Episode 2: Hunab Ku, Ometeotl, and the Vocabulary of Conquest

Hunab Ku, Ometeotl, and the Vocabulary of Conquest

In 1524, twelve Franciscan missionaries were sent to Mexico from Spain to convert the previously unknown Indigenous people to Catholicism. To help facilitate this, the Spaniards constructed the Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco in 1536, where young Indigenous nobles were trained in Catholic doctrine and taught to read and write using the Latin alphabet. These nobles held valuable insight into Mesoamerican cosmovision and helped determine how to manipulate it to serve the missionizing process.

These Indigenous aides would often use Mesoamerican vocabulary and concepts when attempting to translate Catholicism into Indigenous terms. Pre-existing names such as Ipalnemoani “He by Whom One Lives,” Tloke Nawakeh “Possessor of the Near, Possessor of the Surrounding,” Teyokoyani “creator of people,” and others were repurposed to represent the concepts of God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and other aspects of Christian belief. When there were no pre-existing Indigenous names to properly convey a desired Catholic principle, Indigenous aides created new terms and expressions in their language that could adequately carry the necessary meaning . As a result, an entirely new vocabulary to convert Mesoamericans to Catholicism was born. I refer to this appropriation and invention of Indigenous terms in the service of religious conversion as the Vocabulary of Conquest.

Your hosts:

Kurly Tlapoyawa is an archaeologist, ethnohistorian, and filmmaker. His research covers Mesoamerica, the American Southwest, and the historical connections between the two regions. He has authored numerous books and presented lectures at various universities.

Ruben Arellano Tlakatekatl is a scholar, activist, and professor of history. His research explores Chicana/Chicano indigeneity, Mexican indigenist nationalism, and Coahuiltecan identity resurgence. He has presented and published widely and currently teaches history at Dallas College – Mountain View Campus.

Cited in this episode:
Destronando a Ometeotl - Katarzyna Mikulska
The Vocabulary of Conquest - Kurly Tlapoyawa
Translation in Historiography: The Garibay/Leon-Portilla Complex and the Making of a Pre-Hispanic Past - Payas Gertrudis 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

You must, excuse me, I've grown quite well. This hasn't been easy. I know, but you've learned a lesson, a lesson, an honesty, honesty to yourself and honesty to others. That lesson will stand you in good stead all your life. I think we've all learned a good lesson. I've always heard that honesty is the best policy now, eye catching. I know why that's so why that's so

Speaker 2: 1:08

Yeah, Lena and welcome to tales from us. Landis, the show where we explore Mesoamerican, pseudo history, new age nonsense, and other stories of adventure. We are your hosts, curly Leppo Yahuah and Rubin. Adiano also known as like a pickup episode to who not goo Armadale and the vocabulary of conquest in 1524, 12 Franciscan missionaries were sent to Mexico from Spain to convert the previously unknown indigenous people to Catholicism to help facilitate this. The Spaniards constructed the Coleco, the Santa Cruz in plug-in Loco in 1536, where young indigenous Nobles were trained in Catholic doctrine and taught to read and write using the Latin alphabet. These Nobles held valuable insight into Mesoamerican Cosmovision and helped determine how to manipulate it, to serve the missionizing process. These indigenous aides would often use Mesoamerican vocabulary and concepts when attempting to translate Catholicism into indigenous terms. Pre-existing names such as[inaudible] he by whom one lives blocking now Walker possessor of the near possessor of the surrounding that Yoko Yani creator of people and others were repurposed to represent the concepts of God, Jesus Christ, the Holy spirit and other aspects of Christian belief when there were no pre-existing indigenous names to properly convey a desired Catholic principle, indigenous aides created new terms and expressions known as neologisms in their language that could adequately carry the necessary meaning. So basically they, they drew from pre-existing ideas and glossed them with Catholic principles. Right? For example, the words[inaudible] sacred tortilla and[inaudible] little white tortilla were both used to identify the Eucharist as a result and entirely new vocabulary to convert Mesoamericans to Catholicism was born. We refer to this appropriation and invention of indigenous terms in the service of religious conversion as the vocabulary of conquest.

Speaker 3: 3:49

Cool. One of the more notable,

Speaker 2: 3:52

All examples of this practice comes from the conquest of the Yucatan, where the term who not qu was invented by a Spanish friar named on Danyo this you that reality with the help of his Maya speaking indigenous AIDS, who not goo was created for rails dictionary of[inaudible] to introduce monotheism to the Maya people in it who not goo is defined as

Speaker 3: 4:20

The only living and true God. Also the greatest of the gods of the people of Yucatan. He had no form because they said that he could not be represented as he was in incur pauriol

Speaker 2: 4:35

Sadly, the colonial origin of this term is often ignored or forgotten and who not goo has been mistakenly accepted by many as a legitimate pre conquest Maya concept, as we shall soon. See, this was only the beginning of a long and winding journey for the imaginary deity who not goo was repopulate in the 1950s by Domingo Martinez, but it is a native speaker of you've got deco and professor at una in his 1964 book who not goo synthesis, Pensamiento philosophical Maya, but it is refers to Huna goo as the only giver of movement and measurement and uses tune-up CU to promote the idea that the Maya re monotheistic people, but it is, was a member of the Movimiento Confederate rest of our Lord Buddha. They are known for mCRC, a Mexican nationalist organization with a reputation for spreading pseudo historical accounts of Mexico's indigenous past as a native Maya speaker. But it is, was unique among mCRC membership. A fact, he used to bolster credibility for his more outlandish claims regarding my history, in addition to promoting the fictional Huna goo, but at his claimed that the Maya originated from a long lost Island that sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, that the word Jehovah comes from the Maya word for egg, and that Jesus Christ spoke Maya while dying on the cross. So obviously this,

Speaker 3: 6:20

Yeah, little out there he was onto something or on something, the myth of Hunan CU

Speaker 2: 6:28

You underwent yet another transformation, thanks to new age author artist. Jose are waivers in 1987. Ottawa has published his book, the Mayan factor featuring an image that he claimed represented who not goo. The symbol is a Mashika design from the codex Muglia BECI Yano. So it's not Maya Ottawa has modified this image by turning it into a circle and then changing the colors to black and white creating something that resembles the Chinese yin and yang today. This image can be seen on t-shirts murals, jewelry and tattoos. Unfortunately, most remain ignorant of what this alleged depiction of Huna CU truly is a new age distortion of a Mashika design, promoting a Catholic principle under an invented Maya man,

Speaker 3: 7:26

Man, that's some, uh, contortions there

Speaker 2: 7:31

Of an onion to, uh, to cut through or Mer Vale. Perhaps the most notorious example of the vocabulary of conquest is the alleged Mashika deity known as all men. Most students of Mesoamerican history were introduced to the idea of Armadale through the writings of Miguel, Leon Portea and unhealed Maria Guddi Bay, both Portea and Gotti Bay promoted the use of omen Dale as a way of fusing the concepts of the creator couple or[inaudible] into a singular creator Dodd of the Mashika in his book, Aztec philosophy Portea describes Armadale as the God of duality and the true God through which all that exists is conceived and be gotten however many Mesoamerican scholars consider Leon Portea and Gotti based translations of classical NOAA texts, unreliable, especially regarding the elusive on that, for example, on more than one occasion, Portea replaces the God of Christianity with Omid Dale when no such reference to the alleged Mashika deity appears in the original NOAA text in Gotti bays, 1979 translation of Andre Tibet's eastward Mashiach. He takes the sentence

Speaker 3: 9:01

In the 13th and final. There was a God named[inaudible], which means two gods and a God is named or missing, which means two goddesses.

Speaker 2: 9:14

And he transforms that sentence into,

Speaker 3: 9:18

In the 13th and highest. There was a God named[inaudible], which means two gods and the God is named [inaudible], which means

Speaker 2: 9:28

Goddesses. So when we take the vets passage into context, it is clear he is referring to the creator couple or mythic rudely and Seaway who are said to reside in the 13th celestial level of the Mashika cosmos Gadi Bay,

Speaker 4: 9:47

Simply introduced Armadale into the sentence out of thin air. Interestingly, this mention of[inaudible] is removed from the 1985 edition and replaced with Omid goodly. So it seems like whoever did this updated edition, saw the mistake and corrected it. So that's an interesting little side note. Oh yeah. Why did[inaudible] feel it necessary to invent descriptions of Wilmot Dale where none existed? One would assume that abundant resources regarding Armadale would be available for Portea and Garibay to draw from after all wouldn't the Supreme God of the Mashika appear everywhere considering its alleged importance within Michigan Cosmovision however, Armadale never appears in any prequel Denmark sources as professor Richard Haley notes, all Matildas found as members of its cult insist everywhere, everywhere. That is except in the primary sources. That's a good burn. We assert that the Catholic invention of[inaudible] can be traced directly to the Italian text found on folio. One V of the codex reels. This codex, which has been substantially modified by European interpretation was likely created in 1549. It is here to, we find the only reference to a Mashika deity, even vaguely similar to omit the text describes a deity called amen as the creator of everything the first cause, which sounds suspiciously like the God of the Bible, the text is accompanied by a drawing of this helmet. They only, however, an iconic graphic analysis

Speaker 2: 12:12

Identifies the figure as[inaudible] the male aspect of the sacred created a couple[inaudible] and Tanaka. See what known as the Lord and lady of our sustenance. In this instance, the author of the codex Rios separated the concept of[inaudible] from his female counterpart, thereby eliminating the feminine aspect of the dualistic Mashika Cosmovision the author then renamed[inaudible] or Ahmed, which would later become glossed as Ahmed Dale by Portea and Gotti Bay, and described this newly minted concept as the creator of everything. The first cause called by another name[inaudible] which is to say something like Lord of three merits or Lord earth three. Now this is an interesting choice, considering that all mare in now, what is the number two? Not three. It appears that omit fail or omit Oola is yet another Catholic invention designed to introduce the monotheistic God of the Bible. Along with the Holy Trinity into the Mesoamerican mindset, it appears that[inaudible] took the Catholic fiction of a monotheistic Supreme creator, God of the Mashika and just ran with it, creating an entire academic tradition and careers along the way. So what are we to do with concepts like Hoonah CU and omit failed? Can these terms be disentangled from their colonialist roots and given new life with new me, or is their elimination a natural by-product of our decolonial struggle. As I see it, I have inherited a cultural legacy far more meaningful, impactful, and powerful than any Catholic invention embracing terms like not goo and Armadale is a rejection of this cultural legacy in exchange for something shallow and artificial. I don't find strength in the linguistic fabrications of men who would destroy my culture. I find strength in the traditions of my ancestors. And if we're going to speak with the vocabulary of decolonization, we need to discard the language of colonizers a home. And it's funny that you ended with that because, you know, I've, I've been, you know, part of this community, the Mashika community, right, for close to 30 years, doing non-sale ceremony, playing Gulama, researching the history, the calendar. And I see, and you probably experienced the exact same thing. People use Armadale as a substitute for like amen or even Nama stay, right? Like it's just this general term that people throw around in ceremony. And, uh, when you look at the way that this word is described, the way it's being described in all of these texts, it's obvious that they're referring to the monotheistic, God of the Bible is just a substitute. Yeah,

Speaker 5: 15:33

Actually, I, I recently did a paper that's going to be published in, um, on dancer and, and sort of try to make some connections, uh, between, um, how the dancer, well, I don't get too much into how avant on-site emerged here in the U S there's a lot of studies already that have been done really good ones about, but I sort of try to, I use that as a bridge to go into the more sort of historical analysis of, of, of answer Concerta and at the end of the paper, towards the end, I introduce a little bit about how the, the Mashika Avanza sort of gets introduced and how it's part of that, that ever-changing evolutionary process of the dancer. And in it, I explain how Ella is dos, which is what the concertos usually say in[inaudible] will say at the end of, of Avanza or as a salute, you know, it's like saying[inaudible], you know, [inaudible] things like that. Right. And the Mashika is in their attempt to, uh, reject and to sort of purify the dancer to its so-called, uh,[inaudible] roots, right. They replaced that as yours with all Mattel. Yeah. And so that's where that comes from in terms of like, why so many people in, in bullies and a lot of amounts of circles use it today, even including some traditional circles, you might hear someone who maybe 15 years ago, 20 years ago was saying[inaudible] they may not say, or Mattel, because there's a reaction, it was a reaction that gets absorbed into the general downside culture. And now it's part of the, you know,[inaudible] so it's, it's, it's interesting because I met Dale. I mean, going back to what you were saying about how it's, uh, what do we do with it? What do we do with these, with, with these concepts of who[inaudible], because they're so ingrained now in, in, in the tradition of, uh, either whether it's a dancer tradition or even in the [inaudible] tradition. Right. You know, um, there's, there's people who are a part of the answer today that are, you know, maybe half our age, who've only been dancing for five to 10 years. Right. And they, they learned all this stuff as a, and they've, uh, they've sort of incorporated it into their lexicon, assuming that these are ancient traditions that go back to before the invasion of the Spanish and without realizing that a lot of this stuff is just recent invention. Right.

Speaker 4: 18:04

Yeah. It is. What's known as an invented tradition actually.

Speaker 5: 18:11

Okay. And so what is, what is the difference between an invented tradition and say, for example, calling something as pseudo historical concept?

Speaker 4: 18:22

Um, well actually I'm glad you brought this up, Dr. Adriano, uh, so pseudo history for the sake of our listeners, pseudo history would be a deliberate distortion or misrepresentation of history in order to advance some sort of agenda, usually a political agenda, right. Not always, but usually a political agenda. And in a broad sense, what pseudo history,

Speaker 3: 18:52

Well, pseudo history also plays a large role in, um, the emergence of, uh, nationalism. Oh yeah. Especially of, of, of the extreme right. Type of nationalism.

Speaker 4: 19:02

Absolutely. So then a, uh, an invented tradition, um, is basically when somebody makes up a tradition, which is nothing wrong with that, right. All traditions are, are made up, they're all invented, but they're not traditions that evolved organically from within a community. There are traditions that were made up to serve a certain purpose, but they're given the veneer of being ancient. Like whoever made up this tradition claims that it is actually an ancient tradition, even it's a very, very modern,

Speaker 3: 19:38

We have a very good example of, of, of something like this as if, uh, our listeners would, um, are interested in learning more about this. Uh, there was a, a recent article in Mexico news daily. I think I shared it with you, uh, recently where it talks about a, an invented tradition. Basically the only goes back to maybe 30 years called[inaudible] and it's a[inaudible] event and Lynita is in reference to Linea as in firewood. And so it's a very, very interesting tradition. If our listeners are interested, they can go and look it up, but I'll put it in the, uh, I'll put it in the show notes. This, this tradition is very recent, but it has, it's, it's an organic tradition that emerged within the, some of the, uh, communities that are, that are considered original Mashika or Noah pueblos, uh, that's around, uh, modern day Mexico city. And these people are descendants of those original peoples. And they decided as a reaction to environmental stress, uh, and, and, uh, illegal logging that was being done in the surrounding mountains of their communities. They decided to invent this tradition to pay homage and respect to the spirits of the mountain and the trees, and they go into the mountains. Um, and, uh, and what the old dead wood or dying trees, and then use that for firewood throughout the year for special ceremonies. And then they go back and they replant trees to replace the ones that have been logged illegally or have, have died. And so this, so this is an invented tradition that is serving a purpose for the community, right. And this is different from, from say creating, uh, an entire deity whole cloth based on someone's erroneous interpretation of the sources, right?

Speaker 4: 21:29

Yeah. Yeah. So like an invented tradition isn't necessarily a negative thing. Right. In many ways it can be a positive thing. Right? Exactly. It's just, what was the intent behind doing it and how has it being presented to people? I read that article and the people are very, um, they're very open about being new,

Speaker 2: 21:49

Right.

Speaker 3: 21:50

He claims to antiquity, they don't try to, you know, pose as these, uh, ultra, you know, um, righteous, indigenous people that, you know, have this longstanding tradition that was in secret. You know, it's always, there's always a secret involved, and there's always a group of, of very mystery council of mysterious doctors that are hidden somewhere that no one really knows about. And it's just only a select few and you have to pay homage to me because I have that connection to those elder. You know, now these people are very open about it. This is just a communal event that we're doing. And we're in a, they're very upfront about what the purpose of it is. They make no, uh, you know, presumptions about it. Right? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:35

Well, in, um, in the West DECA, I learned about another invented tradition that takes place there. Um, that goes, that involves, uh, the other[inaudible]. And what happened was, is the youth, the Nawa youth of these communities were kind of upset, uh, that their relatives who were seen as like bad people, you know, maybe they were drug dealers or whatever, you know, they did something that, that was seen as is negative. Their images were not being, uh, involved in the [inaudible] celebrations or commemorations. Like all of the bad people were being left out. And the young, the young guys, the younger Nawaz were bugged by this. So they started their own tradition specifically for the departed, you know, quote unquote, bad people. And they figured, well, they, you know, these are relatives, you know, I knew these guys, um, they deserve to be honored to. And so they started to separate tradition. And because of this, the elders in the community didn't want to teach them the appropriate dances that were involved. So these kids made up their own, made up their own dance. They made up their own dances, they made up their own tradition and it's got a purpose and it's evolved organically from this community. And I saw a video of it and it's awesome. It's such a wonderful event and, um, uh, in, uh, Veracruz, but accrues in the Azteca region. Okay. And, uh, I don't know. I just thought it was awesome. So, you know, again, going back to that point, just because it's an invented tradition, just because we call something an invented tradition, it's not like a judgment call or, you know, we're passing judgment on it as being something negative or positive. We're just calling it what it is, you know?

Speaker 3: 24:32

Well, okay. So that brings up another point with, with[inaudible]. These were one dates to the colonial period. It had a, an agenda had a, it was a political agenda, even though it was guised under the rubric of, uh, Catholicism and the church and spirituality and religion. And it was, it was very political. It was about stripping the power from the indigenous people. Absolutely no colonizing them colonizing their land, their, their minds, their, their forms of, of, uh, spirituality. Right? So you take something like that, that, that gets repurposed by, by this and through the mCRC. And then you have Armadale, which interestingly enough, I went back and I looked at Michigan with the book that was published by nearby Lopez, his sister. Um, he's got lots in, right. And this is a book that was

Speaker 5: 25:23

[inaudible] it encapsulates, uh, the philosophy,

Speaker 3: 25:26

Uh, uh, uh,[inaudible] Lopez, who was the leader of the mCRC. Right. And, and nowhere in the entire book, the, the original copy is

Speaker 5: 25:35

From 1969. I'm looking at the 2009 third

Speaker 3: 25:37

Edition. I do have the original, but I have that one put up because it's very fragile.

Speaker 5: 25:42

Well, at this point. Yeah. It's not bound very well. Yeah. But I'm looking at the 2009 edition.

Speaker 3: 25:48

There's this is the third edition. Um,

Speaker 5: 25:50

They did another one in 1991, and the only, the closest thing that I see them resembled on Matildas or Mayo or army yard and right. Or Meadows, your set or SNCF, and then the TL, the[inaudible]. And I'm thinking if Armadale was such an important concept, you know, you would think that, you know, never Lopez would have known about it. This is a guy who was basically borrowing a lot of ideas from people before him, especially [inaudible] whom, um, uh, I think we should probably do a show on him at some point, predates a Lopez. And I don't think even, uh, Luna ever mentioned in any of his writings, I don't think so either. Right. And it's not until we get into, uh, to, um, Porteous his book originally published in 1956, where we get this introduction of a Mattel. Right. And so we have two concepts that are basically, and we have to wonder what was[inaudible] purpose. And introducing this concept was, I mean, he was an academic, he was a professor. Um, and so why, what was it, you know, what was his purpose for inventing this, this thing that he misread the, was he trying so hard? And as you mentioned, was he trying so hard to, uh, sort of, uh, vindicate, astic, uh, the ethic Pantheon, the Mashika Pantheon by, you know, uh, sort of, uh, comparing it to his own, I guess I'm not sure if he was a Catholic or Christian, but to the monotheistic tradition, that premiere, it seems like he was viewing all of these things through a monotheistic lens. Right. And so, and so one was political in the colonial sense. And the other one is, I mean, Portea, I don't know how to frame that, but what, well,

Speaker 4: 27:45

It could have been tied to him just nationalism, like trying to uplift this idea of, of the Mashika people as being very sophisticated and, and having a vision on par with everybody else.

Speaker 5: 27:59

So, so I guess in the broad sense, we can place both of these[inaudible] as political concepts that were invented for specific purposes that have sort of a political nature and almost, uh, in one case it's more nationalistic with, with[inaudible]. Is that right?

Speaker 4: 28:15

Yeah. I, I, I think that's a fair assessment. Okay. So now that we've gotten to that, that assessment,

Speaker 5: 28:23

And going back to the question, what do we do with these concepts since they were originally invented, but then they get repurposed through the dancer tradition, through the[inaudible] tradition for something that is, um, more revolutionary in a sense, right? Because especially[inaudible] when, when they're reacting to the nonsense that they're reacting, they're coming of age, this starts in the seventies, obviously, but in the nineties, you get a resurgent of the stuff, especially during like, you know, the[inaudible] emergency in the 1994, and as well as in Mexico, things were happening in the U S you know, in my article that also point to how dancer in the U S really begins to rise in the mid to late nineties as a result of the quincentennial celebration of Columbus and reaction to that. And also to the sabotage us in 94, and those two events help push the on-site in the U S among a new found breed of young Mexican Americans who begin to not just call us most Chicanos, but now they're calling themselves machine guns as well.

Speaker 4: 29:31

Yeah, that's my story right there. I got into dancer because I saw a group of Dan Santas at a 1992, uh, event, you know, at, uh, like re you know, 500 years of resistance type of event that was put on at UNM. There were a group of dancers there, and, you know, you hear the drum, you smell the COBOL. It's like, wow, man, I want to be part of this. So that was like my entry point into this whole way of thinking and to calling myself Mashika and, and, you know, just getting really involved with, uh, with that tradition. So, yeah, I think he nailed it right there.

Speaker 5: 30:12

So what do you say to someone, for example, that says, I acknowledge what you're saying about[inaudible] being been invented traditions, but over the years, they've been repurposed and transformed into something that is akin to, uh, uh, I mean, invented in the sense that they were pseudo historical, right? The original sense, but now they get repurposed and they become part of this new tradition. That is, that is organic. That is also sort of being molded and, and adapted by people on the ground to suit their own localized, uh, purposes. Whether it'd be a spiritual one, whether it be a political one and, and someone who comes at it from that perspective and says, well, you know what you're saying might be true. Maybe these are invented whole cloth traditions or ideas, but now they have a completely different meaning for us,

Speaker 4: 31:06

Right? Yeah. And, and people actually, they do, they come to me and say that. So I just try not to be judgmental. You know, like, look, this is your life, man. I don't care what words you use. I always tell people, you know, I'm a pantheistic atheist to, so when I participate in ceremony, I have my own personal reasons for participating in that ceremony. And, you know, we've sat in ceremony with Gnostics, with, you know, agnostics with Christians, with Catholics, you know what, I, I don't ask people what their personal beliefs are, but we come together for the purpose of the ceremony and there's a greater purpose involved, right. Which is cultural continuity and maintaining community and just coming together for a good purpose. So I really don't, I'm not going to judge people for using these words or continuing to use these words personally, you know, just, it's just my inquisitive nature as a researcher and as an archeologist and ethanol historian, you're a historian to get to the roots of these things. Right. I want to know, I want to know where these things come from. These things matter to me. So honestly, I don't, I don't think they're going to go away. It's it's, uh, unless even if Leon Portea came out and said, Hey guys, I made all of that.

Speaker 5: 32:24

It's too late for that now. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 32:27

It's too late for that. Now, like you said, like somebody gets into dancer, they learn on what they, well, this is what you say, and this is why you say it because it's an ancient concept. So they're like, yeah, right on. And they think they're doing something good. And then to have somebody come up to them and be like, now you're full of kid. That's not going to win any fan.

Speaker 5: 32:43

You don't know the half of it means.

Speaker 4: 32:48

So I think it's important to tell people, I think we have an ethical and moral obligation to tell people where these things come from, but I'm not going to try to force people to stop saying these things that bring them comfort, you know, especially terms like that. They're fairly, uh, innocuous.

Speaker 5: 33:08

Yeah. Well, I mean, I get your point. And, and I think the issue with me is when I get people in, and it hasn't happened in awhile, but you know, early on when we were first beginning to sort of explore these things and going back to what you were saying, you know, the reason why we do this is not to sort of, um, uh, put people down or to try to discourage people from believing what, what, you know, to each his own people will believe what they want to believe, but you know, me and you were like, what, where does this actually come from? Like, what's the source you who, uh, is the first person that we know of. And at least in our tradition that begins to promote these things and, and, and so on and so forth. And I've had people come up to me, you know, and tell me that, you know, that I'm putting our people down now, you know, why, why are you trying to, you know, um, uh, sort of defame our culture or whatnot. I'm like, no, you're, you're not getting it. That's not my purpose here. I'm not, I mean, you can continue to believe what you, whatever you want to believe. I'm just telling you that. As far as my research it's led me to this conclusion, I'm just sharing it with you. You can accept it, or you can reject it. That's up to you.

Speaker 4: 34:21

Yeah. Do with this information, what you will, but it's my obligation to put this information out there. That's the way I see it. You know, and it's funny because I always joke with people we can numb. If people ever do come around to rejecting these terms, we could make a lot of money by opening up a tattoo shop and fixing everybody's, uh, who not coup tattoos. They would be easy fixes, you know, just, just square them off so that they're not a circle and make it black and yellow and stuff.

Speaker 5: 34:59

No, but you're forgetting that that's the whole point of goo is it's squaring that circle. That's where it comes from from the plan, John. Remember that? Yeah, it is, but it is basically in his book and his book.[inaudible] and the one that you talk about, um, what is the disease? He basically, um, for lack of a better term plagiarized,

Speaker 4: 35:25

He draws a lot from lip laun, John,

Speaker 5: 35:29

John, for

Speaker 4: 35:31

People who aren't familiar LaPlante, John was an amateur archeologist and a cultist of cultist went to Mexico

Speaker 5: 35:41

And the 19th century. Yeah. You know, to his credit, the plan John was working at a time when archeology was still undefined as discipline all over. So to say that he was amateur, I mean, there were all in that matures

Speaker 4: 35:54

At that point. That's fair.

Speaker 5: 35:55

But, but he had some very interesting interpretations that led back to what you were saying. A lot of cultures sort of, or fringe ideas, not all of them were called. Like he believed in, uh, the, these ideas of like mass catastrophes that having occurred. And some of these which don't have any scientific proof or backing behind them.

Speaker 4: 36:19

Well, it's, it's from his idea that the Maya basically came from Atlantis, Domingo, Martinez, Perez, borrows from that borrows from him. Exactly. And, um, even his symbol for who goo is like he straight up jacks from, uh, from the plan, John from the poem. And it is based on that idea of squaring,

Speaker 2: 36:39

The circle square. And we also need to realize that, um, I don't know if Laplant John was, but is, was a, uh, uh, Mason, Mason. So he took a lot of those ideas of, you know, referring to Huna goo as the primary mover, you know, Oh, these are all Masonic.

Speaker 3: 37:01

Exactly. That's, that's very Masonic.

Speaker 2: 37:03

So he, um, he drew from a lot of different things and this was common of the MC RCA they would go through and just draw from everything, but legitimate archeological and historical. Like, it's not hard if you live in Mexico, it is not difficult to go to an indigenous community and learn from an indigenous community. Yeah. But you know, this, this ultra nationalism that the mCRC was on, it was more built around that idea of Mexico as this great, you know, uh, indigenous nature pole. Yeah. That, um, it, they, they basically glorified and romanticized Mexico's indigenous past, but at the expense of Mexico's indigenous presence, now it was sort of emblematic of the nationalism that was going on at the time. Right.

Speaker 3: 38:02

And, and w we're going to do a show on, on him and them CRCA separately so we can discuss these things. But yeah, there's, um, in my dissertation, I sort of look at what Vasconcellos was doing and his ideas of[inaudible] and sort of compare them to the ideas of[inaudible], which, who was a contemporary of [inaudible] who predates, um,[inaudible], uh, ideas whom Neveah Lopez borrowed from. And I compare them and I basically, uh, explain how they're both, uh, two sides of the same coin, except one is, uh, his spinal feeling out of perspective and wants more of an indigenous perspective, but they're both equally or internationalists ideology.

Speaker 2: 38:44

Yeah, for sure. Um, so, so getting back to your question, what do we do with these things? You know, I don't know. I don't know if it's necessarily, um, my position to say what to do with these things. You know, it's up to everybody. The magic was in you all the time, Billy, the magic wasn't, you know, but they, all we want,

Speaker 3: 39:11

I want to do is offer a public service announcement, you know, to all you mosquitoes out there, or you learn something completely members, uh, indigenous people, whatever label you apply to yourself, which is all fine and dandy. But if you accept the term or[inaudible] concepts that are meaningful to you, that's, you know, that's, that's your prerogative. We're here to, you know, show, you know, people interested in these things that, you know, everything has a prominence and some of these things have dubious. Provenances like these two terms.

Speaker 2: 39:48

Absolutely. I would. I just want to encourage people to, um, you know, think critically, you know, use skeptical inquiry and develop scientific literacy. Those are my, my three takeaways. The three things that I would like to impart is to encourage people to, uh, apply a critical lens. You know, you're listening to this right now. Don't take our words for it. You know, all look into what we're saying, you know, do your own research. Absolutely. There's a, uh, a paper that I could really, I highly recommend called translation in historiography, the Gotti Bay, Leon Portea complex and the making of a pre Hispanic past by gear through this by us. It's a really, really good analysis of the dubious translations that Gotti Bay and Leon Portea have put out over the years. And then there's the, uh, the paper[inaudible][inaudible], everybody should read that. That's a really good one. Yeah. They go in deep and I encourage people to look into these things, you know, because people, when I bring up that Armadale is probably not an actual prequel demo concept. People freak out like, wow, how dare you say that? And I'm like, dude, what I'm saying, isn't even considered controversial within mezzo Americanist circles. Like people have been critiquing these ideas for a very, very long time. It's just that when you're in the mission, Gaya, you were actively discouraged from doing research outside of, as they say [inaudible].

Speaker 3: 41:34

Yeah. Cause you know, once you start scratching, you get beneath the surface and you realize that there's nothing there.

Speaker 2: 41:40

And you know, in my, in the first edition of our slippery earth, I put like, you know, I don't outright say that this was an invention. I just, I put it out as a question. Like, I don't know where I got this from, but now that I've done more research in the second edition of the book, I'm going to lay out a lot more evidence as to why I believe[inaudible] just made it up,

Speaker 3: 42:04

Which is the consensus of most people who are interested in the, in the subject who studied it. I think the consensus is that there's no, there's really no evidence that the, even the word on Mattel, uh, existed prior to a Portea right. I mean, because if, uh, if a form, it was such a, an important concept, why isn't it so ubiquitous in all the sources? Why isn't it everywhere? Why isn't it everywhere? Why is it, I mean, it's almost like, uh, uh, Neveah Lopez and his, uh, Cassina. They are now a declaration of called demo. Like if it was so important, how come it doesn't exist prior to his supposedly, you know, exposition of it, you know, in 1964 or whatever, you know, it's, it's kinda like the same, the same idea in a sense, right? The secret knowledge that someone holds and all of a sudden they're ready to expose it to the world and look at me, you know,

Speaker 2: 43:01

You get too far into that. We're going to do that as a separate episode. Right? Well, thank you everyone. Dear listeners for joining us on this exploration of Mesoamerican, pseudo history, invented traditions and new age nonsense. I am your host curly[inaudible]

Speaker 3: 43:22

And this is like a picker. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode

Speaker 2: 43:27

And we'll see you next time. Remember folks, the truth is like medicine. Doesn't always taste good, but it's always good for you.[inaudible].