Austria, Mexico battle over 'symbol of power'

Houston Chronicle ^ | Feb. 5, 2006 | MARION LLOYD

[MillerCreek]

Ha, excellent! I'm still laughing at your closing words, ha.

[parsifal]

Oh. I thought it was The Spear of Lorenzo. My bad.

parsy, the ignorant.

[MillerCreek]

Yes. but do they speak ENGLISH?

I noticed they are described as being in Santa Ana, which is in the United States.

Perhaps we should now "demand" they learn Gaelic. Or Latin! Latin, I say. That'd solve a lot of these problems of multi-language inability to converse in any one of them.

[television is just wrong]

you'd think they'd be more careful then.

[MillerCreek]

You might want to read more as to the actual history of the North American Southwest...some of it belonged to Spain and some of it belonged to Spanish ranchers after THEY took it away without asking and otherwise by force from Native Americans, who took it away by warfare from previous inhabitants, some of whom they ate.

The United States arrived afterward, struck agrements with Spain and seems to have taken the blame by locals who were still warring with one another, Spain and nearly anyone else.

The whole line that "Mexico" "owned" the United States Southwest is not accurate, given that most of it was purchased by the United States government fair and square.

But go read the earlier history of the American Southwest...there were other people in the area long before the Asians moved northward from South and Central Ameica and met with Europeans moving South.

[SAMS]

"This needs to be returned to Mexico and placed in the national museum"

"Many scholars think the headdress once belonged to the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II, who was defeated by the Spanish in the 16th century."

No it doesn't. It obviously needs to go back to Spain. To the victor go the spoils!

[TexasPatriot8]

Well, considering that before 1776, the colonists were not autonomous, and were under the thumb of the British, literally, and harshly, there is "separation". The U.S. doesn't hold a candle to the European powers when it comes to the horrendous crimes committed against Native American tribes. Most of the atrocities committed in present day U.S., was land occupied by France and Spain, and not in New England, which was all the U.S. had at the time. It wasn't until the 1830s and 40s that America really started to venture past the Appalacians.

So there is quite a bit of separation. And my wife is part Native American, and also an honors history teacher, so I bet she'd tell me if she felt otherwise. And by far the majority of Native Americans lived in present day Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, by a 4 to 1 to 5 to 1 ratio, yet when anyone talks about the rape and murder of Native Americans, the U.S. gets most of the blame. That's neither fair nor historically accurate. the U.S. was not only a very late arrival to the scene of the Americas as an entity that got to make it's own decisions, it was only on a fraction of the total land percentage of the two continents until the 1830s.

And harsh as it may sound, many of the Native American tribes that the United States did wipe out in the 1800's had it coming and it was a good thing they were destroyed, because they were horribly violent vicious tribes, cannibalistic in some cases, who raped, pillaged and murdered those in other Native American Indian tribes and nations. So it's not all the Native American tribes were pure as the wind driven snow either. Some of them were among the most savage and inhumane monsters to ever walk the planet and many a peaceful Native American woman and child was butchered by those warlike savage tribes that the U.S. Wiped out, and they had it coming.

[TexasPatriot8]

That is interesting, but there is really no Aztec nation or people's anymore that would give anyone in Mexico legal claim to that headdress, especially not anyone in the Mexican government, who in my estimation, only wants it because of it's value. There is no Aztec nation, like there is a Cherokee Nation, Seminole Nation, Iroquois Nation, etc so on. No reservations, no tribal councils, no cultural ties to current day people, thankfully no one carrying out old rituals. :) The civilizations of the Olmecs, Incas, Myans, Tultecs, and Aztecs have always fascinated me. The Aztecs to a lesser extent because they were so heavy into human sacrifice, sacrificing 500 or more people per day, and when times were "too" peaceful and there was no war going on to get prisoners to sacrifice, they would have games between rival "towns", with clubs used to render "participants" unconscious, but not kill them, thanks to the absence of spikes or obsidian blades, so they could be "captured" and sacrificed in the coming days. The "dedication" of Aztec "temples" (pyramids) would frequently involved the sacrifice of at least 1,000 live humans in a days, so the steps literally flowed with blood. They're the least favorite of the ancient American cultures. Blech.

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Oh for crying out loud!

Give them back thier feather duster after you charge them for it's storage and safekeeping.

2/3rds of it's overall value in gold should suffice.

[TexasPatriot8]

Except for islands such as Cuba and Puerto Rico where the pressures of the conquest killed off all of the native Indians in the 1500's, the Spanish conquest did far less harm to the Indian populations that the British conquests did. I’d recommend you check out the writings of Monica Pachon and Marco Palacios. They are both Hispanic historians who have extensively studied Native American history as it pertains to Spanish American influence, and it’s pretty clear that the Spanish did FAR more damage to Native American cultures in the American Continents than the British did. I mean, the sheer scope of the Spanish conquest in the Americas shows that. The only place the British had a substantial presence for a long period of time, was the Northeast Coast of North America, current day New England. Other than that, the British had no more than a token influence in the Caribbean Islands (Port Royal, Bermuda, Eleuthera, etc.) The Spain, for all intents and purposes, owned all of South America, all of Cental America, and much of North America, up through current day Texas, and the Southwestern States, and Florida, as well as 90% of the Caribbean Islands, and the "Spanish Main" and their other areas, they possessed for the better part of 300 years. The British never had a chance to rape, pillage, and plunder 90% of the American continents or Cuba, Hispanola, Jamaica (which was Spanish before it was British) and surrounding island chains, because the Spanish were already beating them too it and had for decades. It wasn’t until around the time that the Spanish Armada was destroyed that the Spanish Empire started to decline and England started to have an increased presence of power in the Americas, and that really wasn’t until the 1700s. And when you bring the U.S. into the mix, when it comes to wrongs done to Native American culture in the Americas, the U.S. is nothing but a plebe compared to the graduate students that Spain became in their 300 years of North, Central and South American conquest, compared to the 100 years of time in a comparably small area that the U.S. controlled and interacted with the Native Americans, before the U.S. finally grew up and began treating the Native Americans with the respect and dignity they deserved, and that the Constitution affords them as REAL original citizens of the country. That’s far more than what the Spanish, French, or British governments have ever done to make up for all the injustices they committed for over 300 years.

[TexasPatriot8]

Well, it's really not there's though Cyborg. The Aztecs are a dead people, and the "Mexicans" in government and 99% of their people have no more claim to that artifact than I have to the artifacts from Atilla the Hun because I am of Germanic decent. And Id' bet money that even if there are any "Mexicans" that can even remotely prove that they're somehow descended from the Aztecs, they're not the ones trying to get it back. They're probably too busy trying to eke out an existence in Mexico's screwed up country and trying to figure out the best way to sneak into America so they can feed their kids. They have more to worry about than some 500 year old headdress worn by some Aztec monster who spend his time butchering people tens of thousands of people. If Mexico spent as much time trying to employ their people and quit helping them sneak across the borders, as they are trying to get this artifact back, they would have their priorities more in order. :)

[TexasPatriot8]

Maybe we could cut a deal, get it from Austria for some price or the other, give it to the last illegal from Mexico on his return. YES! A briliant mind at work. I LIKE IT!!! :)

[cyborg]

It's their national treasure and should be returned. It's okay to say people should be returned their treasures without being a flaming liberal.

[Redcloak]

Oh sure... You can return it to Mexico, but who says it'll stay there? What's to stop it from sneaking back across the border?

[bannie]

OK, everyone give back anything they have that originated somewhere else.



duh.

[RebekahT]

Can we have a discussion about ancient artifacts originating from Mexico without bringing up modern-day illegal Mexican immigrants to the US? They really don't have anything to do with each other.

[TexasPatriot8]

Actually, there's not a real precedent set by that. The Ethiopian people of today are descended from the ancient peoples of Ethiopia, and unlike the Aztec nation, Ethiopia, while invaded by the Romans, they won, and became a Christian nation in 300 A.D.. Then the Muslims conquered them after the last Crusade, but were overthrown and Ethiopia is still a Christian nation (The Lion of Judah is on the national flag). Their people were never crushed and their culture and lifestyle never utterly destroyed like the Aztec nation. If Mexico can provide a single person who can prove a link to ancient Aztec culture, speak the language, show lineage, etc, and that person wants the headdress back in "Mexico", likely in a plush museum in a place where Moctezuma never was, they'd have a leg to stand on. Lacking that, it seems a stretch for Mexico to claim proper ownership of the headdress just because they currently sit on the land where their real ancestors destroyed the people who made the headdress.

Kinda like the Egyptians. The majority of Egyptians are not even remotely descended from the peoples who built the pyramids and were part of the Ancient Egyptian Empire, yet they're called "Egyptians" because they live in the land that for 5000+ years has been called "Egypt" in one language or another. But really, the Egyptian people of today have nothing genetically in common with the real Egyptians who build all the ancient Egyptian structures and artifacts. The muslims did a pretty thorough job of destroying the real original Egyptian people from 700 to 1400 A.D., when people, like today, had three choices when muslims took over a nation. Convert to Islam, be taxed to the point of starvation, forcing you to leave the country for a non-Muslim nation, or be executed, and millions were. If the real Egyptians were alive today, they'd have a thing or two to say about it, but they're all dead, hence Egyptians today speak Arabic and ancient Egyptian is a dead language. :)

People need to start looking at how many cultures and people the spread of Islam has destroyed the past 1400 years. All those who talk about the 200 years of legitimately bad deeds the U.S. has committed against Native Americans, that's a drop of water in the ocean compared to all the people Islam has butchered and the civilizations it's destroyed the past 1400 years. But that's another one of those things that the "progressive" liberal minded world doesn't want to look at.

[TexasPatriot8]

"You might want to read more as to the actual history of the North American Southwest...some of it belonged to Spain and some of it belonged to Spanish ranchers after THEY took it away without asking and otherwise by force from Native Americans, who took it away by warfare from previous inhabitants, some of whom they ate."

"The United States arrived afterward, struck agreements with Spain and seems to have taken the blame by locals who were still warring with one another, Spain and nearly anyone else."

"The whole line that "Mexico" "owned" the United States Southwest is not accurate, given that most of it was purchased by the United States government fair and square."

"But go read the earlier history of the American Southwest...there were other people in the area long before the Asians moved northward from South and Central America and met with Europeans moving South. "

That was SOOOOO frikkin good and brutally historically accurate, I HAD to post it all again in bold in it’s entirety. THANK YOU!!! Especially the fact that many Native American tribes were indeed cannibals and more brutal than anything the Colonists did to any of the others, including custer, the moron. The lack of any hint of revisionist history is both sweet smelling and quite satisfying. :)

[Polybius]

I’d recommend you check out the writings of Monica Pachon and Marco Palacios. They are both Hispanic historians who have extensively studied Native American history as it pertains to Spanish American influence, and it’s pretty clear that the Spanish did FAR more damage to Native American cultures in the American Continents than the British did. I mean, the sheer scope of the Spanish conquest in the Americas shows that. The only place the British had a substantial presence for a long period of time, was the Northeast Coast of North America, current day New England. Other than that, the British had no more than a token influence in the Caribbean Islands (Port Royal, Bermuda, Eleuthera, etc.) The Spain, for all intents and purposes, owned all of South America, all of Cental America, and much of North America, up through current day Texas, and the Southwestern States, and Florida, as well as 90% of the Caribbean Islands, and the "Spanish Main" and their other areas, they possessed for the better part of 300 years.

Yes, Spain "owned" all of that land.

But, the fact remains that the English method of colonizing was to exterminate the Indian or to ethnically cleanse the Indian from the land.

The Spaniard may have conquered the Indian and there is no doubt that the Indian was mistreated under Spanish rule but, except for the Caribbean islands that did not have a large enough Indian population to withstand the pressures of introduced diseases, the Indian was not exterminated or ethnically cleansed from Spanish lands.

As a result, when you see the average Mexican or the average Central American or the average South American, you see somebody with a rather hefty percentage of Indian genes.

By contrast, America east of the Mississippi is almost totally devoid of Indian genes.

The 17th, 18th and 19th Century Spaniard in the Americas, even those from "polite society", was willing to marry the Indian. The 17th, 18th and 19th Century Englishman and American, outside of some frontiersman, very seldom did.

[TexasPatriot8]

I'm sorry, but your argument really just doesn't hold up to historical scrutiny. The Spanish Empire wiped out many times the number if individual tribes, and many larger tribes, than the British did in New England. And the British were just as harsh with the Colonists when they started to break away as they were to the Native Americans, so it's not like the Colonists got a pass. Most of Central and South America as it stands today has the names it has because that is what the Spanish Throne named those areas when they turned the area into Vice Royalties, installing Vice Roys to govern them, because the area was too vast for Spain to govern on their own. England never had so much land in the Americas that they had to do that, and there were tens of millions more native Americans in the parts of North America that Spain took, as well as Central and South America and the many islands, than in New England. The Spanish even wiped out the Philippine people, who today are only a shadow of their real ethnicity before the Spanish came in and interbred with them. I laid out much that illustrates that the Spanish bear the lion's share of the blame when it comes to the rape and murder of the Native American civilization in the Americas, less than the British and French, and much less than the U.S. who weren't even making their own decisions regarding Native Americans until around 1785, so I really have no more to say. The evidence speaks for itself. Have a good weekend.