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What are you sources for the theories you present? I have a degree in Anthropology and am in process of getting a degree in History. I am also of Mexica & Mayan Descent. You raise some good arguements but I would disagree with your statement of Native Americans from Meso-America having no relation to each other. The Mexica are not indigenous to area now known as Mexico City formerly Tenochtitlan. They are migrants from the North. I would suggest that you read the work Inga Clendinnen who has done extensive research on the civilzations and tribes of Meso-America. All Native Americans are broken down to into Language Families. Language shows connections. That is one way to distinguish a group of people from another. Uto-Aztecan does connect the Hopi,Shoshone,and Nauhua (Mexica)peoples together. Language roots is one way anthropologists have traced the Navajo back to their Athabaskan roots from further North. I would also contact Professor Richard Payne at the University of Utah who is also a Meso-American expert, richard.paine@anthro.utah.edu . If you wouldn't mind sharing your resource I would be interested in reading them.
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Good to see more opposition, makes the debates more interesting.
I also have a degree in Anthropology and am furthering my degree by pursuing my doctorate. One who claims to know much about Anthropology would have to have one's head stuck in the sand for the last several years to be unaware of the various theories regarding water migration and the New World. I didn't claim it was the only one, but as a scholar and a seeker of information, I do not recklessly disregard any theory until it is proven to be false. I merely offered it up for consideration. I take a Wittgenstein’s Ladder approach to Anthropology. To discard any theory simply because it isn't the one that has generally been considered true says much about a person's intelligence. Whether I am on a dig or working in the lab, I consider not only the materials that we find, but what we do not find as well.
My father-in-law, who passed away this past March, was considered to be one of the world's leading experts on the Aztecs and Meso America in general. Having taught Meso American Archaeology at UCLA for nearly 35 years tenured, it is obvious they considered him to be as well. So, you can imagine the conversations around our dinner table throughout the years. I am perfectly aware of where the Aztecs came from--as a people, a civilization, they lasted only about 150 years. However, their antecessors, mainly the Toltecs, migrated from north of present day Mexico City--but not, at least not within approximately 10,000 years or more, (should the land bridge theory ever be proved correct, it continues to be speculative although widely accepted) from the present day United States.
As far as being connected by languages, I stand by my statement. The present day North American Indians do not speak with the lateral affricative, with the exception of the Zuni. The "barred l" which is pronunciationed "thl", is quite soft compared to the harsh lateral affricatives of the Nauhatl language, which my father in law spoke, by the way. That they are linguistically related is not in question--what is in question is the amount of descent time between present day and the prehistorical migration. No one would deny that present day English takes much from the Romance languages and so they are related. But not every English speaker is an Italian or Frenchman by descent, correct? The Athabaskan tribes for instance, such as the Navajo, speak with the coronal affricative, completely unrelated to the lateral. Did they come from the same place, same group of prehistorical people? Again, we can only speculate.
When it comes down to it, we are all related. We share 99% of our DNA and can trace our ancestry through mitrochondrial DNA back to a single female. Does that make us each and every one, the same? Time, distance, and adaptations have made us different from each other. Shared culture, shared religious beliefs and ceremonies, shared language, shared traditions--these things make us the same. Native peoples of the New World no longer share these things, if indeed they ever did. All that any Anthropologist worth his salt can do is to speculate.
White Europeans came by ships (correct me if I'm wrong) and settled on the North American continent, accidentally meeting Indians who happened to exist on the land.
The Indians had no government. They had no laws. They just walked around anywhere.
Fast-forward to the year 2007, White Europeans have a government here now. They have laws here now. They have their living space here now.
I don't consider Europeans illegal - because in a sense they aren't. They didn't even know when they were on the ships that they would bump into an alien race. But a now days invasion into the the U.S. is illegal, the U.S. now has a government, period.
White Europeans came by ships (correct me if I'm wrong) and settled on the North American continent, accidentally meeting Indians who happened to exist on the land.
The Indians had no government. They had no laws. They just walked around anywhere.
Fast-forward to the year 2007, White Europeans have a government here now. They have laws here now. They have their living space here now.
I don't consider Europeans illegal - because in a sense they aren't. They didn't even know when they were on the ships that they would bump into an alien race. But a now days invasion into the the U.S. is illegal, the U.S. now has a government, period.
There's much truth in what you say--unfortunately, few people in the current "debate" have a lot of use for the truth. Mostly people pick and choose those PARTS of the truth that support their position. Other "truths" are ignored.
MOST of the Indians in present-day Anglo-America were, as you say, pretty much without any true form of "civil government" as we'd know it today. The exceptions, perhaps,were the very affluent Indians in the coastal areas from Oregon on north..(highly-advanced canoes and houses, totem poles, lots of leisure time, mild climate)---Those around the Great Lakes (formed a sort of alliance between differing tribes)---and those of coastal Southern California (dense population--recognized certain "acorn-gathering" rights inherited through the mother---my own wife's ancestry). Most Indians up this way, however, were pretty much nomads, and their population was VERY small. Some were of practically a stone-age level of primitiveness (Paiutes, for example). Huge parts of Anglo-America were, for all practical purposes, uninhabited.
In Mexico the situation was quite different. Here the Europeans encountered what was, in many senses, an actual "country". It had a dense population, permanent cities, an elaborate social hierarchy, and the Spaniards actually found themselves in the position of conquering, and invading, a foreign country, rather than an "empty" land.
In the politically-correct fantasy-land of modern-day illegal imigration, much is being made of the immigrants' imagined "rights" to come here because "they" once owned the place. This is only possible by making many HUGE leaps of the imagination.....nothing is being said about the Indians' intense and nasty rivalries---nothing is being said about the fact that MOST Modern Mexicans are of substantial European heritage (and some are all too eager to mistreat their "fellow" Indians)---and nothing is being said about any collective GUILT these people may bear (If you're going to talk about "group entitlements", how about also admitting "group guilt"?....nope !)
The result is what we now see--the "Aztlan" movement, a hopelessly irrational tangle of part-truths, fantasies, racist rants, a few plain lies, and the constant reference to an imagined "near-paradise" that is alleged to have existed here before the "evil European" arrived and destroyed it. Wonderful plot for a science-fiction novel, but not of much use as a serious subject for discussion. Before the Europeans came and "beat up" on the Indians, killing, subjugating and mistreating them, they were busy beating up on, killing, subjugating, and mistreating EACH OTHER---(with an occasional human sacrifice thrown in for "good measure").......
In the politically-correct fantasy-land of modern-day illegal imigration, much is being made of the immigrants' imagined "rights" to come here because "they" once owned the place. This is only possible by making many HUGE leaps of the imagination.....nothing is being said about the Indians' intense and nasty rivalries---nothing is being said about the fact that MOST Modern Mexicans are of substantial European heritage (and some are all too eager to mistreat their "fellow" Indians)---and nothing is being said about any collective GUILT these people may bear (If you're going to talk about "group entitlements", how about also admitting "group guilt"?....nope !)
Has anyone tumbled to the fact that even the 'Aztlan' types seem to have little interest in places like Guatemala, etc. where there was/is substantial Mayan influence yet the former lust after our Southwest?
It is as if the Aztlaners want the goodies (decent infrastructure, etc) built by 'Anglo' society whereas I bet if the Southwest were desolate the above would not care nearly as much. Note there were very few people of any race/ethnicity in the above northern areas prior to 1848.
Has anyone tumbled to the fact that even the 'Aztlan' types seem to have little interest in places like Guatemala, etc. where there was/is substantial Mayan influence yet the former lust after our Southwest?
It is as if the Aztlaners want the goodies (decent infrastructure, etc) built by 'Anglo' society whereas I bet if the Southwest were desolate the above would not care nearly as much. Note there were very few people of any race/ethnicity in the above northern areas prior to 1848.
It boils down to: Money
You're so right-the whole movement requires a huge capacity to think "selectively"...for example, what "might have happened" to California had the "yankees' never arrived.? HINT...take a close look at Sonora or Baja California today. ...that's what California would PROBABLY be like....but never mention this to Aztlan folks...it doesn't fit their 'story line'...The yankees came here and "stole" the Golden Gate Bridge, the Movie Industry, the California Aqueduct, the Riverside Freeway, and Fresno.....get it?..
You're so right-the whole movement requires a huge capacity to think "selectively"...for example, what "might have happened" to California had the "yankees' never arrived.? HINT...take a close look at Sonora or Baja California today. ...that's what California would PROBABLY be like....but never mention this to Aztlan folks...it doesn't fit their 'story line'...The yankees came here and "stole" the Golden Gate Bridge, the Movie Industry, the California Aqueduct, the Riverside Freeway, and Fresno.....get it?..
Alternate history time here:
Suppose we had taken all of today's Mexico back in 1848?
One uber rich country down to Guatemala with the rule of law (with a very short, easy to patrol border )------and, most likely Belize would also be a US state (it was British Honduras till 1981).
Interstate 5 all the way to Capo San Lucas, telephone International Access Code '1', well trained/well paid police officers along with honest judges, the US Dollar, Americans of Aztec, Mayan, etc. heritage living in nice homes with running water, etc.
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