4 ms·

The destruction of those codixes is, without a doubt, one of the greatest acts of cultural vandalism in history. Absolutely tragic. At the same time, I've read

by nkoren 6y ago

The destruction of those codixes is, without a doubt, one of the greatest acts of cultural vandalism in history. Absolutely tragic. At the same time, I've read a bit more about that incident, and... this is probably not politically correct to say, but I did develop some sympathy for that bishop. Yes, he was a religious zealot who couldn't distinguish other cultures from "satanism". But also, well, the Maya were in a pretty rough state when he encountered them. They'd been experiencing severe drought and civil war and plagues brought by the Europeans and more. Their way of dealing with this was mass human sacrifice. The Maya didn't have a sacrificial-industrial complex the way that the Aztecs did, but when nothing else would appease the gods, that's what they'd do. So anyhow, the Bishop had apparently witnessed a mass human sacrifice. Of children. And it really got to him, convincing him that their religion was strictly satanic. Given his own cultural frame, and what he witnessed, it's hard for me to say that I would have done any differently under the circumstances. That would've gotten under my skin too. Hard to say I would've kept perspective after that.

kilroy123 6y ago
That's a pretty fair stance. I've actually been to Southern Mexico where their descendants live today. Even today, to my American frame, the indigenous people are strange. But that's what drew me to check out some of their villages. I highly recommend these places out! Their churches which mix Catholicism with their own believes are very far out.
- nkoren 6y ago
  You don't even need to go to Southern Mexico for that. There's a small enclave town in Phoenix, Arizona, called Guadalupe. It's a Mexican / native community. In the centre of town, there's a public square flanked by two Catholic churches.[1] One is a very traditional Catholic church. The other is a syncretic church which (according to people I knew in the community) mixed in many elements of Yaqui spirituality. The survival of native spirituality, even within syncretic religion, is always somehow reassuring to me, given how much cultural vandalism occurred during the colonisation of the Americas. 1: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.3690036,-111.9644457,3a,15.4y,244.62h,93.27t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfMKLbVmw0T5Q5OX4lR52gQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.3690036,-111.9644457,3a,15.4...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dntbnmpls 6y ago
That reads like apologism. > So anyhow, the Bishop had apparently witnessed a mass human sacrifice. Did the bishop also destroy the bible after witnessing or learning about the mass murder/rape of the mayan men, women and children by the invading catholic spaniards? Did he burn the bible after his inquisition against the mayans which led to the torture and murder of countless people? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa > And it really got to him, convincing him that their religion was strictly satanic. All religions except roman catholicism was satanic. > That would've gotten under my skin too. But not the inquisition, the torture, slavery and the genocide of the mayans by the spanish/catholics. That wouldn't have gotten under your skin? Are you burning the bible and destroying catholic crosses at every opportunity? The guy most likely ran an inquisition to consolidate catholic power over the mayans. And used the human sacrifice ( real, imagined or invented ) as justification. Just like hitler used excuses to justify his atrocities. Unfortunately, we only have his words to go by and it'll be naive to put any faith in them.
- nkoren 6y ago
  Hey, I'm neither a Catholic nor a monotheist. I've got no personal dog in this fight, except that as a rule, my sympathies are generally aligned with indigenous peoples. And yeah, people can be super hypocritical: mote in your eye vs. the beam in my own, et cetera. And yeah, I agree that the genocidal excess commited by the conquistadores was, taken as a whole, the worst thing happening in the Americas at the time. But Diego de Landa wasn't taking it in as a whole. He was just having his personal experience. There's little reason to doubt the child sacrifice incident: that kind of thing absolutely did occur, and is well-attested both textually and archeologically. He didn't have the 10,000' view of the American genocide: he had a personal view, and he acted accordingly. Usually I'm not this sympathetic. When I read first-hand accounts of Pizzaro's conquest of the Inca at Cajamarca, for example, I'm appalled. Pizzaro's guys take umbrage at the Incan' Emporer disrespecting a bible by throwing it, incomprehending, on the ground. In retribution for this, they delight -- positively delight -- in immediately slaughtering several thousand unarmed members of the emperor's court. It's absolutely sick and indefensible, driven by a religious zealotry that (IMHO) had stripped them of their basic humanity. I'd always assumed that Diego de Landa was a similar kind of zealot, but when I read more, I found that it wasn't so simple. That's all I'm saying. Even when things are black and white at a high level, there can be greys in the details.
knolax 6y ago
> Given his own cultural frame, and what he witnessed This type of fashionable moral relativism can be used to justify any atrocity. From an objective point of view, he could've stopped the child sacrifices without committing genocide, both cultural and literal. Sure, it may be that from his perspective that the genocide was necessary, but that is the case for every perpetrator of genocide in history. I take it that many in this forum feel no connection to the Maya people, and are therefore comfortable empathizing with their abusers. I have seen your exact same logic used to express sympathy for the Nazis by people who have no personal connection to the West. If that bothers you then you should reconsider your perspective on what happened to the Mayans.
- Retric 6y ago
  You’re mixing cultural genocide with actual genocide. Going from the other direction, if all information on Nazi ideology where removed from history, would we have Neo Nazis today? That may seem abhorrent and or impossible, but other ideologies have been erased from history and outside of the academic context that could be a net positive. Ideology’s that promote ritual human sacrifice could be inherently dangerous by attracting a tiny number of people to actually carry through with such acts. Diverse cultural history has real value, but those cultures can come with heavy baggage.
  - knolax 6y ago
    > You’re mixing cultural genocide with actual genocide. The Spanish conquest of the New World was undeniably a genocide in the literal mass murder sense. In a sense it was a continuation of the same genocide against Muslims and Jews that the Spanish committed during the Reconquista. However you want to categorize what he and other Spaniards did, it was undeniably and objectively morally wrong. > Going from the other direction, if all information on Nazi ideology where removed from history, would we have Neo Nazis today? Your analogy does not hold, the equivalent to de Landa's actions would be to destroy the entire Western canon and any written trace of the German language in response to the Holocaust. From your comments you seem to treat the entirety of Maya culture as atomic and inseperable from human sacrifice, while conversely you have conveniently seperated out Nazism from the whole of German culture. This double standard where the faults of Western cultures are treated as redeemable while the faults of other cultures are treated as immutable traits inherent to that culture is what led to de Landa's actions in the first place.
trianglem 6y ago
You have a point, even today I would consider the mass sacrifice of children to be “satanic” if I believed in the concept.

by nkoren 6y ago

kilroy123 6y ago

That's a pretty fair stance. I've actually been to Southern Mexico where their descendants live today. Even today, to my American frame, the indigenous people are strange. But that's what drew me to check out some of their villages. I highly recommend these places out! Their churches which mix Catholicism with their own believes are very far out.

nkoren 6y ago
You don't even need to go to Southern Mexico for that. There's a small enclave town in Phoenix, Arizona, called Guadalupe. It's a Mexican / native community. In the centre of town, there's a public square flanked by two Catholic churches.[1] One is a very traditional Catholic church. The other is a syncretic church which (according to people I knew in the community) mixed in many elements of Yaqui spirituality. The survival of native spirituality, even within syncretic religion, is always somehow reassuring to me, given how much cultural vandalism occurred during the colonisation of the Americas. 1: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.3690036,-111.9644457,3a,15.4y,244.62h,93.27t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfMKLbVmw0T5Q5OX4lR52gQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.3690036,-111.9644457,3a,15.4...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dntbnmpls 6y ago

That reads like apologism. > So anyhow, the Bishop had apparently witnessed a mass human sacrifice. Did the bishop also destroy the bible after witnessing or learning about the mass murder/rape of the mayan men, women and children by the invading catholic spaniards? Did he burn the bible after his inquisition against the mayans which led to the torture and murder of countless people? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa > And it really got to him, convincing him that their religion was strictly satanic. All religions except roman catholicism was satanic. > That would've gotten under my skin too. But not the inquisition, the torture, slavery and the genocide of the mayans by the spanish/catholics. That wouldn't have gotten under your skin? Are you burning the bible and destroying catholic crosses at every opportunity? The guy most likely ran an inquisition to consolidate catholic power over the mayans. And used the human sacrifice ( real, imagined or invented ) as justification. Just like hitler used excuses to justify his atrocities. Unfortunately, we only have his words to go by and it'll be naive to put any faith in them.

nkoren 6y ago
Hey, I'm neither a Catholic nor a monotheist. I've got no personal dog in this fight, except that as a rule, my sympathies are generally aligned with indigenous peoples. And yeah, people can be super hypocritical: mote in your eye vs. the beam in my own, et cetera. And yeah, I agree that the genocidal excess commited by the conquistadores was, taken as a whole, the worst thing happening in the Americas at the time. But Diego de Landa wasn't taking it in as a whole. He was just having his personal experience. There's little reason to doubt the child sacrifice incident: that kind of thing absolutely did occur, and is well-attested both textually and archeologically. He didn't have the 10,000' view of the American genocide: he had a personal view, and he acted accordingly. Usually I'm not this sympathetic. When I read first-hand accounts of Pizzaro's conquest of the Inca at Cajamarca, for example, I'm appalled. Pizzaro's guys take umbrage at the Incan' Emporer disrespecting a bible by throwing it, incomprehending, on the ground. In retribution for this, they delight -- positively delight -- in immediately slaughtering several thousand unarmed members of the emperor's court. It's absolutely sick and indefensible, driven by a religious zealotry that (IMHO) had stripped them of their basic humanity. I'd always assumed that Diego de Landa was a similar kind of zealot, but when I read more, I found that it wasn't so simple. That's all I'm saying. Even when things are black and white at a high level, there can be greys in the details.

knolax 6y ago

> Given his own cultural frame, and what he witnessed This type of fashionable moral relativism can be used to justify any atrocity. From an objective point of view, he could've stopped the child sacrifices without committing genocide, both cultural and literal. Sure, it may be that from his perspective that the genocide was necessary, but that is the case for every perpetrator of genocide in history. I take it that many in this forum feel no connection to the Maya people, and are therefore comfortable empathizing with their abusers. I have seen your exact same logic used to express sympathy for the Nazis by people who have no personal connection to the West. If that bothers you then you should reconsider your perspective on what happened to the Mayans.

Retric 6y ago
You’re mixing cultural genocide with actual genocide. Going from the other direction, if all information on Nazi ideology where removed from history, would we have Neo Nazis today? That may seem abhorrent and or impossible, but other ideologies have been erased from history and outside of the academic context that could be a net positive. Ideology’s that promote ritual human sacrifice could be inherently dangerous by attracting a tiny number of people to actually carry through with such acts. Diverse cultural history has real value, but those cultures can come with heavy baggage.
- knolax 6y ago
  > You’re mixing cultural genocide with actual genocide. The Spanish conquest of the New World was undeniably a genocide in the literal mass murder sense. In a sense it was a continuation of the same genocide against Muslims and Jews that the Spanish committed during the Reconquista. However you want to categorize what he and other Spaniards did, it was undeniably and objectively morally wrong. > Going from the other direction, if all information on Nazi ideology where removed from history, would we have Neo Nazis today? Your analogy does not hold, the equivalent to de Landa's actions would be to destroy the entire Western canon and any written trace of the German language in response to the Holocaust. From your comments you seem to treat the entirety of Maya culture as atomic and inseperable from human sacrifice, while conversely you have conveniently seperated out Nazism from the whole of German culture. This double standard where the faults of Western cultures are treated as redeemable while the faults of other cultures are treated as immutable traits inherent to that culture is what led to de Landa's actions in the first place.

trianglem 6y ago

You have a point, even today I would consider the mass sacrifice of children to be “satanic” if I believed in the concept.