Aztec Major Beliefs and Gods

Check out this small summary on the religion of the Aztecs

Deities were plentiful, diverse, and like Aztec society were arranged hierarchically. The majority were anthropomorphic or human-like. Space was also hierarchically ordered in horizontal and vertical dimensions . There were five directions (which included the center) and 13 tiers above the earthe and 9 below. Ometecutli ("Lord of Duality") and Omecihuatl ("Lady of Duality") initially created all life and produced four sons named Tezcatlipoca who represented different cardinal directions and who were associated with different colors. Two of the sons, Quetzacoatl and Huitzilopochtli created fire, the first humans, the calendar, the underworld and its gods, the heavens, water and its gods, and the earth. Four ages, periods, or "suns" of 2028 years ensued and were terminated with cataclysms. Different humans in each period were destroyed or transformed. In the fifth or current "sun" Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl recreated heaven, earth, and the inhabitants Some deities required human blood for nourishment such as Tonatiuh, the sun god, and Huitzilopochtli, patron of the Mexica, and so war to obtain captives was undertaken and blood sacrifices including heart extraction were performed. However, being sacrficed to the Gods was considered an honor which meant people volunterred.

Open Mic Night.

I know, I know. This is a little late after the events of the Open Mic Night, but I was thinking better now than never. I really wanted to say that I could almost smell the emotional sincerity from the poems and essay spoken at the Open Mic Night. Some where very uplifting, some were quite comical (Kohl) and then there were those that really made you feel the pain that the Natives in the past experiences and how the deserve recognition just as the Jewish people did for the Holocaust. One poem talk about the Sand Creek Massacre and was nearly on the verge of tears after the spoke of the brutality and unmerciful hatred that left many Native's deaths in vain. I sympathized with her and asked  why people don't seem to know about this when they know the Slavery of the African Americas, the Holocaust, the Civil War. Truly it was a very powerful night.

Mexican Natives, American Natives.

My topic for the final paper was the struggles of the Mexican Natives in the current country of Mexico. Through all the studying and reasearch I have had to do whats kinda scary is the almost picture perfect simularities between these indigenous peoples struggles. They were all judged on their appearence and race, all of them were told to give up their religion or be brutalized and even to this day they still face racism in the present settings of the world. Being someone who has been to Mexico from extended periods of time, I almost feel stupid that i didn't pick up on this sooner. But then again, I also didn't even know how close the Tulalip tribe is to my home until Melissa showed me. Clueless.

Mexican Indigenous

I have been using this webite to check out some of the different mexican native tribes. I have actually met a woman who belonged to the Zapotec tribe and thanks to this website, I can learn a little bit of the language. According to this website a tribe had about 60 completely different languages in it's tribe alone. Nowadays Spanish is Mexico's pride and joy. Check it out.
http://www.native-languages.org/mexico.htm

Artistic Response

I'll admit that I postponed coming up with an idea for an Artistic Response till the end of last week. I originally planned to create a picture of different pieces of different colored paper but it didn't work out. Then Cori told me of her idea to create a altered book out of the "Absolute Diary of a Part-Time Indian and she agreed to let me and Beshoy help her with it. Now my role during the project was to help with the front cover while Beshoy and Cori cut out all the pictures we needed and created the introduction, middle body and ending of the story. We picked out the best comic pictures that Sherman Alexie included in his story such as the pictures of his loved one and family members like Eugene, His Grandmother and his Sister and pictures like his quite eventful trips to school every single day. Beshoy and Cori did a fantastic job of arranging them and add color to the pages. Cori also brought three different paint brushes with her and some different paints. I used these to paint the outlining of a Thunderbird that I drew from a pictire on Beshoy's computer. Orignally we were just going to print of a picture and glue it onto the cover but it sounded more fun to make our own, plus I was feeling artistic :). This bird was put onto the front page where we included half of Sherman's comic picture of himself being compare to a typical while student at Reardan. The front contain the Native Half along with the Thunderbird and the back half featured the While Half with a background of the American flag and a rather interesting picture of a unicorn from the book. This was definitely a fun project and we really turned Sherman's work of art into our own format. Great job team.

Should we forget?

We have all taken history classes and learned about this country's amazing and mindblowing history. But lately I have been hearing many people say that we must work towards a better future. And the only way to do that is to forget the past. Forget that this land was once entirely inhabited by Native Americans who were  cheated out of their land, and killed off by huge numbers and then the survivors were forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Even though this happened years ago, for many of them they still live in this exact same setting. When we refer to the Holocaust, many Americans say that we must never forget the pain and suffering that the Jews, Gypsies and Homosexuals went through. In a way, the Native Americans went through the exact same thing. Even in Sherman Alexie's novel we read, Junior referred to the reservations as internment camps. I personally believe forgetting is all about covering guilt rather than actually building to a fair future. Thoughts?

Special

After reading the story of Junior I remember an experience with racism I experienced as a child. When I was about 4, my mother and I moved into an apartment. Now for 2 weeks we lived in this place that turned out to be infested with bugs like spiders, centipedes, cockroaches, and other critters. Now when we tried to get our money back and leave that place, the landlord refused and stated that it was our "Special food" that caused the infestation. Luckily, my mother wrote down this quote and took the man to court and sued him for the money he took from us. I wonder if this sort of scenario is common for minorities without much money. Any thoughts?