A religious colleague of mine told me today that he had once emailed James Maffie, asking if his 500-page tome, "Aztec Philosophy" was meant to be a definitive work of historical scholarship or speculative conjecture - and Maffie admitted it was the latter.
I am without words, because he said nothing to this effect anywhere in the book... /
One of the more interesting things I heard about #mesoamerica#aztec#history was an anecdote that one town would steal the rain of a neighboring town by burning certain trees on a specific hill to divert clouds to their side of the mountain.
Apparently this was done for centuries, but this was an anecdote I found a while back and I don't remember the names of the towns.
If anyone knows of this and can give me more info, I would be grateful.
In 1692, a #Mexican priest complained to the Spanish king that there were too many #gay bars in #mexico city and #trans women in them were too tempting.
Still, the book "the flower and the scorpion" is really enlightening in ways that cannot be explained in a single toot.
The sexual history of #mesoamerica is so complex it defies all modern labels and expectations of modern western thinking, and involves heavy use of "sorcerer's speak" to talk about #sex (1/?)
One of the biggest mysteries I am having right now is the #mixtec#sabre
Every #mesoamerica or #aztec#history person I ask have either never seen this thing or only seen it shown in Mixtec codices and certain papers call it a sabre.
Mexicolore has a panel of experts and said they know nothing about it.
Codices often represent real weapons in them, but they can also be symbolic of something else.
Does anyone know more about this design of #sword ?
In my research to help form a coherent story for a #mesoamerica web series, #gender and #lgbtq is one of the biggest hurdles because #history and modern perspectives just don't match.
If I took Sigal's interpretation in the #book "the flower and scorpion", if someone asks me if there are LGBT characters I don't really have an answer as they did not call themselves straight, gay, or bisexual no matter who they had sex with. They did have a word for trans though.
My snake’s head is adorned with plumes
And like a flower, all round it blooms
Upon my pyramidal shrine.
I got drunk on agave wine
Persuaded by the Mirror of Smoke
And did the deed, but when I woke
My brother was the Jaguar,
And I become the Morning Star.
Hello Everybody.
Please bear with me as I explore Mastodon for the first time. I am completely new at this, and there is much I don't know or understand.
I made two test-postings last month, but I really didn't know what I was doing at the time. The subject of the two test-posts was ancient #Mesoamerica, the culture area in which I am most interested. Forward into the unknown!
Here's tonight's free phone wallpaper: a Quetzal from Mesoamerica. This is the national bird of Guatemala.
I fell in love with this bird the moment I saw it on Unsplash. His head almost looks... rectangular!?! It's amazing! The original photo is by Zdeněk Macháček: https://unsplash.com/photos/cvO95LohoQg
I highly suggest joining Makertube if you can. It's a great home from which you can share videos without subjecting your viewers to ads. It's a growing Peertube instance and perfect for digital artists, musicians, and other artists looking for a YouTube alternative. It doesn't have livestreaming yet, but perhaps someday in the future it'll be possible. You can find more of my bird speedpaints (and recordings of the livestreams when I made some of them) there: https://makertube.net/c/coreyartusimagery/videos
I'm trying sharing this on Pixelfed instead of my Masto instance for a while. I have more characters so I can give proper credit to the artists I am inspired by.
Please feel free to repost and share! I hope this finds a happy home on your phone!