A call to heal through danza and organize through community
A response to: “The 'Aztec' Mask of the Counter-Indigenous
Movement in North America" by a self-proclaimed Mexican/Comanche active member of the U.S. Armed Forces
The title of this alarming piece accusing unknown individuals of a type of neo-fascism is "The Neo-Mexica Movement - The Aztec Mask of the Counter-Indigenous Movement in North America". It is an interesting article that makes a lot of good points - but cuts a dangerously broad swath with rhetoric devoid of depth beyond the interpersonal annoyance the author expresses. Because the critique has resonated in many forums, both American Indian and right-wing, I choose to address some of the more confused allegations made by the author. The author did make some valid points about connecting native ways to native
struggles (EZ) and realizing how powerful and valuable indigenous daily
knowledge is. We do not need to try to be what we are not – who we are, and what
gifts we carry are powerful in and of themselves. I’ll skip the explanation of
why the word “tribe” is just plain wrong when addressing most native peoples in
Mexico in the interest of addressing more fundamental issues you raise.
Here's the crux of the author's argument:
"there's a group of Mexicans that know they are indigenous, but they try to connect to their indigenous roots by resurrecting a dead tribe, or disrespecting tribes in North America. Lait of these disrespectful Mexicans are hobbyists, and promote 'Neo-Mexica nationalism' that is counter-indigenous'. It's time to put all confusion aside and acknowledge Mexicans in the indigenous world as brothers and sisters the right way, instead of seeing them though colonial eyes as those "Brown" people South of the border. "
Yet, I find it a
curious omission from the author's list of "tribes" to exclude the almost 2,000,000 individuals in Mexico today
who speak Nahuatl - Mexicano – Azteca. Was that a willfully negligent act or a
reflection of ignorance or a simple oversight? While not all Nahuas would call
themselves Azteca, most elders do. That's right elders, because the strongest
Azteca elders are actually those most fluent in Nahuatl - a few of which
actually serve as court interpreters in the California court system
interpreting in legal cases for Nahuas who have migrated north from Morelos, Guerrero,
and Puebla to work in fields and factories and even in Disneyland. Yes,
Disneyland is probably one of the largest single employers (exploiters) of
Aztecas in the US. By all means, Mexico has over 60 recognized native peoples,
Guatemala over 36 – all survive with honor and share a common struggle for
peace with justice and dignity. The fact, however, is that the Mexican
government has sought to disappear native peoples through assimilation,
demographic manipulation, forced relocation and even, of course, genocide. This
makes for a very confusing century of shame, born on the shoulders of every
succeeding generation.
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| Semillas y la flor del fuego |
More to the author's point, I
recognize that many others may share the common concern for the ‘pseudo-indian’ or even
the ‘neo-indian’. Putting 'neo' in front of almost any identity makes it sound
fascist (i.e. neo-aryan)- but the contradiction is that most would not call any other native
people 'neo' even though all native nations are engaged in cultural
regeneration around the world – when at all possible. This does take place
however, whenever a native people are more than a demographic minority (concerns about the growing political strength of Indigenous Peoples in Bolivia and Ecuador are a case in point).
Interestingly, and with few exceptions, the threat of any organized indigenous
polity or even well organized plurality is a threat to both the ideological and
material new world order of modern colonial-neoliberal domination. For example,
for decades native peoples in California were strategically ignored, and many
are still denied recognition by the federal and state governments. This strategic vilification of the
regeneration of indigeneity-as-a-threat is an on-going narrative of the Doctrine
of Discovery and its various manifestations of control. To be sure, the legacy and identity of
the ‘Mexica’ is complicated and fraught with misinterpretation – most of which
was either carefully constructed by the apologist chroniclers of the European
invasion or recklessly perpetuated by ignorant anthropologists and bureaucrats each for
their own malevolent or ignorant causes.
The fact is that our Mexica ancestors were both a recent development
(Mexico-Tenochititlan was only founded about 500 years before the invasion),
and a regenerative response to new conditions based upon a millenarian culture
rooted in the ways of native permaculture - Toltecayotl. After the invasion and
destruction of the initial fifty years in which the horrors of barbarism at the
hands of priests, soldiers and colonizers decimated millions, Mexica persons
did survive seeking shelter throughout the land of the confederation. What also
survived despite religion and slavery was the autonomy of the community
collective, the calpulli. Today, the Nahuatl oral tradition abounds with the
living memories of those survivors of the central polity and the extension of
the memory “since time immemorial” of the origin of Tolteca Peoples lives on to
this day in the tecuanes, tlacololeros and tlamatini of Nahuatl traditions. Importantly, throughout Mexico Distrito Federal and the cities that surround it, entire barrios are documenting and reclaiming their pre-invasion status as cultural-political units of community as well.
Danza Azteca, was only
one response of many to the brutality of slavery, colonization and genocide. I
see it like the more recent experience of the pow wow tradition in the
twentieth century and its relation to the survival of and resistance to the brutality
of boarding schools and forced relocation after military domination by anglo-europeans
in what is now the U.S. and Canada. Danza Azteca was a way our ancestors
re-imagined their relation to nature and to each other. How else ought we heal?
Many urbanized ‘American Indians’ must have to face these challenges even today
when due to forced relocation many can't even qualify as 'members' of any
single 'tribe' based on the racist rules of blood quantum most ‘American Indian’
“sovereign nations” in the U.S. follow. I've seen tall blonde haired, blue-eyed
danzantes identify as Mexica also. One I know is an elder from Guadalajara, Jalisco
who carries a very strong Palabra in that city and throughout Mexico - his sons
do as well throughout the U.S. too.
Just like the tradition of the canoe is today re-imagined and remembered along the coast of
California by native peoples here, so too does the jaguar and eagle dancer throughout
native Mexico, re-envision the steps of the dance and the beat of the drum.
Remembered by elders and re-envisioned by youth, who every generation make
increasingly self-determined steps away from the colonizers’ religion towards
autonomous relations with Mother Earth, the cosmos and other native peoples –
Danza Azteca retains the spark of hope as an entryway to a basic call of
consciousness as native people. What is essentially unique about Danza Azteca in
many experiences is that the danza circle, mesa or grupo create family, clan
and community – in a way often not available to these individuals in their own
biological families. This regeneration of community and filial bonds is no less
native and genuine than any of the other multiple adaptations and forms of
resistance native peoples, families and individuals have made for hundreds of
years on the face of European domination. By the way, the author never did define the origins of the name "Mexica". To keep it simple, suffice it to say that they are the same origins of the word the author preferred, Mexicano and even of Chicano.
So while we're busy
trying not to be fascist, we may take into consideration that not all of our
descendants will look chocolate brown with long black flowing hair anymore.
If we truly understand that race is itself a racist social construct, then we
have to discard the attempt to racialize ourselves. The Office of Budget and Management
(who runs the Census) in the U.S. is going to try it again by deeming
'Hispanic' a race. Who knows, maybe that will force those of even "one
drop" of native blood to exclude themselves from that category. More
importantly, there are powerful new legal constructs and concepts in
international law that should be considered here - fought and won by Native
elders and advocates from around the world defining 'indigenous' and emphasizing
the role of culture and 'self-determination'.
(see: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IPeoples/EMRIP/Pages/ExpertMechanismDocumentation.aspx#advice1
AND http://aztlanlibrepress.com/2011/11/indigenousquotient/ )
While my strongest
critiques of anyone claiming any traditional role in native culture is of
substance abuse and abuse of others such as women, children and even naive
Europeans on a search for culture and belonging - the sharing of
knowledge should be a part of our continental intergenerational and
international regeneration as native peoples. Yes, respect is fundamental, but
obviously if some of the Pueblo spiritual leaders have found ways of incorporating
the "Comanches" into their ceremonials and even "Aztecs" in
full danzante regalia in others, there is a way to share. Clearly, all native Peoples, from the most remote and
traditional on to the most lost and isolated urban individuals are struggling
to overcome the generational traumas of colonization. This is even harder yet
because the nightmare is not over. Somehow, we have to heal in the midst of the
continual infliction of pain and suffering.
From the populist
winds of change in South America to the EZ to the #IdleNoMore movement, one
thing is certain - the change is taking place now. So I welcome our
introspection, as a Mexican. And I welcome the author's observations as a self-proclaimed Mexican/Comanche. I
question the author's motives as a veteran of U.S. imperialism abroad, and I challenge
the author to connect the kernel of truth in his conviction with a respect for the
living tradition and traditionals of the Danza Azteca-Chichimeca way of life.
Certainly, we don't need any pipe-smoking, or pyramid-building neo-fascists of
any persuasion but let's not let new found literary animosity towards the
living or imagined descendants of the Mexica Confederation (RIP 1521) (not
tribe) become a new master narrative against the savage natives.
Where I also find agreement with the author is in the fact that the nationality of Mexicano/Mexicana is by definition an indigenous identity of modern construction with ancient roots. Yet, it is also
a product of the cultural and political strategic solidarity between native
Mexican leaders and criollos at a particular point in human development when
the constitutional nation-state seemed to be the most progressive social form
on earth to some. Three hundred years later, we must realize that all
nation-states are nothing without the precursory reliance on global capitalism –
making it implicitly exploitative and degrading to humanity and nature alike.
So the individual or community seeking to distance self from domination through native
self-determination or experiences in autonomy, like so many danzantes or
‘adherentes’ and Peoples/Pueblos throughout Anahuac (this name for North
America doesn’t bother you does it? Is it too Mexica?) are in fact engaged in a
personal transformation akin to the cultural rebirth witnessed in the Chicano, the 'Red Power' and the Black Power Movements.
Our greatest challenge
is to go beyond the limited personal struggle for identity, or worse - a
newfound sense of mystical religiosity, to engender autonomy of community and
self-determination as Peoples. Most certainly, this struggle, is
no hobby, but a way of life, a generational obligation and a spiritual path.
Over the past century, life for many indigenous Peoples have both advanced
beyond the slavery of the hacienda and entered new, complex global dimensions
of struggle. The human world, we hope, is re-adjusting itself to the natural order of
life after a millennium of damage in the name of imperialism, yet the harm is
done, many elders warn, and Mother Earth needs time and space to heal. This is
in many ways, the most important role of danzantes – the question, is how many of
us realize this obligation? And how many of us are committed to the life of a
healer in all of the multivariate ways this can be experienced?
With all due respect, the author's Facebook post is his own – but I thank him for the provocation and the on-going
inquiry into 'us'.
It's weird how often the truly radical neo-fascists in North America can get half truths and twist these into a sort of logic palpable to fearful consumer masses. Yet, truth be told, the fact that claims of racial, cultural and military superiority keep surfacing as valid arguments to defend colonization and domination over Native Peoples serve to remind us all that the threat of our mere existence as original Peoples strikes fear into the hearts and bones of the real empire's minions.
True, political constructs such as 'state', 'sovereignty' and 'nation' were the products of warped intellectuals seeking to justify genocide, slavery and exploitation. Yet, after over five hundred years of proximity to original Peoples, the minions of domination have learned so little about our natural political constructs in this continent. If they had cared to learn from original Peoples, our shared humanity and mother earth might form the bonds of a more perfect union. Alas, the task at hand is to overcome the scholarly ignorance of the state, the vitriolic speech of the war-mongers and the passive witness of the fearful as we assert our own definitions of self and regenerate balance through peace with justice and dignity.
May the spirit of regeneration guide your life and work - Xopan Cueponilistle is the rebirth of life on Mother Earth celebrated in each Azteca-Mexica-Anauaka new fire ceremony.
Se sentetl se xinaxtli, se sentetl se tokani
-Tlayecantzi Marcos Aguilar (Anauakatl)
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