The Maya

And The Zapatistas

The Zapatistas are not yet history- their movements is still very much alive in the jungles of Chiapas, and their ideology of “Zapatismo” remains highly influential in newer movements such as Occupy. But the existence of the Zapatistas exemplifies a problem of history, which is a problem of interpretation. History is, after all, a process of interpretation, and it is very difficult to separate that process from the personal beliefs and prejudices of whoever is doing the interpreting.

Take the Maya, for example. Several hundred years ago, their Classical Maya ancestors built massive stone cities, waged war on each other relentlessly, and conducted large-scale human sacrifices. At some point, and no one knows exactly why, they turned their backs on the big cities, retreated back into the jungles, stopped carrying out the human sacrifices. The spiritual core of the ancient culture was carried on within their villages, which retained myths and rituals from the Classical era, but it is safe to say that their culture was transformed somehow from within.

 

The fact that historians refer to this as “the fall of the Maya” tells us everything about what is wrong with our own society. Many of these same historians insist on referring to the Maya in the past tense, as if they somehow stopped existing when they abandoned their cities. This is not just an oversight, because an invisible people has no power over its own destiny but must always be at the mercy of outside forces. When the Mayans decided they had had enough of being invisible, they rose up in rebellion under the Zapatista banner.

 

The Zapatistas are a revolutionary movement like no other. They are an armed movement, and they have waged war against the Mexican government in a limited way. But they commit no atrocities and they do not seek to destroy the structure of Mexican society. Rather, they use armed struggle almost surgically in defense of the ability of Maya communities in Chiapas to remain self-governing, self-sufficient entities. The Zapatista armed forces are firmly committed to the principles of participatory, “bottom-up” democratic government, and they take their orders directly from the village councils of the Mayan people.

 

As long as we continue to see endless growth and endless power-seeking as the defining norm in human relations, we will continue to speak of the “fall of the Maya.” If we choose to interpret history in a different way, we will see the story of the Maya very differently. They never fell, they just chose a different way of life and social organization- and they are still pioneering new possibilities that may benefit us all.

 

 

No Matter How Many Years Pass, We’re Still the Same

A recently translated Mesopotamian tablet has the archaeological world abuzz.  This 3500-year old tablet, translated from the Akkadian cuneiform script, does not speak of economic transactions, religious rites or the great deeds of kings as most ancient texts do, but instead is a collection of riddles and puzzles.  While the presence of such an object is not unique, it is still very rare.  Writing such as this provides a view of the more common person in ancient society and relates a bit about what concerned them in their lives.

This particular tablet displays some interesting takes on people’s views of politics, sex and philosophy in the age of Babylon.  In the ancient age, those who knew how to read and write were almost exclusively those involved in important religious matters and a few select others.  For this reason, writings of a purely entertaining nature were not a priority, especially when filling a tablet with characters often took a very long time.  The tablet shows the use of puns, symbolism and metaphor in order to relate ideas. 

These examples of creative, secular literature are important for historians in the modern age to get a full picture of what life may have been like 3500 years ago.  History is usually written by the victors, and often a very small, elite group of the victors, so the truths behind life are buried in religious ritual and propaganda.  Now we are one step closer to knowing what the ancient people of Mesopotamia thought about such universally important subjects as sex and beer.

Libertalia

Dream of a Pirate Utopia

Nobody knows for sure if Libertalia (also known as Libertatia) ever really existed. It's only referenced in a single source (“A General History of the Pyrates” by Captain Johnson), some of the dates given don't match up, and the source is not usually considered all that reliable in the first place. All we can say is that it might have existed, but what an interesting story if it really did.

According to the story, Libertalia was a pirate republic, dedicated to the principle that “ every Man was born free, and had as much Right to what would support him, as to the Air he respired... that the vast Difference betwixt Man and Man, the one wallowing in Luxury, and the other in the most pinching Necessity, was owing only to Avarice and Ambition on the one Hand, and a pusillanimous Subjection on the other.”

 

The pirates of Libertalia, if they really existed, governed themselves according to democratic principles. They sailed and fought beneath a white flag instead of the usual pirate Jolly Rogers symbol, and their main target was slave ships. When they managed to capture a slave ship, they freed all the slaves, and invited them to join in the pirate republic. They also seized anything else on the ship for their own use.

 

Perhaps what is interesting about Libertalia is not whether it really existed or not, but the mere fact that people imagined it. In an era in which inequality of every kind went virtually unchallenged, democracy was a mere theory, and slavery was everywhere, there were already people dreaming about a different kind of world. The pirates of Libertalia may or may not have really existed- but if they didn't, then they should have. In the final analysis, Libertalia is a myth- not in the sense of a false story, but of a truth that transcends mere fact because its reality is one of aspiration.

 

 

Using the Past to Prepare For the Future

Today’s world is plagued with worries about the way human beings are affecting the environment and whether the consequences of our actions will prove too much for us to deal with.  The other side of the argument preaches that there is nothing to worry about, for we have or can develop the technology to overcome any obstacle that may cross our path, including the threat of extinction.  In light of the very serious problems caused by overpopulating our earth and overtaxing its resources, it is important for people to look to the past and see what such damage can do.

Environmental degradation is a major factor in the fall of many ancient civilizations, such as the Maya and the Babylonians.  The stripping and misuse of the land prevents a growing society from being able to meet the needs of its people, inevitably leading to starvation and acting as a catalyst to collapse.  In a society as large as what we have today, a mass starvation event would kill millions, perhaps billions, of people.  It is imperative that we prevent such an event before it occurs instead of waiting for the

hammer to fall and then picking up the pieces.

It is these examples from history, these mini-events (comparably speaking), where we may find our answers.  By looking into the mistakes that were made and truly accepting that they may happen to us, there is a chance to gain insight into possible solutions.  The need for knowledge extends beyond environmental problems as well, and examples of past mistakes can help us in confronting a great many issues.  History has taken many human lives due to ignorance, and if we can not learn from those who have perished, what good have they done and what good does it do us?

Who Really Makes History?

On The Fallacy of "Founding Fathers"

Who is that makes history? We're predisposed to think of certain people as the history makers- men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are seen as the architects of the American Revolution, as if they somehow took down the British Empire in North America through the sheer power of their mighty importance as Founding Fathers.

The problem with this type of thinking is that they were just human beings, flawed like all human beings. So we revere them on the one hand and distrust them on the other, unable to fully reconcile their nearly-mythic stature in our national heroic narrative with their moral blindness as slave holders and otherwise less-than-ideal hero figures.

 

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson didn't make the Revolution in the first place. They were just participants, along with thousands and thousands of other people. If some now-nameless, half-trained, under-fed militia soldier dressed in rags and shivering in the cold of Valley Forge had not somehow found the inner strength to remain at his post and face an uncertain future, the Revolution would not have succeeded. That man, whoever he was, made the Revolution. So did the lonely wives and children waiting at home and scraping by without the assistance of absent fathers and husbands. So did the slaves on the Southern plantations, without whose labor men like Washington and Jefferson would never have had the leisure to take the roles they did. So did the Indians of Massachusetts, who donated two pounds sterling (a lot of money back then) for the relief of revolutionary Boston when it was besieged by British soldiers.

 

The Founding Fathers, for all their flaws, were brave men who fought hard and took great personal risks to move the world a little bit further in the right direction- further than they themselves ever knew or would even have welcomed. That's the role of participants in a process. Yes, Jefferson was a hypocrite when he wrote that all men were created equal. But once he wrote those words and the country committed to them, slavery was doomed.

 

It wasn't his personal act of writing the words that did it. It was the acts of thousands of ordinary people who committed to fight and die to defend the truth of those words- and could never afterward be comfortable with their own participation in oppression and injustice. History isn't made by “Founding Fathers.”

 

History is made by the 99%.

 

 

Shipwrecks in history

Terrible wrecks with high death tolls.

As we can tell from CNN’s constant coverage of the Costa Concordia wrecked off of the Italian coast this week, we are nothing if not obsessed with shipwrecks. Certainly the Costa’s wreck is a tragedy with more than eleven people presumed dead, but it is also a very visible reminder of nature’s constant control of human invention. It’s been entirely eerie to see the huge Italian ship jutting out of the water with the rescue boats dotted around it looking small and insignificant. But the Costa Concordia’s casualty rate makes it nowhere near one of the greatest maritime tragedies in history. Let’s take a look at some of the most tragic shipwrecks during which nature asserted her unyielding power:

S.S. Eastland. The S.S. Eastland was touring ship that took passengers on expeditions around Chicago. In 1915, the S.S. Eastland was commissioned to take employee’s of the Western Electric Company to a picnic in Indiana. Perhaps because of the Titanic’s missing lifeboats, Woodrow Wilson had recently required the ship to carry enough life boats for the passengers, but that many boats made the Eastland unstable. As too many passengers moved to the port side of the boat, it tipped over on its side, crushing and trapping many people on the lower decks. Despite being on 20-feet from shore, 845 died of the 2752 passengers onboard.

MS Estonia. In 1994, the MS Estonia was on its way from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden with 989 people aboard. The ship scratched another metal object around the Turku archipelago, but on inspection, no damage was discovered. Later, however, the ship fell starboard, trapping people in doorways and hallways and making it almost impossible to make it to the decks to escape on lifeboats. By this time, the boat had lost power, so it could not communicate its location to nearby ships, severely slowing down the rescue process. Only 137 of the ship’s passengers were saved.

RMS Empress of Ireland. In 1914, the RMS Empress of Ireland left Quebec City for Liverpool on the Saint Lawrence River. On the morning of May 29, the ship was travelling in heavy fog when a Norwegian boat called Storstad crashed into the ship. The Storstad was fine, but the Empress of Ireland sank in 14-minutes, killing 1012 of the 1,477 passengers and crew members aboard. Amazingly, a crew member who survived the sinking of the Titanic, the Lusitania and the sinking of this ship.

 

Stealing the Past

Back in the early days of archaeology, when the discipline first began to take shape, the emphasis in excavating a site was less in preserving and understanding the past and more geared towards acquiring the gold and other treasures that might lurk beneath the earth’s surface.  Though the science of discovering the past has evolved and become refined over the last 100 years or so and efforts have been made to stop the theft of artifacts, it is much too late for many of these old sites.

Unfortunately, the problem still exists to some degree.  Underpaid workers and modern treasure hunters sneak onto excavation sites, looking for artifacts that they can sell to make some quick cash on the black market.  Unexcavated sites also make good targets for these thieves, as there is rarely any security to keep treasure hunters away.

As the evidence of the past is removed, those who study the past lose context and point of reference.  Artifacts may be put into museums or, worse yet, private collections.  This limits the ability of scholars to put historical puzzles together and discover the hidden

truths.  Some things which could have come to light are now beyond knowing, thanks to past grave robbers.  Destroying this window into the past is one of the greatest crimes one can commit against history.

Currently, a new problem exists for historians and archaeologists.  Salvage laws allow sunken ships in international water to become the property of those who find them, leading to small groups and large companies alike seeking out the sites of shipwrecks so they can be looted and their contents sold off to collectors.  This means that historical finds are still under threat, though the new thieves are corporations, legally sanctioned to destroy the preservation of sites.  Unless this threat is dealt with soon, many more insights will be lost, to the detriment of all humankind.

The Real "Last Samurai," Sort Of

A Semi-Justified Trope

The amusing yet instructive website “tvtropes.org” serves as an encyclopedia of known tropes used in TV, books and movies. What is a trope? It's something in between an archetype and a stereotype. A trope is a story pattern or character type used over and over again in fiction. One of the tropes described on the site is “Mighty Whitey,” the trope exemplified by Tom Cruise's character in “The Last Samurai.” Mighty Whitey goes into an exotic yet bad-ass foreign culture of Noble Savages, comes to identify with their plight, and ends up becoming their warlord or god-king or their savior somehow, or just proves that he is even more noble and savage than they are. (For other examples of Mighty Whitey, see “Avatar” and “Dances With Wolves.”)

The website also discusses the concept of “Justified Trope,” in which a seemingly implausible trope actually has at least a little basis in fact. For example, there were actually a number of cases in which European adventurers went into remote areas and became members of the local tribe or even warlords, as in the real story on which “The Man Who Would Be King” (a classic example of Mighty Whitey) was based.

 

Similarly, there really was a case of a Westerner going to Japan in the 19th century, becoming a genuine samurai, and fighting for the old ways of the samurai class against the modernizing forces of the Meiji Restoration. His name was Eugene Collache, and he was a French naval officer who took the side of the Shogun in the Bakamatsu wars. He was granted a legitimate samurai rank and proceeded to go hog-wild with it, dressing as a samurai and fighting in samurai armor. Unlike Tom Cruise, though, he did not make a heroic last stand with sword in hand, survive a Gatling gun barrage, and then plead with the Emperor to maintain the culture of feudal militarism with Hollywood's strangely uncritical approval. Instead he led one of the Shogun's ships into battle, lost the battle, and escaped to France- where he was charged with desertion for joining a foreign military. Whitey, in this case, was not so mighty as all that.

 

Expanding Knowledge of the Past with Technology

By its very nature, archaeology is an infinitely complicated task which requires a vast collection of knowledge and expertise.  Millions of archaeological artifacts from thousands of sites need to be examined, interpreted and made sense of so that the links to the past can be deciphered.  It is only through this close examination that the truth can be revealed.  More often than not, finding these truths is a time-consuming and flawed process.  Artifacts are scattered over the face of the earth, making their homes in museums and generally inaccessible to most people, including many of those who would wish to study them.  Luckily, advances in technology are allowing greater access to pieces of the puzzles that need to be solved.

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology began a project that was designed to make their collection easier to catalogue and has since turned into an online database filled with photographs of and information about the items in their collection.  This gives a unique opportunity for people from around the world, both professional and amateur, to examine these objects with a capacity that is the next best thing to being in their physical presence.

Similar types of databases are being put together by other organizations, including several which provide information on current expeditions and excavations.  With all this information readily available to the general public, the number of minds working on these puzzles of the past has increased exponentially.  People from all over the world can now examine the evidence themselves, contribute their own theories and thoughts and possibly assist researchers by pointing them in directions where they may not have thought to look.

As amazing as the project is, it is only at its beginning.  Of more than 600,000 artifacts at the U of P Museum, only 25,000 have been imaged and put into the database so far.  Much work lies ahead before these databases can reach their full potential in helping to understand our world’s history.

The Genghisids

Spawn of the Khan

“There came into this world a blue-gray wolf, whose destiny was heaven's will.” Those are the chillingly beautiful opening words of “The Secret History of the Mongols,” the epic poem of the conquests of Genghis Khan. And Genghis Khan did a lot of conquering, beginning with Mongolia itself- which took most of his life- and moving on to much of the rest of the world, which only took him a few years.

Genghis Khan had a lot of children along the way, which has always been the prerogative of those whose destiny is heaven's will. Many of those children also had a lot of children, and many of these kids and grandkids did conquering of their own, founding dynasties in Mongolia, China, Siberia, Russia, Persia and elsewhere. These dynasties were known as the Genghisids, the descendents of Genghis Khan, and some of those lineages still endure in modern times. For instance, there was a Genghisid family of Russian aristocrats in Czarist times, one of whom was close friends with Dostoevsky. (There's a picture of the two of them in this article.)

 

Recent DNA research has allowed a lot of people to claim descent from Genghis Khan, but it's based on some pretty tenuous leaps of logic. At the same time, the premise is not that far fetched- the Genghisids would certainly have had far better opportunity to spread their DNA as widely as possible than just about anyone else in Central Asia at the time! The genuine Genghisid families, however- such as the Girays of Turkey- don't have to rely on a DNA test. It's all right there in the family tree.

 

 

Pages