Download or read book Myths of Pre Columbian America written by Donald Alexander Mackenzie and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Myths of Pre Columbian America written by Donald Alexander Mackenzie and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Expert discussions of such myths and mythological figures as the milk goddess and her pot symbol, the jewel-water and mugwort goddess, goddesses of love and food, Tlaloc and the dragon, love and mother deities, Quetzalcoatl, many more. Also, symbolism, burial customs, other topics. Over 70 illustrations. Map.
Download or read book Pre Columbian Literatures of Mexico written by and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents ancient Mexican myths and sacred hymns, lyric poetry, rituals, drama, and various forms of prose, accompanied by informed criticism and comment. The selections come from the Aztecs, the Mayas, the Mixtecs and Zapotecs of Oaxaca, the Tarascans of Michoacan, the Otomís of central Mexico, and others. They have come down to us from inscriptions on stone, the codices, and accounts written, after the coming of Europeans, of oral traditions. It is Miguel León-Portilla’s intention "to bring to contemporary readers an understanding of the marvelous world of symbolism which is the very substance of these early literatures." That he has succeeded is obvious to every reader.
Download or read book War Before Civilization written by Lawrence H. Keeley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-12-18 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The myth of the peace-loving "noble savage" is persistent and pernicious. Indeed, for the last fifty years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, unimportant, and, like smallpox, a disease of civilized societies alone. Prehistoric warfare, according to this view, was little more than a ritualized game, where casualties were limited and the effects of aggression relatively mild. Lawrence Keeley's groundbreaking War Before Civilization offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to primitive societies through contact with civilization (an idea he denounces as "the pacification of the past"). Building on much fascinating archeological and historical research and offering an astute comparison of warfare in civilized and prehistoric societies, from modern European states to the Plains Indians of North America, War Before Civilization convincingly demonstrates that prehistoric warfare was in fact more deadly, more frequent, and more ruthless than modern war. To support this point, Keeley provides a wide-ranging look at warfare and brutality in the prehistoric world. He reveals, for instance, that prehistorical tactics favoring raids and ambushes, as opposed to formal battles, often yielded a high death-rate; that adult males falling into the hands of their enemies were almost universally killed; and that surprise raids seldom spared even women and children. Keeley cites evidence of ancient massacres in many areas of the world, including the discovery in South Dakota of a prehistoric mass grave containing the remains of over 500 scalped and mutilated men, women, and children (a slaughter that took place a century and a half before the arrival of Columbus). In addition, Keeley surveys the prevalence of looting, destruction, and trophy-taking in all kinds of warfare and again finds little moral distinction between ancient warriors and civilized armies. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, he examines the evidence of cannibalism among some preliterate peoples. Keeley is a seasoned writer and his book is packed with vivid, eye-opening details (for instance, that the homicide rate of prehistoric Illinois villagers may have exceeded that of the modern United States by some 70 times). But he also goes beyond grisly facts to address the larger moral and philosophical issues raised by his work. What are the causes of war? Are human beings inherently violent? How can we ensure peace in our own time? Challenging some of our most dearly held beliefs, Keeley's conclusions are bound to stir controversy.
Download or read book Myths of the Rune Stone written by David M. Krueger and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do our myths say about us? Why do we choose to believe stories that have been disproven? David M. Krueger takes an in-depth look at a legend that held tremendous power in one corner of Minnesota, helping to define both a community’s and a state’s identity for decades. In 1898, a Swedish immigrant farmer claimed to have discovered a large rock with writing carved into its surface in a field near Kensington, Minnesota. The writing told a North American origin story, predating Christopher Columbus’s exploration, in which Viking missionaries reached what is now Minnesota in 1362 only to be massacred by Indians. The tale’s credibility was quickly challenged and ultimately undermined by experts, but the myth took hold. Faith in the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone was a crucial part of the local Nordic identity. Accepted and proclaimed as truth, the story of the Rune Stone recast Native Americans as villains. The community used the account as the basis for civic celebrations for years, and advocates for the stone continue to promote its validity despite the overwhelming evidence that it was a hoax. Krueger puts this stubborn conviction in context and shows how confidence in the legitimacy of the stone has deep implications for a wide variety of Minnesotans who embraced it, including Scandinavian immigrants, Catholics, small-town boosters, and those who desired to commemorate the white settlers who died in the Dakota War of 1862. Krueger demonstrates how the resilient belief in the Rune Stone is a form of civil religion, with aspects that defy logic but illustrate how communities characterize themselves. He reveals something unique about America’s preoccupation with divine right and its troubled way of coming to terms with the history of the continent’s first residents. By considering who is included, who is left out, and how heroes and villains are created in the stories we tell about the past, Myths of the Rune Stone offers an enlightening perspective on not just Minnesota but the United States as well.
Download or read book The Return of the Native written by Rebecca Earle and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2007-12-28 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Return of the Native offers a look at the role of preconquest peoples such as the Aztecs and the Incas in the imagination of Spanish American elites in the first century after independence.
Download or read book Before Columbus written by Charles C. Mann and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-09-08 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A companion book for young readers based upon the explorations of the Americas in 1491, before those of Christopher Columbus.
Download or read book Aztec and Maya Myths written by Karl Taube and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The myths of the Aztec and Maya derive from a shared Mesoamerican cultural tradition. This is very much a living tradition, and many of the motifs and gods mentioned in early sources are still evoked in the lore of contemporary Mexico and Guatemala. Professor Taube discusses the different sources for Aztec and Maya myths. The Aztec empire began less than 200 years before the Spanish conquest, and our knowledge of their mythology derives primarily from native colonial documents and manuscripts commissioned by the Spanish. The Maya mythology is far older, and our knowledge of it comes mainly from native manuscripts of the Classic period, over 600 years before the Spanish conquest. Drawing on these sources as well as nineteenth- and twentieth-century excavations and research, including the interpretation of the codices and the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic writing, the author discusses, among other things, the Popol Vuh myths of the Maya, the flood myth of Northern Yucatan, and the Aztec creation myths.
Download or read book Idea of a New General History of North America written by Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Spaniard originally from Italy, the polymath Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci (1702–1753), known as Boturini, traveled to New Spain in 1736. Becoming fascinated by the Mesoamerican cultures of the New World, he collected and copied native writings—and learned Nahuatl, the language in which most of these documents were written. Boturini’s incomparable collection—confiscated, neglected, and dispersed after the Spanish crown condemned his intellectual pursuits—became the basis of his Idea of a New General History of North America. The volume, completed in 1746 and written almost entirely from memory, is presented here in English for the first time, along with the Catálogo, Boturini’s annotated enumeration of the works he had gathered in New Spain. Stafford Poole’s lucid and nuanced translation of the Idea and Catálogo allows Anglophone readers to fully appreciate Boturini’s unique accomplishment and his unparalleled and sympathetic knowledge of the native peoples of eighteenth-century Mexico. Poole’s introduction puts Boturini’s feat of memory and scholarship into historical context: Boturini was documenting the knowledge and skills of native Americans whom most Europeans were doing their utmost to denigrate. Through extensive, thoughtful annotations, Poole clarifies Boturini’s references to Greco-Roman mythology, authors from classical antiquity, humanist works, ecclesiastical and legal sources, and terms in Nahuatl, Spanish, Latin, and Italian. In his notes to the Catálogo, he points readers to transcriptions and translations of the original materials in Boturini’s archive that exist today. Invaluable for the new light they shed on Mesoamerican language, knowledge, culture, and religious practices, the Idea of a New General History of North America and the Catálogo also offer a rare perspective on the intellectual practices and prejudices of the Bourbon era—and on one of the most curious and singular minds of the time.
Download or read book The Mound Builder Myth written by Jason Colavito and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Say you found that a few dozen people, operating at the highest levels of society, conspired to create a false ancient history of the American continent to promote a religious, white-supremacist agenda in the service of supposedly patriotic ideals. Would you call it fake news? In nineteenth-century America, this was in fact a powerful truth that shaped Manifest Destiny. The Mound Builder Myth is the first book to chronicle the attempt to recast the Native American burial mounds as the work of a lost white race of “true” native Americans. Thomas Jefferson’s pioneering archaeology concluded that the earthen mounds were the work of Native Americans. In the 1894 report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Cyrus Thomas concurred, drawing on two decades of research. But in the century in between, the lie took hold, with Presidents Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, and Abraham Lincoln adding their approval and the Mormon Church among those benefiting. Jason Colavito traces this monumental deception from the farthest reaches of the frontier to the halls of Congress, mapping a century-long conspiracy to fabricate and promote a false ancient history—and enumerating its devastating consequences for contemporary Native people. Built upon primary sources and first-person accounts, the story that The Mound Builder Myth tells is a forgotten chapter of American history—but one that reads like the Da Vinci Code as it plays out at the upper reaches of government, religion, and science. And as far-fetched as it now might seem that a lost white race once ruled prehistoric America, the damage done by this “ancient” myth has clear echoes in today’s arguments over white nationalism, multiculturalism, “alternative facts,” and the role of science and the control of knowledge in public life.
Download or read book Myths of Pre Columbian America written by Anita Dalal and published by Raintree. This book was released on 2001 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of ancient Pre-Columbian civilization through native mythology and folklore.
Download or read book Tales of the Earth written by David Leeming and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revealing analysis of key themes in Native American origin myths—and their stark contrast with the exceptionalist values of the United States. Tales of the Earth is a comprehensive yet concise overview of Native American mythologies. After outlining theories of the origins of Native North Americans, David Leeming considers the creation myths of many tribes, emphasizing four commonly occurring figures: the Great Spirit, the trickster, the goddess, and the hero. Leeming suggests that in addition to these figures, Native American mythologies have in common a deep reverence for the earth and for community responsibility as opposed to individualism—tenets that stand in stark contrast to the concepts of exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny that characterize the United States, a nation that was built on ancient tribal land.
Download or read book Yaqui Myths and Legends written by and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 1959 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixty-one tales narrated by Yaquis reflect this people's sense of the sacred and material value of their territory.
Download or read book Colonizing the Past written by Edward Watts and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2020-02-14 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the Revolution, Americans realized they lacked the common, deep, or meaningful history that might bind together their loose confederation of former colonies into a genuine nation. They had been conquerors yet colonials, now politically independent yet culturally subordinate to European history and traditions. To resolve these paradoxes, some early republic "historians" went so far as to reconstruct pre-Columbian, transatlantic adventures by white people that might be employed to assert their rights and ennoble their identities as Americans. In Colonizing the Past, Edward Watts labels this impulse "primordialism" and reveals its consistent presence over the span of nineteenth-century American print culture. In dozens of texts, Watts tracks episodes in which varying accounts of pre-Columbian whites attracted widespread attention: the Welsh Indians, the Lost Tribes of Israel, the white Mound Builders, and the Vikings, as well as two ancient Irish interventions. In each instance, public interest was ignited when representations of the group in question became enmeshed in concurrent conversations about the nation’s evolving identity and policies. Yet at every turn, counternarratives and public resistance challenged both the plausibility of the pre-Columbian whites and the colonialist symbolism that had been evoked to create a sense of American identity. By challenging the rhetoric of primordialism and empire building, dissenting writers from Washington Irving to Mark Twain exposed the crimes of conquest and white Americans’ marginality as ex-colonials.
Download or read book Myths and Realities of Caribbean History written by Basil A. Reid and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2009-04-12 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to debunk eleven popular and prevalent myths about Caribbean history. Using archaeological evidence, it corrects many previous misconceptions promulgated by history books and oral tradition as they specifically relate to the pre-Colonial and European-contact periods. It informs popular audiences, as well as scholars, about the current state of archaeological/historical research in the Caribbean Basin and asserts the value of that research in fostering a better understanding of the region’s past. Contrary to popular belief, the history of the Caribbean did not begin with the arrival of Europeans in 1492. It actually started 7,000 years ago with the infusion of Archaic groups from South America and the successive migrations of other peoples from Central America for about 2,000 years thereafter. In addition to discussing this rich cultural diversity of the Antillean past, Myths and Realities of Caribbean History debates the misuse of terms such as “Arawak” and “Ciboneys,” and the validity of Carib cannibalism allegations.
Download or read book The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere written by Paulette F. C. Steeves and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2021-07 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2022 Choice Outstanding Academic Title The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere is a reclaimed history of the deep past of Indigenous people in North and South America during the Paleolithic. Paulette F. C. Steeves mines evidence from archaeology sites and Paleolithic environments, landscapes, and mammalian and human migrations to make the case that people have been in the Western Hemisphere not only just prior to Clovis sites (10,200 years ago) but for more than 60,000 years, and likely more than 100,000 years. Steeves discusses the political history of American anthropology to focus on why pre-Clovis sites have been dismissed by the field for nearly a century. She explores supporting evidence from genetics and linguistic anthropology regarding First Peoples and time frames of early migrations. Additionally, she highlights the work and struggles faced by a small yet vibrant group of American and European archaeologists who have excavated and reported on numerous pre-Clovis archaeology sites. In this first book on Paleolithic archaeology of the Americas written from an Indigenous perspective, The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere includes Indigenous oral traditions, archaeological evidence, and a critical and decolonizing discussion of the development of archaeology in the Americas.
Download or read book Latin American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence written by Richard J. Chacon and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2007-09-06 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking multidisciplinary book presents significant essays on historical indigenous violence in Latin America from Tierra del Fuego to central Mexico. The collection explores those uniquely human motivations and environmental variables that have led to the native peoples of Latin America engaging in warfare and ritual violence since antiquity. Based on an American Anthropological Association symposium, this book collects twelve contributions from sixteen authors, all of whom are scholars at the forefront of their fields of study. All of the chapters advance our knowledge of the causes, extent, and consequences of indigenous violenceÑincluding ritualized violenceÑin Latin America. Each major historical/cultural group in Latin America is addressed by at least one contributor. Incorporating the results of dozens of years of research, this volume documents evidence of warfare, violent conflict, and human sacrifice from the fifteenth century to the twentieth, including incidents that occurred before European contact. Together the chapters present a convincing argument that warfare and ritual violence have been woven into the fabric of life in Latin America since remote antiquity. For the first time, expert subject-area work on indigenous violenceÑarchaeological, osteological, ethnographic, historical, and forensicÑhas been assembled in one volume. Much of this work has heretofore been dispersed across various countries and languages. With its collection into one English-language volume, all future writersÑregardless of their discipline or point of viewÑwill have a source to consult for further research. CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction Richard J. Chacon and RubŽn G. Mendoza 1.ÊÊStatus Rivalry and Warfare in the Development and Collapse of Classic Maya Civilization Matt OÕMansky and Arthur A. Demarest 2.ÊÊAztec Militarism and Blood Sacrifice: The Archaeology and Ideology of Ritual Violence RubŽn G. Mendoza 3.ÊÊTerritorial Expansion and Primary State Formation in Oaxaca, Mexico Charles S. Spencer 4.ÊÊImages of Violence in Mesoamerican Mural Art Donald McVicker 5.ÊÊCircum-Caribbean Chiefly Warfare Elsa M. Redmond 6.ÊÊConflict and Conquest in Pre-Hispanic Andean South America: Archaeological Evidence from Northern Coastal Peru John W. Verano 7.ÊÊThe Inti Raymi Festival among the Cotacachi and Otavalo of Highland Ecuador: Blood for the Earth Richard J. Chacon, Yamilette Chacon, and Angel Guandinango 8.ÊÊUpper Amazonian Warfare Stephen Beckerman and James Yost 9.ÊÊComplexity and Causality in Tupinamb‡ Warfare William BalŽe 10.ÊÊHunter-GatherersÕ Aboriginal Warfare in Western Chaco Marcela Mendoza 11.ÊÊThe Struggle for Social Life in Fuego-Patagonia Alfredo Prieto and Rodrigo C‡rdenas 12.ÊÊEthical Considerations and Conclusions Regarding Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence in Latin America Richard J. Chacon and RubŽn G. Mendoza References About the Contributors Index
