Book Review: Ancient Maya

Ancient Maya by Anita Ganeri, Compass Point Book, Minneapolis, MN, 2005.

This again is a children’s book, with lots of illustrations.  In fact the best part of the book is the illustrations.  The Maya people had their peak about 1700 years ago, and continued to exist until 500 years ago.  Their land was taken over by the Spanish, but their civilization had disappeared for the most part before this.  They had temples and pyramids, and made sacrifices to the gods, including human sacrifice.  They played an interesting game where they had to put a ball through a ring.  Because the ball was heavy, they wore pads for protection.  The Maya had developed a language, and still a few samples of their writing remain.  They had an agrarian society, but also had craftsmen and tradesmen.  One thing I didn’t know: “The Maya sometimes filed their front teeth down into point and other patterns.  The filled the gaps in their teeth with small pieces of jade.”  Sounds like a rough and stupid way to go—but this would have been the wealthy who had access to jade. 

Book Review: Native American Prophecies

Native American Prophecies: Examining the History, Wisdom and Starling Predictions of Visionary Native Americans by Scott Peterson, Paragon House, New York, 1990.

The author of this book has an agenda, and at lease he admits this agenda upfront in the preface.  “I have also been keenly aware that many important trends that have been building for generations appear to be coming to a head during my lifetime.  None of these are so critical to our future than what we human beings are doing to the earth.”  The author is hoping to write about environmentalism, and put that inside a book of Native American Prophecies.  He further writes in the chapter about the Mayans, “The most compelling evidence of Mayan influence, however, is the shared belief among all Native Americans of the sacredness of creation itself.  NO other culture that ever existed on earth has surpassed the native American reverence for nature.”  Some pretty bold statements.  First the influence of the Mayan may not  be so prevalent, and the common beliefs could come from some other party; perhaps predating the Mayan.  And then to say no other culture.  I am sure he is not familiar with every culture that has ever lived. 

The book leads eventually to his talking about Sun Bear, and environmental Native American prophet who has established a group of like minded individuals, Native Americans and others, and fostered in it a religion to “save the earth.”  The author quotes one critic, Professor Ward Churchill (wasn’t he cheering on the terrorists on 9-11) who said of Sun Bear, “selling of ersatz sweat lodge and medicine wheel ceremonies to anyone who wants to play Indian for a day and can afford the price of admission.”

In the end, my thoughts, are that this issue of environmentalism may be over blown.  I consider myself a conservationist.  We must do our best to conserve the planet, while also making way for people to live and prosper.  The author makes sure people’s opinions about President Reagan and George Bush (1^st) are known, in terms of environmental issues.  Al Gore and his mold have taken over this movement with the purpose of making money off of the sacrifice of others.  I am for clean-up days and dong our best to making our planet habitable for all, while at the same time making decisions to prosper us all as well.  I think we have gone a bit over the top at times.