BOOKS TO READ FOR DECOLONIZATION
The first
book Daily Life of the Aztecs is pivotal due to the following reasons:
1. The Mexica were the last of our great civilizations of Anahuac with the Nahuatl language as the lingua franca.
2. There is more information on Mexica than any other Nican Tlaca group in all of Cem-Anahuac (the so-called Western Hemisphere).
•Nevertheless, thanks to the accounts of Spanish friars and conquistadors, and to native and creole (Mexican-born) historians, we have more information on this civilization than on any other native culture of the New World.
-MEXICO: From The Olmecs To The Aztecs
3. The best example in describing the daily and institutional life of the Anahuaca (Mesoamerican People) is to be found in the Mexica culture.
•While we would like to criticize this oversimplified view and to allude to the dangers of overgeneralizing ,we know that a study of the wealth of information about the Mexicas is indispensable for an understanding of their contemporaries. If we wish to describe the daily and institutional life of a mesoamerican people in detail, the most pertinent example is to be found in the Mexica culture.
-Mexico's Indigenous Past
4. It is the culture of the majority of Mexicans in which we can identify proudly and work towards a liberated world, towards a future on the Black and Red Path away from the rabbits and deers who wonder off aimlessly offering themselves up for the prey. Away from colonialism. Mexica is a viable solution, ideal for the majority of our Mexican people who have no tribal ties and have been classified as mestizo (a label that was born of rape and slavery and forced on our people through the system of colonization). Through Mexica however, we have a base to reconstruct, to redeem, to teach and to implement as an alternative to the Illegal European occupation on our continent here in Anahuac.
1. Daily Life Of The Aztecs, By Jacques Soustelle
•Nevertheless, the Mexican woman must not be thought of as a kind of perpetual minor: although she lived in a society dominated by men she was by no means as subjugated as might be supposed at first. In former times women had held the supreme power, as at Tula, for example; and it even appears that a woman, Ilancueitl, was at the origin of the royal power in Mexico. At least in the beginning, the royal blood ran through the female side , and Ilancueitl brought the Toltec lineage of Colhuacan to Mexico, thus allowing the Aztec dynasty to lay claim to descent from the famous line of Quetzalcoatl.
-Daily Life Of The Aztecs
•In a general manner, Mexican education in both its forms hoped to produce strength of mind and of body, and a character devoted to the public good.
The stoicism with which the Aztecs were able to meet the most terrible ordeals proves that this education attained its end.
-Daily Life Of The Aztecs
•It is well worth noting that in that age and upon that continent an American native race practiced compulsory education for all and that no Mexican child of the sixteenth century, whatever his social origin, was deprived of schooling. One has but to compare this state of affairs with what is known of our own classical antiquity or middle ages to realise the care that the native civilization of Mexico, for all its limitations, devoted to the training of its young people and to the moulding of its citizens.
-Daily Life Of The Aztecs
•This 'humility', which might perhaps be more truthfully described as pride restrained by self control, showed itself by moderation in pleasure, 'Do not throw yourself upon women like a dog upon its food.'
By a measure way of speaking, 'One must speak calmly, not too fast, nor heatedly, nor loud . . . keep to a moderate pitch, neither high nor low; and let your words be mild and serene.' By discretion, 'If you hear and see something, particularly something wrong, pretend not to have done so and be quiet.' By willing readiness in obeying, 'Do not wait to be called twice: answer at once the first time.' By good taste and restraint in dress, 'Do not be too curious in your clothes, nor freakish. . . on the other hand, do not wear poor, torn garments'. And finally, by a mans whole bearing.
In the street, 'Walk quietly, neither to fast nor too slow . . . those who do not observe this rule are called ixtotomac cuecuetz, people who go looking in every direction like idiots, without nobility or gravity; do not walk with your head down or leaning on one side or looking to right and to left, or else it would be said that you are an ill bred, undisciplined fool.'
At meals, 'Do not eat too quickly or in a careless manner; do not take great
mouthfuls of maiz cake, nor stuff your mouth, nor swallow like a dog, nor tear the cakes to pieces, nor hurl yourself upon what is in the plate. Eat calmly, or you will be mocked. Before the meal, wash your hands and mouth; and do the same after you have eaten.'
-Daily Life Of The Aztecs
2. Encyclopedia Of American Indian Contributions To The World, By Emory Dean Keoke & Kay Marie Porterfield
•Socialist Theory, American Indian Influence On
Socialism is a political philosophy that regards a class-free society - in which collective good is valued over individuality - as the ideal society. In addition to influencing the U.S. Constitution (see United States Constitution, American Indian Influence on), the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois League of Nations served as a major inspiration for later refinements of socialist theory (after the publication of The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital ). The Iroquois, an Iroquoian-speaking group Indigenous to what is now New England, created the Iroquois League, which originally consisted of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes (and later the Tuscarora) between A.D. 1100 and 1450. European political philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were influenced by the Iroquois ideas of government.
Marx and Engels, both of whom were German, lived in England. They did not have contact with the Iroquois but learned of their constitution through the work of Lewis Henry Morgan, who would later come to be known as the father of American anthropology. Morgan, who worked for the railroad industry as a lobbyist, first began studying American Indians to discover pieces of their rituals that he could use in a fraternal order he planned to found. Through the influence of his close friend Ely S. Parker, a Seneca and the first American Indian to serve as commissioner of Indian Affairs for the U.S. government, the Iroquois adopted Morgan. He spent nearly ten years in close contact with the Iroquois people, and his writings about them were far more objective than any others until that point.
The result of his study was a comparison of the U.S. and Iroquois constitution called League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee.This book became a classical work in anthropology after its publication in 1851 and was the first in-depth of an American Indian social organization. In it Morgan detailed how the Iroquois had set up their government with checks and balances and equal distribution of wealth and power. Iroquois leaders were essentially servants who could be removed for any negative behavior relating to the people they served or to the office they held. Ordinary people were allowed theological and political expression, and women were allowed to participate in the political process.
Most of the thinkers in the 1800's had difficulty grasping the concept of a society without private property or social classes. Up until this time Europeans saw other cultures only in terms of European knowledge and experience. Many authors attempted to describe the American Indians with words like feudalism and kingship-concepts that were based on a European system of private property. Morgan's studies of American Indian people stood in sharp contrast to this way of thinking. He's experiences with the Iroquois led him to believe that the American Indian society without private ownership of property and without class worked because it was based on family ties and kingship relationship as opposed to private ownership. At first glance the League of the Iroquois appeared more socialist in nature than democratic.
All of these concepts and more captivated Marx and Engels. They saw in Morgan's book a political system that worked and was, at the same time, almost their ideal of a classless and leaderless state. Among the Iroquois, the idea of private property and the competition to acquire wealth was almost unheard of. These concepts appealed the most to the two political philosophers. Marx, who had just completed Das Kapital, was especially intrigued. Morgan's description of Iroquois society fit into Marx's theories and was an alternative to the monarchy or the Russian czarist form of government that he was uncomfortable accepting. He felt absolute rule placed too much power in the hands of one person and produced a very unequal distribution of wealth, in addition to which the masses had few political choices or rights.
After Marx read Morgan's work, he became excited by the ideas and began writing a book incorporating Morgan's theories with his own. Marx died before he could finish the work. Before he died he declared Morgan's scholarship a significant piece of writing that all socialist needed to read in order to understand the basis of his own theory. His notes and writings on the Iroquois were published posthumously in Russia, but it would be up to Friedrich Engels to finish the work. After Engels read Morgan's Ancient Society, he wrote The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State, published in 1884. This book would later be termed the cornerstone of modern socialist theory.
The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State was eventually translated into many languages for socialist around the world to study and became a primer for socialist even into the 20th century. As late as 1964, Moscow hosted a symposium of the International des Sciences Anthropologigues et Ethnologigues devoted to Morgan's theories and writings. Inadvertently, the Iroquois had contributed greaty not only to the government of the United States of America, but to that of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as well.
-Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the world
•Mexica Anatomical Knowledge
Anatomical knowledge, the understanding of the structure and functions of the parts of the human body, is the foundation of medical practice. In order to successfully treat illness and injuries, ancient Nican Tlaca physicians needed a broad knowledge of human anatomy, including the skeletal system.
The Mexica were so expert in medicine compared to European physicians that reportedly the Spanish invaders preferred to seek help from them instead of barber-surgeons who accompanied the Spaniards to Cemanahuac (so called western hemisphere/new world).
Mexica physicians understood the workings of the heart and circulatory system long before Europeans possessed such knowledge. They were familiar with the main details of the internal parts of the heart as well. (Historians generally credit William Harvey,an Englishman who lived between 1578 and 1657, with putting forth the first theory describing the circulatory system.) The Mexica language,Nahuatl,even contained a word to describe the throbbing of the heart: Tetecuicaliztli.
The Mexica not only developed sophisticated anatomical terminology but also classified the parts of the human body, organizing them into systems. In his book Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, anthropologist Jack Weatherford states, "The Nahuatl - speaking doctors developed an extensive vocabulary that identified virtually all of the organs that the science of anatomy recognizes today."
The terms that follow are only a small sample of the terms routinely used by the Mexica physicians.
English / Nahuatl
_________________________________________
Skin = Cuatl
Head = Totzontecan
Tongue = Nenepilli
Lungs = Tochichi
Stomach = Totlatlalizan
Spleen = Elcomalli
Elbow articulation (Joint) = Maliztli
Shoulder articulation (Joint) = Acolli
Knee articulation (Joint) = Tlanquaitl
Thorax = Elpantli
Wrist articulation (Joint) = Maquechtli
_________________________________________
In contrast to the Mexica, Europeans had less understanding of the internal organs and their functions. Physicians in the Middle Ages relied on a medical text written by Galen, a Greek who lived from A.D. 130 to A.D. 200. He taught that blood filled the arteries, and he described the chambers of the heart. Considered to be scholars, physicians did not make practical application of this anatomical information, nor did they do anatomical research, since they viewed the body as "worldly" and of little consequence.
For the most part they focused on Galen's unfounded theories that taught that illness was caused by an imbalance of four bodily fluids called humours. Surgeons, who were viewed as craftspeople, treated patients mainly by bloodletting. Medieval Europeans, who believed illness was a punishment for sin, treated most sickness with prayer and penance.
-Encyclopedia of American Indian contributions to the world
•Medical Research
Medical research is the scientific study of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of illness. It can be conducted in order to learn the cause of diseases or medical
conditions, to develop a cure for a particular illness, or to modify existing treatment so that it will be more effective.
Mexica physicians routinely engaged in medical research using the empirical method of scientific inquiry. Their botanical gardens served as research centers. In his book Aztec Medicine, Health and Nutrition, Bernard Ortiz de Montellano writes, "Experience in the gardens was reflected in the Mexica extensive and scientifically accurate botanical and zoological taxonomy. The gardens were also used for medical research, plants were given free to patients on the condition that they report the results, and doctors were encouraged to experiment with the various plants."
Since medical knowledge was passed orally from healer to healer in other North American Indian cultures, no direct evidence exist that medical research was conducted as systematically as that done by the Mexica. However, it is clear that American Indian healers possessed sophisticated knowledge of the properties and correct dosages of medicinal plants. North American Indians used botanical oral contraceptives and routinely used antispasmodic medications that can produce harm if not given in the correct dosages. The sophistication of their medical knowledge indicates that they were astute observers of the effects of botanicals against illness.
-Encyclopedia of American Indian contributions to the world
3. México Profundo, By Guillermo Bonfil Batalla
•Reclaiming A Civilization
Before the European invasion, each one of the peoples who occupied the territory that today is Mexico had a particular, clearly identified social and ethnic identity. No conception existed of the subjugated peoples as inferior or intrinsically different, even during the last decades of the Mexica expansion. The nomads of the north, known generically as Chichimeca, were distinguished as a category of people, and the term Chichimeca was undeniably pejorative. Nevertheless, even in this case, the fact that the Mexica themselves were of nomadic origin made it difficult to conceptualize the Chichimeca as naturally inferior.
The Indian is the product of the establishment of the colonial regime. Before the invasion there were no Indians, but individually identified peoples. Colonial society, on the other hand, rested on a categorical division between two irreconcilable poles: the Spaniards, the colonizers; and the Indians, the colonized. In this scheme of things, the individuality of each of the subjugated peoples passed to a second level and lost meaning. The only fundamental distinction was that which made all of them "the others," that is to say, those who were not Spaniards. During the early years of the colony, New Spain was conceived as a society with two republics, that of the Indians and that of the Spaniards. Each one was subject to different orders, which established and codified what should be its internal life, and the ways in which it would relate to the other republic. The relationship, of course, was not between two equal republics, but between a dominant society, which believed itself superior in all ways, and a republic of Indians,which was therefore defined as inferior.
The Viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco, wrote in 1559: The two republics in which this kingdom consists, that of Spaniards and that of Indians, experience great repugnance and difficulties in their relations with each other, in terms of their government, their growth, and their stability. The maintenance of the first always seems to involve the oppression and destruction of the second.
-MEXICO PROFUNDO
Reclaiming A Civilization
•The colonial order was by nature exclusive. It rested on the cultural incompatibility of colonized and colonizers. The purpose of colonization were fulfilled only to the extent that those colonized changed their ways of life to adjust them to the needs and interest of the colonial enterprise. These required changes, however, did not lead to the assimilation of the colonized into the dominant culture, but only to their adaptation to their new role as conquered, and colonized, peoples. The difference between the two groups was maintained because upon it rested the justification for colonial domination.
Exclusion meant that the dominated culture was not recognized as having any value of its own. It was a culture denied, one that was incompatible. Those colonized were not subjugated in order to take away what they made or produced, but to force them to make or produce something different. Here we see the profound difference between the colonial order imposed in the sixteen century and the previous forms of domination. In the new subjugation "the other" was denied. His culture and his cultural vision of the future not only were incompatible, they did not exist. Exclusion was evident in the system of cultural control imposed, itself a result of the imposition of a different civilization.
-MEXICO PROFUNDO
Reclaiming A Civilization
Since the Conquest, Bonfil argues, the peoples of the Mexico Profundo have been dominated by an "Imaginary Mexico" imposed by the West. It is imaginary not because it does not exist, but because it denies the cultural reality lived daily by most Mexicans.
4. American Holocaust, By David E. Stannard
Summary:
For four hundred years-from the first Spanish assaults against the Arawak people of Hispaniola in the 1490s to the US Army's massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee in the 1890s-the indigenous inhabitants of North and South America endured an unending firestorm of violence. During that time the native population of the Western Hemisphere declined by as many as 100 million people. Indeed, as historian David E. Stannard argues in this stunning new book, the European and white American destruction of the native peoples of the Americas was the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world.
Stannard begins with a portrait of the enormous richness and diversity of life in the Americas prior to Columbus's fateful voyage in 1492. He then follows the path of genocide from the Indies to Mexico and Central and South America, then north to Florida, Virginia, and New England, and finally out across the Great Plains and Southwest to California and the North Pacific Coast.
Stannard reveals that wherever Europeans or white Americans went, the native people were caught between imported plagues and barbarous atrocities, typically resulting in the annihilation of 95 percent of their populations. What kind of people, he asks, do such horrendous things to others? His highly provocative answer: Christians. Digging deeply into ancient European and Christian attitudes toward sex, race, and war, he finds the cultural ground well prepared by the end of the Middle Ages for the centuries-long genocide campaign that Europeans and their descendants launched-and in places continue to wage-against the New World's original inhabitants.
Advancing a thesis that is sure to create much controversy, Stannard contends that the perpetrators of the American Holocaust drew on the same ideological wellspring as did the later architects of the Nazi Holocaust. It is an ideology that remains dangerously alive today, he adds, and one that in recent years has surfaced in American justifications for large-scale military intervention in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. At once sweeping in scope and meticulously detailed, American Holocaust is a work of impassioned scholarship that is certain to ignite intense historical and moral debate.
Source: Nielsen Book Data
- Within no more than a handful of generations following their first encounters with Europeans, the vast majority of the Western Hemisphere's native peoples [Nican Tlaca] had been exterminated. The pace and magnitude of their obliteration varied from place to place and from time to time, but for years now historical demographers have been uncovering, in region upon region, post Columbian depopulation rates of between 90 and 98 percent with such regularity that an overall decline of 95 % has become a working rule of thumb. What this means is that on average, for every twenty natives [Nican Tlaca] alive at the moment of European contact - when the lands of the Americas [Cemanahuac] teemed with numerous tens of millions of people - only one stood in their place when the bloodbath was over.
-American Holocaust
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