[Aztlan] Amerindian Warfare & Ritual Violence Resources

[Hube Smith]

Mendoza's story is all-too-familiar.

It is the height of fallacy to suggest that early Amerindian history be 
subjected to
the distorted lenses of modern "scholars" who have little data to support 
their views.

It is as if Old World savagery upon those Amerindians (the willfull and the 
careless)
needed a shangri-la to heighten our sense of collective guilt.

These people patronize both the Amerindians (by assuming to write their 
societal norms)
as well as we moderns whom they find lacking in sufficient alarm.

They need to stop pulling levers and get out from behind the curtains.

Hube Smith


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Archaeology Institute" <Institute at csumb.edu>
To: "Justin Kerr" <mayavase at verizon.net>
Cc: <aztlan at lists.famsi.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 11:08 AM
Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Amerindian Warfare & Ritual Violence Resources


> "Justin Kerr" <mayavase at verizon.net> on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at 4:48 
> AM -0800 wrote:
>>Dear Friends,
>>In light of the announcement of these important books, may I point out 
>>that
>>the Ancient Maya left quite a few images of their practices in regard to
>>combat, war, and treatment of those who had been taken prisoner.
>>In the Maya Vase Database:
>>206 and 680 Disembowelment while tied to a scaffold.
>>1082 Decapitation and body parts.
>>2206 Taking of prisoners.
>>2342 and others: Wearing of trophy heads.
>>2781 Another scaffold scene
>>5850 An ax does the bloody deed.
>>6674 A ritual before death
>>7516 The prisoner is being stoned to death (hand stone)
>>7749 Bloody combat with sharpened bones.
>>Theses scenes are only a sampling.
>>If one enters a string such as 206 or 680 or 2206 or etc., the database 
>>will
>>bring up all the numbers at once.
>>Justin Kerr
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> I would like to take this opportunity to thank Justin Kerr for advancing 
> the discussion, and presenting additional evidence, for the question of 
> Amerindian warfare and ritual violence in the Americas.  In my Latin 
> American Indigenous Warfare and
> Ritual Violence (University of Arizona Press, 2007) chapter regarding 
> "Aztec Militarism and Blood Sacrifice: The Archaeology and Ideology of 
> Ritual Violence," I review the extent to which some scholars, and a 
> growing cadre of students, now question
> any and all scholarly works that allude to Amerindian warfare and ritual 
> violence (e.g., Hassler 1992).  At the same time, I present arguments for 
> how we might best go about restructuring the dialogue based on 
> reassessments of that forensic,
> osteological, archaeological, and ethnohistorical documentation now 
> available.  Clearly, the edification of decades of scholarly frameworks 
> devoted to appeasing both our students and (more intractable) colleagues 
> has resulted in skirting such issues
> as blood sacrifice and or ritualized violence so as to frame a dialogue 
> based on what might best be construed as respect and deference for a more 
> idealized past promulgated by the revisionists among us.  My studies at 
> the University of Arizona were
> themselves frought with complications arising from my dissertation 
> advisor's insistence that war and violence had little to do with the 
> demise of Maya or other Mesoamerican civilizations.  That individuals 
> insistence was such that upon completing my
> dissertation, I was sent an admonishment on UA stationary that made clear 
> that my failure to fall in line with said advisor's perspectives on the 
> ecological basis for the Maya collapse was taken as a personal 
> slight...and that I should consider
> going elsewhere for mentoring and post-graduate support.
>
> Having devoted my life to studying American Indian contributions to 
> science, technology, medicine, and society (e.g., Mendoza, 1997; Mendoza 
> 2003; 2008), I have always found it curious that the only issues that have 
> ever come into question, and
> thereby subject to vitriolic attacks, are those that pertain to Amerindian 
> warfare, conflict, and ritual violence in the Americas both before and 
> after the European invasion that transformed the Americas.  At a number of 
> universities in California
> and beyond, including a presentation of mine at the National Research 
> Council in Washington, DC (in 1990), I have repeatedly been subjected to 
> ad hominem attacks for merely discussing the visual and forensic evidence 
> for pre-Columbian
> warfare...which happens to be my specialty, and the subject of my 1992 
> dissertation.  After years of such attacks, including a rather unfortunate 
> and condescending discussant's review of the "Human Trophies" session 
> sponsored by Richard Chacon and
> David Dye at the Montreal meetings of the Society for American Archaeology 
> in 2004, it has become apparent to my colleagues and I that the subject of 
> war and conflict, and ritual sacrifice, in Amerindian contexts has been 
> shelved in deference to a
> more politically correct and sanitized airing of the issues.  Some 
> respondents to past listserv posts here at Aztlan-L have in turn resulted 
> in commentaries that bring into question the very relevance of addressing 
> pre-Columbian warfare and ritual
> violence...and that despite the growing evidence of same from throughout 
> the Americas.
>
> Fortunately, Arthur Demarest, a noted Mesoamericanist and authority on the 
> subject of militarism, empire, and religion has long reported such 
> evidence, and has in addition authored a chapter in Latin American 
> Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence
> (O'Mansky and Demarest 2007), as well as the concluding chapter of the 
> Chacon and Dye (2007) volume on human trophies...and has more fully 
> addressed the question of scholarly ethics and responsibility in 
> accurately representing those instances when
> we as social scientists and art historians encounter evidence for war, 
> ritual sacrifice, cannibalism, and human trophy taking.  We as such look 
> forward to a discussion, however challenging, of the merits of furthering 
> the analysis of those
> collections that present evidence that either supports or refutes the 
> question of Amerindian conflict, ritual violence, and bloodshed in both 
> regional and pan-regional contexts...across the spectrum of time and 
> place.  In the end, I believe that if
> we are to accurately portray American Indian society and culture, sans 
> those myths often questioned by Vine Deloria (a former professor of mine) 
> and others, then we all need to step back and take stock of those 
> flashpoints of controversy within
> which competing epistemological constructs collide...as they clearly do 
> where the question of indigenous warfare and ritual violence in the 
> Americas is concerned.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Ruben G. Mendoza, Ph.D., Director
> Institute for Archaeological Science, Technology and Visualization
> Social and Behavioral Sciences
> California State University Monterey Bay
> 100 Campus Center
> Seaside, California 93955-8001
>
> Email: archaeology.csumb at gmail.edu
> Voice: 831-582-3760; Fax: 831-582-3566
> http://archaeology.csumb.edu; http://archaeology.csumb.edu/wireless/
>
>
> "Science progresses at the rate of one funeral at a time."
>
> -Albert Einstein
>
>
> "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?"
>
> -Albert Einstein
>
>
> "He who argues with a fool proves that there are two."
> -Anonymous
>
>
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