And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Organization: The University of Michigan - Flint
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 13:02:41 EDT
>Subject: Re: Modern Maturity Magazine
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>
>
>Ish...I am sending this letter today, and it is further proof that one
cannot
>go a day in this country without seeing and reading ignorant remarks about
the
>American Indian people.
>
>Catherine Davids
>Flint, Michigan
>
>****************************************
>
>To: Elliot Carlson, Editor Joseph Perkins, President
> Modern Maturity Magazine American Assoc of Retired Persons
>(AARP)
> 601 E Street, NW 601 E Street, NW
> Washington DC 20049 Washington DC 20049
>
> Mary Cleere Haran
> Algonquin Hotel
> 59 West 44th Street
> New York, New York 100036 January 27, 1999
>
>The January/February (1999) issue of Modern Maturity magazine contains an
>article written by singer Mary Cleere Haran: How Peggy Lee Changed My
Life. In
>a reference to dancing Haran appallingly states "this certainly wasn't the
>half-hearted dancing I'd been doing with my friends, which was more akin
to an
>Aztec sacrifice ritual."
>
>That a nationally recognized magazine and singer would indulge in a
reference
>that is both dehumanizing and disrespectful to the Mechica is of grave
>concern. Quite clearly people in the United States (and elsewhere)
continue to
>be fed gross historical information. The very word Aztec is wrong...that is
>not the name they called (or call) themselves. The worst, however, is the
>reference to ritualistic sacrifices. The Mechica had, and continue to have,
>great accomplishments on these continents and they were engaged in worldwide
>and intercontinental travel and trade along with many American Indian
people.
>The 1847 Disturnell Map (official map of the Treaty of Guadalulpe Hidalgo)
>shows Mechica villages in the Colorado River of Arizona and there are
factual
>stories among American Indian people that Mechica had travel villages all
the
>way into Canada. Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzales, who pen the
>syndicated Column of the Americas, have written extensively about the map
and
>they carry copies to help educate people about the truth of those
southwestern
>homelands. The Mechica had extensive libraries and the Spanish
Conquistadors
>purposefully destroyed those libraries in a matter of days to destroy a
>civilization far more advanced than could be imagined. We know that the
>Mechica never practived human sacrifice...that is an invention of those who
>actually committed human sacrifice in the form of genocide inflicted on the
>indigenous peoples of these continents. Spanish Conquistadors (priests,
>soldiers, explorers, etc) enacted a bloodthirsty genocide on the Mechica and
>today anthropologists, archeologists, historians, writers, filmmakers, and
>magazine publishers continue the assault. It may no longer be bloody and
>murderous (well actually in some cases it still is) but the impact is,
>none-the-less, quite devastating to American Indian people throughout these
>continents, and to our traditional and cultural identities. It is
>unconscionable that Haran and Modern Maturity magazine reinforce this
ignorance
>that places American Indian people into the age-old "heathen savage"
category
>to be shunned, despised, feared, and studied like bugs under a microscope.
>Looking at the truthful history of these lands one should study the
genocidal
>actions of the Anglo-Europeans and ask, "who was the true savage?"
>
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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