[Aztlan] Left hand (and foot)

John E. Staller jstaller at earthlink.net
Sat May 2 19:25:34 CDT 2009 

A page in the Codex Fejervary-Mayer shows Tezcatlipoca and his  
essential connections to war and sacrifice. He is surrounded by  
dates, a metaphor for his perceived power over the 13 periods of the  
Aztec calendar. The missing foot is clearly his left. He is consuming  
an Aztec delicacy, the hand of a sacrificed victim, which in this  
case is also the left hand. However, in another image in the same  
codex, a panel in which he is tempted by the earth monster, the  
missing foot appears to be his right.

On May 2, 2009, at 7:16 AM, Justin Kerr wrote:

> Just for fun, I did a fast survey. The Denver Art Museum shows a  
> figure where the loincloth is the snake (4455a through d). In the  
> Snake lady series, out of 9 images of K'awil, 2 are left footed, 4  
> are right footed, and 3 are neutral with K'awil with either whole  
> body or loincloth as the transformational part. Always exceptions.
> &ë------Original Message-----
> From: frendnneed [mailto:frendnneed at earthlink.net]
> Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2009 12:07 AM
> To: Justin Kerr; 'Mark Van Stone'; 'Greg Sandor'
> Cc: Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Left hand (and foot)
> Talking about practicality, being left handed is quite helpful in  
> some cases -- if you’re old enough to remember lefty Sandy Kofax,  
> shutting out the Giants in four straight games during the World  
> Series in the 60s. And of course, there’s boxing.  A left hook,  
> “out of nowhere” is just the thing to score an unexpected knock  
> out.
> Now, I’m no sports fan, far from it, but I AM left handed and  
> know that, while much maligned in the West, it was a valued trait  
> in some cultures, especially warrior cultures, where left handed  
> fighters were valued for entering the fray from the “wrong”  
> side, using the “wrong” hand, etc.  Didn’t the Aztecs, being  
> the warrior society par excellence, make a point of this, calling  
> Huitzilopochtli the “hummingbird wizard, on the left?” And  
> wasn’t Tezcatlipoca left-handed as well, he certainly had a  
> notable missing left foot. The Gladiatorial contest for captive  
> warriors, pitted the captive against four right-handers followed by  
> a lefty, to finish him off. One other thing about a hand, (don’t  
> know if it was supposed to be a left one or if either would do) but  
> the arms of women who died of childbirth were considered talismans  
> that made their owners invincible – sounds like a left handed  
> trait to me, (I wish).
> If, as Michael Coe suggested, God K, or K’awil, was the Maya  
> version of Tezcatlipoca, I would wonder if there was any  
> consistency as to which foot was replaced with the snake, O seem to  
> see left and right versions, but as the missing leg is unusual.  
> Left handed people are left footed as well, stepping out with the  
> dominant foot, so having it removed would put you off balance even  
> if it was replaced with a “mirror that smokes.”
> Wes Christensen.
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Justin Kerr <mayavase at verizon.net>
>> Sent: May 1, 2009 2:02 PM
>> To: 'Mark Van Stone' <mvanstone at swccd.edu>, 'Greg Sandor'  
>> <gregory_sandor at hotmail.com>
>> Cc: Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
>> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Left hand
>>
>> Mark and all,
>> Yes, it is true that a "lefty" would find it easier to paint  
>> backward on a
>> vase. However, the possibility exists that these example of  
>> backward and
>> mirror writing may be more magical than anything else. Magical in  
>> the sense
>> that the text may never have been meant for human eyes, only the  
>> eyes of the
>> otherworld.
>> It is possible that the artist who designed the Yaxchilán lintel  
>> may have
>> been showing off, that is, proving that his technique as an artist  
>> was
>> boundless. I think we may lose sight of the fact that these people  
>> (the
>> artists) may have had egos as big as ours.
>> The corpus, as you know is rather small, only a tiny percentage of  
>> vases
>> have backward figures and text; a far smaller percentage than the  
>> probable
>> amount of left handed scribes.
>> Justin
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org [mailto:aztlan- 
>> bounces at lists.famsi.org]
>> On Behalf Of Mark Van Stone
>> Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 12:40 PM
>> To: Greg Sandor
>> Cc: Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
>> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Left hand
>>
>> 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?
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> 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
>>
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