Thursday, January 6, 2011

Mayan Culture

Yes, we are not unfamiliar with Mayan culture and the Mayan concept of male and female. It is a rather crude way of looking at things from our perspective, the way they reduce everything to male and female, to the initiator vs. the passive receptor, etc. Yes, there is a lot more to it than anatomy from the Mayan point of view. Of course that is true but we Europeans tend to look at the Mayans as crude, simplistic tribal persons not far removed from naked savages of the jungle, persons with the sophistication of three-year-olds. The "Popol Vuh," one of the few surviving Mayan texts and a staple of high school reading lists, does contain some evidence of the crudity of Mayan thinking as it was before the introduction of Christianity not that I would want to discuss that subject so in-depth. America was not the Garden of Eden before Europeans arrived, obviously. Then again, the Barbarian tribes of Europe were also savages before the introduction of Christianity and had to discard various pagan notions in order to carve out a better future for future generations. So obviously there is hope for American, native and otherwise. No one is suggesting anything to the contrary. I don't remember saying anything about this but some people just want to pick a fight with me. I don't know what their problem is but I am not the enemy.