From karttu at nantucket.net Thu Jul 1 00:38:01 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 18:38:01 -0600 Subject: New Testament in Classical Nahuatl. Message-ID: > Some days ago I read on the web that in 1833 someone translated >Bible's New Testament into classical nahuatl. I wrote the people in charge >of those pages (one of Nance's profiles) but don't know about it. > Does anyone of you know if it is still on print? Thank you. > > > Fabian Pena The place to look up something like this is in Volume II of Ascensi=F3n H. d= e Le=F3n-Portilla's Tepuztlahcuilolli: Impresos en n=E1huatl. On p. 138, entry 947, is "El Evangelio de San Lucas del lat=EDn a mexicano o mejor n=E1huatl. Londres, Samuel Bagster, ed., 1933, 139 p." It's not likely to still be in print. But if you look into the index of Tepuztlahcuilolli, you will find under "Biblia, traducciones al n=E1huatl. Del Nuevo Testmento" over 75 entries. Most of them are for parts of the New Testament published in Nahuatl in this century. From rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au Thu Jul 1 01:56:17 1999 From: rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au (Accounts Clerk) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 19:56:17 -0600 Subject: R: Teoti:-hua-0-ca:-n Message-ID: >Try and translate English placenames... Why should there be consistency in this case? > G'day Henry I'd like to think that Nahuatl is a lot more consistent than English. English is a language that has a hundred exceptions to every rule. :) Russell From rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au Thu Jul 1 02:10:06 1999 From: rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au (Accounts Clerk) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 20:10:06 -0600 Subject: Teoti:-hua-0-ca:-n Message-ID: G'day Antonio >"The place where gods make themselves (from the impersonal of teoti, "to >become a god")". This translation "gods make themselves" would suggest that a noun-ified verb is possible, perhaps a "self creator" or just a "creator" or a "god maker". How does "place of the creators" sound? > e.g. from >com(itl)-chihua, "to make pottery", we have "con-chiuh-can", "place where >they make pottery". In this case, no doubt that "ciuh-" is the root of a >verb "to make" with incorporate object. This example contains a preterite agentive noun: con-chi:uh-0-ca:-n - a place where one makes pottery, a craftsman's shop. Russell From rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au Thu Jul 1 02:23:41 1999 From: rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au (Accounts Clerk) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 20:23:41 -0600 Subject: locative suffix -n Message-ID: >>I have no definite answer to you on this matter (incidentally, I wonder if someone >>"wiser" in the list could be of some help in elucidating this point also to me); Unfortunately, those "someone wiser" are not forthcoming. Joe Campbell is probably thinking this is another stock market low point :) :) :). In their absence I post the following information from Andrews: Locative Suffix -N ================== The locative suffix -n meaning "place" is used to create locative nouns. There are 2 formations: 1) -n suffixed to ca:tl ------------------------ a) Preterite Agentive Noun Stem + -N e.g. Class A: mich-namaca-0-ca:-n i.e. a place where one sells fish, a fish market. e.g. Class B: tla-chi:uh-0-ca:-n i.e. a place where one makes something, a craftsman's shop. b) -N suffixed to ya: Meaning a place of customary activity. e.g. tla-namac-o:-ya:-n-0 i.e. a place where things are customarily sold, a market. e.g. cochi-hua-ya:-n-0 i.e. a place where people customarily sleep, a bedroom. 2) Other Uses ---------------- ca:n = what place is it? Where is it? ahca:n = It is no place, it is nowhere. onca:n = that place, there. cualca:n = a good place. miecca:n = many places. From mdmorris at indiana.edu Thu Jul 1 02:47:57 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 20:47:57 -0600 Subject: Teoti:-hua-0-ca:-n Message-ID: Russell, quemolpanolti mahuiztlacatl, It looks like you are making a lot of progress with puzzling out Nahuatl grammar. I'm not quite sure on what you base your arguments, so it is difficult for me to try to do more than say, "I think that's wrong," which wouldn't be helpful because it seems like you're trying to get to general rules, not whether Teotihuacan is more a noun than a verb. Are you working from Andrews? If you are, it would help at least for myself to engage with you if you clarified from where your assertions are coming. Grammar is by far not my strong point and so these sort of opaque references just make it more difficult for me to puzzle out at what you're getting, and it looks like you're stuck with me for awhile because R. Joe Campbell is on vacation. Mark Morris From karttu at nantucket.net Thu Jul 1 12:08:05 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 06:08:05 -0600 Subject: To Russell Message-ID: Russell, I am going to answer your personal email to me, posting my answer to the whole list. Then I'm bowing out. I've been following your many postings, and I haven't anything to add. To reiterate and expand on what I wrote to you in response to your private email to me some time ago: IF the place name were Teohuahcan, it would be perfectly transparent as 'place where people possess gods' (like Michoacan/michhuahca:n). Since Teotihuacan includes a huge ceremonial center, that makes sense. But, as I said before, there is the -ti-. From the verb teoti- 'to be or become a god, one would get teotiyan (teo:tiya:n) 'place where becoming a god/gods customarily or habitually takes place.' This is also consonant with mythology surrounding Teotihuacan. In this derivation the ti- is ok but the hua(h?)- becomes a problem. The only possibility is to take Launey's approach and say that the derivation is from the nonactive form of the verb teoti-, which gives you teotihua- (with vowel length marked: teo:ti:hua-). All nonactives being Class A, the active stem and the preterite stem are identical. The preterite stem with the preterit suffix can be used much in the same way as a participle can be in English or Spanish, that is it can function like an adjective or a noun: as when in English we refer to 'the beloved departed'. The preterite stem without the preterite suffix (-c for Class A) can be used in further nominal derivations. (This is how you get michnamaca- with -ca:n.) I regret using the term 'noun-ified' in my original note to you, because the proper terminology is "nominalized." I think the reason you are not getting responses to your speculations is that people are tired out by your postings. As one of the listeros has already said to you, placenames (in ALL languages, not just English) are very given to exceptions. Often they are morphologically opaque. This is sometimes because the name has passed through a couple of languages and been reinterpreted or "folk-etymologized." Preoccupation with individual words in Nahuatl and with place names in particular is not likely to get continual reinforcement from the linguists who look in on Nahuat-L. As I said to you long ago, one cannot learn a language word-by-word, and you do not have the right to demand that anyone teach you a language that way or any other way by email. You say you are now trying to understand processes, but you are still trying to approach these processes one word at a time. You drove me completely off Nahuat-L for a long time soon after you came on, and now you are at it again, feeling that you have the perfect right to publicly and privately demand attention. Please lay off the relentless pursuit of threads that are not eliciting the responses you want. Joe is very generous with his expertise, but he has a life and work of his own, you know. Fran From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Thu Jul 1 12:33:34 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 06:33:34 -0600 Subject: To Russell Message-ID: Re: Frances Kartunnen's note below: > I think the reason you are not getting responses to your speculations is > that people are tired out by your postings. I disagree. I believe the reason has more to do with the absolutely speculative nature of Russell's place-name. As one of the listeros has > already said to you, placenames (in ALL languages, not just English) are > very given to exceptions. Often they are morphologically opaque. This is > sometimes because the name has passed through a couple of languages and > been reinterpreted or "folk-etymologized." > Quite true. > Preoccupation with individual words in Nahuatl and with place names in > particular is not likely to get continual reinforcement from the linguists > who look in on Nahuat-L. Again, I disagree. Moreover, it's not as if this list is over-heating with messages. As I said to you long ago, one cannot learn a > language word-by-word, and you do not have the right to demand that anyone > teach you a language that way or any other way by email. I don't think this is what Russell has been asking. As far as I can tell from his messages to the list and our personal communication, he has had a legitimate desire to understand the place-name "Teotihuacan." You say you are > now trying to understand processes, but you are still trying to approach > these processes one word at a time. He seems to be only interested in *one word*. > > You drove me completely off Nahuat-L for a long time soon after you came > on, and now you are at it again, feeling that you have the perfect right to > publicly and privately demand attention. > I shall not respond to this. > Please lay off the relentless pursuit of threads that are not eliciting the > responses you want. Joe is very generous with his expertise, but he has a > life and work of his own, you know. > I responded personally to Russell concerning Joe and I believe he got the message (at least, it was returned to me as "undeliverable. :) Michael From mikegaby at hotmail.com Thu Jul 1 13:33:50 1999 From: mikegaby at hotmail.com (mike gaby) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 07:33:50 -0600 Subject: Az: Question regarding Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca... Message-ID: Fran, what of the Palenque Triad? Mike >From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) >Reply-To: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu >To: Multiple recipients of list >Subject: Re: Az: Question regarding Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca... >Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 04:59:33 -0600 > > >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > >Listeros, > > > > Mulling over god triads in ancient Mesoamerica while visiting a > >temple supposedly dedicated to Tezcatlipoca at Teopanzolco (in > >Cuernavaca), > > > >Jorge Perez de Lara > >Mexico > > > >jorgepl at infosel.net.mx > >Dear Jorge, > >I can't answer your specific questions, but I'd like to point out that a >triad of anything would be decidedly un-Mesoamerican. The Aztec world, >sharing in the Mesoamerican cosmovision, was a cognitive world pervaded by >2s (the duality expressed by pairs uch as Ometeotl/Omecihuatl) and 4s (the >quadripartite nature of just about everything). > >Fran > > _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Thu Jul 1 14:20:21 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 08:20:21 -0600 Subject: To Russell Message-ID: Mahuizlisterotzitzintin > > Preoccupation with individual words in Nahuatl and with place names in > > particular is not likely to get continual reinforcement from the linguists > > who look in on Nahuat-L. > > Again, I disagree. Moreover, it's not as if this list is over-heating > with messages. Ke:mah! It's not been very busy on here lately. Individual words can of course be a valuable source of data. Place names are in many ways especially valuable because in them a part of the history of the place is encoded. Likewise, place names and personal names lead a life of their own in many languages and should get attention as a specialized but integral part of language. That doesn't necessarily mean that one has to be obsessed with cracking the secrets in "Teotihuacan" (just look at how modern Mexicans pronounce and reinterpret Nahuatl names: like Cuerna-vaca, ay que caray; in a very similar fashion may Nahuas have reinterpreted previous place names, you can bet). > > As I said to you long ago, one cannot learn a > > language word-by-word, and you do not have the right to demand that anyone > > teach you a language that way or any other way by email. > > I don't think this is what Russell has been asking. As far as I can tell > from his messages to the list and our personal communication, he has had a > legitimate desire to understand the place-name "Teotihuacan." The analysis of words and phrases should be done thoroughly and it is a good exercise to do that in depth. A page of in-depth text analysis will yield better results for the student as well as for the data to be extracted than just browsing through piles of text in a sloppy manner, generally spoken. If place names should be the first in line (especially *that* name!) is another question. It's fun to etymologize when you are in Mexico, but beware, even a scholarly eye can be tricked into some odd folk etymology. What really bothers me is this overall striving for consistency. What we do with Nahuatl grammar is what the logician would call "subsumption". Even though we have a fairly good understanding of Nahuatl, it would be a mistake to try and mold every little bit of contradiction into our predefined inventory of terms, just ironing any unevenness out. A language has intrinsic dynamics that we cannot fully describe if we simply stick to what others before us have established, however useful that may be. We have not cracked all secrets of our own mother tongues so why should it be the case with Nahuatl? Exceptions to established rules are very good pointers to other grammatical or semantic categories that either have vanished or are just in a germ state. They can reflect (aberrant) social uses of the languages right down to the very idiosyncrasies. As long as we find indicators for that any group of people actually did communicate that "abberrantly" then there is something there for linguists to describe (if not explain). We find that in spoken contemporary Nahuatl dialects as well in this whole range of historical written sources and if there are things that cannot be easily accounted for so far (Like Teo -ti- huacan) then this is our perfect playground and this is what fascinates at least me about language. just my two centavos, cuates Henry PS: anybody among those interested in place names found out what Cuitlahuac is all about? But I don't wanna bore anybody... From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Thu Jul 1 16:48:51 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 10:48:51 -0600 Subject: Digibis CD-ROM Message-ID: La Fundaci=F3n Hist=F3rica Tavera, dentro de la Colecci=F3n Cl=E1sicos= Tavera, ha publicado en CD-Rom: =20 OBRAS CL=C1SICAS SOBRE LA LENGUA N=C1HUATL [CD-Rom]. Compilaci=F3n de= Ascensi=F3n Hern=E1ndez de Le=F3n-Portilla. Colecci=F3n =93Cl=E1sicos Tavera=94. Serie= IX: Fuentes Ling=FC=EDsticas Ind=EDgenas. Volumen 8. N=FAmero 16. Madrid. Fundaci=F3n= Hist=F3rica Tavera y Digibis. 1998. =20 Obras cl=E1sicas sobre la lengua N=E1huatl forma parte de un amplio= proyecto, la =93Colecci=F3n Cl=E1sicos Tavera=94, cuyo objetivo es la edici=F3n en= CD-Rom de las obras m=E1s relevantes para el conocimiento del pasado de los pa=EDses,= regiones y ciudades de Am=E9rica Latina, Espa=F1a, Portugal y Filipinas, as=ED como= de ciertos temas monogr=E1ficos relacionados con esas mismas =E1reas= geogr=E1ficas. El n=FAmero 16 contiene una selecci=F3n de textos (36 libros sobre artes, vocabularios, doctrinas, confesionarios, manuales de sacramento, otros libros de tema religioso y antigua palabra, con unas 10.000 p=E1ginas aproximadamente) compilados por la Dra. Ascensi=F3n Hern=E1ndez de Le=F3n Portilla, y una amplia y bien concebida introducci=F3n en la que se explica= el por qu=E9 de la elecci=F3n y se revisa brevemente lo que se sabe sobre la= lengua n=E1huatl y la importancia que dichos textos tienen para su estudio. =20 Las obras han sido digitalizadas en edici=F3n facsimilar. El manejo y= consulta del CD-Rom es sencillo, no obstante, cuenta con una buena gu=EDa de ayuda,= un sumario general en el que se detallan los contenidos y a trav=E9s del que= es posible realizar b=FAsquedas por distintos campos (uno a uno o varios a la vez): autor, t=EDtulo, palabras clave, y una ficha independiente para cada= uno de los textos en la que, aparte de sus caracter=EDsticas, se incluye un= =EDndice que permite b=FAsquedas similares a las del sumario general. =20 El sistema ofrece distintos tipos de visualizaci=F3n (zoom, rotaci=F3n e inversi=F3n de imagen, modificaci=F3n de los niveles de contraste), y= permite seleccionar partes del contenido y guardarlas en cualquier otro soporte magn=E9tico e imprimirlas con una calidad muy superior a la de una= fotocopia convencional. En definitiva, la edici=F3n digital pone a disposici=F3n del investigador un acceso integral y sencillo a la documentaci=F3n. =20 A continuaci=F3n detallamos en contenido del CD-Rom. =20 =CDndice de la obra: =20 ALDAMA y GUEVARA, Jos=E9 Agust=EDn (1754): Arte de la lengua mexicana.= M=E9xico. Imprenta de la Lengua mexicana. =20 ALVA, Bartolom=E9 de (1634): Confessionario mayor y menor de la lengua mexicana: y pl=E1ticas contra las supersticiones de idolatr=EDa... M=E9xico= . Francisco S=E1lbago. =20 AQUINO CORT=C9S Y CEDE=D1O, Ger=F3nymo Thom=E1s de (1765): Arte,= vocabulario y confessionario en el idioma mexicano: c=F3mo se usa el en Obispado de Guadalajara. Puebla de los =C1ngeles (M=E9xico). Imprenta del Colegio Real= de San Ignacio de Puebla de los =C1ngeles. =20 ARENAS, Pedro de (1611): Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana. M=E9xico. Henrico Mart=EDnez. =20 BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1600): Advertencias para los confessores de los naturales... (2 vol=FAmenes). Tlatilulco - Convento de Santiago de= Tlatilulco. M. Ocharte. =20 BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1600): Huehuetlahtolli: que contiene las pl=E1ticas.= . Tlatilulco. Convento de Santiago de Tlatilulco. =20 BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1606): A Iesu Christo S.N. ofrece este sermonario en lengua mexicana. M=E9xico. Casa de Diego L=F3pez D=E1valos. =20 CARCHI, Horacio (1645): Arte de la lengua mexicana con la declaraci=F3n de= los adverbios della. M=E9xico. Juan Ruyz. =20 Doctirna christiana en lengua espa=F1ola y mexicana: hecha por los= religiosos de la Orden de Santiago (1548). M=E9xico. Casa de Juan Pablos. =20 GALDO GUZM=C1N, (Fray) Diego de (1642): Arte mexicano. M=E9xico. Viuda de Bernardo Calder=F3n. =20 GANTE, (Fray) Pedro (1553): Doctrina Christiana en lengua mexicana. M=E9xic= o. Casa de Juan Pablos. =20 GAONA, (Fray) Juan de (1582): Colloquios de la paz y tranquilidad christiana, en lengua mexicana. M=E9xico. Casa de Juan Plablos. =20 GARC=CDA ICAZBALCETA, Joaqu=EDn (1889): Nueva colecci=F3n de documentos= para la historia de M=E9xico (2 vol=FAmenes). M=E9xico. Antigua Librer=EDa de= Andrade y Morales, Sucesores, Tomo I (C=F3dice Franciscano, siglo XVI). =20 GUERRA, (Fray) Juan (1692): Arte de la lengua mexicana: que fue usual entre los indios del Obispado de Guadalajara y de parte de los de Durango y Michoac=E1n. Guadalajara. Viuda de Francisco Rodr=EDguez Lupericio. =20 GUERRA, (Fray) Juan (1900): Arte de la lengua mexicana: que fue usual entre los indios del Obispado de Guadalajara y de parte de los de Durango y Michoac=E1n. Guadalajara. Alberto Santoscoy. =20 LASSO DE LA VEGA, Luis (1649): Huei tlamahvi=E7oltica omonexiti in Ilhuicac Tlatoca Cichuapilli... M=E9xico. Imprenta Iuan Ruyz. =20 LE=D3N, (Fray) Mart=EDn de (1611): Camino del cielo en lengua mexicana... M=E9xico. Imprenta de Diego L=F3pez D=E1valos. =20 MIJANGOS, Fray Juan de (1607): Espejo divino en lengua mexicana en que pueden verse los Padres y tomar documento para acercar a adoptrinar bien a sus hijos, y aficionallos a las virtudes. M=E9xico. Imprenta de Diego L=F3p= ez D=E1valos. =20 MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1555): Aqu=ED comien=E7a un vocubalario en la= lengua castellana y mexicana. M=E9xico. Casa de Juan Pablos. =20 MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1565): Confessionario breve en lengua mexicana y castellana. M=E9xico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. =20 MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1565): Confessionario Mayor en lengua mexicana y castellana. M=E9xico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. =20 MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1571): Arte de la lengua mexicana y castellana. M=E9xico. Casa de Pedro Ocharte. =20 MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1571): Vocabulario en lengua mexicana y castellana. M=E9xico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. =20 OLMOS, (Fray) Ignacio de (1547): Arte de la lengua mexicana. [S.l.].= [S.n.]. =20 PAREDES, Ignacio de (1759): Promptuario manual mexicano. M=E9xico. Imprenta= de la Biblioteca Mexicana. =20 P=C9REZ, (Fray) Manuel (1713): Arte del idioma mexicano. M=E9xico.= Francisco Rivera Calder=F3n. =20 P=C9REZ, (Fray) Manuel (1713): Farol indiano y gu=EDa de curas de indios... M=E9xico. Francisco Rivera Calder=F3n. =20 RINC=D3N, Antonio del (1595): Arte mexicana. Casa de Pedro Balli. =20 RIPALDA, Ger=F3nymo de (1758): Catecismo mexicano que contiene toda la doctrina christiana... M=E9xico. Imprenta de la Biblioteca Mexicana. =20 SAAVEDRA, (Fray) Marcos de (1746): Confessionario breve activo y pasivo en lengua mexicana... M=E9xico. Imprenta Real del Superior Gobierno, del Nuevo Rezado, de Do=F1a Mar=EDa de Rivera. =20 SAENZ DE LA PE=D1A, Andr=E9s (1642): Manual de los Santos Sacramentos...= M=E9xico. Francisco Robledo. =20 SAHAG=DAN, (Fray) Bernardino de (1583): Psalmodia Christiana y Sermonario= de los Sanctos del A=F1o, en lengua mexicana. M=E9xico. Con licencia en Casa= de Pedro Ocharte. =20 SANDOVAL, Rafael (1888): Arte de la lengua mexicana. Ram=F3n Garc=EDa Raya. =20 TAPIA CENTENO, Carlos de (1753): Arte novissima de lengua mexicana... M=E9xico. Viuda de Joseph Bernardo de Hogal. =20 V=C1ZQUEZ GATELU, Antonio (1689): Arte de Lengua Mexicana. [S.l.].= Fern=E1ndez de Le=F3n =20 VETANCOURT, (Fray) Agust=EDn (1673): Arte de lengua mexicana... M=E9xico. Francisco Rodr=EDguez Lupericio. =20 Para cualquier informaci=F3n acerca de la obra o para adquirir el CD-Rom contactar con Pilar Ruiz: pilar.ruiz at digibis.com Ver tambi=E9n la p=E1gina web: http://www.digibis.com From clayton at indiana.edu Thu Jul 1 16:51:55 1999 From: clayton at indiana.edu (Mary Clayton) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 10:51:55 -0600 Subject: To Russell Message-ID: Hi All, > Joe is very generous with his expertise, but he has a > life and work of his own, you know. Actually, whether Joe has a life 'of his own' as apart from 'work of his own' is open to question. [I consider myself the expert here. We're married.] As most of you know, Joe is a teacher to his very soul, and loves nothing more than providing instruction and information whenever he can. Whether he would have anything to say about teotihuacan, I don't know. [I read his mind, but not *all* the time.] In any case, as Michael pointed out, Joe is presently out of town--not exactly on vacation, he's visiting his mother, [Actually, I'm out of town also, but I have the computer with the modem, he doesn't] so he is missing all of this. Actually, I didn't consider Russell's reference to Joe to be critical but rather just jocular. In any case, I think Henry makes a couple of good points both in favoring in-depth analysis of words and in expressing caution about giving place names too high a priority in this study: >The analysis of words and phrases should be done thoroughly and it is >a good exercise to do that in depth. A page of in-depth text analysis >will yield better results for the student as well as for the data to >be extracted than just browsing through piles of text in a sloppy >manner, generally spoken. If place names should be the first in line >(especially *that* name!) is another question Henry's other major point [quoted below] is also well-taken, and I think it gets to the heart of what is troubling Russell. When one looks at one's own language, he *knows* where the fuzzy spots are, what doesn't 'fit the rules' etc. In a foreign language (and as Andrews puts it, a 'strangely foreign' language) it is hard to know when one has hit a real rough spot and when one's own knowledge just isn't yet up to the job at hand. Therefore, I think the questions being raised are interesting, and worth worrying, though in the end I'm pessimistic about there being a clear solution. But if one sees the learning process itself as the goal, then surely this is a useful exercise. >What really bothers me is this overall striving for consistency. What >we do with Nahuatl grammar is what the logician would call >"subsumption". Even though we have a fairly good understanding of >Nahuatl, it would be a mistake to try and mold every little bit of >contradiction into our predefined inventory of terms, just ironing any >unevenness out. A language has intrinsic dynamics that we cannot fully >describe if we simply stick to what others before us have established, >however useful that may be. We have not cracked all secrets of our own >mother tongues so why should it be the case with Nahuatl? Exceptions >to established rules are very good pointers to other grammatical or >semantic categories that either have vanished or are just in a germ >state. They can reflect (aberrant) social uses of the languages right >down to the very idiosyncrasies. As long as we find indicators for >that any group of people actually did communicate that "abberrantly" >then there is something there for linguists to describe (if not >explain). We find that in spoken contemporary Nahuatl dialects as well >in this whole range of historical written sources and if there are >things that cannot be easily accounted for so far (Like Teo -ti- >huacan) then this is our perfect playground and this is what >fascinates at least me about language. Sending greetings from the LSA Institute in Champaign/Urbana -- and if you think Nahuatl is 'strangely foreign', you should see Ahousat, being taught here by Emmon Bach and Katie Fraser. It not only has the voiceless laterally released affricate (tl) of Nahuatl, it has a *glottalized* one also, plus glottalized counterparts of 10 other consonants, but no 'ordinary' /b d g r l/ Mary From karttu at nantucket.net Thu Jul 1 18:00:18 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 12:00:18 -0600 Subject: Az: Question regarding Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca... Message-ID: >Fran, >what of the Palenque Triad? >Mike > I really don't know. Most Maya stuff as well as Central Mexican goes by 2s and 4s. From alpha at selway.umt.edu Thu Jul 1 18:14:06 1999 From: alpha at selway.umt.edu (Alicia Gignoux) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 12:14:06 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: Does anyone know what type of food (plant? herb?) this is? Thanks Alicia Gignoux alpha at selway.umt.edu From carlos.trenary at vanderbilt.edu Thu Jul 1 19:23:03 1999 From: carlos.trenary at vanderbilt.edu (Carlos Trenary) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 13:23:03 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: At 12:16 PM 7/1/99 -0600, you wrote: >Does anyone know what type of food (plant? herb?) >this is? >Thanks >Alicia Gignoux >alpha at selway.umt.edu Maximo Martinez reports three different plants know as xoconoztle: 1) Lemaireocereus stellatus (Pfeiffer) Britt et. Rose,- Cactaceae 2) Pereskiopsis Blakeana G. Ortega,- Cactaceae 3) Pereskiopsis Porteri (Barns.) Britt et Rose,- Cactaceae Number three is reported as edible. Carlos Trenary Lab= 615-322-6950 Vanderbilt University Direct= 615-322-7511 Microcomputer Lab pager= 615-951-2246 Box 81 Station B email= carlos.trenary at vanderbilt.edu Room 119 Garland Hall Nashville TN 37235 Systems Administrator Network Manager for the Social Sciences. From dfrye at umich.edu Thu Jul 1 19:38:29 1999 From: dfrye at umich.edu (David L. Frye) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 13:38:29 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: In San Luis Potosi there is a cactus -- looks roughly like an organ cactus or pitahaya -- that is called joconoiste or joconostle, which (in local speech) would derive from xoconoztli or possibly xoconochtli. If I remember correctly, it has a yellow fruit roughly the size and appearance of a tuna (prickly pear, nochtli) which is sour and can be added to soup like limon. David Frye, University of Michigan (dfrye at umich.edu) PS, a great source for looking these things up is Santamaria's Diccionario de Mejicanismos. From kammler at stud.uni-frankfurt.de Thu Jul 1 23:18:32 1999 From: kammler at stud.uni-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 17:18:32 -0600 Subject: Champaign/Urbana: Ahousat Message-ID: > > Sending greetings from the LSA Institute in Champaign/Urbana -- and >if you think Nahuatl is 'strangely foreign', you should see Ahousat, being >taught here by Emmon Bach and Katie Fraser. It not only has the voiceless >laterally released affricate (tl) of Nahuatl, it has a *glottalized* one >also, plus glottalized counterparts of 10 other consonants, but no >'ordinary' /b d g r l/ > >Mary What a coincidence. I did work with speakers of the TsishaatH and AhousatH dialects of "Nootka" in 96/97. Nice to bump into a Nootkan reference on Nahuat-L. I can only agree: "Nootka" (Nuuchaa'nulh) is a really strange language as compared to Nahuatl, the sound inventory still being the easier part (though more complex than Nahuatl). Another difference: the three dialects of "Nootka" have less than 150 fluent speakers altogether now (out of 6000 or so), the Ahousat variant is the most viable one. Henry From micc at home.com Fri Jul 2 02:13:51 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 20:13:51 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: Perhaps: Xoco = raw, bitter + Nochtli= prickly pear cactus fruit Alicia Gignoux wrote: > Does anyone know what type of food (plant? herb?) > this is? > Thanks > Alicia Gignoux > alpha at selway.umt.edu From muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com Fri Jul 2 03:31:45 1999 From: muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com (Roberto Tirado) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 21:31:45 -0600 Subject: subscribe nahuat-l Message-ID: _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From robc at csufresno.edu Fri Jul 2 04:40:52 1999 From: robc at csufresno.edu (Robert G. Comegys) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 22:40:52 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: Dr. Francisco Hernandez (1515-1587) reports that the second Ayohuitztli is a common spiny genera which others call xocoitzli and which grows everywhere. [Hernandez mostly traveled the Valley of Mexico] Its fruit lacks appreciable flavor or color... Make a dough (harina) and mix with the ointment (grasa) called "acaxin" or with resin, applied it takes away the itch (or mange). It grows in places that are hot or temperate, near or next to water. It has been identified with Echinops by two authorities, and in this century by two authorities as "Solanum carnutum Lam." which M. Batalla reports is a species near to S. torvum which has applications against illnesses of the skin. See Francisco Hernandez Obras Completas Tomo II Vol. I page 55 (Libro II Cap. XXII of Historia natural de nueva espa�a) Universidad Nacional de M�xico, 1959 and also Vol VII of the complete works of Hernandez, page 409 for the references to Echinops and Solanum carnutum Lam. I looked for some explanation of acaxin, but there was nothing else in the indexes or the lists of indigenous terms. Regards John Comegys robc at csufresno.edu From elena at indra.com Fri Jul 2 06:10:10 1999 From: elena at indra.com (ellen holly klaver) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 00:10:10 -0600 Subject: mailings Message-ID: dear folks, i am receiving far too much mail that is not really that useful. i don't know if there is a way to receive information only on resources, books, conferences, etc, and not all the back and forth. if there is, please sign me up for that list and not to receive everything even if it's correspondence between people. if there isn't, i respectfully and sadl;y ask that my address be removed from the list. i just cannot receive so much mail. thank ytou very much, tlazokamati, ellen in colorado From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Fri Jul 2 08:21:53 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 02:21:53 -0600 Subject: mailings Message-ID: > > dear folks, i am receiving far too much mail that is not really that > useful. Which leads to the question why we have this list. > i don't know if there is a way to receive information only on > resources, books, conferences, etc, Like a bulletin board? Without comments, opinions (scholarly and otherwise)? Not much fun, I imagine, and not mind tickling either. > and not all the back and forth. For those who actively participate this "back and forth" is much more useful, I think. It's about *sharing* knowledge, not about one side being the supplier of information and the other the taker. People have the chance to discuss things without having to cover 10,000 miles to see each other. Academic life has far too long consisted of people sticking to themselves, keeping stuff in the drawers of their desks (for whatever reason), lacking the opportunity to quickly talk over this or that matter with a colleague. Others who whitness these conversations can throw their own views in which in the end may have some synergetic effects and clear things up. But maybe there are other opinions on this here. The mic's open... One thing, yes: I haven't seen much exciting discussion on here lately either (but I'm sitting in the glass house...) Henry From dfrye at umich.edu Fri Jul 2 13:31:55 1999 From: dfrye at umich.edu (David L. Frye) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 07:31:55 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: Okay, here is the paragraph from Santamaria's Diccionario de Mejicanismos (an underused resource, in my opinion) (and sorry for my inability to provide accents): "Joconostle. (Del azt. xococ, agrio, y noxtli, tuna. Opuntia imbricata.) m. Cactacea de la altiplaincia, que produce una tuna agria. Cuentase que los antiguos religiosos, de tiempos de la conquista, usaban su tallo muy espinoso como cilicio. Los indios pimas preparan una comida peculiar con la tuna seca al sol y despues cocida. Llamase tambien cardenche, tasajo, soconoxtle o soconoscle, o soconostle, o soconoxcle. Otras variantes: jonocoscle, joconoscle, joconoxtle, joconostli." And, I repeat, in Mexquitic near San Luis Potosi it is often pronounced 'joconoiste' -- where the '-oiste' is a common pronunciation of what elsewhere would be '-oztle' or '-oztli,' etc. David Frye, University of Michigan (dfrye at umich.edu) From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Fri Jul 2 13:16:04 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 07:16:04 -0600 Subject: mailings Message-ID: > > > > dear folks, i am receiving far too much mail that is not really that > > useful. Useful is what useful is. > > For those who actively participate this "back and forth" is much more > useful, I think. It's about *sharing* knowledge, not about one side > being the supplier of information and the other the taker. People have > the chance to discuss things without having to cover 10,000 miles to > see each other. Academic life has far too long consisted of people > sticking to themselves, keeping stuff in the drawers of their desks > (for whatever reason), lacking the opportunity to quickly talk over > this or that matter with a colleague. Others who whitness these > conversations can throw their own views in which in the end may have > some synergetic effects and clear things up. cenca cuacualli. > One thing, yes: I haven't seen much exciting discussion on here lately > either Being summer, a lot of folks are doing other things, or maybe everyone knows everything by now. :) Michael From kg000407 at online.be Fri Jul 2 09:50:21 1999 From: kg000407 at online.be (Antoon Vollemaere) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 03:50:21 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: Alicia Gignoux Aan: Multiple recipients of list Datum: donderdag 1 juli 1999 23:14 Onderwerp: Re: xoconozlte >Does anyone know what type of food (plant? herb?) >this is? >Thanks >Alicia Gignoux >alpha at selway.umt.edu > Xoconoztli is probably Xoconochtli = kind of tuna or fig used in food. Simeon says (in french) Espece de tuna ou figue acidulee dont on se servait por pr�parer les alimants (Betancourt). Racines: xocotl, nochtli. Have a nice day. Dr. Antoon Leon Vollemaere Flemish Institute for American Cultures Mechelen (Machlin) - Belgium - Europe From mjj at netins.net Fri Jul 2 22:05:15 1999 From: mjj at netins.net (Mary Jo Jackel) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 16:05:15 -0600 Subject: mailings Message-ID: >> >> dear folks, i am receiving far too much mail that is not really that >> useful. > >Which leads to the question why we have this list. > >> i don't know if there is a way to receive information only on >> resources, books, conferences, etc, > >Like a bulletin board? Without comments, opinions (scholarly and >otherwise)? Not much fun, I imagine, and not mind tickling either. > >> and not all the back and forth. > >For those who actively participate this "back and forth" is much more >useful, I think. It's about *sharing* knowledge, not about one side >being the supplier of information and the other the taker. People have >the chance to discuss things without having to cover 10,000 miles to >see each other. Academic life has far too long consisted of people >sticking to themselves, keeping stuff in the drawers of their desks >(for whatever reason), lacking the opportunity to quickly talk over >this or that matter with a colleague. Others who whitness these >conversations can throw their own views in which in the end may have >some synergetic effects and clear things up. > >But maybe there are other opinions on this here. The mic's open... > >One thing, yes: I haven't seen much exciting discussion on here lately >either (but I'm sitting in the glass house...) > >Henry Thank you Henry. I am very happy to be able to read the discussions between knowledgeable people. For those of us who live in areas where there is no other access to such immediate questions, statements, and responses, the list is an interesting and educational tool. Keep talking. Regards, Mary Jo From mdmorris at indiana.edu Fri Jul 2 22:08:38 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 16:08:38 -0600 Subject: Obras Clasicas sobre la Lengua Nahuatl Message-ID: Hi, I've installed the Digibis CD-Rom edited by Ascension Hernandez de Leon Portilla, and I'm impressed with the work. The scanned images are reasonably clear and can be adjusted. I was hoping that I could integrate this CD with other programs to manipulate the text, i.e. I was hoping to be able to search the contents. Does anyone have ideas of how to make text files of these fascimiles or otherwise manipulate their contents? Tlazocamati, Mark Morris From mdmorris at indiana.edu Fri Jul 2 22:22:05 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 16:22:05 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: It's quiet, too quiet for some, so what is this yuhquimma I see in Juan Bautista's Huehuetlahtolli? Sounds a bit like what we call Yupper speak, as in instead of Sorry, ma forgot to take out the trash, it's yohkey ma, I'll take out the trash. Inquiring, scholarly minds want to. . . Mark From mdmorris at indiana.edu Sat Jul 3 05:33:43 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 23:33:43 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: Carochi is such a good source for adverbs. He writes, "Yuhquinma' y in ma'yuhqui, ambos con saltillo el el ma', se usan quando se trae alguna metaphora, y significan: como, a manera v.g: ma: ihuicpatzinco tihui:n intla'to'ca:cihua:pilli, in ma'yuhqui pocho:tl, a:hue:hue:tl, ma: itlanzinco titocehua:l huica:n, vamonos a Nuestra Senora: es a manera de arbol grande, y sabino: pongamos a su sombra. . .En lugar de in ma'yuhqui se podria poner yuhquinma' y aun solo el yuhquin; v.g: Yuhquin, anchichime' anmocuepa' ini'qua:c anquimotequi'maca in mi:xi:tl intlpa:tl, os bolueis como perros, quando beueis demasiado." Mark From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Sat Jul 3 12:36:24 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 06:36:24 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's quiet, too quiet for some, so what is this yuhquimma I see in Juan Bautista's Huehuetlahtolli? Sounds a bit like what we call Yupper speak, as in instead of Sorry, ma forgot to take out the trash, it's yohkey ma, I'll take out the trash. Inquiring, scholarly minds want to. . . Mark ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark, I don't believe your Nahuatl term actually reflects the 'Yupper speak in "yokey, ma"', although that was fun to see. The orthographic is precisely what Bautista *hears* and is simply epenthetic. It owes its initial existence to the placement of the tongue in the pronunciation of /i/ and represents a slight relaxation of the buccal muscles resulting in the articulation of the expected semi-vowel /y/, yod by any other name. This phenomenon occurs in many languges and and is "sparked" by even lower vowels than /i/ (but not as low /o/ as "yokey," which, I would gather, is created by analogy with some other expression which I don't want to think about right now. But you characteristically see /w/ with those mid/high back vowels). Not only /i/ but even /e/ can spark the creation a preceding yod. In the northern Great Lakes Algonquian dialects of Ojibwe this epenthesis takes on phonemic stature, where you get things like Ottawa /mewe/ but Potawatomi /myewe/, our Nahuatl "ohtli." ipan ohtli, Michael From cdschwartz at jumpnet.com Sat Jul 3 13:54:21 1999 From: cdschwartz at jumpnet.com (Lynda Manning-Schwartz) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 07:54:21 -0600 Subject: Obras Clasicas sobre la Lengua Nahuatl Message-ID: The way to translate scanned images into text is to use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software. Unfortunately, while OCR software has come a long way in functionality in the last five or so years, it is still relatively limited in scope. It reads only certain printed fonts and only if they are very clearly arranged, easy to read, and conform to industry standards. Handwriting is still only barely possible (the Apple Newton got jibes a few years ago for its valiant but only partially successful first attempt at reading its owner's handwriting, but it was at least a somewhat succesful attempt for an OCR program to "learn" to read nonstandard text). The only way at the moment to turn handwritten, scanned images (especially ones with aberrant spellings and/or penmanship) would be to type the text into a word processor. For future use, keep watching software company blurbs. Someday (hopefully in the next couple of years) an OCR program will come out that will be able to "learn" handwriting. They you can "teach" it to read almost any text. Until then, we're not quite in the stone age on this topic, but close. A possible alternative would be to use the new spoken software and read the text in. This would take a lot of corrections, however, and a word processor that writes in international characters easily. This would not produce text that looked like the original, however. Aberrant spellings and obsolete words would be deleted or randomly changed to a modern equivalent the computer's modern dictionary knew. Good luck. If you find a viable solution, I would be interested in the method. I am also looking for viable alternatives to typing in old manuscript text. Lynda Manning-Schwartz Population Research Center The University of Texas at Austin At 04:09 PM 7/2/99 -0600, you wrote: >Hi, > >I've installed the Digibis CD-Rom edited by Ascension Hernandez de Leon >Portilla, and I'm impressed with the work. The scanned images are reasonably >clear and can be adjusted. I was hoping that I could integrate this CD with >other programs to manipulate the text, i.e. I was hoping to be able to search >the contents. Does anyone have ideas of how to make text files of these >fascimiles or otherwise manipulate their contents? > >Tlazocamati, >Mark Morris > > > > > > From karttu at nantucket.net Sat Jul 3 15:12:00 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 09:12:00 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: >It's quiet, too quiet for some, so what is this yuhquimma I see in Juan >Bautista's Huehuetlahtolli? Sounds a bit like what we call Yupper speak, as >in instead of Sorry, ma forgot to take out the trash, it's yohkey ma, I'll >take out the trash. Inquiring, scholarly minds want to. . . Mark Yuhqui is a common orthograohic variant of the word that appears elsewhere as iuhqui and means 'thus, so'. The longer form yuhquimma/iuhquimma means 'more or less.' It's to be found in Molina's dictionary with the iuh spelling. The "yuh" represents phonetic [iw], not [yu]. From micc at home.com Sat Jul 3 17:13:07 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 11:13:07 -0600 Subject: [Fwd: Ma: Mayan oval houses] Message-ID: This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------325E3E34651FA2CE4908BB28 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --------------325E3E34651FA2CE4908BB28 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from h2.mail.home.com ([24.2.2.28]) by mail.rdc1.sdca.home.com (InterMail v4.01.01.00 201-229-111) with ESMTP id <19990703142217.HZLU17489.mail.rdc1.sdca.home.com at h2.mail.home.com> for ; Sat, 3 Jul 1999 07:22:17 -0700 Received: from mx2-w.mail.home.com ([24.0.0.206]) by h2.mail.home.com (8.9.3/8.9.0) with ESMTP id HAA11352 for ; Sat, 3 Jul 1999 07:22:16 -0700 (PDT) From: jpastore at email.com Received: from rmx11.iname.net (rmx11.iname.net [165.251.12.115]) by mx2-w.mail.home.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id HAA06316 for ; Sat, 3 Jul 1999 07:22:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from webc02.globecomm.net by rmx11.iname.net (8.9.1a/8.8.0) with ESMTP id KAA18200 ; Sat, 3 Jul 1999 10:17:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from nobody at localhost) by webc02.globecomm.net (8.9.1/8.9.2.Alpha2) id KAA06322; Sat, 3 Jul 1999 10:19:44 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: webc02.globecomm.net: nobody set sender to jpastore at email.com using -f MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <990703101944J7.02168 at webc02.globecomm.net> Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 10:19:44 -0400 (EDT) Content-Type: Text/Plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: micc Subject: Re: Ma: Mayan oval houses X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 ---- On Jul 2 micc wrote: > Lately, I have seen the word Palapa used a lot around here in San Diego. > > Where did that term originate. Judging from the " " around that word in your > note, it is probably not from the Maya lands. > is the word from Mexico at all? Good question. The only reason I offset the word is because of its not being English; and I use the word only because everyone here, including the Maya, use it. Regarding the word's origin, I haven't the slightest idea -nor do I have any idea of the origin of its synonym: 'choza'. I'd be interested in an aswer too. Why not pose the question to the maillist? Ci@ for now, ----------------------------------------------- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com --------------325E3E34651FA2CE4908BB28-- From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Sat Jul 3 18:52:34 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 12:52:34 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: On Sat, 3 Jul 1999, Frances Karttunen wrote: > >It's quiet, too quiet for some, so what is this yuhquimma I see in Juan > >Bautista's Huehuetlahtolli? Sounds a bit like what we call Yupper speak, as > >in instead of Sorry, ma forgot to take out the trash, it's yohkey ma, I'll > >take out the trash. Inquiring, scholarly minds want to. . . Mark > > > Yuhqui is a common orthograohic variant of the word that appears elsewhere > as iuhqui and means 'thus, so'. The longer form yuhquimma/iuhquimma means > 'more or less.' It's to be found in Molina's dictionary with the iuh > spelling. > > The "yuh" represents phonetic [iw], not [yu]. > Yes, [-iw] is definitely the phonetics of the end of this syllable. What was happening at the beginning was probably [y-] > [yiw]. At the same time, orthographic y was a standard way of expressing phonetic [i]. But we can't drag a sixteenth century Aztec back from Mictlan very easily to find out what exactly was happening at the very beginning of the syllable. Michael From karttu at nantucket.net Sat Jul 3 20:58:02 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 14:58:02 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: Dear Michael, It's true we can't reproduce the phonetics of 16th century Nahuatl speech, but we CAN tell something about the systematic phonology. Nahuatl pays attention to whether words begin with vowels or consonants/glides ([y] is in the latter category). As far as Nahuatl prefixes are concerned, words beginning with phonemic /i/ function as though they begin with vowels (even if the /i/ is often orthographically represented with "y"), and those that actually begin with /y/ function as though they begin with consonants. Fran From mdmorris at indiana.edu Sun Jul 4 00:28:45 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 18:28:45 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: Nomachtianime', Thanks a lot for all the advice. As Galen and Joe know, usually four reminders on pronunciation are sufficient, though I have a sinking feeling Joe would disagree. In our classes at IU, Joe Campbell reminded us again and again of morpho-phonetic rules, what happens when y or z changes to x, when glide y displaces an ending vowel. We wrote down a lot of notes, but mine are still mostly scattered. Is there a handy source in Spanish or English that gives a comprehensive overview of the phonetic rules of combination in Nahuatl? Thanks again, Mark P.S. The Tavera CD does allow one to save each page as a tiff file that then can be read with an OCR. I little success with Arenas and good success with a 1900 printing of Guerra. P.S.S. Mike, why aren't you up on the big water? It's too hot down here. From j_taggart at amigo.net Sun Jul 4 05:21:07 1999 From: j_taggart at amigo.net (j_taggart at amigo.net) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 23:21:07 -0600 Subject: Class schedule Message-ID: >Dear Mike, What kind of course do you have in mind ? I teach courses at Franklin and Marshall in Pennsylvania and so I do not know much about California schools. Were you thinking of the University of Southern California ? Best, Jim Was hoping you would have information of a course being offered in Southern >California. >Mike >Sanchez >SCE >Alhambra Bldg. "C" >Pax 46226 >(626) 308-6226 Carole Counihan Associate Professor of Anthropology Millersville University summer: P.O. Box 830, Antonito, CO 81120 tel. 719-376-2028 From mdmorris at indiana.edu Mon Jul 5 09:55:37 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 03:55:37 -0600 Subject: AGET 17th Century Message-ID: It is sad that I send this from Bloomington Indiana where Won-Joon Yoon's murder is heavy on us. Nonetheless, I typed this up earlier and wanted to share it. Mark Morris Estimados, Thelma Sullivan's _Documentos Tlaxcaltecas del Siglo XVI_ includes all Nahuatl documents held by Tlaxcala's state archives from the 16th-century (it seems). Last summer, I prepared this brief catalog of its 17th-century holdings. As I understand, Refugio Nava Nava has refined this catalog recently, including also for example, citations Luis Reyes Garcia has accumulated through years of using the archive. Below is a pretty good view of what AGET has available to investigators, although new things are always turning up in private and public holdings that sometimes become available to researchers. The tabs get all akilter in e-mail, so if you would like the file as an attachment, please send me a note. Thanks, Mark Morris Archivo General del Estado de Tlaxcala Documentos en Nahuatl del Siglo XVII Fondo Historico Colonia Caja Fjs. Exp. Ficha A�o 1. Documento en Nahuatl 1 1 2 2 1600 2. Autos sobre la testamento 1 26 7 7 1600 de Mario Toztecayotl (Sull. 11) 3. Posesion de una tierra de 2 2 18 1603 Bernaldo de Nava a Fabian Zaxate en San Felipe (det.) 4. Fragmento de un posesion (det.) 2 1 22 1603 5. Transacion entre Balthasar 4 2 7 1607 Quechol, Juan ? y Ana Cohua viuda de Bartolome Sanchez 6. Fragmento del testamento del 4 1 9 1607 Don Agostin Moscosotemil 7. Testamento de Palpal Castilaxo 5 1 5 1608 8. Testamento de Juan Melchor 10 24 28 1615-1719 Vasquez que lleva ventas y posesiones de tierra de 1615 incluso de lo de Juliano Quetontototl, f.4-5 escrito por Sebastian Serrano 9. Do�a Juana Carceles 14 1 7 1619 vende terreno en Sta. Ana Chiyauhtempan Sebastian Serrano 10. Pleito sobre servicios dado 14 3 20 1619 a los frailes en Sta. Ines Zacatelco Sebastian Serrano 11 Memoria de Pago 14 1 21 1619 Sebastian Serran? 12 Traducion 21 21 5 1623 del testamento de Miguel Hernandez Sebastian Serrano 13. Los vecinos de 23 3 2 1624 Teolocholco por agravios y malos tratamientos contra el alguacil mayor y fiscalde tepyanco y demas mandones y principales foja N. 2 en Nahuatl (Serrano?) 14. Francisco Hernandez, Diego 23 18 27 1624-1625 Sanchez y Bartolome Xopilcuatzin, por desocupacion de unas casas contra. . Croquis 12v. con escrituras en nahuatl 15. Testimonias del trasunto de 23 6 28 1624 testamento de Mateo Hernandez Contiene un Croquis de Terreno con escritura en Nahuatl en la foja N. 6 (misma mano de 14) 16. Magdalena Gonzalez 24 4 5 1624 da poder a Francisco Vergara su esposo para que venda unas casas en la ciudad de Tlaxcala fojas 1 y 2 en nahuatl y croquis de terreno en foja 3 (Sebastian Serrano) 17. Francisco de la Lorona 32 1 13 1629 Sobre fabrica de comunidad? (Sebastian Serrano)Juez Gob. Gregoriano Nazianseno (ver Lockhart Actas del Cabildo) 18. Recibo por el pago de una misa 40 1 8 1632 que mandaron decir en honor de Sebastian Serrano diesen una limonsa que recibio Fray Alonso 19. Eleccion del alcalde 55 1 26 1640 (1740!!) de San Francisco Tepeanco (?), Ocotelulco que gano Greg. (Martin?) Juarez con 56 20. Miguel Antonio Tlacochin 67 2 23 1650 y su namic Maria Anna Nohpaltzinen vende terreno en Sn. Geronimo Zacualpan 23 de Nov. 21. Juan Perez indio natural de St. 70 22 8 1652 Toribio Xicohtzinco contra Bartolome Diaz espa�ol por despojo de sus bienes Croquis del terreno foja N. 4 22. Fray Silverio de Pineda 72 1 18 1653 dirige palabras al cabildo de Tlaxcala 23. Juan Bautista y Sebastian Zarate 73 6 9 1654 vecinos de St. Ana Chiyauhtempan contra Nicolas de Ortega por un terreno. Cartas de Venta de 1638 y 1650 en foja N.2 24. Andres Perez y 74 8 13 1655-1676 Sebastian Maria indios naturales de San Matias Tepetomatitlan solicitan se les ampara en la posession Incluye testamento de Francisca Maria en nahuatl de fecha 1672 25. Venta de terreno por 76 1 11 1657 Juan Ramiles a Ana Maria de ?errasas. con un breve descripcion de la historia de la propriedad 26. Testamento 76 1 26 1658 de Maria C__ muy deteriodo 27. Venta de terrano 79 1 2 1663 de Gabriel Sanches y Ana Castilla Xochitl a su hermano Francisco Sanches y Magdalena Maria 28. Parte del testamento 82 2 9 1666 de Elena Isabel hecho en 1666 y sacado en copia en 1689 29. Lucas Gregorio Sanchez 88 4 19 1676 sobre donacion de tierra y contestacion 30. Parte del testamento de 90 4 23 1680 (Pedro Martin Tzonpa-co) con glossia en Nahuatlde 1798 y un pie en espanol sin fecha 31. Testamento de Juan 90 4 27 1680 ( 28 Sept. 1760!!) Mathias Romano con fragmento del testamento de Juan Bautista de 1682 32. Peticion de Melchor 92 1 3 1682 de los Reyes por amparo en su (claim) a un solar que le dejo su padre. 33. Carta a Alcalde Or. 92 1 4 1682 Pasqual Ramirez de los principales de St. Ana Chiyauhtempan sobre un padron, 9 de noviembre 34. ?? 93 1 18 1685 35. En San Luis 93 1 17 1685 Teolocholco Joseph Gregorio y ynamic Magdalena Maria disputan (??) linderos con Juan Andres y ynamic Ana Maria 36. Escrituras de Casas 99 10 19 1695-1730 Reales en San Luis Huamantla From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Tue Jul 6 08:21:57 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 02:21:57 -0600 Subject: Obras Clasicas sobre la Lengua Nahuatl Message-ID: > The way to translate scanned images into text is to use OCR (Optical > Character Recognition) software. Unfortunately, while OCR software has come > a long way in functionality in the last five or so years, it is still > relatively limited in scope. It reads only certain printed fonts and only > if they are very clearly arranged, easy to read, and conform to industry > standards. OCR software has gone a long way already. A quite powerful program that I use is Fine Reader Pro (a software from Russia). It can be trained to read a wide range of glyphs. After an initial phase of "training" (even something like telling it to read every X as U -- after three or so Xs it will read all Xs as Us) the recognition rate is very high. I haven't used it with handwriting but with very blurry typoscript that used non-standard phonetic symbols and I was surprised how well it worked after some training runs. As you can freely define the "borders" of the glyphs while training it (it keeps the main variants of the letters' shapes in a database), it should work with handwriting. It can handle ligatures without any problems. Consider how much text by the various scribes you have, though, because every individual hand would require setting up such a database first. Probably I missed this: where is that CD available and how much is it? Cheers, Henry From SANCHEM2 at sce.com Tue Jul 6 13:56:27 1999 From: SANCHEM2 at sce.com (Sanchez, Michael) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 07:56:27 -0600 Subject: Class schedule Message-ID: I am looking for a beginner course in the language, and yes I am in Southern California. Mike Sanchez SCE Alhambra Bldg. "C" Pax 46226 (626) 308-6226 > ---------- > From: j_taggart at amigo.net[SMTP:j_taggart at amigo.net] > Sent: Saturday, July 03, 1999 10:21 PM > To: Multiple recipients of list > Subject: Re: Class schedule > > >Dear Mike, > What kind of course do you have in mind ? I teach courses at > Franklin and Marshall in Pennsylvania and so I do not know much about > California schools. Were you thinking of the University of Southern > California ? Best, Jim > > > > > Was hoping you would have information of a course being offered in > Southern > >California. > >Mike > >Sanchez > >SCE > >Alhambra Bldg. "C" > >Pax 46226 > >(626) 308-6226 > > Carole Counihan > Associate Professor of Anthropology > Millersville University > summer: P.O. Box 830, Antonito, CO 81120 tel. 719-376-2028 > > From cortega at mail.utep.edu Tue Jul 6 18:32:30 1999 From: cortega at mail.utep.edu (Carlos F. Ortega) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 12:32:30 -0600 Subject: Class schedule Message-ID: Mike, call Professor Fermin Herrera in the Department of Chicano Studies at CSU Northridge. the last number i had was (818) 677-2734. He was my instructor in Nahuatl and to my knowledge still offers courses in the language and would certainly know other instructors in southern California. good luck, Carlos At 07:58 AM 7/6/99 -0600, you wrote: >I am looking for a beginner course in the language, and yes I am in Southern >California. >Mike >Sanchez >SCE >Alhambra Bldg. "C" >Pax 46226 >(626) 308-6226 > >> ---------- >> From: j_taggart at amigo.net[SMTP:j_taggart at amigo.net] >> Sent: Saturday, July 03, 1999 10:21 PM >> To: Multiple recipients of list >> Subject: Re: Class schedule >> >> >Dear Mike, >> What kind of course do you have in mind ? I teach courses at >> Franklin and Marshall in Pennsylvania and so I do not know much about >> California schools. Were you thinking of the University of Southern >> California ? Best, Jim >> >> >> >> >> Was hoping you would have information of a course being offered in >> Southern >> >California. >> >Mike >> >Sanchez >> >SCE >> >Alhambra Bldg. "C" >> >Pax 46226 >> >(626) 308-6226 >> >> Carole Counihan >> Associate Professor of Anthropology >> Millersville University >> summer: P.O. Box 830, Antonito, CO 81120 tel. 719-376-2028 >> >> > > From mdmorris at indiana.edu Tue Jul 6 20:12:53 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 14:12:53 -0600 Subject: Obras Clasicas sobre la Lengua Nahuatl Message-ID: Henry, Thanks for your message and your advice on OCR programs. For anyone who missed the earlier postings, here is the information on Obras Clasicas sobre la Lengua Nahuatl. As Galen Brokaw noted earlier, you must include the accents in Digibis' catalog or the item will not come up, or you can catch up to it by going through the entire catalog tree. The cost is 30,000 pesetas, or something like $200. Sincerely, Mark OBRAS CLaSICAS SOBRE LA LENGUA NaHUATL [CD-Rom]. Compilacion de Ascension Hernandez de Leon-Portilla. Coleccion "Clasicos Tavera". Serie IX: Fuentes Ling=FCisticas Indigenas. Volumen 8. Numero 16. Madrid. Fundacion Historica Tavera y Digibis. 1998. Obras clasicas sobre la lengua Nahuatl forma parte de un amplio proyecto, la "Coleccion Clasicos Tavera", cuyo objetivo es la edicion en CD-Rom de las obras mas relevantes para el conocimiento del pasado de los paises, regiones y ciudades de America Latina, Espanna, Portugal y Filipinas, asi como de ciertos temas monograficos relacionados con esas mismas areas geograficas. El numero 16 contiene una seleccion de textos (36 libros sobre artes, vocabularios, doctrinas, confesionarios, manuales de sacramento, otros libros de tema religioso y antigua palabra, con unas 10.000 paginas aproximadamente) compilados por la Dra. Ascension Hernandez de Leon Portilla, y una amplia y bien concebida introduccion en la que se explica el por que de la eleccion y se revisa brevemente lo que se sabe sobre la lengua nahuatl y la importancia que dichos textos tienen para su estudio. Las obras han sido digitalizadas en edicion facsimilar. El manejo y consulta del CD-Rom es sencillo, no obstante, cuenta con una buena guia de ayuda, un sumario general en el que se detallan los contenidos y a traves del que es posible realizar busquedas por distintos campos (uno a uno o varios a la vez): autor, titulo, palabras clave, y una ficha independiente para cada uno de los textos en la que, aparte de sus caracteristicas, se incluye un indice que permite busquedas similares a las del sumario general. El sistema ofrece distintos tipos de visualizacion (zoom, rotacion e inversion de imagen, modificacion de los niveles de contraste), y permite seleccionar partes del contenido y guardarlas en cualquier otro soporte magnetico e imprimirlas con una calidad muy superior a la de una fotocopia convencional. En definitiva, la edicion digital pone a disposicion del investigador un acceso integral y sencillo a la documentacion. A continuacion detallamos en contenido del CD-Rom. indice de la obra: ALDAMA y GUEVARA, Jose Agustin (1754): Arte de la lengua mexicana. Mexico. Imprenta de la Lengua mexicana. ALVA, Bartolome de (1634): Confessionario mayor y menor de la lengua mexicana: y platicas contra las supersticiones de idolatria... Mexico. Francisco Salbago. AQUINO CORTeS Y CEDEnnO, Geronymo Thomas de (1765): Arte, vocabulario y confessionario en el idioma mexicano: como se usa el en Obispado de Guadalajara. Puebla de los angeles (Mexico). Imprenta del Colegio Real de San Ignacio de Puebla de los angeles. ARENAS, Pedro de (1611): Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana. Mexico. Henrico Martinez. BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1600): Advertencias para los confessores de los naturales... (2 volumenes). Tlatilulco - Convento de Santiago de Tlatilulco. M. Ocharte. BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1600): Huehuetlahtolli: que contiene las platicas... Tlatilulco. Convento de Santiago de Tlatilulco. BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1606): A Iesu Christo S.N. ofrece este sermonario en lengua mexicana. Mexico. Casa de Diego Lopez Davalos. CARCHI, Horacio (1645): Arte de la lengua mexicana con la declaracion de los adverbios della. Mexico. Juan Ruyz. Doctirna christiana en lengua espannola y mexicana: hecha por los religiosos de la Orden de Santiago (1548). Mexico. Casa de Juan Pablos. GALDO GUZMaN, (Fray) Diego de (1642): Arte mexicano. Mexico. Viuda de Bernardo Calderon. GANTE, (Fray) Pedro (1553): Doctrina Christiana en lengua mexicana. Mexico. Casa de Juan Pablos. GAONA, (Fray) Juan de (1582): Colloquios de la paz y tranquilidad christiana, en lengua mexicana. Mexico. Casa de Juan Plablos. GARCiA ICAZBALCETA, Joaquin (1889): Nueva coleccion de documentos para la historia de Mexico (2 volumenes). Mexico. Antigua Libreria de Andrade y Morales, Sucesores, Tomo I (Codice Franciscano, siglo XVI). GUERRA, (Fray) Juan (1692): Arte de la lengua mexicana: que fue usual entre los indios del Obispado de Guadalajara y de parte de los de Durango y Michoacan. Guadalajara. Viuda de Francisco Rodriguez Lupericio. GUERRA, (Fray) Juan (1900): Arte de la lengua mexicana: que fue usual entre los indios del Obispado de Guadalajara y de parte de los de Durango y Michoacan. Guadalajara. Alberto Santoscoy. LASSO DE LA VEGA, Luis (1649): Huei tlamahvizoltica omonexiti in Ilhuicac Tlatoca Cichuapilli... Mexico. Imprenta Iuan Ruyz. LEoN, (Fray) Martin de (1611): Camino del cielo en lengua mexicana... Mexico. Imprenta de Diego Lopez Davalos. MIJANGOS, Fray Juan de (1607): Espejo divino en lengua mexicana en que pueden verse los Padres y tomar documento para acercar a adoptrinar bien a sus hijos, y aficionallos a las virtudes. Mexico. Imprenta de Diego Lopez Davalos. MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1555): Aqui comienza un vocubalario en la lengua castellana y mexicana. Mexico. Casa de Juan Pablos. MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1565): Confessionario breve en lengua mexicana y castellana. Mexico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1565): Confessionario Mayor en lengua mexicana y castellana. Mexico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1571): Arte de la lengua mexicana y castellana. Mexico. Casa de Pedro Ocharte. MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1571): Vocabulario en lengua mexicana y castellana. Mexico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. OLMOS, (Fray) Ignacio de (1547): Arte de la lengua mexicana. [S.l.]. [S.n.]. PAREDES, Ignacio de (1759): Promptuario manual mexicano. Mexico. Imprenta de la Biblioteca Mexicana. PeREZ, (Fray) Manuel (1713): Arte del idioma mexicano. Mexico. Francisco Rivera Calderon. PeREZ, (Fray) Manuel (1713): Farol indiano y guia de curas de indios... Mexico. Francisco Rivera Calderon. RINCoN, Antonio del (1595): Arte mexicana. Casa de Pedro Balli. RIPALDA, Geronymo de (1758): Catecismo mexicano que contiene toda la doctrina christiana... Mexico. Imprenta de la Biblioteca Mexicana. SAAVEDRA, (Fray) Marcos de (1746): Confessionario breve activo y pasivo en lengua mexicana... Mexico. Imprenta Real del Superior Gobierno, del Nuevo Rezado, de Donna Maria de Rivera. SAENZ DE LA PEnnA, Andres (1642): Manual de los Santos Sacramentos...= Mexico. Francisco Robledo. SAHAGuN, (Fray) Bernardino de (1583): Psalmodia Christiana y Sermonario de los Sanctos del Anno, en lengua mexicana. Mexico. Con licencia en Casa de Pedro Ocharte. SANDOVAL, Rafael (1888): Arte de la lengua mexicana. Ramon Garcia Raya. TAPIA CENTENO, Carlos de (1753): Arte novissima de lengua mexicana... Mexico. Viuda de Joseph Bernardo de Hogal. VaZQUEZ GATELU, Antonio (1689): Arte de Lengua Mexicana. [S.l.]. Fernandez de Leon VETANCOURT, (Fray) Agustin (1673): Arte de lengua mexicana... Mexico. Francisco Rodriguez Lupericio. Para cualquier informacion acerca de la obra o para adquirir el CD-Rom contactar con Pilar Ruiz: pilar.ruiz at digibis.com Tambien puede consultar la pagina web de Digibis: www.digibis.com From muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com Wed Jul 7 01:01:01 1999 From: muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com (Roberto Tirado) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 19:01:01 -0600 Subject: nahua ? Message-ID: . hi , i am looking for books ( dictionaries ) on Nahuatl ( contemporary and classic ) , do any of you have any recommendations? i am currently reading through [oklahoma press, kartunnen , nahuatl dictionary ] and i am not satisfied with its definitions. thanks. . Roberto _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Fri Jul 9 20:59:55 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 14:59:55 -0600 Subject: McCaa study on Nahuatl names Message-ID: For those of you interested in looking at Robert McCaa's study of Nahuatl names in the censuses published by S.L. Cline, a Power Point version can be found at this URL http://www.hist.umn.edu/~rmccaa/AZTCNAM2/index.htm A simpler outline form is available here: http://www.hist.umn.edu/~rmccaa/AZTCNAM2/outline.htm J. F. Schwaller, List owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From mhipkl at netropolis.net Sat Jul 10 14:55:16 1999 From: mhipkl at netropolis.net (Peter K. Lehnert) Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 08:55:16 -0600 Subject: No subject Message-ID: The Mesoamerican Heritage Institute, 510 West Forest Drive, Houston, Texas 77079 would like to subscribe to the list. Thank you for your prompt attention. Peter K. Lehnert From mikegaby at hotmail.com Sat Jul 10 17:59:44 1999 From: mikegaby at hotmail.com (mike gaby) Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 11:59:44 -0600 Subject: Language Message-ID: Any bored linguists care to share a quick version of pronunciation and syllabic stress for the Otomi language, P'urepecha, and Mixe? Also anyone know the form of Mixe-Zoquean allegedly spoken by "Olmecs"? Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Mon Jul 12 23:11:40 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 17:11:40 -0600 Subject: Itzinai Message-ID: Someone has written to me directly regarding the name Itzinai, claming that it is Nahuatl. I have been looking at it and working on it, and come up with nothing, other than it looks more Maya to me. Any guesses? J. F. Schwaller John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From micc at home.com Tue Jul 13 15:31:30 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 09:31:30 -0600 Subject: Itzinai Message-ID: IT COULD BE 20TH CENTURY "AZTECA" thru the eyes of a Nahuatl admirer.... I met a young lady once who was quite adamant that her name MIXIM was Nahuatl....... :( "John F. Schwaller" wrote: > Someone has written to me directly regarding the name Itzinai, claming that > it is Nahuatl. I have been looking at it and working on it, and come up > with nothing, other than it looks more Maya to me. Any guesses? > > J. F. Schwaller > > John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu > Associate Provost 406-243-4722 > The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 > http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From ECOLING at aol.com Tue Jul 13 19:32:40 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 13:32:40 -0600 Subject: Language of the Olmecs Message-ID: Mike Gaby asked: >Also anyone know the form of Mixe-Zoquean allegedly spoken by "Olmecs"? This is of course a very difficult question, since the Olmecs flourished around 1500 BC to 400 BC or so (depending on who one asks). It may not be Mixe-Zoquean at all. According to John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, it is Proto-Zoque, by the following reasoning: a) Loan words in Mesoamerica are from Mixe-Zoquean into other languages, including high-culture words b) The Olmecs were the originators of Mesoamerican high culture. c) Therefore the Olmecs must have spoken a Mixe-Zoquean language And they further claim d) The writing system of La Mojarra must represent the Epi-Olmec people. Given its date and location (Veracruz, 2nd century AD by its long counts), and the lack of evidence for extensive migrations during the relevant time frames, this writing must be interpreted as the writing of the successors to the Olmecs, "Epi-Olmecs". e) The writing system of La Mojarra is now in large part deciphered, and is a Mixe-Zoquean language, specifically proto-Zoquean. ***** This line of reasoning is plausible in its first two steps (though we have few sufficiently knowledgeable specialists other than Kaufman who could attempt to argue against any of these early steps in the reasoning). The reasoning is increasingly fragile in later steps, for example because the Olmec might have transmitted some high culture which originated with others, or the situation might in other ways have been more complex. ***** In particular, the claim in (e) is unjustified. The history of decipherment is full of claims of decipherment which turn out to be unsubstantiated. A claim is not a decipherment. In particular: 1. Kaufman "knew" the writing of La Mojarra had to be Epi-Olmec, a conclusion he drew from steps (a,b,c,d). He "knew" this before ever examining the writing system itself. 2. Kaufman and Justeson did not actually consider alternatives, in the sense of exploring "what if" the writing represented a language of some family other than the Mixe-Zoquean. So their conclusion is really the same as the assumption they began with, or rather, should be more accurately formulated as: Under the assumption that the language belongs to the Mixe-Zoquean family, it is most likely a form of Proto-Zoquean. Once we make the assumption explicit (and Kaufman and Justeson did not hide it, they merely did not note that it was an assumption to which any alternatives could be conceived or should be...), then the conclusion stands clearly as what it is. ***** 3. There is a lack of the kind of "many things suddenly falling into place, once the answer was discovered" which is usually the hallmark of a good decipherment. Rather, each bit of new text "interpreted" as proto-Zoquean which contained new glyphs requires new subsidiary hypotheses to support an interpretation. 4. The "translations" provided by Justeson and Kaufman for parts of the La Mojarra text, many still only in verbal presentations rather than in publications, are quite different from most other texts in Mesoamerica, in several respects (speaking of "folding cloth" and other things). This by itself might suggest that forcing a Mixe-Zoquean interpretation onto the text has led to contradictions or dead-ends. (Of course we cannot know in advance what the writers of the La Mojarra text chose to write about -- it is simply that if on our first hypotheses at interpretation we get something rather odd, it might suggest the hypotheses are not exactly on target.) 4. Interpretations of the same text as some language related to the Mayan family work moderately well also. This is definitely NOT to argue that La Mojarra represented a Mayan language, simply to point out that there are alternatives. In at least one case, an interpretation as Mayan works better than the interpretation Justeson and Kaufman propose as proto-Zoquean, because there is a homonym motivation within Mayan. Many sentence structures are the same for many languages and language families within Meso-America, so they cannot decide. (In fact, Kaufman and Justeson were forced by some of their other assumptions to conclude that the La Mojarra "proto-Zoquean" had a word order different from that of other Zoquean languages -- possible, but not the most straightforward.) 5. There are some in the Mesoamerican field who think the resemblances between Olmec iconography and Mayan iconography are such that the latter may derive in large part from the former. That does not demonstrate a linguistic relation, but does not exclude it either. Conclusion: The language is not yet known. Two proposals have been explored, a Mixe-Zoquean one and a Mayan one. The La Mojarra text might represent either of these or might represent a language from some family other than these two. There is no avalanch of things falling-into-place as a result of any set of hypotheses so far presented. Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics ***** Four publications (others are listed in Anderson 1999): Campbell, Lyle and Terrence Kaufman. 1976. A Linguistic Look at the Olmecs. American Antiquity 41:80-89 (the presentation of the claim in (a) above). Justeson, John and Terrence Kaufman. 1993. A Decipherment of Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing. Science 259:1703-1711 (presentation of the Proto-Zoquean hypothesis, claims of decipherment with many specifics) Anderson, Lloyd. 1999. The Writing System of La Mojarra, 3rd edition. Ecological Linguistics (presentation of structural analyses independent of choice of language, and of both Mayan and Proto-Zoquean interepretations in parallel and in contrast. Currently the most comprehensive work available.) (PO Box 15156, Washington, DC 20003. Price within the USA $40, Price to Europe by book rate $52.) Houston, Stephen. 1996. [Review of 2nd Edition of The Writing System of La Mojarra] International Journal of American Linguistics 62 no.4 pp.429-431. From chair at thule.org Wed Jul 14 22:07:58 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 16:07:58 -0600 Subject: longer ago than thought Message-ID: The culture that built tiahuanaco, machu picchu, etc was flourishing far longer ago than people want to think. check http://www.thule.org/tiahuanaco.html From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Thu Jul 15 14:41:44 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 08:41:44 -0600 Subject: Articles of interest Message-ID: JILAS~ Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies (Vol. 5:1 July1999) Gabriela Coronado, "Una version indigena de la historia: Los Nahuas de Cuetzalan" For subscription info write: Dr. Walescka Pino-Ojeda Spanish Department University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019 Auckland New Zealand email:w.pino-ojeda at auckland.ac.nz --------------------------------------- Colonial Latin American Review (vol. 8, Num. 1, June, 1999) John Sullivan, "Un dialogo sobre la congregacion en Tlaxcala" for further info see: http://www.carfax.co.uk/cla-ad.htm John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From CHIKANOZ at aol.com Fri Jul 16 01:54:46 1999 From: CHIKANOZ at aol.com (CHIKANOZ at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 19:54:46 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl names... Message-ID: Does anyone know if the name "Izel" is nahuatl or mayan? Also, is it a girls name or can it be used for a male as well? AND does it mean "unique"? Does anyone know where I can find some interesting nahuatl names for a boy? Or book recommendations with names? Thanks so much, cecilia From campbel at indiana.edu Fri Jul 16 05:02:21 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:02:21 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl names... Message-ID: Ceciliahtzin, "-cel" is a postposition in Nahuatl. Postpositions have a function in Nahuatl very much like that of prepositions in Spanish and English and they take possessive prefixes. nocel by myself tocel by ourselves mocel by yourself amocel by y'all's selves >8-) icel by him/herself incel by themselves I've never seen one of these words used as a name for a person, but if one were used as a name, it wouldn't need to be distinguished for gender. Joe On Thu, 15 Jul 1999 CHIKANOZ at aol.com wrote: > Does anyone know if the name "Izel" is nahuatl or mayan? Also, is it a girls > name or can it be used for a male as well? AND does it mean "unique"? > Does anyone know where I can find some interesting nahuatl names for a boy? > Or book recommendations with names? > Thanks so much, > cecilia > From campbel at indiana.edu Fri Jul 16 05:16:00 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:16:00 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl names... Message-ID: p.s. Some uses taken from context in the Florentine Codex: ce:l icel. alone, by himself; by itself; he alone; singly; only; plain; unaccompanied; she alone. . iceltzin. he alone; only he; he himself. . moceltzin. you alone, only you. . From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Fri Jul 16 14:43:56 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 08:43:56 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl names... Message-ID: For common Nahuatl names, please see the new page on the Nahuat-l web site: http://www.umt.edu/history/nahuatl/names.html J. F. Schwaller, List owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From rude at leland.Stanford.EDU Fri Jul 16 18:07:37 1999 From: rude at leland.Stanford.EDU (Rudiger V. Busto) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 12:07:37 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl names... Message-ID: I know that "Ixchel" (Mayan goddess: Ix Chel) is a somewhat not uncommon name for Chicanas. I believe she is associated with the moon? >Does anyone know if the name "Izel" is nahuatl or mayan? Also, is it a girls >name or can it be used for a male as well? AND does it mean "unique"? >Does anyone know where I can find some interesting nahuatl names for a boy? >Or book recommendations with names? >Thanks so much, >cecilia ******************************************************************* Rudy V. Busto Work: 650.723.0465 Assistant Professor Home: 415.552.0257 Religious Studies rude at leland.stanford.edu Stanford University Fax (work): 650.725.1476 Stanford, CA 94305-2165 From GESX1CKAH at aol.com Fri Jul 16 22:27:48 1999 From: GESX1CKAH at aol.com (GESX1CKAH at aol.com) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 16:27:48 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: hello everyone, I am working on a project on general indigenous culture that will be presented to a diverse audience. The project is for my work, so that I can teach my collegues about my interests. I am looking for suggestions of what kinds of foods I should make as samples of what my ancestry created (so far I considered serving chocolate to keep them awake!) Any suggestions as to what else I should speak about, serve or teach that would be of interest to them? This will be the first time this audience has heard anything on the subject and unfortunately may be their last experience (if I can't help it). thank you Jessica From altheman at earthlink.net Fri Jul 16 22:52:24 1999 From: altheman at earthlink.net (Alex) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 16:52:24 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: I believe the Aztecs (or their predecessors?) invented corn tortillas which are consumed substantially in the U.S. And probably some version of salsa (tomatoes or tomatillos, peppers, onions, cilantro). At 04:29 PM 7/16/99 -0600, you wrote: >hello everyone, >I am working on a project on general indigenous culture that will be >presented to a diverse audience. The project is for my work, so that I can >teach my collegues about my interests. I am looking for suggestions of what >kinds of foods I should make as samples of what my ancestry created (so far I >considered serving chocolate to keep them awake!) Any suggestions as to what >else I should speak about, serve or teach that would be of interest to them? >This will be the first time this audience has heard anything on the subject >and unfortunately may be their last experience (if I can't help it). > >thank you >Jessica > From cberry at cinenet.net Fri Jul 16 23:37:51 1999 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 17:37:51 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Alex wrote: > I believe the Aztecs (or their predecessors?) invented corn tortillas > which are consumed substantially in the U.S. And probably some > version of salsa (tomatoes or tomatillos, peppers, onions, cilantro). True, though I don't know about the cilantro. Tamales would make another good representative Aztec food (either plain corn or corn with chiles or possibly turkey -- the "dog" and "Tlaxcaltec" filling options being a bit advanced for beginners). -- | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From micc at home.com Fri Jul 16 23:51:25 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 17:51:25 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: cilantro is an Asian import into Mexico. that is why many times in anglo markets, it is sold as chinese parsley. it is very popular in Vietnamese and chinese foods. Craig Berry wrote: > > On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Alex wrote: > > > I believe the Aztecs (or their predecessors?) invented corn tortillas > > which are consumed substantially in the U.S. And probably some > > version of salsa (tomatoes or tomatillos, peppers, onions, cilantro). > > True, though I don't know about the cilantro. Tamales would make another > good representative Aztec food (either plain corn or corn with chiles or > possibly turkey -- the "dog" and "Tlaxcaltec" filling options being a bit > advanced for beginners). > > -- > | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net > --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html > | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From micc at home.com Fri Jul 16 23:54:09 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 17:54:09 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: Foods that would be appropriate would be: tacos (tlacua) tamales chile sopes nopales, quelites, tortillas, turkey (hue'xolotl) tomatillo vanilla water drink (horchata, although that is a spanish drinK) chocolate pineapple guacamole (ahuacamolli) mole (molli) quelites (quilitl) xoconostles (xoconochtli) camotes, calabacitas (ayotli) beans (etl) green beans (e'xotl) Nacho flavored Cheerios (alright I was just kidding on this one!) Craig Berry wrote: > > On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Alex wrote: > > > I believe the Aztecs (or their predecessors?) invented corn tortillas > > which are consumed substantially in the U.S. And probably some > > version of salsa (tomatoes or tomatillos, peppers, onions, cilantro). > > True, though I don't know about the cilantro. Tamales would make another > good representative Aztec food (either plain corn or corn with chiles or > possibly turkey -- the "dog" and "Tlaxcaltec" filling options being a bit > advanced for beginners). > > -- > | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net > --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html > | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From lenin at UDel.Edu Sat Jul 17 06:11:51 1999 From: lenin at UDel.Edu (Alex Perez) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 00:11:51 -0600 Subject: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Message-ID: I will catch a lot of flak but I feel morally oblidge to write the folloowing, specially in this kind of list where the lenguage and culture are supposed to be taken into consideration. First of all, I am Mexican, by birth, by raising, I lived most of my life ther and I have enjoyed the good times and bad times of MY country. Yet I am not named Cuahutemoc, axayacatl or tonatzin, as some of my classmates. I have been learning nahuatl because my brother lives in the heart of the huasteca potosina and I have many friends that only speak marginal spanish and mostly a dialect of nahua. I have to deal with the realities of everyday life there and with the goodness or badness of MY country wether many people might consider it a backward 3rd world country or not I am proud of it and I wish not to stay in America but to return to were I was born. I have run into many revivalist Americans of Mexican heritage that seem to think that because they read some books and because the Americans of english-Irish-scottish-german-welsh or Italian descent discriminate on them that makes them feel more Mexican that I am, given me the "you don't know better because we are enlightened you poor little 3rd world country wanna be WE ARE THE TRUE INHERITANTS OF THE AZTEC culture". I am very frustrated and angry and I want to make all of you AWARE that we looked on you all as OUR OWN people, but my experience here has been so disapointing that makes me want to cry. Nobody here knows that WE are all Mexican, thet The Nahuas, as well as the Otomies, the Mazahuas, the Tarahumaras, the purepechas the Tzotziles, the tarascans as well as the GREAT MAJORITY OF MEXICO who is MIxed, we share a same culture tradition and Nationality. To divide Mexico is to dismember the soul of our nation. I beg of all of you who are of Mexican ancestry to understand that Mexico is not only a state of mind, or a matter of academic study, or a matter of finding you "roots". We are a living nation that is fighting every day to survive, to progress, to evolve and to try to be more humane and equal. Yes, we have our terrible one party dictatorship, you have a two party dictatorship and I don't see you complain, we have a terrible state of affairs in Chiapas, Oaxaca, veracruz and tabasco, yet I do not see America trying to help South dakota, montana, nevada or arizona, where the major and porest reservations are. Let US the Mexicans that decided to STAY and die if necesary fix our problems and not be judged by those Who LEFT and went for the MAcdonalds and Sears life instead of eating the dust of the poverty and wars that came. We are a nation after all, respect us at least for that. Respectfully to our brothers in the north, which they forget that they are OUR brothers and not OUR TUTORS..... Alberto Alejandro Perez Pulido ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A. Alejandro Perez "After many years in which the world has Graduate Student afforded me many experiences, what I know Int. Political Economy most surely in the long run about morality 347 Smith Hall and obligations, I owe it to futbol" University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 From micc at home.com Sat Jul 17 08:48:53 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 02:48:53 -0600 Subject: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Message-ID: Dear alberto, I too am a mexican. to be specific, I am a chilango, yet I have spent all of my life in the U.S., not by choice, but by destiny. I understand your anger, and (dare you admit it ) hatred of us who " ...LEFT and went for the MAcdonalds > and Sears life instead of eating the dust of the poverty and wars that > came" my father is from singuilucan Hidalgo (also la Huasteca, if not ethnically, spiritually). We are nahautl-Otomi (�a�u). on my mothers side we are Purepecha, and nahuatl from puebla. Yet my father brother and now my son have green eyes (those naughty spanards got into everything everywhere...) So true, we are mestizos. however, I believe your anger is misidrected. true ther are many chicanos who are trying to be "more indian than ther indains" but i KNOW that the majority of us understand and appreciate, the many turbulent, tragic, herooic, and yes, even great moments in Mexico's blood. Unfortunately, YOU ARE VERY WRONG in saying that Mexico is NOT a state of mind. it is the state of mind of the true Mexicano, that makes Mexico so heavenly beautiful, yet devilsishly horrific. to blame us "pochos, agabachisados, etc...." for the mixed up psychology of the modern mexicano is sad at best, tragic at worst. You see we are only a reflection of the conflict within Mexico's self-identity. Mexicans see themselves as first world (YES I DID SEE MACDONALDS, HARD ROCK CAFE, AND COSTCO in el D.F.) third world (give us a break on pollution, democracy and labor ethics, we need to catch up to you rich people up north. you say: > > I have run into many revivalist Americans of Mexican heritage that seem to > think that because they read some books and because the Americans of > english-Irish-scottish-german-welsh or Italian descent discriminate on > them that makes them feel more Mexican that I am, given me the "you don't > know better because we are enlightened you poor little 3rd world country > wanna be WE ARE THE TRUE INHERITANTS OF THE AZTEC culture". This is very true, but for only a small, rabid, manipulative, and slefish few. Such as "the Nation of Aztlan" , some blondie white guy who says he is Quetzalcoatl (even has a website wwww.toltecs.com or something like that. There are also people who follow a dangerous (allegedly child molesting) guy named PASTEL in L.A. there are also MANY young innocent chicanos, many wgho are first generation college students who follow any crackppot that comes out of Mexico claiming to hold the secrets of cuauhtemocs prophecy...(Xoconochtle... and his band of viennese Azteca dancers comes to mind...oh don't forget the great tlacaelel). so IF we chicanos are " revivalist Americans of Mexican heritage that seem to > think that because they read some books...WE ARE THE TRUE INHERITANTS OF THE AZTEC culture". IT IS BECAUSE PEOPLE FROM MEXICO HAVE COME TO US AND TOLD US THIS ROT!!!! yOU SAY: > I beg of all of you who are of Mexican ancestry to understand that Mexico > is not only a state of mind, or a matter of academic study, or a matter of > finding you "roots". We are a living nation that is fighting every day to > survive, to progress, to evolve and to try to be more humane and equal. > Yes, we have our terrible one party dictatorship, you have a two party > dictatorship and I don't see you complain, we have a terrible state of > affairs in Chiapas, Oaxaca, veracruz and tabasco, yet I do not see America > trying to help South dakota, montana, nevada or arizona, where the major > and porest reservations are. > hERE YOUR IGNORANCE OF OUR POLITICAL REALITY CONVICTS YOU.... We chicanos are very much involved with the fight for big mountain in Arizona, the reZ battles at wounded Knees and many other places. As a matter of fact... the truth is that until the CHICANOS- MEXICANO-AMERICANOS started to come back to Mexico to"discover their roots" AND BRING HARD CASH TO THE REMOTE PUEBLOS THAT THE BIG CITY PEOPLE CHOOSE TO IGNORE ("HALL EN LA PROVINCIA... EN EL INTERIOR...) most mexicans were more than happy to ignore, disparage, AND EXTERMINATE the indigenous people you so proudly defend. > > Let US the Mexicans that decided to STAY and die if necesary fix our > problems and not be judged by those Who LEFT and went for the MAcdonalds > and Sears life instead of eating the dust of the poverty and wars that > came. We are a nation after all, respect us at least for that. > > Respectfully to our brothers in the north, which they forget that they are > OUR brothers and not OUR TUTORS..... > True we are not your tutors, yet you are not our elder brothers either! Those of us that HAD TO LEAVE, or WHOSE PARENTS WERE MADE TO LEAVE, are not to blame for the perpetual crisis of Mexico.... I believe that that honor goes to YOU, compa. Instead, we are in reality bringing BACK TO MEXICO WHAT YOU " the Mexicans that decided to STAY" send out of the country everyday on champagne, Armani suits,guns and sotch whiskey..... (does the term "saca dolares" refer to us farmworkers, dishwashers, and gardners that send money home every month so that our abuelitas can eat?) As a matter of fact, you intelectual elite of Mexico could do better if you learned from the rest of the educated world about honesty, democraacy and true defence of the disenfranchised. Every time you go to one of your discos night clubs or trendy restaurants in the zona rosa, please remember to treat your waiters well, like human beings,and not to brush off the indigenous children trying to sell you chicles at the doorway. Alex Perez wrote: > > I will catch a lot of flak but I feel morally oblidge to write the > folloowing, specially in this kind of list where the lenguage and culture > are supposed to be taken into consideration. > > First of all, I am Mexican, by birth, by raising, I lived most of my life > ther and I have enjoyed the good times and bad times of MY country. Yet I > am not named Cuahutemoc, axayacatl or tonatzin, as some of my classmates. > I have been learning nahuatl because my brother lives in the heart of the > huasteca potosina and I have many friends that only speak marginal spanish > and mostly a dialect of nahua. I have to deal with the realities of > everyday life there and with the goodness or badness of MY country wether > many people might consider it a backward 3rd world country or not I am > proud of it and I wish not to stay in America but to return to were I was > born. > > I have run into many revivalist Americans of Mexican heritage that seem to > think that because they read some books and because the Americans of > english-Irish-scottish-german-welsh or Italian descent discriminate on > them that makes them feel more Mexican that I am, given me the "you don't > know better because we are enlightened you poor little 3rd world country > wanna be WE ARE THE TRUE INHERITANTS OF THE AZTEC culture". > > I am very frustrated and angry and I want to make all of you AWARE that we > looked on you all as OUR OWN people, but my experience here has been so > disapointing that makes me want to cry. Nobody here knows that WE are all > Mexican, thet The Nahuas, as well as the Otomies, the Mazahuas, the > Tarahumaras, the purepechas the Tzotziles, the tarascans as well as the > GREAT MAJORITY OF MEXICO who is MIxed, we share a same culture tradition > and Nationality. To divide Mexico is to dismember the soul of our nation. > > I beg of all of you who are of Mexican ancestry to understand that Mexico > is not only a state of mind, or a matter of academic study, or a matter of > finding you "roots". We are a living nation that is fighting every day to > survive, to progress, to evolve and to try to be more humane and equal. > Yes, we have our terrible one party dictatorship, you have a two party > dictatorship and I don't see you complain, we have a terrible state of > affairs in Chiapas, Oaxaca, veracruz and tabasco, yet I do not see America > trying to help South dakota, montana, nevada or arizona, where the major > and porest reservations are. > > Let US the Mexicans that decided to STAY and die if necesary fix our > problems and not be judged by those Who LEFT and went for the MAcdonalds > and Sears life instead of eating the dust of the poverty and wars that > came. We are a nation after all, respect us at least for that. > > Respectfully to our brothers in the north, which they forget that they are > OUR brothers and not OUR TUTORS..... > > Alberto Alejandro Perez Pulido > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > A. Alejandro Perez "After many years in which the world has > Graduate Student afforded me many experiences, what I know > Int. Political Economy most surely in the long run about morality > 347 Smith Hall and obligations, I owe it to futbol" > University of Delaware > Newark, DE 19716 From cristi at ix.netcom.com Sat Jul 17 16:10:02 1999 From: cristi at ix.netcom.com (cristi at ix.netcom.com) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 10:10:02 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: > I am working on a project on general indigenous culture that will be > presented to a diverse audience. The project is for my work, so that I can > teach my collegues about my interests. I am looking for suggestions of what > kinds of foods I should make as samples of what my ancestry created (so far I > considered serving chocolate to keep them awake!) Any suggestions as to what > else I should speak about, serve or teach that would be of interest to them? > This will be the first time this audience has heard anything on the subject > and unfortunately may be their last experience (if I can't help it). Tortillas, salsa, turkey, rabbit, fish, mice (!), little dogs (!), cherries, Spirulina, prickly pear cactus pads, squash, beans, avocadoes, mushrooms, and amaranth. Of the squash they would eat the fruit, roast the seeds, and fry the blossoms. They were quite fond of all vegetables and fruits to be found in the area (which was most of present Mexico, as they had many foods imported), and I suppose that would include strawberries (wild, of course), tomatoes, and tomatillos. If you elect to serve chocolatl, be sure to flavor the drink with vanilla and spices. There were other exotic foods and wild plants, but not that you could find in a modern city (whilst mice and small dogs are plentiful). heh. Cristi From andreamb at mail.giga.com Sun Jul 18 04:03:01 1999 From: andreamb at mail.giga.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Andrea_Mart=EDnez_B=2E=22?=) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 22:03:01 -0600 Subject: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Message-ID: Felicidades a Alex P=E9rez por su carta. No estoy de acuerdo con todo, el tema es delicado, pero est=E1 escrito desde el coraz=F3n. Yo lo editar=EDa quitando a qui=E9n est=E1 dirigido. Es m=E1s importante, me parece, lo que d= ice en s=ED. Me gusta ese amor a la patria, es poco usual y muy valioso (las antiguas ra=EDces nacionales). Pero tambi=E9n, querido Alex: como se dice, e= n esta =E9poca de globalizaci=F3n tenemos que abrirnos, y comprender que la experiencia de los mexicanos en EU es tan v=E1lida como la nuestra. Nuestro amor a M=E9xico no debe ser defensivo.Yo viv=ED unos meses en Los Angeles, qued=E9 tambi=E9n horrorizada ante el American Way of Life y defend=ED a mue= rte la opci=F3n vital mexicana. Tal vez lo que te hace falta es regresar a= casa... Andrea Mart=EDnez=20 From andreamb at mail.giga.com Mon Jul 19 01:21:07 1999 From: andreamb at mail.giga.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Andrea_Mart=EDnez_B=2E=22?=) Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 19:21:07 -0600 Subject: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Message-ID: >Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 22:47:19 -0500 >To: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu >From: "Andrea Mart=EDnez B." >Subject: Re: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Vuelvo a enviar este mensaje, hecho ininteligible por los acentos. Puedo sugerir al senor Schwaller introducir en esta red los acentos propios al espanol? H-Mexico los tiene, lo que me hace suponer que debe ser posible. Gracias... Andrea Martinez >In-Reply-To: > >Felicidades a Alex Perez por su carta. No estoy de acuerdo con todo, el tema es delicado, pero esta escrito desde el corazon. Yo lo editaria quitando a quien esta dirigido. Es mas importante, me parece, lo que dice en si. Me gusta ese amor a la patria, es poco usual y muy valioso (las antiguas raices nacionales). Pero tambien, querido Alex: como se dice, en esta epoca de globalizacion tenemos que abrirnos, y comprender que la experiencia de los mexicanos en EU es tan valida como la nuestra. Nuestro amor a Mexico no debe ser defensivo.Yo vivi unos meses en Los Angeles, quede tambien horrorizada ante el American Way of Life y defendi a muerte la opcion vital mexicana. Tal vez lo que te hace falta es regresar a casa... > Andrea Martinez=20 No me presente, soy mexicana e historiadora en el DF. Despues de escribir esta carta lei la de "micc". Tengo una objecion respecto a que en Mexico "exterminamos" a los indios. El termino me parece excesivo. Por lo demas, su punto de vista -excesivo tambi=E9n, como el de Alejandro- tiene verdades grandes: la globalizacion nos obliga a ser mas concientes de nuestros errores y responsabilidades. Saludos cordiales a los dos. From GESX1CKAH at aol.com Mon Jul 19 01:46:30 1999 From: GESX1CKAH at aol.com (GESX1CKAH at aol.com) Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 19:46:30 -0600 Subject: What is quelites (quilitl) and a chocolate question Message-ID: This was suggested as a food to me, but I don't believe I ever heard of it. Also, in what form was chocolate served, I was under the impression that it was originally in eating form rather than drinking? Muchas gracias jessica From micc at home.com Mon Jul 19 06:41:11 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 00:41:11 -0600 Subject: What is quelites (quilitl) and a chocolate question Message-ID: Quelites are usually availabl eat most mexican foods here in California, and definately available in tijuana.... chocolatl, was drunk, mixed with water, honey, and sometimes if availablre vanilla. It was an elite luxury good. Since cacao beans were used as money, only the nobility, and the emerging middle class of the merchants could afford to "eat their money" It appears that the word cacao is a direct loan word from the Maya, in whose regions it grows. "Cacaoatl cacao + atl = water of cacao" I believe that chocolatl comes from xocoa "bitter or raw" and atl, but i recall a long exchange of messages, on this list as to how this was not correct..... GESX1CKAH at aol.com wrote: > > This was suggested as a food to me, but I don't believe I ever heard of it. > Also, in what form was chocolate served, I was under the impression that it > was originally in eating form rather than drinking? > > Muchas gracias > jessica From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Mon Jul 19 14:25:51 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 08:25:51 -0600 Subject: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Message-ID: Lamentablemente el progrma que maneja al correo eletronico en la Universidad de Montana no puede mantener a los accentos. Por esta razon, les resultan codigos. En este momento no puedo resolver el problema, sino rogarles no utilizar los accentos. De otra manera, cuando se recibe mensaje con codigos en vez de accetos, se puede utilizar su software de manejo de textos (WordPerfect, Word, etc.) para sutituir los codigos con los accentos. Tienen que recordar que el listproc es un sistem automatico y no intervengo ni en la seleccion ni en la edicion de los mensajes. Lo que Uds. envian, se reciben. J. F. Schwaller, List Owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From mhopkins at fas.harvard.edu Mon Jul 19 15:03:37 1999 From: mhopkins at fas.harvard.edu (Mary Hopkins) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 09:03:37 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: Onions are Old World, too, though they're just as thoroughly integrated into Mexican cuisine at this point as tomatoes and peppers are into Italian. MH On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Craig Berry wrote: > On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Alex wrote: > > > I believe the Aztecs (or their predecessors?) invented corn tortillas > > which are consumed substantially in the U.S. And probably some > > version of salsa (tomatoes or tomatillos, peppers, onions, cilantro). > > True, though I don't know about the cilantro. Tamales would make another > good representative Aztec food (either plain corn or corn with chiles or > possibly turkey -- the "dog" and "Tlaxcaltec" filling options being a bit > advanced for beginners). > > -- > | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net > --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html > | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." > From cberry at cinenet.net Mon Jul 19 16:48:28 1999 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 10:48:28 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Mary Hopkins wrote: > Onions are Old World, too, though they're just as thoroughly integrated > into Mexican cuisine at this point as tomatoes and peppers are into > Italian. MH All varieties? I thought that there were "green" onions of some variety in the New World, but I can't recall where I got this impression. From robc at csufresno.edu Mon Jul 19 18:14:22 1999 From: robc at csufresno.edu (Robert G. Comegys) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 12:14:22 -0600 Subject: Aztec or Mixtec Glyphs Message-ID: Saludos, Is there a dictionary of N�huatl or Mixtec glyphs? A search of the library of the National Autonomous University in Mexico City and various boolkstores in Mexico City under diccionario de glifos yeilded me nothing. Is there some standard text? Any assistance would be gratefully accepted. Robert Comegys robc at csufresno.edu From ECOLING at aol.com Mon Jul 19 20:51:10 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 14:51:10 -0600 Subject: Aztec or Mixtec Glyphs Message-ID: Robert Comegys: a book by Mary Elizabeth Smith and one by Bruce Byland and John Pohl (co-authors) will give you a bunch of them. Please provide your postal address, and we will send you a publication list including a workbook for the Mixtec codices. Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From cristi at ix.netcom.com Tue Jul 20 01:45:30 1999 From: cristi at ix.netcom.com (cristi at ix.netcom.com) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 19:45:30 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: > On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Mary Hopkins wrote: > > > Onions are Old World, too, though they're just as thoroughly integrated > > into Mexican cuisine at this point as tomatoes and peppers are into > > Italian. MH > > All varieties? I thought that there were "green" onions of some variety > in the New World, but I can't recall where I got this impression. I wouldn't be able to believe that with wild onions all around them (as there are all over north america), there would be a large group of native americans who had never learned that they tasted good.... Cristi From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Tue Jul 20 11:29:44 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 05:29:44 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: There are native onions. These include Allium triccoum, Allium canadense, Allium cernuun. All were well known to historic Indians in the Midwest. The first two were called, respectively,/shika:kwa/ (literally 'skunk') and /wa:pipina/ (literally 'white potato') in Miami-Illinois. Allium canadense actually had several names, one of which alludes to its red top. Best, Michael On Mon, 19 Jul 1999 cristi at ix.netcom.com wrote: > > On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Mary Hopkins wrote: > > > > > Onions are Old World, too, though they're just as thoroughly integrated > > > into Mexican cuisine at this point as tomatoes and peppers are into > > > Italian. MH > > > > All varieties? I thought that there were "green" onions of some variety > > in the New World, but I can't recall where I got this impression. > > I wouldn't be able to believe that with wild onions all around them > (as there are all over north america), there would be a large group > of native americans who had never learned that they tasted good.... > > Cristi > Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu From mcarde4 at uic.edu Tue Jul 20 13:41:52 1999 From: mcarde4 at uic.edu (Manuel Angel Cardenas) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 07:41:52 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: Saludos a todos, Actually...I believe Christy is correct. Chicago, so I am told is an indigenous word that means "place of the wild onions" chao Manuel Angel Cardenas Yax Chan Chaak mcarde4 at uic.edu On Mon, 19 Jul 1999 cristi at ix.netcom.com wrote: > I wouldn't be able to believe that with wild onions all around them > (as there are all over north america), there would be a large group > of native americans who had never learned that they tasted good.... > > Cristi > From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Tue Jul 20 13:55:40 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 07:55:40 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Manuel Angel Cardenas wrote: > Saludos a todos, > > Actually...I believe Christy is correct. Chicago, so I am told is an > indigenous word that means "place of the wild onions" > > chao > > Manuel Angel Cardenas > Yax Chan Chaak > mcarde4 at uic.edu Well, more or less. The term "Chicago" is simply a European spelling for Miami-Illinois /shika:kwa/, 'skunk' BUT also the term for Allium tricoccum, a plant we call leek or some call "wild onions." Note, however, that "Chicago" contains no morpheme for 'place'. However, later Miami speakers did call the modern town /shika:konki/, 'at the skunk (leek)', which is commonly translated to 'place of the leek'. The actual original place-name is far more complex than simple "Chicago," however. Best, Michael > > On Mon, 19 Jul 1999 cristi at ix.netcom.com wrote: > > > I wouldn't be able to believe that with wild onions all around them > > (as there are all over north america), there would be a large group > > of native americans who had never learned that they tasted good.... > > > > Cristi > > > Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Tue Jul 20 14:19:55 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 08:19:55 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: > Actually...I believe Christy is correct. Chicago, so I am told is an > indigenous word that means "place of the wild onions" Not quite. It is clearly derived from /shikaag/ "skunk" and /-oN/ locative suffix, though this is not Nahuatl but Central Algonkian. (But as we heard one of the wild onions was named after the skunk in the Miami language.) The relevant question is not: were there onions in any part of America but were they part of the Aztec cuisine (consider differnt climate and a disdain of the civilized against food of the "savages"). Maybe somebody can solve this riddle by looking at source texts (to get back to Nahuatl after all)? Henry From chair at thule.org Tue Jul 20 15:29:50 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 09:29:50 -0600 Subject: indigisismo & non indigismo Message-ID: check out http://www.thule.org/tiahuanaco.html From robc at csufresno.edu Tue Jul 20 15:43:32 1999 From: robc at csufresno.edu (Robert G. Comegys) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 09:43:32 -0600 Subject: Royal Gardens Message-ID: Saludos a todos, At the time of the conquest there was a royal herb garden in Ixtapalapa. Does anyone know of a reference that describes it? What herbs grew there? Did they have any onions there? Al tiempo de la conquista era una jardin reyal de hierbas localizada en Ixtapalapa. �Conoce alguien de una referencia escolar que la descubre? �Cuales hierbas medicinales o c�cinales que se cultivaban alla? �Si se cultivaban cebollas? Robert Comegys From ECOLING at aol.com Tue Jul 20 16:58:38 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 10:58:38 -0600 Subject: Mexica gardens Message-ID: And there were (I have heard it said) more generally botanic gardens far in advance of Linnaeus in Europe, and what we should call a "zoo", in which those animals which for reasons of climate could not be kept in the valley of Mexico were represented by paintings. What are the standard original references for these places and what they held? Are there reports of more recent archaeological work on the related irrigation systems which the conquistadors or their successors destroyed? Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From campbel at indiana.edu Tue Jul 20 18:31:22 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 12:31:22 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: Henry, Well put. Speculation has its place, but "inquiring minds want to know": ***did they eat onions?*** Just to continue the availability issue one more step, we could check: Hernandez, Francisco. _Historia de las plantas de Nueva Espan~a_ [3 v.]. Mexico (1942-46).=20 Hernandez, Francisco. _Obras Completas_ [5 v.]. Mexico, UNAM (1959-1976). Martin de la Cruz. _Libellus de medicinalibus indorum herbis_. Mexico, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (1964). A *jewel* of a book: Emily Walcott Emmart. _The Badianus Manuscript: An Aztec Herbal of 1552_. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press (1940) =20 Back to Henry's point, the nearest thing to contemporary commentary that we have is that of Fray Bernardino de Sahagun -- aided by years of monumental work by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J.O. Anderson. I checked all occurrences of "xonacatl" (and 'onion', of course) and the results are below. If you consult the text of the Florentine Codex itself, the context gives more interesting information, but to save you the labor, I extracted the relevant passages and included them immediately after the primary index. Best regards, Joe =20 moxonacanenequi** =20 1. *moxonacanenequi*,. it resembles the onion. (b.11 f.14 p.139).=20 =20 tepexonacatl** =20 2. *tepexonacatl*,. tepexonacatl (b.11 f.14 p.139).=20 =20 xonacatl** =20 3. *xonacatl*.. the onion. (b.6 f.19 p.238).=20 =20 4. zan ye no yehuatl in *xonacatl*.. this is likewise the onion. (b.6 f.19 p.238).=20 =20 5. *xonacatl*,. onions; (b.8 f.2 p.38).=20 =20 6. ihuan in ixquich tlamantli quilitl cualoni, *xonacatl*, tzayanalquilitl, huitzquilitl, huauhquilitl, huauhtzontli, itzmiquilitl, quillanenel, iztac xoxocoyoli, xoxocoyolhuihuilan,. and all manner of edible herbs---onions, water plant leaves, thistles, amaranth greens and heads, purslane, mixed greens, varieties of sorrel; (b.8 f.4 p.68).=20 =20 7. *xonacatl*.. xonacatl (b.11 f.14 p.139).=20 =20 8. quil itlatla in *xonacatl*,. they say it is some kind of onion. (b.11 f.14 p.139).=20 =20 xonacatontli** =20 9. iuhquin *xonacatontli*.. it is like a little onion. (b.11 f.14 p.147).=20 Florentine Codex, Book 6, page 238 =20 4199. zazan tleino iztactetzintli quetzalli conmantica. what is a small white stone holding a quetzal feather? =20 4200. xonacatl. the onion. =20 4201. zazan tleino, cuaztalcomoctzin, quetzalli conmantica: that is that which is white-headed, holding a quetzal feather? =20 4202. zan ye no yehuatl in xonacatl. this is likewise the onion. =20 Florentine Codex, Book 8, pp. 37-40 =20 5158. ic matlactli omei capitulo: oncan mitoa, in intlacual in quicuaya, in tlatoque. thirteenth chapter. here are told the foods which the lords ate. =20 5159. iztac totonqui tlaxcalli, tlacuelpacholli, huei tlaxcalli cuauhtlacualli, tlaxcalpacholli iztac, nexiopapayo, hot, white, doubled tortillas; large tortillas; large, thick, coarse tortillas; folded tortillas of maize treated with lime, pleasing [to the taste]; =20 5160. tlaxcalmimilli, tlacepoalli tlaxcalli, tortillas formed in rolls; leaf-shaped tortillas; =20 5161. cuatecuicuilli tamalli, iztac tlatzincuitl, iztac tetamalli tlatzincuitl, white tamales with beans forming a sea shell on top; white tamales with maize grains thrown in; hard, white tamales with grains of maize thrown in; =20 5162. chichiltic cuatecuicuilli tamalli, nexiotamalli cuatecuicuilli, tamalatl cuauhnextli, red tamales with beans forming a sea shell on top; tamales made of a dough of maize softened in lime, with beans forming a sea shell on top; tamales of maize softened in wood ashes; =20 5163. totolnacaquimilli xocco tlapahuaxtli, anozo tlatentli, nacatlaoyo tamalli chilcozio: cihuatotoli tlatlehuatzalli, zolin tlatlehuatzalli, turkey pasty cooked in a pot, or sprinkled with seeds; tamales of meat cooked with maize and yellow chili; roast turkey hen; roast quail. =20 5164. tianquiztlacualli, iztac tlaxcalli etica tlaoyo, totolin patzcalmolli, chiltecpiyo, totolin, chilcozio totolin, market food: white tortillas with a flour of uncooked beans; turkey with a sauce of small chilis, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; turkey with red chilis; turkey with yellow chilis; =20 5165. chilchoyo totolin, mazanacatl tlatentli, turkey with green chilis; venison sprinkled with seeds; =20 5166. citli molli, tochtli molli, hare with sauce; rabbit with sauce; =20 5167. nacatlaolli patzcallo, meat stewed with maize, red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; =20 5168. mazanacatl patzcallo, totoizquitl venison with red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; birds with toasted maize; =20 5169. tepitoton totome, small birds; =20 5170. canauhtlahuatzalli, canauhtlapahuaxtli, dried duck; duck stewed in a pot; =20 5171. atzitzicuilotlapahuaxtli, nacatlacectli, tlatetzoyonilli nacamolli patzcallo, the atzitzicuilotl bird stewed in a pot; roast of meat; fried meat in a sauce of red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; =20 5172. chilcoztlatonilli, chiltecpinmolli xitomayo, chilcozmolli xitomayo, chilchomolli xitomayo, tlamamollalli xitomayo, pottage of yellow chili; sauces of ordinary tomatoes and small tomatoes and yellow chili, or of tomatoes and green chili; diluted [sauces] with tomatoes; =20 5173. iztac amilotl chilcozio, tomahuac xohuili, patzcallo, white fish with yellow chili; grey fish with red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; =20 5174. cuiatl chilchoyo, frog with green chilis; =20 5175. axolotl chilcozio, newt with yellow chili; =20 5176. atepocatl chiltecpiyo, tadpoles with small chilis; =20 5177. michpili chiltecpiyo, small fish with small chilis; =20 5178. tzicatanatli inamic papaloquilitl, winged ants with savory herbs; =20 5179. chapolin chichiahua, locusts with chia; =20 5180. meocuili chiltecpinmollo, maguey grubs with a sauce of small chilis; =20 5181. chacali patzcallo, lobster with red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; =20 5182. topotli michi patzcallo, tlacamichin patzcallo, sardines with red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; large fish with the same; =20 5183. mazaxocomolli iztac michyo=20 a sauce of unripened plums with white fish; =20 5184. tlatlauhqui tezontzapotl red, rough sapotas; =20 5185. ixochicual mazaxocotl chilchiltic, coztic, tlaztalehualtic, eheyotzapotl, xicotzapotl,=20 red plums; yellow or vermillion plums; ashen sapotas; =20 5186. cuauhcamotli, camotli, manioc; sweet potato; =20 5187. ahuacatl, avocado; =20 5188. atztzapotl, yellow sapotas; =20 5189. nochtli, tlatlatlapalpoalli, iztac, coztic, chichiltic, xoxoctic, camopaltic, tuna cactus fruit of many hues---white, yellow, bright red, green, orange; =20 5190. matzatli, cuammochil, anonas; guam=A3chiles; =20 5191. capoli, xilotl, elotl, exotl, american cherries; tender maize; green maize; string beans; =20 5192. miyahuatamalli tlaixnamictilli huauhtli ihuan capoli, tamales made of maize flowers with ground amaranth seed and cherries added; =20 5193. elotlaxcalli, anozo xantlaxcalli, xilotlaxcalli, tortillas of green maize or of tender maize; =20 5194. huauhquiltamalli, tamales stuffed with amaranth greens; =20 5195. neuctlaxcalli, nochtlaxcalli, tortillas made with honey, or with tuna cactus fruit; =20 5196. neuctamalli, tamales made with honey; =20 5197. quecehuatlaxcalli, tzoallaxcalli, tzoalli, tortillas shaped like hip guards; tamales made of amaranth seed dough; [cakes made of] amaranth seed dough; =20 5198. tochizquitl, ayotlatlapanalli, olchicalli, elotl tlapahuaxtli tlahuatzalli, rabbit with toasted maize; squash cut in pieces; olchicalli; green maize cooked in a pot and dried; =20 5199. huauhquilmolli tonalchillo, amaranth greens cooked with dry land chili; =20 5200. itzmiquilmolli, tonalchillo, sauce of purslain with dry land chili; =20 5201. huauhtzontli tonalchillo, green amaranth seeds with dry land chili; =20 5202. tzayanalquilitl, water greens; =20 5203. xonacatl, onions; =20 5204. hiyacaquilitl, the evil-smelling herb; =20 5205. eloquilitl, the eloquilite herb; =20 5206. mozoquilitl, the mozote herb; =20 5207. nacaztochquilitl, rabbit-ear greens; =20 5208. achochoquilitl, achochoquilitl; =20 5209. huitzquilitl, chichicaquilitl, thistle; sow thistle; =20 5210. iztac xoxocoyoli, xoxocoyolhuihuilan, sorrel of various kinds; =20 5211. axoxoco acuitlacpalli, a water-edge plant called acuitlacpalli; =20 5212. ayoxochquilitl, squash flowers; =20 5213. ayonanacatl, tender, young squash; =20 5214. ayoyacaquilitl, ayotepitoton, mexixquilitl, popoyauhquilitl, small squash; garden cress; raphanus; =20 5215. nopaltepitoton michteuhyo,=20 small tuna cactus fruit with fish eggs; =20 5216. tozanmolli, gophers with sauce; =20 5217. totonqui atolli, miyec tlamantli, hot maize gruel of many kinds; =20 5218. necuatolli, chilnecuatolli, chilcozio, maize gruel with honey, with chili and honey, with yellow chili; =20 5219. cuauhnexatolli tlatzincuitl, iztac xocoatolli, chichiltic, chilxocoatolli, miltomatl inamic eheihuatolli, white, thick gruel with a scattering of maize grains; sour, white maize gruel; sour, red maize gruel with fruit and chili; small, green tomatoes with a maize gruel made with anonas; =20 5220. huauhatolli izquio, maize gruel made with amaranth and toasted maize; =20 5221. michihuahuatolli neucyo, maize gruel with fish-amaranth seeds and honey; =20 5222. itztic atolli, cold maize gruel; =20 5223. chiantzotzolatolli, chilchopani, anozo chiltecpinpani, maize gruel with wrinkled chia, covered with green chilis or small, hot chilis; =20 5224. iztac chianatolli chilcozpani, white maize gruel with chia, covered with yellow chilis; =20 5225. chianpitzahuac atolli, ayohuachpani chillo, maize gruel with chia, covered with squash seeds and with chili; =20 5226. tlaciocuepalatolli chiantzotzollo, ihuan chianio chiltecpinpani maize gruel made of tortilla crumbs, and with ordinary and wrinkled chia, covered with small chilis. =20 5227. in ixquich tlamantli, i, tlacualli icalitic, hualquiza tlatoani. all these foods came forth from within the house of the ruler. =20 5228. auh in momoztlae, ice tlacatl calpixqui quitequilia in tlatoani, in itlacual macuiltzontli in nepapan tlacualli, in totonqui tlaxcalli and daily a man, the majordomo, set out for the ruler his food---two thousand kinds of various foods; hot tortillas, =20 5229. in iztac cuatecuicuilli white tamales with beans forming a sea shell on top; =20 5230. in chichiltic tamalli, red tamales; =20 5231. in huei tlacualli, tlaxcalmimilli: ihuan cenca miyec tlamantli the main meal of rollshaped tortillas and many [foods]: =20 5232. in imollo in ihuical in totoli, sauces with turkeys, =20 5233. zolli, mazanacatl, tochi, citli, quail, venison, rabbit, hare, =20 5234. tozan, chacali, topotli, tlacamichin, niman yee in ixquich neuctic xochicualli. rat, lobster, small fish, large fish; then all [manner of] sweet fruits. =20 5235. auh in ihcuac in otlacua tlatoani, niman ic moxexeloa, in ixquich tlacualli: and when the ruler had eaten, then all the food was divided. =20 5236. nononcua tlacua in altepetl ipan tlatoque, ihuan in ixquich cemanahuacatl in tlatocatitlanti, in moyaotitlanque, in tlazopipilti, in teuctlatoque, achcacauhti, tequihuaque, tiacahuan, tiachcahuan, telpochtlatoque teopixque, tlamacazque, cuicanime, in quezquitlamantli, ixolhua, iyahachhuan, tetlahuehue= tzquitique: ihuan nepapan toltecatl, teocuitlapitzque, amanteca, tlatecque, chalchiuhtlacuiloque, caczoque, teoxinque. apart, in the city, the lords ate, and all the people from surrounding lands---the ambassadors, the war messengers, the princes, the judges, the high priests, the seasoned warriors, the valiant men of war, the masters of the youths, the rulers of the youths, the keepers of the gods, the priests, the singers, [the ruler's] pages, his servants, his jugglers, and the various artisans, goldsmiths, feather workers, cutters of precious stones, setters of mosaic, sandal makers, and turquoise cutters. =20 5237. niman moteca in icalitic: yecahui in icacahuauh, xoxouhqui cacahuacintli, cuauhneucyo cacahuatl, xochiocacahuatl, xoxouhqui tlilxochio, chichiltic cacahuatl, huitztecolcacahuatl, xochipalca= cahuatl, tiltic cacahuatl, itztac cacahuatl=20 then, in his house, the ruler was served his chocolate, with which he finished [his repast]---green, made of tender cacao; honeyed chocolate made with ground-up dried flowers---with green vanilla pods; bright red chocolate; orange-colored chocolate; rosecolored chocolate; black chocolate; white chocolate. =20 5238. inic motecaya cacahuatl, tecontlacuilolli, atzaccayotl tlacuilolli, acuahuitl ayotectli tlacuilolli, poctecomatl anahuacayotl, atzaccayotl ayotectli, ayahualli oceloehuatl, cuetlaxayahualli, the chocolate was served in a painted gourd vessel, with a stopper also painted with a design, and [having] a beater; or in a painted gourd, smoky [in color], from neighboring lands, with a gourd stopper, and a jar rest of ocelot skin or of cured leather. =20 5239. chitatli in oncan mopia tecomatl, atzetzeloaztli, inic moyectia cacahuatl, huehuei tecomatl achihualoni, huehuei tlacuilolxicalli, inic nematequilo, tzohuacalli tlaihualoni, tlacualchiquihuitl, molcaxitl, petzcaxitl, cuauhcaxitl. in a small net were kept the earthen jars, the strainer with which was purified the chocolate, a large, earthen jar for making the chocolate, a large painted gourd vessel in which the hands were washed, richly designed drinking vessels; [there were] large food baskets, sauce dishes, polished dishes, and wooden dishes. =20 Florentine Codex, Book 11, page 139 =20 10138. xonacatl. xonacatl =20 10139. tolpatlactic, it is slender like reeds. =20 10140. cuecueyahuac, it glistens. =20 10141. tzitziniztac, the bottoms are white. =20 10142. tentzone. it has a beard. =20 10143. ihyac, cococ, it stinks; it burns. =20 10144. tetlatemohuili, quitopehua, quicuania in tlatlaciztli. it aids the digestion; it throws off, rids one, of a cough. =20 10145. tepexonacatl, tepexonacatl =20 10146. in zan canin mochichihua, in amo tlacenmachtli wherever it grows is not very well known. =20 10147. in zazan xihuitl pohui: it probably belongs among the herbs. =20 10148. quil itlatla in xonacatl, they say it is some kind of onion. =20 10149. huel cococ. it burns much. =20 10150. maxten: maxten =20 10151. moxonacanenequi, it resembles the onion. =20 10152. quiyoyo, cuecueponqui it is stalky, blooming. =20 10153. achi quecinami, achi chipayac: it is a little like the onion, a little acrid smelling. =20 10154. in itzinteyo, pahuaxoni. its roots are cookable in an olla. =20 10155. inin itzinteyo huel cuecueyochauhtica, huel miec: the roots of this are well diffused; there are many. =20 10156. ic ipan mitoa in aquin cenca mopilhuatiani, in miequintin onnemi ipilhuan. maxtenpilhua. thus it is said of him who engenders many, whose many children live, "he has offspring like the maxten." Florentine Codex, Book 11, pp. 147-8 10464. zozoyatic =87o=87oyatic =20 10465. iuhquin xonacatontli. it is like a little onion. =20 10466. achtopa yehuatl teyacacpa onhuetzi: at first this is dropped in the nose. =20 10467. in itzinteyo, in iamatlapal in ixinachyo, mochi mocenteci, its roots, leaves, seeds are all ground together. =20 10468. zan teuhtic, anozo paltic: cencan zan aquiton in teyacac onhuetzi: only as a powder, or in solution, a very little is dropped in the nose. =20 10469. intla miec minecui, intla miec teyacac onhuetzi: eztli quiquixtia, if much of it is inhaled, if much is dropped in the nose, it causes bleeding. =20 10470. ompa mochihua: motlauhxauhcan, cuauhtenco, cuauhnahuac, itlan, it grows there at motlauhxauhcan, at the edge of the forest near quauhnauac. =20 10471. amo ihuani, it is not potable. =20 On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Henry Kammler wrote: >=20 > The relevant question is not: were there onions in any part of America > but were they part of the Aztec cuisine (consider differnt climate and > a disdain of the civilized against food of the "savages"). Maybe > somebody can solve this riddle by looking at source texts (to get back > to Nahuatl after all)? >=20 > Henry >=20 From TruBluPooh at aol.com Tue Jul 20 19:53:19 1999 From: TruBluPooh at aol.com (TruBluPooh at aol.com) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 13:53:19 -0600 Subject: Aztec wisdom Message-ID: Greetings all, Might anyone wish to share some Aztec wisdom with us. Those of you who are already fairly fluent. I'm very interested in proverbs or sayings from Nahuatl. Thank you Saludos a todo, Desean compartir un poco de sabiduria Azteca con nosotros los de ustedes que ya dominan la lengua. Tengo mucha interes en proverbios o refranes de Nahuatl. Gracias John-Francis Grasso Hernandez From SANCHEM2 at sce.com Tue Jul 20 20:06:52 1999 From: SANCHEM2 at sce.com (Sanchez, Michael) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 14:06:52 -0600 Subject: Warrior band Message-ID: I have been looking for a band that the Aztec warriors wore around their arm, does anyone have any information on this. A picture would be a lot of help. Mike Sanchez SCE Alhambra Bldg. "C" Pax 46226 (626) 308-6226 From altheman at earthlink.net Tue Jul 20 20:20:48 1999 From: altheman at earthlink.net (altheman) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 14:20:48 -0600 Subject: Issue of Sacrifice Message-ID: There has always been debate on the issue of ritual sacrifices in Aztec society. I have heard arguments that it was a prolific and daily part of temple rituals. I have also heard arguments that the whole thing has been overblown. I need an idea of how common a practice it was and what was the spiritual/political/practical justification for it. Lots to chew here but any feedback would be helpful. Thanks in advance. Alex. From sanduku at nr.usu.edu Tue Jul 20 20:23:38 1999 From: sanduku at nr.usu.edu (Paul Box) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 14:23:38 -0600 Subject: Royal Gardens Message-ID: There is a brief description in Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico" (or something like that), which was published around 1840. He doesn't go into great detail, certainly not as to whether they grew onions. Robert G. Comegys writes: > Saludos a todos, >=20 > At the time of the conquest there was a royal herb garden in Ixtapal= apa. >=20 > Does anyone know of a reference that describes it? What herbs grew > there? > Did they have any onions there? >=20 > Al tiempo de la conquista era una jardin reyal de hierbas localizada= en > Ixtapalapa. > =BFConoce alguien de una referencia escolar que la descubre? =BFCual= es > hierbas medicinales > o c=F3cinales que se cultivaban alla? =BFSi se cultivaban cebollas? >=20 > Robert Comegys >=20 >=20 --=20 ////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Dr. Paul Box // Dept of Geography and Earth Resources // UMC 5240 // Utah State University http://www.nr.usu.edu/~sanduku // Logan, UT 84321 Phone: 435-797-2546 ////////////////////////////////////////////////// * If Elvis was so great, why was he buried in the back yard like a * hamster? From mdmorris at indiana.edu Tue Jul 20 22:39:21 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 16:39:21 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: The accompanying passages for the Florentine Codex citations R. Joe Campbell notes in his messages are: Book 11 Earthly Things Chapter 7 English Translation Xonacatl It is slender like reeeds. It glistens. The bottoms are white. It has a beard. It stinks; it burns. It aids the digestion; it throws off, rids one, of a cough. Tepexonacatl Where it grows is not very well known. It probably belongs among the herbs. They say it is some kind of onion. It burns much. (i.e. ask my wife if you want an accurate answer [ed. note]). Maxten It resembles the onion. It is stalky, blooming. It is a little like the onion, a little acrid smelling. Its roots are cookable in an olla. The roots of this are well diffused; there are many. Thus it is said of him who engenders many, whose many children live, "He has offspring like the maxten." The accompanying illustration includes all three in one portrait, emphasizing the greens. Tepexonacatl has the largest bulbs, while the Xonacatl seems a true onion with one solid bulb. Below is a message Campbell posted last October, that I hope he will not mind being reposted. They are not exactly proverbs, but the metaphors capture something of the Nahua moral vision. Mark Morris Bread and Butter Metaphors amo quitlazohtla in itzontecon in ielchiquiuh he does not shrink from the enemy ixtli yollotl character?? tlantli iztitl ?? nimotlan nimozti ?? macuilli mahtlactli few atoyatl tepexitl danger atl tepetl city in atl in tepetl city in atl in tepetl city ixtli nacaztli mediator atlapalli cuitlapilli common folk cuitlapilli atlapalli common people in mitl in chimalli war in atl in tlachinolli war teoatl tlachinolli war tocochca toneuhca sustenance in ihuani in cualoni sustenance huictli mecapalli misery, affliction in petlatl in icpalli authority in ahuehuetl in pochotl authority, protection in petlatl in icpalli authority zacatl tlacotl wasteland cueitl huipilli woman in ayahuitl in poctli fame poctli ayahuitl fame ihiyotl tlahtolli discourse itlahtol ihiyo his discourse in chalchihuitl in quetzalli beauty, richness nomah nocxi my body itzon iizti his offspring nonan notah my support topco petlacalco secretly xochitl cuicatl poetry in xochitl in cuicatl poem From mdmorris at indiana.edu Wed Jul 21 03:58:05 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 21:58:05 -0600 Subject: Macehualli Message-ID: Speaking of Nahua metaphors, I recently wrote up an argument about macehualli being related to deserving that follows for those who might have an interest. Mark Morris For example, Pilli the word for a noble, also means child, and is a literal metaphor; nobles are the children of the macehualli seen in a 1619 document from Tlaxcala where the teixihuihuan (grandchildren) address the pilli �timotatzintzinhua timocnomacehualtzintzinhua~ /We your fathers, We your humble-deserving macehuales/ (AGET Fondo Historico, Coleccion Colonial Caja 14 Exp. 20 Fjs 3 Ano 1619). See also The Art of Nahuatl Speech: The Bancroft Dialogues (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1987) edited by Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart, 40-41 and the Florentine Codice (see below ) for other examples of social metaphors such as, in cuitlapilli in ahtlapalli (the tail, the wing) to denote common people. Following Horacio Carochi who demonstrates in his Arte de la Lengua Mexicana (Mexico: Juan Ruiz, 1645) the difference between macehualli and the verb mahcehua (to deserve) with the statement, �Cuix molhuil, cuix mom�cehual in tima:ce:hualli in tin:entla:catl, inic ina:huac titlaqua:z in motl�t�ca:uh? /Merit you, common and useless man to eat with your master?/, J. Richard Andrews and Frances Karttunen agree that phonetic differences of the glottal mah stop and the long vowel ma: indicate ma:ce:hualli and mahcehua are made of distinctly different morphemes, J. Andrews, Introduction to Classical Nahuatl (Austin: University of Austin Press, 1975) and Frances Karttunen, Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Austin: University of Austin Press, 1983). Thus, they distinguish the intransitive verb with a long vowel Ma:ce:hua (to dance) from the transitive with a glottal stop Mahce:hua or M�ce:hua (to deserve), and thus break the logic of this parent-child metaphor that invokes deserving. According to this model, then, the standard forms are Ma:ce:hua (intransitive verb), Mahce:hua (transitive verb) and Ma:ce:hualli (noun). But, this separation does not hold up given that the intransitive (to dance) is also found as Mahcehua in the Cantares Mexicanos (Mexico: Oficina tipografica de la Secretaria de fomento, 1904), f. 39 v. line 24 and Juan Jose Rendon Monzon�s appendice to M. Swadesh Mil Elementos del Mexicano Clasico (Mexico: UNAM, 1966) where �ma�ceua� is bailar (80). Moreover, Carochi�s examples themselves are inconsistent as when he drops the 2nd syllable long vowel from Mahcehua, seeming to emphasize its difference from Ma:ce:hualli. In contrast, a 1910 reprint of his grammar that otherwise attempts to fastidiously follow his diacritics entirely omits his diacritic marks in this section (Compendio edited by Ignacio Paredes, 3rd printing, Puebla: El Escritorio, 1910) as does Faustino Chimalpopoca who glosses Carochi's reading of �ilhuilti, icnopilti and macehualti� in his Epitome o Modo Facile de Aprender el Idioma Nahuatl o Mexicano (Mexico: V. de Murgu�a e hijos, 1869). The seeming confusing meanings ascribed to macehualli, mahcehua etc. originate in the linguistic work of the 16th-century the Franciscans, none more than Fray Alonso de Molina who gives the following entries in his dictionary of 1571: Maceua. ni. bailar, odan�ar. pre. onimaceuh Maceua. nic. confeguir, o merecerlo deffeado. Prete. onicmaceuh. Maceua. nitla. idem. o hazer penitencia. preteri. onitlamaceuh. Maceuale. merecedor de mercedes. Maceualyetoca. nino tenerfe por fieruo, o por pefona de baxa fuerte. Maceualiztli. dan�a o baile. Maceuallatoa. ni. hablar rufticamente. Preterito onimaceuallato. Maceuallatoani. hablador tal. Maceuallatoliztli. habla defta manera. Maceualli. vafallo. Maceuallotl. vafallaje, o cofa de maceuales. Maceualtia. nite. darvafallos a otro, o echar algo ala rebati�a. pre. onitemaceualti. Maceualtia. nitetla. dar a merecer, o dar penitencia o otro . Pre. onitetlamaceualti Maceualtia. ninote. hazer a otros vafallos mios. prete. oninotemaceualti. Maceuia. ninotla. merecer o alcan�ar lo deffeado. pre. oninotlamaceui. Particularly helpful among these are macehuale and macehualli. Both derive from the passive of the verb adding the suffix �lo. In the first case, the atavistic verb �eh (to have) joins the statement �there is deserving� (mahce:hualo) to denote �one who has deserving.� In the second, the absolutive noun suffix �tli joins �there is deserving,� to denote either �something deserving� or �something deserved,� and from this extending to mean a common person. See R. Joe Campbell�s morphological studies of the Florentine Codex posted at Jonathan Amith�s analysis of ma:se:walxiw in Ameyaltepec Nahuatl suggests also that the action of masehual refers to the subject. His entry is: �m�s�walxiw un r�stico, indio (como el poseedor) (Cat. gram.: Sustantivo (relacional) Morfolog�a: N+? Raices (1): m�s�wal; xiw )� in Analytical Dictionary of Ameyaltepec Nahuatl He further describes the suffix �xiw in Ameyaltepec as similar to the �po� of Classical Nahuatl in the sense both that it is a statement of being like something and only appears with possessed nouns, giving these examples: nosihuapo` she is a woman like me tinotla:capo` you are a man like me (Jonathan Amith, personal communication) Frances Karttunen affirms that po� �can be thought of as a preterit-as-present verb of the irregular type which takes possessive rather than subject prefixes and occurs only in singular form, in whichcase it implies *POA: �to be, become like someone�" in Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl, 201. It is important to recognize that the friars�chief purpose was to translate the Christian faith and Spanish government to Nahuatl, not to explore the most internally accurate translation. This has shaped our understanding of Nahuatl and Nahua culture in countless ways. It is suggestive then that ma:ce:hua (to dance) is used in the Florentine Codex in rituals of earthly and social renewal, whereas the more common verb to dance ihtotia is used more broadly (though frequently in religious contexts) and cuicoanaliztli (singing and dancing) is perhaps the most generic. Examples of macehua as dancing include: auh inic mamacehuaya quehuaya. in naye in naye tla achi in metzal,. (Nahuatl text standardized and machine coded by R. Joe Campbell) and as they kept on dancing they chanted: "when i do, when i do, [give me] a little of thy etzalli. (b.2 f.4 p.84). (trans. Charles Dibble and A.J.O. Anderson, Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research and Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1950-1982. auh in cequintin papaquini, in ahahuieni: ihuan in cequintin tiacahuan, mamacehua and some of the happy ones, the pleasure girls, and some of the brave warriors danced from time to time. (b.2 f.4 p.84) in macehualiztli, in papaquiliztli, inic quimellacuahua, inic quinyollalia, in ixquichtin tlatoque, ihuan pipilti, ihuan teteucti, ihuan tiacahuan: ihuan in ixquich in cuitlapilli, atlapalli, in macehualli: the ruler was greatly concerned with the dance, the rejoicing, in order to hearten and console all the peers, the lords, the noblemen, the brave warriors, and all the common folk and vassals. (b.8 f.3 p.55) And so following a thought suggested by Penny Lernoux, who recounts that �One of the early missionaries in Guatemala told all of the new missionaries that the first thing they had to do was to teach the Indians to dance the Gospel,� in Cry of the People: The Struggle for Human Rights in Latin America--the Catholic Church in Conflict with U.S. Policy (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), 381, I propose we use the root gloss of �to pray� to explore connections among intransitive, transitive specific and transitive non-specific mahcehua using the paradigm of calaqui: Intransitive A. Calaqui ~ to enter B. Mahcehua ~ to pray i.e. to dance Transitive Specific Object A. Quicalaqui ~ to enter it. i.e. to put it in e.g. niquicalaqui noichcatl ihtic yolcamehpiyalocan B. Quimahcehua ~ to pray it i.e. to merit or deserve it Transitive Generic Object A. Tlacalaqui ~ to enter something i.e. to pay tribute B. Tlamahcehua ~ to pray something i.e. to do penance Although these two verbs have their own tendencies and connotations, this paradigm shows at least a couple things. First, the shift in the force of the action between intransitive and transitive and transitive non-specific is similar. Thus, as the action shifts from the subject to the object, in shifting from intransitive to transitive specific object, calaqui (to enter) turns to mean something more like �to put,� and mahcehua (to dance-pray) to merit what is supplicated, in a sense to put the force of prayer on an object. When the transitive is non-specific, in each case the force of the statement shifts back toward the subject who performs a general-type of activity, in the one case paying taxes, in the other doing penance. There is no known reason why in shifting from verb to noun the mah of mahce:hua would become the ma: of ma:ce:hualli, and this accounts for the prudence of Carochi�s et. al. analysis. However, as Molina suggests in his Vocabulario and many examples in Nahuatl attest, glottal stops and vowel length are not always fixed morphemic elements, emphasizing that this difference is not a sure guarantee of disparate morphological origins. Still, the analysis Andrews gives of ma:ce:hualli underscores that both intransitive ma:ce:hua and ma:ce:hualli would latently have a glottal stop according to his view since the basic morpheme ma:i[tl] (hand) �has two stem forms,� according to Frances Karttunen and R. Joe Campbell in the Foundation Course in Nahuatl Grammar (Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies, 1989), vol. 2, 12. Andrews analyzes ma:ce:hualli as: (MA:I)-TL > (MA:)-0 = hand ...... (MA:CE:HUA) > (MA:-CE:UH) = to rest the hands, i.e. to dance; (MA:-CE:HUA-L)--LI = commoner, plebian, peasant. (J. Richard Andrews, Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, 450. Finally, the prevalence of macehui, macehua, macehual and mahcehua related to deserving in everyday correspondence between indigenous officials during the 18th-century shows the verb to be a common symbol in colonial discourse. When people then spoke of being someone�s vassal or macehualli, it seems natural that the idea of merit and the verb mahcehua would resonate with such a statement as nimomacehualli (I am your vassal). From nahualli at highfiber.com Wed Jul 21 13:17:30 1999 From: nahualli at highfiber.com (Brant Gardner) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 07:17:30 -0600 Subject: Macehualli Message-ID: [Mark] Speaking of Nahua metaphors, I recently wrote up an argument about macehualli being related to deserving that follows for those who might have an interest. Mark Morris For example, Pilli the word for a noble, also means child, and is a literal metaphor; nobles are the children of the macehualli seen in a 1619 document from Tlaxcala where the teixihuihuan (grandchildren) address the pilli �timotatzintzinhua timocnomacehualtzintzinhua~ /We your fathers, We your humble-deserving macehuales/ (AGET Fondo Historico, Coleccion Colonial Caja 14 Exp. 20 Fjs 3 Ano 1619). See also The Art of Nahuatl Speech: The Bancroft Dialogues (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1987) edited by Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart, 40-41 and the Florentine Codice (see below ) for other examples of social metaphors such as, in cuitlapilli in ahtlapalli (the tail, the wing) to denote common people. [Brant] Ages ago, in my only foray into classical nahuatl kin terms, I looked as the social use of kin terms. The general relationship you site has multiple examples and is expanded into a general principle. Contrary to modern expectations, the focal point of the discussion, or the person of highest rank, is always addressed with a kin term from a descending generation. In our modern religious vocabulary, we use the "father/child" metaphor to describe the relationship between priest/communicant. In nahuatl literature the same type of relational metaphor was used, but in reverse, where "son/father" would indicate higher rank/lower rank. It also appeared that the greater distance between the ranks would be indicated by a greater generational gap (grandchildren/grandfathers). ______________________ Brant Gardner Albuquerque, NM nahualli at highfiber.com www.highfiber.com\~nahualli From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Thu Jul 22 08:27:56 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 02:27:56 -0600 Subject: indigisismo & non indigismo (indigestible) Message-ID: indigi... que? the nearest that comes to mind is "indigestion" and indeed, looking at the immediate proximity of "Thule" and "Tiahuanaco" reminds me of one of the favorite myths of the Herrenmenschen ideologists in this country (Germany) that exactly covered Thule and Tiahuanaco, no need for more of this kind... Brad Smith schrieb: > > check out http://www.thule.org/tiahuanaco.html From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Thu Jul 22 08:32:35 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 02:32:35 -0600 Subject: Issue of Sacrifice Message-ID: > There has always been debate on the issue of ritual sacrifices in Aztec > society. I think there was a longer threat on this last year, if I remember right. Maybe you could browse the archives first... Henry From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Thu Jul 22 08:47:19 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 02:47:19 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: For a general understanding of the word indigenismo: for me "indigenismo" is either a native language element in Spanish or, more importantly, a historical current in Latin American (especially Mexican and Peruvian) policy towards the "Indians". It was aimed at the "integration" of the native communities into the national societies by government action and under terms exclusively defined by the government. Though dominated by philantropist social activists, the main feature of indigenismo was paternalism, reducing native cultures to folkloristic vestiges in the national picture and aiming at completely replacing native languages with Spanish. A lot of this thinking is still there, above all in the school system, and the INI is officially "indigenista". So I'm wondering what the meaning of "indigenismo" is in present-day Spanish. (I think this is not off-topic because Nahua communities have been -- neutrally spoken -- affected very much by indigenista policies. Just take a look at "Nahua" communities in Morelos, like Tepoztlan, Hueyapan or Xoxocotla.) Henry From =?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Fern=E1ndez_Georges=2C_Mikel=22?= at server.umt.edu Fri Jul 23 07:04:02 1999 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Fern=E1ndez_Georges=2C_Mikel=22?= at server.umt.edu (=?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Fern=E1ndez_Georges=2C_Mikel=22?= at server.umt.edu) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 01:04:02 -0600 Subject: feria de libros en Nahuatl? Message-ID: Me gustaria saber si algun listero puede informarme sobre la feria del = libro en Nahuatl. Estuve en Mexico en agosto de 1998 y pude ver cerca de Milpa Alta unos carteles en que se anunciaba, Los vecinos del pueblo me comentaron que = habia acabado hacia pocos dias y que al parecer se hace cada a=F1o en un = pueblo diferente y que es peque=F1a.=20 Mikel Fernandez From mikegaby at hotmail.com Fri Jul 23 19:58:34 1999 From: mikegaby at hotmail.com (mike gaby) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 13:58:34 -0600 Subject: AZ:Malinalli Message-ID: Hey all, While browsing at my local bookstore I came upon a book about contemporary Mayan shamanic pratices. There it stated that the name of the Aztec day-sign Malinalli translated as "snake energy" and the author compared it to the idea of Kundalini in yogic disciplines. I have always know this word to mean "Grass" or sometimes "Herb". Has anyone heard of a different translation for this word? Thanks, Mike Gaby San Diego _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx Fri Jul 23 21:28:35 1999 From: fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx (Fabian E. Pena Arellano) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 15:28:35 -0600 Subject: Another question about particle "in". Message-ID: Hello, Some months ago I wrote a message asking about the nahuatl word "in", which cannot be always translated as an article into spanish or english. Now I have another question related: what's the difference in saying "In nimexi`catl" and saying "Ca ne`hua:tl in nimexi`catl"? Michel Launey, in his book "Introduccion a la lengua y literatura nahuatl", says that in general, the nahuatl predicate does not have a determination, such that sentences as "Ca nicihua:tl" and "Ca nimexi`catl" should be tanslated as "I'm one who is a woman, I'm a woman (soy una que es una mujer, soy una mujer)" and "I'm one who is a mexican, I'm a mexican (soy uno que es un mexicano, soy un mexicano)" respectively rather than "I'm the woman" and "I'm the mexican". About the third person there are sentences as "Ca mexi`catl" and "In mexi'catl", translated as "he's a mexican (es un mexicano)" and "he's the mexican, the mexican (es el mexicano, el mexicano)". There exist also expressions as "Ca ye`hua:tl in mexi`catl" meaning "He is the one who is the mexican (el es el mexicano) which in general answer the question of the kind "Who is the mexican?". About the second person, I have found at Thelma Sullivan's book "Compendio de gramatica nahuatl" the "vocativo" (sorry, I don't know how to say "vocativo" in english and I don't have my diccionary at hand), which correspond to sentences as "In titona:n" and "In ticihua:tl", "tu que eres nuestra madre" and "tu que eres la mujer". On the other hand the expressions "Ca titona:n" and "Ca ticihua:tl" do exist, "you are our mother (tu eres nuestra) madre" and "you are a woman (tu eres una mujer)" respectively. So, my question is that as in the second and third person may be said, is it possible to say "In nimexi`catl" besides "Ca ne`hua:tl in nimexi`catl" in the first person? In my little library I have not found any reference to it, but since "in" is a determinative I suppose it is at least theoreticaly allowed. Thank you in advance for your attention and answer. Fabian Pena. From fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx Fri Jul 23 22:03:42 1999 From: fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx (Fabian E. Pena Arellano) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 16:03:42 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: Hello again: I just read a couple of messages asking information on the human sacrifices which are supposed to be executed by the aztecs. I am also confused wether they existed or not. Sometimes it seems to be something given as granted rather than as result of an exhaustive and objective research. By 1990 a swiss got his Ph. D. in anthopology in Bern with a criticism to the sources considered as the classical and definitive evidences of the existence of the human sacrifices among the aztecs. I cannot recall his name right now, but next week I can write for all the interested. His thesis is noy published in english or spanish yet, only in german. The spanish version exists already but the german editor hasn't given his permission to print it unless a mexican public intitution agrees to do it. Unfortunately, the UNAM (which is on strike now) and the UAM don't want to publish it for some reason I don't know. If you want more information about it, please write to Ce: Acatl magazine to the address ceacatl at laneta.org.mx; they know how to contact the author of such work and have the translation into spanish if you can't read german. There have been a couple of articles in english and spanish in some newpapers about this work. I will give you the reference on monday. There is also a spanish researcher who has a book about the use of the cannibalism acussation by the europeans to wipe some civilizations out. I will write al the information on monday. Fabian Pena. From micc at home.com Fri Jul 23 22:49:24 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 16:49:24 -0600 Subject: AZ:Malinalli Message-ID: do not believe everything your read!!! There are people who will "alter" the meaning of things to create a universal "cosmic" unity fo concepts.... mike gaby wrote: > > Hey all, > While browsing at my local bookstore I came upon a book about contemporary > Mayan shamanic pratices. There it stated that the name of the Aztec > day-sign Malinalli translated as "snake energy" and the author compared it > to the idea of Kundalini in yogic disciplines. > I have always know this word to mean "Grass" or sometimes "Herb". Has > anyone heard of a different translation for this word? > Thanks, > Mike Gaby > San Diego > > _______________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From takaio at po.aianet.ne.jp Fri Jul 23 23:24:40 1999 From: takaio at po.aianet.ne.jp (Yukitaka Inoue Okubo) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 17:24:40 -0600 Subject: AZ:Malinalli Message-ID: I've seen the translation of "herb" or "grass", but in Spanish it is often transalated as "yerba torcida", that is, "twisted" or "wound" herb... Taka Inoue > > Hey all, > While browsing at my local bookstore I came upon a book about contemporary > Mayan shamanic pratices. There it stated that the name of the Aztec > day-sign Malinalli translated as "snake energy" and the author compared it > to the idea of Kundalini in yogic disciplines. > I have always know this word to mean "Grass" or sometimes "Herb". Has > anyone heard of a different translation for this word? > Thanks, > Mike Gaby > San Diego > > > _______________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From campbel at indiana.edu Sat Jul 24 00:33:49 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 18:33:49 -0600 Subject: AZ:Malinalli Message-ID: Mike, "mali:na" is a verb, meaning 'twist'. "mali:nalli" is the derived patientive noun, somewhat like Spanish and English past participles, meaning 'twisted'. Maybe someone with cultural knowledge can untangle the meaning associations. Joe >>From the Florentine: malinalla** 1. *malinalla*, nomac temi,. the bloom fills up my hand (b.2 f.14 p.236). malinalli** 2. inin matlactetl omei in tonalli, in iuhqui itlahuilanhuan mochihua, in itech pohui: yehuatl in ome acatl, ei calli, nahui cuetzpali, macuilli coatl, chicuacen miquiztli, chicome mazatl, chicuei tochtli, chiconahui atl, matlactli itzcuintli, matlactli oce ozomatli, matlactli omome *malinalli*, matlactli omei acatl.. it became as the leader of this group of thirteen days which belonged with it: two [wind], three house, four lizard, five serpent, six death, seven deer, eight rabbit, nine water, ten dog, eleven monkey, twelve grass, and thirteen reed. (b.4 f.1 p.2). 3. yehuatl in ome tochtli, ei atl, nahui itzcuintli, macuilli ozomatli, chicuacen *malinalli*, chicome acatl, chicuei ocelotl, chiconahui cuauhtli, matlactli cozcacuauhtli, matlactli oce olin, matlactlomome tecpatl, matlactlomei quiahuitl.. these are two rabbit, and three water, four dog, five monkey, six grass, seven reed, eight ocelot, nine eagle, ten vulture, eleven motion, twelve flint knife, and thirteen rain. (b.4 f.1 p.9). 4. chicuacen *malinalli* iuh mitoa: amo cualli, tecuani tonalli:. six grass, so they said, was evil, a day sign of wild beasts. (b.4 f.3 p.20). 5. in yehuatl contoquilia ome cipactli, ihuan ei acatl, nahui calli, macuilli cuetzpali, chicuacen coatl, chicome miquiztli, chicuei mazatl, chiconahui tochtli, matlactli atl, matlactli oce itzcuintli, matlactlomome ozomatli, matlactlomei *malinalli*:. two crocodile followed it, and three reed, four house, five lizard, six serpent, seven death, eight deer, nine rabbit, ten water, eleven dog, twelve monkey, and thirteen grass. (b.4 f.3 p.23). 6. quin cen oncan cualtiaya, in izquitetl in tonalli, in ipan chicome *malinalli*:. thereafter, all the different days in the time of seven grass became good. (b.4 f.4 p.38). 7. quin cen ipan maltiaya, in chicome *malinalli*: ipampa iuh mitoa, quilmach mochipa cualcan, in ipan chicome tonalli, in oncan tlachicometi, chicometihuaya:. later all were bathed together on seven grass, because, as it was said, it was claimed always to be a favorable time on the seventh day sign, the one which then became seventh and took seventh place. (b.4 f.4 p.38). 8. inic caxtolli capitulo: itechpa tlatoa, inic chicuetetl machiotl, in itoca ce *malinalli*: ihuan in amo cualli tonalli in itech ca,. fifteenth chapter, which telleth of the eighth sign, called one grass, and the evil day signs with it. (b.4 f.6 p.54). 9. moquetza ce *malinalli*,. one grass set in. (b.4 f.6 p.54). 10. yehuatl inic quihuallatotoquiliaya tonalpouhque, inic achi oncan quicualtiliaya itonal, in ipan tlacatia ce *malinalli*.. this one the readers of the day signs thus sought out so that they might then somewhat better the day sign of the one born on one grass. (b.4 f.6 p.56). 11. auh in chicuei *malinalli*: no achi quicualittaya, zan nohuian iuhqui in ixquich chichicueei tonalli.. and eight grass they also regarded as somewhat good, just like all day signs of the eighth position everywhere. (b.4 f.8 p.74). 12. auh in ome *malinalli*: niman amo cualli,. and two grass was in no way good. (b.4 f.8 p.82). 13. auh in ome coatl, ihuan ei miquiztli, inic tecpantiuh, nahui mazatl, macuilli tochtli, chicuacen atl, chicome itzcuintli, chicuei ozomatli, chiconahui *malinalli*, matlactli acatl, matlactloce ocelotl, matlactli omome cuauhtli, matlactlomei cozcacuauhtli: in ixquich in, inic ontlatlantiuh ome ei,. and two serpent, and three death--thus they proceeded, in order--four deer, five rabbit, six waer, seven dog, eight monkey, nine grass, ten reed, eleven ocelot, twelve eagle, thirteen vulture: all these thus bring to a conclusion the two, three, [etc.]. (b.4 f.8 p.82). 14. auh in quitoquilia ome ozomatli, ihuan ei *malinalli*, nahui acatl, macuilli ocelotl, chicuacen cuauhtli, chicome cozcacuauhtli, chicuei olin, chiconahui tecpac, matlactli quiahuitl, matlactloce xochitl, matlactlomome cipactli, matlactli omei ecatl,. and [the day signs] which followed it were two monkey, and three grass, four reed, five ocelot, six eagle, seven vulture, eight motion, none flint knife, ten rain, eleven flower, twelve crocodile, thirteen wind. (b.4 f.9 p.92). 15. in ixquich ic ontlatlantiuh, matlatlactlomeei: ipampa in za nican onmocentlalia, izquiteme cencalpan tonaltin, in quinpehualtitica ce calli, ihuan ome cuetzpalin, ei coatl, nahui miquiztli, macuilli mazatl, chicuacen tochtli, chicome atl, chicuei itzcuintli, chiconahui ozomatli, matlactli *malinalli*, matlactloce acatl, matlactlomome ocelotl, matlactlomei cuauhtli,. all thirteen thus go to their conclusion; because of this, all of the day signs are brought together in one group, beginning with one house, and [then] two lizard, three serpent, four death, five deer, six rabbit, seven water, eight dog, nine monkey, ten grass, eleven reed, twelve ocelot, thirteen eagle. (b.4 f.9 p.96). 16. mototoquilitiuh in ei ozomatli, nahui *malinalli*, macuilli acatl, chicuacen ocelotl, chicome cuauhtli, chicuei cozcacuauhtli, chiconahui olin, matlactli tecpatl, matlactloce quiahuitl, matlactlomome xochitl, matlactlomei cipactli:. then come in order, following along, three monkey, four grass, five reed, six ocelot, seven eagle, eight vulture, nine motion, ten flint knife, elven rain, twelve flower, thirteen crocodile. (b.4 f.10 p.100). 17. quitoa cenca ipan tepoloaya in chiconahui itzcuintli, anozo chiconahui miquiztli, chiconahui *malinalli*: ihuan in ye mochi chichiconanahui, ihuan in oc cequi motenehua acualli tonalli, in izquican omoteneuh,. they said that he did great evil to one on nine dog, or nine death, or nine grass, and indeed on all the ninth positions, and the other bad day signs mentioned--each of the different positions named. (b.4 f.10 p.102). 18. ic zan onnenetzolcate, nenetechcate, nenetech zaliuhticate, moquequetzticate, mototocaticate, mototoquiliticate, in izquiteme nican cencalpan tequippaneque: in yehuatl ome calli: ei cuetzpalin, nahui coatl, macuilli miquiztli, chicuacen mazatl, chicome tochtli, chicuei atl, chiconahui itzcuintli, matlactli ozomatli, matlactli oze *malinalli*, matlactli omome acatl, matlactli omei ocelotl.. so only these are being clustered, brought together, joined together, set separately, arranged in procession and in succession, the different numbers of the series, with their assigned tasks: two house, three lizard, four serpent, five death, six deer, seven rabbit, eight water, nine dog, ten monkey, eleven grass, twelve reed, thirteen ocelot. (b.4 f.10 p.106). 19. in oncan in tlaoncayotia 2. atl, ihuan ei itzcuintli, 4. ozomatli, 5. *malinalli*. 6. acatl. 7. ocelotl. 8. cuauhtli. 9. cozcacuauhtli. 10. olin. 11. tecpatl. 12. quiahuitl. 13. xochitl.. the second, taking second place, two water, and three dog, four monkey, five grass, six reed, seven ocelot, eight eagle, nine vulture, ten motion, eleven flint knife, twelve rain, and thirteen flower. (b.4 f.12 p.133). malinaloni** 20. itech quiza in ichtli, cimaloni, tzahualoni, tilmachihualoni *malinaloni*, paloni, yapaloni. the maguey fibre comes from it, the kind which can be dressed, spun; from which capes are made; which can be twisted, dyed, darkened. (b.11 f.21 p.217). malinaltenanco** 21. auh in yehuatl axayaca, quipeuh in tlacotepec, ihuan callimaya, ihuan metepec, callixtlahuaca, hecatepec, cozcacuauhtenanco, teotenanco, *malinaltenanco*, tzinacantepec, coatepec, cuitlapilco, teoxahualco, tecualoya, ocuillan.. and this axayacatl conquered tlacotepec, and callimaya, and metepec, callixtlauacan, ecatepec, cozcaquauhtenanco, teotenanco, malinaltenanco, tzinacantepec, coatepec, cuitlapilco, teoxaualco, tequaloian, and ocuillan. (b.8 f.1 p.2). malinaltica** 22. ihuan mochichiqui *malinaltica* in tixten,. and [the interior of] the eyelids is rubbed with malinalli. (b.10 f.8 p.144). momamalina** 23. auh in omozozoc, xochitl, mec *momamalina*, milacatzoa, huel huihuiac huihuitlatztic, totomahuac, huel tomactic.. and when the flowers had been strung together, then they were twisted, they were wound [in garlands] -each indeed long, each very long, each thick, indeed thick. (b.2 f.6 p.107). nicmalina** 24. *nicmalina*. I twist it (b.10 f.6 p.100b). tenmalinqui** 25. in quimotlauhtiaya cueitl: yehuatl in yollo, ihuan tlatzcallotl, ilacatziuhqui: ihuan huipilli yehuatl in potoncapipilcac, texicalicuiliuhqui, ihuan ixcuauhcallo huipilli, *tenmalinqui*.. they received as gifts skirts: the one with the heart design, and with whorl [or] spiral designs; and shifts: the one with the downy feather pendants, [or] the one painted like stone vases, and the shift with the design of an eagle head in a setting, with a border of twisted cords. (b.9 f.4 p.47). tlamalina** 26. tlayectia, tlatlancolohcahuia, *tlamalina*,. he cleans [the threads], twists them using his teeth, rolls them over his hip. (b.10 f.4 p.74). tlamalinqui** 27. in cacnamacac, ca caczoc, caczoni, tlahuapaltecani, tlatzetzeloani, *tlamalinqui*,. the sandal seller is a sandal maker, a maker of sandals who cuts the soles, shakes out [the cordsl, rolls them. (b.10 f.4 p.73). tlamalintic** 28. cocomotztic, *tlamalintic*, moca ahhuatl,. it is constricted, like a twisted cord, full of thorns. (b.11 f.21 p.218). tlamalintli** 29. itech pilcatiuh chichilicpatl, potonqui ic *tlamalintli*,. from it hung loose, twisted, red cotton thread. (b.2 f.8 p.136). 30. *tlamalintli*, tlahuipantli tlahuipanalli, itech tlatzontli, tlanetechitzontli:. they were twisted, arrayed, disposed, sewn to it, sewn to each other. (b.2 f.9 p.156). 31. inin chalcayatl *tlamalintli* in icpatl, tlatlalpitl, iuhquin matlatl cillo,. this netted cape was of twisted maguey fiber, knotted, like a net set with small, white gastropod shells. (b.3 f.4 p.56). 32. auh in itzonipilhuaz tlatlapalicpatl chichiltic coztic, texotic, tliltic, iztac ihhuitl inic *tlamalintli* catca.. and their hair braids [were tied with] many-colored, loose cotton threads of red, yellow, blue, black, twisted into a rope with white feathers. (b.9 f.5 p.60). 33. inenelhuayo: iuhquin *tlamalintli*,. its root is like a twisted cord. (b.11 f.14 p.149). ximocximalina** 34. xonmitizoquihui, xonmitichichiqui, *ximocximalina*, tlalli ic ximohuitequi, tlalli xiquipototztihuetzi:. anoint thy stomach with mud; scratch thy stomach; twist one leg about the other; [fall] striking thyself on the ground; fall stinking on the ground. (b.2 f.2 p.64). On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, mike gaby wrote: > day-sign Malinalli translated as "snake energy" and the author compared it > I have always know this word to mean "Grass" or sometimes "Herb". Has > anyone heard of a different translation for this word? From chair at thule.org Sat Jul 24 05:29:17 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 23:29:17 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: Same for Mayan pyramids built at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these "monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. From muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com Sat Jul 24 05:42:57 1999 From: muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com (Roberto Tirado) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 23:42:57 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: you are ignorant brad. >From: Brad Smith >Reply-To: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu >To: Multiple recipients of list >Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. >Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 23:29:36 -0600 > >Same for Mayan pyramids built >at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant >spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the >ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and >throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who >actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these >"monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them >for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons >told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing >of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the >math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Sat Jul 24 08:27:17 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 02:27:17 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: Human sacrifice was discussed at great length on this list in the not-too-distant past. Perhaps a visit to the list's archives (if there are any) would be helpful. Human sacrifice is no big deal. Eating humans is no big deal. Back to my breakfast, Michael On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Fabian E. Pena Arellano wrote: > Hello again: > > I just read a couple of messages asking information on the human > sacrifices which are supposed to be executed by the aztecs. > I am also confused wether they existed or not. Sometimes it seems > to be something given as granted rather than as result of an exhaustive > and objective research. By 1990 a swiss got his Ph. D. in anthopology in > Bern with a criticism to the sources considered as the classical and > definitive evidences of the existence of the human sacrifices among the > aztecs. I cannot recall his name right now, but next week I can write for > all the interested. His thesis is noy published in english or spanish yet, > only in german. The spanish version exists already but the german editor > hasn't given his permission to print it unless a mexican public intitution > agrees to do it. Unfortunately, the UNAM (which is on strike now) and the > UAM don't want to publish it for some reason I don't know. If you want > more information about it, please write to Ce: Acatl magazine to the > address ceacatl at laneta.org.mx; they know how to contact the author of such > work and have the translation into spanish if you can't read german. There > have been a couple of articles in english and spanish in some > newpapers about this work. I will give you the reference on monday. > There is also a spanish researcher who has a book about the use of > the cannibalism acussation by the europeans to wipe some civilizations > out. I will write al the information on monday. > > > Fabian Pena. > Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu From robc at csufresno.edu Sat Jul 24 14:44:24 1999 From: robc at csufresno.edu (Robert G. Comegys) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 08:44:24 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: The nahuatl group may wish to know that in the 1920's the Thule Society's insignia was a swastika, that they supported Adolf Hitler as early as 1919, and they were a very powerful "volkish" (racist, nationalist) German society with much support from the aristocracy and ruling classes according to James Pool in Who Financed Hitler. I don't know exactly what the Thule Society has done lately, but the last time I heard the argument that Mr. Smith presents about the ignorant natives living in the ruins others built it was a recounting of how the ruins of Zimbabwe must have been built by Arabs made by a genuine Nazi 30 years ago. It is now well established that the ancestors of the people in Zimbabwe built the massive stone structures there. I'm sure others in the group will support me when I say that it is abundantly clear the the Mayan pyramids were built by Mayans. Regards, John Comegys The Thule Society sponsored Adolf Hitler Brad Smith wrote: > Same for Mayan pyramids built > at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant > spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the > ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and > throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who > actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these > "monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them > for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons > told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing > of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the > math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. From mictlan at hooked.net Sat Jul 24 18:17:08 1999 From: mictlan at hooked.net (mictlacihuatl) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 12:17:08 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: How did you figure inbreeding? Stormfront buddies down in deep south dixieland shoving heavy propaganda to ya lately? It has always been my experience whenever reading or hearing absurd not to mention racist commentary about the Mayans, Mexica, or indigenous peoples as a whole (my ancestors!), he/she/they have some strong tie or another with white supremacy. Obviously. Your comments are a joke, and so is the Aryan "movement" Any chance you are related to Glenn Spencer? At 11:30 PM 7/23/99 -0600, you wrote: >Same for Mayan pyramids built >at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant >spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the >ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and >throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who >actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these >"monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them >for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons >told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing >of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the >math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. > From liedo at stones.com Sat Jul 24 21:14:22 1999 From: liedo at stones.com (Horacio Liedo) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 15:14:22 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: brad: You are disoriented about the best knowledge of humanity. That knowledge is in books and never a secret. Saludos Horacio Liedo ACAXOCHITLAN, MEXICO From melesan at pacbell.net Sat Jul 24 23:15:55 1999 From: melesan at pacbell.net (Mel Sanchez) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 17:15:55 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: I know that Brad has been criticized for his comment on sacrifices. I think that he was not making reference to racial or ethnic group of people but rather to a class of people---the nobles. When we look at history, it is those with power and authority that abuse those who do the building. Take a closer look at his comment and at history. Am I wrong? Mel mictlacihuatl wrote: > > How did you figure inbreeding? Stormfront buddies down in deep south > dixieland shoving heavy propaganda to ya lately? > It has always been my experience whenever reading or hearing absurd not to > mention racist commentary > about the Mayans, Mexica, or indigenous peoples as a whole (my ancestors!), > he/she/they have some strong tie or another with white supremacy. > Obviously. Your comments are a joke, and so is the Aryan "movement" > > Any chance you are related to Glenn Spencer? > > At 11:30 PM 7/23/99 -0600, you wrote: > >Same for Mayan pyramids built > >at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant > >spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the > >ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and > >throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who > >actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these > >"monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them > >for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons > >told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing > >of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the > >math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. > > From chair at thule.org Sun Jul 25 01:50:25 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 19:50:25 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: know that Brad has been criticized for his comment on sacrifices. I think that he was not making reference to racial or ethnic group of people but rather to a class of people---the nobles. When we look at history, it is those with power and authority that abuse those who do the building. Take a closer look at his comment and at history. Am I wrong? Mel You are exactly correct. We are the Thule Foundation, not in any way connected to the Thule Society, We see by the answers to our e-mail that ignorance and misunderstanding is caused because people just run off at the mouth and do not do proper reserarch or even READ the material presented to them, but jump off into some conclusion that fits the need for their lazy minds. I have tried and tried to resign from this list to no avail. From chair at thule.org Sun Jul 25 01:53:19 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 19:53:19 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: Whom do you think built the pyramids? Certainly not the "egyptians" found around them in 3000 BC. They were built longer ago than the sphinx and recent knowledge leads everyone to conclude the sphinx has to have been built when the land around it was rain forest. The nearest historical time is 10,000 BC. for the sphinx Intelligent people have always known they are not the "body" and so have always burnt themselves. That's why the people found by grave robbing archaeologists are not indicative of the previous civilizations that existed long ago on Earth. http://www.thule.org/yugas.html From melesan at pacbell.net Sun Jul 25 07:17:41 1999 From: melesan at pacbell.net (Mel Sanchez) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 01:17:41 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: I was hoping that Brad had something substantial to say, but after reading his other email and looking at the website that represents his ideas I found nothing substantial. I apologize to the list. To add to the real question, I read an article in a prominent Native American journal by a Univ of Texas professor about 15 misconceptions about the Aztecs, one of them being that they actually did human sacrifice. My amateur knowledge (including studying recently with Mary Miller at Yale) was there is much evidence to indicate they did practice sacrifice. When I find the article I will site it on this listserv. I brought up the topic, citing the source, with the Aztlan list but no one ever responded to the query. Perhaps some on this listserv would be interested in reading his article and either critiquing or supporting it with whatever schalarly knowledge may have in acquired. Take care, Mel Brad Smith wrote: > > know that Brad has been criticized for his comment on sacrifices. I > think that he was not making reference to racial or ethnic group of > people but rather to a class of people---the nobles. When we look at > history, it is those with power and authority that abuse those who do > the building. Take a closer look at his comment and at history. > > Am I wrong? > > Mel > > You are exactly correct. > We are the Thule Foundation, not in any way connected to the Thule > Society, > We see by the answers to our e-mail that ignorance and > misunderstanding is caused because people just run off at the mouth and > do not do proper reserarch or even READ the material presented to them, > but jump off into some conclusion that fits the need for their lazy > minds. > I have tried and tried to resign from this list to no avail. From ECOLING at aol.com Sun Jul 25 14:38:59 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 08:38:59 -0600 Subject: Too much About human sacrifice. Message-ID: I have absolutely no question that human sacrifice was practiced by Aztecs and by others, including for that matter Europeans, and that it was part of religious cosmology as well as part of real power politics, just as it is for us (compare the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, central to Christian religion, especially visual in Catholic churches). The problem with this thread is that it represents an ever-recurring distortion of the nature of any society to focus only on what is controversial or sensational, and since there are living descendants of the Aztecs, I believe it is a violation of their human rights as well. Painting them thus. Inevitably it does so. This is just one case of the general problem of the news and entertainment media, their biases and distortions. We have it massively in our own culture, and it simply becomes several steps more evil when it is projected onto the culture of "others", because then there are fewer constraints. I believe very strongly that mis-defining "news" as "sensational entertainment" is a strong CAUSAL FACTOR in undermining civil society, by exposing people to much gratuitous violence whether physical or mental, which does affect how they behave towards everyone else around them (including towards me, and it also affects me if I am not careful to avoid it). That does not mean we have to pretend it does not exist. It does mean we have to be very conscious about when and how we present it (as distinct from discussing facts about it). So what to do instead? Look at the famous National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. I used to think this is a magnificent museum, and the setting is really grand. However, after extensive eduction on Mesoamerica, I now see that the most important things are MISSING. It now appears to me as a collection of war trophies, many ugly to any non-Aztec, treated as isolated objects without much explanation. This presentation will inevitably do great damage to the rights of the descendants of the Aztecs and of others. The great migration of Aztec history is present, true, in an illustration, but not emphasized or explained, or made the centerpiece of some halls, with parallels from the pictures in other books, to show how we can attempt to cross-match and establish a history. I did not see the histories of Culhuacan, or the other chronicles prominently displayed and connected one to another. The great astronomy of the Maya and of many others is not explained in any real detail, where it should be CENTRAL, so the viewer should come away in AWE of the cultural achievements of the peoples of Mesoamerica, should feel that it is WE who are somehow lacking in education since most of us do not know even a tiny fraction of the knowledge recorded in those documents. One could easily come away completely ignorant that the Aztecs had great botanic gardens and zoos, before the Europeans had them. The great histories of the Mixtec are not presented and explained with anything like the detail or flash that they deserve. And so on and so on. Aren't these other things ENORMOUSLY more important than this hyping of human sacrifice? Isn't it really also more interesting, UNLESS the unconscious purpose is to focus on what makes us today think we are superior to those folks then? We are probably NOT more intelligent, even if we have more knowledge about some things than they had (and less knowledge about others). We are still the same species. We are just lucky that our ancestors built a foundation for us from which we can start, which we do not have to re-establish ourselves (and therefore become lax, and let it fall apart when we are not careful). Best wishes, Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From cberry at cinenet.net Sun Jul 25 16:51:30 1999 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 10:51:30 -0600 Subject: Too much About human sacrifice. Message-ID: On Sun, 25 Jul 1999 ECOLING at aol.com wrote: > I have absolutely no question that human sacrifice was > practiced by Aztecs and by others, Agreed. The only credible questions concern quantities and motivations, in my view. > including for that matter Europeans, and that it was part of religious > cosmology as well as part of real power politics, just as it is for us > (compare the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, central to Christian religion, > especially visual in Catholic churches). That's an odd case to cite. Christianity turned Jesus's crucifixion into a sacrifice (= "to make sacred") post facto; at the time, the Roman authorities considered it a combination of political execution with a little "state terrorism". The intriguing thing to me is that, in my reading of Mexica history, it looks like their use of sacrifice started out being almost purely religious (true "sacrifice"), but as they came into greater power they began to use it increasingly as a weapon of state terrorism -- that is, large, very public, very well-advertised mass "sacrifices" used as a warning to subject peoples to keep in line. A demonstration of power, in other words. The religious forms and reasoning were maintained, of course. And again, this is simply my impression of the matter. > The problem with this thread is that it represents an > ever-recurring distortion of the nature of any society > to focus only on what is controversial or sensational, I disagree. We've had threads focussing on such sensational and controversial topics as New World onions and the meaning of the word Teotihuacan. It's hardly like we're talking about nothing but sacrifice. And sacrifice was a central and intriguing element of the Aztec way of life. > and since there are living descendants of the Aztecs, > I believe it is a violation of their human rights as well. > Painting them thus. Inevitably it does so. Oh, come on. My ancestors murdered Saracens in Palestine, kept slaves in North America, killed off most of the native Americans, and so on and on. I'm not proud of this aspect of my ancestry, but it's not a violation of my civil rights if someone talks about it. -- | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From micc at home.com Sun Jul 25 17:27:17 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 11:27:17 -0600 Subject: Too much About human sacrifice. Message-ID: well said...... lets move on, and leave the crypto-cosmics to invent for themselves a reality which floats their boat. ECOLING at aol.com wrote: > > I have absolutely no question that human sacrifice was > practiced by Aztecs and by others, including for that matter > Europeans, and that it was part of religious cosmology > as well as part of real power politics, just as it is for us > (compare the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, central to Christian > religion, especially visual in Catholic churches). > > The problem with this thread is that it represents an > ever-recurring distortion of the nature of any society > to focus only on what is controversial or sensational, > and since there are living descendants of the Aztecs, > I believe it is a violation of their human rights as well. > Painting them thus. Inevitably it does so. > > This is just one case of the general problem of the news > and entertainment media, their biases and distortions. > We have it massively in our own culture, and it simply > becomes several steps more evil when it is projected onto > the culture of "others", because then there are fewer constraints. > > I believe very strongly that mis-defining "news" as > "sensational entertainment" is a strong CAUSAL FACTOR > in undermining civil society, by exposing people to much > gratuitous violence whether physical or mental, > which does affect how they behave towards everyone else > around them (including towards me, and it also affects me > if I am not careful to avoid it). That does not mean we have > to pretend it does not exist. It does mean we have to be > very conscious about when and how we present it > (as distinct from discussing facts about it). > > So what to do instead? > > Look at the famous National Museum of Anthropology > in Mexico City. I used to think this is a magnificent museum, > and the setting is really grand. However, after extensive eduction > on Mesoamerica, I now see that the most important things are MISSING. > > It now appears to me as a collection of war trophies, > many ugly to any non-Aztec, treated as isolated objects without > much explanation. This presentation will inevitably do great damage > to the rights of the descendants of the Aztecs and of others. > > The great migration of Aztec history is present, > true, in an illustration, but not emphasized or explained, > or made the centerpiece of some halls, with parallels from the > pictures in other books, to show how we can attempt to cross-match > and establish a history. I did not see the histories of Culhuacan, > or the other chronicles prominently displayed and connected one to > another. > > The great astronomy of the Maya and of many others is not explained > in any real detail, where it should be CENTRAL, > so the viewer should come away in AWE of the cultural achievements > of the peoples of Mesoamerica, should feel that it is WE who are > somehow lacking in education since most of us do not know even > a tiny fraction of the knowledge recorded in those documents. > > One could easily come away completely ignorant that the Aztecs > had great botanic gardens and zoos, before the Europeans had them. > > The great histories of the Mixtec are not presented and explained > with anything like the detail or flash that they deserve. > > And so on and so on. > > Aren't these other things ENORMOUSLY more important > than this hyping of human sacrifice? > > Isn't it really also more interesting, > UNLESS the unconscious purpose is to focus on what > makes us today think we are superior to those folks then? > > We are probably NOT more intelligent, > even if we have more knowledge about some things than they had > (and less knowledge about others). > We are still the same species. > We are just lucky that our ancestors built a foundation for > us from which we can start, which we do not have to re-establish > ourselves (and therefore become lax, and let it fall apart > when we are not careful). > > Best wishes, > Lloyd Anderson > Ecological Linguistics From micc at home.com Sun Jul 25 17:30:33 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 11:30:33 -0600 Subject: Too much About human sacrifice. Message-ID: This perhaps is the best part of the whole thread!!! .......................... > > Oh, come on. My ancestors murdered Saracens in Palestine, kept slaves in > North America, killed off most of the native Americans, and so on and on. > I'm not proud of this aspect of my ancestry, but it's not a violation of > my civil rights if someone talks about it. > > -- > | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net > --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html > | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From chair at thule.org Sun Jul 25 21:00:19 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 15:00:19 -0600 Subject: Too much About human sacrifice. Message-ID: To get an understanding of just how greatly advanced the actual ancient Mayans were, go to http://www.thule.org/tiahuanaco.html From chair at thule.org Sun Jul 25 21:14:11 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 15:14:11 -0600 Subject: advanced Mayan civilization Message-ID: http://www.thule.org/tiahuanaco.html From mdmorris at indiana.edu Sun Jul 25 21:49:31 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 15:49:31 -0600 Subject: advanced Mayan civilization Message-ID: Sometimes cyberspace seems like some cosmic fusion of intelligence and the intricacies of navigating it escape us. As a reminder about using this list, to unsubscribe to nahuat-l send the following message: unsubscribe Nahuat-l First Name Last Name to: listproc at listserv.umt.edu Sincerely, Mark Morris From chair at thule.org Mon Jul 26 01:44:57 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 19:44:57 -0600 Subject: been sent Message-ID: I have sent that message at lerast twenty times. Thanks for the note. It doesn't work as your e-mail is evidence. From micc at home.com Mon Jul 26 07:13:02 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 01:13:02 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: tHE THULE SOCIETY AND OTHER PSEUDO-HISTORIANS WHO ARE HELL-BENT ON PUSHING THEIR RACIST AGENDA ARE A CANCER ON THE SOUL OF HUMANITY "Robert G. Comegys" wrote: > > The nahuatl group may wish to know that in the 1920's the Thule Society's > insignia was a swastika, > that they supported Adolf Hitler as early as 1919, and they were a very > powerful "volkish" (racist, nationalist) German society with much support > from the aristocracy and ruling classes according to James Pool in Who > Financed Hitler. I don't know exactly what the Thule Society has done > lately, but the last time I heard the argument that Mr. Smith presents > about the ignorant natives living in the ruins others built it was a > recounting of how the ruins of Zimbabwe must have been built by Arabs made > by a genuine Nazi 30 years ago. It is now well established that the > ancestors of the people in Zimbabwe built the massive stone structures > there. I'm sure others in the group will support me when I say that it is > abundantly clear the the Mayan pyramids were built by Mayans. > Regards, John Comegys > > The Thule Society sponsored Adolf Hitler Brad Smith wrote: > > > Same for Mayan pyramids built > > at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant > > spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the > > ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and > > throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who > > actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these > > "monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them > > for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons > > told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing > > of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the > > math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. From peter at netway.com Mon Jul 26 12:47:15 1999 From: peter at netway.com (Peter Selverstone) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 06:47:15 -0600 Subject: Language of the Olmecs Message-ID: Hi John, The message that "pulled my chain" was posted to the nahual-l list. There has been no further "discussion" and I have not posted anything yet. Best, Peter. ----- Original Message ----- From: JSJusteson at aol.com To: peter at netway.com Sent: Monday, July 26, 1999 1:33 AM Subject: Re: Language of the Olmecs ... Incidentally, I never saw the original notes that you are writing in response to. Were they on Aztlan? .. ----- Original Message ----- From: mike gaby To: Multiple recipients of list Sent: Saturday, July 10, 1999 2:00 PM Subject: Language Any bored linguists care to share a quick version of pronunciation and syllabic stress for the Otomi language, P'urepecha, and Mixe? Also anyone know the form of Mixe-Zoquean allegedly spoken by "Olmecs"? Thanks, Mike ----- Original Message ----- From: ECOLING at aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 1999 3:33 PM Subject: Language of the Olmecs Mike Gaby asked: >Also anyone know the form of Mixe-Zoquean allegedly spoken by "Olmecs"? This is of course a very difficult question, since the Olmecs flourished around 1500 BC to 400 BC or so (depending on who one asks). It may not be Mixe-Zoquean at all. According to John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, it is Proto-Zoque, by the following reasoning: a) Loan words in Mesoamerica are from Mixe-Zoquean into other languages, including high-culture words b) The Olmecs were the originators of Mesoamerican high culture. c) Therefore the Olmecs must have spoken a Mixe-Zoquean language And they further claim d) The writing system of La Mojarra must represent the Epi-Olmec people. Given its date and location (Veracruz, 2nd century AD by its long counts), and the lack of evidence for extensive migrations during the relevant time frames, this writing must be interpreted as the writing of the successors to the Olmecs, "Epi-Olmecs". e) The writing system of La Mojarra is now in large part deciphered, and is a Mixe-Zoquean language, specifically proto-Zoquean. ***** This line of reasoning is plausible in its first two steps (though we have few sufficiently knowledgeable specialists other than Kaufman who could attempt to argue against any of these early steps in the reasoning). The reasoning is increasingly fragile in later steps, for example because the Olmec might have transmitted some high culture which originated with others, or the situation might in other ways have been more complex. ***** In particular, the claim in (e) is unjustified. The history of decipherment is full of claims of decipherment which turn out to be unsubstantiated. A claim is not a decipherment. In particular: 1. Kaufman "knew" the writing of La Mojarra had to be Epi-Olmec, a conclusion he drew from steps (a,b,c,d). He "knew" this before ever examining the writing system itself. 2. Kaufman and Justeson did not actually consider alternatives, in the sense of exploring "what if" the writing represented a language of some family other than the Mixe-Zoquean. So their conclusion is really the same as the assumption they began with, or rather, should be more accurately formulated as: Under the assumption that the language belongs to the Mixe-Zoquean family, it is most likely a form of Proto-Zoquean. Once we make the assumption explicit (and Kaufman and Justeson did not hide it, they merely did not note that it was an assumption to which any alternatives could be conceived or should be...), then the conclusion stands clearly as what it is. ***** 3. There is a lack of the kind of "many things suddenly falling into place, once the answer was discovered" which is usually the hallmark of a good decipherment. Rather, each bit of new text "interpreted" as proto-Zoquean which contained new glyphs requires new subsidiary hypotheses to support an interpretation. 4. The "translations" provided by Justeson and Kaufman for parts of the La Mojarra text, many still only in verbal presentations rather than in publications, are quite different from most other texts in Mesoamerica, in several respects (speaking of "folding cloth" and other things). This by itself might suggest that forcing a Mixe-Zoquean interpretation onto the text has led to contradictions or dead-ends. (Of course we cannot know in advance what the writers of the La Mojarra text chose to write about -- it is simply that if on our first hypotheses at interpretation we get something rather odd, it might suggest the hypotheses are not exactly on target.) 4. Interpretations of the same text as some language related to the Mayan family work moderately well also. This is definitely NOT to argue that La Mojarra represented a Mayan language, simply to point out that there are alternatives. In at least one case, an interpretation as Mayan works better than the interpretation Justeson and Kaufman propose as proto-Zoquean, because there is a homonym motivation within Mayan. Many sentence structures are the same for many languages and language families within Meso-America, so they cannot decide. (In fact, Kaufman and Justeson were forced by some of their other assumptions to conclude that the La Mojarra "proto-Zoquean" had a word order different from that of other Zoquean languages -- possible, but not the most straightforward.) 5. There are some in the Mesoamerican field who think the resemblances between Olmec iconography and Mayan iconography are such that the latter may derive in large part from the former. That does not demonstrate a linguistic relation, but does not exclude it either. Conclusion: The language is not yet known. Two proposals have been explored, a Mixe-Zoquean one and a Mayan one. The La Mojarra text might represent either of these or might represent a language from some family other than these two. There is no avalanch of things falling-into-place as a result of any set of hypotheses so far presented. Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics ***** Four publications (others are listed in Anderson 1999): Campbell, Lyle and Terrence Kaufman. 1976. A Linguistic Look at the Olmecs. American Antiquity 41:80-89 (the presentation of the claim in (a) above). Justeson, John and Terrence Kaufman. 1993. A Decipherment of Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing. Science 259:1703-1711 (presentation of the Proto-Zoquean hypothesis, claims of decipherment with many specifics) Anderson, Lloyd. 1999. The Writing System of La Mojarra, 3rd edition. Ecological Linguistics (presentation of structural analyses independent of choice of language, and of both Mayan and Proto-Zoquean interepretations in parallel and in contrast. Currently the most comprehensive work available.) (PO Box 15156, Washington, DC 20003. Price within the USA $40, Price to Europe by book rate $52.) Houston, Stephen. 1996. [Review of 2nd Edition of The Writing System of La Mojarra] International Journal of American Linguistics 62 no.4 pp.429-431. From nahuat-l at server.umt.edu Mon Jul 26 14:21:50 1999 From: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu (by way of "John F. Schwaller" ) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:21:50 -0600 Subject: Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 02:36:07 -0600 (MDT) From: Andreas C Schou To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Brad Smith wrote: > Same for Mayan pyramids built at least a hundred thousand years ago and > discovered by ignorant spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, > that thought that the ignorant people using stone knives and ripping > people's hearts out and throwing them down the stairs to the roaring > crowd, were the ones who actually "built" them. It's extremely unlikely that, one hundred thousand years ago, Mesoamerica had any inhabitants whatsoever. Where are their tools? Where did they expand from? What language did they speak, and why is the language of the original monument-builders entirely extinct? > Wrong. The people living next to many of these "monuments" know > relatively nothing about them. Interesting. Are the obvious depictions of Mayans participating in common Mayan activities are simply a coincidence? How do you explain the replication of Mesoamerican iconography from permanent (temples) to impermanent (pottery) media? > They just "used" them for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the > "priest" class of peons told them to do. Interpretation of Mesoamerican myth is often touchy: though the stories are often bloody, evidence of such large-scale murder is seldom forthcoming ... and context is difficult to determine. Assumptions like that, if applied to the Bible, might lead one to believe that Christian communion endorses ritual cannibalism. This is obviously not the case ... unless you go to a church much different than mine. ;) > The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing of any calendar, > much less how to interpret it. There is a certain racism inherent in your peculiar Danikenite posture. You theorize that savages like the Egyptians and the Mayans could never have developed culture on your own; Greece, Rome, and other 'white' civilizations, however, remain beyond the touch of your theoretical aliens. Danikenism is the response of a culture clinging to its last pretensions of superiority. When faced with irrefutable evidence that other cultures were at least as good as yours at doing certain things, you invent aliens to bootstrap the 'savages' up. > They didn't have the math skills or the intelligence after way too much > inbreeding. First: that contention is simply insulting. Second: Inbreeding typically only occurs when the benefit outweighs humanity's inherent incest taboo ... for instance, to keep political power 'in the family', as it were, or when mating opportunities become limited; for instance, during times of famine. Until the Mayan collapse, the Mayans had a healthy and active gene pool. There was no pressing reason to inbreed. Second, even if you *do* assume that the Mayan leaders were inbred, Mayan dynastic structure did not affect the priestly caste -- the astronomers and mathematicians of the Mayans ... thus, no information would be 'lost' by inbreeding. In short: if you want to come into an academic discussion, bring academic thought. If you want to antagonize people who genuinely appreciate the culture you so carelessly denigrate, do exactly what you have just done. From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Mon Jul 26 14:47:36 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:47:36 -0600 Subject: Let's take a deep breath Message-ID: Dear Subscribers, Since running Nahuat-l, and the University of Montana, is my job, I take off on weekends to be with my family. Imagine my surprise when I came back to the flurry of messages posted over the weekend. Very uncommon for the third weekend in July. I have assisted Mr. Smith in his efforts to unsubscribe to Nahuat-l. For those of us who remain I urge you all to take a long deep breath, and remember the focus of the list, Nahuatl and the Nahuas. Secondly, this is not a moderated list. Any subscriber can post whatever they wish. It is the obligation of subscribers to remain focused. Let us now remain calm and go about the business of the list. Thanks, J. F. Schwaller, List owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From peter at netway.com Mon Jul 26 17:51:09 1999 From: peter at netway.com (Peter Selverstone) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 11:51:09 -0600 Subject: Language of the Olmecs Message-ID: Apologies for my last posting which was inadvertently sent to the list. This is the correct posting. Peter. -------- Lloyd Anderson wrote: >Mike Gaby asked: >>Also anyone know the form of Mixe-Zoquean >>allegedly spoken by "Olmecs"? >This is of course a very difficult question, since > the Olmecs flourished around 1500 BC to 400 BC >or so (depending on who one asks). >It may not be Mixe-Zoquean at all. >According to John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, >it is Proto-Zoque, by the following reasoning: >a) Loan words in Mesoamerica are from Mixe-Zoquean > into other languages, including high-culture words >b) The Olmecs were the originators of Mesoamerican > high culture. >c) Therefore the Olmecs must have spoken a Mixe-Zoquean > language >And they further claim >d) The writing system of La Mojarra must represent the > Epi-Olmec people. Given its date and location (Veracruz, > 2nd century AD by its long counts), and the lack of evidence > for extensive migrations during the relevant time frames, > this writing must be interpreted as the writing of the successors > to the Olmecs, "Epi-Olmecs". >e) The writing system of La Mojarra is now in large part deciphered, > and is a Mixe-Zoquean language, specifically proto-Zoquean. The most recent publication by Kaufman and Justeson on this subject is: A Newly Discovered Column in the Hieroglyphic Text on La Mojarra Stela 1: A Test of the Epi-Olmec Decipherment John S. Justeson and Terrence Kaufman Science 1997 July 11; 277: 207-210. (in Reports) Full text of an expanded version of this paper is available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/justeson.shl A pdf fomat version is at: http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/justeson.pdf (access to these locations may require registration, but does not require a subscription) The original paper is: J. S. Justeson and T. Kaufman, Science 259, 1703 (1993). An important subsequent article (in Spanish) is in an INAH journal: J. S. Justeson and T. Kaufman, Arqueologia 8, 1992 (1996). Unlike Lloyd, I am not a linguist, but my understanding is that the identification of the language of the Epi-Olmec writing system is based on the results of a complete grammatical analysis of the texts which conforms to the structure of pre-proto-Zoquean and to no other reconstructable language. One would not expect things to suddenly fall into place for a writing system in which only four texts are known, however, as reported in the more recent article in Science, an unexpected discovery did provide a compelling test of the work. Unless someone demonstrates problems with either the evidence or the reasoning or proposes another language consistent with the regularities of the very long text of Stela 1, I'm happy to accept the conclusion presented in that paper: This study shows that a previously unknown segment of text can be read and understood in terms of the same model for language structure, sign values, and spelling conventions that were developed in the previously achieved decipherment of the epi-Olmec script, and shows that the segment's content is well integrated with the previously read portion of the same text. Conversely, there are no phenomena in this stretch of text that challenge the model in any way. It is difficult to imagine that this model would yield a complete, coherent, and grammatical text if these portions of the decipherment-language structure, sign values, and spelling conventions-were not essentially correct. In our view, the data confirm the results obtained in the first two of our by now six years of our work on the decipherment of epi-Olmec writing. When a testable hypothesis is presented in detail in peer-reviewed journals, critics should make an effort to understand the hypothesis, cite the basis of their reservations, and submit their work to the peer review process. It appears to me that the only serious review and testing of the epi-Olmec work has been done by the authors themselves. In my (amateur) opinion, this reflects badly on the state of scholarship in Mesoamerican writing systems. ------------------ Peter Selverstone peter at netway.com ------------------ From micc at home.com Mon Jul 26 18:26:36 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 12:26:36 -0600 Subject: Thule Message-ID: it is intelligent and highly adult communications like this that have made you the darlings of the "nahuat-l at server.umt.edu" family. Perhaps if you stopped inbreeding within your "Foundation" you could discourse at a higher level. sincerely, a PROUD inbred Native American of Mexican ASCENT Brad Smith wrote: > > Its Thule Foundation not Society and you are an idiot and always have > been. > We at the Foundation are not pushing any racists agenda you ignorant > slimeball. From campbel at indiana.edu Mon Jul 26 19:35:25 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 13:35:25 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: Nocnihuan, Some of us are interested mainly in culture and history and others mainly in language. But that doesn't mean that most of us aren't interested in some degree in *all* of it. My main interest is in the mechanics of words and *how* they mean what they mean. My interest in the application of this is how a person develops fluency in word recognition and reading in Nahuatl. "Had we but world enough and time..." we could depend on osmosis (and I don't deny that osmosis has its place), but most of us have finite lives, so some efficiency is in order. Despite the recent interest in more speculative topics, I believe that we have something to gain from looking at the nuts and bolts of the language. I offer an interesting question (at least, I found it interesting when it dawned on me): tzoaztli 1. what does it mean? 2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) 3. is it ambiguous? Joe From campbel at indiana.edu Mon Jul 26 19:49:09 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 13:49:09 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: ******* I forgot to mention -- no fair looking at dictionaries, wordlists, notes, etc.!! This is not "open book".... From ECOLING at aol.com Mon Jul 26 20:13:19 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:13:19 -0600 Subject: Language of the Olmecs Message-ID: Peter Selverstone writes today, concerning the hypotheses put forward by John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, that the language of the La Mojarra Stele is Proto-Zoquean, and my comments on those hypotheses. Here some rejoinders: [I think this discussion rightly belongs on the AZTLAN email list, rather than on the Nahaut-l list, and am transferring a copy of this there, hoping we will continue it there. I responded on Nahuat-l to an assumption expressed here, and should have attempted to transfer lists earlier. Those not interested can of course delete this message.] >Unlike Lloyd, I am not a linguist, but my understanding is that the >identification of the language of the Epi-Olmec writing system is >based on the results of a complete grammatical analysis of the >texts which conforms to the structure of pre-proto-Zoquean and to >no other reconstructable language. For the reading of an undeciphered text, the readings of specific details can be hypothesized in such a manner as to reflect the conclusion one started with. Up to a point, at which we should observe either an avalanche of things easily falling-into-place, or a failure. Since the above quotation is Mr. Selverston's conclusion not the evidence, and since Mr. Selverstone held this same opinion as of a year or so ago when he told me he had not yet really read "The Writing System of La Mojarra" (see below), an evaluation of the conclusion must rest on the facts. The opinion just quoted does not reflect the facts. I believe that the review of these issues which HAS appeared, by Dr. Steven Houston, which I cited in my previous post, is perhaps too severe. Dr. Houston concludes that this text cannot be deciphered because it is too short and there is no bilingual. I agree that makes it more difficult, but with luck and hard work (for example, if the reasoning of Kaufman and Campbell about the language origins of high-culture Mesoamerican vocabulary does lead to the correct conclusion about the language) it may be possible. There is no reason to exclude it a priori. >One would not expect things to suddenly fall into place for a >writing system in which only four texts are known, however, >as reported in the more recent article in Science, an unexpected >discovery did provide a compelling test of the work. There has been no "compelling test" of any hypotheses put forward, neither Proto-Zoque nor Mayan nor any other, in the sense that no new texts which have been found are more than barely readable with lots of good will and suspension of disbelief. This claim of a "test" of the hypothesis was made once before by these same authors, in a presentation at Austin, Texas. That previous claim referred to the "O'Boyle Mask", a very short and damaged text, which the authors "read" at that time as concerning bean plants. It involved a few new glyphs, many read only with difficulty, and enough degrees of freedom that it could not possibly constitute a "test". No such text concerning "bean plants" is known elsewhere in Mesoamerica, which is not a counter-proof, but certainly does not strengthen the hypothesis. The most recent claim of a "compelling test" involves a single column of glyphs on one of the narrow sides of the stela, discovered only with great difficulty, almost completely unreadable. According to Justeson and Kaufman, whom I have no reason to doubt on this point, what would have been vertical lines in the drawings of glyphs are at least mostly not readable, because the grain of the stone goes vertically there and they disappear into the grain. Only some lines crossing that grain are readable, and even those only with great difficulty, as it is very worn. I have personally examined that section of the stone, and I can have only great admiration for the stamina and abilities of the authors Justeson and Kaufman, who spent many long hours trying to record that column. I could see essentially nothing there. I choose to assume they have correctly drawn what was there based on the traces remaining, and admire the careful statement they made, that in doubtful cases they drew a conclusion ON THE ASSUMPTION that the glyphs present there were glyphs already known from the long front text of the stela. That is an entirely reasonable procedure, minimizing the likelihood of error, but does not remove the difficulty that the glyphs are almost completely destroyed. Given the nature of this almost disappeared text, it could not constitute a "compelling test" of anything. But it does not constitute a compelling test for a more important reason. Justeson and Kaufman conclude (correctly, I believe, as I assume their drawings are accurate) that the phrases they record from that single column are structurally very like phrases found on the long front text of the stela. This does serve to confirm the analysis of the text into such phrases, since they are now found on a text which was not known when the phrases were proposed. But MOST OF THE PHRASES of the text were in fact discovered by quite a number of investigators years ago, working quite independently of each other so far as I am aware. Crucially, MOST OF THOSE PHRASES DO NOT DEPEND ON THE LANGUAGE HYPOTHESIZED as the basis of the text. So what is really confirmed is the work in identifying repeating phrases. The hypothesis of a particular language is not confirmed by any pattern which was predicted by nearly all students of the patterning of the text, no matter what the language. There are to be sure a few points where a particular hypothesis for the phonetic reading of a glyph works to create a certain word reading (for Justeson and Kaufman, in Proto-Zoquean). But unless that word reading can be independently confirmed, as by a highly plausible hypothesis of the meaning conveyed by the text, preferably a meaning which can be confirmed and locked in place by some literary or historical or astronomical context, there is no confirmation of the readings. Mr. Selverstone writes: >Unless >someone demonstrates problems with either the evidence or >the reasoning or proposes another language consistent with >the regularities of the very long text of Stela 1, I'm happy to >accept the conclusion presented in that paper: The only test available so far is the careful analysis of the hypotheses, how some of the hypotheses depend on others, how the logic flows, and whether the results are plausible or not. That test, or the portion which is possible now, has indeed been carried out, and is displayed in great detail and in a maximally accessible manner in the cited publication "The Writing System of La Mojarra". Since neither full translations nor even full information on sentence boundaries has been provided by Justeson and Kaufman, only a partial test is possible. Despite those limitations, the book "The Writing System of La Mojarra" does demonstrate the near-circularities of the reasoning lying behind many of the specific hypotheses of how to read the text, and thus beyind the hypothesis of Proto-Zoque language; that new subsidiary hypotheses are added when needed to shore up mis-matches between what their initial starting point led them to (that initial starting point being a few presumed logogram+phonetic-complement readings), for example hypothesizing a word order which is NOT that of previously reconstructed Proto-Zoquean (etc.). Justeson and Kaufman's work does not even really consider another language possibility, and did not consider any other possibility than Mixe-Zoquean from the very beginning, because they thought they knew it had to be Mixe-Zoquean. Those interested should actually read that review of their work in its full detail, and deal with specifics if they with to draw conclusions either privately or publicly. Mr. Selverstone quotes from their paper: > This study shows that a previously unknown > segment of text can be read and > understood in terms of the same model for > language structure, sign values, and spelling > conventions that were developed in the > previously achieved decipherment of the > epi-Olmec script, and shows that the segment's > content is well integrated with the > previously read portion of the same text. > Conversely, there are no phenomena in this > stretch of text that challenge the model in > any way. It is difficult to imagine that this > model would yield a complete, coherent, > and grammatical text if these portions of > the decipherment-language structure, sign > values, and spelling conventions-were not > essentially correct. In our view, the data > confirm the results obtained in the first two > of our by now six years of our work on the > decipherment of epi-Olmec writing. This statement has been answered above. Mr. Selverstone writes: >When a testable hypothesis is presented in detail in >peer-reviewed journals, critics should make an effort >to understand the hypothesis, cite the basis of their >reservations, and submit their work to the peer review >process. This has been done, with the publication of The Writing System of La Mojarra. That book itself has been reviewed, as pointed out in my previous message. The many details of the alternative sets of hypotheses could certainly use a more thorough review by someone interested enough to take the time to do so, but that has not yet happened. >It appears to me that the only serious review >and testing of the epi-Olmec work has been done by >the authors themselves. Mr. Selverstone formed his conclusions without actually reading "The Writing System of La Mojarra", at least not in any detail. >In my (amateur) opinion, >this reflects badly on the state of scholarship in >Mesoamerican writing systems. I am not so sure. It may be normal in any field that there are too few people really interested and willing and able to spend the time to do this. Even harder to find one who is objective and non-partisan. I do believe that the initial Science article by Justeson and Kaufman should have been reviewed by some specialist in methods of decipherment, one who was not even involved in Pre-Columbian matters, simply as a check on whether the structure of the evidence and argument could in principle count as a plausible claim of decipherment. *Science* should not have published the article until that had occurred. I know of one such, who did read the article after it was published and considered the claim of a decipherment to be unsupportable based on the lack of the kind of evidence that could constitute evidence of decipherment. But since I have commercial dealings with this other person, they might be biased in favor of my point of view. So how do we get more non-partisan attention to matters like this? I wish at the end to reiterate what I have said many times, that I have the highest respect for the abilities of both John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, and believe they have put in long hours and done much careful work in proposing their hypotheses of Proto-Zoque language for the text of La Mojarra. But as a linguist familiar with how decipherments normally work, even granting that there can be fortuitious discoveries and that every one is different, I judge that nothing like a decipherment has been achieved. We have only a CLAIM of decipherment, and a very competent attempt to read the text as some language of a particular language family. I do not think we have a particularly successful proposal for reading, however, because the meaning content of the text, as fragments of it have been presented in various lectures and a few publications, is rather odd from the point of view of Mesoamerican texts. So is La Mojarra simply different in what its rulers chose to record? (After all, La Mojarra is not simply classic Maya or classic Mixtec or classic Mixe or classic Zapotec or whatever, it is considerably older.) Or is the hypothesis of language wrong? Or are some of the specific hypotheses of phonetic readings of glyphs wrong, and the hypothesis of language either right or wrong? I do not presume to know. What I am sure of is that this text needs more work and more discoveries, and that the many central and ancillary hypotheses need to be carefully examined by experts in decipherment methods and by experts in various language families other than the authors who alone propose that they know what language it is. I have not claimed that the language is Mayan or any other language, I have simply urged that we should actually do the job of considering a range of possible languages in detail, rather than assuming we know in advance what language it has to be. IT IS ENTIRELY LEGITIMATE to proceed as Justeson and Kaufman did, assuming a language or language family to see how well it works. But if one starts with an assumption, then the conclusion can only be an evaluation of how well that assumption pans out, not of how well that assumption works compared to other assumptions which were not even tried. They MAY have made the right choice of assumption, though my conclusion, seeing the results so far, is that either they did not, or else that some of their other hypotheses of specific phonetic readings are not right, because I find the meaning of the text they propose unconvincing, and because I think their readings violate a part of what I see as the repeated phrasal patternings in the text. I will be glad when this text is deciphered, INCLUDING if Justeson and Kaufman succeed in deciphering it, or if anyone else does. What I did with "The Writing System of La Mojarra" was to provide some tools in the venerable tradition of decipherments, listings of all recurrences of patterned phrases, clauses, sentences, to the degree these may emerge from the text without hypothesizing a particular language, adding any conclusions one might tentatively draw from calendrics or other circumstances tending to constrain possible meanings, and to provide at least two interpretations based on the assumption of two different languages, so they may be compared in a systematic fashion. Best wishes, Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From CCBtlevine at aol.com Mon Jul 26 20:40:09 1999 From: CCBtlevine at aol.com (CCBtlevine at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:40:09 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: In a message dated 7/26/99 2:36:20 PM EST, campbel at indiana.edu writes: << tzoaztli 1. what does it mean? 2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) 3. is it ambiguous? >> 1. trap 2. itzoma - cover something with straw; ual - towards, aci - arrive. 3. Sounds like a trap to me. What do you mean ambigous? From CCBtlevine at aol.com Mon Jul 26 20:43:01 1999 From: CCBtlevine at aol.com (CCBtlevine at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:43:01 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: In a message dated 7/26/99 2:49:49 PM EST, campbel at indiana.edu writes: << I forgot to mention -- no fair looking at dictionaries, wordlists, notes, etc.!! This is not "open book"... >> oops. From fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx Mon Jul 26 21:17:51 1999 From: fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx (Fabian E. Pena Arellano) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 15:17:51 -0600 Subject: Some bibliography om human sacrifice and cannibalism. Message-ID: Hello: As I promised I write you today some bibliography -of authors who seem serious- about human sacrifice: Cardin, Alberto. "Dialectica y canibalismo" Barcelona (1994) Ed. Anagrama, Coleccion Argumentos. Hassler, Peter. "Menschenopfer bei den Azteken? Eine quellen und ideologiekristische Studie". Bern (1992). Verlag Peler Lang. There are a couple of abstracts of the second book: "La mentira de Hernan Cortes". La Jornada Semanal. La Jornada. Num. 216, 1 de agosto de 1993. pp 3-6. "---------------------------". Die Zeit. Num. 38, Sept. 11th 1992. p. 92. Hamburg. "The lies of the Conquistators. Cutting through the myth of human sacrifice" World Press Review. December 1992. pp.28,29 On the other hand, there are lots of books which study the human sacrifice among the aztecs accepting first it existed and surely there won't be any problem for the interested in finding them. For the translation into spanish of Hassler's book you might try writing to ceacatl at laneta.apc.org Fabian Pena. From campbel at indiana.edu Mon Jul 26 21:32:17 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 15:32:17 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: > > << tzoaztli > > 1. what does it mean? > 2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) > 3. is it ambiguous? I'd better say first that my intent was not to meant to """trap""" anybody into saying something and then jump on their efforts. I see our intercourse as a group of friends sitting on a log (pretty long log, huh?) and talking about things of mutual interest. There will be some blind alleys... > 1. trap *** I agree -- if you picture a particular kind of trap. Even this proviso may be too narrow, if you keep in mind the willingness of Nahuatl to engage in daring metaphor and in semantic extension. > 2. itzoma - cover something with straw; ual - towards, aci - arrive. *** "ihtzoma" is a transitive verb, so you would expect an object prefix. ..where does the straw come in? ...and the semantics of the verb have to do with sewing, stitching, and tailoring. "hual" normally keeps its /l/. ...and it's a prefix; have we seen it before the verb stem? "ahci" has to do with 'reaching' and 'arriving' -- do the semantics fit? I think that you're considering the possibility of "-aztli" being formed as a patientive noun, but "ahci" shows up with a /x/ in the patientive noun formation. > 3. Sounds like a trap to me. What do you mean ambigous? *** I didn't mean for it to sound like a trap... |8-<) 'Ambiguous' just means that a word has two meanings, perhaps comes from two different sources, either structurally or in terms of its morphological makeup. O.K. I really wanted to save this one for later, but here's another interesting one: tzoyotl Same three questions. Joe From incanica at iastate.edu Mon Jul 26 21:45:49 1999 From: incanica at iastate.edu (incanica at iastate.edu) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 15:45:49 -0600 Subject: Useful information Message-ID: BORRENENME. BORRENME. B O R R E N M E. He pedido como veinte veces que me borren de su lista pero siempre sigo recibiendo mensajes. Inca From karttu at nantucket.net Mon Jul 26 23:51:46 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:51:46 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: > tzoaztli > >1. what does it mean? I think it means a snare made with cord. >2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) I only know it in derived forms. And I think it's probably tzohuaztli. Maybe the same -aztli as in teponaztli, etc.? Which leaves us with the tzo(hu)- part. >3. is it ambiguous? No idea. Fran From peter at netway.com Tue Jul 27 00:50:38 1999 From: peter at netway.com (Peter Selverstone) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 18:50:38 -0600 Subject: Language of the Olmecs Message-ID: Lloyd wrote: >[I think this discussion rightly belongs on the AZTLAN email list, >rather than on the Nahaut-l list, >and am transferring a copy of this there, hoping we will continue it >there. I responded on Nahuat-l to an assumption expressed here, >and should have attempted to transfer lists earlier. Those not interested >can of course delete this message.] Let me propose something else, Lloyd. You state that: >near-circularities of the reasoning lying behind >many of the specific hypotheses of how to read the text, and thus >beyind the hypothesis of Proto-Zoque language If this is true, then it is unlikely that the "model for language structure, sign values, and spelling conventions" proposed by K & J are essentially correct. Within a few years, I expect the scholarly community will achieve some consensus on these questions and it will be clear whether their hypothesis concerning the language was correct and, if correct, was justified. Let's adjourn this discussion until that happens. Peter. From muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com Tue Jul 27 01:15:05 1999 From: muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com (Roberto Tirado) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:15:05 -0600 Subject: ballcourts Message-ID: greetings to the group. i was wondering if anyone knows about books or articles concerning the 'ballgame' played by mesoamerican societies and also a similar one played by native americans . i am looking for books with pictorial representations of the symbols and decorations of the ballcourt surface itself. Also useful to me would be detailed descriptions of the equipment used, and the varieties of rules and playing styles. *thank you* _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From maestas at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu Tue Jul 27 01:39:29 1999 From: maestas at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (maestas at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:39:29 -0600 Subject: Issue of Sacrifice Message-ID: Tlapoyohuali Tocayo Tlapoyohualique, That longer threat could be a slip or maybe a discussion of human sacrifice is a threat to some peoples paradigms. Like human sacrifice, there are some concepts that do not serve the issue but are used anyway. Why is Nahua war practice set apart as human sacrifice when it actually cut down on the number of civilian deaths by restricting battle zones. On the other hand, war practices introduced from the other side of the Atlantic tended to inhumanly sacrifice women and children as well as soldiers. This type of comparison and contrast is interesting, but hardly worth attention when we can sensationalize bloody corpses being thrown off pyramids instead. Tota, Enrique On Thu, 22 Jul 1999, Henry Kammler wrote: > > > > There has always been debate on the issue of ritual sacrifices in Aztec > > society. > > I think there was a longer threat on this last year, if I remember > right. Maybe you could browse the archives first... > > Henry > From campbel at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 02:03:38 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:03:38 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: Fran, On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Frances Karttunen wrote: > > tzoaztli > > > >1. what does it mean? > > I think it means a snare made with cord. *** Bingo! (said by people who think the same thing and hope they're right too) > >2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) > > I only know it in derived forms. And I think it's probably tzohuaztli. > Maybe the same -aztli as in teponaztli, etc.? Which leaves us with the > tzo(hu)- part. ***I hadn't thought of "teponaztli", but *now* that you mention it, it's an attractive idea. I think the suffix is "-hua:ztli" as in "tlahtolhuaztli" (throat) and "tlachpanhuaztli" (broom). That /w/ deletes also in "tzo:tzopa:ztli" (weaver's tool). And I believe that the stem is "tzontli" (the "-huaztli" instrument considered to be made of fibers). I thought the "tzoaztli" [tzoa:ztli] was a cute and puzzling item because of the double deletion. First, the /w/ "hu" deletes the /n/ of "tzontli" -- /w/ and /y/ are both highly 'n-ivorous' -- and then the underlying /w/ is deleted (in many dialects) in "-owa-" sequences. > >3. is it ambiguous? > > No idea. *** I don't think it is. I just brought it up ahead of time because of the second question I wanted to pose. [[Hi Al]] Joe > > > Fran > > From ECOLING at aol.com Tue Jul 27 02:17:37 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:17:37 -0600 Subject: La Mojarra Message-ID: Peter Selverstone, who so recently stated that detailed review is needed surrounding evidence and logic of attempts to decipher the writing system of La Mojarra, now suddenly suggests terminating the discussion, not merely here but anywhere. Referring to some specific points I had made, he says: >If this is true, then it is unlikely that the "model for language structure, >sign values, and spelling conventions" proposed by K & J are essentially >correct. Within a few years, I expect the scholarly community will achieve >some consensus on these questions and it will be clear whether their >hypothesis concerning the language was correct and, if correct, was >justified. Let's adjourn this discussion until that happens. Peter. A rational consensus can only be achieved if the questions ARE explored in detail by some reasonably unbiased people. How do we get that? More appropriate would be if Selverstone would read carefully and critique the most careful review to date of J&K's edifice of data and reasoning to date, namely my book "The Writing System of La Mojarra" (I welcome rational critique, as I do not wish to convey anthying wrong to anyone). More appropriate would be if he had publicly acknowledged that a review HAS ALREADY occurred in the peer-reviewed (as he specified was needed) International Journal of American Linguistics, by Mesoamericanist and Epigrapher Dr. Steven Houston, who pronounced himself unconvinced by the claims of decipherment. Please note that I went out of my way, as I often have, to say I think Dr. Houston may be too sceptical of the ultimate possibilities of decipherment, I do not want to discourage others from attempting it, from finding new analogies in glyph form or in phrasal patterns which might lead to a breakthrough. Nor can I be 100% certain that all or even most of the many hypotheses of J&K are wrong. I can only say that, on the basis of what usually happens in decipherments, I think the balance of evidence is now weighted against their edifice of hypotheses. The details are in print, for anyone who wants them. So it is clear I agree with Dr. Houston that we do not yet have anything which counts as a decipherment. We have only a CLAIM of decipherment. The two are very very different. Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From GESX1CKAH at aol.com Tue Jul 27 02:42:03 1999 From: GESX1CKAH at aol.com (GESX1CKAH at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:42:03 -0600 Subject: AZ:Malinalli Message-ID: In a message dated 7/23/99 12:59:14 PM Pacific Daylight Time, mikegaby at hotmail.com writes: << While browsing at my local bookstore I came upon a book about contemporary Mayan shamanic pratices. There it stated that the name of the Aztec day-sign Malinalli translated as "snake energy" and the author compared it to the idea of Kundalini in yogic disciplines. I have always know this word to mean "Grass" or sometimes "Herb". Has anyone heard of a different translation for this word? >> YEAH.... MARIJUANA jess From mdmorris at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 03:16:58 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 21:16:58 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: I've been cheating, and I'm still confused. On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, R. Joe Campbell wrote: > Fran, > > On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Frances Karttunen wrote: > > > > tzoaztli > > > > > >1. what does it mean? > > > > I think it means a snare made with cord. > > *** Bingo! (said by people who think the same thing and hope they're > right too) //////The two elements here are tzontli (hair) and hua:ztli (a fibrous instrument), meaning an instrument of thin fibers, by practice then a snare. > > > >2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) > > > > I only know it in derived forms. And I think it's probably tzohuaztli. > > Maybe the same -aztli as in teponaztli, etc.? Which leaves us with the > > tzo(hu)- part. > > ***I hadn't thought of "teponaztli", but *now* that you mention it, it's > an attractive idea. I think the suffix is "-hua:ztli" as in > "tlahtolhuaztli" (throat) and "tlachpanhuaztli" (broom). That /w/ deletes > also in "tzo:tzopa:ztli" (weaver's tool). And I believe that the stem is > "tzontli" (the "-huaztli" instrument considered to be made of fibers). > ////////tzo:tzopa:ztli is comprised of some inflected form of ihtzoma (to sew) + hua:ztli, and becomes a metaphor to combine with mah- hand to mean forearm? Regarding the mention of teponaztli, I am further confused by these vocabulary items from the Florentine where -huaztli doesn't necessarily have to be an instrument suffix quetzalecacehuaztli. quetzal feather fan. ayauhchicahuaztli. mist rattleboard > I thought the "tzoaztli" [tzoa:ztli] was a cute and puzzling item > because of the double deletion. First, the /w/ "hu" deletes the /n/ of > "tzontli" -- /w/ and /y/ are both highly 'n-ivorous' -- and then the > underlying /w/ is deleted (in many dialects) in "-owa-" sequences. ///////I thought you were getting at that -aztli was some kind of agentive suffix that could combine with tzotl, but that's typical of me and morphology. Finally, I could use some help breaking this one up too: tenamaztli. hearth stone. Thanks, Mark Morris > > > > >3. is it ambiguous? > > > > > > No idea. > > *** I don't think it is. I just brought it up ahead of time because of > the second question I wanted to pose. > > [[Hi Al]] > > Joe > > > > > > > > Fran > > > > > From TruBluPooh at aol.com Tue Jul 27 03:41:52 1999 From: TruBluPooh at aol.com (TruBluPooh at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 21:41:52 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: I'll one up you Fran. I dont even know where to get an English-Nahuatl/ Nahuatl-English dictionary....or even a Spanish version thereof. John-Francis From campbel at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 06:21:12 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:21:12 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: Mark, This multi-embedded message will probably stress some people, but since this is really like a chat, ... I'll mark my comments with ***** to make it easier to follow. On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Mark David Morris wrote: > > I've been cheating, and I'm still confused. > > On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, R. Joe Campbell wrote: > > > Fran, > > > > On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Frances Karttunen wrote: > > > > > > tzoaztli > > > > > > > >1. what does it mean? > > > > > > I think it means a snare made with cord. > > > > *** Bingo! (said by people who think the same thing and hope they're > > right too) > > //////The two elements here are tzontli (hair) and hua:ztli (a fibrous > instrument), meaning an instrument of thin fibers, by practice then a > snare. ***** Andrews (p. 371) discusses "hua:z" type instrumental nouns. He points out that it incorporates a noun stem, frequently of the patientive type. Therefore, for the incorporation to take place, it must come from some "hypothetical" verb (or obsolete verb), like *tla-huaza or *tla-huaci (sorry, forgot the long vowel marks and my PINE is not very forgiving). So many instrumental nouns with "hua:ztli" may show up -- perhaps deleting the /w/. > > > > > > > >2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) > > > > > > I only know it in derived forms. And I think it's probably tzohuaztli. > > > Maybe the same -aztli as in teponaztli, etc.? Which leaves us with the > > > tzo(hu)- part. > > > > ***I hadn't thought of "teponaztli", but *now* that you mention it, it's > > an attractive idea. I think the suffix is "-hua:ztli" as in > > "tlahtolhuaztli" (throat) and "tlachpanhuaztli" (broom). That /w/ deletes > > also in "tzo:tzopa:ztli" (weaver's tool). And I believe that the stem is > > "tzontli" (the "-huaztli" instrument considered to be made of fibers). > > > > ////////tzo:tzopa:ztli is comprised of some inflected form of ihtzoma (to > sew) + > hua:ztli, and becomes a metaphor to combine with mah- hand to mean > forearm? ***** I think that it's off "tzopi" (finish, end) -- and concerned with the function of the weaving beater (of tightening up the threads, fibers?). I've always been interested in their using what to us is a highly specialized term (weaving beater) to derive what to *us* is so basic (forearm). > Regarding the mention of teponaztli, I am further confused by these > vocabulary items from the Florentine where -huaztli doesn't necessarily > have to be an instrument suffix > > quetzalecacehuaztli. quetzal feather fan. > ayauhchicahuaztli. mist rattleboard > ***** I assume that the first one *is* instrumental and involves "e:catl" (wind) and "ce:hui/a". Wind-cooling-instrument (made of feathers) I'm more in the dark about "-chicahuaztli" -- my daring?? guess is that it involves scraping (i.e., "ihchiqui"). > > > I thought the "tzoaztli" [tzoa:ztli] was a cute and puzzling item > > because of the double deletion. First, the /w/ "hu" deletes the /n/ of > > "tzontli" -- /w/ and /y/ are both highly 'n-ivorous' -- and then the > > underlying /w/ is deleted (in many dialects) in "-owa-" sequences. > > ///////I thought you were getting at that -aztli was some kind of agentive > suffix that could combine with tzotl, but that's typical of me and > morphology. Finally, I could use some help breaking this one up too: > ***** Well, our chat group declined to take up the issue of "tzoyotl", but I wasn't implying a relationship of "tzoaztli" with such a filthy topic. |8-<) > tenamaztli. hearth stone. > ***** I've wondered about "tenamaztli" and I'm still wishing that someone would give me a good answer... > Thanks, Mark Morris ***** Joe From cberry at cinenet.net Tue Jul 27 06:34:51 1999 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:34:51 -0600 Subject: Issue of Sacrifice Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jul 1999 maestas at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu wrote: > Why is Nahua war practice set apart as human sacrifice when it actually > cut down on the number of civilian deaths by restricting battle zones. > On the other hand, war practices introduced from the other side of the > Atlantic tended to inhumanly sacrifice women and children as well as > soldiers. You have to be careful about the word 'sacrifice'. Literally and technically, it means "to make sacred"; a sacrifical death is one which occurs explicitly and primarily for religious purposes. Not every murder is a sacrifice; in fact, most are not. The Nahua practice of obtaining sacrifical 'victims' on a ritual battleground is intensely interesting precisely because it is unique in its particulars, and very uncommon even in general terms. Note also that European war practices before the present century generally did not target civilians (during the actual battles). Noncombatants were eliminated (if they were) by other means (displacement, starvation, terrorism, and so forth). The Spaniards did not *directly* kill all tha many Nahua, and most of those were warriors. Disease and societal collapse did the bulk of the work of native depopulation. -- | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 10:53:47 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 04:53:47 -0600 Subject: Issue of Sacrifice Message-ID: > > Note also that European war practices before the present century generally > did not target civilians (during the actual battles). Noncombatants were > eliminated (if they were) by other means (displacement, starvation, > terrorism, and so forth). The Spaniards did not *directly* kill all tha > many Nahua, and most of those were warriors. Disease and societal > collapse did the bulk of the work of native depopulation. Plus, there is both prehistoric archaeological and reliable historical ethnographic material showing that at least in North American the killing of women and children was one way of warring. So much of the current discussion about this sort of thing reminds me too much of the Japanese attempts to hide the facts of their World War II atrocities from the modern generation. Humans are humans. Sheesh happens. Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 13:26:13 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 07:26:13 -0600 Subject: ballcourts Message-ID: Roberto, What do you mean by "...a similar one played by native americans." ? Are you referring to Mississippian societies' chunkey? Best, Michael On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Roberto Tirado wrote: > > > greetings to the group. > > i was wondering if anyone knows about books or articles concerning the > 'ballgame' played by mesoamerican societies and also a similar one played by > native americans . > > i am looking for books with pictorial representations of the symbols and > decorations of the ballcourt surface itself. Also useful to me would be > detailed descriptions of the equipment used, and the varieties of rules and > playing styles. > > *thank you* > > > _______________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com > Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* From ECOLING at aol.com Tue Jul 27 14:35:52 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 08:35:52 -0600 Subject: Sensationalizing of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: What is the difference between factual discussions and sensationalizing of human sacrifice? It is possible gradually to pin this down. McCafferty writes: >So much of the >current discussion about this sort of thing reminds me too much of the >Japanese attempts to hide the facts of their World War II atrocities from >the modern generation. Humans are humans. True. (When with an American Indian who wishes to believe that original Americans were somehow exempt from being humans in these ways, I very gently agree that there ARE cultural differences, but that there are also many differences within the many pre-Columbian cultures, and that almost anything did occur somewhere.) BUT... Also true that the "exotic, romantic" marketing of magazines etc. DOES depend on focusing on the sensational, just the opposite of hiding facts, rather exaggerating their importance and focusing on them. We all know this happens in TV, in Film, and in popular magazines. And true that by the careful manipulation of definitions, one people can be said to engage in human sacrifice, another not. Even the use of the term "human sacrifice" has a heavy baggage from history, I certainly have not done detailed research on this, but I hope someone will do so, as it might be very revealing, and might shock us into not using the term. Use of that term I think immediately conveys something exotic, non-us, to be condemned. It is NOT used objectively in the sense of state-sponsored (religious) killing. I seem to remember it as a child from depictions of Africa, it merges in my visual memory with cannibalism. Isn't that revealing? (At 56 I'm a bit older than many on this list.) My point is that we should all remain very acutely aware of the exaggeration and sensationalizing, and of what is at stake. We mostly DO NOT observe dispassionate academic discussions of what role state-sponsored killing (whether religious or not) played in societies of Mesoamerica, as compared with various other societies around the world. We mostly DO observe endless re-runs of amateur questions about whether they did or didn't have "human sacrifice" (with those words implying something we Europeans would not do, because we do not apply those words to state-sponsored killing in Europe), and the discussions which follow those questions. The endless recurring of those same amateur questions ARE, I would bet, a result of the publicity and sensationalizing in the media. If we grant them status, it gives them longer life. The endless recurrences of amateur questions about the "collapse" of the Maya have sometimes led to better quality discussions, but their endless recurrences ARE, I would bet, a result of the publicity and sensationalizing (romanticizing) in the media. In just the same way. Our continuing discussions, NOT in a world-wide context of state-sponsored killing (religious or secular), but as something special to Mesoamerica, do reinforce this sensationalizing. There may be aspects of it which are special in certain cultures of Mesoamerica in certain time periods, but they probably are not as unique when seen in world-wide terms. As McCafferty said, Humans are humans. So let's be courteous to our fellow human beings, and stop the sensationalizing of them (or of their ancestors) as primitive, non-us, whenever we can. This has absolutely nothing to do with censoring facts. Best wishes, Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From clayton at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 14:50:19 1999 From: clayton at indiana.edu (Mary Clayton) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 08:50:19 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: On Tue, 27 Jul 1999, R. Joe Campbell wrote: > ***** I've wondered about "tenamaztli" and I'm still wishing that someone > would give me a good answer... Normally, I would check this with Joe directly, since we work literally shoulder to shoulder at our computers, but I'm in Urbana at the LSA Linguistic Institute. my guess on "tenamaztli" is almost too obvious to be right, and it has both phonological and semantic questions. It could be tena:mitl ('stone wall', breakable down into te(tl) 'stone' and na:m(itl) 'wall') plus hua:ztli. The semantic question involves the use of -hua:ztli with something so inert as hearth-stones. But if you look at them as being the things with with tena:mitl's are built... maybe that's not so bad. phonologically, one would expect the m-w brought together at the morpheme boundary to go the same way as n-w in the tzoaztli case (well, almost). But there seems to be some room for variation here. Molina, whose morphophonemics are (is?) usually fairly conservative, gives both tenanuituma, ni (tenanhuitoma, ni-) with the n-w cluster preserved. He also gives tenaueloa, ni (tenanhueloa, ni-) with only the w preserved, and since there is no rounded vowel in tenamaztli to 'eat up' the w, that's where it should stop. Now in the case at hand we have proposed n-w giving not n-w or just -w-, but just -n- (the form that na:mitl normally takes when the nasal is morpheme final). My guess, if this hypothesis is the correct one, is that whatever happens to the w- in hua:ztli takes precedence, and then there's no need for the n- to delete. Any thoughts on this? Mary From mikegaby at hotmail.com Tue Jul 27 16:11:53 1999 From: mikegaby at hotmail.com (mike gaby) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 10:11:53 -0600 Subject: Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: My guess would be that these people returned to the Pleides, from whence they came, along with their Pharaoh brethren. The fall of Atlantis was just too much for them! :) Mike >From: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu (by way of "John F. Schwaller" >) >Reply-To: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu >To: Multiple recipients of list >Subject: Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. >Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:22:24 -0600 > >Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 02:36:07 -0600 (MDT) >From: Andreas C Schou >To: Multiple recipients of list >Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. > >On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Brad Smith wrote: > > > Same for Mayan pyramids built at least a hundred thousand years ago and > > discovered by ignorant spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, > > that thought that the ignorant people using stone knives and ripping > > people's hearts out and throwing them down the stairs to the roaring > > crowd, were the ones who actually "built" them. > >It's extremely unlikely that, one hundred thousand years ago, Mesoamerica >had any inhabitants whatsoever. Where are their tools? Where did they >expand from? What language did they speak, and why is the language of the >original monument-builders entirely extinct? > > > Wrong. The people living next to many of these "monuments" know > > relatively nothing about them. > >Interesting. Are the obvious depictions of Mayans participating in common >Mayan activities are simply a coincidence? How do you explain the >replication of Mesoamerican iconography from permanent (temples) to >impermanent (pottery) media? > > > They just "used" them for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the > > "priest" class of peons told them to do. > >Interpretation of Mesoamerican myth is often touchy: though the stories >are often bloody, evidence of such large-scale murder is seldom >forthcoming ... and context is difficult to determine. > >Assumptions like that, if applied to the Bible, might lead one to >believe that Christian communion endorses ritual cannibalism. This is >obviously not the case ... unless you go to a church much different than >mine. ;) > > > The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing of any calendar, > > much less how to interpret it. > >There is a certain racism inherent in your peculiar Danikenite posture. >You theorize that savages like the Egyptians and the Mayans could never >have developed culture on your own; Greece, Rome, and other 'white' >civilizations, however, remain beyond the touch of your theoretical >aliens. > >Danikenism is the response of a culture clinging to its last pretensions >of superiority. When faced with irrefutable evidence that other cultures >were at least as good as yours at doing certain things, you invent aliens >to bootstrap the 'savages' up. > > > They didn't have the math skills or the intelligence after way too much > > inbreeding. > >First: that contention is simply insulting. > >Second: Inbreeding typically only occurs when the benefit outweighs >humanity's inherent incest taboo ... for instance, to keep political power >'in the family', as it were, or when mating opportunities become limited; >for instance, during times of famine. Until the Mayan collapse, the >Mayans had a healthy and active gene pool. There was no pressing reason to >inbreed. Second, even if you *do* assume that the Mayan leaders were >inbred, Mayan dynastic structure did not affect the priestly caste -- the >astronomers and mathematicians of the Mayans ... thus, no information >would be 'lost' by inbreeding. > >In short: if you want to come into an academic discussion, bring academic >thought. If you want to antagonize people who genuinely appreciate the >culture you so carelessly denigrate, do exactly what you have just done. > > > _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From mikegaby at hotmail.com Tue Jul 27 16:27:35 1999 From: mikegaby at hotmail.com (mike gaby) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 10:27:35 -0600 Subject: AZ: Ihiyotl Message-ID: Thanks for everyone's help with Malinalli - even jesse. I am also looking for translation for Ihiyotl and Teyolia (is this one even Nahua?) Thanks, Mike Gaby San Diego _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From micc at home.com Tue Jul 27 16:41:40 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 10:41:40 -0600 Subject: Sensationalizing of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: Very cogent analysis of the discussion..... It can be said that 20th century Germany, japan, Cambodia, Uganda, Argentina, Chile, China, Rawanda, Serbiaand yes EVEN the U.S. (remember hiroshima and Nagasaki?) have practiced "human sacrifice".... ECOLING at aol.com wrote: > > What is the difference between factual discussions > and sensationalizing of human sacrifice? > It is possible gradually to pin this down. > > McCafferty writes: > > >So much of the > >current discussion about this sort of thing reminds me too much of the > >Japanese attempts to hide the facts of their World War II atrocities from > >the modern generation. Humans are humans. > > True. > > (When with an American Indian who wishes to believe that > original Americans were somehow exempt from being humans > in these ways, I very gently agree that there ARE cultural differences, > but that there are also many differences within the many pre-Columbian > cultures, and that almost anything did occur somewhere.) > > BUT... > > Also true that the "exotic, romantic" marketing of magazines etc. > DOES depend on focusing on the sensational, just the opposite of hiding > facts, rather exaggerating their importance and focusing on them. > We all know this happens in TV, in Film, and in popular magazines. > > And true that by the careful manipulation of definitions, one people can be > said to engage in human sacrifice, another not. > > Even the use of the term "human sacrifice" has a heavy > baggage from history, I certainly have not done detailed research > on this, but I hope someone will do so, as it might be very > revealing, and might shock us into not using the term. > Use of that term I think immediately conveys something > exotic, non-us, to be condemned. It is NOT used objectively > in the sense of state-sponsored (religious) killing. > > I seem to remember it as a child from depictions of Africa, > it merges in my visual memory with cannibalism. > Isn't that revealing? (At 56 I'm a bit older than many on this list.) > > My point is that we should all remain very acutely aware of the > exaggeration and sensationalizing, and of what is at stake. > > We mostly DO NOT observe dispassionate academic discussions > of what role state-sponsored killing (whether religious or not) > played in societies of Mesoamerica, as compared with various other > societies around the world. > > We mostly DO observe endless re-runs of amateur questions about > whether they did or didn't have "human sacrifice" (with those words > implying something we Europeans would not do, because we do > not apply those words to state-sponsored killing in Europe), > and the discussions which follow those questions. > > The endless recurring of those same amateur questions ARE, > I would bet, a result of the publicity > and sensationalizing in the media. > If we grant them status, it gives them longer life. > > The endless recurrences of amateur questions about the "collapse" > of the Maya have sometimes led to better quality discussions, > but their endless recurrences ARE, I would bet, a result of the > publicity and sensationalizing (romanticizing) in the media. > In just the same way. > > Our continuing discussions, NOT in a world-wide context > of state-sponsored killing (religious or secular), > but as something special to Mesoamerica, > do reinforce this sensationalizing. > There may be aspects of it which are special in certain cultures > of Mesoamerica in certain time periods, but they probably are > not as unique when seen in world-wide terms. As McCafferty > said, Humans are humans. > > So let's be courteous to our fellow human beings, > and stop the sensationalizing of them (or of their ancestors) > as primitive, non-us, whenever we can. > This has absolutely nothing to do with censoring facts. > > Best wishes, > Lloyd Anderson > Ecological Linguistics From micc at home.com Tue Jul 27 16:44:32 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 10:44:32 -0600 Subject: Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: No acutaully theyjoined elvis' first rockabilli group in the Lemurian Vegas and currently sell property in the Bermuda Triangle to Yetis.....:) mike gaby wrote: > > My guess would be that these people returned to the Pleides, from whence > they came, along with their Pharaoh brethren. The fall of Atlantis was just > too much for them! :) > Mike > > >From: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu (by way of "John F. Schwaller" > >) > >Reply-To: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu > >To: Multiple recipients of list > >Subject: Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. > >Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:22:24 -0600 > > > >Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 02:36:07 -0600 (MDT) > >From: Andreas C Schou > >To: Multiple recipients of list > >Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. > > > >On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Brad Smith wrote: > > > > > Same for Mayan pyramids built at least a hundred thousand years ago and > > > discovered by ignorant spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, > > > that thought that the ignorant people using stone knives and ripping > > > people's hearts out and throwing them down the stairs to the roaring > > > crowd, were the ones who actually "built" them. > > > >It's extremely unlikely that, one hundred thousand years ago, Mesoamerica > >had any inhabitants whatsoever. Where are their tools? Where did they > >expand from? What language did they speak, and why is the language of the > >original monument-builders entirely extinct? > > > > > Wrong. The people living next to many of these "monuments" know > > > relatively nothing about them. > > > >Interesting. Are the obvious depictions of Mayans participating in common > >Mayan activities are simply a coincidence? How do you explain the > >replication of Mesoamerican iconography from permanent (temples) to > >impermanent (pottery) media? > > > > > They just "used" them for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the > > > "priest" class of peons told them to do. > > > >Interpretation of Mesoamerican myth is often touchy: though the stories > >are often bloody, evidence of such large-scale murder is seldom > >forthcoming ... and context is difficult to determine. > > > >Assumptions like that, if applied to the Bible, might lead one to > >believe that Christian communion endorses ritual cannibalism. This is > >obviously not the case ... unless you go to a church much different than > >mine. ;) > > > > > The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing of any calendar, > > > much less how to interpret it. > > > >There is a certain racism inherent in your peculiar Danikenite posture. > >You theorize that savages like the Egyptians and the Mayans could never > >have developed culture on your own; Greece, Rome, and other 'white' > >civilizations, however, remain beyond the touch of your theoretical > >aliens. > > > >Danikenism is the response of a culture clinging to its last pretensions > >of superiority. When faced with irrefutable evidence that other cultures > >were at least as good as yours at doing certain things, you invent aliens > >to bootstrap the 'savages' up. > > > > > They didn't have the math skills or the intelligence after way too much > > > inbreeding. > > > >First: that contention is simply insulting. > > > >Second: Inbreeding typically only occurs when the benefit outweighs > >humanity's inherent incest taboo ... for instance, to keep political power > >'in the family', as it were, or when mating opportunities become limited; > >for instance, during times of famine. Until the Mayan collapse, the > >Mayans had a healthy and active gene pool. There was no pressing reason to > >inbreed. Second, even if you *do* assume that the Mayan leaders were > >inbred, Mayan dynastic structure did not affect the priestly caste -- the > >astronomers and mathematicians of the Mayans ... thus, no information > >would be 'lost' by inbreeding. > > > >In short: if you want to come into an academic discussion, bring academic > >thought. If you want to antagonize people who genuinely appreciate the > >culture you so carelessly denigrate, do exactly what you have just done. > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx Tue Jul 27 17:20:47 1999 From: fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx (Fabian E. Pena Arellano) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 11:20:47 -0600 Subject: Another question on elementary nahuatl. Message-ID: Hello: As far as the books I have in my small library, one cannot know before hand what the plural of a name in nahuatl would be. But I found a translation of the famous "Nica:n Mopohua" with an introduction on which the translator -named Guillermo Ortiz de Montellano- states that during the classical period there were three ways to pluralize a name: 1. with the suffix -me`; which means "a pair": oquichme` "two men", cihua:me` "two women". According to the author, since the duality was a basic concept for the nahuas, it is natural to find in the nahuatl language a way to express "two of a kind". It may come from o:me. 2. with the suffix -tin: more than two of a kind. 3. with the repetition of the first sylable and the suffix -tin; which means "several of a kind of different places". He examplifies with ooquichtin "several men of different places". Since the conquest -he says- the first and third ways to do the plural have been considered to have the same meaning as the second one. Would anyone of you mind answering if you have any information on this matter. Tahnk you in advanced for your attention. Fabian Pena. From campbel at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 17:34:31 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 11:34:31 -0600 Subject: AZ: Ihiyotl Message-ID: Mike, ihiyotl breath, spirit teyolia soul (someone's soul); it is someone's instrument for living te- someone's yoli live -ya instrumental noun suffix On Tue, 27 Jul 1999, mike gaby wrote: > I am also looking for translation for > Ihiyotl and Teyolia (is this one even Nahua?) > Thanks, > Mike Gaby > San Diego From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Tue Jul 27 17:59:33 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 11:59:33 -0600 Subject: AZ: Ihiyotl Message-ID: For a very good study of these terms see Jiull Leslie McKeer Furst, _The Natural History of the Soul in Ancient Mexico_ New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. J. F. Schwaller John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From campbel at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 18:02:33 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 12:02:33 -0600 Subject: Was "ihiyotl"; instrumental suffix Message-ID: Here are some other words with the instrumental suffix "-ya" -- that is, at least, I must have thought so when I marked them. If you catch an error, I consider it a favor to have it pointed out. Joe -ya1 1. *imotlatocaya*. quitlaquentiaya amatica: in intopil, imotlatopil, in inenemia, in imotlatocaya, they arrayed in paper their staves, their stout traveling staves with which they journeyed, with which they traveled. (b.1 f.2 c.19 p.41) 2. *inemactia*. mochi inemactia, many were his gifts. (b.4 f.4 c.9 p.34) 3. *inenemia*. quitlaquentiaya amatica: in intopil, imotlatopil, in inenemia, in imotlatocaya, they arrayed in paper their staves, their stout traveling staves with which they journeyed, with which they traveled. (b.1 f.2 c.19 p.41) 4. *intlahuanaya*. imixpan quihualquetza in intlahuanaya, in itoca xochcomitl, ihuan in intlahuancax, in intetlahuan, in tetlamamaconi, they set up before them that from which they drank, called the flower vessel, and their drinking bowls and wine cups, the serving vessels. (b.4 f.11 c.36 p.118) 5. *iohtlatocaya*. amo quimati in campa huallauh inenca iohtlatocaya: he did not know whence his sustenance, his [provision for] journeying, came. (b.4 f.2 c.6 p.17) 6. *iotlatocaya*. huellaixnextia, inic quitemoa, icochca, ineuhca, in icemilhuitiaya, in iotlatocaya, in inenca, in nencayotl, in nemoani, in nemoaloni, in otlatoconi, he labored industriously to gain sustenance, his daily bread his trail rations, his livelihood, his maintenance, the source of life, the means of living, and provisions for traveling. (b.4 f.12 c.38 p.125) 7. *ipatlania*. anozo michin in mochihuaz, niman iuh moxima in tecolli inic moxincayotia, ihuan motlatlalilia in ipatlania iyomotlan, ihuan in iuh icac icuitlapil, maxaltic: or [if] a fish were to be made, just so was carved the charcoal [and clay core] to give it its scales; and its side fins were formed and its tail stood divided. (b.9 f.6 c.16 p.74) 8. *ipatlania*. huel ye in ipatlania: it is the real place of its flight. (b.11 f.6 c.2 p.55) 9. *ipatlania*. inic mitoa huitzitzilmichi. achi huihuiac in iatlapal, in ipatlania, in itlanelohuaya. it is named uitzitzilmichin, because its fins, its swimmers, its rowers, are somewhat long. (b.11 f.6 c.3 p.58) 10. *ipatlania*. yehuatl ipatlania. this is its flying part. (b.11 f.9 c.5 p.89) 11. *ipatlania*. in itlanyoc itapalcayo ompa ca in huel iiamatlapal, in ipatlania: underneath its shell, from there are its wings, its place of flight. (b.11 f.10 c.5 p.100) 12. *itemoya*. itemoya, . his way of coming down. (b.2 f.14 c.38 p.240) 13. *itlacatocaya*. ayac itlacatocaya, no man name gave they him. (b.4 f.5 c.13 p.51) 14. *itlacoaya*. auh in aoc tle itlacoaya, itech quihuallazaya, in itilmatzin, inic tlacoa, anozo quinamaca itlal, in quihualtzacuia, anozo canah temac motlalia, canah netlacuilli quichihua: and when there was no more of what one could buy things with, one gave up one's precious cape so that he could buy things, or sold his land, which he had enclosed or somewhere placed in another's hands; somewhere he arranged a loan. (b.3 f.1 c.1 p.9) 15. *itlaczaya*. cenca quimahuiztiliaya in itopil, in itlaczaya yiacateuctli: they paid great honor to the cane, to the walking staff, of yiacatecutli. (b.1 f.2 c.19 p.43) 16. *itlaczaya*. itlaczaya imac onoc, otlatopile. his traveling staff was in his hand; he had a stout cane staff. (b.1 f.2 c.19 p.44) 17. *itlahuitequia*. auh inic quiquechpachoa, acipaquitli itlahuitequia, chichiquiltic, tzitziquiltic, huihuitztic, necoc campa in huihuitztic. and they bore down upon her neck with the beak of a swordfish, barbed, serrated, spiny---spiny on either side. (b.2 f.5 c.26 p.94) 18. *teponazoaya*. ceyoal in teponazoaya, in icpac inteocal: all night they played the two-toned drum on the top of their temple. (b.10 f.11 c.29 p.177) 19. *tocochia*. tocochia. our eyelashes. (b.10 f.8 c.27 p.137b) 20. *tometzpitzahuaya*. tometzpitzahuaya. slender part of our thigh. (b.10 f.7 c.27 p.125a) 21. *tonepalehuiaya*. tonepalehuiaya. our helping places. (b.10 f.8 c.27 p.135a) 22. *tonepalehuiaya*. tonepalehuiaya. our helping places. (b.10 f.8 c.27 p.135a) From cberry at cinenet.net Tue Jul 27 18:32:50 1999 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 12:32:50 -0600 Subject: Sensationalizing of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: On Tue, 27 Jul 1999, micc wrote: > Very cogent analysis of the discussion..... > > It can be said that 20th century Germany, japan, Cambodia, Uganda, > Argentina, Chile, China, Rawanda, Serbiaand yes EVEN the U.S. (remember > hiroshima and Nagasaki?) have practiced "human sacrifice".... Again, I insist on greater linguistic/sociological rigor! 'State-sponsored killing' and 'warfare' are not the same thing as 'sacrifice'. Sacrifice is 'to make sacred'. A killing which is a sacrifice is conducted for a specific religious reason, as part of a ritual in which such killing plays a necessary part. Killings motivated by secular goals (winning a war, ridding society of a troublemaker, and the like) are *not* sacrifices. The Nahua are intriguing in part because their concept of warfare partly bridged this gap. Can we agree on this important clarification, and use words in this way? I believe it will help improve the light to heat ratio on the mailing list... -- | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From rude at leland.Stanford.EDU Tue Jul 27 19:20:35 1999 From: rude at leland.Stanford.EDU (Rudiger V. Busto) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 13:20:35 -0600 Subject: Sensationalizing of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: Craig Berry wrote: "...Again, I insist on greater linguistic/sociological rigor! 'State-sponsored killing' and 'warfare' are not the same thing as 'sacrifice'. Sacrifice is 'to make sacred'. A killing which is a sacrifice is conducted for a specific religious reason, as part of a ritual in which such killing plays a necessary part. Killings motivated by secular goals (winning a war, ridding society of a troublemaker, and the like) are *not* sacrifices. ..." But of course, it is arguable that "ethnic cleansing" and genocide are motivated by the idea that the nation or sense of peoplehood is in fact sacred and thus worthy of protection and purification. One has only to scratch beneath the surface of such actions to find the logic of "sacred making" (or defense) in the ideology of nationalisms or ethnocentrisms. Anthony D. Smith's work on how myth and ethnic/nationalist senses of the sacred eloquently speaks to this point. ******************************************************************* Rudy V. Busto Work: 650.723.0465 Assistant Professor Home: 415.552.0257 Religious Studies rude at leland.stanford.edu Stanford University Fax (work): 650.725.1476 Stanford, CA 94305-2165 From karttu at nantucket.net Tue Jul 27 20:29:01 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 14:29:01 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: Concerning tenamaztli as a member of the instrumental -(hu)a:ztli family runs into a problem with respect to vowel length. Using colons here to indicate long vowels, there are: tzo:tzopa:ztli 'weaver's reed' tepona:ztli 'upright drum' tzonhua:ztli 'snare' (Carochi's form of Joe's original tzoaztli) tzicahua:ztli 'comb' ehcahua:ztli 'ladder' mamalhua:ztli 'fire drill' And many more. The vowel of -(hu)a:ztli is long every time. Carochi doesn't give tenamaztli as an example in his grammar, and it doesn't turn up in the Bancroft manuscript. But the reflex of the last vowel is short in the word as it appears in at least three modern dialects: Tetelcingo, Zacapoaxtla, and Xalitla. It looks like it's tenamaztli, not *tenama:ztli. Moreover, if derived from tena:mitl 'wall' one would expect the vowel of the MIDDLE syllable to be long too: *tena:ma:ztli. This important cultural word has always been a mystery to me. Looks like the first syllable te- should refer to the stones that form it, but what, then, is a namaztli? Fran From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Tue Jul 27 21:30:01 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 15:30:01 -0600 Subject: Human sacrifice Message-ID: Dear members, The current thread on sacrifice has now moved to a point relatively far beyond the parameters of the list. If you wish to continue the discussion, which does have merit and which I have found interesting, please do it off-line. I must agree that to call any death by warfare "sacrifice" muddies the term in such a way as to make clear discussion meaningless. It is the over-riding cultural context that must be taken into account, as the friars did when they quickly developed moral plays on the theme of the Sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. J. F. Schwaller, List Owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From RCRAPO at wpo.hass.usu.edu Tue Jul 27 21:46:44 1999 From: RCRAPO at wpo.hass.usu.edu (Richley Crapo) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 15:46:44 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: While we're playing word recognition, does anyone recognize tzopotl as a term for some sp. of animal, possibly a variety of hummingbird? From tezozomoc at std.teradyne.com Tue Jul 27 22:12:04 1999 From: tezozomoc at std.teradyne.com (Tezozomoc) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 16:12:04 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: You might be thinking of this word: We are looking for all occurrences of : tzapo itzapoicpal 1. his sapote leaf seat FC jc-031297 tzapocuahuitl 1. a'rbol de zapote ( zapote tree ) San Miguel Canoa jc->11/5/96 2. sapodilla tree FC -> jc-72895 3. sapodilla tree FC jc-031297 tzapocueye 1. having a sapota-leaf skirt FC -> jc-72895 2. having a sapota-leaf skirt FC jc-031297 tzapotl 1. zapote ( zapote tree ) San Miguel Canoa jc->11/5/96 2. zapote fruit jc-82396 3. zapote fruit jc-07/12/96 morphemes 4. zapote fruit jc-08/22/96 morphemes The other option for this might the interpretation of this: We are looking for all occurrences of : tzopo tetzoponia 1. it pricks one FC -> jc-72895 2. it pricks one FC jc-031297 Root being tzopo- in the same manner as huitzil- is to our current undertanding of huitzillin for humming bird. Here are some examples of hutzil- huitzilatenco 1. southern seashore FC -> jc-72895 2. southern seashore FC jc-031297 quetzalhuitzilin 1. broad-tailed hummingbird FC -> jc-72895 2. broad-tailed hummingbird FC jc-031297 Okay...... draw your own conclusions. Tezozomoc Richley Crapo wrote: > While we're playing word recognition, does anyone recognize tzopotl as a > term for some sp. of animal, possibly a variety of hummingbird? From ECOLING at aol.com Wed Jul 28 13:06:01 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 07:06:01 -0600 Subject: Definition of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: >Sacrifice is 'to make sacred'. A killing which is a >sacrifice is conducted for a specific religious reason, as part of a >ritual in which such killing plays a necessary part. Killings motivated >by secular goals (winning a war, ridding society of a troublemaker, and >the like) are *not* sacrifices. ..." "Sacrifice" as sacri-ficare WAS once "to make sacred", presumably when the term was first coined in Latin, though perhaps not exclusively so for long thereafter, even in Latin. But the MODERN meaning of "human sacrifice" is defined not by you, me or any dictionary, it is defined by how people actually DO use it. (I am a trained linguist, and prescriptivism is to me forbidden.) So empirical evidence of usage is relevant. This is true without claiming to have any definitive insight into what the facts of modern usage are in every detail. Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From micc at home.com Wed Jul 28 16:57:21 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 10:57:21 -0600 Subject: Sensationalizing of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: This is exactly my point, whether it is crouched in "definate" religious ideology, or political ideology, the end result (and psychological basis) is the same..."WE" (the relgious believers or the political/ethnic group) are RIGHT, CHOSEN, or BLESSED (as in maifest destiny???) and therefore have a right to EXTERMIATE the "pagan, communists, heathens, albanians, gypsies, gays, tlaxcaltecas, tarascans, Lakota........ Sometimes Linguistic/sociological rigor can he a nice convenient and antiseptic shile to hide behind when man's "inhumanity" to man is within our filed of vision.... the only difference I see between mesoamerican sacrifice, and modernexteminations is that in mesoamerica, at least the victim was told he or she was dying for the benefit of the universe, where as today's victims are further tortured by the knowledge that it is soley because of who or what they are (in essence BAD) that they must die, sometimes a horribly sadistic death... "Rudiger V. Busto" wrote: > > Craig Berry wrote: > "...Again, I insist on greater linguistic/sociological rigor! > 'State-sponsored killing' and 'warfare' are not the same thing as > 'sacrifice'. Sacrifice is 'to make sacred'. A killing which is a > sacrifice is conducted for a specific religious reason, as part of a > ritual in which such killing plays a necessary part. Killings motivated > by secular goals (winning a war, ridding society of a troublemaker, and > the like) are *not* sacrifices. ..." > > But of course, it is arguable that "ethnic cleansing" and genocide are > motivated by the idea that the nation or sense of peoplehood is in fact > sacred and thus worthy of protection and purification. One has only to > scratch beneath the surface of such actions to find the logic of "sacred > making" (or defense) in the ideology of nationalisms or ethnocentrisms. > Anthony D. Smith's work on how myth and ethnic/nationalist senses of the > sacred eloquently speaks to this point. > > ******************************************************************* > > Rudy V. Busto Work: 650.723.0465 > Assistant Professor Home: 415.552.0257 > Religious Studies rude at leland.stanford.edu > Stanford University Fax (work): 650.725.1476 > Stanford, CA 94305-2165 > > From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Wed Jul 28 17:12:26 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 11:12:26 -0600 Subject: Sacrifice Message-ID: Dear List members, Again. I think that the current thread has gone rather far beyond the bounds of this particular list. If you wish to continue the discussion, please do so offline, that is directly among yourselves. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. J. F. Schwaller, List Owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From dfrye at umich.edu Wed Jul 28 18:12:13 1999 From: dfrye at umich.edu (David L. Frye) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 12:12:13 -0600 Subject: tzopotl? Message-ID: > You might be thinking of this word: tzapo In English this is 'sapodilla,' though I think the Spanish 'zapote' is gaining ground. Also the origin of 'Zapotec' (Spanish Zapoteco from Nahuatl tzapotecah; pl. of tzapotecatl [person from Tzapotlan] from Tzapotlan [place name] tzapotl [sapodilla] tlan [place]). But I wonder if you aren't thinking of the word for 'buzzard' -- zopilote in Mexican Spanish, probably tzopilotl in Nahuatl? From muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com Thu Jul 29 00:12:30 1999 From: muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com (Roberto Tirado) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 18:12:30 -0600 Subject: @ballcourts@ Message-ID: >Roberto, > >What do you mean by "...a similar one played by native americans." ? > >Are you referring to Mississippian societies' chunkey? >---- Michael, thanks for responding . the game played by the native americans i was referring to was one that was mentioned to me by a friend awhile ago. it so happened that she told me about a find ( or possibly many finds ) in north america of structures very much resembling the typical 'I' layout of mesoamerican ballcourts. in the said article it was supposed that the native peoples also shared the same ballgame as the peoples to the south. unfortunately my friend already forgot which article it was and where she saw it. Basically my interests is in the surface itself ! i want to know what it looked like , how it was painted and decorated... i want to utilize it for some personal murals and such. ? what's 'chunkey' by the way ? tell me some about it. thank you . RobertO >Best, > >Michael > >On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Roberto Tirado wrote: > > > > > > > greetings to the group. > > > > i was wondering if anyone knows about books or articles concerning the > > 'ballgame' played by mesoamerican societies and also a similar one >played by > > native americans . > > > > i am looking for books with pictorial representations of the symbols >and > > decorations of the ballcourt surface itself. Also useful to me would be > > detailed descriptions of the equipment used, and the varieties of rules >and > > playing styles. > > > > *thank you* > > > > > > _______________________________________________________________ > > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com > > > > >Michael McCafferty >C.E.L.T. >307 Memorial Hall >Indiana University >Bloomington, Indiana >47405 >mmccaffe at indiana.edu > >******************************************************************************* >"Glory" (what a word!) consists in going >from the me that others don't know >to the other me that I don't know. > >-Juan Ramon Jimenez > >******************************************************************************* > > _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Thu Jul 29 13:00:39 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 07:00:39 -0600 Subject: @ballcourts@ Message-ID: The American Indian cultures known to archaeologists as "Mississippian," which began to appear around 800 AD, some of which were still active when the Spanish arrived in the 1500's, are thought to have been influenced by *maybe* the Huastecs. There is, as yet, no definitive connection between Mississippian and high Mexican cultures, but there are so many parallel develpments--flat top pyramids, iconography, corn-based agriculture, etc., etc.,--which appear to have spread north into the Mississippi Valley from Mexico. The Mississippians played a game called "chunkey." If you go to your library, you can probably find descriptions of this game there. In essence, a large rectangular area (about the size of a soccer field or larger) was delineated and specially prepared with a puddled clay surface. The object of the game, which was ostensibly a "hunter's" game, was for one person to roll a "chunkey stone," which is a small, specially prepared stone disk that looks alot like a modern ice hockey puck, down the field at what ever rate of speed he chose. The other contestants, each equipped with a spear, then threw their spears at distant points where each thought the chunkey stone was going to land. That's basically how it worked. I've never heard of any paintings decorating the surface of the chunkey playing field. Michael On Wed, 28 Jul 1999, Roberto Tirado wrote: > > > >Roberto, > > > >What do you mean by "...a similar one played by native americans." ? > > > >Are you referring to Mississippian societies' chunkey? > >---- Michael, > thanks for responding . > the game played by the native americans i was referring to was one that > was mentioned to me by a friend awhile ago. > it so happened that she told me about a find ( or possibly many finds ) in > north america of structures very much resembling the typical 'I' layout of > mesoamerican ballcourts. in the said article it was supposed that the native > peoples also shared the same ballgame as the peoples to the south. > unfortunately my friend already forgot which article it was and where she > saw it. > Basically my interests is in the surface itself ! i want to know what it > looked like , how it was painted and decorated... i want to utilize it for > some personal murals and such. > > ? what's 'chunkey' by the way ? tell me some about it. > > thank you . RobertO > >Best, > > > >Michael > > > >On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Roberto Tirado wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > greetings to the group. > > > > > > i was wondering if anyone knows about books or articles concerning the > > > 'ballgame' played by mesoamerican societies and also a similar one > >played by > > > native americans . > > > > > > i am looking for books with pictorial representations of the symbols > >and > > > decorations of the ballcourt surface itself. Also useful to me would be > > > detailed descriptions of the equipment used, and the varieties of rules > >and > > > playing styles. > > > > > > *thank you* > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________________________ > > > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com > > > > > > > > >Michael McCafferty > >C.E.L.T. > >307 Memorial Hall > >Indiana University > >Bloomington, Indiana > >47405 > >mmccaffe at indiana.edu > > > >******************************************************************************* > >"Glory" (what a word!) consists in going > >from the me that others don't know > >to the other me that I don't know. > > > >-Juan Ramon Jimenez > > > >******************************************************************************* > > > > > > > _______________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com > Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* From mictlan at hooked.net Thu Jul 29 17:46:32 1999 From: mictlan at hooked.net (mictlacihuatl) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 11:46:32 -0600 Subject: Question on "cihuayotl" Message-ID: Hello all, I have heard the correct spelling for "woman/female warrior" is cihuayotl (combining cihuatl and yaotl together) I was wondering if this is correct and if not, could someone point me in the right direction? Tlazocamati. From liedo at stones.com Thu Jul 29 17:49:38 1999 From: liedo at stones.com (Horacio Liedo) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 11:49:38 -0600 Subject: PEPETL FUN Message-ID: PEPITO EN OTRA EPOCA. Nos hallamos en la Epoca de los Aztecas. En ese tiempo Pepito se llamaba Pepetl. La maestra del calpulli estaba dictando en nahuat-l clasico, y los ninos grababan en la piedra los correspondientes jeroglificos. "Moctezuma -empieza a dictar la maestra- es nuestro emperador". Los ninos esculpen el signo de la realeza, un penacho. Prosigue la maestra: "Es un monarca muy rico". Los ninos graban figuras de plumas, adornos de jade y semillas de cacao. "Tiene muchas esposas" sigue dictando la maestra. Los escolapios cincelan peque�as figuras femeninas. "Pero, sobre todo -dicta la profesora-, Moctezuma es un guerrero muy valiente". "Perdone maestra -la interrumpe Pepetl-. 'Muy valiente' ? se escribe con tres huevos o con cuatro?"... From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Thu Jul 29 20:58:04 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 14:58:04 -0600 Subject: Common error Message-ID: Several people have had difficulty unsubscribing to the list. The most common error is to include something other than the magic words: unsub nahuat-l That MUST be sent to: listproc at server.umt.edu Not the regular Nahuat-l address That is the entire message. If you put anything else, it will come back as an error. Examples of what not to do: unsub nahuat-l Emiliano Zapata [Emiliano Zapata is not a command the software recognizes] unsub nahuat-l emiliano at amaltepec.com [Again, emiliano at amaltepec.com is not a command the software recognizes] J. F. Schwaller, List Owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx Fri Jul 30 16:46:36 1999 From: fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx (Fabian E. Pena Arellano) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 10:46:36 -0600 Subject: What is "weak consonance (consonancia debil)"? Message-ID: Hello, It seems that my last couple of questions have not been of interest for the people of the list. Anyway, I have another question. This is about the coining of names using verbs. According to Michel Launey, to form a name with the verbs of "weak consonance (consonancia debil)", the verbs must be writen on base two to add the suffix -tl(i). What does "weak consonance" mean? Thank you, Fabian Pena. From mdmorris at indiana.edu Sat Jul 31 00:39:22 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 18:39:22 -0600 Subject: Colonial Nahuatl Documents Message-ID: Neteros, In an earlier posting, I included a catalog of Nahuatl documents of the 17th-century held by the Archivo General del Estado de Tlaxcala (AGET) and mentioned that occasionally other documents continue to surface. I lied. The region is teeming with Nahuatl records held by the local churches, and if you do research in Mexico you understand why those documents have remained anonymous. Between Luis Reyes Garcia, AGET and the pressures of urbanization, a project has been developing where AGET works cooperatively with communities to organize and maintain their history. The current director of AGET, maestra Glafira Magana Perales, also has had the creative insight to develop a project of digitizing, or scanning, the contents of these local archives, and then making them available to the global scholarly community in an effort to promote Tlaxcala's history. This project is going forward with the support of the state government. I'm writing to inquire what interest there might be in CDs loaded with colonial Nahuatl documents, to try to gauge if this would be something to market at the high end to institutions or if there would be a large demand for the product. I will post a sample page at a web address this weekend for those who would like to see the quality of the scanning. Sincerely, Mark Morris, graduate student, history, Indiana Univ. From Amapohuani at aol.com Sat Jul 31 04:40:38 1999 From: Amapohuani at aol.com (Amapohuani at aol.com) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 22:40:38 -0600 Subject: Colonial Nahuatl Documents (Tlaxcallan) Message-ID: Mark Morris: Deeply appreciative of your info re the Tlaxcallan documents. Count me in as an interested party. The only difficulty might be financial but the project as you describe it is a wonderful contribution. My sincerest regards to all the people and institutions you mentioned in your posting. Ye ixquich. Barry D. Sell From bmills at comdistec.com Sat Jul 31 17:55:08 1999 From: bmills at comdistec.com (bmills at comdistec.com) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 11:55:08 -0600 Subject: Common error Message-ID: Fritz, I recently subscribed to nahuat-l, and I notice that the instructions for unsubscribing which were sent to me said to use "unsubscribe nahuat-l" rather than "unsub nahuat-l". Perhaps this could be adding to the confusion. By the way, I took a Nahuatl class from you at Indiana University, many years ago. I keep in touch with Joe Campbell in Bloomington. Bill Mills On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, John F. Schwaller wrote: > Several people have had difficulty unsubscribing to the list. The most > common error is to include something other than the magic words: > unsub nahuat-l > > That MUST be sent to: > listproc at server.umt.edu > Not the regular Nahuat-l address > > That is the entire message. If you put anything else, it will come back as > an error. Examples of what not to do: > > unsub nahuat-l Emiliano Zapata > [Emiliano Zapata is not a command the software recognizes] > > unsub nahuat-l emiliano at amaltepec.com > [Again, emiliano at amaltepec.com is not a command the software recognizes] > > J. F. Schwaller, List Owner > > > John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu > Associate Provost 406-243-4722 > The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 > http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ > From karttu at nantucket.net Thu Jul 1 00:38:01 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 18:38:01 -0600 Subject: New Testament in Classical Nahuatl. Message-ID: > Some days ago I read on the web that in 1833 someone translated >Bible's New Testament into classical nahuatl. I wrote the people in charge >of those pages (one of Nance's profiles) but don't know about it. > Does anyone of you know if it is still on print? Thank you. > > > Fabian Pena The place to look up something like this is in Volume II of Ascensi=F3n H. d= e Le=F3n-Portilla's Tepuztlahcuilolli: Impresos en n=E1huatl. On p. 138, entry 947, is "El Evangelio de San Lucas del lat=EDn a mexicano o mejor n=E1huatl. Londres, Samuel Bagster, ed., 1933, 139 p." It's not likely to still be in print. But if you look into the index of Tepuztlahcuilolli, you will find under "Biblia, traducciones al n=E1huatl. Del Nuevo Testmento" over 75 entries. Most of them are for parts of the New Testament published in Nahuatl in this century. From rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au Thu Jul 1 01:56:17 1999 From: rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au (Accounts Clerk) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 19:56:17 -0600 Subject: R: Teoti:-hua-0-ca:-n Message-ID: >Try and translate English placenames... Why should there be consistency in this case? > G'day Henry I'd like to think that Nahuatl is a lot more consistent than English. English is a language that has a hundred exceptions to every rule. :) Russell From rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au Thu Jul 1 02:10:06 1999 From: rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au (Accounts Clerk) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 20:10:06 -0600 Subject: Teoti:-hua-0-ca:-n Message-ID: G'day Antonio >"The place where gods make themselves (from the impersonal of teoti, "to >become a god")". This translation "gods make themselves" would suggest that a noun-ified verb is possible, perhaps a "self creator" or just a "creator" or a "god maker". How does "place of the creators" sound? > e.g. from >com(itl)-chihua, "to make pottery", we have "con-chiuh-can", "place where >they make pottery". In this case, no doubt that "ciuh-" is the root of a >verb "to make" with incorporate object. This example contains a preterite agentive noun: con-chi:uh-0-ca:-n - a place where one makes pottery, a craftsman's shop. Russell From rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au Thu Jul 1 02:23:41 1999 From: rcoleman at library.uwa.edu.au (Accounts Clerk) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 20:23:41 -0600 Subject: locative suffix -n Message-ID: >>I have no definite answer to you on this matter (incidentally, I wonder if someone >>"wiser" in the list could be of some help in elucidating this point also to me); Unfortunately, those "someone wiser" are not forthcoming. Joe Campbell is probably thinking this is another stock market low point :) :) :). In their absence I post the following information from Andrews: Locative Suffix -N ================== The locative suffix -n meaning "place" is used to create locative nouns. There are 2 formations: 1) -n suffixed to ca:tl ------------------------ a) Preterite Agentive Noun Stem + -N e.g. Class A: mich-namaca-0-ca:-n i.e. a place where one sells fish, a fish market. e.g. Class B: tla-chi:uh-0-ca:-n i.e. a place where one makes something, a craftsman's shop. b) -N suffixed to ya: Meaning a place of customary activity. e.g. tla-namac-o:-ya:-n-0 i.e. a place where things are customarily sold, a market. e.g. cochi-hua-ya:-n-0 i.e. a place where people customarily sleep, a bedroom. 2) Other Uses ---------------- ca:n = what place is it? Where is it? ahca:n = It is no place, it is nowhere. onca:n = that place, there. cualca:n = a good place. miecca:n = many places. From mdmorris at indiana.edu Thu Jul 1 02:47:57 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 20:47:57 -0600 Subject: Teoti:-hua-0-ca:-n Message-ID: Russell, quemolpanolti mahuiztlacatl, It looks like you are making a lot of progress with puzzling out Nahuatl grammar. I'm not quite sure on what you base your arguments, so it is difficult for me to try to do more than say, "I think that's wrong," which wouldn't be helpful because it seems like you're trying to get to general rules, not whether Teotihuacan is more a noun than a verb. Are you working from Andrews? If you are, it would help at least for myself to engage with you if you clarified from where your assertions are coming. Grammar is by far not my strong point and so these sort of opaque references just make it more difficult for me to puzzle out at what you're getting, and it looks like you're stuck with me for awhile because R. Joe Campbell is on vacation. Mark Morris From karttu at nantucket.net Thu Jul 1 12:08:05 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 06:08:05 -0600 Subject: To Russell Message-ID: Russell, I am going to answer your personal email to me, posting my answer to the whole list. Then I'm bowing out. I've been following your many postings, and I haven't anything to add. To reiterate and expand on what I wrote to you in response to your private email to me some time ago: IF the place name were Teohuahcan, it would be perfectly transparent as 'place where people possess gods' (like Michoacan/michhuahca:n). Since Teotihuacan includes a huge ceremonial center, that makes sense. But, as I said before, there is the -ti-. From the verb teoti- 'to be or become a god, one would get teotiyan (teo:tiya:n) 'place where becoming a god/gods customarily or habitually takes place.' This is also consonant with mythology surrounding Teotihuacan. In this derivation the ti- is ok but the hua(h?)- becomes a problem. The only possibility is to take Launey's approach and say that the derivation is from the nonactive form of the verb teoti-, which gives you teotihua- (with vowel length marked: teo:ti:hua-). All nonactives being Class A, the active stem and the preterite stem are identical. The preterite stem with the preterit suffix can be used much in the same way as a participle can be in English or Spanish, that is it can function like an adjective or a noun: as when in English we refer to 'the beloved departed'. The preterite stem without the preterite suffix (-c for Class A) can be used in further nominal derivations. (This is how you get michnamaca- with -ca:n.) I regret using the term 'noun-ified' in my original note to you, because the proper terminology is "nominalized." I think the reason you are not getting responses to your speculations is that people are tired out by your postings. As one of the listeros has already said to you, placenames (in ALL languages, not just English) are very given to exceptions. Often they are morphologically opaque. This is sometimes because the name has passed through a couple of languages and been reinterpreted or "folk-etymologized." Preoccupation with individual words in Nahuatl and with place names in particular is not likely to get continual reinforcement from the linguists who look in on Nahuat-L. As I said to you long ago, one cannot learn a language word-by-word, and you do not have the right to demand that anyone teach you a language that way or any other way by email. You say you are now trying to understand processes, but you are still trying to approach these processes one word at a time. You drove me completely off Nahuat-L for a long time soon after you came on, and now you are at it again, feeling that you have the perfect right to publicly and privately demand attention. Please lay off the relentless pursuit of threads that are not eliciting the responses you want. Joe is very generous with his expertise, but he has a life and work of his own, you know. Fran From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Thu Jul 1 12:33:34 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 06:33:34 -0600 Subject: To Russell Message-ID: Re: Frances Kartunnen's note below: > I think the reason you are not getting responses to your speculations is > that people are tired out by your postings. I disagree. I believe the reason has more to do with the absolutely speculative nature of Russell's place-name. As one of the listeros has > already said to you, placenames (in ALL languages, not just English) are > very given to exceptions. Often they are morphologically opaque. This is > sometimes because the name has passed through a couple of languages and > been reinterpreted or "folk-etymologized." > Quite true. > Preoccupation with individual words in Nahuatl and with place names in > particular is not likely to get continual reinforcement from the linguists > who look in on Nahuat-L. Again, I disagree. Moreover, it's not as if this list is over-heating with messages. As I said to you long ago, one cannot learn a > language word-by-word, and you do not have the right to demand that anyone > teach you a language that way or any other way by email. I don't think this is what Russell has been asking. As far as I can tell from his messages to the list and our personal communication, he has had a legitimate desire to understand the place-name "Teotihuacan." You say you are > now trying to understand processes, but you are still trying to approach > these processes one word at a time. He seems to be only interested in *one word*. > > You drove me completely off Nahuat-L for a long time soon after you came > on, and now you are at it again, feeling that you have the perfect right to > publicly and privately demand attention. > I shall not respond to this. > Please lay off the relentless pursuit of threads that are not eliciting the > responses you want. Joe is very generous with his expertise, but he has a > life and work of his own, you know. > I responded personally to Russell concerning Joe and I believe he got the message (at least, it was returned to me as "undeliverable. :) Michael From mikegaby at hotmail.com Thu Jul 1 13:33:50 1999 From: mikegaby at hotmail.com (mike gaby) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 07:33:50 -0600 Subject: Az: Question regarding Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca... Message-ID: Fran, what of the Palenque Triad? Mike >From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) >Reply-To: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu >To: Multiple recipients of list >Subject: Re: Az: Question regarding Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca... >Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 04:59:33 -0600 > > >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > >Listeros, > > > > Mulling over god triads in ancient Mesoamerica while visiting a > >temple supposedly dedicated to Tezcatlipoca at Teopanzolco (in > >Cuernavaca), > > > >Jorge Perez de Lara > >Mexico > > > >jorgepl at infosel.net.mx > >Dear Jorge, > >I can't answer your specific questions, but I'd like to point out that a >triad of anything would be decidedly un-Mesoamerican. The Aztec world, >sharing in the Mesoamerican cosmovision, was a cognitive world pervaded by >2s (the duality expressed by pairs uch as Ometeotl/Omecihuatl) and 4s (the >quadripartite nature of just about everything). > >Fran > > _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Thu Jul 1 14:20:21 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 08:20:21 -0600 Subject: To Russell Message-ID: Mahuizlisterotzitzintin > > Preoccupation with individual words in Nahuatl and with place names in > > particular is not likely to get continual reinforcement from the linguists > > who look in on Nahuat-L. > > Again, I disagree. Moreover, it's not as if this list is over-heating > with messages. Ke:mah! It's not been very busy on here lately. Individual words can of course be a valuable source of data. Place names are in many ways especially valuable because in them a part of the history of the place is encoded. Likewise, place names and personal names lead a life of their own in many languages and should get attention as a specialized but integral part of language. That doesn't necessarily mean that one has to be obsessed with cracking the secrets in "Teotihuacan" (just look at how modern Mexicans pronounce and reinterpret Nahuatl names: like Cuerna-vaca, ay que caray; in a very similar fashion may Nahuas have reinterpreted previous place names, you can bet). > > As I said to you long ago, one cannot learn a > > language word-by-word, and you do not have the right to demand that anyone > > teach you a language that way or any other way by email. > > I don't think this is what Russell has been asking. As far as I can tell > from his messages to the list and our personal communication, he has had a > legitimate desire to understand the place-name "Teotihuacan." The analysis of words and phrases should be done thoroughly and it is a good exercise to do that in depth. A page of in-depth text analysis will yield better results for the student as well as for the data to be extracted than just browsing through piles of text in a sloppy manner, generally spoken. If place names should be the first in line (especially *that* name!) is another question. It's fun to etymologize when you are in Mexico, but beware, even a scholarly eye can be tricked into some odd folk etymology. What really bothers me is this overall striving for consistency. What we do with Nahuatl grammar is what the logician would call "subsumption". Even though we have a fairly good understanding of Nahuatl, it would be a mistake to try and mold every little bit of contradiction into our predefined inventory of terms, just ironing any unevenness out. A language has intrinsic dynamics that we cannot fully describe if we simply stick to what others before us have established, however useful that may be. We have not cracked all secrets of our own mother tongues so why should it be the case with Nahuatl? Exceptions to established rules are very good pointers to other grammatical or semantic categories that either have vanished or are just in a germ state. They can reflect (aberrant) social uses of the languages right down to the very idiosyncrasies. As long as we find indicators for that any group of people actually did communicate that "abberrantly" then there is something there for linguists to describe (if not explain). We find that in spoken contemporary Nahuatl dialects as well in this whole range of historical written sources and if there are things that cannot be easily accounted for so far (Like Teo -ti- huacan) then this is our perfect playground and this is what fascinates at least me about language. just my two centavos, cuates Henry PS: anybody among those interested in place names found out what Cuitlahuac is all about? But I don't wanna bore anybody... From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Thu Jul 1 16:48:51 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 10:48:51 -0600 Subject: Digibis CD-ROM Message-ID: La Fundaci=F3n Hist=F3rica Tavera, dentro de la Colecci=F3n Cl=E1sicos= Tavera, ha publicado en CD-Rom: =20 OBRAS CL=C1SICAS SOBRE LA LENGUA N=C1HUATL [CD-Rom]. Compilaci=F3n de= Ascensi=F3n Hern=E1ndez de Le=F3n-Portilla. Colecci=F3n =93Cl=E1sicos Tavera=94. Serie= IX: Fuentes Ling=FC=EDsticas Ind=EDgenas. Volumen 8. N=FAmero 16. Madrid. Fundaci=F3n= Hist=F3rica Tavera y Digibis. 1998. =20 Obras cl=E1sicas sobre la lengua N=E1huatl forma parte de un amplio= proyecto, la =93Colecci=F3n Cl=E1sicos Tavera=94, cuyo objetivo es la edici=F3n en= CD-Rom de las obras m=E1s relevantes para el conocimiento del pasado de los pa=EDses,= regiones y ciudades de Am=E9rica Latina, Espa=F1a, Portugal y Filipinas, as=ED como= de ciertos temas monogr=E1ficos relacionados con esas mismas =E1reas= geogr=E1ficas. El n=FAmero 16 contiene una selecci=F3n de textos (36 libros sobre artes, vocabularios, doctrinas, confesionarios, manuales de sacramento, otros libros de tema religioso y antigua palabra, con unas 10.000 p=E1ginas aproximadamente) compilados por la Dra. Ascensi=F3n Hern=E1ndez de Le=F3n Portilla, y una amplia y bien concebida introducci=F3n en la que se explica= el por qu=E9 de la elecci=F3n y se revisa brevemente lo que se sabe sobre la= lengua n=E1huatl y la importancia que dichos textos tienen para su estudio. =20 Las obras han sido digitalizadas en edici=F3n facsimilar. El manejo y= consulta del CD-Rom es sencillo, no obstante, cuenta con una buena gu=EDa de ayuda,= un sumario general en el que se detallan los contenidos y a trav=E9s del que= es posible realizar b=FAsquedas por distintos campos (uno a uno o varios a la vez): autor, t=EDtulo, palabras clave, y una ficha independiente para cada= uno de los textos en la que, aparte de sus caracter=EDsticas, se incluye un= =EDndice que permite b=FAsquedas similares a las del sumario general. =20 El sistema ofrece distintos tipos de visualizaci=F3n (zoom, rotaci=F3n e inversi=F3n de imagen, modificaci=F3n de los niveles de contraste), y= permite seleccionar partes del contenido y guardarlas en cualquier otro soporte magn=E9tico e imprimirlas con una calidad muy superior a la de una= fotocopia convencional. En definitiva, la edici=F3n digital pone a disposici=F3n del investigador un acceso integral y sencillo a la documentaci=F3n. =20 A continuaci=F3n detallamos en contenido del CD-Rom. =20 =CDndice de la obra: =20 ALDAMA y GUEVARA, Jos=E9 Agust=EDn (1754): Arte de la lengua mexicana.= M=E9xico. Imprenta de la Lengua mexicana. =20 ALVA, Bartolom=E9 de (1634): Confessionario mayor y menor de la lengua mexicana: y pl=E1ticas contra las supersticiones de idolatr=EDa... M=E9xico= . Francisco S=E1lbago. =20 AQUINO CORT=C9S Y CEDE=D1O, Ger=F3nymo Thom=E1s de (1765): Arte,= vocabulario y confessionario en el idioma mexicano: c=F3mo se usa el en Obispado de Guadalajara. Puebla de los =C1ngeles (M=E9xico). Imprenta del Colegio Real= de San Ignacio de Puebla de los =C1ngeles. =20 ARENAS, Pedro de (1611): Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana. M=E9xico. Henrico Mart=EDnez. =20 BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1600): Advertencias para los confessores de los naturales... (2 vol=FAmenes). Tlatilulco - Convento de Santiago de= Tlatilulco. M. Ocharte. =20 BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1600): Huehuetlahtolli: que contiene las pl=E1ticas.= . Tlatilulco. Convento de Santiago de Tlatilulco. =20 BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1606): A Iesu Christo S.N. ofrece este sermonario en lengua mexicana. M=E9xico. Casa de Diego L=F3pez D=E1valos. =20 CARCHI, Horacio (1645): Arte de la lengua mexicana con la declaraci=F3n de= los adverbios della. M=E9xico. Juan Ruyz. =20 Doctirna christiana en lengua espa=F1ola y mexicana: hecha por los= religiosos de la Orden de Santiago (1548). M=E9xico. Casa de Juan Pablos. =20 GALDO GUZM=C1N, (Fray) Diego de (1642): Arte mexicano. M=E9xico. Viuda de Bernardo Calder=F3n. =20 GANTE, (Fray) Pedro (1553): Doctrina Christiana en lengua mexicana. M=E9xic= o. Casa de Juan Pablos. =20 GAONA, (Fray) Juan de (1582): Colloquios de la paz y tranquilidad christiana, en lengua mexicana. M=E9xico. Casa de Juan Plablos. =20 GARC=CDA ICAZBALCETA, Joaqu=EDn (1889): Nueva colecci=F3n de documentos= para la historia de M=E9xico (2 vol=FAmenes). M=E9xico. Antigua Librer=EDa de= Andrade y Morales, Sucesores, Tomo I (C=F3dice Franciscano, siglo XVI). =20 GUERRA, (Fray) Juan (1692): Arte de la lengua mexicana: que fue usual entre los indios del Obispado de Guadalajara y de parte de los de Durango y Michoac=E1n. Guadalajara. Viuda de Francisco Rodr=EDguez Lupericio. =20 GUERRA, (Fray) Juan (1900): Arte de la lengua mexicana: que fue usual entre los indios del Obispado de Guadalajara y de parte de los de Durango y Michoac=E1n. Guadalajara. Alberto Santoscoy. =20 LASSO DE LA VEGA, Luis (1649): Huei tlamahvi=E7oltica omonexiti in Ilhuicac Tlatoca Cichuapilli... M=E9xico. Imprenta Iuan Ruyz. =20 LE=D3N, (Fray) Mart=EDn de (1611): Camino del cielo en lengua mexicana... M=E9xico. Imprenta de Diego L=F3pez D=E1valos. =20 MIJANGOS, Fray Juan de (1607): Espejo divino en lengua mexicana en que pueden verse los Padres y tomar documento para acercar a adoptrinar bien a sus hijos, y aficionallos a las virtudes. M=E9xico. Imprenta de Diego L=F3p= ez D=E1valos. =20 MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1555): Aqu=ED comien=E7a un vocubalario en la= lengua castellana y mexicana. M=E9xico. Casa de Juan Pablos. =20 MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1565): Confessionario breve en lengua mexicana y castellana. M=E9xico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. =20 MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1565): Confessionario Mayor en lengua mexicana y castellana. M=E9xico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. =20 MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1571): Arte de la lengua mexicana y castellana. M=E9xico. Casa de Pedro Ocharte. =20 MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1571): Vocabulario en lengua mexicana y castellana. M=E9xico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. =20 OLMOS, (Fray) Ignacio de (1547): Arte de la lengua mexicana. [S.l.].= [S.n.]. =20 PAREDES, Ignacio de (1759): Promptuario manual mexicano. M=E9xico. Imprenta= de la Biblioteca Mexicana. =20 P=C9REZ, (Fray) Manuel (1713): Arte del idioma mexicano. M=E9xico.= Francisco Rivera Calder=F3n. =20 P=C9REZ, (Fray) Manuel (1713): Farol indiano y gu=EDa de curas de indios... M=E9xico. Francisco Rivera Calder=F3n. =20 RINC=D3N, Antonio del (1595): Arte mexicana. Casa de Pedro Balli. =20 RIPALDA, Ger=F3nymo de (1758): Catecismo mexicano que contiene toda la doctrina christiana... M=E9xico. Imprenta de la Biblioteca Mexicana. =20 SAAVEDRA, (Fray) Marcos de (1746): Confessionario breve activo y pasivo en lengua mexicana... M=E9xico. Imprenta Real del Superior Gobierno, del Nuevo Rezado, de Do=F1a Mar=EDa de Rivera. =20 SAENZ DE LA PE=D1A, Andr=E9s (1642): Manual de los Santos Sacramentos...= M=E9xico. Francisco Robledo. =20 SAHAG=DAN, (Fray) Bernardino de (1583): Psalmodia Christiana y Sermonario= de los Sanctos del A=F1o, en lengua mexicana. M=E9xico. Con licencia en Casa= de Pedro Ocharte. =20 SANDOVAL, Rafael (1888): Arte de la lengua mexicana. Ram=F3n Garc=EDa Raya. =20 TAPIA CENTENO, Carlos de (1753): Arte novissima de lengua mexicana... M=E9xico. Viuda de Joseph Bernardo de Hogal. =20 V=C1ZQUEZ GATELU, Antonio (1689): Arte de Lengua Mexicana. [S.l.].= Fern=E1ndez de Le=F3n =20 VETANCOURT, (Fray) Agust=EDn (1673): Arte de lengua mexicana... M=E9xico. Francisco Rodr=EDguez Lupericio. =20 Para cualquier informaci=F3n acerca de la obra o para adquirir el CD-Rom contactar con Pilar Ruiz: pilar.ruiz at digibis.com Ver tambi=E9n la p=E1gina web: http://www.digibis.com From clayton at indiana.edu Thu Jul 1 16:51:55 1999 From: clayton at indiana.edu (Mary Clayton) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 10:51:55 -0600 Subject: To Russell Message-ID: Hi All, > Joe is very generous with his expertise, but he has a > life and work of his own, you know. Actually, whether Joe has a life 'of his own' as apart from 'work of his own' is open to question. [I consider myself the expert here. We're married.] As most of you know, Joe is a teacher to his very soul, and loves nothing more than providing instruction and information whenever he can. Whether he would have anything to say about teotihuacan, I don't know. [I read his mind, but not *all* the time.] In any case, as Michael pointed out, Joe is presently out of town--not exactly on vacation, he's visiting his mother, [Actually, I'm out of town also, but I have the computer with the modem, he doesn't] so he is missing all of this. Actually, I didn't consider Russell's reference to Joe to be critical but rather just jocular. In any case, I think Henry makes a couple of good points both in favoring in-depth analysis of words and in expressing caution about giving place names too high a priority in this study: >The analysis of words and phrases should be done thoroughly and it is >a good exercise to do that in depth. A page of in-depth text analysis >will yield better results for the student as well as for the data to >be extracted than just browsing through piles of text in a sloppy >manner, generally spoken. If place names should be the first in line >(especially *that* name!) is another question Henry's other major point [quoted below] is also well-taken, and I think it gets to the heart of what is troubling Russell. When one looks at one's own language, he *knows* where the fuzzy spots are, what doesn't 'fit the rules' etc. In a foreign language (and as Andrews puts it, a 'strangely foreign' language) it is hard to know when one has hit a real rough spot and when one's own knowledge just isn't yet up to the job at hand. Therefore, I think the questions being raised are interesting, and worth worrying, though in the end I'm pessimistic about there being a clear solution. But if one sees the learning process itself as the goal, then surely this is a useful exercise. >What really bothers me is this overall striving for consistency. What >we do with Nahuatl grammar is what the logician would call >"subsumption". Even though we have a fairly good understanding of >Nahuatl, it would be a mistake to try and mold every little bit of >contradiction into our predefined inventory of terms, just ironing any >unevenness out. A language has intrinsic dynamics that we cannot fully >describe if we simply stick to what others before us have established, >however useful that may be. We have not cracked all secrets of our own >mother tongues so why should it be the case with Nahuatl? Exceptions >to established rules are very good pointers to other grammatical or >semantic categories that either have vanished or are just in a germ >state. They can reflect (aberrant) social uses of the languages right >down to the very idiosyncrasies. As long as we find indicators for >that any group of people actually did communicate that "abberrantly" >then there is something there for linguists to describe (if not >explain). We find that in spoken contemporary Nahuatl dialects as well >in this whole range of historical written sources and if there are >things that cannot be easily accounted for so far (Like Teo -ti- >huacan) then this is our perfect playground and this is what >fascinates at least me about language. Sending greetings from the LSA Institute in Champaign/Urbana -- and if you think Nahuatl is 'strangely foreign', you should see Ahousat, being taught here by Emmon Bach and Katie Fraser. It not only has the voiceless laterally released affricate (tl) of Nahuatl, it has a *glottalized* one also, plus glottalized counterparts of 10 other consonants, but no 'ordinary' /b d g r l/ Mary From karttu at nantucket.net Thu Jul 1 18:00:18 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 12:00:18 -0600 Subject: Az: Question regarding Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca... Message-ID: >Fran, >what of the Palenque Triad? >Mike > I really don't know. Most Maya stuff as well as Central Mexican goes by 2s and 4s. From alpha at selway.umt.edu Thu Jul 1 18:14:06 1999 From: alpha at selway.umt.edu (Alicia Gignoux) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 12:14:06 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: Does anyone know what type of food (plant? herb?) this is? Thanks Alicia Gignoux alpha at selway.umt.edu From carlos.trenary at vanderbilt.edu Thu Jul 1 19:23:03 1999 From: carlos.trenary at vanderbilt.edu (Carlos Trenary) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 13:23:03 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: At 12:16 PM 7/1/99 -0600, you wrote: >Does anyone know what type of food (plant? herb?) >this is? >Thanks >Alicia Gignoux >alpha at selway.umt.edu Maximo Martinez reports three different plants know as xoconoztle: 1) Lemaireocereus stellatus (Pfeiffer) Britt et. Rose,- Cactaceae 2) Pereskiopsis Blakeana G. Ortega,- Cactaceae 3) Pereskiopsis Porteri (Barns.) Britt et Rose,- Cactaceae Number three is reported as edible. Carlos Trenary Lab= 615-322-6950 Vanderbilt University Direct= 615-322-7511 Microcomputer Lab pager= 615-951-2246 Box 81 Station B email= carlos.trenary at vanderbilt.edu Room 119 Garland Hall Nashville TN 37235 Systems Administrator Network Manager for the Social Sciences. From dfrye at umich.edu Thu Jul 1 19:38:29 1999 From: dfrye at umich.edu (David L. Frye) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 13:38:29 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: In San Luis Potosi there is a cactus -- looks roughly like an organ cactus or pitahaya -- that is called joconoiste or joconostle, which (in local speech) would derive from xoconoztli or possibly xoconochtli. If I remember correctly, it has a yellow fruit roughly the size and appearance of a tuna (prickly pear, nochtli) which is sour and can be added to soup like limon. David Frye, University of Michigan (dfrye at umich.edu) PS, a great source for looking these things up is Santamaria's Diccionario de Mejicanismos. From kammler at stud.uni-frankfurt.de Thu Jul 1 23:18:32 1999 From: kammler at stud.uni-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 17:18:32 -0600 Subject: Champaign/Urbana: Ahousat Message-ID: > > Sending greetings from the LSA Institute in Champaign/Urbana -- and >if you think Nahuatl is 'strangely foreign', you should see Ahousat, being >taught here by Emmon Bach and Katie Fraser. It not only has the voiceless >laterally released affricate (tl) of Nahuatl, it has a *glottalized* one >also, plus glottalized counterparts of 10 other consonants, but no >'ordinary' /b d g r l/ > >Mary What a coincidence. I did work with speakers of the TsishaatH and AhousatH dialects of "Nootka" in 96/97. Nice to bump into a Nootkan reference on Nahuat-L. I can only agree: "Nootka" (Nuuchaa'nulh) is a really strange language as compared to Nahuatl, the sound inventory still being the easier part (though more complex than Nahuatl). Another difference: the three dialects of "Nootka" have less than 150 fluent speakers altogether now (out of 6000 or so), the Ahousat variant is the most viable one. Henry From micc at home.com Fri Jul 2 02:13:51 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 20:13:51 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: Perhaps: Xoco = raw, bitter + Nochtli= prickly pear cactus fruit Alicia Gignoux wrote: > Does anyone know what type of food (plant? herb?) > this is? > Thanks > Alicia Gignoux > alpha at selway.umt.edu From muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com Fri Jul 2 03:31:45 1999 From: muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com (Roberto Tirado) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 21:31:45 -0600 Subject: subscribe nahuat-l Message-ID: _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From robc at csufresno.edu Fri Jul 2 04:40:52 1999 From: robc at csufresno.edu (Robert G. Comegys) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 22:40:52 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: Dr. Francisco Hernandez (1515-1587) reports that the second Ayohuitztli is a common spiny genera which others call xocoitzli and which grows everywhere. [Hernandez mostly traveled the Valley of Mexico] Its fruit lacks appreciable flavor or color... Make a dough (harina) and mix with the ointment (grasa) called "acaxin" or with resin, applied it takes away the itch (or mange). It grows in places that are hot or temperate, near or next to water. It has been identified with Echinops by two authorities, and in this century by two authorities as "Solanum carnutum Lam." which M. Batalla reports is a species near to S. torvum which has applications against illnesses of the skin. See Francisco Hernandez Obras Completas Tomo II Vol. I page 55 (Libro II Cap. XXII of Historia natural de nueva espa?a) Universidad Nacional de M?xico, 1959 and also Vol VII of the complete works of Hernandez, page 409 for the references to Echinops and Solanum carnutum Lam. I looked for some explanation of acaxin, but there was nothing else in the indexes or the lists of indigenous terms. Regards John Comegys robc at csufresno.edu From elena at indra.com Fri Jul 2 06:10:10 1999 From: elena at indra.com (ellen holly klaver) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 00:10:10 -0600 Subject: mailings Message-ID: dear folks, i am receiving far too much mail that is not really that useful. i don't know if there is a way to receive information only on resources, books, conferences, etc, and not all the back and forth. if there is, please sign me up for that list and not to receive everything even if it's correspondence between people. if there isn't, i respectfully and sadl;y ask that my address be removed from the list. i just cannot receive so much mail. thank ytou very much, tlazokamati, ellen in colorado From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Fri Jul 2 08:21:53 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 02:21:53 -0600 Subject: mailings Message-ID: > > dear folks, i am receiving far too much mail that is not really that > useful. Which leads to the question why we have this list. > i don't know if there is a way to receive information only on > resources, books, conferences, etc, Like a bulletin board? Without comments, opinions (scholarly and otherwise)? Not much fun, I imagine, and not mind tickling either. > and not all the back and forth. For those who actively participate this "back and forth" is much more useful, I think. It's about *sharing* knowledge, not about one side being the supplier of information and the other the taker. People have the chance to discuss things without having to cover 10,000 miles to see each other. Academic life has far too long consisted of people sticking to themselves, keeping stuff in the drawers of their desks (for whatever reason), lacking the opportunity to quickly talk over this or that matter with a colleague. Others who whitness these conversations can throw their own views in which in the end may have some synergetic effects and clear things up. But maybe there are other opinions on this here. The mic's open... One thing, yes: I haven't seen much exciting discussion on here lately either (but I'm sitting in the glass house...) Henry From dfrye at umich.edu Fri Jul 2 13:31:55 1999 From: dfrye at umich.edu (David L. Frye) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 07:31:55 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: Okay, here is the paragraph from Santamaria's Diccionario de Mejicanismos (an underused resource, in my opinion) (and sorry for my inability to provide accents): "Joconostle. (Del azt. xococ, agrio, y noxtli, tuna. Opuntia imbricata.) m. Cactacea de la altiplaincia, que produce una tuna agria. Cuentase que los antiguos religiosos, de tiempos de la conquista, usaban su tallo muy espinoso como cilicio. Los indios pimas preparan una comida peculiar con la tuna seca al sol y despues cocida. Llamase tambien cardenche, tasajo, soconoxtle o soconoscle, o soconostle, o soconoxcle. Otras variantes: jonocoscle, joconoscle, joconoxtle, joconostli." And, I repeat, in Mexquitic near San Luis Potosi it is often pronounced 'joconoiste' -- where the '-oiste' is a common pronunciation of what elsewhere would be '-oztle' or '-oztli,' etc. David Frye, University of Michigan (dfrye at umich.edu) From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Fri Jul 2 13:16:04 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 07:16:04 -0600 Subject: mailings Message-ID: > > > > dear folks, i am receiving far too much mail that is not really that > > useful. Useful is what useful is. > > For those who actively participate this "back and forth" is much more > useful, I think. It's about *sharing* knowledge, not about one side > being the supplier of information and the other the taker. People have > the chance to discuss things without having to cover 10,000 miles to > see each other. Academic life has far too long consisted of people > sticking to themselves, keeping stuff in the drawers of their desks > (for whatever reason), lacking the opportunity to quickly talk over > this or that matter with a colleague. Others who whitness these > conversations can throw their own views in which in the end may have > some synergetic effects and clear things up. cenca cuacualli. > One thing, yes: I haven't seen much exciting discussion on here lately > either Being summer, a lot of folks are doing other things, or maybe everyone knows everything by now. :) Michael From kg000407 at online.be Fri Jul 2 09:50:21 1999 From: kg000407 at online.be (Antoon Vollemaere) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 03:50:21 -0600 Subject: xoconozlte Message-ID: -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: Alicia Gignoux Aan: Multiple recipients of list Datum: donderdag 1 juli 1999 23:14 Onderwerp: Re: xoconozlte >Does anyone know what type of food (plant? herb?) >this is? >Thanks >Alicia Gignoux >alpha at selway.umt.edu > Xoconoztli is probably Xoconochtli = kind of tuna or fig used in food. Simeon says (in french) Espece de tuna ou figue acidulee dont on se servait por pr?parer les alimants (Betancourt). Racines: xocotl, nochtli. Have a nice day. Dr. Antoon Leon Vollemaere Flemish Institute for American Cultures Mechelen (Machlin) - Belgium - Europe From mjj at netins.net Fri Jul 2 22:05:15 1999 From: mjj at netins.net (Mary Jo Jackel) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 16:05:15 -0600 Subject: mailings Message-ID: >> >> dear folks, i am receiving far too much mail that is not really that >> useful. > >Which leads to the question why we have this list. > >> i don't know if there is a way to receive information only on >> resources, books, conferences, etc, > >Like a bulletin board? Without comments, opinions (scholarly and >otherwise)? Not much fun, I imagine, and not mind tickling either. > >> and not all the back and forth. > >For those who actively participate this "back and forth" is much more >useful, I think. It's about *sharing* knowledge, not about one side >being the supplier of information and the other the taker. People have >the chance to discuss things without having to cover 10,000 miles to >see each other. Academic life has far too long consisted of people >sticking to themselves, keeping stuff in the drawers of their desks >(for whatever reason), lacking the opportunity to quickly talk over >this or that matter with a colleague. Others who whitness these >conversations can throw their own views in which in the end may have >some synergetic effects and clear things up. > >But maybe there are other opinions on this here. The mic's open... > >One thing, yes: I haven't seen much exciting discussion on here lately >either (but I'm sitting in the glass house...) > >Henry Thank you Henry. I am very happy to be able to read the discussions between knowledgeable people. For those of us who live in areas where there is no other access to such immediate questions, statements, and responses, the list is an interesting and educational tool. Keep talking. Regards, Mary Jo From mdmorris at indiana.edu Fri Jul 2 22:08:38 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 16:08:38 -0600 Subject: Obras Clasicas sobre la Lengua Nahuatl Message-ID: Hi, I've installed the Digibis CD-Rom edited by Ascension Hernandez de Leon Portilla, and I'm impressed with the work. The scanned images are reasonably clear and can be adjusted. I was hoping that I could integrate this CD with other programs to manipulate the text, i.e. I was hoping to be able to search the contents. Does anyone have ideas of how to make text files of these fascimiles or otherwise manipulate their contents? Tlazocamati, Mark Morris From mdmorris at indiana.edu Fri Jul 2 22:22:05 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 16:22:05 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: It's quiet, too quiet for some, so what is this yuhquimma I see in Juan Bautista's Huehuetlahtolli? Sounds a bit like what we call Yupper speak, as in instead of Sorry, ma forgot to take out the trash, it's yohkey ma, I'll take out the trash. Inquiring, scholarly minds want to. . . Mark From mdmorris at indiana.edu Sat Jul 3 05:33:43 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 23:33:43 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: Carochi is such a good source for adverbs. He writes, "Yuhquinma' y in ma'yuhqui, ambos con saltillo el el ma', se usan quando se trae alguna metaphora, y significan: como, a manera v.g: ma: ihuicpatzinco tihui:n intla'to'ca:cihua:pilli, in ma'yuhqui pocho:tl, a:hue:hue:tl, ma: itlanzinco titocehua:l huica:n, vamonos a Nuestra Senora: es a manera de arbol grande, y sabino: pongamos a su sombra. . .En lugar de in ma'yuhqui se podria poner yuhquinma' y aun solo el yuhquin; v.g: Yuhquin, anchichime' anmocuepa' ini'qua:c anquimotequi'maca in mi:xi:tl intlpa:tl, os bolueis como perros, quando beueis demasiado." Mark From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Sat Jul 3 12:36:24 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 06:36:24 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's quiet, too quiet for some, so what is this yuhquimma I see in Juan Bautista's Huehuetlahtolli? Sounds a bit like what we call Yupper speak, as in instead of Sorry, ma forgot to take out the trash, it's yohkey ma, I'll take out the trash. Inquiring, scholarly minds want to. . . Mark ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark, I don't believe your Nahuatl term actually reflects the 'Yupper speak in "yokey, ma"', although that was fun to see. The orthographic is precisely what Bautista *hears* and is simply epenthetic. It owes its initial existence to the placement of the tongue in the pronunciation of /i/ and represents a slight relaxation of the buccal muscles resulting in the articulation of the expected semi-vowel /y/, yod by any other name. This phenomenon occurs in many languges and and is "sparked" by even lower vowels than /i/ (but not as low /o/ as "yokey," which, I would gather, is created by analogy with some other expression which I don't want to think about right now. But you characteristically see /w/ with those mid/high back vowels). Not only /i/ but even /e/ can spark the creation a preceding yod. In the northern Great Lakes Algonquian dialects of Ojibwe this epenthesis takes on phonemic stature, where you get things like Ottawa /mewe/ but Potawatomi /myewe/, our Nahuatl "ohtli." ipan ohtli, Michael From cdschwartz at jumpnet.com Sat Jul 3 13:54:21 1999 From: cdschwartz at jumpnet.com (Lynda Manning-Schwartz) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 07:54:21 -0600 Subject: Obras Clasicas sobre la Lengua Nahuatl Message-ID: The way to translate scanned images into text is to use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software. Unfortunately, while OCR software has come a long way in functionality in the last five or so years, it is still relatively limited in scope. It reads only certain printed fonts and only if they are very clearly arranged, easy to read, and conform to industry standards. Handwriting is still only barely possible (the Apple Newton got jibes a few years ago for its valiant but only partially successful first attempt at reading its owner's handwriting, but it was at least a somewhat succesful attempt for an OCR program to "learn" to read nonstandard text). The only way at the moment to turn handwritten, scanned images (especially ones with aberrant spellings and/or penmanship) would be to type the text into a word processor. For future use, keep watching software company blurbs. Someday (hopefully in the next couple of years) an OCR program will come out that will be able to "learn" handwriting. They you can "teach" it to read almost any text. Until then, we're not quite in the stone age on this topic, but close. A possible alternative would be to use the new spoken software and read the text in. This would take a lot of corrections, however, and a word processor that writes in international characters easily. This would not produce text that looked like the original, however. Aberrant spellings and obsolete words would be deleted or randomly changed to a modern equivalent the computer's modern dictionary knew. Good luck. If you find a viable solution, I would be interested in the method. I am also looking for viable alternatives to typing in old manuscript text. Lynda Manning-Schwartz Population Research Center The University of Texas at Austin At 04:09 PM 7/2/99 -0600, you wrote: >Hi, > >I've installed the Digibis CD-Rom edited by Ascension Hernandez de Leon >Portilla, and I'm impressed with the work. The scanned images are reasonably >clear and can be adjusted. I was hoping that I could integrate this CD with >other programs to manipulate the text, i.e. I was hoping to be able to search >the contents. Does anyone have ideas of how to make text files of these >fascimiles or otherwise manipulate their contents? > >Tlazocamati, >Mark Morris > > > > > > From karttu at nantucket.net Sat Jul 3 15:12:00 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 09:12:00 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: >It's quiet, too quiet for some, so what is this yuhquimma I see in Juan >Bautista's Huehuetlahtolli? Sounds a bit like what we call Yupper speak, as >in instead of Sorry, ma forgot to take out the trash, it's yohkey ma, I'll >take out the trash. Inquiring, scholarly minds want to. . . Mark Yuhqui is a common orthograohic variant of the word that appears elsewhere as iuhqui and means 'thus, so'. The longer form yuhquimma/iuhquimma means 'more or less.' It's to be found in Molina's dictionary with the iuh spelling. The "yuh" represents phonetic [iw], not [yu]. From micc at home.com Sat Jul 3 17:13:07 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 11:13:07 -0600 Subject: [Fwd: Ma: Mayan oval houses] Message-ID: This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------325E3E34651FA2CE4908BB28 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --------------325E3E34651FA2CE4908BB28 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from h2.mail.home.com ([24.2.2.28]) by mail.rdc1.sdca.home.com (InterMail v4.01.01.00 201-229-111) with ESMTP id <19990703142217.HZLU17489.mail.rdc1.sdca.home.com at h2.mail.home.com> for ; Sat, 3 Jul 1999 07:22:17 -0700 Received: from mx2-w.mail.home.com ([24.0.0.206]) by h2.mail.home.com (8.9.3/8.9.0) with ESMTP id HAA11352 for ; Sat, 3 Jul 1999 07:22:16 -0700 (PDT) From: jpastore at email.com Received: from rmx11.iname.net (rmx11.iname.net [165.251.12.115]) by mx2-w.mail.home.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id HAA06316 for ; Sat, 3 Jul 1999 07:22:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from webc02.globecomm.net by rmx11.iname.net (8.9.1a/8.8.0) with ESMTP id KAA18200 ; Sat, 3 Jul 1999 10:17:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from nobody at localhost) by webc02.globecomm.net (8.9.1/8.9.2.Alpha2) id KAA06322; Sat, 3 Jul 1999 10:19:44 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: webc02.globecomm.net: nobody set sender to jpastore at email.com using -f MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <990703101944J7.02168 at webc02.globecomm.net> Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 10:19:44 -0400 (EDT) Content-Type: Text/Plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: micc Subject: Re: Ma: Mayan oval houses X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 ---- On Jul 2 micc wrote: > Lately, I have seen the word Palapa used a lot around here in San Diego. > > Where did that term originate. Judging from the " " around that word in your > note, it is probably not from the Maya lands. > is the word from Mexico at all? Good question. The only reason I offset the word is because of its not being English; and I use the word only because everyone here, including the Maya, use it. Regarding the word's origin, I haven't the slightest idea -nor do I have any idea of the origin of its synonym: 'choza'. I'd be interested in an aswer too. Why not pose the question to the maillist? Ci@ for now, ----------------------------------------------- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com --------------325E3E34651FA2CE4908BB28-- From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Sat Jul 3 18:52:34 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 12:52:34 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: On Sat, 3 Jul 1999, Frances Karttunen wrote: > >It's quiet, too quiet for some, so what is this yuhquimma I see in Juan > >Bautista's Huehuetlahtolli? Sounds a bit like what we call Yupper speak, as > >in instead of Sorry, ma forgot to take out the trash, it's yohkey ma, I'll > >take out the trash. Inquiring, scholarly minds want to. . . Mark > > > Yuhqui is a common orthograohic variant of the word that appears elsewhere > as iuhqui and means 'thus, so'. The longer form yuhquimma/iuhquimma means > 'more or less.' It's to be found in Molina's dictionary with the iuh > spelling. > > The "yuh" represents phonetic [iw], not [yu]. > Yes, [-iw] is definitely the phonetics of the end of this syllable. What was happening at the beginning was probably [y-] > [yiw]. At the same time, orthographic y was a standard way of expressing phonetic [i]. But we can't drag a sixteenth century Aztec back from Mictlan very easily to find out what exactly was happening at the very beginning of the syllable. Michael From karttu at nantucket.net Sat Jul 3 20:58:02 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 14:58:02 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: Dear Michael, It's true we can't reproduce the phonetics of 16th century Nahuatl speech, but we CAN tell something about the systematic phonology. Nahuatl pays attention to whether words begin with vowels or consonants/glides ([y] is in the latter category). As far as Nahuatl prefixes are concerned, words beginning with phonemic /i/ function as though they begin with vowels (even if the /i/ is often orthographically represented with "y"), and those that actually begin with /y/ function as though they begin with consonants. Fran From mdmorris at indiana.edu Sun Jul 4 00:28:45 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 18:28:45 -0600 Subject: Inic Ome netlanliztli Message-ID: Nomachtianime', Thanks a lot for all the advice. As Galen and Joe know, usually four reminders on pronunciation are sufficient, though I have a sinking feeling Joe would disagree. In our classes at IU, Joe Campbell reminded us again and again of morpho-phonetic rules, what happens when y or z changes to x, when glide y displaces an ending vowel. We wrote down a lot of notes, but mine are still mostly scattered. Is there a handy source in Spanish or English that gives a comprehensive overview of the phonetic rules of combination in Nahuatl? Thanks again, Mark P.S. The Tavera CD does allow one to save each page as a tiff file that then can be read with an OCR. I little success with Arenas and good success with a 1900 printing of Guerra. P.S.S. Mike, why aren't you up on the big water? It's too hot down here. From j_taggart at amigo.net Sun Jul 4 05:21:07 1999 From: j_taggart at amigo.net (j_taggart at amigo.net) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 23:21:07 -0600 Subject: Class schedule Message-ID: >Dear Mike, What kind of course do you have in mind ? I teach courses at Franklin and Marshall in Pennsylvania and so I do not know much about California schools. Were you thinking of the University of Southern California ? Best, Jim Was hoping you would have information of a course being offered in Southern >California. >Mike >Sanchez >SCE >Alhambra Bldg. "C" >Pax 46226 >(626) 308-6226 Carole Counihan Associate Professor of Anthropology Millersville University summer: P.O. Box 830, Antonito, CO 81120 tel. 719-376-2028 From mdmorris at indiana.edu Mon Jul 5 09:55:37 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 03:55:37 -0600 Subject: AGET 17th Century Message-ID: It is sad that I send this from Bloomington Indiana where Won-Joon Yoon's murder is heavy on us. Nonetheless, I typed this up earlier and wanted to share it. Mark Morris Estimados, Thelma Sullivan's _Documentos Tlaxcaltecas del Siglo XVI_ includes all Nahuatl documents held by Tlaxcala's state archives from the 16th-century (it seems). Last summer, I prepared this brief catalog of its 17th-century holdings. As I understand, Refugio Nava Nava has refined this catalog recently, including also for example, citations Luis Reyes Garcia has accumulated through years of using the archive. Below is a pretty good view of what AGET has available to investigators, although new things are always turning up in private and public holdings that sometimes become available to researchers. The tabs get all akilter in e-mail, so if you would like the file as an attachment, please send me a note. Thanks, Mark Morris Archivo General del Estado de Tlaxcala Documentos en Nahuatl del Siglo XVII Fondo Historico Colonia Caja Fjs. Exp. Ficha A?o 1. Documento en Nahuatl 1 1 2 2 1600 2. Autos sobre la testamento 1 26 7 7 1600 de Mario Toztecayotl (Sull. 11) 3. Posesion de una tierra de 2 2 18 1603 Bernaldo de Nava a Fabian Zaxate en San Felipe (det.) 4. Fragmento de un posesion (det.) 2 1 22 1603 5. Transacion entre Balthasar 4 2 7 1607 Quechol, Juan ? y Ana Cohua viuda de Bartolome Sanchez 6. Fragmento del testamento del 4 1 9 1607 Don Agostin Moscosotemil 7. Testamento de Palpal Castilaxo 5 1 5 1608 8. Testamento de Juan Melchor 10 24 28 1615-1719 Vasquez que lleva ventas y posesiones de tierra de 1615 incluso de lo de Juliano Quetontototl, f.4-5 escrito por Sebastian Serrano 9. Do?a Juana Carceles 14 1 7 1619 vende terreno en Sta. Ana Chiyauhtempan Sebastian Serrano 10. Pleito sobre servicios dado 14 3 20 1619 a los frailes en Sta. Ines Zacatelco Sebastian Serrano 11 Memoria de Pago 14 1 21 1619 Sebastian Serran? 12 Traducion 21 21 5 1623 del testamento de Miguel Hernandez Sebastian Serrano 13. Los vecinos de 23 3 2 1624 Teolocholco por agravios y malos tratamientos contra el alguacil mayor y fiscalde tepyanco y demas mandones y principales foja N. 2 en Nahuatl (Serrano?) 14. Francisco Hernandez, Diego 23 18 27 1624-1625 Sanchez y Bartolome Xopilcuatzin, por desocupacion de unas casas contra. . Croquis 12v. con escrituras en nahuatl 15. Testimonias del trasunto de 23 6 28 1624 testamento de Mateo Hernandez Contiene un Croquis de Terreno con escritura en Nahuatl en la foja N. 6 (misma mano de 14) 16. Magdalena Gonzalez 24 4 5 1624 da poder a Francisco Vergara su esposo para que venda unas casas en la ciudad de Tlaxcala fojas 1 y 2 en nahuatl y croquis de terreno en foja 3 (Sebastian Serrano) 17. Francisco de la Lorona 32 1 13 1629 Sobre fabrica de comunidad? (Sebastian Serrano)Juez Gob. Gregoriano Nazianseno (ver Lockhart Actas del Cabildo) 18. Recibo por el pago de una misa 40 1 8 1632 que mandaron decir en honor de Sebastian Serrano diesen una limonsa que recibio Fray Alonso 19. Eleccion del alcalde 55 1 26 1640 (1740!!) de San Francisco Tepeanco (?), Ocotelulco que gano Greg. (Martin?) Juarez con 56 20. Miguel Antonio Tlacochin 67 2 23 1650 y su namic Maria Anna Nohpaltzinen vende terreno en Sn. Geronimo Zacualpan 23 de Nov. 21. Juan Perez indio natural de St. 70 22 8 1652 Toribio Xicohtzinco contra Bartolome Diaz espa?ol por despojo de sus bienes Croquis del terreno foja N. 4 22. Fray Silverio de Pineda 72 1 18 1653 dirige palabras al cabildo de Tlaxcala 23. Juan Bautista y Sebastian Zarate 73 6 9 1654 vecinos de St. Ana Chiyauhtempan contra Nicolas de Ortega por un terreno. Cartas de Venta de 1638 y 1650 en foja N.2 24. Andres Perez y 74 8 13 1655-1676 Sebastian Maria indios naturales de San Matias Tepetomatitlan solicitan se les ampara en la posession Incluye testamento de Francisca Maria en nahuatl de fecha 1672 25. Venta de terreno por 76 1 11 1657 Juan Ramiles a Ana Maria de ?errasas. con un breve descripcion de la historia de la propriedad 26. Testamento 76 1 26 1658 de Maria C__ muy deteriodo 27. Venta de terrano 79 1 2 1663 de Gabriel Sanches y Ana Castilla Xochitl a su hermano Francisco Sanches y Magdalena Maria 28. Parte del testamento 82 2 9 1666 de Elena Isabel hecho en 1666 y sacado en copia en 1689 29. Lucas Gregorio Sanchez 88 4 19 1676 sobre donacion de tierra y contestacion 30. Parte del testamento de 90 4 23 1680 (Pedro Martin Tzonpa-co) con glossia en Nahuatlde 1798 y un pie en espanol sin fecha 31. Testamento de Juan 90 4 27 1680 ( 28 Sept. 1760!!) Mathias Romano con fragmento del testamento de Juan Bautista de 1682 32. Peticion de Melchor 92 1 3 1682 de los Reyes por amparo en su (claim) a un solar que le dejo su padre. 33. Carta a Alcalde Or. 92 1 4 1682 Pasqual Ramirez de los principales de St. Ana Chiyauhtempan sobre un padron, 9 de noviembre 34. ?? 93 1 18 1685 35. En San Luis 93 1 17 1685 Teolocholco Joseph Gregorio y ynamic Magdalena Maria disputan (??) linderos con Juan Andres y ynamic Ana Maria 36. Escrituras de Casas 99 10 19 1695-1730 Reales en San Luis Huamantla From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Tue Jul 6 08:21:57 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 02:21:57 -0600 Subject: Obras Clasicas sobre la Lengua Nahuatl Message-ID: > The way to translate scanned images into text is to use OCR (Optical > Character Recognition) software. Unfortunately, while OCR software has come > a long way in functionality in the last five or so years, it is still > relatively limited in scope. It reads only certain printed fonts and only > if they are very clearly arranged, easy to read, and conform to industry > standards. OCR software has gone a long way already. A quite powerful program that I use is Fine Reader Pro (a software from Russia). It can be trained to read a wide range of glyphs. After an initial phase of "training" (even something like telling it to read every X as U -- after three or so Xs it will read all Xs as Us) the recognition rate is very high. I haven't used it with handwriting but with very blurry typoscript that used non-standard phonetic symbols and I was surprised how well it worked after some training runs. As you can freely define the "borders" of the glyphs while training it (it keeps the main variants of the letters' shapes in a database), it should work with handwriting. It can handle ligatures without any problems. Consider how much text by the various scribes you have, though, because every individual hand would require setting up such a database first. Probably I missed this: where is that CD available and how much is it? Cheers, Henry From SANCHEM2 at sce.com Tue Jul 6 13:56:27 1999 From: SANCHEM2 at sce.com (Sanchez, Michael) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 07:56:27 -0600 Subject: Class schedule Message-ID: I am looking for a beginner course in the language, and yes I am in Southern California. Mike Sanchez SCE Alhambra Bldg. "C" Pax 46226 (626) 308-6226 > ---------- > From: j_taggart at amigo.net[SMTP:j_taggart at amigo.net] > Sent: Saturday, July 03, 1999 10:21 PM > To: Multiple recipients of list > Subject: Re: Class schedule > > >Dear Mike, > What kind of course do you have in mind ? I teach courses at > Franklin and Marshall in Pennsylvania and so I do not know much about > California schools. Were you thinking of the University of Southern > California ? Best, Jim > > > > > Was hoping you would have information of a course being offered in > Southern > >California. > >Mike > >Sanchez > >SCE > >Alhambra Bldg. "C" > >Pax 46226 > >(626) 308-6226 > > Carole Counihan > Associate Professor of Anthropology > Millersville University > summer: P.O. Box 830, Antonito, CO 81120 tel. 719-376-2028 > > From cortega at mail.utep.edu Tue Jul 6 18:32:30 1999 From: cortega at mail.utep.edu (Carlos F. Ortega) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 12:32:30 -0600 Subject: Class schedule Message-ID: Mike, call Professor Fermin Herrera in the Department of Chicano Studies at CSU Northridge. the last number i had was (818) 677-2734. He was my instructor in Nahuatl and to my knowledge still offers courses in the language and would certainly know other instructors in southern California. good luck, Carlos At 07:58 AM 7/6/99 -0600, you wrote: >I am looking for a beginner course in the language, and yes I am in Southern >California. >Mike >Sanchez >SCE >Alhambra Bldg. "C" >Pax 46226 >(626) 308-6226 > >> ---------- >> From: j_taggart at amigo.net[SMTP:j_taggart at amigo.net] >> Sent: Saturday, July 03, 1999 10:21 PM >> To: Multiple recipients of list >> Subject: Re: Class schedule >> >> >Dear Mike, >> What kind of course do you have in mind ? I teach courses at >> Franklin and Marshall in Pennsylvania and so I do not know much about >> California schools. Were you thinking of the University of Southern >> California ? Best, Jim >> >> >> >> >> Was hoping you would have information of a course being offered in >> Southern >> >California. >> >Mike >> >Sanchez >> >SCE >> >Alhambra Bldg. "C" >> >Pax 46226 >> >(626) 308-6226 >> >> Carole Counihan >> Associate Professor of Anthropology >> Millersville University >> summer: P.O. Box 830, Antonito, CO 81120 tel. 719-376-2028 >> >> > > From mdmorris at indiana.edu Tue Jul 6 20:12:53 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 14:12:53 -0600 Subject: Obras Clasicas sobre la Lengua Nahuatl Message-ID: Henry, Thanks for your message and your advice on OCR programs. For anyone who missed the earlier postings, here is the information on Obras Clasicas sobre la Lengua Nahuatl. As Galen Brokaw noted earlier, you must include the accents in Digibis' catalog or the item will not come up, or you can catch up to it by going through the entire catalog tree. The cost is 30,000 pesetas, or something like $200. Sincerely, Mark OBRAS CLaSICAS SOBRE LA LENGUA NaHUATL [CD-Rom]. Compilacion de Ascension Hernandez de Leon-Portilla. Coleccion "Clasicos Tavera". Serie IX: Fuentes Ling=FCisticas Indigenas. Volumen 8. Numero 16. Madrid. Fundacion Historica Tavera y Digibis. 1998. Obras clasicas sobre la lengua Nahuatl forma parte de un amplio proyecto, la "Coleccion Clasicos Tavera", cuyo objetivo es la edicion en CD-Rom de las obras mas relevantes para el conocimiento del pasado de los paises, regiones y ciudades de America Latina, Espanna, Portugal y Filipinas, asi como de ciertos temas monograficos relacionados con esas mismas areas geograficas. El numero 16 contiene una seleccion de textos (36 libros sobre artes, vocabularios, doctrinas, confesionarios, manuales de sacramento, otros libros de tema religioso y antigua palabra, con unas 10.000 paginas aproximadamente) compilados por la Dra. Ascension Hernandez de Leon Portilla, y una amplia y bien concebida introduccion en la que se explica el por que de la eleccion y se revisa brevemente lo que se sabe sobre la lengua nahuatl y la importancia que dichos textos tienen para su estudio. Las obras han sido digitalizadas en edicion facsimilar. El manejo y consulta del CD-Rom es sencillo, no obstante, cuenta con una buena guia de ayuda, un sumario general en el que se detallan los contenidos y a traves del que es posible realizar busquedas por distintos campos (uno a uno o varios a la vez): autor, titulo, palabras clave, y una ficha independiente para cada uno de los textos en la que, aparte de sus caracteristicas, se incluye un indice que permite busquedas similares a las del sumario general. El sistema ofrece distintos tipos de visualizacion (zoom, rotacion e inversion de imagen, modificacion de los niveles de contraste), y permite seleccionar partes del contenido y guardarlas en cualquier otro soporte magnetico e imprimirlas con una calidad muy superior a la de una fotocopia convencional. En definitiva, la edicion digital pone a disposicion del investigador un acceso integral y sencillo a la documentacion. A continuacion detallamos en contenido del CD-Rom. indice de la obra: ALDAMA y GUEVARA, Jose Agustin (1754): Arte de la lengua mexicana. Mexico. Imprenta de la Lengua mexicana. ALVA, Bartolome de (1634): Confessionario mayor y menor de la lengua mexicana: y platicas contra las supersticiones de idolatria... Mexico. Francisco Salbago. AQUINO CORTeS Y CEDEnnO, Geronymo Thomas de (1765): Arte, vocabulario y confessionario en el idioma mexicano: como se usa el en Obispado de Guadalajara. Puebla de los angeles (Mexico). Imprenta del Colegio Real de San Ignacio de Puebla de los angeles. ARENAS, Pedro de (1611): Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana. Mexico. Henrico Martinez. BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1600): Advertencias para los confessores de los naturales... (2 volumenes). Tlatilulco - Convento de Santiago de Tlatilulco. M. Ocharte. BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1600): Huehuetlahtolli: que contiene las platicas... Tlatilulco. Convento de Santiago de Tlatilulco. BAUTISTA, (Fray) Juan (1606): A Iesu Christo S.N. ofrece este sermonario en lengua mexicana. Mexico. Casa de Diego Lopez Davalos. CARCHI, Horacio (1645): Arte de la lengua mexicana con la declaracion de los adverbios della. Mexico. Juan Ruyz. Doctirna christiana en lengua espannola y mexicana: hecha por los religiosos de la Orden de Santiago (1548). Mexico. Casa de Juan Pablos. GALDO GUZMaN, (Fray) Diego de (1642): Arte mexicano. Mexico. Viuda de Bernardo Calderon. GANTE, (Fray) Pedro (1553): Doctrina Christiana en lengua mexicana. Mexico. Casa de Juan Pablos. GAONA, (Fray) Juan de (1582): Colloquios de la paz y tranquilidad christiana, en lengua mexicana. Mexico. Casa de Juan Plablos. GARCiA ICAZBALCETA, Joaquin (1889): Nueva coleccion de documentos para la historia de Mexico (2 volumenes). Mexico. Antigua Libreria de Andrade y Morales, Sucesores, Tomo I (Codice Franciscano, siglo XVI). GUERRA, (Fray) Juan (1692): Arte de la lengua mexicana: que fue usual entre los indios del Obispado de Guadalajara y de parte de los de Durango y Michoacan. Guadalajara. Viuda de Francisco Rodriguez Lupericio. GUERRA, (Fray) Juan (1900): Arte de la lengua mexicana: que fue usual entre los indios del Obispado de Guadalajara y de parte de los de Durango y Michoacan. Guadalajara. Alberto Santoscoy. LASSO DE LA VEGA, Luis (1649): Huei tlamahvizoltica omonexiti in Ilhuicac Tlatoca Cichuapilli... Mexico. Imprenta Iuan Ruyz. LEoN, (Fray) Martin de (1611): Camino del cielo en lengua mexicana... Mexico. Imprenta de Diego Lopez Davalos. MIJANGOS, Fray Juan de (1607): Espejo divino en lengua mexicana en que pueden verse los Padres y tomar documento para acercar a adoptrinar bien a sus hijos, y aficionallos a las virtudes. Mexico. Imprenta de Diego Lopez Davalos. MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1555): Aqui comienza un vocubalario en la lengua castellana y mexicana. Mexico. Casa de Juan Pablos. MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1565): Confessionario breve en lengua mexicana y castellana. Mexico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1565): Confessionario Mayor en lengua mexicana y castellana. Mexico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1571): Arte de la lengua mexicana y castellana. Mexico. Casa de Pedro Ocharte. MOLINA, (Fray) Alonso de (1571): Vocabulario en lengua mexicana y castellana. Mexico. Casa de Antonio de Spinosa. OLMOS, (Fray) Ignacio de (1547): Arte de la lengua mexicana. [S.l.]. [S.n.]. PAREDES, Ignacio de (1759): Promptuario manual mexicano. Mexico. Imprenta de la Biblioteca Mexicana. PeREZ, (Fray) Manuel (1713): Arte del idioma mexicano. Mexico. Francisco Rivera Calderon. PeREZ, (Fray) Manuel (1713): Farol indiano y guia de curas de indios... Mexico. Francisco Rivera Calderon. RINCoN, Antonio del (1595): Arte mexicana. Casa de Pedro Balli. RIPALDA, Geronymo de (1758): Catecismo mexicano que contiene toda la doctrina christiana... Mexico. Imprenta de la Biblioteca Mexicana. SAAVEDRA, (Fray) Marcos de (1746): Confessionario breve activo y pasivo en lengua mexicana... Mexico. Imprenta Real del Superior Gobierno, del Nuevo Rezado, de Donna Maria de Rivera. SAENZ DE LA PEnnA, Andres (1642): Manual de los Santos Sacramentos...= Mexico. Francisco Robledo. SAHAGuN, (Fray) Bernardino de (1583): Psalmodia Christiana y Sermonario de los Sanctos del Anno, en lengua mexicana. Mexico. Con licencia en Casa de Pedro Ocharte. SANDOVAL, Rafael (1888): Arte de la lengua mexicana. Ramon Garcia Raya. TAPIA CENTENO, Carlos de (1753): Arte novissima de lengua mexicana... Mexico. Viuda de Joseph Bernardo de Hogal. VaZQUEZ GATELU, Antonio (1689): Arte de Lengua Mexicana. [S.l.]. Fernandez de Leon VETANCOURT, (Fray) Agustin (1673): Arte de lengua mexicana... Mexico. Francisco Rodriguez Lupericio. Para cualquier informacion acerca de la obra o para adquirir el CD-Rom contactar con Pilar Ruiz: pilar.ruiz at digibis.com Tambien puede consultar la pagina web de Digibis: www.digibis.com From muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com Wed Jul 7 01:01:01 1999 From: muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com (Roberto Tirado) Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 19:01:01 -0600 Subject: nahua ? Message-ID: . hi , i am looking for books ( dictionaries ) on Nahuatl ( contemporary and classic ) , do any of you have any recommendations? i am currently reading through [oklahoma press, kartunnen , nahuatl dictionary ] and i am not satisfied with its definitions. thanks. . Roberto _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Fri Jul 9 20:59:55 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 14:59:55 -0600 Subject: McCaa study on Nahuatl names Message-ID: For those of you interested in looking at Robert McCaa's study of Nahuatl names in the censuses published by S.L. Cline, a Power Point version can be found at this URL http://www.hist.umn.edu/~rmccaa/AZTCNAM2/index.htm A simpler outline form is available here: http://www.hist.umn.edu/~rmccaa/AZTCNAM2/outline.htm J. F. Schwaller, List owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From mhipkl at netropolis.net Sat Jul 10 14:55:16 1999 From: mhipkl at netropolis.net (Peter K. Lehnert) Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 08:55:16 -0600 Subject: No subject Message-ID: The Mesoamerican Heritage Institute, 510 West Forest Drive, Houston, Texas 77079 would like to subscribe to the list. Thank you for your prompt attention. Peter K. Lehnert From mikegaby at hotmail.com Sat Jul 10 17:59:44 1999 From: mikegaby at hotmail.com (mike gaby) Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 11:59:44 -0600 Subject: Language Message-ID: Any bored linguists care to share a quick version of pronunciation and syllabic stress for the Otomi language, P'urepecha, and Mixe? Also anyone know the form of Mixe-Zoquean allegedly spoken by "Olmecs"? Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Mon Jul 12 23:11:40 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 17:11:40 -0600 Subject: Itzinai Message-ID: Someone has written to me directly regarding the name Itzinai, claming that it is Nahuatl. I have been looking at it and working on it, and come up with nothing, other than it looks more Maya to me. Any guesses? J. F. Schwaller John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From micc at home.com Tue Jul 13 15:31:30 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 09:31:30 -0600 Subject: Itzinai Message-ID: IT COULD BE 20TH CENTURY "AZTECA" thru the eyes of a Nahuatl admirer.... I met a young lady once who was quite adamant that her name MIXIM was Nahuatl....... :( "John F. Schwaller" wrote: > Someone has written to me directly regarding the name Itzinai, claming that > it is Nahuatl. I have been looking at it and working on it, and come up > with nothing, other than it looks more Maya to me. Any guesses? > > J. F. Schwaller > > John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu > Associate Provost 406-243-4722 > The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 > http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From ECOLING at aol.com Tue Jul 13 19:32:40 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 13:32:40 -0600 Subject: Language of the Olmecs Message-ID: Mike Gaby asked: >Also anyone know the form of Mixe-Zoquean allegedly spoken by "Olmecs"? This is of course a very difficult question, since the Olmecs flourished around 1500 BC to 400 BC or so (depending on who one asks). It may not be Mixe-Zoquean at all. According to John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, it is Proto-Zoque, by the following reasoning: a) Loan words in Mesoamerica are from Mixe-Zoquean into other languages, including high-culture words b) The Olmecs were the originators of Mesoamerican high culture. c) Therefore the Olmecs must have spoken a Mixe-Zoquean language And they further claim d) The writing system of La Mojarra must represent the Epi-Olmec people. Given its date and location (Veracruz, 2nd century AD by its long counts), and the lack of evidence for extensive migrations during the relevant time frames, this writing must be interpreted as the writing of the successors to the Olmecs, "Epi-Olmecs". e) The writing system of La Mojarra is now in large part deciphered, and is a Mixe-Zoquean language, specifically proto-Zoquean. ***** This line of reasoning is plausible in its first two steps (though we have few sufficiently knowledgeable specialists other than Kaufman who could attempt to argue against any of these early steps in the reasoning). The reasoning is increasingly fragile in later steps, for example because the Olmec might have transmitted some high culture which originated with others, or the situation might in other ways have been more complex. ***** In particular, the claim in (e) is unjustified. The history of decipherment is full of claims of decipherment which turn out to be unsubstantiated. A claim is not a decipherment. In particular: 1. Kaufman "knew" the writing of La Mojarra had to be Epi-Olmec, a conclusion he drew from steps (a,b,c,d). He "knew" this before ever examining the writing system itself. 2. Kaufman and Justeson did not actually consider alternatives, in the sense of exploring "what if" the writing represented a language of some family other than the Mixe-Zoquean. So their conclusion is really the same as the assumption they began with, or rather, should be more accurately formulated as: Under the assumption that the language belongs to the Mixe-Zoquean family, it is most likely a form of Proto-Zoquean. Once we make the assumption explicit (and Kaufman and Justeson did not hide it, they merely did not note that it was an assumption to which any alternatives could be conceived or should be...), then the conclusion stands clearly as what it is. ***** 3. There is a lack of the kind of "many things suddenly falling into place, once the answer was discovered" which is usually the hallmark of a good decipherment. Rather, each bit of new text "interpreted" as proto-Zoquean which contained new glyphs requires new subsidiary hypotheses to support an interpretation. 4. The "translations" provided by Justeson and Kaufman for parts of the La Mojarra text, many still only in verbal presentations rather than in publications, are quite different from most other texts in Mesoamerica, in several respects (speaking of "folding cloth" and other things). This by itself might suggest that forcing a Mixe-Zoquean interpretation onto the text has led to contradictions or dead-ends. (Of course we cannot know in advance what the writers of the La Mojarra text chose to write about -- it is simply that if on our first hypotheses at interpretation we get something rather odd, it might suggest the hypotheses are not exactly on target.) 4. Interpretations of the same text as some language related to the Mayan family work moderately well also. This is definitely NOT to argue that La Mojarra represented a Mayan language, simply to point out that there are alternatives. In at least one case, an interpretation as Mayan works better than the interpretation Justeson and Kaufman propose as proto-Zoquean, because there is a homonym motivation within Mayan. Many sentence structures are the same for many languages and language families within Meso-America, so they cannot decide. (In fact, Kaufman and Justeson were forced by some of their other assumptions to conclude that the La Mojarra "proto-Zoquean" had a word order different from that of other Zoquean languages -- possible, but not the most straightforward.) 5. There are some in the Mesoamerican field who think the resemblances between Olmec iconography and Mayan iconography are such that the latter may derive in large part from the former. That does not demonstrate a linguistic relation, but does not exclude it either. Conclusion: The language is not yet known. Two proposals have been explored, a Mixe-Zoquean one and a Mayan one. The La Mojarra text might represent either of these or might represent a language from some family other than these two. There is no avalanch of things falling-into-place as a result of any set of hypotheses so far presented. Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics ***** Four publications (others are listed in Anderson 1999): Campbell, Lyle and Terrence Kaufman. 1976. A Linguistic Look at the Olmecs. American Antiquity 41:80-89 (the presentation of the claim in (a) above). Justeson, John and Terrence Kaufman. 1993. A Decipherment of Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing. Science 259:1703-1711 (presentation of the Proto-Zoquean hypothesis, claims of decipherment with many specifics) Anderson, Lloyd. 1999. The Writing System of La Mojarra, 3rd edition. Ecological Linguistics (presentation of structural analyses independent of choice of language, and of both Mayan and Proto-Zoquean interepretations in parallel and in contrast. Currently the most comprehensive work available.) (PO Box 15156, Washington, DC 20003. Price within the USA $40, Price to Europe by book rate $52.) Houston, Stephen. 1996. [Review of 2nd Edition of The Writing System of La Mojarra] International Journal of American Linguistics 62 no.4 pp.429-431. From chair at thule.org Wed Jul 14 22:07:58 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 16:07:58 -0600 Subject: longer ago than thought Message-ID: The culture that built tiahuanaco, machu picchu, etc was flourishing far longer ago than people want to think. check http://www.thule.org/tiahuanaco.html From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Thu Jul 15 14:41:44 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 08:41:44 -0600 Subject: Articles of interest Message-ID: JILAS~ Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies (Vol. 5:1 July1999) Gabriela Coronado, "Una version indigena de la historia: Los Nahuas de Cuetzalan" For subscription info write: Dr. Walescka Pino-Ojeda Spanish Department University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019 Auckland New Zealand email:w.pino-ojeda at auckland.ac.nz --------------------------------------- Colonial Latin American Review (vol. 8, Num. 1, June, 1999) John Sullivan, "Un dialogo sobre la congregacion en Tlaxcala" for further info see: http://www.carfax.co.uk/cla-ad.htm John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From CHIKANOZ at aol.com Fri Jul 16 01:54:46 1999 From: CHIKANOZ at aol.com (CHIKANOZ at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 19:54:46 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl names... Message-ID: Does anyone know if the name "Izel" is nahuatl or mayan? Also, is it a girls name or can it be used for a male as well? AND does it mean "unique"? Does anyone know where I can find some interesting nahuatl names for a boy? Or book recommendations with names? Thanks so much, cecilia From campbel at indiana.edu Fri Jul 16 05:02:21 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:02:21 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl names... Message-ID: Ceciliahtzin, "-cel" is a postposition in Nahuatl. Postpositions have a function in Nahuatl very much like that of prepositions in Spanish and English and they take possessive prefixes. nocel by myself tocel by ourselves mocel by yourself amocel by y'all's selves >8-) icel by him/herself incel by themselves I've never seen one of these words used as a name for a person, but if one were used as a name, it wouldn't need to be distinguished for gender. Joe On Thu, 15 Jul 1999 CHIKANOZ at aol.com wrote: > Does anyone know if the name "Izel" is nahuatl or mayan? Also, is it a girls > name or can it be used for a male as well? AND does it mean "unique"? > Does anyone know where I can find some interesting nahuatl names for a boy? > Or book recommendations with names? > Thanks so much, > cecilia > From campbel at indiana.edu Fri Jul 16 05:16:00 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:16:00 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl names... Message-ID: p.s. Some uses taken from context in the Florentine Codex: ce:l icel. alone, by himself; by itself; he alone; singly; only; plain; unaccompanied; she alone. . iceltzin. he alone; only he; he himself. . moceltzin. you alone, only you. . From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Fri Jul 16 14:43:56 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 08:43:56 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl names... Message-ID: For common Nahuatl names, please see the new page on the Nahuat-l web site: http://www.umt.edu/history/nahuatl/names.html J. F. Schwaller, List owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From rude at leland.Stanford.EDU Fri Jul 16 18:07:37 1999 From: rude at leland.Stanford.EDU (Rudiger V. Busto) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 12:07:37 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl names... Message-ID: I know that "Ixchel" (Mayan goddess: Ix Chel) is a somewhat not uncommon name for Chicanas. I believe she is associated with the moon? >Does anyone know if the name "Izel" is nahuatl or mayan? Also, is it a girls >name or can it be used for a male as well? AND does it mean "unique"? >Does anyone know where I can find some interesting nahuatl names for a boy? >Or book recommendations with names? >Thanks so much, >cecilia ******************************************************************* Rudy V. Busto Work: 650.723.0465 Assistant Professor Home: 415.552.0257 Religious Studies rude at leland.stanford.edu Stanford University Fax (work): 650.725.1476 Stanford, CA 94305-2165 From GESX1CKAH at aol.com Fri Jul 16 22:27:48 1999 From: GESX1CKAH at aol.com (GESX1CKAH at aol.com) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 16:27:48 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: hello everyone, I am working on a project on general indigenous culture that will be presented to a diverse audience. The project is for my work, so that I can teach my collegues about my interests. I am looking for suggestions of what kinds of foods I should make as samples of what my ancestry created (so far I considered serving chocolate to keep them awake!) Any suggestions as to what else I should speak about, serve or teach that would be of interest to them? This will be the first time this audience has heard anything on the subject and unfortunately may be their last experience (if I can't help it). thank you Jessica From altheman at earthlink.net Fri Jul 16 22:52:24 1999 From: altheman at earthlink.net (Alex) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 16:52:24 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: I believe the Aztecs (or their predecessors?) invented corn tortillas which are consumed substantially in the U.S. And probably some version of salsa (tomatoes or tomatillos, peppers, onions, cilantro). At 04:29 PM 7/16/99 -0600, you wrote: >hello everyone, >I am working on a project on general indigenous culture that will be >presented to a diverse audience. The project is for my work, so that I can >teach my collegues about my interests. I am looking for suggestions of what >kinds of foods I should make as samples of what my ancestry created (so far I >considered serving chocolate to keep them awake!) Any suggestions as to what >else I should speak about, serve or teach that would be of interest to them? >This will be the first time this audience has heard anything on the subject >and unfortunately may be their last experience (if I can't help it). > >thank you >Jessica > From cberry at cinenet.net Fri Jul 16 23:37:51 1999 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 17:37:51 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Alex wrote: > I believe the Aztecs (or their predecessors?) invented corn tortillas > which are consumed substantially in the U.S. And probably some > version of salsa (tomatoes or tomatillos, peppers, onions, cilantro). True, though I don't know about the cilantro. Tamales would make another good representative Aztec food (either plain corn or corn with chiles or possibly turkey -- the "dog" and "Tlaxcaltec" filling options being a bit advanced for beginners). -- | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From micc at home.com Fri Jul 16 23:51:25 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 17:51:25 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: cilantro is an Asian import into Mexico. that is why many times in anglo markets, it is sold as chinese parsley. it is very popular in Vietnamese and chinese foods. Craig Berry wrote: > > On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Alex wrote: > > > I believe the Aztecs (or their predecessors?) invented corn tortillas > > which are consumed substantially in the U.S. And probably some > > version of salsa (tomatoes or tomatillos, peppers, onions, cilantro). > > True, though I don't know about the cilantro. Tamales would make another > good representative Aztec food (either plain corn or corn with chiles or > possibly turkey -- the "dog" and "Tlaxcaltec" filling options being a bit > advanced for beginners). > > -- > | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net > --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html > | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From micc at home.com Fri Jul 16 23:54:09 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 17:54:09 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: Foods that would be appropriate would be: tacos (tlacua) tamales chile sopes nopales, quelites, tortillas, turkey (hue'xolotl) tomatillo vanilla water drink (horchata, although that is a spanish drinK) chocolate pineapple guacamole (ahuacamolli) mole (molli) quelites (quilitl) xoconostles (xoconochtli) camotes, calabacitas (ayotli) beans (etl) green beans (e'xotl) Nacho flavored Cheerios (alright I was just kidding on this one!) Craig Berry wrote: > > On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Alex wrote: > > > I believe the Aztecs (or their predecessors?) invented corn tortillas > > which are consumed substantially in the U.S. And probably some > > version of salsa (tomatoes or tomatillos, peppers, onions, cilantro). > > True, though I don't know about the cilantro. Tamales would make another > good representative Aztec food (either plain corn or corn with chiles or > possibly turkey -- the "dog" and "Tlaxcaltec" filling options being a bit > advanced for beginners). > > -- > | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net > --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html > | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From lenin at UDel.Edu Sat Jul 17 06:11:51 1999 From: lenin at UDel.Edu (Alex Perez) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 00:11:51 -0600 Subject: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Message-ID: I will catch a lot of flak but I feel morally oblidge to write the folloowing, specially in this kind of list where the lenguage and culture are supposed to be taken into consideration. First of all, I am Mexican, by birth, by raising, I lived most of my life ther and I have enjoyed the good times and bad times of MY country. Yet I am not named Cuahutemoc, axayacatl or tonatzin, as some of my classmates. I have been learning nahuatl because my brother lives in the heart of the huasteca potosina and I have many friends that only speak marginal spanish and mostly a dialect of nahua. I have to deal with the realities of everyday life there and with the goodness or badness of MY country wether many people might consider it a backward 3rd world country or not I am proud of it and I wish not to stay in America but to return to were I was born. I have run into many revivalist Americans of Mexican heritage that seem to think that because they read some books and because the Americans of english-Irish-scottish-german-welsh or Italian descent discriminate on them that makes them feel more Mexican that I am, given me the "you don't know better because we are enlightened you poor little 3rd world country wanna be WE ARE THE TRUE INHERITANTS OF THE AZTEC culture". I am very frustrated and angry and I want to make all of you AWARE that we looked on you all as OUR OWN people, but my experience here has been so disapointing that makes me want to cry. Nobody here knows that WE are all Mexican, thet The Nahuas, as well as the Otomies, the Mazahuas, the Tarahumaras, the purepechas the Tzotziles, the tarascans as well as the GREAT MAJORITY OF MEXICO who is MIxed, we share a same culture tradition and Nationality. To divide Mexico is to dismember the soul of our nation. I beg of all of you who are of Mexican ancestry to understand that Mexico is not only a state of mind, or a matter of academic study, or a matter of finding you "roots". We are a living nation that is fighting every day to survive, to progress, to evolve and to try to be more humane and equal. Yes, we have our terrible one party dictatorship, you have a two party dictatorship and I don't see you complain, we have a terrible state of affairs in Chiapas, Oaxaca, veracruz and tabasco, yet I do not see America trying to help South dakota, montana, nevada or arizona, where the major and porest reservations are. Let US the Mexicans that decided to STAY and die if necesary fix our problems and not be judged by those Who LEFT and went for the MAcdonalds and Sears life instead of eating the dust of the poverty and wars that came. We are a nation after all, respect us at least for that. Respectfully to our brothers in the north, which they forget that they are OUR brothers and not OUR TUTORS..... Alberto Alejandro Perez Pulido ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A. Alejandro Perez "After many years in which the world has Graduate Student afforded me many experiences, what I know Int. Political Economy most surely in the long run about morality 347 Smith Hall and obligations, I owe it to futbol" University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 From micc at home.com Sat Jul 17 08:48:53 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 02:48:53 -0600 Subject: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Message-ID: Dear alberto, I too am a mexican. to be specific, I am a chilango, yet I have spent all of my life in the U.S., not by choice, but by destiny. I understand your anger, and (dare you admit it ) hatred of us who " ...LEFT and went for the MAcdonalds > and Sears life instead of eating the dust of the poverty and wars that > came" my father is from singuilucan Hidalgo (also la Huasteca, if not ethnically, spiritually). We are nahautl-Otomi (?a?u). on my mothers side we are Purepecha, and nahuatl from puebla. Yet my father brother and now my son have green eyes (those naughty spanards got into everything everywhere...) So true, we are mestizos. however, I believe your anger is misidrected. true ther are many chicanos who are trying to be "more indian than ther indains" but i KNOW that the majority of us understand and appreciate, the many turbulent, tragic, herooic, and yes, even great moments in Mexico's blood. Unfortunately, YOU ARE VERY WRONG in saying that Mexico is NOT a state of mind. it is the state of mind of the true Mexicano, that makes Mexico so heavenly beautiful, yet devilsishly horrific. to blame us "pochos, agabachisados, etc...." for the mixed up psychology of the modern mexicano is sad at best, tragic at worst. You see we are only a reflection of the conflict within Mexico's self-identity. Mexicans see themselves as first world (YES I DID SEE MACDONALDS, HARD ROCK CAFE, AND COSTCO in el D.F.) third world (give us a break on pollution, democracy and labor ethics, we need to catch up to you rich people up north. you say: > > I have run into many revivalist Americans of Mexican heritage that seem to > think that because they read some books and because the Americans of > english-Irish-scottish-german-welsh or Italian descent discriminate on > them that makes them feel more Mexican that I am, given me the "you don't > know better because we are enlightened you poor little 3rd world country > wanna be WE ARE THE TRUE INHERITANTS OF THE AZTEC culture". This is very true, but for only a small, rabid, manipulative, and slefish few. Such as "the Nation of Aztlan" , some blondie white guy who says he is Quetzalcoatl (even has a website wwww.toltecs.com or something like that. There are also people who follow a dangerous (allegedly child molesting) guy named PASTEL in L.A. there are also MANY young innocent chicanos, many wgho are first generation college students who follow any crackppot that comes out of Mexico claiming to hold the secrets of cuauhtemocs prophecy...(Xoconochtle... and his band of viennese Azteca dancers comes to mind...oh don't forget the great tlacaelel). so IF we chicanos are " revivalist Americans of Mexican heritage that seem to > think that because they read some books...WE ARE THE TRUE INHERITANTS OF THE AZTEC culture". IT IS BECAUSE PEOPLE FROM MEXICO HAVE COME TO US AND TOLD US THIS ROT!!!! yOU SAY: > I beg of all of you who are of Mexican ancestry to understand that Mexico > is not only a state of mind, or a matter of academic study, or a matter of > finding you "roots". We are a living nation that is fighting every day to > survive, to progress, to evolve and to try to be more humane and equal. > Yes, we have our terrible one party dictatorship, you have a two party > dictatorship and I don't see you complain, we have a terrible state of > affairs in Chiapas, Oaxaca, veracruz and tabasco, yet I do not see America > trying to help South dakota, montana, nevada or arizona, where the major > and porest reservations are. > hERE YOUR IGNORANCE OF OUR POLITICAL REALITY CONVICTS YOU.... We chicanos are very much involved with the fight for big mountain in Arizona, the reZ battles at wounded Knees and many other places. As a matter of fact... the truth is that until the CHICANOS- MEXICANO-AMERICANOS started to come back to Mexico to"discover their roots" AND BRING HARD CASH TO THE REMOTE PUEBLOS THAT THE BIG CITY PEOPLE CHOOSE TO IGNORE ("HALL EN LA PROVINCIA... EN EL INTERIOR...) most mexicans were more than happy to ignore, disparage, AND EXTERMINATE the indigenous people you so proudly defend. > > Let US the Mexicans that decided to STAY and die if necesary fix our > problems and not be judged by those Who LEFT and went for the MAcdonalds > and Sears life instead of eating the dust of the poverty and wars that > came. We are a nation after all, respect us at least for that. > > Respectfully to our brothers in the north, which they forget that they are > OUR brothers and not OUR TUTORS..... > True we are not your tutors, yet you are not our elder brothers either! Those of us that HAD TO LEAVE, or WHOSE PARENTS WERE MADE TO LEAVE, are not to blame for the perpetual crisis of Mexico.... I believe that that honor goes to YOU, compa. Instead, we are in reality bringing BACK TO MEXICO WHAT YOU " the Mexicans that decided to STAY" send out of the country everyday on champagne, Armani suits,guns and sotch whiskey..... (does the term "saca dolares" refer to us farmworkers, dishwashers, and gardners that send money home every month so that our abuelitas can eat?) As a matter of fact, you intelectual elite of Mexico could do better if you learned from the rest of the educated world about honesty, democraacy and true defence of the disenfranchised. Every time you go to one of your discos night clubs or trendy restaurants in the zona rosa, please remember to treat your waiters well, like human beings,and not to brush off the indigenous children trying to sell you chicles at the doorway. Alex Perez wrote: > > I will catch a lot of flak but I feel morally oblidge to write the > folloowing, specially in this kind of list where the lenguage and culture > are supposed to be taken into consideration. > > First of all, I am Mexican, by birth, by raising, I lived most of my life > ther and I have enjoyed the good times and bad times of MY country. Yet I > am not named Cuahutemoc, axayacatl or tonatzin, as some of my classmates. > I have been learning nahuatl because my brother lives in the heart of the > huasteca potosina and I have many friends that only speak marginal spanish > and mostly a dialect of nahua. I have to deal with the realities of > everyday life there and with the goodness or badness of MY country wether > many people might consider it a backward 3rd world country or not I am > proud of it and I wish not to stay in America but to return to were I was > born. > > I have run into many revivalist Americans of Mexican heritage that seem to > think that because they read some books and because the Americans of > english-Irish-scottish-german-welsh or Italian descent discriminate on > them that makes them feel more Mexican that I am, given me the "you don't > know better because we are enlightened you poor little 3rd world country > wanna be WE ARE THE TRUE INHERITANTS OF THE AZTEC culture". > > I am very frustrated and angry and I want to make all of you AWARE that we > looked on you all as OUR OWN people, but my experience here has been so > disapointing that makes me want to cry. Nobody here knows that WE are all > Mexican, thet The Nahuas, as well as the Otomies, the Mazahuas, the > Tarahumaras, the purepechas the Tzotziles, the tarascans as well as the > GREAT MAJORITY OF MEXICO who is MIxed, we share a same culture tradition > and Nationality. To divide Mexico is to dismember the soul of our nation. > > I beg of all of you who are of Mexican ancestry to understand that Mexico > is not only a state of mind, or a matter of academic study, or a matter of > finding you "roots". We are a living nation that is fighting every day to > survive, to progress, to evolve and to try to be more humane and equal. > Yes, we have our terrible one party dictatorship, you have a two party > dictatorship and I don't see you complain, we have a terrible state of > affairs in Chiapas, Oaxaca, veracruz and tabasco, yet I do not see America > trying to help South dakota, montana, nevada or arizona, where the major > and porest reservations are. > > Let US the Mexicans that decided to STAY and die if necesary fix our > problems and not be judged by those Who LEFT and went for the MAcdonalds > and Sears life instead of eating the dust of the poverty and wars that > came. We are a nation after all, respect us at least for that. > > Respectfully to our brothers in the north, which they forget that they are > OUR brothers and not OUR TUTORS..... > > Alberto Alejandro Perez Pulido > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > A. Alejandro Perez "After many years in which the world has > Graduate Student afforded me many experiences, what I know > Int. Political Economy most surely in the long run about morality > 347 Smith Hall and obligations, I owe it to futbol" > University of Delaware > Newark, DE 19716 From cristi at ix.netcom.com Sat Jul 17 16:10:02 1999 From: cristi at ix.netcom.com (cristi at ix.netcom.com) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 10:10:02 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: > I am working on a project on general indigenous culture that will be > presented to a diverse audience. The project is for my work, so that I can > teach my collegues about my interests. I am looking for suggestions of what > kinds of foods I should make as samples of what my ancestry created (so far I > considered serving chocolate to keep them awake!) Any suggestions as to what > else I should speak about, serve or teach that would be of interest to them? > This will be the first time this audience has heard anything on the subject > and unfortunately may be their last experience (if I can't help it). Tortillas, salsa, turkey, rabbit, fish, mice (!), little dogs (!), cherries, Spirulina, prickly pear cactus pads, squash, beans, avocadoes, mushrooms, and amaranth. Of the squash they would eat the fruit, roast the seeds, and fry the blossoms. They were quite fond of all vegetables and fruits to be found in the area (which was most of present Mexico, as they had many foods imported), and I suppose that would include strawberries (wild, of course), tomatoes, and tomatillos. If you elect to serve chocolatl, be sure to flavor the drink with vanilla and spices. There were other exotic foods and wild plants, but not that you could find in a modern city (whilst mice and small dogs are plentiful). heh. Cristi From andreamb at mail.giga.com Sun Jul 18 04:03:01 1999 From: andreamb at mail.giga.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Andrea_Mart=EDnez_B=2E=22?=) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 22:03:01 -0600 Subject: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Message-ID: Felicidades a Alex P=E9rez por su carta. No estoy de acuerdo con todo, el tema es delicado, pero est=E1 escrito desde el coraz=F3n. Yo lo editar=EDa quitando a qui=E9n est=E1 dirigido. Es m=E1s importante, me parece, lo que d= ice en s=ED. Me gusta ese amor a la patria, es poco usual y muy valioso (las antiguas ra=EDces nacionales). Pero tambi=E9n, querido Alex: como se dice, e= n esta =E9poca de globalizaci=F3n tenemos que abrirnos, y comprender que la experiencia de los mexicanos en EU es tan v=E1lida como la nuestra. Nuestro amor a M=E9xico no debe ser defensivo.Yo viv=ED unos meses en Los Angeles, qued=E9 tambi=E9n horrorizada ante el American Way of Life y defend=ED a mue= rte la opci=F3n vital mexicana. Tal vez lo que te hace falta es regresar a= casa... Andrea Mart=EDnez=20 From andreamb at mail.giga.com Mon Jul 19 01:21:07 1999 From: andreamb at mail.giga.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Andrea_Mart=EDnez_B=2E=22?=) Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 19:21:07 -0600 Subject: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Message-ID: >Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 22:47:19 -0500 >To: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu >From: "Andrea Mart=EDnez B." >Subject: Re: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Vuelvo a enviar este mensaje, hecho ininteligible por los acentos. Puedo sugerir al senor Schwaller introducir en esta red los acentos propios al espanol? H-Mexico los tiene, lo que me hace suponer que debe ser posible. Gracias... Andrea Martinez >In-Reply-To: > >Felicidades a Alex Perez por su carta. No estoy de acuerdo con todo, el tema es delicado, pero esta escrito desde el corazon. Yo lo editaria quitando a quien esta dirigido. Es mas importante, me parece, lo que dice en si. Me gusta ese amor a la patria, es poco usual y muy valioso (las antiguas raices nacionales). Pero tambien, querido Alex: como se dice, en esta epoca de globalizacion tenemos que abrirnos, y comprender que la experiencia de los mexicanos en EU es tan valida como la nuestra. Nuestro amor a Mexico no debe ser defensivo.Yo vivi unos meses en Los Angeles, quede tambien horrorizada ante el American Way of Life y defendi a muerte la opcion vital mexicana. Tal vez lo que te hace falta es regresar a casa... > Andrea Martinez=20 No me presente, soy mexicana e historiadora en el DF. Despues de escribir esta carta lei la de "micc". Tengo una objecion respecto a que en Mexico "exterminamos" a los indios. El termino me parece excesivo. Por lo demas, su punto de vista -excesivo tambi=E9n, como el de Alejandro- tiene verdades grandes: la globalizacion nos obliga a ser mas concientes de nuestros errores y responsabilidades. Saludos cordiales a los dos. From GESX1CKAH at aol.com Mon Jul 19 01:46:30 1999 From: GESX1CKAH at aol.com (GESX1CKAH at aol.com) Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 19:46:30 -0600 Subject: What is quelites (quilitl) and a chocolate question Message-ID: This was suggested as a food to me, but I don't believe I ever heard of it. Also, in what form was chocolate served, I was under the impression that it was originally in eating form rather than drinking? Muchas gracias jessica From micc at home.com Mon Jul 19 06:41:11 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 00:41:11 -0600 Subject: What is quelites (quilitl) and a chocolate question Message-ID: Quelites are usually availabl eat most mexican foods here in California, and definately available in tijuana.... chocolatl, was drunk, mixed with water, honey, and sometimes if availablre vanilla. It was an elite luxury good. Since cacao beans were used as money, only the nobility, and the emerging middle class of the merchants could afford to "eat their money" It appears that the word cacao is a direct loan word from the Maya, in whose regions it grows. "Cacaoatl cacao + atl = water of cacao" I believe that chocolatl comes from xocoa "bitter or raw" and atl, but i recall a long exchange of messages, on this list as to how this was not correct..... GESX1CKAH at aol.com wrote: > > This was suggested as a food to me, but I don't believe I ever heard of it. > Also, in what form was chocolate served, I was under the impression that it > was originally in eating form rather than drinking? > > Muchas gracias > jessica From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Mon Jul 19 14:25:51 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 08:25:51 -0600 Subject: indigenism as a form of culture chic...... Message-ID: Lamentablemente el progrma que maneja al correo eletronico en la Universidad de Montana no puede mantener a los accentos. Por esta razon, les resultan codigos. En este momento no puedo resolver el problema, sino rogarles no utilizar los accentos. De otra manera, cuando se recibe mensaje con codigos en vez de accetos, se puede utilizar su software de manejo de textos (WordPerfect, Word, etc.) para sutituir los codigos con los accentos. Tienen que recordar que el listproc es un sistem automatico y no intervengo ni en la seleccion ni en la edicion de los mensajes. Lo que Uds. envian, se reciben. J. F. Schwaller, List Owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From mhopkins at fas.harvard.edu Mon Jul 19 15:03:37 1999 From: mhopkins at fas.harvard.edu (Mary Hopkins) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 09:03:37 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: Onions are Old World, too, though they're just as thoroughly integrated into Mexican cuisine at this point as tomatoes and peppers are into Italian. MH On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Craig Berry wrote: > On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Alex wrote: > > > I believe the Aztecs (or their predecessors?) invented corn tortillas > > which are consumed substantially in the U.S. And probably some > > version of salsa (tomatoes or tomatillos, peppers, onions, cilantro). > > True, though I don't know about the cilantro. Tamales would make another > good representative Aztec food (either plain corn or corn with chiles or > possibly turkey -- the "dog" and "Tlaxcaltec" filling options being a bit > advanced for beginners). > > -- > | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net > --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html > | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." > From cberry at cinenet.net Mon Jul 19 16:48:28 1999 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 10:48:28 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Mary Hopkins wrote: > Onions are Old World, too, though they're just as thoroughly integrated > into Mexican cuisine at this point as tomatoes and peppers are into > Italian. MH All varieties? I thought that there were "green" onions of some variety in the New World, but I can't recall where I got this impression. From robc at csufresno.edu Mon Jul 19 18:14:22 1999 From: robc at csufresno.edu (Robert G. Comegys) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 12:14:22 -0600 Subject: Aztec or Mixtec Glyphs Message-ID: Saludos, Is there a dictionary of N?huatl or Mixtec glyphs? A search of the library of the National Autonomous University in Mexico City and various boolkstores in Mexico City under diccionario de glifos yeilded me nothing. Is there some standard text? Any assistance would be gratefully accepted. Robert Comegys robc at csufresno.edu From ECOLING at aol.com Mon Jul 19 20:51:10 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 14:51:10 -0600 Subject: Aztec or Mixtec Glyphs Message-ID: Robert Comegys: a book by Mary Elizabeth Smith and one by Bruce Byland and John Pohl (co-authors) will give you a bunch of them. Please provide your postal address, and we will send you a publication list including a workbook for the Mixtec codices. Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From cristi at ix.netcom.com Tue Jul 20 01:45:30 1999 From: cristi at ix.netcom.com (cristi at ix.netcom.com) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 19:45:30 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: > On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Mary Hopkins wrote: > > > Onions are Old World, too, though they're just as thoroughly integrated > > into Mexican cuisine at this point as tomatoes and peppers are into > > Italian. MH > > All varieties? I thought that there were "green" onions of some variety > in the New World, but I can't recall where I got this impression. I wouldn't be able to believe that with wild onions all around them (as there are all over north america), there would be a large group of native americans who had never learned that they tasted good.... Cristi From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Tue Jul 20 11:29:44 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 05:29:44 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: There are native onions. These include Allium triccoum, Allium canadense, Allium cernuun. All were well known to historic Indians in the Midwest. The first two were called, respectively,/shika:kwa/ (literally 'skunk') and /wa:pipina/ (literally 'white potato') in Miami-Illinois. Allium canadense actually had several names, one of which alludes to its red top. Best, Michael On Mon, 19 Jul 1999 cristi at ix.netcom.com wrote: > > On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Mary Hopkins wrote: > > > > > Onions are Old World, too, though they're just as thoroughly integrated > > > into Mexican cuisine at this point as tomatoes and peppers are into > > > Italian. MH > > > > All varieties? I thought that there were "green" onions of some variety > > in the New World, but I can't recall where I got this impression. > > I wouldn't be able to believe that with wild onions all around them > (as there are all over north america), there would be a large group > of native americans who had never learned that they tasted good.... > > Cristi > Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu From mcarde4 at uic.edu Tue Jul 20 13:41:52 1999 From: mcarde4 at uic.edu (Manuel Angel Cardenas) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 07:41:52 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: Saludos a todos, Actually...I believe Christy is correct. Chicago, so I am told is an indigenous word that means "place of the wild onions" chao Manuel Angel Cardenas Yax Chan Chaak mcarde4 at uic.edu On Mon, 19 Jul 1999 cristi at ix.netcom.com wrote: > I wouldn't be able to believe that with wild onions all around them > (as there are all over north america), there would be a large group > of native americans who had never learned that they tasted good.... > > Cristi > From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Tue Jul 20 13:55:40 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 07:55:40 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Manuel Angel Cardenas wrote: > Saludos a todos, > > Actually...I believe Christy is correct. Chicago, so I am told is an > indigenous word that means "place of the wild onions" > > chao > > Manuel Angel Cardenas > Yax Chan Chaak > mcarde4 at uic.edu Well, more or less. The term "Chicago" is simply a European spelling for Miami-Illinois /shika:kwa/, 'skunk' BUT also the term for Allium tricoccum, a plant we call leek or some call "wild onions." Note, however, that "Chicago" contains no morpheme for 'place'. However, later Miami speakers did call the modern town /shika:konki/, 'at the skunk (leek)', which is commonly translated to 'place of the leek'. The actual original place-name is far more complex than simple "Chicago," however. Best, Michael > > On Mon, 19 Jul 1999 cristi at ix.netcom.com wrote: > > > I wouldn't be able to believe that with wild onions all around them > > (as there are all over north america), there would be a large group > > of native americans who had never learned that they tasted good.... > > > > Cristi > > > Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Tue Jul 20 14:19:55 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 08:19:55 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: > Actually...I believe Christy is correct. Chicago, so I am told is an > indigenous word that means "place of the wild onions" Not quite. It is clearly derived from /shikaag/ "skunk" and /-oN/ locative suffix, though this is not Nahuatl but Central Algonkian. (But as we heard one of the wild onions was named after the skunk in the Miami language.) The relevant question is not: were there onions in any part of America but were they part of the Aztec cuisine (consider differnt climate and a disdain of the civilized against food of the "savages"). Maybe somebody can solve this riddle by looking at source texts (to get back to Nahuatl after all)? Henry From chair at thule.org Tue Jul 20 15:29:50 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 09:29:50 -0600 Subject: indigisismo & non indigismo Message-ID: check out http://www.thule.org/tiahuanaco.html From robc at csufresno.edu Tue Jul 20 15:43:32 1999 From: robc at csufresno.edu (Robert G. Comegys) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 09:43:32 -0600 Subject: Royal Gardens Message-ID: Saludos a todos, At the time of the conquest there was a royal herb garden in Ixtapalapa. Does anyone know of a reference that describes it? What herbs grew there? Did they have any onions there? Al tiempo de la conquista era una jardin reyal de hierbas localizada en Ixtapalapa. ?Conoce alguien de una referencia escolar que la descubre? ?Cuales hierbas medicinales o c?cinales que se cultivaban alla? ?Si se cultivaban cebollas? Robert Comegys From ECOLING at aol.com Tue Jul 20 16:58:38 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 10:58:38 -0600 Subject: Mexica gardens Message-ID: And there were (I have heard it said) more generally botanic gardens far in advance of Linnaeus in Europe, and what we should call a "zoo", in which those animals which for reasons of climate could not be kept in the valley of Mexico were represented by paintings. What are the standard original references for these places and what they held? Are there reports of more recent archaeological work on the related irrigation systems which the conquistadors or their successors destroyed? Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From campbel at indiana.edu Tue Jul 20 18:31:22 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 12:31:22 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: Henry, Well put. Speculation has its place, but "inquiring minds want to know": ***did they eat onions?*** Just to continue the availability issue one more step, we could check: Hernandez, Francisco. _Historia de las plantas de Nueva Espan~a_ [3 v.]. Mexico (1942-46).=20 Hernandez, Francisco. _Obras Completas_ [5 v.]. Mexico, UNAM (1959-1976). Martin de la Cruz. _Libellus de medicinalibus indorum herbis_. Mexico, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (1964). A *jewel* of a book: Emily Walcott Emmart. _The Badianus Manuscript: An Aztec Herbal of 1552_. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press (1940) =20 Back to Henry's point, the nearest thing to contemporary commentary that we have is that of Fray Bernardino de Sahagun -- aided by years of monumental work by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J.O. Anderson. I checked all occurrences of "xonacatl" (and 'onion', of course) and the results are below. If you consult the text of the Florentine Codex itself, the context gives more interesting information, but to save you the labor, I extracted the relevant passages and included them immediately after the primary index. Best regards, Joe =20 moxonacanenequi** =20 1. *moxonacanenequi*,. it resembles the onion. (b.11 f.14 p.139).=20 =20 tepexonacatl** =20 2. *tepexonacatl*,. tepexonacatl (b.11 f.14 p.139).=20 =20 xonacatl** =20 3. *xonacatl*.. the onion. (b.6 f.19 p.238).=20 =20 4. zan ye no yehuatl in *xonacatl*.. this is likewise the onion. (b.6 f.19 p.238).=20 =20 5. *xonacatl*,. onions; (b.8 f.2 p.38).=20 =20 6. ihuan in ixquich tlamantli quilitl cualoni, *xonacatl*, tzayanalquilitl, huitzquilitl, huauhquilitl, huauhtzontli, itzmiquilitl, quillanenel, iztac xoxocoyoli, xoxocoyolhuihuilan,. and all manner of edible herbs---onions, water plant leaves, thistles, amaranth greens and heads, purslane, mixed greens, varieties of sorrel; (b.8 f.4 p.68).=20 =20 7. *xonacatl*.. xonacatl (b.11 f.14 p.139).=20 =20 8. quil itlatla in *xonacatl*,. they say it is some kind of onion. (b.11 f.14 p.139).=20 =20 xonacatontli** =20 9. iuhquin *xonacatontli*.. it is like a little onion. (b.11 f.14 p.147).=20 Florentine Codex, Book 6, page 238 =20 4199. zazan tleino iztactetzintli quetzalli conmantica. what is a small white stone holding a quetzal feather? =20 4200. xonacatl. the onion. =20 4201. zazan tleino, cuaztalcomoctzin, quetzalli conmantica: that is that which is white-headed, holding a quetzal feather? =20 4202. zan ye no yehuatl in xonacatl. this is likewise the onion. =20 Florentine Codex, Book 8, pp. 37-40 =20 5158. ic matlactli omei capitulo: oncan mitoa, in intlacual in quicuaya, in tlatoque. thirteenth chapter. here are told the foods which the lords ate. =20 5159. iztac totonqui tlaxcalli, tlacuelpacholli, huei tlaxcalli cuauhtlacualli, tlaxcalpacholli iztac, nexiopapayo, hot, white, doubled tortillas; large tortillas; large, thick, coarse tortillas; folded tortillas of maize treated with lime, pleasing [to the taste]; =20 5160. tlaxcalmimilli, tlacepoalli tlaxcalli, tortillas formed in rolls; leaf-shaped tortillas; =20 5161. cuatecuicuilli tamalli, iztac tlatzincuitl, iztac tetamalli tlatzincuitl, white tamales with beans forming a sea shell on top; white tamales with maize grains thrown in; hard, white tamales with grains of maize thrown in; =20 5162. chichiltic cuatecuicuilli tamalli, nexiotamalli cuatecuicuilli, tamalatl cuauhnextli, red tamales with beans forming a sea shell on top; tamales made of a dough of maize softened in lime, with beans forming a sea shell on top; tamales of maize softened in wood ashes; =20 5163. totolnacaquimilli xocco tlapahuaxtli, anozo tlatentli, nacatlaoyo tamalli chilcozio: cihuatotoli tlatlehuatzalli, zolin tlatlehuatzalli, turkey pasty cooked in a pot, or sprinkled with seeds; tamales of meat cooked with maize and yellow chili; roast turkey hen; roast quail. =20 5164. tianquiztlacualli, iztac tlaxcalli etica tlaoyo, totolin patzcalmolli, chiltecpiyo, totolin, chilcozio totolin, market food: white tortillas with a flour of uncooked beans; turkey with a sauce of small chilis, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; turkey with red chilis; turkey with yellow chilis; =20 5165. chilchoyo totolin, mazanacatl tlatentli, turkey with green chilis; venison sprinkled with seeds; =20 5166. citli molli, tochtli molli, hare with sauce; rabbit with sauce; =20 5167. nacatlaolli patzcallo, meat stewed with maize, red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; =20 5168. mazanacatl patzcallo, totoizquitl venison with red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; birds with toasted maize; =20 5169. tepitoton totome, small birds; =20 5170. canauhtlahuatzalli, canauhtlapahuaxtli, dried duck; duck stewed in a pot; =20 5171. atzitzicuilotlapahuaxtli, nacatlacectli, tlatetzoyonilli nacamolli patzcallo, the atzitzicuilotl bird stewed in a pot; roast of meat; fried meat in a sauce of red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; =20 5172. chilcoztlatonilli, chiltecpinmolli xitomayo, chilcozmolli xitomayo, chilchomolli xitomayo, tlamamollalli xitomayo, pottage of yellow chili; sauces of ordinary tomatoes and small tomatoes and yellow chili, or of tomatoes and green chili; diluted [sauces] with tomatoes; =20 5173. iztac amilotl chilcozio, tomahuac xohuili, patzcallo, white fish with yellow chili; grey fish with red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; =20 5174. cuiatl chilchoyo, frog with green chilis; =20 5175. axolotl chilcozio, newt with yellow chili; =20 5176. atepocatl chiltecpiyo, tadpoles with small chilis; =20 5177. michpili chiltecpiyo, small fish with small chilis; =20 5178. tzicatanatli inamic papaloquilitl, winged ants with savory herbs; =20 5179. chapolin chichiahua, locusts with chia; =20 5180. meocuili chiltecpinmollo, maguey grubs with a sauce of small chilis; =20 5181. chacali patzcallo, lobster with red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; =20 5182. topotli michi patzcallo, tlacamichin patzcallo, sardines with red chili, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds; large fish with the same; =20 5183. mazaxocomolli iztac michyo=20 a sauce of unripened plums with white fish; =20 5184. tlatlauhqui tezontzapotl red, rough sapotas; =20 5185. ixochicual mazaxocotl chilchiltic, coztic, tlaztalehualtic, eheyotzapotl, xicotzapotl,=20 red plums; yellow or vermillion plums; ashen sapotas; =20 5186. cuauhcamotli, camotli, manioc; sweet potato; =20 5187. ahuacatl, avocado; =20 5188. atztzapotl, yellow sapotas; =20 5189. nochtli, tlatlatlapalpoalli, iztac, coztic, chichiltic, xoxoctic, camopaltic, tuna cactus fruit of many hues---white, yellow, bright red, green, orange; =20 5190. matzatli, cuammochil, anonas; guam=A3chiles; =20 5191. capoli, xilotl, elotl, exotl, american cherries; tender maize; green maize; string beans; =20 5192. miyahuatamalli tlaixnamictilli huauhtli ihuan capoli, tamales made of maize flowers with ground amaranth seed and cherries added; =20 5193. elotlaxcalli, anozo xantlaxcalli, xilotlaxcalli, tortillas of green maize or of tender maize; =20 5194. huauhquiltamalli, tamales stuffed with amaranth greens; =20 5195. neuctlaxcalli, nochtlaxcalli, tortillas made with honey, or with tuna cactus fruit; =20 5196. neuctamalli, tamales made with honey; =20 5197. quecehuatlaxcalli, tzoallaxcalli, tzoalli, tortillas shaped like hip guards; tamales made of amaranth seed dough; [cakes made of] amaranth seed dough; =20 5198. tochizquitl, ayotlatlapanalli, olchicalli, elotl tlapahuaxtli tlahuatzalli, rabbit with toasted maize; squash cut in pieces; olchicalli; green maize cooked in a pot and dried; =20 5199. huauhquilmolli tonalchillo, amaranth greens cooked with dry land chili; =20 5200. itzmiquilmolli, tonalchillo, sauce of purslain with dry land chili; =20 5201. huauhtzontli tonalchillo, green amaranth seeds with dry land chili; =20 5202. tzayanalquilitl, water greens; =20 5203. xonacatl, onions; =20 5204. hiyacaquilitl, the evil-smelling herb; =20 5205. eloquilitl, the eloquilite herb; =20 5206. mozoquilitl, the mozote herb; =20 5207. nacaztochquilitl, rabbit-ear greens; =20 5208. achochoquilitl, achochoquilitl; =20 5209. huitzquilitl, chichicaquilitl, thistle; sow thistle; =20 5210. iztac xoxocoyoli, xoxocoyolhuihuilan, sorrel of various kinds; =20 5211. axoxoco acuitlacpalli, a water-edge plant called acuitlacpalli; =20 5212. ayoxochquilitl, squash flowers; =20 5213. ayonanacatl, tender, young squash; =20 5214. ayoyacaquilitl, ayotepitoton, mexixquilitl, popoyauhquilitl, small squash; garden cress; raphanus; =20 5215. nopaltepitoton michteuhyo,=20 small tuna cactus fruit with fish eggs; =20 5216. tozanmolli, gophers with sauce; =20 5217. totonqui atolli, miyec tlamantli, hot maize gruel of many kinds; =20 5218. necuatolli, chilnecuatolli, chilcozio, maize gruel with honey, with chili and honey, with yellow chili; =20 5219. cuauhnexatolli tlatzincuitl, iztac xocoatolli, chichiltic, chilxocoatolli, miltomatl inamic eheihuatolli, white, thick gruel with a scattering of maize grains; sour, white maize gruel; sour, red maize gruel with fruit and chili; small, green tomatoes with a maize gruel made with anonas; =20 5220. huauhatolli izquio, maize gruel made with amaranth and toasted maize; =20 5221. michihuahuatolli neucyo, maize gruel with fish-amaranth seeds and honey; =20 5222. itztic atolli, cold maize gruel; =20 5223. chiantzotzolatolli, chilchopani, anozo chiltecpinpani, maize gruel with wrinkled chia, covered with green chilis or small, hot chilis; =20 5224. iztac chianatolli chilcozpani, white maize gruel with chia, covered with yellow chilis; =20 5225. chianpitzahuac atolli, ayohuachpani chillo, maize gruel with chia, covered with squash seeds and with chili; =20 5226. tlaciocuepalatolli chiantzotzollo, ihuan chianio chiltecpinpani maize gruel made of tortilla crumbs, and with ordinary and wrinkled chia, covered with small chilis. =20 5227. in ixquich tlamantli, i, tlacualli icalitic, hualquiza tlatoani. all these foods came forth from within the house of the ruler. =20 5228. auh in momoztlae, ice tlacatl calpixqui quitequilia in tlatoani, in itlacual macuiltzontli in nepapan tlacualli, in totonqui tlaxcalli and daily a man, the majordomo, set out for the ruler his food---two thousand kinds of various foods; hot tortillas, =20 5229. in iztac cuatecuicuilli white tamales with beans forming a sea shell on top; =20 5230. in chichiltic tamalli, red tamales; =20 5231. in huei tlacualli, tlaxcalmimilli: ihuan cenca miyec tlamantli the main meal of rollshaped tortillas and many [foods]: =20 5232. in imollo in ihuical in totoli, sauces with turkeys, =20 5233. zolli, mazanacatl, tochi, citli, quail, venison, rabbit, hare, =20 5234. tozan, chacali, topotli, tlacamichin, niman yee in ixquich neuctic xochicualli. rat, lobster, small fish, large fish; then all [manner of] sweet fruits. =20 5235. auh in ihcuac in otlacua tlatoani, niman ic moxexeloa, in ixquich tlacualli: and when the ruler had eaten, then all the food was divided. =20 5236. nononcua tlacua in altepetl ipan tlatoque, ihuan in ixquich cemanahuacatl in tlatocatitlanti, in moyaotitlanque, in tlazopipilti, in teuctlatoque, achcacauhti, tequihuaque, tiacahuan, tiachcahuan, telpochtlatoque teopixque, tlamacazque, cuicanime, in quezquitlamantli, ixolhua, iyahachhuan, tetlahuehue= tzquitique: ihuan nepapan toltecatl, teocuitlapitzque, amanteca, tlatecque, chalchiuhtlacuiloque, caczoque, teoxinque. apart, in the city, the lords ate, and all the people from surrounding lands---the ambassadors, the war messengers, the princes, the judges, the high priests, the seasoned warriors, the valiant men of war, the masters of the youths, the rulers of the youths, the keepers of the gods, the priests, the singers, [the ruler's] pages, his servants, his jugglers, and the various artisans, goldsmiths, feather workers, cutters of precious stones, setters of mosaic, sandal makers, and turquoise cutters. =20 5237. niman moteca in icalitic: yecahui in icacahuauh, xoxouhqui cacahuacintli, cuauhneucyo cacahuatl, xochiocacahuatl, xoxouhqui tlilxochio, chichiltic cacahuatl, huitztecolcacahuatl, xochipalca= cahuatl, tiltic cacahuatl, itztac cacahuatl=20 then, in his house, the ruler was served his chocolate, with which he finished [his repast]---green, made of tender cacao; honeyed chocolate made with ground-up dried flowers---with green vanilla pods; bright red chocolate; orange-colored chocolate; rosecolored chocolate; black chocolate; white chocolate. =20 5238. inic motecaya cacahuatl, tecontlacuilolli, atzaccayotl tlacuilolli, acuahuitl ayotectli tlacuilolli, poctecomatl anahuacayotl, atzaccayotl ayotectli, ayahualli oceloehuatl, cuetlaxayahualli, the chocolate was served in a painted gourd vessel, with a stopper also painted with a design, and [having] a beater; or in a painted gourd, smoky [in color], from neighboring lands, with a gourd stopper, and a jar rest of ocelot skin or of cured leather. =20 5239. chitatli in oncan mopia tecomatl, atzetzeloaztli, inic moyectia cacahuatl, huehuei tecomatl achihualoni, huehuei tlacuilolxicalli, inic nematequilo, tzohuacalli tlaihualoni, tlacualchiquihuitl, molcaxitl, petzcaxitl, cuauhcaxitl. in a small net were kept the earthen jars, the strainer with which was purified the chocolate, a large, earthen jar for making the chocolate, a large painted gourd vessel in which the hands were washed, richly designed drinking vessels; [there were] large food baskets, sauce dishes, polished dishes, and wooden dishes. =20 Florentine Codex, Book 11, page 139 =20 10138. xonacatl. xonacatl =20 10139. tolpatlactic, it is slender like reeds. =20 10140. cuecueyahuac, it glistens. =20 10141. tzitziniztac, the bottoms are white. =20 10142. tentzone. it has a beard. =20 10143. ihyac, cococ, it stinks; it burns. =20 10144. tetlatemohuili, quitopehua, quicuania in tlatlaciztli. it aids the digestion; it throws off, rids one, of a cough. =20 10145. tepexonacatl, tepexonacatl =20 10146. in zan canin mochichihua, in amo tlacenmachtli wherever it grows is not very well known. =20 10147. in zazan xihuitl pohui: it probably belongs among the herbs. =20 10148. quil itlatla in xonacatl, they say it is some kind of onion. =20 10149. huel cococ. it burns much. =20 10150. maxten: maxten =20 10151. moxonacanenequi, it resembles the onion. =20 10152. quiyoyo, cuecueponqui it is stalky, blooming. =20 10153. achi quecinami, achi chipayac: it is a little like the onion, a little acrid smelling. =20 10154. in itzinteyo, pahuaxoni. its roots are cookable in an olla. =20 10155. inin itzinteyo huel cuecueyochauhtica, huel miec: the roots of this are well diffused; there are many. =20 10156. ic ipan mitoa in aquin cenca mopilhuatiani, in miequintin onnemi ipilhuan. maxtenpilhua. thus it is said of him who engenders many, whose many children live, "he has offspring like the maxten." Florentine Codex, Book 11, pp. 147-8 10464. zozoyatic =87o=87oyatic =20 10465. iuhquin xonacatontli. it is like a little onion. =20 10466. achtopa yehuatl teyacacpa onhuetzi: at first this is dropped in the nose. =20 10467. in itzinteyo, in iamatlapal in ixinachyo, mochi mocenteci, its roots, leaves, seeds are all ground together. =20 10468. zan teuhtic, anozo paltic: cencan zan aquiton in teyacac onhuetzi: only as a powder, or in solution, a very little is dropped in the nose. =20 10469. intla miec minecui, intla miec teyacac onhuetzi: eztli quiquixtia, if much of it is inhaled, if much is dropped in the nose, it causes bleeding. =20 10470. ompa mochihua: motlauhxauhcan, cuauhtenco, cuauhnahuac, itlan, it grows there at motlauhxauhcan, at the edge of the forest near quauhnauac. =20 10471. amo ihuani, it is not potable. =20 On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Henry Kammler wrote: >=20 > The relevant question is not: were there onions in any part of America > but were they part of the Aztec cuisine (consider differnt climate and > a disdain of the civilized against food of the "savages"). Maybe > somebody can solve this riddle by looking at source texts (to get back > to Nahuatl after all)? >=20 > Henry >=20 From TruBluPooh at aol.com Tue Jul 20 19:53:19 1999 From: TruBluPooh at aol.com (TruBluPooh at aol.com) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 13:53:19 -0600 Subject: Aztec wisdom Message-ID: Greetings all, Might anyone wish to share some Aztec wisdom with us. Those of you who are already fairly fluent. I'm very interested in proverbs or sayings from Nahuatl. Thank you Saludos a todo, Desean compartir un poco de sabiduria Azteca con nosotros los de ustedes que ya dominan la lengua. Tengo mucha interes en proverbios o refranes de Nahuatl. Gracias John-Francis Grasso Hernandez From SANCHEM2 at sce.com Tue Jul 20 20:06:52 1999 From: SANCHEM2 at sce.com (Sanchez, Michael) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 14:06:52 -0600 Subject: Warrior band Message-ID: I have been looking for a band that the Aztec warriors wore around their arm, does anyone have any information on this. A picture would be a lot of help. Mike Sanchez SCE Alhambra Bldg. "C" Pax 46226 (626) 308-6226 From altheman at earthlink.net Tue Jul 20 20:20:48 1999 From: altheman at earthlink.net (altheman) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 14:20:48 -0600 Subject: Issue of Sacrifice Message-ID: There has always been debate on the issue of ritual sacrifices in Aztec society. I have heard arguments that it was a prolific and daily part of temple rituals. I have also heard arguments that the whole thing has been overblown. I need an idea of how common a practice it was and what was the spiritual/political/practical justification for it. Lots to chew here but any feedback would be helpful. Thanks in advance. Alex. From sanduku at nr.usu.edu Tue Jul 20 20:23:38 1999 From: sanduku at nr.usu.edu (Paul Box) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 14:23:38 -0600 Subject: Royal Gardens Message-ID: There is a brief description in Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico" (or something like that), which was published around 1840. He doesn't go into great detail, certainly not as to whether they grew onions. Robert G. Comegys writes: > Saludos a todos, >=20 > At the time of the conquest there was a royal herb garden in Ixtapal= apa. >=20 > Does anyone know of a reference that describes it? What herbs grew > there? > Did they have any onions there? >=20 > Al tiempo de la conquista era una jardin reyal de hierbas localizada= en > Ixtapalapa. > =BFConoce alguien de una referencia escolar que la descubre? =BFCual= es > hierbas medicinales > o c=F3cinales que se cultivaban alla? =BFSi se cultivaban cebollas? >=20 > Robert Comegys >=20 >=20 --=20 ////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Dr. Paul Box // Dept of Geography and Earth Resources // UMC 5240 // Utah State University http://www.nr.usu.edu/~sanduku // Logan, UT 84321 Phone: 435-797-2546 ////////////////////////////////////////////////// * If Elvis was so great, why was he buried in the back yard like a * hamster? From mdmorris at indiana.edu Tue Jul 20 22:39:21 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 16:39:21 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: The accompanying passages for the Florentine Codex citations R. Joe Campbell notes in his messages are: Book 11 Earthly Things Chapter 7 English Translation Xonacatl It is slender like reeeds. It glistens. The bottoms are white. It has a beard. It stinks; it burns. It aids the digestion; it throws off, rids one, of a cough. Tepexonacatl Where it grows is not very well known. It probably belongs among the herbs. They say it is some kind of onion. It burns much. (i.e. ask my wife if you want an accurate answer [ed. note]). Maxten It resembles the onion. It is stalky, blooming. It is a little like the onion, a little acrid smelling. Its roots are cookable in an olla. The roots of this are well diffused; there are many. Thus it is said of him who engenders many, whose many children live, "He has offspring like the maxten." The accompanying illustration includes all three in one portrait, emphasizing the greens. Tepexonacatl has the largest bulbs, while the Xonacatl seems a true onion with one solid bulb. Below is a message Campbell posted last October, that I hope he will not mind being reposted. They are not exactly proverbs, but the metaphors capture something of the Nahua moral vision. Mark Morris Bread and Butter Metaphors amo quitlazohtla in itzontecon in ielchiquiuh he does not shrink from the enemy ixtli yollotl character?? tlantli iztitl ?? nimotlan nimozti ?? macuilli mahtlactli few atoyatl tepexitl danger atl tepetl city in atl in tepetl city in atl in tepetl city ixtli nacaztli mediator atlapalli cuitlapilli common folk cuitlapilli atlapalli common people in mitl in chimalli war in atl in tlachinolli war teoatl tlachinolli war tocochca toneuhca sustenance in ihuani in cualoni sustenance huictli mecapalli misery, affliction in petlatl in icpalli authority in ahuehuetl in pochotl authority, protection in petlatl in icpalli authority zacatl tlacotl wasteland cueitl huipilli woman in ayahuitl in poctli fame poctli ayahuitl fame ihiyotl tlahtolli discourse itlahtol ihiyo his discourse in chalchihuitl in quetzalli beauty, richness nomah nocxi my body itzon iizti his offspring nonan notah my support topco petlacalco secretly xochitl cuicatl poetry in xochitl in cuicatl poem From mdmorris at indiana.edu Wed Jul 21 03:58:05 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 21:58:05 -0600 Subject: Macehualli Message-ID: Speaking of Nahua metaphors, I recently wrote up an argument about macehualli being related to deserving that follows for those who might have an interest. Mark Morris For example, Pilli the word for a noble, also means child, and is a literal metaphor; nobles are the children of the macehualli seen in a 1619 document from Tlaxcala where the teixihuihuan (grandchildren) address the pilli ?timotatzintzinhua timocnomacehualtzintzinhua~ /We your fathers, We your humble-deserving macehuales/ (AGET Fondo Historico, Coleccion Colonial Caja 14 Exp. 20 Fjs 3 Ano 1619). See also The Art of Nahuatl Speech: The Bancroft Dialogues (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1987) edited by Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart, 40-41 and the Florentine Codice (see below ) for other examples of social metaphors such as, in cuitlapilli in ahtlapalli (the tail, the wing) to denote common people. Following Horacio Carochi who demonstrates in his Arte de la Lengua Mexicana (Mexico: Juan Ruiz, 1645) the difference between macehualli and the verb mahcehua (to deserve) with the statement, ?Cuix molhuil, cuix mom?cehual in tima:ce:hualli in tin:entla:catl, inic ina:huac titlaqua:z in motl?t?ca:uh? /Merit you, common and useless man to eat with your master?/, J. Richard Andrews and Frances Karttunen agree that phonetic differences of the glottal mah stop and the long vowel ma: indicate ma:ce:hualli and mahcehua are made of distinctly different morphemes, J. Andrews, Introduction to Classical Nahuatl (Austin: University of Austin Press, 1975) and Frances Karttunen, Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Austin: University of Austin Press, 1983). Thus, they distinguish the intransitive verb with a long vowel Ma:ce:hua (to dance) from the transitive with a glottal stop Mahce:hua or M?ce:hua (to deserve), and thus break the logic of this parent-child metaphor that invokes deserving. According to this model, then, the standard forms are Ma:ce:hua (intransitive verb), Mahce:hua (transitive verb) and Ma:ce:hualli (noun). But, this separation does not hold up given that the intransitive (to dance) is also found as Mahcehua in the Cantares Mexicanos (Mexico: Oficina tipografica de la Secretaria de fomento, 1904), f. 39 v. line 24 and Juan Jose Rendon Monzon?s appendice to M. Swadesh Mil Elementos del Mexicano Clasico (Mexico: UNAM, 1966) where ?ma?ceua? is bailar (80). Moreover, Carochi?s examples themselves are inconsistent as when he drops the 2nd syllable long vowel from Mahcehua, seeming to emphasize its difference from Ma:ce:hualli. In contrast, a 1910 reprint of his grammar that otherwise attempts to fastidiously follow his diacritics entirely omits his diacritic marks in this section (Compendio edited by Ignacio Paredes, 3rd printing, Puebla: El Escritorio, 1910) as does Faustino Chimalpopoca who glosses Carochi's reading of ?ilhuilti, icnopilti and macehualti? in his Epitome o Modo Facile de Aprender el Idioma Nahuatl o Mexicano (Mexico: V. de Murgu?a e hijos, 1869). The seeming confusing meanings ascribed to macehualli, mahcehua etc. originate in the linguistic work of the 16th-century the Franciscans, none more than Fray Alonso de Molina who gives the following entries in his dictionary of 1571: Maceua. ni. bailar, odan?ar. pre. onimaceuh Maceua. nic. confeguir, o merecerlo deffeado. Prete. onicmaceuh. Maceua. nitla. idem. o hazer penitencia. preteri. onitlamaceuh. Maceuale. merecedor de mercedes. Maceualyetoca. nino tenerfe por fieruo, o por pefona de baxa fuerte. Maceualiztli. dan?a o baile. Maceuallatoa. ni. hablar rufticamente. Preterito onimaceuallato. Maceuallatoani. hablador tal. Maceuallatoliztli. habla defta manera. Maceualli. vafallo. Maceuallotl. vafallaje, o cofa de maceuales. Maceualtia. nite. darvafallos a otro, o echar algo ala rebati?a. pre. onitemaceualti. Maceualtia. nitetla. dar a merecer, o dar penitencia o otro . Pre. onitetlamaceualti Maceualtia. ninote. hazer a otros vafallos mios. prete. oninotemaceualti. Maceuia. ninotla. merecer o alcan?ar lo deffeado. pre. oninotlamaceui. Particularly helpful among these are macehuale and macehualli. Both derive from the passive of the verb adding the suffix ?lo. In the first case, the atavistic verb ?eh (to have) joins the statement ?there is deserving? (mahce:hualo) to denote ?one who has deserving.? In the second, the absolutive noun suffix ?tli joins ?there is deserving,? to denote either ?something deserving? or ?something deserved,? and from this extending to mean a common person. See R. Joe Campbell?s morphological studies of the Florentine Codex posted at Jonathan Amith?s analysis of ma:se:walxiw in Ameyaltepec Nahuatl suggests also that the action of masehual refers to the subject. His entry is: ?m?s?walxiw un r?stico, indio (como el poseedor) (Cat. gram.: Sustantivo (relacional) Morfolog?a: N+? Raices (1): m?s?wal; xiw )? in Analytical Dictionary of Ameyaltepec Nahuatl He further describes the suffix ?xiw in Ameyaltepec as similar to the ?po? of Classical Nahuatl in the sense both that it is a statement of being like something and only appears with possessed nouns, giving these examples: nosihuapo` she is a woman like me tinotla:capo` you are a man like me (Jonathan Amith, personal communication) Frances Karttunen affirms that po? ?can be thought of as a preterit-as-present verb of the irregular type which takes possessive rather than subject prefixes and occurs only in singular form, in whichcase it implies *POA: ?to be, become like someone?" in Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl, 201. It is important to recognize that the friars?chief purpose was to translate the Christian faith and Spanish government to Nahuatl, not to explore the most internally accurate translation. This has shaped our understanding of Nahuatl and Nahua culture in countless ways. It is suggestive then that ma:ce:hua (to dance) is used in the Florentine Codex in rituals of earthly and social renewal, whereas the more common verb to dance ihtotia is used more broadly (though frequently in religious contexts) and cuicoanaliztli (singing and dancing) is perhaps the most generic. Examples of macehua as dancing include: auh inic mamacehuaya quehuaya. in naye in naye tla achi in metzal,. (Nahuatl text standardized and machine coded by R. Joe Campbell) and as they kept on dancing they chanted: "when i do, when i do, [give me] a little of thy etzalli. (b.2 f.4 p.84). (trans. Charles Dibble and A.J.O. Anderson, Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research and Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1950-1982. auh in cequintin papaquini, in ahahuieni: ihuan in cequintin tiacahuan, mamacehua and some of the happy ones, the pleasure girls, and some of the brave warriors danced from time to time. (b.2 f.4 p.84) in macehualiztli, in papaquiliztli, inic quimellacuahua, inic quinyollalia, in ixquichtin tlatoque, ihuan pipilti, ihuan teteucti, ihuan tiacahuan: ihuan in ixquich in cuitlapilli, atlapalli, in macehualli: the ruler was greatly concerned with the dance, the rejoicing, in order to hearten and console all the peers, the lords, the noblemen, the brave warriors, and all the common folk and vassals. (b.8 f.3 p.55) And so following a thought suggested by Penny Lernoux, who recounts that ?One of the early missionaries in Guatemala told all of the new missionaries that the first thing they had to do was to teach the Indians to dance the Gospel,? in Cry of the People: The Struggle for Human Rights in Latin America--the Catholic Church in Conflict with U.S. Policy (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), 381, I propose we use the root gloss of ?to pray? to explore connections among intransitive, transitive specific and transitive non-specific mahcehua using the paradigm of calaqui: Intransitive A. Calaqui ~ to enter B. Mahcehua ~ to pray i.e. to dance Transitive Specific Object A. Quicalaqui ~ to enter it. i.e. to put it in e.g. niquicalaqui noichcatl ihtic yolcamehpiyalocan B. Quimahcehua ~ to pray it i.e. to merit or deserve it Transitive Generic Object A. Tlacalaqui ~ to enter something i.e. to pay tribute B. Tlamahcehua ~ to pray something i.e. to do penance Although these two verbs have their own tendencies and connotations, this paradigm shows at least a couple things. First, the shift in the force of the action between intransitive and transitive and transitive non-specific is similar. Thus, as the action shifts from the subject to the object, in shifting from intransitive to transitive specific object, calaqui (to enter) turns to mean something more like ?to put,? and mahcehua (to dance-pray) to merit what is supplicated, in a sense to put the force of prayer on an object. When the transitive is non-specific, in each case the force of the statement shifts back toward the subject who performs a general-type of activity, in the one case paying taxes, in the other doing penance. There is no known reason why in shifting from verb to noun the mah of mahce:hua would become the ma: of ma:ce:hualli, and this accounts for the prudence of Carochi?s et. al. analysis. However, as Molina suggests in his Vocabulario and many examples in Nahuatl attest, glottal stops and vowel length are not always fixed morphemic elements, emphasizing that this difference is not a sure guarantee of disparate morphological origins. Still, the analysis Andrews gives of ma:ce:hualli underscores that both intransitive ma:ce:hua and ma:ce:hualli would latently have a glottal stop according to his view since the basic morpheme ma:i[tl] (hand) ?has two stem forms,? according to Frances Karttunen and R. Joe Campbell in the Foundation Course in Nahuatl Grammar (Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies, 1989), vol. 2, 12. Andrews analyzes ma:ce:hualli as: (MA:I)-TL > (MA:)-0 = hand ...... (MA:CE:HUA) > (MA:-CE:UH) = to rest the hands, i.e. to dance; (MA:-CE:HUA-L)--LI = commoner, plebian, peasant. (J. Richard Andrews, Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, 450. Finally, the prevalence of macehui, macehua, macehual and mahcehua related to deserving in everyday correspondence between indigenous officials during the 18th-century shows the verb to be a common symbol in colonial discourse. When people then spoke of being someone?s vassal or macehualli, it seems natural that the idea of merit and the verb mahcehua would resonate with such a statement as nimomacehualli (I am your vassal). From nahualli at highfiber.com Wed Jul 21 13:17:30 1999 From: nahualli at highfiber.com (Brant Gardner) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 07:17:30 -0600 Subject: Macehualli Message-ID: [Mark] Speaking of Nahua metaphors, I recently wrote up an argument about macehualli being related to deserving that follows for those who might have an interest. Mark Morris For example, Pilli the word for a noble, also means child, and is a literal metaphor; nobles are the children of the macehualli seen in a 1619 document from Tlaxcala where the teixihuihuan (grandchildren) address the pilli ?timotatzintzinhua timocnomacehualtzintzinhua~ /We your fathers, We your humble-deserving macehuales/ (AGET Fondo Historico, Coleccion Colonial Caja 14 Exp. 20 Fjs 3 Ano 1619). See also The Art of Nahuatl Speech: The Bancroft Dialogues (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1987) edited by Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart, 40-41 and the Florentine Codice (see below ) for other examples of social metaphors such as, in cuitlapilli in ahtlapalli (the tail, the wing) to denote common people. [Brant] Ages ago, in my only foray into classical nahuatl kin terms, I looked as the social use of kin terms. The general relationship you site has multiple examples and is expanded into a general principle. Contrary to modern expectations, the focal point of the discussion, or the person of highest rank, is always addressed with a kin term from a descending generation. In our modern religious vocabulary, we use the "father/child" metaphor to describe the relationship between priest/communicant. In nahuatl literature the same type of relational metaphor was used, but in reverse, where "son/father" would indicate higher rank/lower rank. It also appeared that the greater distance between the ranks would be indicated by a greater generational gap (grandchildren/grandfathers). ______________________ Brant Gardner Albuquerque, NM nahualli at highfiber.com www.highfiber.com\~nahualli From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Thu Jul 22 08:27:56 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 02:27:56 -0600 Subject: indigisismo & non indigismo (indigestible) Message-ID: indigi... que? the nearest that comes to mind is "indigestion" and indeed, looking at the immediate proximity of "Thule" and "Tiahuanaco" reminds me of one of the favorite myths of the Herrenmenschen ideologists in this country (Germany) that exactly covered Thule and Tiahuanaco, no need for more of this kind... Brad Smith schrieb: > > check out http://www.thule.org/tiahuanaco.html From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Thu Jul 22 08:32:35 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 02:32:35 -0600 Subject: Issue of Sacrifice Message-ID: > There has always been debate on the issue of ritual sacrifices in Aztec > society. I think there was a longer threat on this last year, if I remember right. Maybe you could browse the archives first... Henry From henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de Thu Jul 22 08:47:19 1999 From: henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de (Henry Kammler) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 02:47:19 -0600 Subject: suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience Message-ID: For a general understanding of the word indigenismo: for me "indigenismo" is either a native language element in Spanish or, more importantly, a historical current in Latin American (especially Mexican and Peruvian) policy towards the "Indians". It was aimed at the "integration" of the native communities into the national societies by government action and under terms exclusively defined by the government. Though dominated by philantropist social activists, the main feature of indigenismo was paternalism, reducing native cultures to folkloristic vestiges in the national picture and aiming at completely replacing native languages with Spanish. A lot of this thinking is still there, above all in the school system, and the INI is officially "indigenista". So I'm wondering what the meaning of "indigenismo" is in present-day Spanish. (I think this is not off-topic because Nahua communities have been -- neutrally spoken -- affected very much by indigenista policies. Just take a look at "Nahua" communities in Morelos, like Tepoztlan, Hueyapan or Xoxocotla.) Henry From =?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Fern=E1ndez_Georges=2C_Mikel=22?= at server.umt.edu Fri Jul 23 07:04:02 1999 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Fern=E1ndez_Georges=2C_Mikel=22?= at server.umt.edu (=?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Fern=E1ndez_Georges=2C_Mikel=22?= at server.umt.edu) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 01:04:02 -0600 Subject: feria de libros en Nahuatl? Message-ID: Me gustaria saber si algun listero puede informarme sobre la feria del = libro en Nahuatl. Estuve en Mexico en agosto de 1998 y pude ver cerca de Milpa Alta unos carteles en que se anunciaba, Los vecinos del pueblo me comentaron que = habia acabado hacia pocos dias y que al parecer se hace cada a=F1o en un = pueblo diferente y que es peque=F1a.=20 Mikel Fernandez From mikegaby at hotmail.com Fri Jul 23 19:58:34 1999 From: mikegaby at hotmail.com (mike gaby) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 13:58:34 -0600 Subject: AZ:Malinalli Message-ID: Hey all, While browsing at my local bookstore I came upon a book about contemporary Mayan shamanic pratices. There it stated that the name of the Aztec day-sign Malinalli translated as "snake energy" and the author compared it to the idea of Kundalini in yogic disciplines. I have always know this word to mean "Grass" or sometimes "Herb". Has anyone heard of a different translation for this word? Thanks, Mike Gaby San Diego _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx Fri Jul 23 21:28:35 1999 From: fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx (Fabian E. Pena Arellano) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 15:28:35 -0600 Subject: Another question about particle "in". Message-ID: Hello, Some months ago I wrote a message asking about the nahuatl word "in", which cannot be always translated as an article into spanish or english. Now I have another question related: what's the difference in saying "In nimexi`catl" and saying "Ca ne`hua:tl in nimexi`catl"? Michel Launey, in his book "Introduccion a la lengua y literatura nahuatl", says that in general, the nahuatl predicate does not have a determination, such that sentences as "Ca nicihua:tl" and "Ca nimexi`catl" should be tanslated as "I'm one who is a woman, I'm a woman (soy una que es una mujer, soy una mujer)" and "I'm one who is a mexican, I'm a mexican (soy uno que es un mexicano, soy un mexicano)" respectively rather than "I'm the woman" and "I'm the mexican". About the third person there are sentences as "Ca mexi`catl" and "In mexi'catl", translated as "he's a mexican (es un mexicano)" and "he's the mexican, the mexican (es el mexicano, el mexicano)". There exist also expressions as "Ca ye`hua:tl in mexi`catl" meaning "He is the one who is the mexican (el es el mexicano) which in general answer the question of the kind "Who is the mexican?". About the second person, I have found at Thelma Sullivan's book "Compendio de gramatica nahuatl" the "vocativo" (sorry, I don't know how to say "vocativo" in english and I don't have my diccionary at hand), which correspond to sentences as "In titona:n" and "In ticihua:tl", "tu que eres nuestra madre" and "tu que eres la mujer". On the other hand the expressions "Ca titona:n" and "Ca ticihua:tl" do exist, "you are our mother (tu eres nuestra) madre" and "you are a woman (tu eres una mujer)" respectively. So, my question is that as in the second and third person may be said, is it possible to say "In nimexi`catl" besides "Ca ne`hua:tl in nimexi`catl" in the first person? In my little library I have not found any reference to it, but since "in" is a determinative I suppose it is at least theoreticaly allowed. Thank you in advance for your attention and answer. Fabian Pena. From fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx Fri Jul 23 22:03:42 1999 From: fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx (Fabian E. Pena Arellano) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 16:03:42 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: Hello again: I just read a couple of messages asking information on the human sacrifices which are supposed to be executed by the aztecs. I am also confused wether they existed or not. Sometimes it seems to be something given as granted rather than as result of an exhaustive and objective research. By 1990 a swiss got his Ph. D. in anthopology in Bern with a criticism to the sources considered as the classical and definitive evidences of the existence of the human sacrifices among the aztecs. I cannot recall his name right now, but next week I can write for all the interested. His thesis is noy published in english or spanish yet, only in german. The spanish version exists already but the german editor hasn't given his permission to print it unless a mexican public intitution agrees to do it. Unfortunately, the UNAM (which is on strike now) and the UAM don't want to publish it for some reason I don't know. If you want more information about it, please write to Ce: Acatl magazine to the address ceacatl at laneta.org.mx; they know how to contact the author of such work and have the translation into spanish if you can't read german. There have been a couple of articles in english and spanish in some newpapers about this work. I will give you the reference on monday. There is also a spanish researcher who has a book about the use of the cannibalism acussation by the europeans to wipe some civilizations out. I will write al the information on monday. Fabian Pena. From micc at home.com Fri Jul 23 22:49:24 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 16:49:24 -0600 Subject: AZ:Malinalli Message-ID: do not believe everything your read!!! There are people who will "alter" the meaning of things to create a universal "cosmic" unity fo concepts.... mike gaby wrote: > > Hey all, > While browsing at my local bookstore I came upon a book about contemporary > Mayan shamanic pratices. There it stated that the name of the Aztec > day-sign Malinalli translated as "snake energy" and the author compared it > to the idea of Kundalini in yogic disciplines. > I have always know this word to mean "Grass" or sometimes "Herb". Has > anyone heard of a different translation for this word? > Thanks, > Mike Gaby > San Diego > > _______________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From takaio at po.aianet.ne.jp Fri Jul 23 23:24:40 1999 From: takaio at po.aianet.ne.jp (Yukitaka Inoue Okubo) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 17:24:40 -0600 Subject: AZ:Malinalli Message-ID: I've seen the translation of "herb" or "grass", but in Spanish it is often transalated as "yerba torcida", that is, "twisted" or "wound" herb... Taka Inoue > > Hey all, > While browsing at my local bookstore I came upon a book about contemporary > Mayan shamanic pratices. There it stated that the name of the Aztec > day-sign Malinalli translated as "snake energy" and the author compared it > to the idea of Kundalini in yogic disciplines. > I have always know this word to mean "Grass" or sometimes "Herb". Has > anyone heard of a different translation for this word? > Thanks, > Mike Gaby > San Diego > > > _______________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From campbel at indiana.edu Sat Jul 24 00:33:49 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 18:33:49 -0600 Subject: AZ:Malinalli Message-ID: Mike, "mali:na" is a verb, meaning 'twist'. "mali:nalli" is the derived patientive noun, somewhat like Spanish and English past participles, meaning 'twisted'. Maybe someone with cultural knowledge can untangle the meaning associations. Joe >>From the Florentine: malinalla** 1. *malinalla*, nomac temi,. the bloom fills up my hand (b.2 f.14 p.236). malinalli** 2. inin matlactetl omei in tonalli, in iuhqui itlahuilanhuan mochihua, in itech pohui: yehuatl in ome acatl, ei calli, nahui cuetzpali, macuilli coatl, chicuacen miquiztli, chicome mazatl, chicuei tochtli, chiconahui atl, matlactli itzcuintli, matlactli oce ozomatli, matlactli omome *malinalli*, matlactli omei acatl.. it became as the leader of this group of thirteen days which belonged with it: two [wind], three house, four lizard, five serpent, six death, seven deer, eight rabbit, nine water, ten dog, eleven monkey, twelve grass, and thirteen reed. (b.4 f.1 p.2). 3. yehuatl in ome tochtli, ei atl, nahui itzcuintli, macuilli ozomatli, chicuacen *malinalli*, chicome acatl, chicuei ocelotl, chiconahui cuauhtli, matlactli cozcacuauhtli, matlactli oce olin, matlactlomome tecpatl, matlactlomei quiahuitl.. these are two rabbit, and three water, four dog, five monkey, six grass, seven reed, eight ocelot, nine eagle, ten vulture, eleven motion, twelve flint knife, and thirteen rain. (b.4 f.1 p.9). 4. chicuacen *malinalli* iuh mitoa: amo cualli, tecuani tonalli:. six grass, so they said, was evil, a day sign of wild beasts. (b.4 f.3 p.20). 5. in yehuatl contoquilia ome cipactli, ihuan ei acatl, nahui calli, macuilli cuetzpali, chicuacen coatl, chicome miquiztli, chicuei mazatl, chiconahui tochtli, matlactli atl, matlactli oce itzcuintli, matlactlomome ozomatli, matlactlomei *malinalli*:. two crocodile followed it, and three reed, four house, five lizard, six serpent, seven death, eight deer, nine rabbit, ten water, eleven dog, twelve monkey, and thirteen grass. (b.4 f.3 p.23). 6. quin cen oncan cualtiaya, in izquitetl in tonalli, in ipan chicome *malinalli*:. thereafter, all the different days in the time of seven grass became good. (b.4 f.4 p.38). 7. quin cen ipan maltiaya, in chicome *malinalli*: ipampa iuh mitoa, quilmach mochipa cualcan, in ipan chicome tonalli, in oncan tlachicometi, chicometihuaya:. later all were bathed together on seven grass, because, as it was said, it was claimed always to be a favorable time on the seventh day sign, the one which then became seventh and took seventh place. (b.4 f.4 p.38). 8. inic caxtolli capitulo: itechpa tlatoa, inic chicuetetl machiotl, in itoca ce *malinalli*: ihuan in amo cualli tonalli in itech ca,. fifteenth chapter, which telleth of the eighth sign, called one grass, and the evil day signs with it. (b.4 f.6 p.54). 9. moquetza ce *malinalli*,. one grass set in. (b.4 f.6 p.54). 10. yehuatl inic quihuallatotoquiliaya tonalpouhque, inic achi oncan quicualtiliaya itonal, in ipan tlacatia ce *malinalli*.. this one the readers of the day signs thus sought out so that they might then somewhat better the day sign of the one born on one grass. (b.4 f.6 p.56). 11. auh in chicuei *malinalli*: no achi quicualittaya, zan nohuian iuhqui in ixquich chichicueei tonalli.. and eight grass they also regarded as somewhat good, just like all day signs of the eighth position everywhere. (b.4 f.8 p.74). 12. auh in ome *malinalli*: niman amo cualli,. and two grass was in no way good. (b.4 f.8 p.82). 13. auh in ome coatl, ihuan ei miquiztli, inic tecpantiuh, nahui mazatl, macuilli tochtli, chicuacen atl, chicome itzcuintli, chicuei ozomatli, chiconahui *malinalli*, matlactli acatl, matlactloce ocelotl, matlactli omome cuauhtli, matlactlomei cozcacuauhtli: in ixquich in, inic ontlatlantiuh ome ei,. and two serpent, and three death--thus they proceeded, in order--four deer, five rabbit, six waer, seven dog, eight monkey, nine grass, ten reed, eleven ocelot, twelve eagle, thirteen vulture: all these thus bring to a conclusion the two, three, [etc.]. (b.4 f.8 p.82). 14. auh in quitoquilia ome ozomatli, ihuan ei *malinalli*, nahui acatl, macuilli ocelotl, chicuacen cuauhtli, chicome cozcacuauhtli, chicuei olin, chiconahui tecpac, matlactli quiahuitl, matlactloce xochitl, matlactlomome cipactli, matlactli omei ecatl,. and [the day signs] which followed it were two monkey, and three grass, four reed, five ocelot, six eagle, seven vulture, eight motion, none flint knife, ten rain, eleven flower, twelve crocodile, thirteen wind. (b.4 f.9 p.92). 15. in ixquich ic ontlatlantiuh, matlatlactlomeei: ipampa in za nican onmocentlalia, izquiteme cencalpan tonaltin, in quinpehualtitica ce calli, ihuan ome cuetzpalin, ei coatl, nahui miquiztli, macuilli mazatl, chicuacen tochtli, chicome atl, chicuei itzcuintli, chiconahui ozomatli, matlactli *malinalli*, matlactloce acatl, matlactlomome ocelotl, matlactlomei cuauhtli,. all thirteen thus go to their conclusion; because of this, all of the day signs are brought together in one group, beginning with one house, and [then] two lizard, three serpent, four death, five deer, six rabbit, seven water, eight dog, nine monkey, ten grass, eleven reed, twelve ocelot, thirteen eagle. (b.4 f.9 p.96). 16. mototoquilitiuh in ei ozomatli, nahui *malinalli*, macuilli acatl, chicuacen ocelotl, chicome cuauhtli, chicuei cozcacuauhtli, chiconahui olin, matlactli tecpatl, matlactloce quiahuitl, matlactlomome xochitl, matlactlomei cipactli:. then come in order, following along, three monkey, four grass, five reed, six ocelot, seven eagle, eight vulture, nine motion, ten flint knife, elven rain, twelve flower, thirteen crocodile. (b.4 f.10 p.100). 17. quitoa cenca ipan tepoloaya in chiconahui itzcuintli, anozo chiconahui miquiztli, chiconahui *malinalli*: ihuan in ye mochi chichiconanahui, ihuan in oc cequi motenehua acualli tonalli, in izquican omoteneuh,. they said that he did great evil to one on nine dog, or nine death, or nine grass, and indeed on all the ninth positions, and the other bad day signs mentioned--each of the different positions named. (b.4 f.10 p.102). 18. ic zan onnenetzolcate, nenetechcate, nenetech zaliuhticate, moquequetzticate, mototocaticate, mototoquiliticate, in izquiteme nican cencalpan tequippaneque: in yehuatl ome calli: ei cuetzpalin, nahui coatl, macuilli miquiztli, chicuacen mazatl, chicome tochtli, chicuei atl, chiconahui itzcuintli, matlactli ozomatli, matlactli oze *malinalli*, matlactli omome acatl, matlactli omei ocelotl.. so only these are being clustered, brought together, joined together, set separately, arranged in procession and in succession, the different numbers of the series, with their assigned tasks: two house, three lizard, four serpent, five death, six deer, seven rabbit, eight water, nine dog, ten monkey, eleven grass, twelve reed, thirteen ocelot. (b.4 f.10 p.106). 19. in oncan in tlaoncayotia 2. atl, ihuan ei itzcuintli, 4. ozomatli, 5. *malinalli*. 6. acatl. 7. ocelotl. 8. cuauhtli. 9. cozcacuauhtli. 10. olin. 11. tecpatl. 12. quiahuitl. 13. xochitl.. the second, taking second place, two water, and three dog, four monkey, five grass, six reed, seven ocelot, eight eagle, nine vulture, ten motion, eleven flint knife, twelve rain, and thirteen flower. (b.4 f.12 p.133). malinaloni** 20. itech quiza in ichtli, cimaloni, tzahualoni, tilmachihualoni *malinaloni*, paloni, yapaloni. the maguey fibre comes from it, the kind which can be dressed, spun; from which capes are made; which can be twisted, dyed, darkened. (b.11 f.21 p.217). malinaltenanco** 21. auh in yehuatl axayaca, quipeuh in tlacotepec, ihuan callimaya, ihuan metepec, callixtlahuaca, hecatepec, cozcacuauhtenanco, teotenanco, *malinaltenanco*, tzinacantepec, coatepec, cuitlapilco, teoxahualco, tecualoya, ocuillan.. and this axayacatl conquered tlacotepec, and callimaya, and metepec, callixtlauacan, ecatepec, cozcaquauhtenanco, teotenanco, malinaltenanco, tzinacantepec, coatepec, cuitlapilco, teoxaualco, tequaloian, and ocuillan. (b.8 f.1 p.2). malinaltica** 22. ihuan mochichiqui *malinaltica* in tixten,. and [the interior of] the eyelids is rubbed with malinalli. (b.10 f.8 p.144). momamalina** 23. auh in omozozoc, xochitl, mec *momamalina*, milacatzoa, huel huihuiac huihuitlatztic, totomahuac, huel tomactic.. and when the flowers had been strung together, then they were twisted, they were wound [in garlands] -each indeed long, each very long, each thick, indeed thick. (b.2 f.6 p.107). nicmalina** 24. *nicmalina*. I twist it (b.10 f.6 p.100b). tenmalinqui** 25. in quimotlauhtiaya cueitl: yehuatl in yollo, ihuan tlatzcallotl, ilacatziuhqui: ihuan huipilli yehuatl in potoncapipilcac, texicalicuiliuhqui, ihuan ixcuauhcallo huipilli, *tenmalinqui*.. they received as gifts skirts: the one with the heart design, and with whorl [or] spiral designs; and shifts: the one with the downy feather pendants, [or] the one painted like stone vases, and the shift with the design of an eagle head in a setting, with a border of twisted cords. (b.9 f.4 p.47). tlamalina** 26. tlayectia, tlatlancolohcahuia, *tlamalina*,. he cleans [the threads], twists them using his teeth, rolls them over his hip. (b.10 f.4 p.74). tlamalinqui** 27. in cacnamacac, ca caczoc, caczoni, tlahuapaltecani, tlatzetzeloani, *tlamalinqui*,. the sandal seller is a sandal maker, a maker of sandals who cuts the soles, shakes out [the cordsl, rolls them. (b.10 f.4 p.73). tlamalintic** 28. cocomotztic, *tlamalintic*, moca ahhuatl,. it is constricted, like a twisted cord, full of thorns. (b.11 f.21 p.218). tlamalintli** 29. itech pilcatiuh chichilicpatl, potonqui ic *tlamalintli*,. from it hung loose, twisted, red cotton thread. (b.2 f.8 p.136). 30. *tlamalintli*, tlahuipantli tlahuipanalli, itech tlatzontli, tlanetechitzontli:. they were twisted, arrayed, disposed, sewn to it, sewn to each other. (b.2 f.9 p.156). 31. inin chalcayatl *tlamalintli* in icpatl, tlatlalpitl, iuhquin matlatl cillo,. this netted cape was of twisted maguey fiber, knotted, like a net set with small, white gastropod shells. (b.3 f.4 p.56). 32. auh in itzonipilhuaz tlatlapalicpatl chichiltic coztic, texotic, tliltic, iztac ihhuitl inic *tlamalintli* catca.. and their hair braids [were tied with] many-colored, loose cotton threads of red, yellow, blue, black, twisted into a rope with white feathers. (b.9 f.5 p.60). 33. inenelhuayo: iuhquin *tlamalintli*,. its root is like a twisted cord. (b.11 f.14 p.149). ximocximalina** 34. xonmitizoquihui, xonmitichichiqui, *ximocximalina*, tlalli ic ximohuitequi, tlalli xiquipototztihuetzi:. anoint thy stomach with mud; scratch thy stomach; twist one leg about the other; [fall] striking thyself on the ground; fall stinking on the ground. (b.2 f.2 p.64). On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, mike gaby wrote: > day-sign Malinalli translated as "snake energy" and the author compared it > I have always know this word to mean "Grass" or sometimes "Herb". Has > anyone heard of a different translation for this word? From chair at thule.org Sat Jul 24 05:29:17 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 23:29:17 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: Same for Mayan pyramids built at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these "monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. From muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com Sat Jul 24 05:42:57 1999 From: muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com (Roberto Tirado) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 23:42:57 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: you are ignorant brad. >From: Brad Smith >Reply-To: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu >To: Multiple recipients of list >Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. >Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 23:29:36 -0600 > >Same for Mayan pyramids built >at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant >spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the >ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and >throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who >actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these >"monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them >for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons >told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing >of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the >math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Sat Jul 24 08:27:17 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 02:27:17 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: Human sacrifice was discussed at great length on this list in the not-too-distant past. Perhaps a visit to the list's archives (if there are any) would be helpful. Human sacrifice is no big deal. Eating humans is no big deal. Back to my breakfast, Michael On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Fabian E. Pena Arellano wrote: > Hello again: > > I just read a couple of messages asking information on the human > sacrifices which are supposed to be executed by the aztecs. > I am also confused wether they existed or not. Sometimes it seems > to be something given as granted rather than as result of an exhaustive > and objective research. By 1990 a swiss got his Ph. D. in anthopology in > Bern with a criticism to the sources considered as the classical and > definitive evidences of the existence of the human sacrifices among the > aztecs. I cannot recall his name right now, but next week I can write for > all the interested. His thesis is noy published in english or spanish yet, > only in german. The spanish version exists already but the german editor > hasn't given his permission to print it unless a mexican public intitution > agrees to do it. Unfortunately, the UNAM (which is on strike now) and the > UAM don't want to publish it for some reason I don't know. If you want > more information about it, please write to Ce: Acatl magazine to the > address ceacatl at laneta.org.mx; they know how to contact the author of such > work and have the translation into spanish if you can't read german. There > have been a couple of articles in english and spanish in some > newpapers about this work. I will give you the reference on monday. > There is also a spanish researcher who has a book about the use of > the cannibalism acussation by the europeans to wipe some civilizations > out. I will write al the information on monday. > > > Fabian Pena. > Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu From robc at csufresno.edu Sat Jul 24 14:44:24 1999 From: robc at csufresno.edu (Robert G. Comegys) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 08:44:24 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: The nahuatl group may wish to know that in the 1920's the Thule Society's insignia was a swastika, that they supported Adolf Hitler as early as 1919, and they were a very powerful "volkish" (racist, nationalist) German society with much support from the aristocracy and ruling classes according to James Pool in Who Financed Hitler. I don't know exactly what the Thule Society has done lately, but the last time I heard the argument that Mr. Smith presents about the ignorant natives living in the ruins others built it was a recounting of how the ruins of Zimbabwe must have been built by Arabs made by a genuine Nazi 30 years ago. It is now well established that the ancestors of the people in Zimbabwe built the massive stone structures there. I'm sure others in the group will support me when I say that it is abundantly clear the the Mayan pyramids were built by Mayans. Regards, John Comegys The Thule Society sponsored Adolf Hitler Brad Smith wrote: > Same for Mayan pyramids built > at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant > spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the > ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and > throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who > actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these > "monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them > for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons > told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing > of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the > math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. From mictlan at hooked.net Sat Jul 24 18:17:08 1999 From: mictlan at hooked.net (mictlacihuatl) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 12:17:08 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: How did you figure inbreeding? Stormfront buddies down in deep south dixieland shoving heavy propaganda to ya lately? It has always been my experience whenever reading or hearing absurd not to mention racist commentary about the Mayans, Mexica, or indigenous peoples as a whole (my ancestors!), he/she/they have some strong tie or another with white supremacy. Obviously. Your comments are a joke, and so is the Aryan "movement" Any chance you are related to Glenn Spencer? At 11:30 PM 7/23/99 -0600, you wrote: >Same for Mayan pyramids built >at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant >spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the >ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and >throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who >actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these >"monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them >for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons >told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing >of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the >math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. > From liedo at stones.com Sat Jul 24 21:14:22 1999 From: liedo at stones.com (Horacio Liedo) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 15:14:22 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: brad: You are disoriented about the best knowledge of humanity. That knowledge is in books and never a secret. Saludos Horacio Liedo ACAXOCHITLAN, MEXICO From melesan at pacbell.net Sat Jul 24 23:15:55 1999 From: melesan at pacbell.net (Mel Sanchez) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 17:15:55 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: I know that Brad has been criticized for his comment on sacrifices. I think that he was not making reference to racial or ethnic group of people but rather to a class of people---the nobles. When we look at history, it is those with power and authority that abuse those who do the building. Take a closer look at his comment and at history. Am I wrong? Mel mictlacihuatl wrote: > > How did you figure inbreeding? Stormfront buddies down in deep south > dixieland shoving heavy propaganda to ya lately? > It has always been my experience whenever reading or hearing absurd not to > mention racist commentary > about the Mayans, Mexica, or indigenous peoples as a whole (my ancestors!), > he/she/they have some strong tie or another with white supremacy. > Obviously. Your comments are a joke, and so is the Aryan "movement" > > Any chance you are related to Glenn Spencer? > > At 11:30 PM 7/23/99 -0600, you wrote: > >Same for Mayan pyramids built > >at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant > >spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the > >ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and > >throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who > >actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these > >"monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them > >for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons > >told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing > >of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the > >math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. > > From chair at thule.org Sun Jul 25 01:50:25 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 19:50:25 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: know that Brad has been criticized for his comment on sacrifices. I think that he was not making reference to racial or ethnic group of people but rather to a class of people---the nobles. When we look at history, it is those with power and authority that abuse those who do the building. Take a closer look at his comment and at history. Am I wrong? Mel You are exactly correct. We are the Thule Foundation, not in any way connected to the Thule Society, We see by the answers to our e-mail that ignorance and misunderstanding is caused because people just run off at the mouth and do not do proper reserarch or even READ the material presented to them, but jump off into some conclusion that fits the need for their lazy minds. I have tried and tried to resign from this list to no avail. From chair at thule.org Sun Jul 25 01:53:19 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 19:53:19 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: Whom do you think built the pyramids? Certainly not the "egyptians" found around them in 3000 BC. They were built longer ago than the sphinx and recent knowledge leads everyone to conclude the sphinx has to have been built when the land around it was rain forest. The nearest historical time is 10,000 BC. for the sphinx Intelligent people have always known they are not the "body" and so have always burnt themselves. That's why the people found by grave robbing archaeologists are not indicative of the previous civilizations that existed long ago on Earth. http://www.thule.org/yugas.html From melesan at pacbell.net Sun Jul 25 07:17:41 1999 From: melesan at pacbell.net (Mel Sanchez) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 01:17:41 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: I was hoping that Brad had something substantial to say, but after reading his other email and looking at the website that represents his ideas I found nothing substantial. I apologize to the list. To add to the real question, I read an article in a prominent Native American journal by a Univ of Texas professor about 15 misconceptions about the Aztecs, one of them being that they actually did human sacrifice. My amateur knowledge (including studying recently with Mary Miller at Yale) was there is much evidence to indicate they did practice sacrifice. When I find the article I will site it on this listserv. I brought up the topic, citing the source, with the Aztlan list but no one ever responded to the query. Perhaps some on this listserv would be interested in reading his article and either critiquing or supporting it with whatever schalarly knowledge may have in acquired. Take care, Mel Brad Smith wrote: > > know that Brad has been criticized for his comment on sacrifices. I > think that he was not making reference to racial or ethnic group of > people but rather to a class of people---the nobles. When we look at > history, it is those with power and authority that abuse those who do > the building. Take a closer look at his comment and at history. > > Am I wrong? > > Mel > > You are exactly correct. > We are the Thule Foundation, not in any way connected to the Thule > Society, > We see by the answers to our e-mail that ignorance and > misunderstanding is caused because people just run off at the mouth and > do not do proper reserarch or even READ the material presented to them, > but jump off into some conclusion that fits the need for their lazy > minds. > I have tried and tried to resign from this list to no avail. From ECOLING at aol.com Sun Jul 25 14:38:59 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 08:38:59 -0600 Subject: Too much About human sacrifice. Message-ID: I have absolutely no question that human sacrifice was practiced by Aztecs and by others, including for that matter Europeans, and that it was part of religious cosmology as well as part of real power politics, just as it is for us (compare the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, central to Christian religion, especially visual in Catholic churches). The problem with this thread is that it represents an ever-recurring distortion of the nature of any society to focus only on what is controversial or sensational, and since there are living descendants of the Aztecs, I believe it is a violation of their human rights as well. Painting them thus. Inevitably it does so. This is just one case of the general problem of the news and entertainment media, their biases and distortions. We have it massively in our own culture, and it simply becomes several steps more evil when it is projected onto the culture of "others", because then there are fewer constraints. I believe very strongly that mis-defining "news" as "sensational entertainment" is a strong CAUSAL FACTOR in undermining civil society, by exposing people to much gratuitous violence whether physical or mental, which does affect how they behave towards everyone else around them (including towards me, and it also affects me if I am not careful to avoid it). That does not mean we have to pretend it does not exist. It does mean we have to be very conscious about when and how we present it (as distinct from discussing facts about it). So what to do instead? Look at the famous National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. I used to think this is a magnificent museum, and the setting is really grand. However, after extensive eduction on Mesoamerica, I now see that the most important things are MISSING. It now appears to me as a collection of war trophies, many ugly to any non-Aztec, treated as isolated objects without much explanation. This presentation will inevitably do great damage to the rights of the descendants of the Aztecs and of others. The great migration of Aztec history is present, true, in an illustration, but not emphasized or explained, or made the centerpiece of some halls, with parallels from the pictures in other books, to show how we can attempt to cross-match and establish a history. I did not see the histories of Culhuacan, or the other chronicles prominently displayed and connected one to another. The great astronomy of the Maya and of many others is not explained in any real detail, where it should be CENTRAL, so the viewer should come away in AWE of the cultural achievements of the peoples of Mesoamerica, should feel that it is WE who are somehow lacking in education since most of us do not know even a tiny fraction of the knowledge recorded in those documents. One could easily come away completely ignorant that the Aztecs had great botanic gardens and zoos, before the Europeans had them. The great histories of the Mixtec are not presented and explained with anything like the detail or flash that they deserve. And so on and so on. Aren't these other things ENORMOUSLY more important than this hyping of human sacrifice? Isn't it really also more interesting, UNLESS the unconscious purpose is to focus on what makes us today think we are superior to those folks then? We are probably NOT more intelligent, even if we have more knowledge about some things than they had (and less knowledge about others). We are still the same species. We are just lucky that our ancestors built a foundation for us from which we can start, which we do not have to re-establish ourselves (and therefore become lax, and let it fall apart when we are not careful). Best wishes, Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From cberry at cinenet.net Sun Jul 25 16:51:30 1999 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 10:51:30 -0600 Subject: Too much About human sacrifice. Message-ID: On Sun, 25 Jul 1999 ECOLING at aol.com wrote: > I have absolutely no question that human sacrifice was > practiced by Aztecs and by others, Agreed. The only credible questions concern quantities and motivations, in my view. > including for that matter Europeans, and that it was part of religious > cosmology as well as part of real power politics, just as it is for us > (compare the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, central to Christian religion, > especially visual in Catholic churches). That's an odd case to cite. Christianity turned Jesus's crucifixion into a sacrifice (= "to make sacred") post facto; at the time, the Roman authorities considered it a combination of political execution with a little "state terrorism". The intriguing thing to me is that, in my reading of Mexica history, it looks like their use of sacrifice started out being almost purely religious (true "sacrifice"), but as they came into greater power they began to use it increasingly as a weapon of state terrorism -- that is, large, very public, very well-advertised mass "sacrifices" used as a warning to subject peoples to keep in line. A demonstration of power, in other words. The religious forms and reasoning were maintained, of course. And again, this is simply my impression of the matter. > The problem with this thread is that it represents an > ever-recurring distortion of the nature of any society > to focus only on what is controversial or sensational, I disagree. We've had threads focussing on such sensational and controversial topics as New World onions and the meaning of the word Teotihuacan. It's hardly like we're talking about nothing but sacrifice. And sacrifice was a central and intriguing element of the Aztec way of life. > and since there are living descendants of the Aztecs, > I believe it is a violation of their human rights as well. > Painting them thus. Inevitably it does so. Oh, come on. My ancestors murdered Saracens in Palestine, kept slaves in North America, killed off most of the native Americans, and so on and on. I'm not proud of this aspect of my ancestry, but it's not a violation of my civil rights if someone talks about it. -- | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From micc at home.com Sun Jul 25 17:27:17 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 11:27:17 -0600 Subject: Too much About human sacrifice. Message-ID: well said...... lets move on, and leave the crypto-cosmics to invent for themselves a reality which floats their boat. ECOLING at aol.com wrote: > > I have absolutely no question that human sacrifice was > practiced by Aztecs and by others, including for that matter > Europeans, and that it was part of religious cosmology > as well as part of real power politics, just as it is for us > (compare the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, central to Christian > religion, especially visual in Catholic churches). > > The problem with this thread is that it represents an > ever-recurring distortion of the nature of any society > to focus only on what is controversial or sensational, > and since there are living descendants of the Aztecs, > I believe it is a violation of their human rights as well. > Painting them thus. Inevitably it does so. > > This is just one case of the general problem of the news > and entertainment media, their biases and distortions. > We have it massively in our own culture, and it simply > becomes several steps more evil when it is projected onto > the culture of "others", because then there are fewer constraints. > > I believe very strongly that mis-defining "news" as > "sensational entertainment" is a strong CAUSAL FACTOR > in undermining civil society, by exposing people to much > gratuitous violence whether physical or mental, > which does affect how they behave towards everyone else > around them (including towards me, and it also affects me > if I am not careful to avoid it). That does not mean we have > to pretend it does not exist. It does mean we have to be > very conscious about when and how we present it > (as distinct from discussing facts about it). > > So what to do instead? > > Look at the famous National Museum of Anthropology > in Mexico City. I used to think this is a magnificent museum, > and the setting is really grand. However, after extensive eduction > on Mesoamerica, I now see that the most important things are MISSING. > > It now appears to me as a collection of war trophies, > many ugly to any non-Aztec, treated as isolated objects without > much explanation. This presentation will inevitably do great damage > to the rights of the descendants of the Aztecs and of others. > > The great migration of Aztec history is present, > true, in an illustration, but not emphasized or explained, > or made the centerpiece of some halls, with parallels from the > pictures in other books, to show how we can attempt to cross-match > and establish a history. I did not see the histories of Culhuacan, > or the other chronicles prominently displayed and connected one to > another. > > The great astronomy of the Maya and of many others is not explained > in any real detail, where it should be CENTRAL, > so the viewer should come away in AWE of the cultural achievements > of the peoples of Mesoamerica, should feel that it is WE who are > somehow lacking in education since most of us do not know even > a tiny fraction of the knowledge recorded in those documents. > > One could easily come away completely ignorant that the Aztecs > had great botanic gardens and zoos, before the Europeans had them. > > The great histories of the Mixtec are not presented and explained > with anything like the detail or flash that they deserve. > > And so on and so on. > > Aren't these other things ENORMOUSLY more important > than this hyping of human sacrifice? > > Isn't it really also more interesting, > UNLESS the unconscious purpose is to focus on what > makes us today think we are superior to those folks then? > > We are probably NOT more intelligent, > even if we have more knowledge about some things than they had > (and less knowledge about others). > We are still the same species. > We are just lucky that our ancestors built a foundation for > us from which we can start, which we do not have to re-establish > ourselves (and therefore become lax, and let it fall apart > when we are not careful). > > Best wishes, > Lloyd Anderson > Ecological Linguistics From micc at home.com Sun Jul 25 17:30:33 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 11:30:33 -0600 Subject: Too much About human sacrifice. Message-ID: This perhaps is the best part of the whole thread!!! .......................... > > Oh, come on. My ancestors murdered Saracens in Palestine, kept slaves in > North America, killed off most of the native Americans, and so on and on. > I'm not proud of this aspect of my ancestry, but it's not a violation of > my civil rights if someone talks about it. > > -- > | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net > --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html > | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From chair at thule.org Sun Jul 25 21:00:19 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 15:00:19 -0600 Subject: Too much About human sacrifice. Message-ID: To get an understanding of just how greatly advanced the actual ancient Mayans were, go to http://www.thule.org/tiahuanaco.html From chair at thule.org Sun Jul 25 21:14:11 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 15:14:11 -0600 Subject: advanced Mayan civilization Message-ID: http://www.thule.org/tiahuanaco.html From mdmorris at indiana.edu Sun Jul 25 21:49:31 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 15:49:31 -0600 Subject: advanced Mayan civilization Message-ID: Sometimes cyberspace seems like some cosmic fusion of intelligence and the intricacies of navigating it escape us. As a reminder about using this list, to unsubscribe to nahuat-l send the following message: unsubscribe Nahuat-l First Name Last Name to: listproc at listserv.umt.edu Sincerely, Mark Morris From chair at thule.org Mon Jul 26 01:44:57 1999 From: chair at thule.org (Brad Smith) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 19:44:57 -0600 Subject: been sent Message-ID: I have sent that message at lerast twenty times. Thanks for the note. It doesn't work as your e-mail is evidence. From micc at home.com Mon Jul 26 07:13:02 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 01:13:02 -0600 Subject: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: tHE THULE SOCIETY AND OTHER PSEUDO-HISTORIANS WHO ARE HELL-BENT ON PUSHING THEIR RACIST AGENDA ARE A CANCER ON THE SOUL OF HUMANITY "Robert G. Comegys" wrote: > > The nahuatl group may wish to know that in the 1920's the Thule Society's > insignia was a swastika, > that they supported Adolf Hitler as early as 1919, and they were a very > powerful "volkish" (racist, nationalist) German society with much support > from the aristocracy and ruling classes according to James Pool in Who > Financed Hitler. I don't know exactly what the Thule Society has done > lately, but the last time I heard the argument that Mr. Smith presents > about the ignorant natives living in the ruins others built it was a > recounting of how the ruins of Zimbabwe must have been built by Arabs made > by a genuine Nazi 30 years ago. It is now well established that the > ancestors of the people in Zimbabwe built the massive stone structures > there. I'm sure others in the group will support me when I say that it is > abundantly clear the the Mayan pyramids were built by Mayans. > Regards, John Comegys > > The Thule Society sponsored Adolf Hitler Brad Smith wrote: > > > Same for Mayan pyramids built > > at least a hundred thousand years ago and discovered by ignorant > > spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, that thought that the > > ignorant people using stone knives and ripping people's hearts out and > > throwing them down the stairs to the roaring crowd, were the ones who > > actually "built" them. Wrong. The people living next to many of these > > "monuments" know relatively nothing about them. They just "used" them > > for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the "priest" class of peons > > told them to do. The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing > > of any calendar, much less how to interpret it. They didn't have the > > math skills or the intelligence after way too much inbreeding. From peter at netway.com Mon Jul 26 12:47:15 1999 From: peter at netway.com (Peter Selverstone) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 06:47:15 -0600 Subject: Language of the Olmecs Message-ID: Hi John, The message that "pulled my chain" was posted to the nahual-l list. There has been no further "discussion" and I have not posted anything yet. Best, Peter. ----- Original Message ----- From: JSJusteson at aol.com To: peter at netway.com Sent: Monday, July 26, 1999 1:33 AM Subject: Re: Language of the Olmecs ... Incidentally, I never saw the original notes that you are writing in response to. Were they on Aztlan? .. ----- Original Message ----- From: mike gaby To: Multiple recipients of list Sent: Saturday, July 10, 1999 2:00 PM Subject: Language Any bored linguists care to share a quick version of pronunciation and syllabic stress for the Otomi language, P'urepecha, and Mixe? Also anyone know the form of Mixe-Zoquean allegedly spoken by "Olmecs"? Thanks, Mike ----- Original Message ----- From: ECOLING at aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 1999 3:33 PM Subject: Language of the Olmecs Mike Gaby asked: >Also anyone know the form of Mixe-Zoquean allegedly spoken by "Olmecs"? This is of course a very difficult question, since the Olmecs flourished around 1500 BC to 400 BC or so (depending on who one asks). It may not be Mixe-Zoquean at all. According to John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, it is Proto-Zoque, by the following reasoning: a) Loan words in Mesoamerica are from Mixe-Zoquean into other languages, including high-culture words b) The Olmecs were the originators of Mesoamerican high culture. c) Therefore the Olmecs must have spoken a Mixe-Zoquean language And they further claim d) The writing system of La Mojarra must represent the Epi-Olmec people. Given its date and location (Veracruz, 2nd century AD by its long counts), and the lack of evidence for extensive migrations during the relevant time frames, this writing must be interpreted as the writing of the successors to the Olmecs, "Epi-Olmecs". e) The writing system of La Mojarra is now in large part deciphered, and is a Mixe-Zoquean language, specifically proto-Zoquean. ***** This line of reasoning is plausible in its first two steps (though we have few sufficiently knowledgeable specialists other than Kaufman who could attempt to argue against any of these early steps in the reasoning). The reasoning is increasingly fragile in later steps, for example because the Olmec might have transmitted some high culture which originated with others, or the situation might in other ways have been more complex. ***** In particular, the claim in (e) is unjustified. The history of decipherment is full of claims of decipherment which turn out to be unsubstantiated. A claim is not a decipherment. In particular: 1. Kaufman "knew" the writing of La Mojarra had to be Epi-Olmec, a conclusion he drew from steps (a,b,c,d). He "knew" this before ever examining the writing system itself. 2. Kaufman and Justeson did not actually consider alternatives, in the sense of exploring "what if" the writing represented a language of some family other than the Mixe-Zoquean. So their conclusion is really the same as the assumption they began with, or rather, should be more accurately formulated as: Under the assumption that the language belongs to the Mixe-Zoquean family, it is most likely a form of Proto-Zoquean. Once we make the assumption explicit (and Kaufman and Justeson did not hide it, they merely did not note that it was an assumption to which any alternatives could be conceived or should be...), then the conclusion stands clearly as what it is. ***** 3. There is a lack of the kind of "many things suddenly falling into place, once the answer was discovered" which is usually the hallmark of a good decipherment. Rather, each bit of new text "interpreted" as proto-Zoquean which contained new glyphs requires new subsidiary hypotheses to support an interpretation. 4. The "translations" provided by Justeson and Kaufman for parts of the La Mojarra text, many still only in verbal presentations rather than in publications, are quite different from most other texts in Mesoamerica, in several respects (speaking of "folding cloth" and other things). This by itself might suggest that forcing a Mixe-Zoquean interpretation onto the text has led to contradictions or dead-ends. (Of course we cannot know in advance what the writers of the La Mojarra text chose to write about -- it is simply that if on our first hypotheses at interpretation we get something rather odd, it might suggest the hypotheses are not exactly on target.) 4. Interpretations of the same text as some language related to the Mayan family work moderately well also. This is definitely NOT to argue that La Mojarra represented a Mayan language, simply to point out that there are alternatives. In at least one case, an interpretation as Mayan works better than the interpretation Justeson and Kaufman propose as proto-Zoquean, because there is a homonym motivation within Mayan. Many sentence structures are the same for many languages and language families within Meso-America, so they cannot decide. (In fact, Kaufman and Justeson were forced by some of their other assumptions to conclude that the La Mojarra "proto-Zoquean" had a word order different from that of other Zoquean languages -- possible, but not the most straightforward.) 5. There are some in the Mesoamerican field who think the resemblances between Olmec iconography and Mayan iconography are such that the latter may derive in large part from the former. That does not demonstrate a linguistic relation, but does not exclude it either. Conclusion: The language is not yet known. Two proposals have been explored, a Mixe-Zoquean one and a Mayan one. The La Mojarra text might represent either of these or might represent a language from some family other than these two. There is no avalanch of things falling-into-place as a result of any set of hypotheses so far presented. Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics ***** Four publications (others are listed in Anderson 1999): Campbell, Lyle and Terrence Kaufman. 1976. A Linguistic Look at the Olmecs. American Antiquity 41:80-89 (the presentation of the claim in (a) above). Justeson, John and Terrence Kaufman. 1993. A Decipherment of Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing. Science 259:1703-1711 (presentation of the Proto-Zoquean hypothesis, claims of decipherment with many specifics) Anderson, Lloyd. 1999. The Writing System of La Mojarra, 3rd edition. Ecological Linguistics (presentation of structural analyses independent of choice of language, and of both Mayan and Proto-Zoquean interepretations in parallel and in contrast. Currently the most comprehensive work available.) (PO Box 15156, Washington, DC 20003. Price within the USA $40, Price to Europe by book rate $52.) Houston, Stephen. 1996. [Review of 2nd Edition of The Writing System of La Mojarra] International Journal of American Linguistics 62 no.4 pp.429-431. From nahuat-l at server.umt.edu Mon Jul 26 14:21:50 1999 From: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu (by way of "John F. Schwaller" ) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:21:50 -0600 Subject: Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 02:36:07 -0600 (MDT) From: Andreas C Schou To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Brad Smith wrote: > Same for Mayan pyramids built at least a hundred thousand years ago and > discovered by ignorant spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, > that thought that the ignorant people using stone knives and ripping > people's hearts out and throwing them down the stairs to the roaring > crowd, were the ones who actually "built" them. It's extremely unlikely that, one hundred thousand years ago, Mesoamerica had any inhabitants whatsoever. Where are their tools? Where did they expand from? What language did they speak, and why is the language of the original monument-builders entirely extinct? > Wrong. The people living next to many of these "monuments" know > relatively nothing about them. Interesting. Are the obvious depictions of Mayans participating in common Mayan activities are simply a coincidence? How do you explain the replication of Mesoamerican iconography from permanent (temples) to impermanent (pottery) media? > They just "used" them for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the > "priest" class of peons told them to do. Interpretation of Mesoamerican myth is often touchy: though the stories are often bloody, evidence of such large-scale murder is seldom forthcoming ... and context is difficult to determine. Assumptions like that, if applied to the Bible, might lead one to believe that Christian communion endorses ritual cannibalism. This is obviously not the case ... unless you go to a church much different than mine. ;) > The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing of any calendar, > much less how to interpret it. There is a certain racism inherent in your peculiar Danikenite posture. You theorize that savages like the Egyptians and the Mayans could never have developed culture on your own; Greece, Rome, and other 'white' civilizations, however, remain beyond the touch of your theoretical aliens. Danikenism is the response of a culture clinging to its last pretensions of superiority. When faced with irrefutable evidence that other cultures were at least as good as yours at doing certain things, you invent aliens to bootstrap the 'savages' up. > They didn't have the math skills or the intelligence after way too much > inbreeding. First: that contention is simply insulting. Second: Inbreeding typically only occurs when the benefit outweighs humanity's inherent incest taboo ... for instance, to keep political power 'in the family', as it were, or when mating opportunities become limited; for instance, during times of famine. Until the Mayan collapse, the Mayans had a healthy and active gene pool. There was no pressing reason to inbreed. Second, even if you *do* assume that the Mayan leaders were inbred, Mayan dynastic structure did not affect the priestly caste -- the astronomers and mathematicians of the Mayans ... thus, no information would be 'lost' by inbreeding. In short: if you want to come into an academic discussion, bring academic thought. If you want to antagonize people who genuinely appreciate the culture you so carelessly denigrate, do exactly what you have just done. From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Mon Jul 26 14:47:36 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:47:36 -0600 Subject: Let's take a deep breath Message-ID: Dear Subscribers, Since running Nahuat-l, and the University of Montana, is my job, I take off on weekends to be with my family. Imagine my surprise when I came back to the flurry of messages posted over the weekend. Very uncommon for the third weekend in July. I have assisted Mr. Smith in his efforts to unsubscribe to Nahuat-l. For those of us who remain I urge you all to take a long deep breath, and remember the focus of the list, Nahuatl and the Nahuas. Secondly, this is not a moderated list. Any subscriber can post whatever they wish. It is the obligation of subscribers to remain focused. Let us now remain calm and go about the business of the list. Thanks, J. F. Schwaller, List owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From peter at netway.com Mon Jul 26 17:51:09 1999 From: peter at netway.com (Peter Selverstone) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 11:51:09 -0600 Subject: Language of the Olmecs Message-ID: Apologies for my last posting which was inadvertently sent to the list. This is the correct posting. Peter. -------- Lloyd Anderson wrote: >Mike Gaby asked: >>Also anyone know the form of Mixe-Zoquean >>allegedly spoken by "Olmecs"? >This is of course a very difficult question, since > the Olmecs flourished around 1500 BC to 400 BC >or so (depending on who one asks). >It may not be Mixe-Zoquean at all. >According to John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, >it is Proto-Zoque, by the following reasoning: >a) Loan words in Mesoamerica are from Mixe-Zoquean > into other languages, including high-culture words >b) The Olmecs were the originators of Mesoamerican > high culture. >c) Therefore the Olmecs must have spoken a Mixe-Zoquean > language >And they further claim >d) The writing system of La Mojarra must represent the > Epi-Olmec people. Given its date and location (Veracruz, > 2nd century AD by its long counts), and the lack of evidence > for extensive migrations during the relevant time frames, > this writing must be interpreted as the writing of the successors > to the Olmecs, "Epi-Olmecs". >e) The writing system of La Mojarra is now in large part deciphered, > and is a Mixe-Zoquean language, specifically proto-Zoquean. The most recent publication by Kaufman and Justeson on this subject is: A Newly Discovered Column in the Hieroglyphic Text on La Mojarra Stela 1: A Test of the Epi-Olmec Decipherment John S. Justeson and Terrence Kaufman Science 1997 July 11; 277: 207-210. (in Reports) Full text of an expanded version of this paper is available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/justeson.shl A pdf fomat version is at: http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/justeson.pdf (access to these locations may require registration, but does not require a subscription) The original paper is: J. S. Justeson and T. Kaufman, Science 259, 1703 (1993). An important subsequent article (in Spanish) is in an INAH journal: J. S. Justeson and T. Kaufman, Arqueologia 8, 1992 (1996). Unlike Lloyd, I am not a linguist, but my understanding is that the identification of the language of the Epi-Olmec writing system is based on the results of a complete grammatical analysis of the texts which conforms to the structure of pre-proto-Zoquean and to no other reconstructable language. One would not expect things to suddenly fall into place for a writing system in which only four texts are known, however, as reported in the more recent article in Science, an unexpected discovery did provide a compelling test of the work. Unless someone demonstrates problems with either the evidence or the reasoning or proposes another language consistent with the regularities of the very long text of Stela 1, I'm happy to accept the conclusion presented in that paper: This study shows that a previously unknown segment of text can be read and understood in terms of the same model for language structure, sign values, and spelling conventions that were developed in the previously achieved decipherment of the epi-Olmec script, and shows that the segment's content is well integrated with the previously read portion of the same text. Conversely, there are no phenomena in this stretch of text that challenge the model in any way. It is difficult to imagine that this model would yield a complete, coherent, and grammatical text if these portions of the decipherment-language structure, sign values, and spelling conventions-were not essentially correct. In our view, the data confirm the results obtained in the first two of our by now six years of our work on the decipherment of epi-Olmec writing. When a testable hypothesis is presented in detail in peer-reviewed journals, critics should make an effort to understand the hypothesis, cite the basis of their reservations, and submit their work to the peer review process. It appears to me that the only serious review and testing of the epi-Olmec work has been done by the authors themselves. In my (amateur) opinion, this reflects badly on the state of scholarship in Mesoamerican writing systems. ------------------ Peter Selverstone peter at netway.com ------------------ From micc at home.com Mon Jul 26 18:26:36 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 12:26:36 -0600 Subject: Thule Message-ID: it is intelligent and highly adult communications like this that have made you the darlings of the "nahuat-l at server.umt.edu" family. Perhaps if you stopped inbreeding within your "Foundation" you could discourse at a higher level. sincerely, a PROUD inbred Native American of Mexican ASCENT Brad Smith wrote: > > Its Thule Foundation not Society and you are an idiot and always have > been. > We at the Foundation are not pushing any racists agenda you ignorant > slimeball. From campbel at indiana.edu Mon Jul 26 19:35:25 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 13:35:25 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: Nocnihuan, Some of us are interested mainly in culture and history and others mainly in language. But that doesn't mean that most of us aren't interested in some degree in *all* of it. My main interest is in the mechanics of words and *how* they mean what they mean. My interest in the application of this is how a person develops fluency in word recognition and reading in Nahuatl. "Had we but world enough and time..." we could depend on osmosis (and I don't deny that osmosis has its place), but most of us have finite lives, so some efficiency is in order. Despite the recent interest in more speculative topics, I believe that we have something to gain from looking at the nuts and bolts of the language. I offer an interesting question (at least, I found it interesting when it dawned on me): tzoaztli 1. what does it mean? 2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) 3. is it ambiguous? Joe From campbel at indiana.edu Mon Jul 26 19:49:09 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 13:49:09 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: ******* I forgot to mention -- no fair looking at dictionaries, wordlists, notes, etc.!! This is not "open book".... From ECOLING at aol.com Mon Jul 26 20:13:19 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:13:19 -0600 Subject: Language of the Olmecs Message-ID: Peter Selverstone writes today, concerning the hypotheses put forward by John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, that the language of the La Mojarra Stele is Proto-Zoquean, and my comments on those hypotheses. Here some rejoinders: [I think this discussion rightly belongs on the AZTLAN email list, rather than on the Nahaut-l list, and am transferring a copy of this there, hoping we will continue it there. I responded on Nahuat-l to an assumption expressed here, and should have attempted to transfer lists earlier. Those not interested can of course delete this message.] >Unlike Lloyd, I am not a linguist, but my understanding is that the >identification of the language of the Epi-Olmec writing system is >based on the results of a complete grammatical analysis of the >texts which conforms to the structure of pre-proto-Zoquean and to >no other reconstructable language. For the reading of an undeciphered text, the readings of specific details can be hypothesized in such a manner as to reflect the conclusion one started with. Up to a point, at which we should observe either an avalanche of things easily falling-into-place, or a failure. Since the above quotation is Mr. Selverston's conclusion not the evidence, and since Mr. Selverstone held this same opinion as of a year or so ago when he told me he had not yet really read "The Writing System of La Mojarra" (see below), an evaluation of the conclusion must rest on the facts. The opinion just quoted does not reflect the facts. I believe that the review of these issues which HAS appeared, by Dr. Steven Houston, which I cited in my previous post, is perhaps too severe. Dr. Houston concludes that this text cannot be deciphered because it is too short and there is no bilingual. I agree that makes it more difficult, but with luck and hard work (for example, if the reasoning of Kaufman and Campbell about the language origins of high-culture Mesoamerican vocabulary does lead to the correct conclusion about the language) it may be possible. There is no reason to exclude it a priori. >One would not expect things to suddenly fall into place for a >writing system in which only four texts are known, however, >as reported in the more recent article in Science, an unexpected >discovery did provide a compelling test of the work. There has been no "compelling test" of any hypotheses put forward, neither Proto-Zoque nor Mayan nor any other, in the sense that no new texts which have been found are more than barely readable with lots of good will and suspension of disbelief. This claim of a "test" of the hypothesis was made once before by these same authors, in a presentation at Austin, Texas. That previous claim referred to the "O'Boyle Mask", a very short and damaged text, which the authors "read" at that time as concerning bean plants. It involved a few new glyphs, many read only with difficulty, and enough degrees of freedom that it could not possibly constitute a "test". No such text concerning "bean plants" is known elsewhere in Mesoamerica, which is not a counter-proof, but certainly does not strengthen the hypothesis. The most recent claim of a "compelling test" involves a single column of glyphs on one of the narrow sides of the stela, discovered only with great difficulty, almost completely unreadable. According to Justeson and Kaufman, whom I have no reason to doubt on this point, what would have been vertical lines in the drawings of glyphs are at least mostly not readable, because the grain of the stone goes vertically there and they disappear into the grain. Only some lines crossing that grain are readable, and even those only with great difficulty, as it is very worn. I have personally examined that section of the stone, and I can have only great admiration for the stamina and abilities of the authors Justeson and Kaufman, who spent many long hours trying to record that column. I could see essentially nothing there. I choose to assume they have correctly drawn what was there based on the traces remaining, and admire the careful statement they made, that in doubtful cases they drew a conclusion ON THE ASSUMPTION that the glyphs present there were glyphs already known from the long front text of the stela. That is an entirely reasonable procedure, minimizing the likelihood of error, but does not remove the difficulty that the glyphs are almost completely destroyed. Given the nature of this almost disappeared text, it could not constitute a "compelling test" of anything. But it does not constitute a compelling test for a more important reason. Justeson and Kaufman conclude (correctly, I believe, as I assume their drawings are accurate) that the phrases they record from that single column are structurally very like phrases found on the long front text of the stela. This does serve to confirm the analysis of the text into such phrases, since they are now found on a text which was not known when the phrases were proposed. But MOST OF THE PHRASES of the text were in fact discovered by quite a number of investigators years ago, working quite independently of each other so far as I am aware. Crucially, MOST OF THOSE PHRASES DO NOT DEPEND ON THE LANGUAGE HYPOTHESIZED as the basis of the text. So what is really confirmed is the work in identifying repeating phrases. The hypothesis of a particular language is not confirmed by any pattern which was predicted by nearly all students of the patterning of the text, no matter what the language. There are to be sure a few points where a particular hypothesis for the phonetic reading of a glyph works to create a certain word reading (for Justeson and Kaufman, in Proto-Zoquean). But unless that word reading can be independently confirmed, as by a highly plausible hypothesis of the meaning conveyed by the text, preferably a meaning which can be confirmed and locked in place by some literary or historical or astronomical context, there is no confirmation of the readings. Mr. Selverstone writes: >Unless >someone demonstrates problems with either the evidence or >the reasoning or proposes another language consistent with >the regularities of the very long text of Stela 1, I'm happy to >accept the conclusion presented in that paper: The only test available so far is the careful analysis of the hypotheses, how some of the hypotheses depend on others, how the logic flows, and whether the results are plausible or not. That test, or the portion which is possible now, has indeed been carried out, and is displayed in great detail and in a maximally accessible manner in the cited publication "The Writing System of La Mojarra". Since neither full translations nor even full information on sentence boundaries has been provided by Justeson and Kaufman, only a partial test is possible. Despite those limitations, the book "The Writing System of La Mojarra" does demonstrate the near-circularities of the reasoning lying behind many of the specific hypotheses of how to read the text, and thus beyind the hypothesis of Proto-Zoque language; that new subsidiary hypotheses are added when needed to shore up mis-matches between what their initial starting point led them to (that initial starting point being a few presumed logogram+phonetic-complement readings), for example hypothesizing a word order which is NOT that of previously reconstructed Proto-Zoquean (etc.). Justeson and Kaufman's work does not even really consider another language possibility, and did not consider any other possibility than Mixe-Zoquean from the very beginning, because they thought they knew it had to be Mixe-Zoquean. Those interested should actually read that review of their work in its full detail, and deal with specifics if they with to draw conclusions either privately or publicly. Mr. Selverstone quotes from their paper: > This study shows that a previously unknown > segment of text can be read and > understood in terms of the same model for > language structure, sign values, and spelling > conventions that were developed in the > previously achieved decipherment of the > epi-Olmec script, and shows that the segment's > content is well integrated with the > previously read portion of the same text. > Conversely, there are no phenomena in this > stretch of text that challenge the model in > any way. It is difficult to imagine that this > model would yield a complete, coherent, > and grammatical text if these portions of > the decipherment-language structure, sign > values, and spelling conventions-were not > essentially correct. In our view, the data > confirm the results obtained in the first two > of our by now six years of our work on the > decipherment of epi-Olmec writing. This statement has been answered above. Mr. Selverstone writes: >When a testable hypothesis is presented in detail in >peer-reviewed journals, critics should make an effort >to understand the hypothesis, cite the basis of their >reservations, and submit their work to the peer review >process. This has been done, with the publication of The Writing System of La Mojarra. That book itself has been reviewed, as pointed out in my previous message. The many details of the alternative sets of hypotheses could certainly use a more thorough review by someone interested enough to take the time to do so, but that has not yet happened. >It appears to me that the only serious review >and testing of the epi-Olmec work has been done by >the authors themselves. Mr. Selverstone formed his conclusions without actually reading "The Writing System of La Mojarra", at least not in any detail. >In my (amateur) opinion, >this reflects badly on the state of scholarship in >Mesoamerican writing systems. I am not so sure. It may be normal in any field that there are too few people really interested and willing and able to spend the time to do this. Even harder to find one who is objective and non-partisan. I do believe that the initial Science article by Justeson and Kaufman should have been reviewed by some specialist in methods of decipherment, one who was not even involved in Pre-Columbian matters, simply as a check on whether the structure of the evidence and argument could in principle count as a plausible claim of decipherment. *Science* should not have published the article until that had occurred. I know of one such, who did read the article after it was published and considered the claim of a decipherment to be unsupportable based on the lack of the kind of evidence that could constitute evidence of decipherment. But since I have commercial dealings with this other person, they might be biased in favor of my point of view. So how do we get more non-partisan attention to matters like this? I wish at the end to reiterate what I have said many times, that I have the highest respect for the abilities of both John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, and believe they have put in long hours and done much careful work in proposing their hypotheses of Proto-Zoque language for the text of La Mojarra. But as a linguist familiar with how decipherments normally work, even granting that there can be fortuitious discoveries and that every one is different, I judge that nothing like a decipherment has been achieved. We have only a CLAIM of decipherment, and a very competent attempt to read the text as some language of a particular language family. I do not think we have a particularly successful proposal for reading, however, because the meaning content of the text, as fragments of it have been presented in various lectures and a few publications, is rather odd from the point of view of Mesoamerican texts. So is La Mojarra simply different in what its rulers chose to record? (After all, La Mojarra is not simply classic Maya or classic Mixtec or classic Mixe or classic Zapotec or whatever, it is considerably older.) Or is the hypothesis of language wrong? Or are some of the specific hypotheses of phonetic readings of glyphs wrong, and the hypothesis of language either right or wrong? I do not presume to know. What I am sure of is that this text needs more work and more discoveries, and that the many central and ancillary hypotheses need to be carefully examined by experts in decipherment methods and by experts in various language families other than the authors who alone propose that they know what language it is. I have not claimed that the language is Mayan or any other language, I have simply urged that we should actually do the job of considering a range of possible languages in detail, rather than assuming we know in advance what language it has to be. IT IS ENTIRELY LEGITIMATE to proceed as Justeson and Kaufman did, assuming a language or language family to see how well it works. But if one starts with an assumption, then the conclusion can only be an evaluation of how well that assumption pans out, not of how well that assumption works compared to other assumptions which were not even tried. They MAY have made the right choice of assumption, though my conclusion, seeing the results so far, is that either they did not, or else that some of their other hypotheses of specific phonetic readings are not right, because I find the meaning of the text they propose unconvincing, and because I think their readings violate a part of what I see as the repeated phrasal patternings in the text. I will be glad when this text is deciphered, INCLUDING if Justeson and Kaufman succeed in deciphering it, or if anyone else does. What I did with "The Writing System of La Mojarra" was to provide some tools in the venerable tradition of decipherments, listings of all recurrences of patterned phrases, clauses, sentences, to the degree these may emerge from the text without hypothesizing a particular language, adding any conclusions one might tentatively draw from calendrics or other circumstances tending to constrain possible meanings, and to provide at least two interpretations based on the assumption of two different languages, so they may be compared in a systematic fashion. Best wishes, Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From CCBtlevine at aol.com Mon Jul 26 20:40:09 1999 From: CCBtlevine at aol.com (CCBtlevine at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:40:09 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: In a message dated 7/26/99 2:36:20 PM EST, campbel at indiana.edu writes: << tzoaztli 1. what does it mean? 2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) 3. is it ambiguous? >> 1. trap 2. itzoma - cover something with straw; ual - towards, aci - arrive. 3. Sounds like a trap to me. What do you mean ambigous? From CCBtlevine at aol.com Mon Jul 26 20:43:01 1999 From: CCBtlevine at aol.com (CCBtlevine at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:43:01 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: In a message dated 7/26/99 2:49:49 PM EST, campbel at indiana.edu writes: << I forgot to mention -- no fair looking at dictionaries, wordlists, notes, etc.!! This is not "open book"... >> oops. From fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx Mon Jul 26 21:17:51 1999 From: fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx (Fabian E. Pena Arellano) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 15:17:51 -0600 Subject: Some bibliography om human sacrifice and cannibalism. Message-ID: Hello: As I promised I write you today some bibliography -of authors who seem serious- about human sacrifice: Cardin, Alberto. "Dialectica y canibalismo" Barcelona (1994) Ed. Anagrama, Coleccion Argumentos. Hassler, Peter. "Menschenopfer bei den Azteken? Eine quellen und ideologiekristische Studie". Bern (1992). Verlag Peler Lang. There are a couple of abstracts of the second book: "La mentira de Hernan Cortes". La Jornada Semanal. La Jornada. Num. 216, 1 de agosto de 1993. pp 3-6. "---------------------------". Die Zeit. Num. 38, Sept. 11th 1992. p. 92. Hamburg. "The lies of the Conquistators. Cutting through the myth of human sacrifice" World Press Review. December 1992. pp.28,29 On the other hand, there are lots of books which study the human sacrifice among the aztecs accepting first it existed and surely there won't be any problem for the interested in finding them. For the translation into spanish of Hassler's book you might try writing to ceacatl at laneta.apc.org Fabian Pena. From campbel at indiana.edu Mon Jul 26 21:32:17 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 15:32:17 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: > > << tzoaztli > > 1. what does it mean? > 2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) > 3. is it ambiguous? I'd better say first that my intent was not to meant to """trap""" anybody into saying something and then jump on their efforts. I see our intercourse as a group of friends sitting on a log (pretty long log, huh?) and talking about things of mutual interest. There will be some blind alleys... > 1. trap *** I agree -- if you picture a particular kind of trap. Even this proviso may be too narrow, if you keep in mind the willingness of Nahuatl to engage in daring metaphor and in semantic extension. > 2. itzoma - cover something with straw; ual - towards, aci - arrive. *** "ihtzoma" is a transitive verb, so you would expect an object prefix. ..where does the straw come in? ...and the semantics of the verb have to do with sewing, stitching, and tailoring. "hual" normally keeps its /l/. ...and it's a prefix; have we seen it before the verb stem? "ahci" has to do with 'reaching' and 'arriving' -- do the semantics fit? I think that you're considering the possibility of "-aztli" being formed as a patientive noun, but "ahci" shows up with a /x/ in the patientive noun formation. > 3. Sounds like a trap to me. What do you mean ambigous? *** I didn't mean for it to sound like a trap... |8-<) 'Ambiguous' just means that a word has two meanings, perhaps comes from two different sources, either structurally or in terms of its morphological makeup. O.K. I really wanted to save this one for later, but here's another interesting one: tzoyotl Same three questions. Joe From incanica at iastate.edu Mon Jul 26 21:45:49 1999 From: incanica at iastate.edu (incanica at iastate.edu) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 15:45:49 -0600 Subject: Useful information Message-ID: BORRENENME. BORRENME. B O R R E N M E. He pedido como veinte veces que me borren de su lista pero siempre sigo recibiendo mensajes. Inca From karttu at nantucket.net Mon Jul 26 23:51:46 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:51:46 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: > tzoaztli > >1. what does it mean? I think it means a snare made with cord. >2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) I only know it in derived forms. And I think it's probably tzohuaztli. Maybe the same -aztli as in teponaztli, etc.? Which leaves us with the tzo(hu)- part. >3. is it ambiguous? No idea. Fran From peter at netway.com Tue Jul 27 00:50:38 1999 From: peter at netway.com (Peter Selverstone) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 18:50:38 -0600 Subject: Language of the Olmecs Message-ID: Lloyd wrote: >[I think this discussion rightly belongs on the AZTLAN email list, >rather than on the Nahaut-l list, >and am transferring a copy of this there, hoping we will continue it >there. I responded on Nahuat-l to an assumption expressed here, >and should have attempted to transfer lists earlier. Those not interested >can of course delete this message.] Let me propose something else, Lloyd. You state that: >near-circularities of the reasoning lying behind >many of the specific hypotheses of how to read the text, and thus >beyind the hypothesis of Proto-Zoque language If this is true, then it is unlikely that the "model for language structure, sign values, and spelling conventions" proposed by K & J are essentially correct. Within a few years, I expect the scholarly community will achieve some consensus on these questions and it will be clear whether their hypothesis concerning the language was correct and, if correct, was justified. Let's adjourn this discussion until that happens. Peter. From muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com Tue Jul 27 01:15:05 1999 From: muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com (Roberto Tirado) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:15:05 -0600 Subject: ballcourts Message-ID: greetings to the group. i was wondering if anyone knows about books or articles concerning the 'ballgame' played by mesoamerican societies and also a similar one played by native americans . i am looking for books with pictorial representations of the symbols and decorations of the ballcourt surface itself. Also useful to me would be detailed descriptions of the equipment used, and the varieties of rules and playing styles. *thank you* _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From maestas at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu Tue Jul 27 01:39:29 1999 From: maestas at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (maestas at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:39:29 -0600 Subject: Issue of Sacrifice Message-ID: Tlapoyohuali Tocayo Tlapoyohualique, That longer threat could be a slip or maybe a discussion of human sacrifice is a threat to some peoples paradigms. Like human sacrifice, there are some concepts that do not serve the issue but are used anyway. Why is Nahua war practice set apart as human sacrifice when it actually cut down on the number of civilian deaths by restricting battle zones. On the other hand, war practices introduced from the other side of the Atlantic tended to inhumanly sacrifice women and children as well as soldiers. This type of comparison and contrast is interesting, but hardly worth attention when we can sensationalize bloody corpses being thrown off pyramids instead. Tota, Enrique On Thu, 22 Jul 1999, Henry Kammler wrote: > > > > There has always been debate on the issue of ritual sacrifices in Aztec > > society. > > I think there was a longer threat on this last year, if I remember > right. Maybe you could browse the archives first... > > Henry > From campbel at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 02:03:38 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:03:38 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: Fran, On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Frances Karttunen wrote: > > tzoaztli > > > >1. what does it mean? > > I think it means a snare made with cord. *** Bingo! (said by people who think the same thing and hope they're right too) > >2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) > > I only know it in derived forms. And I think it's probably tzohuaztli. > Maybe the same -aztli as in teponaztli, etc.? Which leaves us with the > tzo(hu)- part. ***I hadn't thought of "teponaztli", but *now* that you mention it, it's an attractive idea. I think the suffix is "-hua:ztli" as in "tlahtolhuaztli" (throat) and "tlachpanhuaztli" (broom). That /w/ deletes also in "tzo:tzopa:ztli" (weaver's tool). And I believe that the stem is "tzontli" (the "-huaztli" instrument considered to be made of fibers). I thought the "tzoaztli" [tzoa:ztli] was a cute and puzzling item because of the double deletion. First, the /w/ "hu" deletes the /n/ of "tzontli" -- /w/ and /y/ are both highly 'n-ivorous' -- and then the underlying /w/ is deleted (in many dialects) in "-owa-" sequences. > >3. is it ambiguous? > > No idea. *** I don't think it is. I just brought it up ahead of time because of the second question I wanted to pose. [[Hi Al]] Joe > > > Fran > > From ECOLING at aol.com Tue Jul 27 02:17:37 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:17:37 -0600 Subject: La Mojarra Message-ID: Peter Selverstone, who so recently stated that detailed review is needed surrounding evidence and logic of attempts to decipher the writing system of La Mojarra, now suddenly suggests terminating the discussion, not merely here but anywhere. Referring to some specific points I had made, he says: >If this is true, then it is unlikely that the "model for language structure, >sign values, and spelling conventions" proposed by K & J are essentially >correct. Within a few years, I expect the scholarly community will achieve >some consensus on these questions and it will be clear whether their >hypothesis concerning the language was correct and, if correct, was >justified. Let's adjourn this discussion until that happens. Peter. A rational consensus can only be achieved if the questions ARE explored in detail by some reasonably unbiased people. How do we get that? More appropriate would be if Selverstone would read carefully and critique the most careful review to date of J&K's edifice of data and reasoning to date, namely my book "The Writing System of La Mojarra" (I welcome rational critique, as I do not wish to convey anthying wrong to anyone). More appropriate would be if he had publicly acknowledged that a review HAS ALREADY occurred in the peer-reviewed (as he specified was needed) International Journal of American Linguistics, by Mesoamericanist and Epigrapher Dr. Steven Houston, who pronounced himself unconvinced by the claims of decipherment. Please note that I went out of my way, as I often have, to say I think Dr. Houston may be too sceptical of the ultimate possibilities of decipherment, I do not want to discourage others from attempting it, from finding new analogies in glyph form or in phrasal patterns which might lead to a breakthrough. Nor can I be 100% certain that all or even most of the many hypotheses of J&K are wrong. I can only say that, on the basis of what usually happens in decipherments, I think the balance of evidence is now weighted against their edifice of hypotheses. The details are in print, for anyone who wants them. So it is clear I agree with Dr. Houston that we do not yet have anything which counts as a decipherment. We have only a CLAIM of decipherment. The two are very very different. Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From GESX1CKAH at aol.com Tue Jul 27 02:42:03 1999 From: GESX1CKAH at aol.com (GESX1CKAH at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:42:03 -0600 Subject: AZ:Malinalli Message-ID: In a message dated 7/23/99 12:59:14 PM Pacific Daylight Time, mikegaby at hotmail.com writes: << While browsing at my local bookstore I came upon a book about contemporary Mayan shamanic pratices. There it stated that the name of the Aztec day-sign Malinalli translated as "snake energy" and the author compared it to the idea of Kundalini in yogic disciplines. I have always know this word to mean "Grass" or sometimes "Herb". Has anyone heard of a different translation for this word? >> YEAH.... MARIJUANA jess From mdmorris at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 03:16:58 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 21:16:58 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: I've been cheating, and I'm still confused. On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, R. Joe Campbell wrote: > Fran, > > On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Frances Karttunen wrote: > > > > tzoaztli > > > > > >1. what does it mean? > > > > I think it means a snare made with cord. > > *** Bingo! (said by people who think the same thing and hope they're > right too) //////The two elements here are tzontli (hair) and hua:ztli (a fibrous instrument), meaning an instrument of thin fibers, by practice then a snare. > > > >2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) > > > > I only know it in derived forms. And I think it's probably tzohuaztli. > > Maybe the same -aztli as in teponaztli, etc.? Which leaves us with the > > tzo(hu)- part. > > ***I hadn't thought of "teponaztli", but *now* that you mention it, it's > an attractive idea. I think the suffix is "-hua:ztli" as in > "tlahtolhuaztli" (throat) and "tlachpanhuaztli" (broom). That /w/ deletes > also in "tzo:tzopa:ztli" (weaver's tool). And I believe that the stem is > "tzontli" (the "-huaztli" instrument considered to be made of fibers). > ////////tzo:tzopa:ztli is comprised of some inflected form of ihtzoma (to sew) + hua:ztli, and becomes a metaphor to combine with mah- hand to mean forearm? Regarding the mention of teponaztli, I am further confused by these vocabulary items from the Florentine where -huaztli doesn't necessarily have to be an instrument suffix quetzalecacehuaztli. quetzal feather fan. ayauhchicahuaztli. mist rattleboard > I thought the "tzoaztli" [tzoa:ztli] was a cute and puzzling item > because of the double deletion. First, the /w/ "hu" deletes the /n/ of > "tzontli" -- /w/ and /y/ are both highly 'n-ivorous' -- and then the > underlying /w/ is deleted (in many dialects) in "-owa-" sequences. ///////I thought you were getting at that -aztli was some kind of agentive suffix that could combine with tzotl, but that's typical of me and morphology. Finally, I could use some help breaking this one up too: tenamaztli. hearth stone. Thanks, Mark Morris > > > > >3. is it ambiguous? > > > > > > No idea. > > *** I don't think it is. I just brought it up ahead of time because of > the second question I wanted to pose. > > [[Hi Al]] > > Joe > > > > > > > > Fran > > > > > From TruBluPooh at aol.com Tue Jul 27 03:41:52 1999 From: TruBluPooh at aol.com (TruBluPooh at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 21:41:52 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: I'll one up you Fran. I dont even know where to get an English-Nahuatl/ Nahuatl-English dictionary....or even a Spanish version thereof. John-Francis From campbel at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 06:21:12 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:21:12 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: Mark, This multi-embedded message will probably stress some people, but since this is really like a chat, ... I'll mark my comments with ***** to make it easier to follow. On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Mark David Morris wrote: > > I've been cheating, and I'm still confused. > > On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, R. Joe Campbell wrote: > > > Fran, > > > > On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Frances Karttunen wrote: > > > > > > tzoaztli > > > > > > > >1. what does it mean? > > > > > > I think it means a snare made with cord. > > > > *** Bingo! (said by people who think the same thing and hope they're > > right too) > > //////The two elements here are tzontli (hair) and hua:ztli (a fibrous > instrument), meaning an instrument of thin fibers, by practice then a > snare. ***** Andrews (p. 371) discusses "hua:z" type instrumental nouns. He points out that it incorporates a noun stem, frequently of the patientive type. Therefore, for the incorporation to take place, it must come from some "hypothetical" verb (or obsolete verb), like *tla-huaza or *tla-huaci (sorry, forgot the long vowel marks and my PINE is not very forgiving). So many instrumental nouns with "hua:ztli" may show up -- perhaps deleting the /w/. > > > > > > > >2. *how* does it mean? (i.e., what are its meaning parts?) > > > > > > I only know it in derived forms. And I think it's probably tzohuaztli. > > > Maybe the same -aztli as in teponaztli, etc.? Which leaves us with the > > > tzo(hu)- part. > > > > ***I hadn't thought of "teponaztli", but *now* that you mention it, it's > > an attractive idea. I think the suffix is "-hua:ztli" as in > > "tlahtolhuaztli" (throat) and "tlachpanhuaztli" (broom). That /w/ deletes > > also in "tzo:tzopa:ztli" (weaver's tool). And I believe that the stem is > > "tzontli" (the "-huaztli" instrument considered to be made of fibers). > > > > ////////tzo:tzopa:ztli is comprised of some inflected form of ihtzoma (to > sew) + > hua:ztli, and becomes a metaphor to combine with mah- hand to mean > forearm? ***** I think that it's off "tzopi" (finish, end) -- and concerned with the function of the weaving beater (of tightening up the threads, fibers?). I've always been interested in their using what to us is a highly specialized term (weaving beater) to derive what to *us* is so basic (forearm). > Regarding the mention of teponaztli, I am further confused by these > vocabulary items from the Florentine where -huaztli doesn't necessarily > have to be an instrument suffix > > quetzalecacehuaztli. quetzal feather fan. > ayauhchicahuaztli. mist rattleboard > ***** I assume that the first one *is* instrumental and involves "e:catl" (wind) and "ce:hui/a". Wind-cooling-instrument (made of feathers) I'm more in the dark about "-chicahuaztli" -- my daring?? guess is that it involves scraping (i.e., "ihchiqui"). > > > I thought the "tzoaztli" [tzoa:ztli] was a cute and puzzling item > > because of the double deletion. First, the /w/ "hu" deletes the /n/ of > > "tzontli" -- /w/ and /y/ are both highly 'n-ivorous' -- and then the > > underlying /w/ is deleted (in many dialects) in "-owa-" sequences. > > ///////I thought you were getting at that -aztli was some kind of agentive > suffix that could combine with tzotl, but that's typical of me and > morphology. Finally, I could use some help breaking this one up too: > ***** Well, our chat group declined to take up the issue of "tzoyotl", but I wasn't implying a relationship of "tzoaztli" with such a filthy topic. |8-<) > tenamaztli. hearth stone. > ***** I've wondered about "tenamaztli" and I'm still wishing that someone would give me a good answer... > Thanks, Mark Morris ***** Joe From cberry at cinenet.net Tue Jul 27 06:34:51 1999 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:34:51 -0600 Subject: Issue of Sacrifice Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jul 1999 maestas at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu wrote: > Why is Nahua war practice set apart as human sacrifice when it actually > cut down on the number of civilian deaths by restricting battle zones. > On the other hand, war practices introduced from the other side of the > Atlantic tended to inhumanly sacrifice women and children as well as > soldiers. You have to be careful about the word 'sacrifice'. Literally and technically, it means "to make sacred"; a sacrifical death is one which occurs explicitly and primarily for religious purposes. Not every murder is a sacrifice; in fact, most are not. The Nahua practice of obtaining sacrifical 'victims' on a ritual battleground is intensely interesting precisely because it is unique in its particulars, and very uncommon even in general terms. Note also that European war practices before the present century generally did not target civilians (during the actual battles). Noncombatants were eliminated (if they were) by other means (displacement, starvation, terrorism, and so forth). The Spaniards did not *directly* kill all tha many Nahua, and most of those were warriors. Disease and societal collapse did the bulk of the work of native depopulation. -- | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 10:53:47 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 04:53:47 -0600 Subject: Issue of Sacrifice Message-ID: > > Note also that European war practices before the present century generally > did not target civilians (during the actual battles). Noncombatants were > eliminated (if they were) by other means (displacement, starvation, > terrorism, and so forth). The Spaniards did not *directly* kill all tha > many Nahua, and most of those were warriors. Disease and societal > collapse did the bulk of the work of native depopulation. Plus, there is both prehistoric archaeological and reliable historical ethnographic material showing that at least in North American the killing of women and children was one way of warring. So much of the current discussion about this sort of thing reminds me too much of the Japanese attempts to hide the facts of their World War II atrocities from the modern generation. Humans are humans. Sheesh happens. Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 13:26:13 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 07:26:13 -0600 Subject: ballcourts Message-ID: Roberto, What do you mean by "...a similar one played by native americans." ? Are you referring to Mississippian societies' chunkey? Best, Michael On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Roberto Tirado wrote: > > > greetings to the group. > > i was wondering if anyone knows about books or articles concerning the > 'ballgame' played by mesoamerican societies and also a similar one played by > native americans . > > i am looking for books with pictorial representations of the symbols and > decorations of the ballcourt surface itself. Also useful to me would be > detailed descriptions of the equipment used, and the varieties of rules and > playing styles. > > *thank you* > > > _______________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com > Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* From ECOLING at aol.com Tue Jul 27 14:35:52 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 08:35:52 -0600 Subject: Sensationalizing of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: What is the difference between factual discussions and sensationalizing of human sacrifice? It is possible gradually to pin this down. McCafferty writes: >So much of the >current discussion about this sort of thing reminds me too much of the >Japanese attempts to hide the facts of their World War II atrocities from >the modern generation. Humans are humans. True. (When with an American Indian who wishes to believe that original Americans were somehow exempt from being humans in these ways, I very gently agree that there ARE cultural differences, but that there are also many differences within the many pre-Columbian cultures, and that almost anything did occur somewhere.) BUT... Also true that the "exotic, romantic" marketing of magazines etc. DOES depend on focusing on the sensational, just the opposite of hiding facts, rather exaggerating their importance and focusing on them. We all know this happens in TV, in Film, and in popular magazines. And true that by the careful manipulation of definitions, one people can be said to engage in human sacrifice, another not. Even the use of the term "human sacrifice" has a heavy baggage from history, I certainly have not done detailed research on this, but I hope someone will do so, as it might be very revealing, and might shock us into not using the term. Use of that term I think immediately conveys something exotic, non-us, to be condemned. It is NOT used objectively in the sense of state-sponsored (religious) killing. I seem to remember it as a child from depictions of Africa, it merges in my visual memory with cannibalism. Isn't that revealing? (At 56 I'm a bit older than many on this list.) My point is that we should all remain very acutely aware of the exaggeration and sensationalizing, and of what is at stake. We mostly DO NOT observe dispassionate academic discussions of what role state-sponsored killing (whether religious or not) played in societies of Mesoamerica, as compared with various other societies around the world. We mostly DO observe endless re-runs of amateur questions about whether they did or didn't have "human sacrifice" (with those words implying something we Europeans would not do, because we do not apply those words to state-sponsored killing in Europe), and the discussions which follow those questions. The endless recurring of those same amateur questions ARE, I would bet, a result of the publicity and sensationalizing in the media. If we grant them status, it gives them longer life. The endless recurrences of amateur questions about the "collapse" of the Maya have sometimes led to better quality discussions, but their endless recurrences ARE, I would bet, a result of the publicity and sensationalizing (romanticizing) in the media. In just the same way. Our continuing discussions, NOT in a world-wide context of state-sponsored killing (religious or secular), but as something special to Mesoamerica, do reinforce this sensationalizing. There may be aspects of it which are special in certain cultures of Mesoamerica in certain time periods, but they probably are not as unique when seen in world-wide terms. As McCafferty said, Humans are humans. So let's be courteous to our fellow human beings, and stop the sensationalizing of them (or of their ancestors) as primitive, non-us, whenever we can. This has absolutely nothing to do with censoring facts. Best wishes, Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From clayton at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 14:50:19 1999 From: clayton at indiana.edu (Mary Clayton) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 08:50:19 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: On Tue, 27 Jul 1999, R. Joe Campbell wrote: > ***** I've wondered about "tenamaztli" and I'm still wishing that someone > would give me a good answer... Normally, I would check this with Joe directly, since we work literally shoulder to shoulder at our computers, but I'm in Urbana at the LSA Linguistic Institute. my guess on "tenamaztli" is almost too obvious to be right, and it has both phonological and semantic questions. It could be tena:mitl ('stone wall', breakable down into te(tl) 'stone' and na:m(itl) 'wall') plus hua:ztli. The semantic question involves the use of -hua:ztli with something so inert as hearth-stones. But if you look at them as being the things with with tena:mitl's are built... maybe that's not so bad. phonologically, one would expect the m-w brought together at the morpheme boundary to go the same way as n-w in the tzoaztli case (well, almost). But there seems to be some room for variation here. Molina, whose morphophonemics are (is?) usually fairly conservative, gives both tenanuituma, ni (tenanhuitoma, ni-) with the n-w cluster preserved. He also gives tenaueloa, ni (tenanhueloa, ni-) with only the w preserved, and since there is no rounded vowel in tenamaztli to 'eat up' the w, that's where it should stop. Now in the case at hand we have proposed n-w giving not n-w or just -w-, but just -n- (the form that na:mitl normally takes when the nasal is morpheme final). My guess, if this hypothesis is the correct one, is that whatever happens to the w- in hua:ztli takes precedence, and then there's no need for the n- to delete. Any thoughts on this? Mary From mikegaby at hotmail.com Tue Jul 27 16:11:53 1999 From: mikegaby at hotmail.com (mike gaby) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 10:11:53 -0600 Subject: Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: My guess would be that these people returned to the Pleides, from whence they came, along with their Pharaoh brethren. The fall of Atlantis was just too much for them! :) Mike >From: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu (by way of "John F. Schwaller" >) >Reply-To: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu >To: Multiple recipients of list >Subject: Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. >Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:22:24 -0600 > >Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 02:36:07 -0600 (MDT) >From: Andreas C Schou >To: Multiple recipients of list >Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. > >On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Brad Smith wrote: > > > Same for Mayan pyramids built at least a hundred thousand years ago and > > discovered by ignorant spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, > > that thought that the ignorant people using stone knives and ripping > > people's hearts out and throwing them down the stairs to the roaring > > crowd, were the ones who actually "built" them. > >It's extremely unlikely that, one hundred thousand years ago, Mesoamerica >had any inhabitants whatsoever. Where are their tools? Where did they >expand from? What language did they speak, and why is the language of the >original monument-builders entirely extinct? > > > Wrong. The people living next to many of these "monuments" know > > relatively nothing about them. > >Interesting. Are the obvious depictions of Mayans participating in common >Mayan activities are simply a coincidence? How do you explain the >replication of Mesoamerican iconography from permanent (temples) to >impermanent (pottery) media? > > > They just "used" them for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the > > "priest" class of peons told them to do. > >Interpretation of Mesoamerican myth is often touchy: though the stories >are often bloody, evidence of such large-scale murder is seldom >forthcoming ... and context is difficult to determine. > >Assumptions like that, if applied to the Bible, might lead one to >believe that Christian communion endorses ritual cannibalism. This is >obviously not the case ... unless you go to a church much different than >mine. ;) > > > The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing of any calendar, > > much less how to interpret it. > >There is a certain racism inherent in your peculiar Danikenite posture. >You theorize that savages like the Egyptians and the Mayans could never >have developed culture on your own; Greece, Rome, and other 'white' >civilizations, however, remain beyond the touch of your theoretical >aliens. > >Danikenism is the response of a culture clinging to its last pretensions >of superiority. When faced with irrefutable evidence that other cultures >were at least as good as yours at doing certain things, you invent aliens >to bootstrap the 'savages' up. > > > They didn't have the math skills or the intelligence after way too much > > inbreeding. > >First: that contention is simply insulting. > >Second: Inbreeding typically only occurs when the benefit outweighs >humanity's inherent incest taboo ... for instance, to keep political power >'in the family', as it were, or when mating opportunities become limited; >for instance, during times of famine. Until the Mayan collapse, the >Mayans had a healthy and active gene pool. There was no pressing reason to >inbreed. Second, even if you *do* assume that the Mayan leaders were >inbred, Mayan dynastic structure did not affect the priestly caste -- the >astronomers and mathematicians of the Mayans ... thus, no information >would be 'lost' by inbreeding. > >In short: if you want to come into an academic discussion, bring academic >thought. If you want to antagonize people who genuinely appreciate the >culture you so carelessly denigrate, do exactly what you have just done. > > > _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From mikegaby at hotmail.com Tue Jul 27 16:27:35 1999 From: mikegaby at hotmail.com (mike gaby) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 10:27:35 -0600 Subject: AZ: Ihiyotl Message-ID: Thanks for everyone's help with Malinalli - even jesse. I am also looking for translation for Ihiyotl and Teyolia (is this one even Nahua?) Thanks, Mike Gaby San Diego _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From micc at home.com Tue Jul 27 16:41:40 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 10:41:40 -0600 Subject: Sensationalizing of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: Very cogent analysis of the discussion..... It can be said that 20th century Germany, japan, Cambodia, Uganda, Argentina, Chile, China, Rawanda, Serbiaand yes EVEN the U.S. (remember hiroshima and Nagasaki?) have practiced "human sacrifice".... ECOLING at aol.com wrote: > > What is the difference between factual discussions > and sensationalizing of human sacrifice? > It is possible gradually to pin this down. > > McCafferty writes: > > >So much of the > >current discussion about this sort of thing reminds me too much of the > >Japanese attempts to hide the facts of their World War II atrocities from > >the modern generation. Humans are humans. > > True. > > (When with an American Indian who wishes to believe that > original Americans were somehow exempt from being humans > in these ways, I very gently agree that there ARE cultural differences, > but that there are also many differences within the many pre-Columbian > cultures, and that almost anything did occur somewhere.) > > BUT... > > Also true that the "exotic, romantic" marketing of magazines etc. > DOES depend on focusing on the sensational, just the opposite of hiding > facts, rather exaggerating their importance and focusing on them. > We all know this happens in TV, in Film, and in popular magazines. > > And true that by the careful manipulation of definitions, one people can be > said to engage in human sacrifice, another not. > > Even the use of the term "human sacrifice" has a heavy > baggage from history, I certainly have not done detailed research > on this, but I hope someone will do so, as it might be very > revealing, and might shock us into not using the term. > Use of that term I think immediately conveys something > exotic, non-us, to be condemned. It is NOT used objectively > in the sense of state-sponsored (religious) killing. > > I seem to remember it as a child from depictions of Africa, > it merges in my visual memory with cannibalism. > Isn't that revealing? (At 56 I'm a bit older than many on this list.) > > My point is that we should all remain very acutely aware of the > exaggeration and sensationalizing, and of what is at stake. > > We mostly DO NOT observe dispassionate academic discussions > of what role state-sponsored killing (whether religious or not) > played in societies of Mesoamerica, as compared with various other > societies around the world. > > We mostly DO observe endless re-runs of amateur questions about > whether they did or didn't have "human sacrifice" (with those words > implying something we Europeans would not do, because we do > not apply those words to state-sponsored killing in Europe), > and the discussions which follow those questions. > > The endless recurring of those same amateur questions ARE, > I would bet, a result of the publicity > and sensationalizing in the media. > If we grant them status, it gives them longer life. > > The endless recurrences of amateur questions about the "collapse" > of the Maya have sometimes led to better quality discussions, > but their endless recurrences ARE, I would bet, a result of the > publicity and sensationalizing (romanticizing) in the media. > In just the same way. > > Our continuing discussions, NOT in a world-wide context > of state-sponsored killing (religious or secular), > but as something special to Mesoamerica, > do reinforce this sensationalizing. > There may be aspects of it which are special in certain cultures > of Mesoamerica in certain time periods, but they probably are > not as unique when seen in world-wide terms. As McCafferty > said, Humans are humans. > > So let's be courteous to our fellow human beings, > and stop the sensationalizing of them (or of their ancestors) > as primitive, non-us, whenever we can. > This has absolutely nothing to do with censoring facts. > > Best wishes, > Lloyd Anderson > Ecological Linguistics From micc at home.com Tue Jul 27 16:44:32 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 10:44:32 -0600 Subject: Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. Message-ID: No acutaully theyjoined elvis' first rockabilli group in the Lemurian Vegas and currently sell property in the Bermuda Triangle to Yetis.....:) mike gaby wrote: > > My guess would be that these people returned to the Pleides, from whence > they came, along with their Pharaoh brethren. The fall of Atlantis was just > too much for them! :) > Mike > > >From: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu (by way of "John F. Schwaller" > >) > >Reply-To: nahuat-l at server.umt.edu > >To: Multiple recipients of list > >Subject: Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. > >Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:22:24 -0600 > > > >Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 02:36:07 -0600 (MDT) > >From: Andreas C Schou > >To: Multiple recipients of list > >Subject: Re: About human sacrifice. > > > >On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Brad Smith wrote: > > > > > Same for Mayan pyramids built at least a hundred thousand years ago and > > > discovered by ignorant spaniards with rape and conquest on their minds, > > > that thought that the ignorant people using stone knives and ripping > > > people's hearts out and throwing them down the stairs to the roaring > > > crowd, were the ones who actually "built" them. > > > >It's extremely unlikely that, one hundred thousand years ago, Mesoamerica > >had any inhabitants whatsoever. Where are their tools? Where did they > >expand from? What language did they speak, and why is the language of the > >original monument-builders entirely extinct? > > > > > Wrong. The people living next to many of these "monuments" know > > > relatively nothing about them. > > > >Interesting. Are the obvious depictions of Mayans participating in common > >Mayan activities are simply a coincidence? How do you explain the > >replication of Mesoamerican iconography from permanent (temples) to > >impermanent (pottery) media? > > > > > They just "used" them for whatever ignorant and stupid ritual that the > > > "priest" class of peons told them to do. > > > >Interpretation of Mesoamerican myth is often touchy: though the stories > >are often bloody, evidence of such large-scale murder is seldom > >forthcoming ... and context is difficult to determine. > > > >Assumptions like that, if applied to the Bible, might lead one to > >believe that Christian communion endorses ritual cannibalism. This is > >obviously not the case ... unless you go to a church much different than > >mine. ;) > > > > > The mayans that ripped peoples hearts out knew nothing of any calendar, > > > much less how to interpret it. > > > >There is a certain racism inherent in your peculiar Danikenite posture. > >You theorize that savages like the Egyptians and the Mayans could never > >have developed culture on your own; Greece, Rome, and other 'white' > >civilizations, however, remain beyond the touch of your theoretical > >aliens. > > > >Danikenism is the response of a culture clinging to its last pretensions > >of superiority. When faced with irrefutable evidence that other cultures > >were at least as good as yours at doing certain things, you invent aliens > >to bootstrap the 'savages' up. > > > > > They didn't have the math skills or the intelligence after way too much > > > inbreeding. > > > >First: that contention is simply insulting. > > > >Second: Inbreeding typically only occurs when the benefit outweighs > >humanity's inherent incest taboo ... for instance, to keep political power > >'in the family', as it were, or when mating opportunities become limited; > >for instance, during times of famine. Until the Mayan collapse, the > >Mayans had a healthy and active gene pool. There was no pressing reason to > >inbreed. Second, even if you *do* assume that the Mayan leaders were > >inbred, Mayan dynastic structure did not affect the priestly caste -- the > >astronomers and mathematicians of the Mayans ... thus, no information > >would be 'lost' by inbreeding. > > > >In short: if you want to come into an academic discussion, bring academic > >thought. If you want to antagonize people who genuinely appreciate the > >culture you so carelessly denigrate, do exactly what you have just done. > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx Tue Jul 27 17:20:47 1999 From: fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx (Fabian E. Pena Arellano) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 11:20:47 -0600 Subject: Another question on elementary nahuatl. Message-ID: Hello: As far as the books I have in my small library, one cannot know before hand what the plural of a name in nahuatl would be. But I found a translation of the famous "Nica:n Mopohua" with an introduction on which the translator -named Guillermo Ortiz de Montellano- states that during the classical period there were three ways to pluralize a name: 1. with the suffix -me`; which means "a pair": oquichme` "two men", cihua:me` "two women". According to the author, since the duality was a basic concept for the nahuas, it is natural to find in the nahuatl language a way to express "two of a kind". It may come from o:me. 2. with the suffix -tin: more than two of a kind. 3. with the repetition of the first sylable and the suffix -tin; which means "several of a kind of different places". He examplifies with ooquichtin "several men of different places". Since the conquest -he says- the first and third ways to do the plural have been considered to have the same meaning as the second one. Would anyone of you mind answering if you have any information on this matter. Tahnk you in advanced for your attention. Fabian Pena. From campbel at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 17:34:31 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 11:34:31 -0600 Subject: AZ: Ihiyotl Message-ID: Mike, ihiyotl breath, spirit teyolia soul (someone's soul); it is someone's instrument for living te- someone's yoli live -ya instrumental noun suffix On Tue, 27 Jul 1999, mike gaby wrote: > I am also looking for translation for > Ihiyotl and Teyolia (is this one even Nahua?) > Thanks, > Mike Gaby > San Diego From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Tue Jul 27 17:59:33 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 11:59:33 -0600 Subject: AZ: Ihiyotl Message-ID: For a very good study of these terms see Jiull Leslie McKeer Furst, _The Natural History of the Soul in Ancient Mexico_ New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. J. F. Schwaller John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From campbel at indiana.edu Tue Jul 27 18:02:33 1999 From: campbel at indiana.edu (R. Joe Campbell) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 12:02:33 -0600 Subject: Was "ihiyotl"; instrumental suffix Message-ID: Here are some other words with the instrumental suffix "-ya" -- that is, at least, I must have thought so when I marked them. If you catch an error, I consider it a favor to have it pointed out. Joe -ya1 1. *imotlatocaya*. quitlaquentiaya amatica: in intopil, imotlatopil, in inenemia, in imotlatocaya, they arrayed in paper their staves, their stout traveling staves with which they journeyed, with which they traveled. (b.1 f.2 c.19 p.41) 2. *inemactia*. mochi inemactia, many were his gifts. (b.4 f.4 c.9 p.34) 3. *inenemia*. quitlaquentiaya amatica: in intopil, imotlatopil, in inenemia, in imotlatocaya, they arrayed in paper their staves, their stout traveling staves with which they journeyed, with which they traveled. (b.1 f.2 c.19 p.41) 4. *intlahuanaya*. imixpan quihualquetza in intlahuanaya, in itoca xochcomitl, ihuan in intlahuancax, in intetlahuan, in tetlamamaconi, they set up before them that from which they drank, called the flower vessel, and their drinking bowls and wine cups, the serving vessels. (b.4 f.11 c.36 p.118) 5. *iohtlatocaya*. amo quimati in campa huallauh inenca iohtlatocaya: he did not know whence his sustenance, his [provision for] journeying, came. (b.4 f.2 c.6 p.17) 6. *iotlatocaya*. huellaixnextia, inic quitemoa, icochca, ineuhca, in icemilhuitiaya, in iotlatocaya, in inenca, in nencayotl, in nemoani, in nemoaloni, in otlatoconi, he labored industriously to gain sustenance, his daily bread his trail rations, his livelihood, his maintenance, the source of life, the means of living, and provisions for traveling. (b.4 f.12 c.38 p.125) 7. *ipatlania*. anozo michin in mochihuaz, niman iuh moxima in tecolli inic moxincayotia, ihuan motlatlalilia in ipatlania iyomotlan, ihuan in iuh icac icuitlapil, maxaltic: or [if] a fish were to be made, just so was carved the charcoal [and clay core] to give it its scales; and its side fins were formed and its tail stood divided. (b.9 f.6 c.16 p.74) 8. *ipatlania*. huel ye in ipatlania: it is the real place of its flight. (b.11 f.6 c.2 p.55) 9. *ipatlania*. inic mitoa huitzitzilmichi. achi huihuiac in iatlapal, in ipatlania, in itlanelohuaya. it is named uitzitzilmichin, because its fins, its swimmers, its rowers, are somewhat long. (b.11 f.6 c.3 p.58) 10. *ipatlania*. yehuatl ipatlania. this is its flying part. (b.11 f.9 c.5 p.89) 11. *ipatlania*. in itlanyoc itapalcayo ompa ca in huel iiamatlapal, in ipatlania: underneath its shell, from there are its wings, its place of flight. (b.11 f.10 c.5 p.100) 12. *itemoya*. itemoya, . his way of coming down. (b.2 f.14 c.38 p.240) 13. *itlacatocaya*. ayac itlacatocaya, no man name gave they him. (b.4 f.5 c.13 p.51) 14. *itlacoaya*. auh in aoc tle itlacoaya, itech quihuallazaya, in itilmatzin, inic tlacoa, anozo quinamaca itlal, in quihualtzacuia, anozo canah temac motlalia, canah netlacuilli quichihua: and when there was no more of what one could buy things with, one gave up one's precious cape so that he could buy things, or sold his land, which he had enclosed or somewhere placed in another's hands; somewhere he arranged a loan. (b.3 f.1 c.1 p.9) 15. *itlaczaya*. cenca quimahuiztiliaya in itopil, in itlaczaya yiacateuctli: they paid great honor to the cane, to the walking staff, of yiacatecutli. (b.1 f.2 c.19 p.43) 16. *itlaczaya*. itlaczaya imac onoc, otlatopile. his traveling staff was in his hand; he had a stout cane staff. (b.1 f.2 c.19 p.44) 17. *itlahuitequia*. auh inic quiquechpachoa, acipaquitli itlahuitequia, chichiquiltic, tzitziquiltic, huihuitztic, necoc campa in huihuitztic. and they bore down upon her neck with the beak of a swordfish, barbed, serrated, spiny---spiny on either side. (b.2 f.5 c.26 p.94) 18. *teponazoaya*. ceyoal in teponazoaya, in icpac inteocal: all night they played the two-toned drum on the top of their temple. (b.10 f.11 c.29 p.177) 19. *tocochia*. tocochia. our eyelashes. (b.10 f.8 c.27 p.137b) 20. *tometzpitzahuaya*. tometzpitzahuaya. slender part of our thigh. (b.10 f.7 c.27 p.125a) 21. *tonepalehuiaya*. tonepalehuiaya. our helping places. (b.10 f.8 c.27 p.135a) 22. *tonepalehuiaya*. tonepalehuiaya. our helping places. (b.10 f.8 c.27 p.135a) From cberry at cinenet.net Tue Jul 27 18:32:50 1999 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 12:32:50 -0600 Subject: Sensationalizing of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: On Tue, 27 Jul 1999, micc wrote: > Very cogent analysis of the discussion..... > > It can be said that 20th century Germany, japan, Cambodia, Uganda, > Argentina, Chile, China, Rawanda, Serbiaand yes EVEN the U.S. (remember > hiroshima and Nagasaki?) have practiced "human sacrifice".... Again, I insist on greater linguistic/sociological rigor! 'State-sponsored killing' and 'warfare' are not the same thing as 'sacrifice'. Sacrifice is 'to make sacred'. A killing which is a sacrifice is conducted for a specific religious reason, as part of a ritual in which such killing plays a necessary part. Killings motivated by secular goals (winning a war, ridding society of a troublemaker, and the like) are *not* sacrifices. The Nahua are intriguing in part because their concept of warfare partly bridged this gap. Can we agree on this important clarification, and use words in this way? I believe it will help improve the light to heat ratio on the mailing list... -- | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net --*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html | "It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one." From rude at leland.Stanford.EDU Tue Jul 27 19:20:35 1999 From: rude at leland.Stanford.EDU (Rudiger V. Busto) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 13:20:35 -0600 Subject: Sensationalizing of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: Craig Berry wrote: "...Again, I insist on greater linguistic/sociological rigor! 'State-sponsored killing' and 'warfare' are not the same thing as 'sacrifice'. Sacrifice is 'to make sacred'. A killing which is a sacrifice is conducted for a specific religious reason, as part of a ritual in which such killing plays a necessary part. Killings motivated by secular goals (winning a war, ridding society of a troublemaker, and the like) are *not* sacrifices. ..." But of course, it is arguable that "ethnic cleansing" and genocide are motivated by the idea that the nation or sense of peoplehood is in fact sacred and thus worthy of protection and purification. One has only to scratch beneath the surface of such actions to find the logic of "sacred making" (or defense) in the ideology of nationalisms or ethnocentrisms. Anthony D. Smith's work on how myth and ethnic/nationalist senses of the sacred eloquently speaks to this point. ******************************************************************* Rudy V. Busto Work: 650.723.0465 Assistant Professor Home: 415.552.0257 Religious Studies rude at leland.stanford.edu Stanford University Fax (work): 650.725.1476 Stanford, CA 94305-2165 From karttu at nantucket.net Tue Jul 27 20:29:01 1999 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 14:29:01 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: Concerning tenamaztli as a member of the instrumental -(hu)a:ztli family runs into a problem with respect to vowel length. Using colons here to indicate long vowels, there are: tzo:tzopa:ztli 'weaver's reed' tepona:ztli 'upright drum' tzonhua:ztli 'snare' (Carochi's form of Joe's original tzoaztli) tzicahua:ztli 'comb' ehcahua:ztli 'ladder' mamalhua:ztli 'fire drill' And many more. The vowel of -(hu)a:ztli is long every time. Carochi doesn't give tenamaztli as an example in his grammar, and it doesn't turn up in the Bancroft manuscript. But the reflex of the last vowel is short in the word as it appears in at least three modern dialects: Tetelcingo, Zacapoaxtla, and Xalitla. It looks like it's tenamaztli, not *tenama:ztli. Moreover, if derived from tena:mitl 'wall' one would expect the vowel of the MIDDLE syllable to be long too: *tena:ma:ztli. This important cultural word has always been a mystery to me. Looks like the first syllable te- should refer to the stones that form it, but what, then, is a namaztli? Fran From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Tue Jul 27 21:30:01 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 15:30:01 -0600 Subject: Human sacrifice Message-ID: Dear members, The current thread on sacrifice has now moved to a point relatively far beyond the parameters of the list. If you wish to continue the discussion, which does have merit and which I have found interesting, please do it off-line. I must agree that to call any death by warfare "sacrifice" muddies the term in such a way as to make clear discussion meaningless. It is the over-riding cultural context that must be taken into account, as the friars did when they quickly developed moral plays on the theme of the Sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. J. F. Schwaller, List Owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From RCRAPO at wpo.hass.usu.edu Tue Jul 27 21:46:44 1999 From: RCRAPO at wpo.hass.usu.edu (Richley Crapo) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 15:46:44 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: While we're playing word recognition, does anyone recognize tzopotl as a term for some sp. of animal, possibly a variety of hummingbird? From tezozomoc at std.teradyne.com Tue Jul 27 22:12:04 1999 From: tezozomoc at std.teradyne.com (Tezozomoc) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 16:12:04 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl Word Recognition I Message-ID: You might be thinking of this word: We are looking for all occurrences of : tzapo itzapoicpal 1. his sapote leaf seat FC jc-031297 tzapocuahuitl 1. a'rbol de zapote ( zapote tree ) San Miguel Canoa jc->11/5/96 2. sapodilla tree FC -> jc-72895 3. sapodilla tree FC jc-031297 tzapocueye 1. having a sapota-leaf skirt FC -> jc-72895 2. having a sapota-leaf skirt FC jc-031297 tzapotl 1. zapote ( zapote tree ) San Miguel Canoa jc->11/5/96 2. zapote fruit jc-82396 3. zapote fruit jc-07/12/96 morphemes 4. zapote fruit jc-08/22/96 morphemes The other option for this might the interpretation of this: We are looking for all occurrences of : tzopo tetzoponia 1. it pricks one FC -> jc-72895 2. it pricks one FC jc-031297 Root being tzopo- in the same manner as huitzil- is to our current undertanding of huitzillin for humming bird. Here are some examples of hutzil- huitzilatenco 1. southern seashore FC -> jc-72895 2. southern seashore FC jc-031297 quetzalhuitzilin 1. broad-tailed hummingbird FC -> jc-72895 2. broad-tailed hummingbird FC jc-031297 Okay...... draw your own conclusions. Tezozomoc Richley Crapo wrote: > While we're playing word recognition, does anyone recognize tzopotl as a > term for some sp. of animal, possibly a variety of hummingbird? From ECOLING at aol.com Wed Jul 28 13:06:01 1999 From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 07:06:01 -0600 Subject: Definition of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: >Sacrifice is 'to make sacred'. A killing which is a >sacrifice is conducted for a specific religious reason, as part of a >ritual in which such killing plays a necessary part. Killings motivated >by secular goals (winning a war, ridding society of a troublemaker, and >the like) are *not* sacrifices. ..." "Sacrifice" as sacri-ficare WAS once "to make sacred", presumably when the term was first coined in Latin, though perhaps not exclusively so for long thereafter, even in Latin. But the MODERN meaning of "human sacrifice" is defined not by you, me or any dictionary, it is defined by how people actually DO use it. (I am a trained linguist, and prescriptivism is to me forbidden.) So empirical evidence of usage is relevant. This is true without claiming to have any definitive insight into what the facts of modern usage are in every detail. Lloyd Anderson Ecological Linguistics From micc at home.com Wed Jul 28 16:57:21 1999 From: micc at home.com (micc) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 10:57:21 -0600 Subject: Sensationalizing of "human sacrifice" Message-ID: This is exactly my point, whether it is crouched in "definate" religious ideology, or political ideology, the end result (and psychological basis) is the same..."WE" (the relgious believers or the political/ethnic group) are RIGHT, CHOSEN, or BLESSED (as in maifest destiny???) and therefore have a right to EXTERMIATE the "pagan, communists, heathens, albanians, gypsies, gays, tlaxcaltecas, tarascans, Lakota........ Sometimes Linguistic/sociological rigor can he a nice convenient and antiseptic shile to hide behind when man's "inhumanity" to man is within our filed of vision.... the only difference I see between mesoamerican sacrifice, and modernexteminations is that in mesoamerica, at least the victim was told he or she was dying for the benefit of the universe, where as today's victims are further tortured by the knowledge that it is soley because of who or what they are (in essence BAD) that they must die, sometimes a horribly sadistic death... "Rudiger V. Busto" wrote: > > Craig Berry wrote: > "...Again, I insist on greater linguistic/sociological rigor! > 'State-sponsored killing' and 'warfare' are not the same thing as > 'sacrifice'. Sacrifice is 'to make sacred'. A killing which is a > sacrifice is conducted for a specific religious reason, as part of a > ritual in which such killing plays a necessary part. Killings motivated > by secular goals (winning a war, ridding society of a troublemaker, and > the like) are *not* sacrifices. ..." > > But of course, it is arguable that "ethnic cleansing" and genocide are > motivated by the idea that the nation or sense of peoplehood is in fact > sacred and thus worthy of protection and purification. One has only to > scratch beneath the surface of such actions to find the logic of "sacred > making" (or defense) in the ideology of nationalisms or ethnocentrisms. > Anthony D. Smith's work on how myth and ethnic/nationalist senses of the > sacred eloquently speaks to this point. > > ******************************************************************* > > Rudy V. Busto Work: 650.723.0465 > Assistant Professor Home: 415.552.0257 > Religious Studies rude at leland.stanford.edu > Stanford University Fax (work): 650.725.1476 > Stanford, CA 94305-2165 > > From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Wed Jul 28 17:12:26 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 11:12:26 -0600 Subject: Sacrifice Message-ID: Dear List members, Again. I think that the current thread has gone rather far beyond the bounds of this particular list. If you wish to continue the discussion, please do so offline, that is directly among yourselves. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. J. F. Schwaller, List Owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From dfrye at umich.edu Wed Jul 28 18:12:13 1999 From: dfrye at umich.edu (David L. Frye) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 12:12:13 -0600 Subject: tzopotl? Message-ID: > You might be thinking of this word: tzapo In English this is 'sapodilla,' though I think the Spanish 'zapote' is gaining ground. Also the origin of 'Zapotec' (Spanish Zapoteco from Nahuatl tzapotecah; pl. of tzapotecatl [person from Tzapotlan] from Tzapotlan [place name] tzapotl [sapodilla] tlan [place]). But I wonder if you aren't thinking of the word for 'buzzard' -- zopilote in Mexican Spanish, probably tzopilotl in Nahuatl? From muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com Thu Jul 29 00:12:30 1999 From: muyalbalam03 at hotmail.com (Roberto Tirado) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 18:12:30 -0600 Subject: @ballcourts@ Message-ID: >Roberto, > >What do you mean by "...a similar one played by native americans." ? > >Are you referring to Mississippian societies' chunkey? >---- Michael, thanks for responding . the game played by the native americans i was referring to was one that was mentioned to me by a friend awhile ago. it so happened that she told me about a find ( or possibly many finds ) in north america of structures very much resembling the typical 'I' layout of mesoamerican ballcourts. in the said article it was supposed that the native peoples also shared the same ballgame as the peoples to the south. unfortunately my friend already forgot which article it was and where she saw it. Basically my interests is in the surface itself ! i want to know what it looked like , how it was painted and decorated... i want to utilize it for some personal murals and such. ? what's 'chunkey' by the way ? tell me some about it. thank you . RobertO >Best, > >Michael > >On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Roberto Tirado wrote: > > > > > > > greetings to the group. > > > > i was wondering if anyone knows about books or articles concerning the > > 'ballgame' played by mesoamerican societies and also a similar one >played by > > native americans . > > > > i am looking for books with pictorial representations of the symbols >and > > decorations of the ballcourt surface itself. Also useful to me would be > > detailed descriptions of the equipment used, and the varieties of rules >and > > playing styles. > > > > *thank you* > > > > > > _______________________________________________________________ > > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com > > > > >Michael McCafferty >C.E.L.T. >307 Memorial Hall >Indiana University >Bloomington, Indiana >47405 >mmccaffe at indiana.edu > >******************************************************************************* >"Glory" (what a word!) consists in going >from the me that others don't know >to the other me that I don't know. > >-Juan Ramon Jimenez > >******************************************************************************* > > _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Thu Jul 29 13:00:39 1999 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 07:00:39 -0600 Subject: @ballcourts@ Message-ID: The American Indian cultures known to archaeologists as "Mississippian," which began to appear around 800 AD, some of which were still active when the Spanish arrived in the 1500's, are thought to have been influenced by *maybe* the Huastecs. There is, as yet, no definitive connection between Mississippian and high Mexican cultures, but there are so many parallel develpments--flat top pyramids, iconography, corn-based agriculture, etc., etc.,--which appear to have spread north into the Mississippi Valley from Mexico. The Mississippians played a game called "chunkey." If you go to your library, you can probably find descriptions of this game there. In essence, a large rectangular area (about the size of a soccer field or larger) was delineated and specially prepared with a puddled clay surface. The object of the game, which was ostensibly a "hunter's" game, was for one person to roll a "chunkey stone," which is a small, specially prepared stone disk that looks alot like a modern ice hockey puck, down the field at what ever rate of speed he chose. The other contestants, each equipped with a spear, then threw their spears at distant points where each thought the chunkey stone was going to land. That's basically how it worked. I've never heard of any paintings decorating the surface of the chunkey playing field. Michael On Wed, 28 Jul 1999, Roberto Tirado wrote: > > > >Roberto, > > > >What do you mean by "...a similar one played by native americans." ? > > > >Are you referring to Mississippian societies' chunkey? > >---- Michael, > thanks for responding . > the game played by the native americans i was referring to was one that > was mentioned to me by a friend awhile ago. > it so happened that she told me about a find ( or possibly many finds ) in > north america of structures very much resembling the typical 'I' layout of > mesoamerican ballcourts. in the said article it was supposed that the native > peoples also shared the same ballgame as the peoples to the south. > unfortunately my friend already forgot which article it was and where she > saw it. > Basically my interests is in the surface itself ! i want to know what it > looked like , how it was painted and decorated... i want to utilize it for > some personal murals and such. > > ? what's 'chunkey' by the way ? tell me some about it. > > thank you . RobertO > >Best, > > > >Michael > > > >On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Roberto Tirado wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > greetings to the group. > > > > > > i was wondering if anyone knows about books or articles concerning the > > > 'ballgame' played by mesoamerican societies and also a similar one > >played by > > > native americans . > > > > > > i am looking for books with pictorial representations of the symbols > >and > > > decorations of the ballcourt surface itself. Also useful to me would be > > > detailed descriptions of the equipment used, and the varieties of rules > >and > > > playing styles. > > > > > > *thank you* > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________________________ > > > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com > > > > > > > > >Michael McCafferty > >C.E.L.T. > >307 Memorial Hall > >Indiana University > >Bloomington, Indiana > >47405 > >mmccaffe at indiana.edu > > > >******************************************************************************* > >"Glory" (what a word!) consists in going > >from the me that others don't know > >to the other me that I don't know. > > > >-Juan Ramon Jimenez > > > >******************************************************************************* > > > > > > > _______________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com > Michael McCafferty C.E.L.T. 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "Glory" (what a word!) consists in going from the me that others don't know to the other me that I don't know. -Juan Ramon Jimenez ******************************************************************************* From mictlan at hooked.net Thu Jul 29 17:46:32 1999 From: mictlan at hooked.net (mictlacihuatl) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 11:46:32 -0600 Subject: Question on "cihuayotl" Message-ID: Hello all, I have heard the correct spelling for "woman/female warrior" is cihuayotl (combining cihuatl and yaotl together) I was wondering if this is correct and if not, could someone point me in the right direction? Tlazocamati. From liedo at stones.com Thu Jul 29 17:49:38 1999 From: liedo at stones.com (Horacio Liedo) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 11:49:38 -0600 Subject: PEPETL FUN Message-ID: PEPITO EN OTRA EPOCA. Nos hallamos en la Epoca de los Aztecas. En ese tiempo Pepito se llamaba Pepetl. La maestra del calpulli estaba dictando en nahuat-l clasico, y los ninos grababan en la piedra los correspondientes jeroglificos. "Moctezuma -empieza a dictar la maestra- es nuestro emperador". Los ninos esculpen el signo de la realeza, un penacho. Prosigue la maestra: "Es un monarca muy rico". Los ninos graban figuras de plumas, adornos de jade y semillas de cacao. "Tiene muchas esposas" sigue dictando la maestra. Los escolapios cincelan peque?as figuras femeninas. "Pero, sobre todo -dicta la profesora-, Moctezuma es un guerrero muy valiente". "Perdone maestra -la interrumpe Pepetl-. 'Muy valiente' ? se escribe con tres huevos o con cuatro?"... From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Thu Jul 29 20:58:04 1999 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 14:58:04 -0600 Subject: Common error Message-ID: Several people have had difficulty unsubscribing to the list. The most common error is to include something other than the magic words: unsub nahuat-l That MUST be sent to: listproc at server.umt.edu Not the regular Nahuat-l address That is the entire message. If you put anything else, it will come back as an error. Examples of what not to do: unsub nahuat-l Emiliano Zapata [Emiliano Zapata is not a command the software recognizes] unsub nahuat-l emiliano at amaltepec.com [Again, emiliano at amaltepec.com is not a command the software recognizes] J. F. Schwaller, List Owner John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx Fri Jul 30 16:46:36 1999 From: fabian at nuclecu.unam.mx (Fabian E. Pena Arellano) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 10:46:36 -0600 Subject: What is "weak consonance (consonancia debil)"? Message-ID: Hello, It seems that my last couple of questions have not been of interest for the people of the list. Anyway, I have another question. This is about the coining of names using verbs. According to Michel Launey, to form a name with the verbs of "weak consonance (consonancia debil)", the verbs must be writen on base two to add the suffix -tl(i). What does "weak consonance" mean? Thank you, Fabian Pena. From mdmorris at indiana.edu Sat Jul 31 00:39:22 1999 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark Morris) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 18:39:22 -0600 Subject: Colonial Nahuatl Documents Message-ID: Neteros, In an earlier posting, I included a catalog of Nahuatl documents of the 17th-century held by the Archivo General del Estado de Tlaxcala (AGET) and mentioned that occasionally other documents continue to surface. I lied. The region is teeming with Nahuatl records held by the local churches, and if you do research in Mexico you understand why those documents have remained anonymous. Between Luis Reyes Garcia, AGET and the pressures of urbanization, a project has been developing where AGET works cooperatively with communities to organize and maintain their history. The current director of AGET, maestra Glafira Magana Perales, also has had the creative insight to develop a project of digitizing, or scanning, the contents of these local archives, and then making them available to the global scholarly community in an effort to promote Tlaxcala's history. This project is going forward with the support of the state government. I'm writing to inquire what interest there might be in CDs loaded with colonial Nahuatl documents, to try to gauge if this would be something to market at the high end to institutions or if there would be a large demand for the product. I will post a sample page at a web address this weekend for those who would like to see the quality of the scanning. Sincerely, Mark Morris, graduate student, history, Indiana Univ. From Amapohuani at aol.com Sat Jul 31 04:40:38 1999 From: Amapohuani at aol.com (Amapohuani at aol.com) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 22:40:38 -0600 Subject: Colonial Nahuatl Documents (Tlaxcallan) Message-ID: Mark Morris: Deeply appreciative of your info re the Tlaxcallan documents. Count me in as an interested party. The only difficulty might be financial but the project as you describe it is a wonderful contribution. My sincerest regards to all the people and institutions you mentioned in your posting. Ye ixquich. Barry D. Sell From bmills at comdistec.com Sat Jul 31 17:55:08 1999 From: bmills at comdistec.com (bmills at comdistec.com) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 11:55:08 -0600 Subject: Common error Message-ID: Fritz, I recently subscribed to nahuat-l, and I notice that the instructions for unsubscribing which were sent to me said to use "unsubscribe nahuat-l" rather than "unsub nahuat-l". Perhaps this could be adding to the confusion. By the way, I took a Nahuatl class from you at Indiana University, many years ago. I keep in touch with Joe Campbell in Bloomington. Bill Mills On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, John F. Schwaller wrote: > Several people have had difficulty unsubscribing to the list. The most > common error is to include something other than the magic words: > unsub nahuat-l > > That MUST be sent to: > listproc at server.umt.edu > Not the regular Nahuat-l address > > That is the entire message. If you put anything else, it will come back as > an error. Examples of what not to do: > > unsub nahuat-l Emiliano Zapata > [Emiliano Zapata is not a command the software recognizes] > > unsub nahuat-l emiliano at amaltepec.com > [Again, emiliano at amaltepec.com is not a command the software recognizes] > > J. F. Schwaller, List Owner > > > John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu > Associate Provost 406-243-4722 > The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 > http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ >