The Serpents Plumes

Download or read book The Serpent's Plumes written by Adam W. Coon and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2024-05-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Serpent's Plumes analyzes contemporary Nahua cultural production, principally bilingual Nahuatl-Spanish xochitlajtoli, or "poetry," written from the 1980s to the present. Adam W. Coon draws on Nahua perspectives as a decolonizing theoretical framework to argue that Nahua writers deploy unique worldviews—namely, ixtlamatilistli ("knowledge with the face," which highlights the value of personal experiences); yoltlajlamikilistli ("knowledge with the heart," which underscores the importance of affective intelligence); and tlaixpan ("that which is in front," which presents the past as lying ahead of a subject rather than behind). The views of ixtlamatilistli, yoltlajlamikilistli, and tlaixpan are key in Nahua struggles and effectively challenge those who attempt to marginalize Native knowledge production.

Download or read book Legends of the Plumed Serpent written by Neil Baldwin and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2012-08-28 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meticulously pieced together from personal experiences that come with years of travel, an extensive knowledge of the historic and scholarly works, and a deep appreciation of Latin American art and culture—both ancient and modern—critically-acclaimed biographer Neil Baldwin has created a mosaic of words and images retelling the myth of the Plumed Serpent (or Quetzalcóatl) as it has evolved through the millennia. He has also created an essential guidebook for the armchair traveller and passionate tourist alike. Only a few hours by air from the United States are the mysteries and hauntingly beautiful ruins of Mexico. Among the vines intertwined in the frail latticework of crumbling palaces, spiraling geometric motifs covering vast walls that sink beneath the jungle, and nearly vertical temple steps leading hundreds of feet to a dizzying view of sky and earth, images of Quetzalcóatl abound. The fanged, bug-eyed feathered serpent thrusts his malevolent, sneering head from the pyramid at Teotihuacán; he swims in a river of rock around the temple at Xochicalco; and at Chichén Itzá, serpent and jaguar dance on a trail of stone, their embrace spawning a monstrous snake with clawed forefeet. Depicted as part man, snake, and bird, the Plumed Serpent is the earliest known creation myth from Mesoamerica, the region spanning Mexico and most of Central America. He embodies good and evil, sky and earth, feast and famine—the duality of life itself. Steep, massive temples were built in his honor at Teotihuacán, the vast city of ruins near today’s Mexico City, and at Chichén Itzá in northern Yucatán, the intricate complex that includes the famed ballcourt. Moctezuma, the ruler of the Aztecs, mistook Hernán Cortéz and the invasion of the Spanish in 1519 for the return of Quetzalcóatl. The Catholic Church with its army of Franciscan monks adapted his legend to introduce the indigenous people to Catholicism. The myth enhanced Emiliano Zapata’s stature as a latter-day Quetzalcóatl during the Mexican Revolution. Diego Rivera and the modern muralists invoked his image to include indigenous themes in their state-sponsored art. And Quetzalcóatl inspired English author D. H. Lawrence to write a new “American novel.” These and many other tales are recounted in the words and images of Neil Baldwin’s Legends of the Plumed Serpent. Whether sharing a moment of reflection among the breathtaking ruins, delving into the historic role of Quetzalcóatl during the Spanish Conquest, or tracing the themes of revolution and rebirth in the art of Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, Neil Baldwin’s enlightening prose captures the imagination. Accompanied by numerous illustrations—many photographs taken by the author, and others painstakingly researched and gathered over the past decade—Legends of the Plumed Serpent is a true labor of love.

Download or read book Creating Authenticity written by Alexander Geurds and published by Sidestone Press. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Authenticity’ and authentication is at the heart of museums’ concerns in displays, objects, and interaction with visitors. These notions have formed a central element in early thought on culture and collecting. Nineteenth century-explorers, commissioned museum collectors and pioneering ethnographers attempted to lay bare the essences of cultures through collecting and studying objects from distant communities. Comparably, historical archaeology departed from the idea that cultures were discrete bounded entities, subject to divergence but precisely therefore also to be traced back and linked to, a more complete original form in de (even) deeper past. Much of what we work with today in ethnographic museum collections testifies to that conviction. Post-structural thinking brought about a far-reaching deconstruction of the authentic. It came to be recognized that both far-away communities and the deep past can only be discussed when seen as desires, constructions and inventions. Notwithstanding this undressing of the ways in which people portray their cultural surroundings and past, claims of authenticity and quests for authentication remain omnipresent. This book explores the authentic in contemporary ethnographic museums, as it persists in dialogues with stakeholders, and how museums portray themselves. How do we interact with questions of authenticity and authentication when we curate, study artefacts, collect, repatriate, and make (re)presentations? The contributing authors illustrate the divergent nature in which the authentic is brought into play, deconstructed and operationalized. Authenticity, the book argues, is an expression of a desire that is equally troubled as it is resilient.

Download or read book Stalking the Plumed Serpent and Other Adventures in Herpetology written by D. Bruce Means and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on his more than 40 years of field research, Means, an expert on the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, reveals the biological complexity and beauty of the animals he has studied. In Australia, Means searches for the fiercey, reputed to be the worlds deadliest terrestrial snake. In Mexico, he stalks the rattlesnake that might have served as the model for the mythical plumed serpent of Mayan art. In Florida, he is chased by cottonmouth moccasins. Through his experiences, Means hopes that readers will gain a new appreciation for animals called herps, or creepy-crawly things.

Download or read book The Myth of Quetzalcoatl written by Enrique Florescano and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2002-11-29 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive study, Enrique Florescano traces the spread of the worship of the Plumed Serpent, and the multiplicity of interpretations that surround him, by comparing the Palenque inscriptions (ca. A.D. 690), the Vienna Codex (pre-Hispanic Conquest), the Historia de los Mexicanos (1531), the Popul Vuh (ca. 1554), and numerous other texts. He also consults and reproduces archeological evidence from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, demonstrating how the myth of Quetzalcoatl extends throughout Mesoamerica.

Download or read book The 2012 Collection written by Daniel Pinchbeck and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-02-21 with total page 659 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in the years beyond 2012—discover the true meaning behind the hype that captivated the world. It should be no surprise to us now, but the pomp surrounding the coming of the year 2012 that grasped the human race’s attention in those preceding years was not at all about the end of the world. Instead, much to the contrary, Daniel Pinchbeck believes that the passing of the year 2012 marked the beginning of a global shift in consciousness—where the human race would begin to see the world and existence on this planet through a different lens, embracing fresh ideas about who we are and what it means to be human. Discover the true wisdom behind the 2012 phenomenon with these two captivating works by one of the leading minds in the movement—both in one place for the first time, and at one low price. 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl Cross James Merrill, H. P. Lovecraft, and Carlos Castaneda—each imbued with a twenty-first-century aptitude for quantum theory and existential psychology—and you get the voice of Daniel Pinchbeck. And yet, nothing quite prepares us for the lucidity, rationale, and informed audacity of this seeker, skeptic, and cartographer of hidden realms. Throughout the 1990s, Pinchbeck had been a member of New York's literary select. He wrote for publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Harper's Bazaar. His first book, Breaking Open the Head, was heralded as the most significant on psychedelic experimentation since the work of Terence McKenna. But slowly something happened: Rather than writing from a journalistic remove, Pinchbeck—his literary powers at their peak—began to participate in the shamanic and metaphysical belief systems he was encountering. As his psyche and body opened to new experience, disparate threads and occurrences made sense like never before: Humanity, every sign pointed, is precariously balanced between greater self-potential and environmental disaster. The Mayan calendar's "end date" of 2012 seems to define our present age: It heralds the end of one way of existence and the return of another, in which the serpent god Quetzalcoatl reigns anew, bringing with him an unimaginably ancient—yet, to us, wholly new—way of living. A result not just of study but also of participation, 2012 tells the tale of a single man in whose trials we ultimately recognize our own hopes and anxieties about modern life. Toward 2012: Perspectives on the Next Age An informed, challenging, and engaging collection of essays on the new choices in lifestyles and community as we begin the countdown toward the year 2012. This fresh and thought-provoking anthology draws together some of today’s most celebrated visionaries, thinkers, and pioneers in the field of evolving consciousness—exploring topics from shamanism to urban homesteading, the legacy of Carlos Castaneda to Mayan predictions for the year 2012, and new paths in direct political action and human sexuality. Toward 2012 highlights some of the most challenging, intelligent pieces published on the acclaimed website Reality Sandwich. It is coedited by Daniel Pinchbeck, the preeminent voice on 2012, and online pioneer Ken Jordan, and features original works from Stanislav Grof, John Major Jenkins, and Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky); interviews with Abbie Hoffman and artist Alex Grey; and a new introduction by Pinchbeck. Here are ideas that trace the arc of our evolution in consciousness, lifestyles, and communities as we draw closer to a moment in time that portends ways of living that are different from anything we have expected or experienced.

Download or read book The Primitive Mind And Modern Civilization written by Aldrich, Charles Roberts and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1999. This is Volume I of six of a series on Anthropology and Psychology. Written in 1931, this book looks at the psychology of the 'primitive' or a man who represents the common stuff of human nature, in an attempt to close the divide between anthropology and psychology. Two hypotheses, the existence and activity of a racial unconscious as the fundamental basis of cultural phenomena, and the overwhelming importance of a gregarious instinct in the development of society are presented in this book.