March 9, 2006

Filthy Cultures of the Past Some Still Drool Over Today

I love gloating little news squibs like this:

GUATEMALA CITY - Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday. "That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders.
That's a classic bit of blather served up by the guileful for the clueless.

The takeaway is that it would be an 'affront' and somehow 'unclean' for the President of the United States to place his feet on the "sacred lands" of the Maya; that to do so would somehow imbue such sites with "bad spirits."

Oh really? Let's review....

Before we all launch into another round of post-modern reverential drool over Native Mesoamerican cultures of yesteryear, let's review the "spiritual" record of the Mayan "culture," one that peaked about 1,100 years ago and has yet to recover from the muck of its "Golden Age."

In this case, the site that Bush is scheduled to visit is Iximche. The spiritual activities there when it was a Mayan cultural center and disco parlor included:

"After extraction of the heart, which was offered to the idol, the heads were put on poles on a special altar dedicated to this purpose, where they remained for some time, after which they were buried. The bodies of the sacrificed were cooked and eaten as sanctified flesh (Guillemin, 1969:27; 1977:258). Aspects of this religious complex show up in the human remains excavated at Iximche, the Kaqchikel Maya capital."
The place looks almost sylvan now:
amaya.jpg

Just a bunch of colorful folk hanging about on a lawn with a couple of campfires going. Probably getting ready to purify the place with some flaming marshmallows and a round of 'Smores for all hands.

Then it'll be an hour or so of chanting and waving some smudge sticks around in the breeze for the cameras that show up to record the "Boosh Purification." Then Juan Tiney will give good quote and haul his buns off to cash the latest check from the NGO and take a pull of the pulque. And then all will be quite in the night that settles over the "purified" ruins of Iximche. It will be so quiet you could almost hear the cries and screams of the children who were decapitated in the pure Mayan way.

Oh, didn't I mention that the Noble Ancient Mayan's especially valued children when it came to human sacrifice? They did. It seemed kids made it a better ritual when the innocent were being hacked up, and better still when their suffering before being slaughtered was audible. More stimulating, one would imagine. Hotter soundtrack. The menu was something like this:

"Human sacrifice was perpetrated on prisoners, slaves, and particularly children, with orphans and illegitimate children specially purchased for the occasion. Priests were assisted in human sacrifices by four older men who were known as chacs, in honour of the Rain God, Chac. These men would hold the arms and legs of a sacrificial victim while the chest was opened up by another individual called a nacom."
The Mayans, inheritors of a great and noble culture. I sort of hope they get into purifying the site of their oh-so-noble ancestors at Iximche on a daily basis. Maybe Juan Tiney could get a job there as spiritual janitor. That way he'd have a chance of doing something useful for his people for a change. It should be clean in about, oh, another 1,100 years.

amaychop.jpg
Great moments in Mayan culture
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Posted by Vanderleun at March 9, 2006 8:07 PM | TrackBack
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AMERICAN DIGEST HOME
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Only one response to the Mayans is appropriate: a citation of General Charles Napier from his time as viceroy of India:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Savages have no business even looking at a civilized man as an equal -- and when the civilized man is George W. Bush, who's done more for the oppressed of the world than any other man alive, they should fall to their knees and beg his forgiveness for daring to exhale in his presence.

Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at March 10, 2007 6:06 AM

Western Culture kicked ass and they still can't get over it. Send them to the american (with a small a) universities to receive a dose of cultural BS.

Posted by: jeffersonranch at March 10, 2007 6:36 AM

On the floor laughing when CNBC reported on Monday AM business news that Mayan priests would purify the ruins of the bad spirits that our President left after his visit last week.

This, laughing even harder, for the prestigious Skull & Bones secret society man, George Bush--can't you just see him holding human bones and laying in a coffin--hilarious!

It's as hilarious that Christians, blind to the violent historical heritage of their own religion, bash the Mayan priests for their violent historical heritage in an attempt to discredit the current day priests.

The absurdity of the SAVAGES and their modern day counterparts--
yeah, including those in the Christian faiths
of which I, without pride precisely because of my religion's violent historical heritage, am a part.

Filthy culture, there is no such thing--not the religion of Christianity, but Jesus himself undid that kind of belief system.

Still, somewhere, though certainly not at this post, hope springs eternal that everything, whether Mayan or Christian, and our USA be transformed from past nasty beliefs and behavior into something better every day.

Posted by: J Brown at March 12, 2007 10:21 AM

"hope springs eternal that everything, whether Mayan or Christian, and our USA be transformed from past nasty beliefs and behavior into something better every day."

Thanks, Brown, a better example of magical thinking would be hard to come by.

You know what they say, "Live in hope, die in despair."

Posted by: Gerard Van der Leun at March 12, 2007 11:51 AM

Aztecs. Canaanites. Muslims. So distant from each other in place and time, yet all engaging in the same practice: child sacrifice.

G-d doesn't care about the culture behind it. He isn't a multiculturalist. When He says, "Thou shalt not", He means what He says. And all the talk about "an ancient heritage" and "legitimate grievances" won't save the baby-sacrificers from His righteous judgment. He will administer it Himself--He, not human agents of his as the Muslims appoint themselves to. Speedily in our days, amen.

Posted by: ZionistYoungster at March 13, 2007 2:13 AM

Bush is simply too much of a beast. Hey, even the Mayans have their standards and limits.

Posted by: Loco Verengo at March 17, 2007 10:08 PM

wow i cant believe how biast the writer of this article is.....
i would do more than just spiritually clense my land if george bush walked on, it would have to bur and recultivate... and thats just gettin started

Posted by: at October 31, 2007 4:21 PM
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