[Aztlan] Left hand

[Mark Van Stone]

In reply to Robert Hall, Greg Sandor, and the others on this topic:
     Some years ago, Tom Jones, a lefty, confided in me the suspicion that Maya 'Mirror texts' on vases were primarily written by left-handers, who simply find it easier to write retrograde rather than orthograde... as did Leonardo da Vinci.  Whatever metaphysical and religious overtones this behavior might have generated came as an intellectual response to this initially-practical behavior; and that Yaxchilan Lintel 25's reversed text may have been inspired by one of these.  I think that many a peculiar practice enshrined in ritual had its origin in such natural behaviors.  Sometimes such behaviors are restricted to a subset of the population (such as lefties, or dwarfs), sometimes they simply go out of date, like the European wimple, the standard housewife's headgear in 14th-century Europe, which, signaling "marriage" to Christ, is still standard attire for nuns.  
    Yours, Mark Van Stone
________________________________________
From: aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org [aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org] On Behalf Of Greg Sandor [gregory_sandor at hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 9:01 AM
To: Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Left hand

Were those glyphs meant to be read in  a mirror?

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From: "Robert Hall" <robertleonardhall at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 10:22 AM
To: <Aztlan at lists.famsi.org>
Subject: [Aztlan] Left hand

 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