Farts as Gods (15)

The Saw-Cross.

© Eso A. B., 2012

Cortes, a Spanish conquistador, brought with him to the New World not only advanced weapons (cannons and attack dogs), but a story that told that the dead, the sacrificed, those whom the Aztecs had torn their hearts out (prisoners, women, fhildren), would someday rise from the dead.

The Aztecs must have been amazed at the story’s daring, its unflinching make-believe, and straight-faced lie.

Of course, there is no record of what the Aztecs really thought, because the conceit of the Roman story tellers had already not only succeeded in imposing censorship on the subjective thoughts of any natives, but had persuaded themselves of the truth of their bold lie. The conquistadores or crusaders had imposed the same Truth (on penalty of death) on the people of the Near East and what we know today as Russia, Greece, etc. Their wilfull misconstruction and violation of the Arch-Christian belief (that self-sacrifice (sacrificing one’s self to God and one’s self) was the only way to create the charisma that bonded one’s community) was the cause of what became known as the “Great Schism”. Unfortunately, in the oral period of history and when books were copied by long-hand,, such a lie would was soon forgotten. Later, with the arrival of the  printing press, lies became especially creative and were preserved by multiplication and the art of copying.

If the historian who claims that today we live in days when history has ended is not quite right, he, nevertheless, is correct in so far as his claim suggests that today history has been turned into pure boredom through every day being pretty much the same as the day before and after, ‘ad infinitum’.

Today the Russian Orthodox Church, once the opposite pole of the ‘Great Schism’,  too, has let the days of its glory be ground down under the wheels of the Popemobile, and if once human life was believed to be God’s gift, then the mechanic of the contemporary Popemobile, one Žižek, has quite managed to turn faith into limp spaghetti. Which is not to say that Žižek is capable of self-sacrifice. The philosopher waves the want, but is caught as if dead by a photograph, which stops the deed of faith a fraction short of happening.

Surprisingly, the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus met with little resistance in Mexico. This was not because of the superior violent ways of the newly arrived conquistadores with which they impressed the Aztecs, but because the people of Tenochtitlan had already lived in an urban environment (implicitly violent) for some time. Though the Meso American urban environment did not manifest itself around a market place, a government building, it—like any urban environment—is artificial by nature and, ipso facto, warps the mind with numerous conceits and make-believes.

An additional reason why an unbelievable story succeeds in imposing itself on the mind of an urban landscape, is that it is a long long distance from being an egalitarian environment. An environment that is not egalitarian is habituated to artifice, and is constructed in the shape of a pyramid of wealth. In order to keep the pyramid functioning, its cap (the abode of the elites) must keep finding new ways to mete death to the populace below its golden rim, the matter below defined by a weaponized castle wall.

The remotenes of life in a city differentiates the city from life in the forest and field. The remoteness not only makes city life more vulnerable to accepting artifice as a matter of course, but does this because it avoids the natural environment altogether.

Footwear (a basic) is a good example. In the forest, a primitive loafer may be made of wood bark such as that of a linden tree, which bark when soaked easily flexes and bends. Too, a loafer may be hand woven from straw or hemp fibre. In the city, people are likely to want to mask such a loafer’s rough appearance by either carving it out of wood or making it of leather or enclosing it in a decorative cover.

The story of the Life of Jesus, just as the story of Kirtimukhti (see blog 14) has endured many changes. Unfortunately, the changes are not always immediately apparent. Elements of older or other versions of the same story are cleverly woven into a new version. A good example of this is how the unpromising GodNanaautzin (the pimply one, suffering from venereal disease) was able to after fifty-two years of near total  night make rise the Fifth Aztec Sun.

David Carrasco: “’When no sun had shone and no dawn had broken,’ the gods gathered at Teotiahacan to create a new age. They asked: ‘Who will carry the burden? Who will take upon himself to be the sun, to bring the dawn?”

After Nanautzin had bravely dressed himself for ceremonial suicide (self-sacrifice), he and a snail approach the huge fire pit into which he and the snail are supposed to jump to cause sunrise and put the Fifth Sun into motion:

“Onward thou, O, Nanautzin! [Shout the witnessking Gods.] Take heart! [Žižek!]”

The story teller continues: “Nanautzin, daring all at once, determined-resolved-hardened his heart, and shut firmly his eyes. He had no fear, he did not stop short; he did not falter in fright; he did not turn back. [He did not take example from the snail.]

“All at once, he quickly threw and cast himself into the fire; once and for all he went. Thereupon he burnt, his body crackled and sizled….

“Then the gods sat waiting to see where Nanautzin would come to rise—he who fell first into the fire—in order that he might  shine as the sun, in order that dawn might break. When the gods had sat and been waiting for a long time, thereupon began the reddening (of the dawn;) in all directions….” [‘City of Sacrifice,’ David Carrasco, p.79.)

Of course, this is not how Jesus died. Why should we trust the canonical version of Jesus’s death, if the only reason for accepting it is fear of government violence? Indeed, is the government not of the same men as those who in the men’s ceremonial house on the on the island of Fierro del Fuego’s demanded their women and children to believe them to be their Gods?