Subject: Re: About human sacrifice.

[by way of "John F. Schwaller" <schwallr@selway.umt.edu>]

Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 02:36:07 -0600 (MDT)
From: Andreas C Schou <schoandr at cwis.isu.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nahuat-l at server.umt.edu>
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.