Columbus Day got me thinking...
For one week in December my family and I relaxed in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. You'll notice my reading log reflects this glorious down time. I spent the majority of my vacation laying in a hammock on the balcony of my room, reading, reading, reading. It was wonderful.
But for one day I was down in Mexico, I visited Tulum, an ancient Mayan archaeological site. The ruins are located on a bluff right above the beach, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, facing the rising sun. The view is almost surreal.
Some of the buildings have been around since 564 AD but the majority are from the real high point in its history, around 1200 to 1521 AD. I could on about the history, but here it's better to get to what I really wanted to say.
When I walked through the opening in the outer wall of Tulum (which was only about 5'5" tall) the size and beauty struck me full in the face like an open-handed smack. And I wondered how a society which could build such a city, which encompassed such a large number of people, could be brought down by a few hundred Europeans. Of course, I know the intellectual answer. Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel is one of my favorite books, and I teach Ancient and Medieval World Literature, so I am familiar with the basic history. But the intellectual answers, the guns, germs, and steel, don't seem to cover it when you are standing, looking at such a powerful reminder of a culture that is all but eliminated from the earth's surface.I felt saddened by the loss. And yet, looking back now, do I really wish that the Mayans had won? That the Spanish had turned around and went back to Europe to let the "American" cultures progress as they saw fit? Unlikely. I like my life. I like my heating, air conditioning. I like my freedom, my flavored sickeningly sweet coffee. I even like the smell of gasoline.
So am I happy that the Mayans, Incans, Aztecs, Lakota, Sioux, Arapaho, Cherokee, Iroquois, Cree, Blackfoot, Inuit, Maliseet, Nanticoke, Potawatomi, Mohegan, Mohican, Abenaki, Wampanoag, Powhatan, Ottawa, Angoon, Aleut, Qawalangin, Ahtena, Ingalik, Niska, and the hundreds of other North and South American native trives were decimated, corraled, exterminated, and replaced?
A tough question to answer.
I was totally on board with you until I reached the gasoline part. I didn't know anyone like that smell!
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I spent a day at Tulum on our honeymoon almost 11 years ago and it really was amazing and it did cause introspection and awe. Great Columbus Day post.
I know the gasoline thing is not normal. I'm a bit strange. :) You know you are the first person outside of the family that was with me who has been to Tulum!
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