lived there into the desert.
As in America, they subjected the natives to forced labor and outlawed their memory and their customs.
As in America, Christian missionaries crushed or burned pagan effigies of stone or wood. A few escaped that fate and, minus their penises, were shipped to Europe to give testimony to the war against idolatry. The god Rao, who now sits on exhibition in the Louvre, arrived in Paris with a label that defined him thusly: “Idol of impurity, vice, and unabashed passion.”
As in America, few natives survived. Those not killed by hunger or bullets were annihilated by unknown plagues against which they had no defense.
BEDEVILED
They will come to teach fear.
They will come to castrate the sun.
Mayan prophets in Yucatan had announced this time of humiliation.
And it was in Yucatan in 1562 that Father Diego de Landa, in a lengthy ceremony, built a bonfire of books.
And the exorcist wrote:
“We found a great number of books written in these letters of theirs and, since they contained nothing but the Devil’s superstition and falsehoods, we burned them all.”
The scent of sulfur could be detected from afar. The Mayans deserved the stake for being curious, for tracking the course of the days through time and the route of the stars across the thirteen heavens.
Among many other devilish things, they invented the most precise of all the calendars that have ever existed, they knew better than anyone how to predict eclipses of the sun and moon, and they discovered the number zero long before the Arabs kindly brought that novelty to Europe.
PALACE ART IN THE MAYAN KINGDOMS
The Spanish Conquest occurred long after the fall of the Mayan kingdoms.
Only ruins remained of their immense plazas and of the palaces and temples where kings, squatting before the high priests and warrior chiefs, decided the fate and misfortune of everyone else.
In those sanctuaries of power, painters and sculptors dedicated themselves to exalting the gods and venerating the exploits of monarchs past and present.
Palace art left no room for the many who worked and remained silent.
Neither did the defeat of any kings figure in the codices or murals or bas-reliefs.
A king of Copán, for example, known as 18 Rabbit, raised Cauac Sky as a son and gave him the throne of the neighboring kingdom of Quiriguá. In the year 737, Cauac Sky returned the favor: he invaded Copán, humiliated its warriors, captured his protector, and cut off his head.
Art never found out. No bark book was written, no stone was chiseled to illustrate the sad end of the decapitated king, who in his days of splendor had been portrayed several times with his courtiers and his robes of feathers, jade, and jaguar skin.
KILLING FORESTS, THEY DIED
Ever more mouths and ever less food. Ever less forest and ever more desert. Too much rain or no rain at all.
Held on by ropes, peasants scratched in vain at the steep flayed slopes. The corn found no water or earth on which to raise its stalk. The soil, without trees to retain it, stained the rivers red and was lost to the wind.
After three thousand years of history, night fell on the Mayan kingdoms.
But the days of the Mayans walked on in the lives of the peasants. Communities moved and survived, practically in secret, without pyramids of stone or pyramids of power: with no king but the sun rising every day.
THE LOST ISLE
Far from the Mayan kingdoms and centuries later, Easter Island was devoured by its children.
The European navigators who arrived there in the eighteenth century found it empty of trees and of everything else.
It was terrifying. Never had they seen a solitude so lonely. No birds in the sky, no grass on the ground, no animals but rats.
Of the verdant past of long ago, no memory remained. The island was a stone inhabited by five hundred stone giants staring at the horizon, nowhere near anything or anyone.
Perhaps those statues were asking the gods to rescue them. But not even the
As in America, they subjected the natives to forced labor and outlawed their memory and their customs.
As in America, Christian missionaries crushed or burned pagan effigies of stone or wood. A few escaped that fate and, minus their penises, were shipped to Europe to give testimony to the war against idolatry. The god Rao, who now sits on exhibition in the Louvre, arrived in Paris with a label that defined him thusly: “Idol of impurity, vice, and unabashed passion.”
As in America, few natives survived. Those not killed by hunger or bullets were annihilated by unknown plagues against which they had no defense.
BEDEVILED
They will come to teach fear.
They will come to castrate the sun.
Mayan prophets in Yucatan had announced this time of humiliation.
And it was in Yucatan in 1562 that Father Diego de Landa, in a lengthy ceremony, built a bonfire of books.
And the exorcist wrote:
“We found a great number of books written in these letters of theirs and, since they contained nothing but the Devil’s superstition and falsehoods, we burned them all.”
The scent of sulfur could be detected from afar. The Mayans deserved the stake for being curious, for tracking the course of the days through time and the route of the stars across the thirteen heavens.
Among many other devilish things, they invented the most precise of all the calendars that have ever existed, they knew better than anyone how to predict eclipses of the sun and moon, and they discovered the number zero long before the Arabs kindly brought that novelty to Europe.
PALACE ART IN THE MAYAN KINGDOMS
The Spanish Conquest occurred long after the fall of the Mayan kingdoms.
Only ruins remained of their immense plazas and of the palaces and temples where kings, squatting before the high priests and warrior chiefs, decided the fate and misfortune of everyone else.
In those sanctuaries of power, painters and sculptors dedicated themselves to exalting the gods and venerating the exploits of monarchs past and present.
Palace art left no room for the many who worked and remained silent.
Neither did the defeat of any kings figure in the codices or murals or bas-reliefs.
A king of Copán, for example, known as 18 Rabbit, raised Cauac Sky as a son and gave him the throne of the neighboring kingdom of Quiriguá. In the year 737, Cauac Sky returned the favor: he invaded Copán, humiliated its warriors, captured his protector, and cut off his head.
Art never found out. No bark book was written, no stone was chiseled to illustrate the sad end of the decapitated king, who in his days of splendor had been portrayed several times with his courtiers and his robes of feathers, jade, and jaguar skin.
KILLING FORESTS, THEY DIED
Ever more mouths and ever less food. Ever less forest and ever more desert. Too much rain or no rain at all.
Held on by ropes, peasants scratched in vain at the steep flayed slopes. The corn found no water or earth on which to raise its stalk. The soil, without trees to retain it, stained the rivers red and was lost to the wind.
After three thousand years of history, night fell on the Mayan kingdoms.
But the days of the Mayans walked on in the lives of the peasants. Communities moved and survived, practically in secret, without pyramids of stone or pyramids of power: with no king but the sun rising every day.
THE LOST ISLE
Far from the Mayan kingdoms and centuries later, Easter Island was devoured by its children.
The European navigators who arrived there in the eighteenth century found it empty of trees and of everything else.
It was terrifying. Never had they seen a solitude so lonely. No birds in the sky, no grass on the ground, no animals but rats.
Of the verdant past of long ago, no memory remained. The island was a stone inhabited by five hundred stone giants staring at the horizon, nowhere near anything or anyone.
Perhaps those statues were asking the gods to rescue them. But not even the
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