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Our Lady of Guadalupe: Tonantzin or the Virgin Mary?
It was on December 9, 1531, when Juan Diego, a humble Indian peasant, was crossing the hill of Tepeyac just north of present day Mexico City that — it is said— a beautiful shining woman miraculously appeared to him. Declaring herself to be the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ, she called Juan her son.
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The Temascal: Traditional Sweat Bath
The medicine lodge or sweat bath dates from a very early period in the history of the Americas and, in some parts, continues to the present day. In Canada. Indians from the Atlantic coast to British C...
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Aztec, Mexica, or Alien?
Are you an illegal alien? If you are white and of European ancestry, however remote, the California-based Mexica Movement says that you have no right to be on this continent. These people, who call the...
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Doomsday 2012 A.D. and the Burden of Time
Do you ever feel pressed for time? Have you felt the weight of time hanging heavily on your shoulders? Pity the poor Maya deities who bore the Burden of Time throughout all eternity and then some. The...
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Mesoamerican Religion and Multiverses: Part One
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" (Albert Einstein)
The idea of multiple universes or parallel worlds connected by "worm-holes" has long been a feature of modern science fiction and f...
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Mesoamerican religious concepts: Aztec symbolism, part III
The Aztec Calendar Stone is one of the most important monumental works of art left to us by the Aztecs. Since its discovery in what is now the main zocalo of Mexico City, it has been studied in minute ...
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The Books of Chilam Balam - part two
The Yucatecan Books of Chilam Balam, which comprise the Chumayel, Tizimin, Mani and others, are notoriously difficult to translate and interpret because of archaic or obsolete words in th...
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Primary sources of Maya history - part two
Four major cultural areas provide us with the most extensive documentation in Mesoamerica: the Valley of Mexico (Aztec), Northern Yucatan (Lowland Maya), Western Oaxaca (Mixtec), and Guatemala (Highlan...
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Origin theories of Mesoamerican civilizations
Ever since the discovery of "lost" cities in the jungles and rain forests of Middle America, theories about the origins of Mesoamerican civilizations have proliferated at a great rate and there is no e...
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Early pictorial and written sources of Aztec history
The pre-Hispanic history of Mexico is contained in the numerous pictorial codices or painted hieroglyphic books produced by the Aztecs, the Maya, the Mixtecs, and others. Unfortunately, very few pre-Co...
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Aztec symbolism: part two
The Internet is an invaluable source of information but it can also be a source of misinformation and great confusion. Recently I was accused of "plagiarizing" some of my material from the Internet. Th...
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Reinventing the Aztecs, part one
Perhaps no people on earth have been so maligned on the one hand and so highly praised on the other as the ancient Aztecs of Mexico-Tenochtitlán. You don't have to be a Mesoamerican scholar to have he...
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Mesoamerican religion: symbolism of the Gods - part one
Our main sources of information on pre-Hispanic religion in Mesoamerica include archaeological monuments and Classic murals, as well as Landa's Relación and ethnological reports of surviving re...
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Reinventing the Aztecs - part two Mexican history
In Part One we looked at a new interpretation of ancient Aztec literature, which, if correct, calls into question, perhaps even invalidates, much of the previous research. To recapitulate: the current ...
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The Books Of Chilam Balam and the Trojan War Of Yucatan
In writing of the Persian Wars, Herodotus, our earliest Greek historian of note, declared that his purpose in writing of the attempts by the Persian kings Darius and Xerxes to invade Greece was to ensu...
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Primary sources of Maya history - part three
Decipherment of the Maya hieroglyphic system of writing represents perhaps the greatest breakthrough in unravelling the history of the ancient Maya. Estimates vary on the actual percentage of the glyph...
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Classical languages of the Americas Mexican history
"Classical" is one of those terms often bandied about with little or no comprehension of its original meaning. As a graduate of two Classics departments, the University of Saint Andrews, Scotland, and ...
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What is history?
History is generally written from the standpoint of the victors or the dominant society. Consequently the other side of the story is hardly ever told in full. This is especially true of Mexico, althoug...
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Historico-mythical time and space in Mexico
Most of us take time and space for granted, unless we happen to be philosophers or scientists professionally concerned with such matters. But even scientists cannot agree entirely on the definition of ...
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Primary sources
The Maya, Aztecs, and other peoples of ancient Mexico had a very strong sense of their own history, which they went to great lengths to preserve. But in some ways, their concept of history differed rad...
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The Books of Chilam Balam - part one
The Books of Chilam Balam are indigenous Maya chronicles written in northern Yucatan during the century or so following the Spanish Conquest. The surviving texts we have are copies of the origin...
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Primary sources of Maya history - part one
The most extensive documentation for the native historical tradition in Mesoamerica comes from the Valley of Mexico and surrounding area. This is hardly surprising, for the main thrust of the Spanish C...
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Mesoamerican religious concepts
How do we know what we know (or think we know) about the ancient civilizations of Mexico and Guatemala?
A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially when it comes to ancient Mexico. With a ...
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Introduction to the series: Mexican history
Mexico is an endlessly fascinating country for those who take the time and trouble to delve a little more deeply into the mysteries of our "Unknown Mexico." Dedicated amateurs and professional scholars...
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Primary sources of Maya history - part five
Controversy is a fact of life. Complete agreement on any subject is hardly to be expected. The study of Maya hieroglyphs is no exception. In fact, scholarly differences of opinion can be just as viciou...
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