Timothy Knab's #book "Dialogue of Earth and Sky" on #indigenous beliefs of San Martín Zinacapan has completely upended everything I thought I knew about #aztec#witchcraft and #history
I didnt have a good understanding of the dream #magic and souls, but this blew me away.
Here is an excerpt. There is just so much material, stories, and folklore to go through and I am only through 1 of his #books
I have officially found the #aztec#history rain stealing story thanks to some help.
It was Puebla and Tlaxcala, and the anthropologist was Timothy Knab, the cultural anthropology professor at UDLAP and wrote "A War of Witches" and "Mad Jesus".
A local Curandero and others burned trees to create a blackened surface which absorbed the sun's heat and released it at night displacing the cooler, wetter mountain air towards Puebla.
One of the more interesting things I heard about #mesoamerica#aztec#history was an anecdote that one town would steal the rain of a neighboring town by burning certain trees on a specific hill to divert clouds to their side of the mountain.
Apparently this was done for centuries, but this was an anecdote I found a while back and I don't remember the names of the towns.
If anyone knows of this and can give me more info, I would be grateful.
"self maker" is interesting because it can be seen as "making your face" which means creating an identity and if you interpret ometeotl to be the interaction between energies instead of a god, it gives it new meaning.
basically, the universe is not your friend because that implies special treatment. You are not born special, you become special through personal growth and overcoming adversity (1/2)
One of the biggest mysteries I am having right now is the #mixtec#sabre
Every #mesoamerica or #aztec#history person I ask have either never seen this thing or only seen it shown in Mixtec codices and certain papers call it a sabre.
Mexicolore has a panel of experts and said they know nothing about it.
Codices often represent real weapons in them, but they can also be symbolic of something else.
Does anyone know more about this design of #sword ?
The more I engage non-polytheists (namely atheists, monotheists, and modern "spiritual but not religious" pantheists) on matters of #theology, the clearer it becomes to me that the way we discuss theism and Gods, even academically, has deep roots in #colonialism and #ChristianSupremacy. Think about who benefits from limiting the definition of "God".