mavillanueva@STCLOUDSTATE.EDU
Joining Seattle WA and a number of other cities and
states (South Dakota) -- Minneapolis MN
has renamed today's holiday "Indigenous Day" …..
Maiz Culture in the Americas: Resisting Colonialism Through Indigenous Tradition Monday, 13 October 2014 00:00By Eleanor J. Bader
http://www.truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/44970
Truthout | Book Review
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[2014 1013 maize st](Image: The University of Arizona
Press)Our Sacred Maíz Is Our Mother: Indigeneity and Belonging in the
Americas
by Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, The University of Arizona Press, 2014, 288 pages
with nine color illustrations, $35.00 paperback. Electronic edition available.
Indigenous people have resisted colonialism in many ways
- holding fast to traditional foods, like maíz, performing ancestral dances and
songs, and passing legends from generation to generation.
According to a legend told by elders throughout
Nahuatl-speaking regions of Mexico, corn - maíz in Spanish and cintli in
Nahuatl - has been a dietary staple for thousands of years. The how and why of
this development has been passed from generation to generation, and, as
recounted in Roberto Contli Rodriguez's Our Sacred Maíz Is Our Mother, goes
something like this: Shortly after the Creator couple, Quilaztli and
Quetzalcoatl, formed human beings, they realized that their invention could not
survive without eating. "Quetzalcoatl - bringer of civilization - was put
in charge of bringing food to the people. Walking along," Rodriguez
writes, "Quetzalcoatl noticed red ants carrying kernels of corn.
Quetzalcoatl asked one of them, 'What is that on your back?'
'Cintli,' one replied. 'It is our sustenance.'"
Quetzalcoatl had further questions, but the ant was leery about revealing too much. Still, Quetzalcoatl persisted, explaining that without nutrients, humans would perish. "Reluctantly," Rodriguez reports, "the ant pointed toward Tonalcatepetl - a nearby mountain - also called The Mountain of Sustenance," and ultimately led Quetzalcoatl to this revered place. Later, after the Lords of Tamoanchan gave their blessing to maíz, corn became indispensable to many of the earth's people.
Throughout the text, Rodriguez tells other stories to
illustrate the centrality of maíz in contemporary Mexican and Central American
life, whether people are living in the United States or further south.
"Maíz is who you are, who we are," he was told time and again as he
did his research. "We not only eat maíz; we are maíz."
Indeed, some of the creation stories Rodriguez tells
involve attempts to fashion sentient beings from amber, mud and wood. It was
only during the final attempt, we're told - when the Creators used corn - that
the effort succeeded. Not only that, as people evolved and began to cultivate
maíz, they discovered its connection to "various phenomena caused by the
sun, moon and universe," among them the concept of time. This, Rodriguez
writes, led to the development of a calendar and an understanding of seasons
and weather.
It's a fascinating history, and while sections of the
book are dryly academic, its look at how maíz has served as a tool of cultural
continuity is a revelation. What's more, the book's focus on the ways Spanish
conquerors - in particular the Catholic Church - worked to suppress, and then
appropriate, maíz offers important insights into how people covertly and
overtly resist domination and oppression.
It's both inspiring and awful.
For example, during the 300 years of Spanish rule, 1521
to 1821, Rodriguez writes that indigenous people were subjected to "an
unprecedented project of mass conversion." Eager to create a
"tame" labor force, he continues, the Spanish systematically worked
"to demean and destroy all vestiges of indigenous thought, religion,
spirituality, and culture." For their part, the Spanish determined
indigenous beliefs to be "demonic or witchcraft." The solution?
"Imposing a God-inspired worldview and world order upon indigenous
people." Their tools were fear - the waiting fires of hell - and outright
physical brutality.
At the same time, Rodriguez adds, conquest required a
belief system steeped in notions of indigenous inferiority, so depictions of
native peoples typically rendered them as childlike, depraved and stupid.
"The church saw devils everywhere," he reports, "and continually
imprisoned, tortured, hung and executed suspected idolaters throughout the
colonial era." Nonetheless, he continues, "This repression
precipitated constant rebellions throughout the continent."
Interestingly, this resistance led to an understanding:
The priests determined that their success depended upon a fusion between
ancient spirituality and Christianity. In short order, they began promoting the
brown-skinned Virgen de Guadalupe and began to include maíz in the Holy
Eucharist. It worked. In fact, Rodriguez notes that after La Virgen
"appeared" in the spot where Tonantzin - the Earth Mother - had
always been venerated, an increasing number of people became willing to accept
Jesus as their Lord and Savior. "The linking of Guadalupe and Tonantzin
became the most important aspect of syncretism," he concludes. This
"syncretism," he adds, kept some aspects of indigenous life alive -
through shared stories, dances and songs passed orally from parents to
children. Still, as Rodriguez makes clear, "The Spanish friars were always
ready to subject indigenous people to the whip to regulate which forms of
syncretism were permissible."
That remnants of indigenous cultures remain in the form
of a traditional diet of beans, chile, maíz and squash - and through
traditional art forms - is testament to people's refusal to forget the past, no
matter what. At its core, Rodriguez writes, is maíz:
While the Spanish destroyed much of the Mesoamerican way
of life, the culture itself, which was based on maíz, survived because the
dependence on maíz only increased. It increased because food was needed to fuel
the masses toiling for Spain against their will.
That said, assimilationist movements and attempts to
de-indigenize native peoples obviously did not end with the Spanish
conquistadors. For Rodriguez, the 1994 imposition of the North American Free
Trade Agreement - NAFTA - was little more than a modern-day attempt to
annihilate maíz-based communities. "The abuse of maíz, driven by the
corporate profit motive, has been implicated in the obesity crisis that has
exploded in the last generation in the United States. High-fructose corn syrup,
made from maíz, as a replacement for cane sugar, is present in a great many
food products and beverages. It is also suspected in the nation's diabetes and
heart disease crisis, especially among indigenous people, including the US
Mexican/Chicano population," he writes. Furthermore, he sees genetically
modified corn as incredibly risky to human health and well-being. And then
there's the issue of immigration. "Today, several million indigenous
people from the corn-growing regions of southern Mexico - unable to compete or
subsist on their traditional lands - have migrated north," he explains.
The backlash against this influx, including the 2012
dismantling of the Mexican-American studies program in Arizona schools, mass
deportations and the labeling of undocumented arrivals as aliens or worse, has
been relentless. Our Sacred Maíz Is Our Mother highlights the folly of these
efforts and serves as a plea for tolerance, respect and decency. After all, if
the Choctaw people are right, and "corn is a woman, a life-giver,"
don't we owe her both our gratitude and admiration?
>~<<>>-<>-<<>>~<<>>-<>-<<>>~<
Margaret A. Villanueva, Ph.D.
Professor, Dept of Ethnic & Women's Studies
St. Cloud
State University , 51B, Office 201
720 Fourth Ave SouthSt. Cloud, MN 56301
>~<<>>-<>-<<>>~<<>>-<>-<<>>~<
Ph. 320-308-2140
Fax 320-308-5413
Faculty Homepage:
http://web.stcloudstate.edu/mavillanuevaDepartment Website:
www.stcloudstate.edu/ews<http://www.stcloudstate.edu/ews>
>~<<>>-<>-<<>>~<<>>-<>-<<>>~<
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