renots
06-03-2001, 01:33 PM
by Manly P. Hall
In the jungles of Yucatan, Guatemala, and Honduras are the ruined cities of a lost civilization which flourished on the North American continent a thousand years before the voyage of Columbus.
Stuart Chase has made the observation that in the five centuries immediately following the beginning of the Christian era, the civilization of the Mayas was the most advanced existing on the earth.
Very little is gnown of the Mayas, their origin, history, religion or culture, because of the wholesale destruction of Mayan writings and historical records in the early years of the Spanish conquest. Massive ruins of their buildings remain, and great stone tablets; but these are in a language as yet undeciphered. From the physical evidence and the material remains we know that the empire of the Mayas extended over a very large area; included were at least a hundred cities, connected by an intricate pattern of broad paved highways. Enough of the art of the Mayas has survived to entitle them to a high place in the sphere of creative aesthetics; and their massive stone and plaster buildings prove that they possessed a well developed knowledge of architectonics. They had observatories for the study of the arts and developed a highly accurate calender. Their written language, more complicated than the Chinese, is of a type suited to the expression of exact knowledge and the most refined mental and emotional reflexes[unlike the loads of bullshit you hear coming out of too many unpatriotic fools these days; u gnow who u r]
According to their own legends the Mayas owed their cultural superiority to a mysterious old man who came out of the sea riding on a raft of serpents. Among various tribes this man has different names, but he is best known by the title conferred upon him in the Mexican area. Here he was called Quetzalcoatl. He is said to have come from the east from the land of the many colored rocks. Quetzalcoatl carried with him the symbol of the cross. His name means the "feathered snake," or the "serpent covered with the plumes of the Quetzal bird."
The Feathered Snake taught the people of Central America all of the useful arts and raised them from a primitive state to one of excellent civilization. He instructed them in agriculture, architecture, medicine, science, language, religion, and statesmanship. Having accomplished the civilization of the Indian tribes, he ruled over them for a time as a benevolent priest~king. Then he returned to the shore of the sea, called to his raft of serpents, and then floated away to the east, with the promise to return at a distant day to rule over his nation.
When Cortez reached the coast of Mexico the Aztec King, Montezuma, dispatched messengers of State bearing with them the plumed crown of Mexico. The trusting Aztec thought Cortez was Quetzalcoatl returned, and was ready immediately to surrender the throne!
The Mayan Empire was the highest civilization to be developed in the Americas. Also, it was the first great democratic State on a continent curiously set aside for the perfection of the dream of democracy.
So far as we know, the rulers of the mayans were not hereditary, but were elected for life by the common agreement of the people. They seemed to have governed wisely and to have fulfilled the classical requirements of priest~kings. The priesthood itself was powerful but benevolent, given to learning, and a patron of the arts and sciences. The religion consisted of monotheism, that is, worship of one Supreme Principle abiding in the sun[the Well].
Next to Deity, peculiar veneration was given to the Feathered Snake, who was regarded as a kind of Messiah, who suffered, died, and arose again. The legend of Quetzacoatl was thus in parallel with the myth of the dying God, very much as in Egypt, Chaldea, Greece, and as expressed by the early Christian Church.
The Mayas were not a warlike people, and there is no support for the popular belief that they were by nature cruel or barbaric[perhaps a projection by the european invaders, who did share those traits]. On the altars of their gods they offered only flowers and fruit; and it is not until the decline of the empire and its domination by less advanced tribes that human sarifice was practiced, and then only on the rarest occasions.
It is believed that the Mayas hold the world record for continued peace[Guess the British weren't running things back then]. They flourished as a great powerful nation for five hundred years without war with other tribes or internal strife.
The high civilization attained by the Mayas was due primarily to the laws given them by Quetzalcoatl. So long as they obeyed these laws they continued to prosper[JUST laws means u don't have to have a bunch of money hungry lawyers interceding every five minutes] Unfortunately we have no complete record of their legal codes, but we do know a few of the outstanding principles which lay at the root of their State.
The Mayan nation was a collective commonwealth living under an advanced form of socialized order. They possessed all goods in common, and shared equally in the benefits of their production. They possessed no money or monetary symbol of any kind; and it has been suggested that this lack of currency was in part responisble for their five hundred years of peace[no parasitic bankers to fuck shit up].
To them the wheel was a symbol of death, and they never developed any form of mechanized industry. Each gave a part of his goods to maintain the state, and this contribution was employed to build public buildings, parks, schools, and places of public sport.
There seems to have been no poverty, and little if any crime. No buildings have been found which suggest prisons or other places of confinement
The Mayas were hospitable, kindly, gentle, and industrious; their cities were beautiful in every way; they were public spirited, well governed, and according to the order of their time, highly educated.
The religious temper of the peoplecan be gathered from the remnants that still survive. It is common to all the Indians of the Americas that religious intolerance is utterly beyond their comprehension. They look upon each man's religion as his own particular belief, and if it suits his needs it deserves the respect of all the other right~minded men.[None of this lets Control Ur mind bullshit we see so much of today; what gives you, some politician in dc the right to tell me what I can and can not do with my mind, what plant I can or can not grow? Fuck you GreedY Stupid PIGS, god's keepin' score and when judgement day comes u'll have no where to hide!]
Thus we see the archetype for a generous and enlighted way of life is part of the American continent's common inheritance.
It is well to note in passing that many of the simpler virtues practiced by the Mayas were shared by other tribes that inhabited North and South America. Although the North American Indians never achieved the high culture reached by the Mayas, all lived according to democratic tradition. The members of all tribes took care of their aged, provided for the widowed and the fatherless, and severely punished in the rare instances when some tribesman attempted to exploit another. Tribal government was invested in a council of the older and the wiser, and all matters relating to the common good were submitted to them for arbitration and solution. [i]Crime was almost unknown
As most tribes were nomadic they had little opportunity to develop inter-tribal points of view, and so there was considerable strife between tribes, but even in thir warfare, North American Indians respected valor and developed chivalry to a marked degree[Let me take this opportunity to point out it was the British that came up with the "innovation' of bombing civilian targets for terror]
The first League of Nations was created among the Great Lakes Indians of the American Northeast. First, five tribes, and later seven, combined under the leadership of the brilliant Indian leader, Great Rabbit, whose life has descended to us in Longfellow's poem, Hiawatha. The league of the seven nations was originally intended to be defensive, but also useful in settling inter~tribal disputes. It resulted from the simple discovery by aboriginal minds that one lived longer, more safely, and more happily if disputes among peoples were solved by arbitration rather than by open strife.
The Incas of Peru are second to the Mayas in the building of empire in America. Inca communities were also cooperative, and may of these villages still survive in the distant and less accessible high lands of the Andes. These were the only civilized communities in our land that never learned there was a world depression beginning in 1929.
Rooted in the American continent is a long and distinguished tradition that points towards the ability for leadership in the postwar world, along lines of cooperation and international points if view.
The democracy established by thirteen colonies in 1776 was not the first American democracy. At least two thousand yeasrs before the coming of the white man, the spirit of Human equality, Human cooperation, and freedom of worship flourished here.
~~~
2 those who still think they hate America: Get a Clue
In the jungles of Yucatan, Guatemala, and Honduras are the ruined cities of a lost civilization which flourished on the North American continent a thousand years before the voyage of Columbus.
Stuart Chase has made the observation that in the five centuries immediately following the beginning of the Christian era, the civilization of the Mayas was the most advanced existing on the earth.
Very little is gnown of the Mayas, their origin, history, religion or culture, because of the wholesale destruction of Mayan writings and historical records in the early years of the Spanish conquest. Massive ruins of their buildings remain, and great stone tablets; but these are in a language as yet undeciphered. From the physical evidence and the material remains we know that the empire of the Mayas extended over a very large area; included were at least a hundred cities, connected by an intricate pattern of broad paved highways. Enough of the art of the Mayas has survived to entitle them to a high place in the sphere of creative aesthetics; and their massive stone and plaster buildings prove that they possessed a well developed knowledge of architectonics. They had observatories for the study of the arts and developed a highly accurate calender. Their written language, more complicated than the Chinese, is of a type suited to the expression of exact knowledge and the most refined mental and emotional reflexes[unlike the loads of bullshit you hear coming out of too many unpatriotic fools these days; u gnow who u r]
According to their own legends the Mayas owed their cultural superiority to a mysterious old man who came out of the sea riding on a raft of serpents. Among various tribes this man has different names, but he is best known by the title conferred upon him in the Mexican area. Here he was called Quetzalcoatl. He is said to have come from the east from the land of the many colored rocks. Quetzalcoatl carried with him the symbol of the cross. His name means the "feathered snake," or the "serpent covered with the plumes of the Quetzal bird."
The Feathered Snake taught the people of Central America all of the useful arts and raised them from a primitive state to one of excellent civilization. He instructed them in agriculture, architecture, medicine, science, language, religion, and statesmanship. Having accomplished the civilization of the Indian tribes, he ruled over them for a time as a benevolent priest~king. Then he returned to the shore of the sea, called to his raft of serpents, and then floated away to the east, with the promise to return at a distant day to rule over his nation.
When Cortez reached the coast of Mexico the Aztec King, Montezuma, dispatched messengers of State bearing with them the plumed crown of Mexico. The trusting Aztec thought Cortez was Quetzalcoatl returned, and was ready immediately to surrender the throne!
The Mayan Empire was the highest civilization to be developed in the Americas. Also, it was the first great democratic State on a continent curiously set aside for the perfection of the dream of democracy.
So far as we know, the rulers of the mayans were not hereditary, but were elected for life by the common agreement of the people. They seemed to have governed wisely and to have fulfilled the classical requirements of priest~kings. The priesthood itself was powerful but benevolent, given to learning, and a patron of the arts and sciences. The religion consisted of monotheism, that is, worship of one Supreme Principle abiding in the sun[the Well].
Next to Deity, peculiar veneration was given to the Feathered Snake, who was regarded as a kind of Messiah, who suffered, died, and arose again. The legend of Quetzacoatl was thus in parallel with the myth of the dying God, very much as in Egypt, Chaldea, Greece, and as expressed by the early Christian Church.
The Mayas were not a warlike people, and there is no support for the popular belief that they were by nature cruel or barbaric[perhaps a projection by the european invaders, who did share those traits]. On the altars of their gods they offered only flowers and fruit; and it is not until the decline of the empire and its domination by less advanced tribes that human sarifice was practiced, and then only on the rarest occasions.
It is believed that the Mayas hold the world record for continued peace[Guess the British weren't running things back then]. They flourished as a great powerful nation for five hundred years without war with other tribes or internal strife.
The high civilization attained by the Mayas was due primarily to the laws given them by Quetzalcoatl. So long as they obeyed these laws they continued to prosper[JUST laws means u don't have to have a bunch of money hungry lawyers interceding every five minutes] Unfortunately we have no complete record of their legal codes, but we do know a few of the outstanding principles which lay at the root of their State.
The Mayan nation was a collective commonwealth living under an advanced form of socialized order. They possessed all goods in common, and shared equally in the benefits of their production. They possessed no money or monetary symbol of any kind; and it has been suggested that this lack of currency was in part responisble for their five hundred years of peace[no parasitic bankers to fuck shit up].
To them the wheel was a symbol of death, and they never developed any form of mechanized industry. Each gave a part of his goods to maintain the state, and this contribution was employed to build public buildings, parks, schools, and places of public sport.
There seems to have been no poverty, and little if any crime. No buildings have been found which suggest prisons or other places of confinement
The Mayas were hospitable, kindly, gentle, and industrious; their cities were beautiful in every way; they were public spirited, well governed, and according to the order of their time, highly educated.
The religious temper of the peoplecan be gathered from the remnants that still survive. It is common to all the Indians of the Americas that religious intolerance is utterly beyond their comprehension. They look upon each man's religion as his own particular belief, and if it suits his needs it deserves the respect of all the other right~minded men.[None of this lets Control Ur mind bullshit we see so much of today; what gives you, some politician in dc the right to tell me what I can and can not do with my mind, what plant I can or can not grow? Fuck you GreedY Stupid PIGS, god's keepin' score and when judgement day comes u'll have no where to hide!]
Thus we see the archetype for a generous and enlighted way of life is part of the American continent's common inheritance.
It is well to note in passing that many of the simpler virtues practiced by the Mayas were shared by other tribes that inhabited North and South America. Although the North American Indians never achieved the high culture reached by the Mayas, all lived according to democratic tradition. The members of all tribes took care of their aged, provided for the widowed and the fatherless, and severely punished in the rare instances when some tribesman attempted to exploit another. Tribal government was invested in a council of the older and the wiser, and all matters relating to the common good were submitted to them for arbitration and solution. [i]Crime was almost unknown
As most tribes were nomadic they had little opportunity to develop inter-tribal points of view, and so there was considerable strife between tribes, but even in thir warfare, North American Indians respected valor and developed chivalry to a marked degree[Let me take this opportunity to point out it was the British that came up with the "innovation' of bombing civilian targets for terror]
The first League of Nations was created among the Great Lakes Indians of the American Northeast. First, five tribes, and later seven, combined under the leadership of the brilliant Indian leader, Great Rabbit, whose life has descended to us in Longfellow's poem, Hiawatha. The league of the seven nations was originally intended to be defensive, but also useful in settling inter~tribal disputes. It resulted from the simple discovery by aboriginal minds that one lived longer, more safely, and more happily if disputes among peoples were solved by arbitration rather than by open strife.
The Incas of Peru are second to the Mayas in the building of empire in America. Inca communities were also cooperative, and may of these villages still survive in the distant and less accessible high lands of the Andes. These were the only civilized communities in our land that never learned there was a world depression beginning in 1929.
Rooted in the American continent is a long and distinguished tradition that points towards the ability for leadership in the postwar world, along lines of cooperation and international points if view.
The democracy established by thirteen colonies in 1776 was not the first American democracy. At least two thousand yeasrs before the coming of the white man, the spirit of Human equality, Human cooperation, and freedom of worship flourished here.
~~~
2 those who still think they hate America: Get a Clue