong lines and bright colors, Hero Twins and the other graphic novels in the “Graphic Myths and Legends” series are likely to draw in “reluctant readers.” For this generation of young readers, comic books and graphic novels are a delivery system for information. But in reading Hero Twins, what have these young readers learned? That a people’s sacred stories are fair game, to be mutilated “just for entertainment”? It would seem so. Not recommended.Comment: After reading Hero Twins, I tend to agree with Slapin. It really is simplified to the point where a 3rd-grader might enjoy it.
That may be too simple for any significant story--not to mention a culture's sacred text. Doing the Popol Vuh in 48 pages is like doing the Bible in 48 pages--difficult to pull off.
Dramatically speaking, the menaces aren't that menacing--even for kids. For instance, the gods send the twins into a Fire House full of flames. Do they immediately burn to a crisp? No. When the gods look in on them, they're sitting on a shelf above the flames. It's like the gods are too dumb to come up with a threat beyond a 3rd-grade level.
I'd say Hero Twins is akin to a children's picture book or cartoon show. I was hoping for something a bit more sophisticated when I got it. I'm not sure how I'd introduce kids to Maya culture, but probably not like this.
Hero Twins is $8.95 for 48 pages. Unless you're a completist for Native-oriented comic books, save your money for something else.
By Henry Morales AranaFormer Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt denied charges he ordered a massacre of indigenous people during his 1982-1983 regime, as he testified for the first time at his genocide trial.
"I declare myself innocent," the 86-year-old told the court after asking to take the stand in the final arguments of his landmark trial.
"I never had the intention, the aim to destroy any national ethnic group," he said. "I am not genocidal."
Rio Montt denied the prosecution's charge that he authorized military plans to exterminate the Ixil Maya population.
"I never authorized, I never signed, I never ordered attacks against a race, an ethnic group or a religion. I never did!" the retired general thundered in a courtroom packed with survivors of the country's civil war, rights activists, relatives of the accused, and journalists.
The former strongman, taking sips of water during his 50-minute testimony, insisted that he had no control over the actions of troops operating in indigenous areas.
"I don't know what the squad leader did. I was the head of state," he said.Supporters of Guatemalan Ex-Dictator Deny GenocideA group of retired soldiers and their relatives launched a campaign Monday to deny that a genocide was carried out in Guatemala and to demand a fair trial for former dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt.
About 24 people began collecting 5,000 signatures in support of their campaign outside the Supreme Court's building in Guatemala City, where Rios Montt is being tried on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The protesters held signs that read "There was no genocide here" and "Respect to military dignity and historic truth" as speakers blasted Guatemala's national anthem and military marches.
Retired army Gen. Victor Argueta, president of an association of war veterans, said the group plans to collect signatures throughout the country and turn them in to the Supreme Court.Genocide explained
Here's why Rios Montt and his supporters are wrong when they claim genocide didn't happen:
By Laura PowellArticle II, Paragraph 109 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948—which, we must stress, was ratified by the Guatemalan State Decree 704 on November 30, 1949—states “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious groups, such as:
a. Killing members of the group;
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
On this basis, the two fundamental elements of the crime are: intentionality and that the acts committed include at least one of the five previously cited in the [list] above.”
So now that we have a better idea of what ‘genocide’ actually entails, let us be very clear: the authors of COHA’s recent analyses on Guatemala have not come to the conclusion, arbitrarily and independently, that genocide occurred in Guatemala. The United Nations—an international organization with a stated aim of facilitating the protection of human rights—determined that genocide occurred in Guatemala. Through the Accord of Oslo on June 23, 1994, the United Nations with the cooperation of the Government of the Republic of Guatemala formed the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) in order to “clarify with objectivity, equity and impartiality” the acts of violence and potential human rights violations connected to the armed conflict in Guatemala; “the Commission was not established to judge…but rather to clarify the history of the events of more than three decades of fratricidal war.”Comment: We can see above that Rios Montt denied authorizing genocide. I don't know if he denied it happened. But the prosecution can claim he knew was what happening, and let it happen, even if he didn't "authorize" it.
The Guatemalan civil war had been going on since the 1960s, with thousands of people killed or "disappeared." Rios Montt was a general in the Guatemalan Army who took power in a coup d'etat. As general and president, there's no way he didn't know about the decades of war crimes. If he didn't put a stop to them immediately, he gave them his tacit approval. He might as well have authorized them explicitly.
In other words, if he didn't order the murders himself, he aided and abetted them. It's like a bank robbery where a gang member defies the leader and kills someone. A US court would find the leader guilty of murder because it happened under his watch.
By Mike McDonaldGuatemala's highest court on Monday overturned a genocide conviction against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt and reset his trial back to when a dispute broke out a month ago over who should hear the case.
Rios Montt, 86, was found guilty on May 10 of overseeing the killings by the armed forces of at least 1,771 members of the Maya Ixil population during his 1982-83 rule. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison.
However, in a ruling on Monday, the country's Constitutional Court ordered that all the proceedings be voided going back to April 19, when one of the presiding judges suspended the trial because of a dispute with another judge over who should hear it.
It was unclear when the trial might restart.Comment: The conviction was annulled on technical grounds, not because the case against Rios Montt was flawed. Of course, the technical grounds could be a pretext--the judges' excuse for protecting one of their fellow elites. I guess we won't know until there's a final verdict that isn't overturned or annulled.
By Roberto Cintli RodriguezThroughout the duration of the Ríos Montt dictatorship, his regime was the bloodiest on the American continent. Why did the world permit his brutality, and why did it take more than 30 years to successfully prosecute him? His genocidal campaigns, in full view to the world, were committed in real time.
The simple answer is the actions--and inactions--of US President Ronald Reagan, the man who provided cover for every tin-pot dictator on the continent. A better answer is the preeminence of "America," with its mythological foundation and narrative. The best answer is the actions--or rather, inertia--of the citizens of the United States of America. It is we who permitted the atrocities of not simply this dictator, but all the military dictators on the continent during that bloodthirsty era.
The majority of US voters put Reagan in office, not once, but twice ... and then rewarded his imperial reign by subsequently electing his vice president, Papa Bush, into office. And then he got airports, freeways and buildings named after him.
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich recently called for a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate how the United States got itself into Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan (plus Yemen and Somalia). That would be an important step. However, before it takes place, a commission must be created to examine the US role in Central America, primarily in the 1980s, which resulted in the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of thousands of civilians from Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. All these wars were financed by US tax dollars. All those ruthless dictators and their leading military officers were trained by the US military. Yet in Reagan-speak, the United States was simply spreading democracy (with heavy weaponry) in Central America--the same goal Bush claimed in launching the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And from a Reagan-based perspective, the hundreds of thousands of Central American victims were little brown people whose lives were irrelevant.Comment: Dead Indians were also irrelevant to the politicians--most of them conservatives--who also supported Central American thugs and killers. That's because these politicians are racist at the core.
Bulldozers destroy Mayan pyramid in BelizeA construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize's largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project, authorities announced on Monday.
The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, Jaime Awe, said the destruction at the Nohmul complex in northern Belize was detected late last week. The ceremonial center dates back at least 2,300 years and is the most important site in northern Belize, near the border with Mexico.
"It's a feeling of Incredible disbelief because of the ignorance and the insensitivity ... they were using this for road fill," Awe said. "It's like being punched in the stomach, it's just so horrendous."
Nohmul sat in the middle of a privately owned sugar cane field, and lacked the even stone sides frequently seen in reconstructed or better-preserved pyramids. But Awe said the builders could not possibly have mistaken the pyramid mound, which is about 100 feet tall, for a natural hill because the ruins were well-known and the landscape there is naturally flat.
"These guys knew that this was an ancient structure. It's just bloody laziness," Awe said.
Photos from the scene showed backhoes clawing away at the pyramid's sloping sides, leaving an isolated core of limestone cobbles at the center, with what appears to be a narrow Mayan chamber dangling above one clawed-out section.
"Just to realize that the ancient Maya acquired all this building material to erect these buildings, using nothing more than stone tools and quarried the stone, and carried this material on their heads, using tump lines," said Awe. "To think that today we have modern equipment, that you can go and excavate in a quarry anywhere, but that this company would completely disregard that and completely destroyed this building. Why can't these people just go and quarry somewhere that has no cultural significance? It's mind-boggling."
Belizean police said they are conducting an investigation and criminal charges are possible. The Nohmul complex sits on private land, but Belizean law says that any pre-Hispanic ruins are under government protection.
The Belize community-action group Citizens Organized for Liberty Through Action called the destruction of the archaeological site "an obscene example of disrespect for the environment and history." Builders bulldoze one of largest Mayan pyramids in Belize
By Tim JohnsonA three-judge panel Friday convicted former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt of genocide, saying his military regime used “extreme terror” in an effort to wipe out a Mayan minority ethnic group in the early 1980s.
In a packed courtroom in Guatemala City, Judge Yassmin Barrios said investigators had proven that the regime led by Rios Montt, who is 86, used starvation, mass homicide, dislocation, rape and aerial bombardment as tactics to exterminate the Ixil minority, which it believed to harbor leftist guerrillas.
Barrios gave Rios Montt a 50-year jail term for genocide and an additional 30 years for crimes against humanity.
When Barrios read the sentence, cheers erupted in the courtroom, a sign of the high emotions surrounding the trial, which deeply divided Guatemala and drew attention in other Latin American nations with a history of military dictatorships.
The conviction marked the first time a former Guatemalan military strongman known for “scorched earth” tactics to eradicate leftist guerrillas had been found guilty of genocide and ordered to prison.
By Sonia Perez DiazA Guatemalan court convicted former dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity on Friday, sentencing him to 80 years in prison, the first such sentence ever handed down against a former Latin American leader.
It was the state's first official acknowledgment that genocide occurred during the bloody, 36-year civil war, something the current president, retired Gen. Otto Perez Molina, has denied.
"He knew about everything that was going on and he did not stop it, despite having the power to stop it from being carried out," said Presiding Judge Yassmin Barrios. "Rios Montt is guilty of genocide."
The 86-year-old former general laughed, talked to his lawyers and listened to the procedures through headphones. When the guilty verdict was announced, the crowded courtroom erupted in cheers. Some women who lost relatives in the massacres wept.
"Judge, Judge! Restore order!" Rios Montt shouted as cameramen and photographers swarmed him after the verdict was announced.
By Associated PressFormer Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt spent his first full day as a convict Saturday in a 16-by-13 foot cell with a small bed, bathroom and window, after receiving a landmark 80-year sentence for genocide and crime against humanity.
It was a steep fall for the now-86-year-old former strongman who ruled Guatemala from March 1982 to August 1983, during the height of a brutal civil war that killed 200,000 people, mainly Indians.
A tribunal on Friday ruled that Rios Montt knew about the slaughter of at least 1,771 Ixil Maya in Guatemala’s western highlands and didn’t stop it, handing down the first genocide conviction ever given to a Latin American strongman in his own country.
The former general was transferred to prison later that evening.
“He is not comfortable, but as a good soldier he is used to this,” said Rios Montt’s lawyer, Francisco Palomo, who is expected to seek to have the ex-general transferred to a hospital or to have his sentence be served under house arrest.
Matamoros prison, where Rios Montt is now behind bars, is located on a military base in Guatemala City where the former general spent time as a young cadet. It was built to house high-profile inmates who could be unsafe in normal prisons.Comment: For more on Rios Montt, see Guatemalan Strongman Charged with Genocide and Reagan Aided Atrocities Against Indians.
By Jonah HarrisIn Mexico, the Mayas are a people apart. Half a millennium since Spanish conquistadors set foot in Mesoamerica, their numbers stand in the millions and they remain racially, linguistically and culturally distinct from their non-indigenous countrymen. While most Mexicans are bursting with national pride, Mayas are Yucatecos first (the greatest concentration of Maya are in the Mexican state of Yucatán) and Mexicans second. Most Mexicans speak only Spanish, while most Mayas can speak both Spanish and Maya. And while soccer is practically akin to religion across much of Mexico, for Yucatec Mayas, baseball is life.
Baseball is so popular among Yucatec Mayas (almost all Mayas in Yucatán are either players or fans) and their love of the sport so unique in their country, that it has become a self-identifier, a point of pride and an integral part of what it means to be Maya--right up there with poc-chuc (traditional grilled pork), jarana yucateca (traditional dance) and colorful huipiles (traditional clothing).
"Baseball is an important element of Mayan culture," says Alberto Perez, director of Asociación MAYAB, a Bay Area Yucatec Maya organization. It’s a culture that is becoming increasingly visible in the United States, where hundreds of thousands of Mayas now live. Baseball, says Perez, provides a way for Maya immigrants in the U.S. to stay connected with community, display cultural pride and establish their unique place within the Latino Diaspora. “It is almost like an underground movement.” Today, a growing but untold number of Yucateco baseball teams are scattered across the state of California - there are even whole leagues here whose rosters are mostly made up of Yucatecos.
The sport came to Yucatan from baseball-mad Cuba, a mere 128 miles away. "Mérida (the capital of Yucatán) had more cultural and political exchange with Cuba than with Mexico City," explains Perez. “That's how we got this special love of baseball." Today, Yucatec Mayas, or Yucatecos, may love baseball even more than the Cubans who introduced them to the sport. "They say a Sunday in Oxkutzcab without baseball is not a Sunday," says Alberto Gómez, a 42-year old Yucateco who once played there professionally. Oxkutzcab is a municipality in Yucatan.Comment: Another report contradicts the popular notions that the Maya are 1) extinct and 2) fanatical cultists eager to sacrifice people to satiate their blood lust.
Below: "San Francisco-based Club Yucatan’s bench. At the game, players on the same team wear the various uniforms of their other teams in both Mexico and the United States." (Jonah Harris)
Ex-Guatemala strongman on trial after 30 years, accused of genocide, crimes against humanityThe few times Rios Montt spoke during days of pre-trial hearings, he stared straight ahead and addressed the court in a strong voice. But except for denying genocide occurred, he limited his answers to simple refusals to address questions that might incriminate him. He is being held under house arrest.
The most important evidence are the plans for three counterinsurgency campaigns known as Victory 82, Operation Sofia and Firmness 83 and after-action reports linked to mass killings. Almost all of the military plans were classified “secret” but were leaked to victims’ lawyers.
The plan for Victory 82 created a force made up of riflemen, paratroopers and combat engineers directed to operate in a part of the highlands known as the Ixil triangle and report its actions to the chief of staff of the army, part of the military leadership along with Rios Montt.
Military experts testifying for the victims have said this description of the chain of command makes it obvious that the military chief of staff and other high commanders including Rios Montt could have halted the massacres.
The Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation carried out more than 60 studies to identify some 800 sets of human remains from the area that will be evidence in the trial.
“The great majority of victims were women or children, who suffered violent deaths without putting up a defense. In some cases there were massacres, executions and people dying as they were fleeing, from hypothermia and hunger,” said the foundation’s executive director, Jose Suasnavar.
Mayas were treated as an internal enemy because they were seen as lending support to the enemy, according to the indictment against Rios Montt.
In the plan’s Annex C, the army chief of staff said that “the great masses of indigenous people in the nation’s highlands have echoed the proclamations of subversion, whose rallying cries are the lack of land and immense poverty ... they see the army like an invading enemy.”On the Brink of Justice in Guatemala
By Anita IsaacsFOR over a week Guatemala has been consumed with the court proceedings against Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, who led the country in the early 1980s, on charges of genocide. But he isn’t the only one on trial.
I have spent the past 15 years researching and writing about postwar justice in Guatemala. I am encouraged that, a decade and a half after peace accords ended 36 years of civil war, Guatemala is being given a chance to show the world how much progress it has made in building democracy. The trial gives the Guatemalan state a chance to prove that it can uphold the rule of law and grant its indigenous Mayan people, who suffered greatly under Mr. Ríos Montt, the same respectful treatment, freedoms and rights the rest of its citizens enjoy.
Still, the trial process could be the trickiest part. Given how weak the former general’s case is, the defense has already set its sights on appeal, on the grounds that Mr. Ríos Montt was denied his constitutional right to a fair trial—a denial of justice that the veteran defense team itself is supposedly trying to engineer.
Of course, win or lose, the case could still be a victory for the government if it gives voice to Mr. Ríos Montt’s Mayan victims. So far, the prosecution has gone to great lengths to do just that.
The prosecution opened the proceedings with testimonials from indigenous people, provided interpreters so they could speak in their native language (which, as one witness explained to me, is “so much easier because I know the words”) and is listening aghast to the unimaginable horrors they tell. Giving each individual the chance to speak in his or her own words, to be heard and affirmed, is a long overdue acknowledgment that Mayan lives demand protection.
The witnesses included a man testifying about how the Guatemalan Army under Mr. Ríos Montt killed his wife and two children, slashing his 5-year-old son’s face with a machete and smashing his toddler’s head. Another described how his pregnant sister was tied to a stake and burned alive, along with her child and six additional children. One witness, Nicolas Brito, told of seeing soldiers cut out and stack victims’ hearts on a table.Comment: For more on the subject, see World Bank Supports Genocide and Racism Against Guatemala's Indians.
By Cyril MychalejkoThe World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) supported genocide in Guatemala and ought to pay reparations, according to a recent report by Jubilee International.
This well-documented accusation surfaces as the Central American nation becomes the first country in the Americas to try a former president for genocide and crimes against humanity in a domestic court. But the prosecution of war criminals and the accusations against International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have so far done little to protect vulnerable communities from the ongoing expansion of mining, oil and other economic interests invading their territories and violating their human rights.
"Generating Terror," the Jubilee Debt Campaign’s report issued in December, examines how international lending and debt by IFIs such as the World Bank and the IDB helped legitimize Guatemala's genocidal regimes of the late 1970s and early 1980s and essentially subsidized their terror campaigns.
"The lending of Western States and banks and the multilateral banks they control (importantly including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Inter-American Development Bank) was an important element in sustaining the long period of military rule which followed the coup against President (Jacobo) Arbenz in 1954," the report states. "Particularly worrying, however, is the very dramatic increase in lending that coincided with the highest waves of terror, which reached genocidal proportions in the late 1970s and early 1980s."
Jubilee's report uses the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam project as a case study.
"Communities threatened by new similar projects should not let their rights be violated because these projects result in the destruction of the social fabric and even in death," said Juan de Dios, a Mayan Guatemalan who since 2005 has been spearheading, along with others, the formal Chixoy Dam Reparations negotiation process with the government of Guatemala on behalf of all the Chixoy Dam-harmed communities.
The World Bank and IDB initially agreed to fund the project with the murderous military regime of Fernando Romeo Lucas García in 1978. Between 1978 and 1989, the banks lent $400 million for the project. Between March 1980 and September 1982, there was a series of planned massacres carried out against the Mayan Achi villagers of Rio Negro in the area of Guatemala where the dam project was constructed, resulting in the murder of 440 men, women and children.
These massacres effectively "relocated" the village of Rio Negro to make way for the Chixoy Dam flood basin, and were part of a scorched-earth counterinsurgency campaign targeting the country's indigenous population. According to the United Nations, this amounted to a genocide resulting in more than 200,000 murders, more than 45,000 people "disappeared" and other war crimes such as torture and rape.Comment: This article mentions the Maya a couple more times. What it doesn't say explicitly is that the victims are Indians. Or that these assaults are a continuation of 500 years of Euro-Christian attempts to conquer, subjugate, and control indigenous people.
In the framework of the Maya Culture Festival 2012 the director of the Exploratorium Museum in San Francisco, Isabel Hawkins, presented the website produced by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington.
The website (http://maya.nmai.si.edu/), with versions in English and Spanish, has as its main objective to help and provide teachers at high school level an easy reference of the contents mentioned to relay this knowledge to new generations.
“It is an effort that brought the work of more than 130 people, of which 95 percent belong to the Maya indigenous from Yucatan, Chiapas and Guatemala, who worked to create a web page that highlights the ancestral knowledge of this civilization in areas as astronomy and the calendar, the site will provide interactive tools in Maya Math lessons for children and high school teachers,” declared Isabel Hawkins.Comment: For more on 2012, see Maya Era Ends Without Incident and NASA Debunks Apocalypse Scare.
Well, the 13th b'ak'tun ended yesterday and nothing happened.
Happy 13.0.0.0.1! It's the first day of the 14th b'ak'tun--a new Maya era.
Looking forward to the next Maya apocalypse? Mark your calendars. The 14th b'ak'tun ends Monday, March 26, 2407. The first piktun (20 b'ak'tuns) ends Friday, October 13, 4772.
Friday the 13th...look out! That day should be really unlucky!
But the Google Doodle in most Latin American countries, the UK and Ireland features a stone carving of the word "Google" to honor the end of the 13th Baktun of the Mayan calendar.
Miguel Alva, Google Mexico's marketing manager, posted a blog in Spanish about the meaning of the 13th Baktun. The English translation is below:
"Math, science and astronomy are matters which we have always been passionate about: so with our doodle today, we are celebrating the end of the 13th Baktun of the Mayan Long Count Calendar System. But what does this mean?"Comment: For more on 2012, see NASA Debunks Apocalypse Scare and "Mayan Apocalypse" in Glee.
Below: "The Google Doodle stone carving commemorating the end of the Mayan 13th Baktun appears in nearly all Latin American countries, the UK and Ireland."
By Mike KrumboltzDec. 21, 2012, has long been rumored to be the day of the Mayan apocalypse, when Earth comes to its inglorious end. The good folks at NASA want you to know that isn't going to happen.
In fact, NASA is so confident that it recently published a video that appears as if it were intended to be aired on Dec. 22. Titled "The World Didn't End Yesterday," the four-minute clip explains how the idea of the Mayan apocalypse was a huge hoax and how the rumors began. A commenter on YouTube jokes, "The correct title for this video: Told ya so!—Love, NASA."
Time magazine reports that the space agency has been besieged with questions from citizens worried that their lives are about to end. NASA is taking the fears seriously, not because there is any danger, but because irrational fears can sometimes lead to irrational and dangerous actions.
NASA's official site features an area dedicated to debunking the claims. "The world will not end in 2012," NASA writes. "Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012."Mayan Festival at National Museum of the American Indian Celebrates Bak’tun, Dispels Misconceptions About 12-21-12What NASA is debunking with science, indigenous groups are debunking with information about what the Mayans actually predicted. Which was nothing, except for the changing of a calendar page akin to flipping from December to January, or to the turning over of an odometer.
A misunderstanding of the Mayan calendar has sparked panic the world over, sending people from Russia to China to the U.S. into extremes of preparation frenzy or suicidal depression. Working on two fronts, scientists and indigenous experts have embarked on a common mission: to calm everyone down and convince them not to do anything rash in the face of the upcoming winter solstice.
The passing of the Mayans’ Bak’tun 13, otherwise known as the end of the Long Count Calendar, is a cause for celebration rather than dismay, and this weekend the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) sets out to highlight just that. Bak’tun 13: A Guatemalan Celebration of Time, a free festival from December 14 through 16, will showcase dance performances, lectures, workshops for families and Guatemalan cuisine in the museum’s Mitsitam Café.
It will include a presentation on Saturday December 15, Maya from the Inside: The 13 Bak'tun as Challenge to the Western Mind, a lecture by scholar Victor Montejo (Jakaltek Maya). His and other lectures will be webcast live at www.nmai.si.edu/webcasts, and the museum is encouraging visitors to tweet their questions to @SmithsonianNMAI using the hashtag #MayaCalendar.The Maya apocalypse is not nigh
Don't quit your day job. The Mayans didn't predict that the world would end tomorrow
By Alex HalperinEarlier this year Reuters reported that 10 percent of people believe the Maya 2012 phenomenon could signal the end of the world. Speculation surrounding the advent of the apocalypse has gained enough currency that a cranky NASA astrobiologist taped a video explaining that tomorrow will not be doomsday. What’s going on?
Tomorrow is the date 13.0.0.0.0 in the Maya’s (the generally accepted anthropological term) “long count” calendar. Remember the hoopla attending Y2K? This milestone is “almost exactly analogous to the end of the millennium for us,” according to Todd Little-Siebold, a professor of history and Latin American studies at the College of the Atlantic.And:At the same time, the 2012 phenomenon has had real-world consequences. Little-Siebold of College of the Atlantic, said there has been an effort in the Maya region of southern Mexico and Central America to capitalize on 2012 besotted tourists. He added that during Guatemala’s long civil war there was a resurgence of interest in the Maya, in part because it was safer to organize around “cultural” topics like the ancients than “political” issues of the present. A renewal of interest in Maya civilization got another boost in 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the new world.
Amid this resurgence, Sitler notes the “pizza effect,” by which Maya spiritual leaders have reincorporated some of the new international theories about the Maya into their own beliefs. On Saturday, assuming we’re still here, we can look forward to a new era of interpretation.Mexico's ethnic Maya unmoved by 2012 "Armageddon" hysteria
By Alexandra AlperThousands of mystics, New Age dreamers and fans of pre-Hispanic culture have been drawn to Mexico in hopes of witnessing great things when the day in an old Maya calendar dubbed "the end of the world" dawns on Friday.
But many of today's ethnic Maya cannot understand the fuss. Mostly Christian, they have looked on in wonder at the influx of foreign tourists to ancient cities in southern Mexico and Central America whose heyday passed hundreds of years ago.And:[O]ver the past few decades, fed by popular culture, Friday became seen by some western followers of alternative religions as a day on which momentous change could occur.
"It's a psychosis, a fad," said psychologist Vera Rodriguez, 29, a Mexican of Maya descent living in Izamal, Yucatan state, near the center of the 2012 festivities, the site of Chichen Itza. "I think it's bad for our society and our culture."And:Mexico's government forecast around 50 million tourists from home and abroad would visit southern Mexico in 2012. Up to 200,000 are expected to descend on Chichen Itza on Friday.
"It's a date for doing business, but for me it's just like any other day," said drinks vendor Julian Nohuicab, 34, an ethnic Maya working in the ruins of the ancient city of Coba in Quintana Roo state, not far from the beach resort of Cancun.
Watching busloads of white-haired pensioners and dreadlocked backpackers pile into their heartland, Maya old and young roll their eyes at the suggestion the world will end.
"We don't believe it," said Socorro Poot, 41, a housewife and mother of three in Holca, a village about 25 miles from Chichen Itza. "Nobody knows the day and the hour. Only God knows."Comment: For more on 2012, see "Mayan Apocalypse" in Glee and Countdown to Non-Apocalypse Begins.
In Thursday's episode of Glee, titled Glee, Actually (airdate: 12/13/12), several characters get a Christmas surprise.
In one segment, Brittany the dumb cheerleader walks down the hallway giving her friends extravagant gifts. She explains why to Tina:BRITTANY: Um, well, last week I decided to watch a documentary about the Mayan apocalypse, which arrives December 21, 2012. So, I decided to cash in all my savings so my friends and I could enjoy what's left of our lives to the fullest.Then boyfriend Sam approaches her and says he too believes in the apocalypse:
Sam and Brittany start a Mayan Apocalypse Club to tell the others how they feel:
After a song-and-dance number, Sam proposes to Brittany and she accepts. Coach Beiste says she can marry them because she was ordained on a Mayan church website. She performs a marriage ceremony on them.
Four days later, the world hasn't ended and the couple faces the reality of being married. They go to the coach, who clues them in.SAM: So we're not actually married.
COACH: There aren't actually any Mayan church websites. The Mayans were wiped out 500 years ago by the conquistadors and smallpox.
SAM [to Brittany]: That's like chickenpox but smaller.Beiste's motivation for the phony ceremony is a bit unclear. Apparently she gave them a fake wedding so they wouldn't run off and get married for real.
It's silly for Sam and Brittany to believe in the so-called apocalypse...but they're silly characters. Within the context of their misguided belief, they're sincere about the Maya religion and culture. They treat it with respect, not as a joke.
The only real mistake is the coach's. The Mayan civilization was "wiped out"--i.e., gradually abandoned--but the Mayan people continue today in Guatemala and neighboring countries.
All in all, it's another good TV bit. The apocalypse idea is raised only to be dismissed. Instead of scary doomsday talk, there's genuine Maya lore. The only false note is the coach's claim that it's ancient history.
December 1 Brings Countdown to Non-ApocalypseIt’s December 1, 2012, and many around the world are counting down to the purported Mayan Apocalypse, the end of the indigenous group’s Long Count calendar.
Never mind that revelations during the past year alone have put ancient Mayans firmly in touch with the future, most notably with the May 2012 discovery of a scribe’s wall covered with murals plotting Venus’s orbit 7,000 years out.
NASA has been doing its best to debunk apocalypse myths all year, and now it has taken it a step further: The space agency is now warning of a dark side to apocalyptic rumors, cautioning that while those who don’t believe in the rumors may consider it a joke, there are some who are mentally vulnerable, “frightened children and suicidal teens who truly fear the world may come to an end,” LiveScience.com reported on November 28 after an online NASA session over Google+ designed to quell doomsday fears.
Yesterday I wrote about the Maya sacrifice in an episode of The Simpsons. If you're like me, you may wonder about the alternatives. Was the only choice to portray the Maya badly or not to portray them at all? Or was there a way to do the bit without insulting them?
Answer: Yes, of course. You can make fun of any situation without resorting to offensive ethnic "jokes."
The execution
First, lose the human sacrifice. It's too sensational and not a fair representation of Maya culture.
Moreover, it isn't necessary for the "humor" about the calendar's end. The show postulates that sacrificing the wrong person doomed the Maya. Instead, have somebody discover the future "doomsday" while looking at the stars, telling fortunes, or whatever.
If you want to present Maya culture, find something else to showcase. For instance, talk about the lack of domesticated animals. Or the slash-and-burn agriculture. Some archaeologists believe the Maya caused their own demise by cutting down the trees and depleting the soil. So have the Maya boast about how their civilization will last forever because they're such good ecological stewards.
If you have to do a sacrifice, turn it into a joke by executing a non-Indian. It could be anyone. For example: Columbus, Custer, Thor Heyerdahl (for speculating that the Maya came from Africa), Mitt Romney, Kim Kardashian, Tim Tebow, or Matt Groening.
The destruction
If you insist on doing the already-tired "doomsday" scenario, do something original. Have the destruction caused by Egyptian, Greek, and Norse gods because they like to smash things. Or by the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim gods arguing about whether they're one God or three different gods.
Have a modern Maya Indian running around contradicting what everyone believes. He or she could say, "No! We didn't predict this! There's not supposed to be any harm or damage! 2012 is supposed to be a period of reflection and renewal, not death and destruction!"
That way, you could have all the colorful smashing, but the Maya wouldn't be responsible for it. They'd explicitly not be responsible for it. This version would be just as funny, but it wouldn't stereotype the Maya and their gods as murderous savages.
Sunday's episode of The Simpsons (airdate: 10/8/12) opened with a Maya sequence about--what else?--the "end" of the calendar in 2012. You can see it here:
Appearances
The characters all have tan skin, meaning they're supposed to be Indians, not white folks playing Indian. The art, architecture, writing, calendar, and numerical references (baktun) are reasonably accurate, especially for a cartoon.
With a few exceptions, the characters' appearances are good too. But Marge is wearing some sort of slinky savage-girl costume. A few of the others have too much skin showing. The working classes may have gone half-naked in the heat, but I think the elite mostly covered themselves.
Moe, Chief Wiggum, and the other officials have masks painted over their eyes. This kind of look seems more like a movie fiction than a reality. It serves to make the officials seem scary.
The execution
For starters, the Aztecs were the ones known for human sacrifice, not the Maya. Human sacrifice was relative rare among the Maya, so focusing on this makes their civilization seem more barbaric than it was.
Though Mayor Quimby says a prisoner is to be sacrificed to appease the gods, this is a gross simplification of the complex Maya religion. As Wikipedia explains:
Sacrifice in Maya cultureBlood, and by extension the still-beating heart, is the central element in both the ethnography and iconography of sacrifice, and its use through ritual established or renewed for the Maya a connection with the sacred that was for them essential to the very existence of the natural order. Julian Lee’s observation that the Maya "drew no sharp distinction between the animate and the inanimate" and the remarks by Pendergast and others that sacrifices "ensouled" buildings and idols indicates a social meaning, as Reilly suggests, most akin to Transubstantiation--a literal rather than symbolic transformation on which the fate of the world and its inhabitants depended.Moe is led off to be sacrificed in place of Homer. An executioner cuts off his head with a curved broadsword. I'm not sure anyone was sacrificed this way. From what I've read, most sacrifices were thrown into cenotes (wells), had their hearts cut out, or were shot with arrows. Showing a decapitation with Moe's head bouncing down the stairs is somewhat more gruesome than the reality.
The destruction
Using a clever Maya slide-rule, Professor Frink calculates that the calendar will end in 2012. We flash-forward to the present where three Maya gods smash everything.
First, I'm not sure the Maya gods even exist in human form. My impression is that they're more like forces that take on aspects of humans or animals. In other words, amorphous shapeshifters, not beings with a standard appearance like Zeus or Odin.
More important, no one has claimed the Maya or their gods would themselves cause the "prophesied" destruction. The Maya supposedly predicted the end, but it's not as if they wanted it to happen. They're the messengers, not the instigators. If the world were to end in 2012, it would happen via a natural cataclysm, not a godly temper tantrum.
Finally, as I've noted before, the world's ending in 2012 is a myth:
The calendar rollover signifies, at most, a symbolic turning point in history. If anything did happen, it would be a process of change and renewal, not destruction. For instance, if people started to care about climate change, it would "destroy" the old mindset of greed and selfishness.
So the Simpsons' scenario is doubly wrong. It implies the Maya expect the world to end and, worse, are causing it to end. Neither claim is true.
This destruction conveys the same idea as past centuries of stereotypes: that Indians are savage barbarians with no regard for life. That they exist primarily to crush, kill, and destroy things. That despite their art and architecture, they're little more than animals in human guise.
That's stereotypical if not racist. Many Maya Indians would disagree with this characterization of their ancestors. They're alive and well and some of them probably watch The Simpsons.
The Maya sequence gets points for starting off with a decent depiction of the culture. It loses those points and more for presenting a human sacrifice. And worse, for fabricating the meaning of the calendar's end. For portraying the Maya deities as cruel and inhuman enough to destroy life on earth. The Old Testament God may be a genocidal maniac (see the Flood), but Native gods aren't.
