Seymour Gr
Fri, Jul-18-03, 19:15
"Then it was clear, Then they reached accord in the light, And
then humanity was clear, When they conceived the growth, The
generation of trees, of bushes, and the growth of life, Of
humankind in the blackness, In the early dawn, All because of
the Heart of Sky, Named Hurricane: Thunderbolt Hurricane."
-- Popol Vuh
Something from the PBS Website . . .
"The wave of mysterious abandonment that swept through Classic
Maya cities ends at (Toniná) this remote city in Chiapas,
Mexico . The wave seems to have begun along the Usumacinta
River. The last recorded date at Bonampak is 792, at Piedras
Negras 795, at Palenque 799, and at Yaxchilán 808. The wave
then moved east into the heart of Maya civilization in the
Petén region of what is today modern Guatemala and south into
Honduras. Quiriguá fell silent in 810, Copán in 822, Caracol
in 859, and Tikal in 889. The very last Classic Maya date --
909 -- appears at Toniná. Strangely, no record of impending
doom appears anywhere in Maya iconography. Scholars have
advanced many possible causes of the collapse -- among them
plague, famine, earthquake, invasion, and peasant revolt --
but the enigma remains."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/maya/world.html
All the more interestingly, one may then read from the same
site, this . . .
"Chichén Itzá, 'the mouth of the well of the Itzás,' was
likely the most important city in the Yucatán from the 10th to
the 12th centuries A.D. Evidence indicates that the site was
first settled as early as the fifth century A.D. but was
apparently abandoned thereafter. Then, in 964, the Itzás, a
Maya-speaking people from the Petén rain forest around Tikal,
moved into the city. "
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/maya/world.html
As anyone might note, corresponding with the time of
abandonment for Classic Maya Petén, comes the beginning of the
era of Post-Classic resettlement in old Pre-Classic cities of
the Yucatan.
This raises certain questions, most particularly as the Chac
Mool (often alleged to be of Toltec origin) seated at Chichén
Itzá comes to mind, with otherToltec/Itzá similarities of
artifact. So it is Chichén Itzá which arises at the time the
Petén cities are being abandoned, and it is to Chichén Itzá
that the people formerly of Petén, Tikal et all migrate--to
the one city where Toltec stylistic influence is most often
mentioned.
As noted in the first quoted passage, Toniná was the last site
to be abandoned circa 909 A.D. Palenque also went to ruin
during this period and did not come to resurrection along with
Chichén Itzá. All this decline of Mayan culture in the Petén
is directly concurrent with the burning of Teotihuacan circa
700 to the final fall, 900-1,000 A.D, this being the city so
often alleged as the main seat of Toltec culture--if it should
be seen as an imperial entity, possibly also at one with the
site in Hidalgo presently identified as the mythical "Tollan"
or "Tula" of the Aztecs.
In any case, we see the Aztecs, as according to their
well-known mythos, coming from the North to be repulsed,
rejected by every people of the land they came upon until at
last they settle by sequestering themselves, as if by
self-imposed quarantine upon an unwanted island in the midst
of a vast swamp at Tenochtitlan. But up until the time of this
final settlement, quite contrary to a Post-Conquest mythos,
the Aztecs did not come raiding out of the north like a bloody
barbarian horde of Visigoths and Huns into Rome, to the Valley
of Mexico to start the Toltecs upon a southeastward
emigration, inevitably to a collision with Maya
civilization--something else happened, something more than a
mere clash of arms which until well after their final arrival
at Tenochtitlan the Aztecs had been losing. No, something
wholy other must end with the result of an entire subcontinent
of ghost cities stretching from Teotihuacan to the peninsula
of Yucatan. What mighty power had the Aztec invaders brought
against the Toltecs which was now being carried by them
against the Maya, as if it were the very magic of the Plumed
Serpent itself?
It is as the myth of Quetzalcohuatl where the Toltec
god/priest is opposed by the wicked sorcerer until he is
disposed to leave, to go away (and by some accounts take many
others with him) by water, if not by sea even so far east and
south as, e.g. to the river Usumacinta.
And as Quetzalcoatl, according to myth comes, by origin, as
also by messianic return, again from the east, so, in the
beginning there came to Teotihuacan and the Valley of Mexico
the migration of high eastern culture, as originally, the
Toltec and Maya are seen as two spurs of ancient Olmec
civilization from the Gulf coast, one having migrated west
and the other south. The ball sport had its inception with
the Olmecs and was played both in Teotihuacan and all
throughout the Mayan cultural arena. Indeed one source states
as follows . . .
"The name Olmec literally means 'rubber people',
for it is the Olmec who supposedly invented the
ritual ball game and the use of the rubber ball."
http://fusionanomaly.net/olmecs.html
But perhaps Olmecs no more invented, most originally, the
rubber ball than the Quiché-Maya invented the Carib god-name
"Hurikan", just as the power and might of the Aztecs was no
more attributable to force of a warrior's arms or sorcerer's
magic than to something else that an invention and
sophisticated use of rubber might well have cured? What other
than disease would prove to be too fierce for first, Toltec,
then Maya civilization to withstand, to find them abandoning
their cities leaving all to the invading syphilitic and Asian
flu carrying hordes who are not, per force content to take
over the old vacant physical structure of the contaminated
towns which are no good to them without a captive population
to grow the crops and keep things in repair.
Now loudly arises in mind the so often recounted Aztec lament
that no matter where their long wanderings took them, they
were rejected and repulsed by the peoples of the land who
would have had no resistance to black invisible magic of
Siberian/Aleutian viri and bacteria. So, the pursuit continues
from Aztec to Toltec to Maya all the way to Chichén Itzá and
Tulum, where at last, backed up against the end of the world
at the beaches of the Yucatan peninsula, the inevitable
victory of natural selection and cultural meld occurs, as no
different than the invading Norman hordes took on the culture
and language of the captive Anglo-Saxon population of Britain,
so, the Toltecs lose their identity in the dominant local
civilization of the Maya.
Sound at all tenable--even without the necessary logical
clincher? Well, if so then you can flame my pants off now over
following sort of highly Thor Heyerdahl type conclusion: The
Olmecs came to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec as a northern
migration of Caribbean islanders who themselves came from a
stock of Melanesian migrants to the West Coasts of Colombia,
Ecuador and Peru to populate the Southern continent. The
Aztecs, by contrast, are of Aleutian/Siberian/Pueblo/Yaqui
origin who came into Meso-America bearing some heap big Bad
Medicine in the form of the one-handed oriental Thunder Clap
which defeated utterly the indigenous population.
Now, if you don't have your epistemological flame-throwers
ready to hand, why not try a good old empirical bazooka shell
or two? Go on, then. Shoot me down if you can. :-)
Maybe for a first fusillade somebody can load up with some of
those allegedly probative genetic studies which they say blew
Heyerdahl on his Kon Tiki out of the water long ago. I have
yet to see the texts of the actual studies, however, so, you
know, smoke me with 'em if you got 'em, and if you can. I am a
man ready to the battle, but ever willing to bow to a
practiced, well disciplined hand bearing irrefutable proof.
--
John
then humanity was clear, When they conceived the growth, The
generation of trees, of bushes, and the growth of life, Of
humankind in the blackness, In the early dawn, All because of
the Heart of Sky, Named Hurricane: Thunderbolt Hurricane."
-- Popol Vuh
Something from the PBS Website . . .
"The wave of mysterious abandonment that swept through Classic
Maya cities ends at (Toniná) this remote city in Chiapas,
Mexico . The wave seems to have begun along the Usumacinta
River. The last recorded date at Bonampak is 792, at Piedras
Negras 795, at Palenque 799, and at Yaxchilán 808. The wave
then moved east into the heart of Maya civilization in the
Petén region of what is today modern Guatemala and south into
Honduras. Quiriguá fell silent in 810, Copán in 822, Caracol
in 859, and Tikal in 889. The very last Classic Maya date --
909 -- appears at Toniná. Strangely, no record of impending
doom appears anywhere in Maya iconography. Scholars have
advanced many possible causes of the collapse -- among them
plague, famine, earthquake, invasion, and peasant revolt --
but the enigma remains."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/maya/world.html
All the more interestingly, one may then read from the same
site, this . . .
"Chichén Itzá, 'the mouth of the well of the Itzás,' was
likely the most important city in the Yucatán from the 10th to
the 12th centuries A.D. Evidence indicates that the site was
first settled as early as the fifth century A.D. but was
apparently abandoned thereafter. Then, in 964, the Itzás, a
Maya-speaking people from the Petén rain forest around Tikal,
moved into the city. "
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/maya/world.html
As anyone might note, corresponding with the time of
abandonment for Classic Maya Petén, comes the beginning of the
era of Post-Classic resettlement in old Pre-Classic cities of
the Yucatan.
This raises certain questions, most particularly as the Chac
Mool (often alleged to be of Toltec origin) seated at Chichén
Itzá comes to mind, with otherToltec/Itzá similarities of
artifact. So it is Chichén Itzá which arises at the time the
Petén cities are being abandoned, and it is to Chichén Itzá
that the people formerly of Petén, Tikal et all migrate--to
the one city where Toltec stylistic influence is most often
mentioned.
As noted in the first quoted passage, Toniná was the last site
to be abandoned circa 909 A.D. Palenque also went to ruin
during this period and did not come to resurrection along with
Chichén Itzá. All this decline of Mayan culture in the Petén
is directly concurrent with the burning of Teotihuacan circa
700 to the final fall, 900-1,000 A.D, this being the city so
often alleged as the main seat of Toltec culture--if it should
be seen as an imperial entity, possibly also at one with the
site in Hidalgo presently identified as the mythical "Tollan"
or "Tula" of the Aztecs.
In any case, we see the Aztecs, as according to their
well-known mythos, coming from the North to be repulsed,
rejected by every people of the land they came upon until at
last they settle by sequestering themselves, as if by
self-imposed quarantine upon an unwanted island in the midst
of a vast swamp at Tenochtitlan. But up until the time of this
final settlement, quite contrary to a Post-Conquest mythos,
the Aztecs did not come raiding out of the north like a bloody
barbarian horde of Visigoths and Huns into Rome, to the Valley
of Mexico to start the Toltecs upon a southeastward
emigration, inevitably to a collision with Maya
civilization--something else happened, something more than a
mere clash of arms which until well after their final arrival
at Tenochtitlan the Aztecs had been losing. No, something
wholy other must end with the result of an entire subcontinent
of ghost cities stretching from Teotihuacan to the peninsula
of Yucatan. What mighty power had the Aztec invaders brought
against the Toltecs which was now being carried by them
against the Maya, as if it were the very magic of the Plumed
Serpent itself?
It is as the myth of Quetzalcohuatl where the Toltec
god/priest is opposed by the wicked sorcerer until he is
disposed to leave, to go away (and by some accounts take many
others with him) by water, if not by sea even so far east and
south as, e.g. to the river Usumacinta.
And as Quetzalcoatl, according to myth comes, by origin, as
also by messianic return, again from the east, so, in the
beginning there came to Teotihuacan and the Valley of Mexico
the migration of high eastern culture, as originally, the
Toltec and Maya are seen as two spurs of ancient Olmec
civilization from the Gulf coast, one having migrated west
and the other south. The ball sport had its inception with
the Olmecs and was played both in Teotihuacan and all
throughout the Mayan cultural arena. Indeed one source states
as follows . . .
"The name Olmec literally means 'rubber people',
for it is the Olmec who supposedly invented the
ritual ball game and the use of the rubber ball."
http://fusionanomaly.net/olmecs.html
But perhaps Olmecs no more invented, most originally, the
rubber ball than the Quiché-Maya invented the Carib god-name
"Hurikan", just as the power and might of the Aztecs was no
more attributable to force of a warrior's arms or sorcerer's
magic than to something else that an invention and
sophisticated use of rubber might well have cured? What other
than disease would prove to be too fierce for first, Toltec,
then Maya civilization to withstand, to find them abandoning
their cities leaving all to the invading syphilitic and Asian
flu carrying hordes who are not, per force content to take
over the old vacant physical structure of the contaminated
towns which are no good to them without a captive population
to grow the crops and keep things in repair.
Now loudly arises in mind the so often recounted Aztec lament
that no matter where their long wanderings took them, they
were rejected and repulsed by the peoples of the land who
would have had no resistance to black invisible magic of
Siberian/Aleutian viri and bacteria. So, the pursuit continues
from Aztec to Toltec to Maya all the way to Chichén Itzá and
Tulum, where at last, backed up against the end of the world
at the beaches of the Yucatan peninsula, the inevitable
victory of natural selection and cultural meld occurs, as no
different than the invading Norman hordes took on the culture
and language of the captive Anglo-Saxon population of Britain,
so, the Toltecs lose their identity in the dominant local
civilization of the Maya.
Sound at all tenable--even without the necessary logical
clincher? Well, if so then you can flame my pants off now over
following sort of highly Thor Heyerdahl type conclusion: The
Olmecs came to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec as a northern
migration of Caribbean islanders who themselves came from a
stock of Melanesian migrants to the West Coasts of Colombia,
Ecuador and Peru to populate the Southern continent. The
Aztecs, by contrast, are of Aleutian/Siberian/Pueblo/Yaqui
origin who came into Meso-America bearing some heap big Bad
Medicine in the form of the one-handed oriental Thunder Clap
which defeated utterly the indigenous population.
Now, if you don't have your epistemological flame-throwers
ready to hand, why not try a good old empirical bazooka shell
or two? Go on, then. Shoot me down if you can. :-)
Maybe for a first fusillade somebody can load up with some of
those allegedly probative genetic studies which they say blew
Heyerdahl on his Kon Tiki out of the water long ago. I have
yet to see the texts of the actual studies, however, so, you
know, smoke me with 'em if you got 'em, and if you can. I am a
man ready to the battle, but ever willing to bow to a
practiced, well disciplined hand bearing irrefutable proof.
--
John