[Aztlan] Left hand

[Robert Hall]

Listeros,
     I found Diane Winters comments very pertinent to some of my own interests. I am in process of writing an article in which I briefly mention Maya "mirrored" glyphic texts as possible archaeological examples of reverse speech. Reverse or contrary behavior, including reverse speech has associations with the underworld, death, and the night sky as a manifestation  of  the underworld. The most familiar example south of the border is the reverse speech associated  with the Huichol peyote pilgrimmage. In this case reverse speech is not initiated until the passing of a "cloud gate," which suggests a symbolic entrance into the (night?) sky. Among the Pawnees the direction of certain rites are reversed when they represent events that once took place in the night sky. Frank Lipp indicates that "movements of personnel in Mixe ritual is in a sinistral fashion, starting with the east, except for those carried out for Mihku', the lord of the underworld,
 which are in a clockwise movement" (The Mixe of Oaxaca, U of Texas Press, 1991, p. 57). Bob Hall