Fascinating. I’m listening to a set of recorded lectures on “The Conquest of the Americas,” and Bernal Diaz is one of the sources most often mentioned. I probably read at least some of it in the course of ten years of Spanish classes, but that was a long time ago.
When I was teaching a religion class on Tuesday, I gave a quick summary of events in Joshua-through-Kings, and told the class that this is what people are like: lust, murder, betrayal, conquest. Then I asked the class, many of whom are from Mexico, if they knew about the Mayas. Some did, so I told them about the recent (since I was in college) translation of the Mayan glyphs, and how their inscriptions revealed a history of lust, murder, betrayal, and conquest. “This is what people are like, and only Christ can change them.”
I took a cruise last winter and visited some mayan ruins in beliz. according to the people there most of what is jungle now was at one time part of a vast metropolis among the maya. the temples that have been excavated are only the tip of the iceberg.
the tour guide explained the various blood sacrifices the mayans did. they would usually pierce themselves. but when times where tough they went on to human sacrifice.
if you google climate changes in the 800’s ad or about the time of the collapse of the maya—you’ll notice that there was a terrible drought in central america.
similarly with the collapse of the mocha in peru about 600 AD. there was a terrible el nino that caused rains to come perpetually. archaeologists have found highly decorated skeletons with bashed in skulls at the tops of the temples. Apparently, the priests sacrificed much of the elites in a vain effort to appease the gods and stop the rains.
I asked my mayan tour guide if she was a christian. she said yes but the wide eyed look in her eyes said it all.
If you know what came before , then you know that Christianity offers a very good deal.
btw, if you want to understand the mind of the precolumbians and the caananites—a good book to read is Julian Jaynes “the origin of conciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind.
The first 50 pages are very dense but they will give you some deep insights into the way your mind works. After page 50 or so the book opens out on the ancient world of the 3rd and 2nd millium bc. and then it goes to the transitional world of the 1st millenium bc and on to the new world that the spanish encountered.
Its fascinating.
The last part of the book breaks down because of Jaynes unitarian leaning. that is since he takes the low of christ—that means that words are invention and not something discovered like the mathematical laws to which math refers.
that means in Jaynes view words have no connection to the universe. they are just things that rattle around in the head. which in effect makes Jaynes very much like the pagans he describes.
A christian views Jesus as the word made flesh. God writing himself into human history—very much top down as well as bottoms up. that is Jesus is both fully God and fully Man. On that tension hinges western civilization.
http://s-f-walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/pdfs/Julian_Jaynes_The_Origin_of_Consciousness.pdf
If you google it —you can also find free online copies of Bernal Diaz book too.