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well that and the entire Mayan corpus. what pittance of codices we have today come from Christianized Maya scribes, a massively condensed post-columbian highli
by ChainOfFools 5y ago
well that and the entire Mayan corpus.
what pittance of codices we have today come from Christianized Maya scribes, a massively condensed post-columbian highlight reel of their obliterated textual culture compiled at the behest of the Spanish crown and under the direction of their Catholic overseers.
- bobthechef 5y agoAlso, languages like Guarani survived because of the efforts of missionaries (the Jesuits in this case). (But I will say that the current policy of "protecting" the isolated tribes in the Amazon from human contact by categorically shutting them off is quite horrible and uncharitable. This is rooted in the preposterous myth of the noble savage. Tribal peoples are not innocent children.)
- ChainOfFools 5y agoI'm not sure anyone would thank Bishop de Landa for burning the entire written work of a thousand year old civilization. Disrupting a cycle of ritualized torture may find some support on humanitarian grounds, but it was no excuse to annihilate the rest of Maya literary culture as well.
- FooBarBizBazz 5y ago> the current policy of "protecting" the isolated tribes in the Amazon from human contact by categorically shutting them off is quite horrible and uncharitable I dunno. If you make contact with them, most of them will die of diseases to which they have no immunity. This happens over and over. Amazon tribes. Pacific islands. On a huge scale in the Americas. For those that do survive, the event may be so traumatic that they develop a very understandable hostility to outsiders.
- jcranmer 5y agoTo be fair, that was also during the Counter-Reformation, or somewhat afterwards. Even if it was unrelated to the Counter-Reformation itself.