[Aztlan] Hurricane Dean

[Hube Smith]

    The news from Quintana Roo is that the Mexican army went in to several villages to evacuate the residents.

    They were, in some cases, met with unsheathed machetes and forced to withdraw. Their commanders

    were apparently unaware that just a few miles inland from Cancun and Carrillo Puerto are dozens

    of villages initially founded by refugees from the Caste War -- the 19th century conflict which almost

    resulted in cleansing the Peninsula of the rich and privileged as well as the hated Central Mexicans or

    "huaches." These Eastern Maya have no love for any outside authority.


    Many of these villages maintain a loose military structure operating sub-rosa beneath state and 

    federal institutions. A few are so-called "shrine" villages because they house relics of that

    long-ago conflict which remain spiritually important. One can actually visit the site in Carrillo 

    Puerto where the original "Speaking Cross" was discovered and its church in which Caste War

    sentiments are regularly invoked.


    On some nights when the moon is high and I am, too, it is a pleasure to ruminate on the Maya

    spirit and the myriad ways it persists today.


    Paul Sullivan has written valuable material on these particular Maya and the apocalyptic

    thinking and smoldering resentments that are theirs. Impressive stuff.  Alan F. Burns has

    taken an alternative approach, no less interesting. 


    Hube Smith




    Hubert Smith
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    899-4422

     "As a culture, we have a tendency
     to look for our car keys where the
     light is good."  --  Jonah Goldberg