It was as if an expedition of black Africans had made their way up the Nile and across the Mediterranean to Italy and were trying to make enough sense of the Roman Empire of the Caesars to attempt to conquer it. – Norman Spinrad, Mexica
I think we need to make Norman Spinrad an honorary Chicano. His novel of the conquest of Mexico, Mexica, is the reason. It was published in Spanish in Mexico, where it was a bestseller. A film is in the works, in English, from El Uno productions.
Those are things that not many Chicano/Latino writers have accomplished. But, before you go online or to you're favorite bookstore to grab a copy, don't bother. This amazing novel is not available in English, or in America. Seems that Nueva York has treated Norman Spinrad like a Chicano.
He and his agent bounced the book all over Nueva York -- and couldn't sell it. Spinrad reports that most of the rejections were on on the assumption that:
. . . American readers wouldn't be interested in an historical novel about the key event in Mexican history, this in a country where there are at least 40 or 50 million Mexican-Americans fluent in English whose very culture and ethnic identity were the result.
Yet Mexica has a potential appeal far beyond the Latino Lit market. It's one of those books that has everything. Not just a bit of ethnic studies and historical curiosity, this rather straight reportage of the Conquest is more fantastic than the best science fiction and fantasy. It makes Star Wars and Lord of the Rings look mundane. There's action, adventure, horror, even romance. You want wild entertainment? Well, here it is!
2 Comments on Chicanonautica: Mexica, Norman Spinrad, and the Electronic Revolution, last added: 11/27/2010
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By: Gina MarySol Ruiz,
on 11/8/2007
Blog: AmoxCalli (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: libraries, books, language, Mexica, Aztec, Amatl paper, Add a tag
I’ve been getting a few questions on how to pronounce and spell my blog name AmoXcalli so I decided to give a little Aztec/Mexica culture lesson 101 from the indigenous point of view.
An Aztec book showing the foldsThe Aztec people were called the Mexica before the Spanish Conquest. The name Azteca was given to them by the Spanish conquistadores. From what I’ve been told by my family and fellow Aztec dancers is that as the Spanish were coming over a mountain and they pointed and asked the indigenous people who the people were that lived over that mountain. The people said, the Azteca – meaning the feather workers who lived there, the Spanish took it to mean the people as a whole and the name stuck. We call ourselves the Mexica, which is pronounced Meh shee ka. The letter X in Nahuatl (the Mexica language at the time of the conquest and still in use by over a million people in Mexico today) is also soft, almost like a whisper. Ssh. So if you’re saying flower Xochitl – you say Sho sheetl – the l at the end kind of get thrown to the back of your throat.
Aztec pictographs for the days on the calendar
Nahuatl is an accentuated language, where the emphasis occurs on the adjacent syllable of the last syllable. Nahuatl is what is called a Uto-Aztecan language. The majority of speakers live in central Mexico, particularly in Puebla, Veracruz, Hildago, San Luis Potosi, Guerrero, Mexico (state), El Distrito Federal, Tlaxcala, Morelos and Oaxaca, and also in El Salvador. There are smaller numbers of Nahuatl speakers throughout the rest of Mexico, and in parts of the USA. There are numerous dialects of Nahuatl.
One of the few existing Aztec codices
Classical Nahuatl was the language of the Mexica people, also called the Aztec Empire and was used as a lingua franca in much of Mesoamerica from the 7th century AD until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. The modern dialects of Nahuatl spoken in the Valley of Mexico are closest to Classical Nahuatl.
An Amate tree
Nahuatl was originally written in pictograph script and was often carved on stone or painted into books made of Amatl paper. Amatl paper was made from the bark of the amate tree and is still made in the traditional way today in various parts of Mexico. The Spanish called these books Codices or Codex and they destroyed most during the Conquest. The books were considered sacred and were filled with histories, knowledge of herbal medicine, astronomy, ritual, surgery and so much more that is lost forever. The books were folded accordion style and were read back to front, right to left. Sometimes they were written on animal skin, but usually with the Amatl paper. A book was called Amox (ah mosh) and a house was called Calli. Together Amoxcalli means library or literally book house.
This gives you a good idea of the detail within a codex and a sense of what we've lost.
Whole libraries were burnt to the ground and almost every codex or book destroyed during the Conquest. The few that remain are stored in museums in other countries like other important historical things from that era. For example, Montezuma's quetzal feather headdress resides in a museum in Austria. Aztec dancers like myself and other Mexicans have been protesting for years to have it and the codices returned to Mexico.
This is the Aztec pictograph for Amoxcalli.
2 Comments on The Meaning of Amoxcalli, last added: 11/9/2007
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By: Gina MarySol Ruiz,
on 11/1/2007
Blog: AmoxCalli (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: aztecs, danza, Mexica, Poetry Friday hosting, dia de los muertos, Day of the Dead, Add a tag
This week's poetry Friday lands on All Saint's Day, the day AFTER Dia de los Muertos. Two years ago I wrote a poem celebrating the birth of my grandson Aiden and honoring my grandfather - Salvador Medina Camarillo who passed away from complications of cancer in 1987. The poem is called Cien Años - 100 years because his favorite saying was that he was going to live 100 years. He didn't quite make it but he was the strongest man I've ever known and battled cancer from the 1960s till the day he died. The year my grandmother died in 1984 - he had 7 major surgeries in one month and a few months later was out breaking concrete with a sledge hammer. You'd think that with such vitality and strength he'd be rough and gruff - but no, he was the gentlest, kindest man I've ever met. He believed in paying it forward, doing good just for the sake of doing it. He did the right thing simply because it was the right thing and never had an agenda. He and my grandmother Maria Guadalupe Gonzales Camarillo or Dona Lupe as she was known, would be proud of what all these bloggers are doing for Robert's Snow and I honor their memory with each post for it.
My Poetry Friday post is a Day of the Dead altar of sorts. I hope you enjoy this little taste of my culture. I welcome you to leave a little candle of a comment on this altar for your loved ones who have passed.
I've attached my Papa Chava's (that's what we called him) picture along with pictures and video of the Day of the Dead ceremony last night in Lincoln Park. Please keep in mind I was dancing so the video isn't very good.
Cien Años
“Cien años”
You would say
In that
Raspy, gruff
Yet curiously gentle
Voice
“Voy a vivir cien años”
“Naci en el 1900”
You’d tell me
As together we sat
In the patio filled with my
Grandmother’s plants
Playing
Canicas, marbles that
Lived in the bright
Green MJB
Coffee can
“Cien años”
Square, determined jaw
Resolute cara de nopal
Face of un indo
Beloved grandfather
Affectionately called
Papa
“Deje Mexico durante el revolucion”
Sadness and shadows
Flittering through your warm
Brown eyes
That must have seen
So much
Loss and pain
Brave, brown man
Strong and honest
A working man
“Cien años”
As we hoed the neat
Rows of
Corn, chiles, cilantro, tomate
Bright red strawberries
Freckled like me
“Conoci al Al Capone en Cheecago”
Proud, smiling lightly
As we picked the lemons, membrillo and laurel
Destined for Grandma’s kitchen
To become intoxicating smells
Of a distant land.
Later
I learned of
The stockyards, the stench
Backbreaking work
Racism and hatred
He never once spoke of
“Cien años”
Rolling massive flour tortillas
In three quick thumps
Of the
Rolling pin
Sas! Sas! Sas!
And hands a perfectly round
White moon
To Grandma standing
At the comal
“Somos Aztecas, indios”
Crinkly eyes flashing
Big dimple showing
In your left cheek
Same as mine
Only deeper, much deeper
The “X” marks the spot
In a treasure map of a smile
As we watch
Los Voladores perform
“Cien años”
As you sat at the table
With the ever present
Playing cards
Shuffling with all the
Finesse of a Vegas dealer
And told me
Of the first time you worked
With your father
At age 3
And earned
Tres centavos
One you bought an olla with
Gave it and the remaining
Centavos
To your mother
“No cobramos por ayuda”
Every time someone tried to pay
For the sobadas
Given
By the healing hands
Of a sobador, a huesero
Those same hands
That carved a cherry stone
or a porous rock
into the face of a monkey
“Cien años”
Body racked with nausea
Losing your thick black hair
Fighting
That asbestos-caused evil
Cancer
From working in that place
That manufactured dishes
Gave you a turkey a year, Franciscanware
The apple pattern
Desert Rose
And the “Big C”
“Dios te lo pague, hija”
Each time I did something
For you
Or my Grandma
Out of love
For no other reason
But to lighten your load
Do something for those
That gave me so much
“Cien años”
As you kissed the
Forehead of your bride
Still in love
After decades of marriage
Dancing with her
To a bolero reminiscent of
Times past
“Tengo que trabajar”
After seven major surgeries
The month after
My grandmother’s death
As we tried to get
You to stop
Working
The hard muscle
Of your indio labor
Tucked under the wrinkled
Mask of frailty
“Cien años”
When the hospital
Sent you home to die
A thin man hiding his
Pain
Looking like
A woodcut
By Guadalupe Posada
“No tengo hambre”
As I parade your favorite foods
Chicharones en chile verde
Frijoles del olla
Burnt blackened tortillas
I never understood
Why you liked them that way
Almost 86
On that April Fools
Sunny day
I called to see how you were
And found you had gone
To Mictlan
"Fitting", I said
As I held my children and cried
Fitting for the practical joker
You were
Today
A great, great grandson
Came backwards into this world
Bearing your name – Salvador
In the Aztec veintena of
Tlaxochimaco
The Offering of the Flowers
In his name
Aidan Cesar Salvador Ehecatlpochtli
I gift to you this
Flower, this poem
This bittersweet tear
May you live on
In our memories, our stories
Our hearts and dreams
Por much mas que
“Cien años”
“Cien años”
You would say
In that
Raspy, gruff
Yet curiously gentle
Voice
“Voy a vivir cien años”
“Naci en el 1900”
You’d tell me
As together we sat
In the patio filled with my
Grandmother’s plants
Playing
Canicas, marbles that
Lived in the bright
Green MJB
Coffee can
“Cien años”
Square, determined jaw
Resolute cara de nopal
Face of un indo
Beloved grandfather
Affectionately called
Papa
“Deje Mexico durante el revolucion”
Sadness and shadows
Flittering through your warm
Brown eyes
That must have seen
So much
Loss and pain
Brave, brown man
Strong and honest
A working man
“Cien años”
As we hoed the neat
Rows of
Corn, chiles, cilantro, tomate
Bright red strawberries
Freckled like me
“Conoci al Al Capone en Cheecago”
Proud, smiling lightly
As we picked the lemons, membrillo and laurel
Destined for Grandma’s kitchen
To become intoxicating smells
Of a distant land.
Later
I learned of
The stockyards, the stench
Backbreaking work
Racism and hatred
He never once spoke of
“Cien años”
Rolling massive flour tortillas
In three quick thumps
Of the
Rolling pin
Sas! Sas! Sas!
And hands a perfectly round
White moon
To Grandma standing
At the comal
“Somos Aztecas, indios”
Crinkly eyes flashing
Big dimple showing
In your left cheek
Same as mine
Only deeper, much deeper
The “X” marks the spot
In a treasure map of a smile
As we watch
Los Voladores perform
“Cien años”
As you sat at the table
With the ever present
Playing cards
Shuffling with all the
Finesse of a Vegas dealer
And told me
Of the first time you worked
With your father
At age 3
And earned
Tres centavos
One you bought an olla with
Gave it and the remaining
Centavos
To your mother
“No cobramos por ayuda”
Every time someone tried to pay
For the sobadas
Given
By the healing hands
Of a sobador, a huesero
Those same hands
That carved a cherry stone
or a porous rock
into the face of a monkey
“Cien años”
Body racked with nausea
Losing your thick black hair
Fighting
That asbestos-caused evil
Cancer
From working in that place
That manufactured dishes
Gave you a turkey a year, Franciscanware
The apple pattern
Desert Rose
And the “Big C”
“Dios te lo pague, hija”
Each time I did something
For you
Or my Grandma
Out of love
For no other reason
But to lighten your load
Do something for those
That gave me so much
“Cien años”
As you kissed the
Forehead of your bride
Still in love
After decades of marriage
Dancing with her
To a bolero reminiscent of
Times past
“Tengo que trabajar”
After seven major surgeries
The month after
My grandmother’s death
As we tried to get
You to stop
Working
The hard muscle
Of your indio labor
Tucked under the wrinkled
Mask of frailty
“Cien años”
When the hospital
Sent you home to die
A thin man hiding his
Pain
Looking like
A woodcut
By Guadalupe Posada
“No tengo hambre”
As I parade your favorite foods
Chicharones en chile verde
Frijoles del olla
Burnt blackened tortillas
I never understood
Why you liked them that way
Almost 86
On that April Fools
Sunny day
I called to see how you were
And found you had gone
To Mictlan
"Fitting", I said
As I held my children and cried
Fitting for the practical joker
You were
Today
A great, great grandson
Came backwards into this world
Bearing your name – Salvador
In the Aztec veintena of
Tlaxochimaco
The Offering of the Flowers
In his name
Aidan Cesar Salvador Ehecatlpochtli
I gift to you this
Flower, this poem
This bittersweet tear
May you live on
In our memories, our stories
Our hearts and dreams
Por much mas que
“Cien años”
I began my Dia de los muertos early. I put in almost a full day of work at the office and then hopped a train to downtown L.A.'s Union Station. Once there, I walked through the train station at a fast clip carrying my bag of regalia. I crossed the street and walked through Placita Olvera - or Olvera Street. I took a few pictures of the altars there (more on that in another post). I ran across the street, swept through the inner plaza of La Placita - the oldest Catholic Church in Los Angeles, took pictures there and ran to catch a bus to Lincoln Park - Plaza de la Raza. I was lucky, the bus came within five minutes and I arrived at Parque de Mexico just in time to help set up the main altar.
This is some of the guys putting up a banner of Emiliano Zapata.
The main altar
The pungent smell of marigolds and copal perfumed the air as we worked together in harmony. I saw dear old friends, children who had played with my children now had children of their own. We worked hard and laughed a lot. We did the usual helping each other with headresses and regalia, admired each others handiwork and chatted away till the conch shells and drums called us to circle. Then we danced.
This is me in my regalia right before we entered the circle.
Dancing is praying for us. We dance in a circle. The main altar in the center belongs to our muertitos - that's where they dance. We danced for hours, well into the the night. Some of us took breaks but most did not. We danced in the four directions, giving honor to each. We prayed to Father Sky and bent down to Mother Earth. Rattles shook, drums were beating, flutes were playing, costumes and feathers were swirling. We honored our ancestors, we prayed on this sacred and holy night. We prayed. We honored. We kept our culture alive.
Some of the drummers.
The Virgen de Guadalupe is special to us.
We are the Mexica, we are Azteca, we are indigenous, indios, we are the sacred corn. We are devout people, devout to the religions of our choice, devout to our traditions, devout in our love of patria (country) and of our homeland. There is a prayer we say at the end of each ceremony that talks about how we are the sacred corn.
When I'm standing there exhausted after dancing for hours in prayer, when my senses are filled with copal smoke, drum beats and that otherworldy sense of sacred space, when I'm there with my face pointing to the sky, hands and arms raised to the heavens, when I'm saying this prayer aloud with 100 other dancers - then I know that we have something precious, a treasure in our culture and that it will live on forever so please don't ask me to assimilate and don't think I'm un-American because I love who I am. I stand on the strong roots of my past, I dance with my ancestors and I am so proud to be a Mexica woman.
Ometeotl. The round up is at Mentor Texts, Read Aloud and More. Thanks for hosting on this special day!
8 Comments on Poetry Friday - El Altar - Dia de los Muertos 2007, last added: 11/3/2007
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By: Gina MarySol Ruiz,
on 2/20/2007
Blog: AmoxCalli (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: education, Michael Sedano, danza, Mexica, Cuauhtemoc, Add a tag
I'm doing a lot of thinking this week as we get closer to the anniversary of the death of Cuauhtemoc. On Saturday, February 24th Danza Mexica Cuauhtemoc and other groups of danzantes around the world will honor our Gran Tata with cermonies of danza, musica, flores y prayers. My grandchildren and I will be dancing and bringing flowers to the altar. I always get reflective at this time of year. I think about what our people endured during the conquista, how we have survived genocide and walked through the fires of hate over 500 years. We've overcome so much and have so many hurdles yet to climb. We're a strong people, strong like the nopales that grow on the hillsides.
I started this blog two years ago in the spirit of Cuauhtemoc, to answer his call that we educate our children, that we teach and learn and grow. I don't have much to give, but I love books and literature and hope to share that, to inspire our people, all people to learn to love learning, to read, to search, to ask questions, to remember history, to educate and so much more. This blog is a labor of love for me and I'm grateful to do it. Like danza, where each danza is a prayer, an offering to God, our ancestors and our future, each post I add is a small prayer of hope for the future. Each post is an answer to Cuauhtemoc's call. I encourage those of you in the Los Angeles area to attend the Cuauhtemoc ceremony. You'll find the address and directions listed on the Baldwin Park circle's website. For those not in the L.A. area, we have danza circles in Arizona and Minnesota to name a couple. I'm sure you can find something in your area. It's a beautiful and moving ceremony that you will never forget. I leave you with some wise words from both Cuauhtemoc and my La Bloga compadre, Michael Sedano.
Mexica Tiahui,
Sol
From the FINAL DECLARATION OF CUAUHTEMOC
Last TLATOANI of the MEXICA /AZTEC People
AUGUST 13, 1521
" Our Sun has gone down Our Sun has been lost from view and has left us in complete darkness But we know it will return again that it will rise again to light us anew But while it is there in the Mansion of Silence Let's join together, let's embrace each other and in the very center of our being hide all that our hearts love and we know is the Great Treasure. Let us hide our Temples our schools, our sacred soccer game our youth centers our houses of flowery song so that only our streets remain. Our homes will enclose us until our New Sun rises. Most honorable fathers and most honorable mothers, may you never forget to guide your young ones teach your children, while you live how good it has been and will be. Until now our beloved Anahuac sheltered and protected our destinies that our ancestors and our parents enthusiastically received and seeded in our being. Now we will instruct our children how to be good. They will raise themselves up and gain strength and as goodness make real their great destiny in this, our beloved mother Anahuac."
To learn more about Danza Mexica Cuauhtemoc, please go to this link. There you will find lists of practices or ensaysos, articles about what we are about and photos of past ceremonies.
In the grand spirit of Cuauhtemoc, today on La Bloga, Michael Sedano has an amazingly powerful post entitled Because I do hope to turn Aged Eagles honor. It's an important piece of writing and one I hope will bring a slew of letters to PBS's door. Latinos have made so many unrecognized and unappreciated contributions to this country and it's past time that those contributions are recognized.
I started this blog two years ago in the spirit of Cuauhtemoc, to answer his call that we educate our children, that we teach and learn and grow. I don't have much to give, but I love books and literature and hope to share that, to inspire our people, all people to learn to love learning, to read, to search, to ask questions, to remember history, to educate and so much more. This blog is a labor of love for me and I'm grateful to do it. Like danza, where each danza is a prayer, an offering to God, our ancestors and our future, each post I add is a small prayer of hope for the future. Each post is an answer to Cuauhtemoc's call. I encourage those of you in the Los Angeles area to attend the Cuauhtemoc ceremony. You'll find the address and directions listed on the Baldwin Park circle's website. For those not in the L.A. area, we have danza circles in Arizona and Minnesota to name a couple. I'm sure you can find something in your area. It's a beautiful and moving ceremony that you will never forget. I leave you with some wise words from both Cuauhtemoc and my La Bloga compadre, Michael Sedano.
Mexica Tiahui,
Sol
From the FINAL DECLARATION OF CUAUHTEMOC
Last TLATOANI of the MEXICA /AZTEC People
AUGUST 13, 1521
" Our Sun has gone down Our Sun has been lost from view and has left us in complete darkness But we know it will return again that it will rise again to light us anew But while it is there in the Mansion of Silence Let's join together, let's embrace each other and in the very center of our being hide all that our hearts love and we know is the Great Treasure. Let us hide our Temples our schools, our sacred soccer game our youth centers our houses of flowery song so that only our streets remain. Our homes will enclose us until our New Sun rises. Most honorable fathers and most honorable mothers, may you never forget to guide your young ones teach your children, while you live how good it has been and will be. Until now our beloved Anahuac sheltered and protected our destinies that our ancestors and our parents enthusiastically received and seeded in our being. Now we will instruct our children how to be good. They will raise themselves up and gain strength and as goodness make real their great destiny in this, our beloved mother Anahuac."
To learn more about Danza Mexica Cuauhtemoc, please go to this link. There you will find lists of practices or ensaysos, articles about what we are about and photos of past ceremonies.
In the grand spirit of Cuauhtemoc, today on La Bloga, Michael Sedano has an amazingly powerful post entitled Because I do hope to turn Aged Eagles honor. It's an important piece of writing and one I hope will bring a slew of letters to PBS's door. Latinos have made so many unrecognized and unappreciated contributions to this country and it's past time that those contributions are recognized.
1 Comments on The Spirit of Cuauhtemoc, last added: 2/20/2007
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Ah, but an english version of the book exists. It was published by the Little, Brown Book Group in the UK on November 1, 2005. according to amazon.com, its ISBN is 978-0316726047 and/or 0316726044. And the LA Library has several copies.
Just sayin'...
I was aware of the UK version, and really glad to know that that the LA Library has it. But it is already out of print. If you want to get a copy in English, the ebook is the way to go. Meanwhile, Nueva York has missed the boat.