Sanchez,
The Aztecs were famous for propaganda. Their whole use of the language was
subtle, metaphoric and propagandistic. Or so the most current research
that I have read on it so states. I had come to the same conclusion as a
result of a new opera that we originated on the Journey of Quetzalcoatl with
translation by Rafel Jesus Gonzales and the music by Ken Guilmartin. It
was just one of the explorations that we did into many cultures.
The
Garcia Lorca "City of Gypsies" was another, working with the Disney
corporation on Pocahontas and the Gypsies in Hunchback of Notre Dame was
another. Working at the research to create believable universes and to
recreate actual people out of stereotypes in works of art is what my art is
about. I'm not a romantic or a classicist. I am an artist. It is about
telling the truth. As Garcia Lorca said: The Ancient Springs.
When we did Carmen I studied the score, the literature,
the history on the time, entered the world of the Romany, consulted with
Romany scholars and in the end was visited by them when we presented our
Flamenco Carmen. We required the company to study the Romany and to study
Flamenco for three years before we did the work. In the end we got the
same review that Bizet got when he wrote it.
Nobody wanted to believe that
Gypsies were people, adults or even human. I placed our NYTimes review
next to the Paris review of the opening of the first Carmen and was proud
that in 1994 I had created the same kind of believability that Bizet himself
had created when he wrote the piece. We were the Anti-Carmen because our
Gypsies were not only alive but had suffered a continual thousand year
holocaust that culminated in Germany when 75% of all Gypsies in the world
were murdered by Hitler.
Now the purpose of history and artistic transparency in producing a work of
history is not to tell THE Truth but one of the truths. The choices of
history are arbitrary based upon fashion, self-service, politics and many
other things. The truth of Carmen's underlying purposes are as threatening
today as is the possibility that a 10 year old child sent to prison for
murder might not be culpable.
Knowing everything you can and refusing to
dehumanize people and resort to stereotype brings out the real horror of
historic monsters and points the heroes of life. Villainy is usually as
banal as that the countries greatest serial killer on TV today. Art
picks a version of the truth in order to discover wisdom. If you were to
go through the set book for a Television series like Star Trek for example
you would find incredible research. Histories are invented for the
smallest detail because a series must create a world the audience can live
in.
When I did Quetzlacoatl I was just beginning to come back to and accept the
Indian
reservation in my life. I have had such myths taught to me about art and
Indians that are not only lies but despicable. Because my skin is lighter
than my fellows I have been in the halls of the mighty and listened. I
know what is said and as Francis Jennings the great librarian of the largest
Indian library in the world, the Newberry Library in Chicago, also said:
He
read all the books and he knew a lot of Indian people and not many of them
were in those books. So he wrote some himself. They are the best but
even Jennings doesn't cover all the bases and sometimes his opinions are not
right on. But he knew the difference between the people and writing. He
also knew that writing is arbitrary and must always be put together with the
story from every side. Opera directing is the same. You can take a
Zefferelli production at the met and even see the history of the sewers in
Italy. Cavalleria Rusticana.
So what I am going to do is present you with my bibliography of the books
that I own and used in preparing Quetzalcoatl, Lord of Dawn. Admittedly
they can never balance your experience. But a lot of Americans don't know
very much about us and talk a lot about what they don't know about our
cultures, our use of metaphor and our agricultural and forestry methods.
But the Oxford University Press volume on forests of the world wrote a
chapter about us and where Americans deny, the Brits have no conflict of
interest and so just report the facts. The English got it right. Here
is the bibliography that I used. After I did the production then I
studied with a great Cherokee scholar who introduced me to the connection
between the Cherokees and Mexico and why I could read a lot of the materials
correctly without having studied them.
But still, you have walked these
paths I have simply read or dreamed them. You have life, I have my history
and my study. You speak the language from birth while I have learned its
structures not for the purpose of conversation but creation. You will
always be deeper in your experience of these things than I. That does
place a great responsibility on you for self knowledge. The bibliography
is not only Nahua but other peoples who came in contact with the Nahua
during the entire time frame for the Quetzalcoatl saga. It also included
knowledge of the other directions and of Kukulkan amongst the Mayas. I did
a little research, not included here, amongst the Huichol and the Otomi.
We also relate every year to the indigenous people's of Mexico as they
travel to our Powwows and festivals where we sit and talk and sense each
other, sharing food, dances, clothing etc.
One point I would make is that although I don't believe you meant it so, we
never considered ourselves as having lost. If we had we would have
disappeared. We have not and will not. I bought that script for a while
and it was terribly destructive. We now have our own place at the table of
religions and nations of the world and we are busy filling it. Guilt is
repressed rage. It is useless but historical truth must escape the bonds
of both Spanish and Aztec chauvinism in the use of language. Truth is the
only acceptable norm and gracefulness proves whether we know how to live or
not.
Here is the Bibliography: If I did Quetzalcoatl again, everything would be
subject to further study. There is however a lot of corroborating
material
since I did the production that is now available. But
what is said today is always superceded by the morrow. There are no
final exams in art until you retire. One last point I would make is that
all
of these books that are written by Europeans are really about their culture
and their way of perceiving. These studies all teach those of us who do
them ultimately about ourselves.
Bibliography
Manuscripts:
Leon-Portilla, Miguel, THE BROKEN SPEARS, THE AZTEC ACCOUNT OF THE CONQUEST
OF MEXICO, Beacon
Codex Mendoza, AZTEC MANUSCRIPT, ed. Kurt Ross Miller Graphics
Codex Nuttal
Codex Borgia
Limted sections of the Florentine Codex (the complete was not available at
the time, Bierhorst has now translated the full text but I don't have it)
Art:
Bernal, Ignacio, GREAT SCULPTURE OF ANCIENT MEXICO, William Morrow
Bushnell, G.H.S. ANCIENT ARTS OF THE AMERICAS Praeger
Cervantes, Maria LOST TESOROS DEL ANTIGUO MEXICO MUSEO NACIONAL DE
ANTROPOLOGIA, Geo Color
Covarrubias, Miguel, MEXICO SOUTH, The Isthmus of the Tehuantepec, KPI
Chavero, Alfredo EL ULTIMO QUETZALCOATL, Cosmos
Ekholm, Gordon F. ANCIENT MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA American Museum of
Natural History
Fernandez, Justino, A GUIDE TO MEXICAN ART. Chicago
Muser, Curt, FACTS AND ARTIFACTS OF ANCIENT MIDDLE AMERICA, Dutton
Smith, Bradley, MEXICO, A HISTORY OF ART, Doubleday Windfall
Grey, Michael, PRE-COLUMBIAN ART, Gallery books
Enciso, Jorge, DESIGNS FROM PRE-COLUMBIAN MEXICO
Hunter, C. Bruce A GUIDE TO ANCIENT MEXICAN RUINS Oklahoma
Histories:
Alarcon, Hernando Ruiz de, TREATISE ON THE HEATHEN SUPERSTITIONS THAT TODAY
LIVE AMONG THE INDIANS
NATIVE TO THIS NEW SPAIN, 1629 Oklahoma
Brundage, Burr Cartwright, THE PHOENIX OF THE WESTERN WORLD QUETZALCOATAL
AND THE SKY
RELIGION Oklahoma
Brundage, Burr Cartwright, TWO EARTHS TWO HEAVENS An Essay Contrasting the
Aztecs and the Incas; New Mexico
Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar, THE NARRATIVE OF ALVAR CABEZA DE VACA Imprint
Carraqsco, David QUETZALCOATL AND THE IRONY OF EMPIRE MYTHS AND
PROPHECIES IN THE AZTEC
TRADITION Chicago
Caso, Alfonso, THE AZTECS PEOPLE OF THE SUN, trans. Dunham, Univ. of
Oklahoma
Clendinnen, Inga AZTECS AN INTERPRETATION Cambridge Univ.
Dahlberg, Edward THE GOLD OF OPHIR Dutton
De Las Casas, Bartolome, THE TEARS OF THE INDIANS, BEING AN HISTORICAL AND
TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE
CRUEL MASSACRES AND SLAUGHTERS COMMITED BY THE
SPANIARDS IN THE ISLANDS OF
THE WEST INDIES, MEXICO, PERU, ET. AN EYE
WITNESS
ACCOUNT. Oriole Chapbooks
Ediger, Donald, THE WELL OF SACRIFICE, An account of the expedition to
recover the lost Mayan treasures, Doubleday
Nicholson, Irene, MEXICAN AND CENTRAL AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY, Paul Hamlyn
press
Burland, Cottie and Forman, Werner, THE AZTECS GODS AND FATE IN ANCIENT
MEXICO Galahad books
Burland, Cottie THE FOUR DIRECTIONS OF TIME, ANALYSIS OF PAGE ON OF CODEX
Fejervay Mayer
Burland, C.A. MONTEZUM LORD OF THE AZTECS. Putnam
Pina Chan, Roman QUETZALCOATL SERPIENTE EMPLUMADA, Fonda de Cultura
Economica
Davies, Nigel THE AZTECS Putnam
Davies, Nigel THE TOLTECS, UNTIL THE FALL OF TULA, Univ. of Oklahoma
Davies, Nigel, THE TOLTEC HERITAGE FROM THE FALL OF TULA TO THE RISE OF
TENOCHTITLAN, Oklahoma
Duran, fray Diego, BOOKS OF THE GODS AND RITES AND THE ANCIENT CALENDAR,
Oklahoma
Duran, Fray Diego, THE AZTECS THE HISTORY OF THE INDIES OF NEW SPAIN
Orion Press
Hemming, John , THE SEARCH FOR ELDORADO Dutton
Horcasitasw, Fernando, THE AZTECS THEN AND NOW, Minutiae Mexicana
Jennings, Francis, THE FOUNDERS OF AMERICA, Norton
Joyce, Thomas A, MEXICAN ARCHEOLOGY Kraus reprint
Leon-Portilla, Miguel AZTEC THOUGHT AND CULTURE Oklahoma
Peterson, Frederick, ANCENT MEXICO AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PRE-HISPANIC
CULTURES, Cap Giant
Sale, Kirkpatrick, THE CONQUEST OF PARADISE, Chris, Columbus and the
Columbian Legacy , American History
Sanders, Ronald, LOST TRIBES AND PROMISED LANDS, THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN
RACISM, Harper
Schele & Freidel, A FOREST OF KINGS, THE UNTOLD STORY, Quill
Soustelle, Jacques, DAILY LIFE OF THE AZTECS, Stanford
Soustelle, Jacques, THE FOUR SUNS, Grossman pub.
Ruz, Abert, PALENQUE The Official Guide National Institute of
Anthropology and History
Thomas, Hugh, CONQUEST MONTEZUMA, CORTES, AND THE FALL OF OLD MEXICO
Simon and Schuster
Thompson, J. Eric S. MAYA HISTORY AND RELIGION Oklahoma
Todorov, THE CONQUEST OF AMERICA, trans. Richard Howard ; Harper
Colophon
Vaillant, G.C. THE AZTECS OF MEXICO Pelican
Williams, Eric, FROM COLUMBUS TO CASTRO THE HISTORY OF THE CARIBBEAN,
Vintage
Poetry:
Bierhorst, John trans. CANTARES MEXICANOS Songs of the Aztec
Stanford
Bierhorst, John trans. FOUR MASTERWORKS OF AMERICAN INDIAN LIT.
THE JOURNEY OF QUETZALCOATL, Arizona
Estrada, Alvaro, MARIA SABINA HER LIFE AND CHANTS Ross Erickson
Gonzalez, Rafel Jesus, THE JOURNEY OF QUETZALCOATL, manuscript
Knab & Sullivan A SCATTERING OF JADES, Stories, Poetry and Prayers,
Simon and Schuster
Leon-Portilla, Miguel PRE-COLUMBIAN LITERATURES OF MEXICO Oklahoma
Thompson, William Irwin, BLUE JADE FROM THE MORNING STAR Lindensfarne
Sprituality:
Arguelles, Jose, THE MAYAN FACTOR THE PATH BEYOND TECHNOLOGY, Bear and
Co.
Goetz & Morley, POPOL VUH Oklahoma
Leon-Portilla, Miguel, NATIVE MESOAMERICAN SPIRITUALITY, Myths, Discourses,
Stories, Doctrines, Hymns, Poems
from the Aztec, yucatec, Quiche-Maya and other
Sacred Traditions,
Paulist Press
Markman & Markman, THE FLAYED GOD, THE MYTHOLOGY OF MESOAMERICA, Harper
Prechtel, Martin, SECRETS OF THE TALKING JAGUAR (Mayan) Putnam
Recinos, Goetz & Chonay, THE ANALS OF THE CAKCHIQUELS,
TITLE OF THE LORDS OF TOTONICAPAN
Oklahoma
Schele, Freidel & Parker MAYA COSMOS, THREE THOUSAND YEARS ON THE SHAMAN'S
PATH, Morrow
Tedlock, Dennis trans. POPOL VUH Simon and Schuster
Fiction:
Canty, Jerome SOUNDING THE SACRED CONCH Amazing books
Gillmor, Frances FLUTE OF THE SMOKING MIRROR, A PORTRAIT OF
NEZAHUALCOYOTL, Arizona
Jennings, Gary AZTEC Atheneum
Mathematics and Science
Arens, W. THE MAN EATING MYTH Oxford Univ.
Austin, Alfredo Lopez, THE HUMAN BODY AND IDEOLOGY CONCEPTS OF THE ANCIENT
NAHUAS, vol 1,2 Utah
Aveni, Anthony F. NATIVE AMERICAN ASTRONOMY, Texas
Closs, Michael P. NATIVE AMERICAN MATHEMATICS, Texas pr.
Fagan, Brian M. CLASH OF CULTURES, Freeman
Marcus, Joyce, MESOAMERICAN WRITING SYSTEMS, Propaganda, Myth, and History
in Four Ancient Civilizations;
Princeton Univ.
Morley, Sylvanus Griswold, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF MAYA
HIEROGLYPHS, Dover
Tedlock, Barbara, TIME AND THE HIGHLAND MAYA, New Mexico
Tedlock, Dennis, THE SPOKEN WORD AND THE WORK OF INTERPRETATION,
Pennsylvania
Williamson, Ray A. ARCHAEOASTRONOMY IN THE AMERICAS Ballena
press/center for Archaeoastronomy
Travel:
Wright, Ronald TIME AMONG THE MAYA, Travels in Belize, Guatemala, and
Mexico, Wiedenfeld and Nicholson
Ray Evans Harrell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Salvador Sánchez" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 1:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] FT PR vs. Historical Facts
> Ray:
> History is a reconstruction, a novel. Always ideologized. I won't argue
> because, unfortunately, I have no time and because I don´t need to
convince
> anyone about my points of view in this particular matter. Besides, I won't
> convince you, who are part of the Indian people because in the contruction
> of your identity -as a group- you have to justify the defeats, as well as
> any other human group does. "They crushed us, but they are stupids", "We
> were almost perfect people until the stranger came and spoiled us". Even
the
> recounts are questionable, as you said regarding the amount of people
> sacrificed by the aztec priests.
> Of course the conquest was brutal, as any war is (what about your boys in
> Afganisthan and Iraq?, What about Vietnam?), but the defeat of the aztecs
> was not due to the superiority of the spaniards but to the help of
> tlaxcaltecas and other indian groups, tired of the oppresion and barbarity
> of the aztecs. Besides, spaniards coming with Hernan Cortes were soldiers,
> not intellectuals; they surely could not read (but some could write very
> good, as Bernal Diaz del Castillo, the "historian" of the spaniard side of
> the conflict), but I haven't heard about the libraries you talk about. Now
> is very well documented, by mexican historians, the poorness of the aztec
> culture.
> Part of the conquest was the presence of franciscans, jesuits and other
> missioners, don't forget them.
> I do not idealize aztecs or any other indian group. That´s part of the
> dominant ideology, to have a glorious past in lack of a decent present.
The
> fact is that right today some mexican indigenous groups, that fight for
the
> preservation of their own rules and regulations, do things like like
selling
> daughters. If it was such a developed and refined culture, why they didn't
> keep the best of their manners and customs and took the best of what
> Occident had to offer?
> I am not against aztecs or any other ethnic group. But I don't swallow the
> official history nor I think that the aztecs (in case you can find one,
> what´s is not easy, because we all are mexicans) deserve any special
> treatment, different from any other person. I also do not accept as a
> justification for any failure today what happened 400 years ago (but I
> recognize the profitability of crying, the negotiation potencial of
playing
> with guilt). Too much time, don't you think so? I don´t think that any of
my
> limitations is justificable in terms of the roman invasión or the musslim
> presence in Spain. On the contrary.
> You say "Cortez was a pig a brute and he destroyed a world center with
> disease and barbaric brutality". It's OK for me if you think so (as do
many
> americans whose source of information is the novel Aztec). It must be
> relevant to you to see him this way. As I said, for me he is a great man,
> one of the figures that you need to know to fully understand Renaissance,
> and excellent example of what a warrior had to be in his time. From my
point
> of view, considering his lights and shadows, he is an authentic hero.
> Salvador
>
>
> > Salvador,
> >
> > I would never suggest to you that I know more about where you live than
> you
> > do, however, just as Chris and Keith propose some disturbing scenarios
> about
> > the US with little actual experience here I would say the same about the
> > Aztecs. Decadent is not a term I would describe for a group so young
in
> > their society.
> >
> > Huitchilopochtli was an adolescent God not a decadent one. His was the
> God
> > of the rage and certainty of the young culture that makes mistakes.
All
> > cultures including America, the Soviet Union and others have done no
less.
> > In fact it is my work as an opera director that has drawn me to these
> > conclusions. The sheer numbers killed in battles in Europe are
> > overwhelming for not so large populations. While the human sacrifice
in
> > Tenochtitlan was one a day per temple. The Europeans proposed that
there
> > were festivals where ten thousand captives were slaughtered. Just
think
> > about that. Blood is slippery. Those steps are narrow and high.
How
> > many priests would it take killing one person at a time taking out their
> > beating heart and doing the ritual to accomplish ten thousand? That
is
> > romance and stupid besides. Remember the Spaniards were enamored of
> > numbers and had just learned the Arabic numerals from robbing the
Moorish
> > libraries. It makes no sense. In fact the scenario is impossible.
> > Six thousand deaths when the soldiers destroyed the Smallpox sick
warriors
> > ran the streets in blood several inches deep. Such a scene of carnage
> > would in a couple of days destroyed the city if they did it just for
> > religious holidays.
> >
> > Better to read the accounts of the Spanish on Hispanola where they fed
> > Indian babies to their hunting dogs and cooked the Indian patriots for
> food
> > for their animals. In one hundred years they reduced and Island
> population
> > of 8 million to 100.
> >
> > You didn't screw around with the Aztecs, they had the brutality of the
> young
> > and when they were "crossed" as with the prior people who inhabited
their
> > Island they wiped them from the earth. But they were farmers who
rose
> > to become great writers, artists and scholars in a very short time. If
> > time had allowed they would also have grown more temperate as all
people's
> > do but that was not allowed. But decadent is the wrong word.
> >
> > Aztec battles were not fought for blood but for captives although they
> were
> > terminal. The armor was paper. The wooden swords were edged with
> > obsidian glass. They were the root of the surgical techniques
developed
> by
> > the Aztecs for the healing of wounds that we use today in eye surgery.
> > Such precision was necessary with Indian people because unlike Europeans
> we
> > suffer Cheloid scars that can destroy our lives if the knives are rough
as
> > in swords. Knowing all of the data is important if you are to uncover
> the
> > truth beneath the historic distortions. These are just afew of the
> little
> > things. There are also big things like the agriculture, the schooling,
> the
> > handling of children recorded by even the enemy priests who hated them,
> and
> > the amazing recycling process for sewage that made it possible for a
large
> > population to live in an inclosed environment. Don't just look at
their
> > gargoyles without knowing the artistic style or the myths. The
> educational
> > theory is impressive even today and the awareness of the importance of
> > self-sacrifice in human discipline is simply realistic even if it was
> taken
> > to a fundamentalist idiotic extreme. We don't blame the Elizbethans
for
> > their idiocies we admire Shakespeare and Dickens can tell you about when
> the
> > Thames ran brown from sewage that only the fires of London extinguished.
> >
> > The Europeans surrounded the reason for their destructiveness with ample
> > excuses but that is propaganda and to be taken in by it at this time is
> not
> > logical. Cortez was a pig a brute and he destroyed a world center with
> > disease and barbaric brutality. He burned the libraries and destroyed
> the
> > culture and burned the feet off of Cauhtemoc in a vain pursuit of
treasure
> > until the old Tlamatanime had to crawl across Mexico on stubs telling
the
> > people that the books were being destroyed and they must hide them in
the
> > churches and in their hearts. Today the old codexs extant are found by
> > post conquest Aztec scholars and artists in the Vatican. And there are
> > less than thirty out of thousands of volumes. In my little apartment I
> > have six thousand books. That is not a big library. The library of
> hand
> > painted texts an Tenochtitlan was said to be immense. For the Mayans
> > there are only three books out of whole libraries.
> >
> > The point is that we Indian people are fighting for our culture and our
> > lives and the old stores still come back to haunt us. If Hitler had
won
> > the war he would have been known as the hero that Cortez is today. We
> do
> > not preach romance but cold hard truth and logic. We admit the
religious
> > fundamentalism and its brutality but we also admit the glory and grace
and
> > awareness of the meaning of life that has escaped those who raped,
> pillaged
> > and destroyed the crops and soil of Mexico with their wheels and hooves.
> >
> > Where are the great gardens? Where are the great libraries the arts,
> the
> > exceptional beauty that was remarked by the European artists before the
> > melted down the sculptures for the gold? What about the feather art
> which
> > was equal to European painting? Just a few examples in the museums
here.
> > When you see the exceptional work it is amazing. So as an opera
director
> > when I read things like priests never washing in a culture that valued
> > cleanliness and I have the medical knowledge of bacteria, common sense
> > betrays the texts. It was the Europeans who carried the germs and who
> > didn't was, not the reverse. Anything else is just hokum.
> >
> > Sorry, no disrespect meant, it is your country. I just ask questions
> from
> > a distance and I cannot go around one of those sites of carnage without
> > becoming sick myself. Even when I don't know they are there and wander
> > into one, I come down with a flu-like illness that takes several days
for
> me
> > to recover. It makes travel sometimes very difficult. The point is
not
> to
> > be romantic but to ask questions, seek the truth always and be coldly
> > logical subject to revision when new data comes to light. That is all
> that
> > I am trying to do. My data comes from doing art works about that time
> and
> > from my teaching our children about our culture and the interconnections
> > that our people here had with the mound culture of Mexico. We too are
> > people of the Sacred Fire and Mound. We are often asked to forgive
the
> > Christian culture its excesses for the ideals. All we ask is the same
> type
> > of compassion and care for the great advances that we too achieved in
our
> > time prior to the bringing of disease and pestilence that killed 92 out
of
> > every 100 people who lived here.
> >
> > REH
>
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