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Dear Ruben,<br>
<br>
Thanks very much for your thoughts (or thoughtful food. . .). I
wasn't myself arguing for ecological disruptions, but had heard the
argument made some years ago. The Rwanda case is very interesting
on this regards, and answers my honest question on this.<br>
<br>
And yes, I can see that numbers are significant and would not want to
deny that. What was behind those rather quickly made remarks,
however, I hope was not all that naive. The area of Aztec studies
has been and often still is dominated by questions about sacrifice (how
it was done, who did it, to whom, and how many. . .so on), and
specifically on human (even though many other types of sacrifice
occurred). It's not unusual for studies on sacrificial rituals to
ignore all sacrifice but human; making no effort to account for a fuller
picture.<br>
<br>
My question was more one of frustration around the seemingly continual
expectation that that is what we apparently <u>must</u> study, if we
study the Aztecs; that apparently there is little else of interest.
Of course, many of us do study other things. Still, these studies
are limited to an audience that is quite small; primarily other
specialists who are also deeply into this stuff. Moreover, a large
part of the historiography of Aztec studies in both the ancient and
recent past has focused heavily on sacrifice. And, in the minds of
many non-specialists out there, the out-standing issue is
sacrifice. I'm raising the question of why? What does it say
about us that we focus on human sacrifice?<br>
<br>
Just still throwing things out there...<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Kay<br>
<br>
At 03:24 PM 4/20/2004 -0700, Archaeology Institute wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Nahua language and culture
discussion <NAHUAT-L@LISTS.UMN.EDU> writes:<br>
>Moreover, has anyone considered the ecological issues in this?
Somewhere many years ago, I heard somebody claim that the disposal of 80,
400 bodies (the number Duran gives for that famous example),<br>
>or even 11, 520 bodies (the number Cook came up with) would have
really messed up the delicate ecology of the Basin of Mexico. I.e.,
what did they do with all the bodies? Bernard Ortiz de<br>
>Montellano suggests that only some people ate only certain parts of
those bodies (the thigh apparently was big); what happened to the
rest? And, what did it do to the environment, if it really<br>
>happened?<br>
<br>
Last I checked, the ecology of Rawanda was little effected by the
genocidal massacre of some 800,000 civilian non-combatants in a period of
little more than eight weeks...and with machetes and garden<br>
tools, no less. Media footage of the massacre and its aftermath
make clear that many of the victims were simply left where they died, or
were tossed into rivers where they polluted the waters with a<br>
crimson hue until such time that the hundreds of thousands of rotting
corpses washed out to sea, or were consumed by the wildlife of the
region. So, I must necessarily differ with your perspective<br>
on the decimation of the ecology...particularly as I understand that
human remains are largely biodegradable.<br>
><br>
><br>
>I tend to agree with some of the other respondents to this, that it's
good to treat our sources with a very heavy dose of suspicion and
caution. Not only because they themselves come from authors<br>
>who presume certain realities, but also because we ourselves come
from situations that presume certain realities.<br>
<br>
Good point! It is precisely this line of thinking that will
continue to parody any and all thinking on any and all matters of the
human spirit...and the carnage that generally follows. Where
does<br>
that leave anthropology, history, ethnohistory, etc? While I think
that critical theory and post-modernist critiques have their place in the
academy, I must confess that as the product of an<br>
impoverished family from an "oppressed" minority ethnic group,
such critiques generally fall short in their efforts to go beyond
hegemonic discourse analysis...and into the realm of how it is that<br>
people like my family and I were able to put food on the table.
Such discursive networks have little utility for the vast majority of the
world's population, which is hungry, poor, and uneducated in<br>
the niceties and frivolities of post-modern thinking.<br>
><br>
>My question, I guess, is why are we still concerned with the numbers
of sacrifice? The sources are rich with a huge number of wonderful
issues and topics; why is this still a burning question at<br>
>least 60 years later. By the way they burned and decapitated
people, and shot people with arrows, among other things too, why are we
so hung up on the heart extractions? Is this really, really<br>
>important for our understanding of Aztec sacrifice or, more
generally, of Aztec worldviews, or does the question itself say something
important about ourselves?<br>
<br>
These too are good questions, but do suggest a degree of naivette about
what you yourself bring into question about what is significant, and what
is not, in the world of scholarship. Why would<br>
anyone care about the total number of human beings slaughtered in the
Rawanda genocide...after all, it would seem that by your argument, such
considerations (of genocide), have no place in the<br>
conflict ridden tribal zone of the academy. I would also counter by
reframing your question by asking: "why are we still concerned with
the numbers..." of people in Tenochtitlan, or the quantity of<br>
debitage on an archaeological site...or the number of atoms in an atomic
bomb? Like you, I simply put these thoughts out there as food for
thought...or for the Gods, as the case may be!<br>
<br>
Best Regards,<br>
<br>
Ruben G. Mendoza, Ph.D., Director<br>
Institute for Archaeological Science, Technology and Visualization<br>
Social and Behavioral Sciences<br>
California State University Monterey Bay<br>
100 Campus Center<br>
Seaside, California 93955-8001<br>
<br>
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