The New York Times described the decipherment of the Maya hieroglyphs as "one of the great stories of twentieth century scientific discovery." Tragically, this decipherment was only necessary because of a one-man Spanish Inquisition, a deliberate, decades-long campaign by a single Catholic priest to destroy the Mayan language and culture. The priest, Diego de Landa, wiped out all knowledge of the written language, and nearly destroyed the spoken language too.
Diego de Landa's one-man inquisition perfectly illustrates the power of the Intolerance Meme, an idea that evolved in the Jewish religion a few centuries before the birth of Jesus, and was taken up with a vengeance by Christians in the third and fourth centuries AD. The Intolerance Meme declares that not only is Yahweh the only god, but in addition, anyone who worships other gods is committing a sin. The Intolerance Meme justifies all sorts of atrocities in Yahweh's name: Murder, slavery, forced conversion, suppression and destruction of other religions, racism, and many other immoral acts.
This was Diego de Landa's background when he discovered that many of his Mayan "converts" had actually incorporated the Catholic Yahweh/Jesus/Spirit, along with the various saints and angels, into their own traditional religion. When Landa discovered "idol worship" among some of his converts, he felt that his "children" had turned their backs on him, and his life's work was a failure.
Being a good Roman Catholic, and a carrier of the Intolerance Meme, Landa was furious – he saw this as a betrayal, and started an inquisition that resulted in torture and death across the Yucatan region. He was determined to wipe out all knowledge of the Mayan religion, and saw the Mayan language and hieroglyphs as a key. Fifty years later, in 1699, Spanish soldiers burned a town that had the last school of scribes who knew the Mayan hieroglyphs. By 1720, not a single person alive knew what the hieroglyphs meant.
The Roman Catholic church's response? They punished Landa. But not for murder, not for torture, and not for destroying an entire culture's history. No, none of these things were worthy of the Church's sanctions. Diego de Landa's crime was that he carried out an inquisition without authorization.
It took over two hundred years, and an international team of linguists, anthropologists, archeologists, mathematicians, an architect, a few brilliant hobbyists, and one twelve-year-old child prodigy hieroglyphics expert, to undo the damage that Landa caused. Armed with their fierce determination and perseverance, they recovered the written language, bit by bit, word by word, symbol by symbol. Thanks to this dedicated group, the meaning of almost 90% of the hieroglyphs is now recovered.
As for Landa, he had to spend a few years under house arrest in Spain, contemplating his disobedience and praying. Once he'd done his pennance, he was promoted to Bishop of Yucatan, and sent back to Central America where he lived out the remainder of his life.
Special thanks to filmmakers David Lebrun and Amy Halpern-Lebrun, who graciously agreed to be interviewed during my trip to the Red Rock Film Festival in Utah. I highly recommend their excellent film, Breaking the Maya Code. You can also watch the shorter one-hour Nova version online, courtesy of PBS and WGBH Boston.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
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39 comments:
And I thought the goatse.cx meme was bad.
LOL, the Catholics are nothing but a giant CULT anyways.
Jess
www.anonweb.net.tc
One bad Catholic does not make the entire Catholic Church bad. Just like one bad US Senator does not make all of the United States bad. You have an interesting article, but I sense an axe grinding against the Catholic Church, which reduces the impact of your writing.
Tim, did you miss the part about how Landa was not punished for murder and torture, but only for conducting an unauthorized inquisition? And later was promoted to Bishop and sent back to Central America where he completed the destruction of the Mayan written language?
I don't need an "axe to grind" against the Catholic Church – it sharpened the axe for me centuries ago.
tim, unless youre just being sarcastic... come on now, im sure we all know theres more than just one bad apple in the catholic church...
thats it, im forming an atheist rock band to spread the word of wisdom across the lands.
I agree with Tim.
You make it out like all of the bad things that happen in the world occur due to religious intolerance. What about the extermination of the Native Americans? They weren't killed off for their beliefs, but for their land.
Regarding the one-bad apple meme, it's somewhat the same with Islam: 99% of Muslims give the rest a bad name.
I wouldn't call it a "meme", because it is supported in the Bible: "you shall have no other gods before me". I'm not saying it's a good idea though, and this is yet another example of how religion makes a mess of everything for no reason
Anon,
Actually, most of the Native Americans were killed by accident, by European diseases. My book, The Religion Virus, devotes an entire chapter to how disease and other semi-accidental factors, helped Christianity spread. Those Indians who survived were indeed massacred for their land, as you say. But don't forget, this genocide was at least exacerbated by Christian morality, which (at the time) encouraged a view that killing non-Christians was not necessarily a sin.
Any discussion like this is dangerous, because "Christian" is far too broad a term. There are, and have always been, good people and evil people, in every faith, and of no faith. The point of the story of Bishop Landa is that his Roman Catholic faith was directly responsible for his actions, and the official response of the Roman Catholic church was, by today's standards, immoral.
Hey, second Anonymous person, there was plenty of religious reasoning behind the early Spanish oppression of indigenous Americans. And even for centuries after that, they and other people of color in what was becoming the US were denied rights and treated poorly, with justification coming from whites' belief in their own supremacy, that God was on their side. Sure, there was plenty of non-religious motivation, but to say religion had nothing to do with it is very naive.
@ Paul Betts:
Of course it is a meme -- the bible is a human document that is full of them. It was written by people, for a purpose. It was not written by a god. Until you really understand that, you miss the entire point.
Memes are analogous to living organisms -- they propagate, they reproduce, they infect, they even kill. Memes often have "immune systems" whereby competitors -- other memes -- are attacked and destroyed.
The Intolerance Meme is crucial to much of modern religious "success" -- if you call widespread delusional behavior and psychopathic actions "success".
Yah, religion! Isn't it great!
good old communists following the athiest meme in the ussr killed far more. guess athiesm must be wrong! i called it a meme because i dont like it, and am too intellectually lazy to have a real debate.
Excellent example of how the idea of "they're like me, so they can't be bad" (used by all of humanity, but largely by theistic apologists- i.e. "That guy who bombed the abortion clinic was a Christian, so he isn't THAT bad" or "Kay Hagan accepted an award from atheists; that means Kay Hagan isn't a Christian") is a poor way to mentally organize others.
The Global Warming Meme declares that not only is man-caused global warming a fact, but in addition, anyone who denies this is committing a sin.
------------------------------
The Sexual Equality Meme declares that not only are women equal to men, but in addition, anyone who holds women as property is committing a sin.
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The Emancipation Meme declares that not only are all men created equal, but in addition, anyone who enslaves another man is committing a sin.
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The Nonviolence Meme declares that not only are is nonviolence holy, but in addition, anyone who assaults another man is committing a sin.
------------------------------
Obviously I am not defending what Diego did, but your logic is faulty. Some things are legitimately worthy of Intolerance. Slavery, murder, genital mutilation. I am Intolerant of these things. Aren't you? Diego's mistake wasn't Intolerance, it was the belief that Heresy could be objectively defined.
Get your arguments straight, or your book will suck.
Brock is right, of course. There is no "intolerance meme". Intolerance is not an idea; it's a behavior implicit in other ideas, of which there are very many.
And as for the Catholic Church's inadequate response, you're making far too much of it. Obviously Landa's actions were unpopular within the church or he wouldn't have been charged with anything at all. As it was, the crime of unauthorized inquisition was the easiest with which to convict. (This calculation happens all the time in modern courts.) I doubt the bureaucratic apparatus was equipped to handle crimes of "destryoing an entire culture's history".
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh .... one more mention of that word MEME and I'll go Inquisition on your ass.
How old are you 12? Learn to express a potentialy interesting article without repetition of MEME.
All that data gone. It is sick.
Paul...
You mentioned,
"I wouldn't call it a "meme", because it is supported in the Bible: "you shall have no other gods before me"."
Yes, the bible does say that. It does not say "you shall have no other gods before me and if you find anyone with them, destroy their culture.
And now for a comment which doesn't even mention religi... (d'oh!)
Thank you for bringing this up and summarizing it so succinctly. While I haven't (yet) seen the movie which evidently inspired you to comment, I doubt it sums the situation up quite so neatly either.
Despite (slowly) having reached similar conclusions as to Landa's ultimate legacy, this is the first time I can recall ever reading any analysis of the subject which has stood back far enough to be able to "connect the dots" and directly state what should be obvious to all:
One man's misguided actions created (most of) the need for an entire research field.
Whew.
Sucks to be Landa, who no doubt meant well, but seems destined to end up a loathsome footnote, like Pedrarias Davila.
Even though at first glance, this tale from long ago might not seem so relevant to today's world ... it clearly shows, among other things, that it's never too late to admit the truth!
Anon above: ironically, the opposite is true. If it weren't for Landa, who saved a syllabary of Mayan script and wrote the only contemporary Mayan ethnography ("Relacian de las Cosas de Yucatan"), there would be virtually no basis for modern research into ancient Mayan culture and language. He was the first Mayanist.
He was also responsible for the destruction of a great deal of Mayan writing. But the loss of original documents happens naturally when one culture replaces another. In fact, evidence of cultures that no longer exist is often limited to what Catholic missionaries consciously wrote down. The Celtic civilization is a good example of this. If it weren't for Catholic missionaries, we would know nothing about it. What makes Landa remarkable -- and what he's remembered for -- is what he saved, not what he destroyed.
So don't believe everything you read on the internet.
"Ironically" your defense sounds like praising nazis because they had not managed to kill ALL the jews and so some survived death camps.
"Loss of original documents happens naturally" - especially if you add oil and fire to a pile of them. Seriously, gimme a break and take your silly defense elsewhere.
Who can defend his actions? Nobody. But to say he created the need for an entire research field is way off base. The opposite is true. He made a conscious effort to record Mayan culture and writing, and in so doing started the research field. Without him we wouldn't have that much.
PS. Godwin's law so soon? Come on.
I have read that Landa was not concerned with pissy Catholic resentment towards idol worship so much as his objection to the resilient tradition of human sacrifice - a cause which began when he saved a seven year old from death - and in the course... Read more of extirpating which he himself incited the deaths of many in a variety of excruciating ways.
The Mayan civilization perished at the end of the First Millenium and it is suggested by the time De Landa arrived no living person understood Mayan hieroglyphs.
He burned "idols" and Mayan texts, a massive act of cultural vandalism, but I also see Landa's Relacion De Las Cosas De Yucatan was an ethnographic masterpiece which ironically enough preserved the Mayan language for posterity and ultimate decoding: albeit in a form he did not understand.
But sure.... bad bad bad bad.
"Where one burns books, one will soon burn people." --Heinrich Heine
How stupid does a group of people have to be to forget their own language even when it is destroyed?
Sid - How stupid do you have to be to not even read the article's headline? The part where it says, "destroyed the ... WRITTEN language"? The Mayan people kept their spoken language and culture alive, and in fact were a huge help in the process of rediscovering the meaning of the Mayan hieroglyphs.
Those of you who are defending Landa for "saving" the Mayan language with his syllabary, halting human sacrifice, etc., have interesting points ... but it's not that simple. Landa was a complex man, and did many good deeds, as well as some very bad deeds. You should see the documentary before you jump to conclusions.
The syllabary was indeed instrumental in decoding the hieroglyphs, but Landa also gathered hundreds of books and burned them. Only four books survived, and they were probably far more important than Landa's syllabary. His syllabary would have been pointless if he hadn't destroyed the books and schools, and prohibited the teaching of Mayan writing.
According to filmmaker David Labrun, in spite of Landa's actions, he was still widely mourned by the Mayans when he died. His legacy is not simple.
Craig,
Do you not see that your logic is pretty bad here? You're applying the division/part of the whole fallacy.
And also, just attributing everything to a meme isn't a rational point. You are making a philosophical claim which you would be completely unable to provide empirical evidence for.
You've yet to explain how you can even know that you are not carrying one of these negative memes. You operate on the assumption that your viewpoint is the correct one and any religious viewpoint is obviously carrying some sort of malicious viral meme yet you provide no empirical evidence of this.
How do you know you aren't just carrying an irreligious meme which hates all things religious? How would you go about empirically proving this rather than making philosophical claims?
those arguing against the article seem to have their own religious bias. diego behaved as he did because of his religion (Catholicism) specifically. had he not been a follower of Catholicism (probably Christianity in general), he may not have responded as he did.
if we switched Catholicism to Islam in this article i nearly guarantee those attempting to point out the "weakness" of this article wouldn't be roused enough to respond.
Catholicism's been the foundation of many evil, terrible things. as has atheism, being Caucasian, having a penis, etc. evil spans most physical/spiritual boundaries, but that doesn't mean it's inappropriate to point out the specific areas within which said-evil has been fueled. and it absolutely doesn't make the author's writing any less elegant.
that aside, i re-read the article twice and i fail to see any subliminal opinion. looks objective to me, and seems that those offended are taking offense to the factual history of Catholicism, perhaps because of their unwillingness to admit the extent to which these olden atrocities reached.
Religion is the biggest farse in History. It alienates people against each other. It causes destructive conflicts amongst cultures that last centuries. Unity through Diversity, We All Are One!
The only thing worse than a religious zealot is an atheist zealot.
Get over yourself.
Wow, thats downright scary when you think about it!
RT
www.online-privacy.tk
Religion cannot survive without coercion. How's that old saying go: change a man's mind against his will - he remains of the same opinion still?
It's interesting how Christians of today look with disdain at religious terrorists, forgetting that without the pro secular enlightenment period of the western world we'd still be bowing to tyrants who fancy themselves divine.
No religion can survive without coercion.
William S Burrough wrote all about this many years ago. Read all of his books. he was hipper than anyone in the 20th century. it's not easy to read his books [that means ALL of you], but worth it for the wisdom.
Face it. There is no God. Morality is arbitrary. We can not Judge the past out of context. If we want to say that someone has done 'wrong', it has wrong by the standards of THAT time, not this time. he was judged, in his own time. We try to obsess over other peoples morality, and ignore our own.
To be fair, what kind of culture is that that can be wiped out by one determined moron with some soldiers? Making huge generalization, they hardly reached the level of Middle Kingdom Egypt.
Insert Theo Roosevelt's war with savages quote :)
rraven, you can't be serious. That's the most morally bankrupt comment I've seen in a long time. Might makes right? If I can beat the crap out of you, does that mean it's OK to force you to do whatever I want?
Craig A. James: no, not might. Pity for unnecessary destruction of many artifacts, but it was a primitive culture, destroying it and replacing it with much more advanced culture is obviously good.
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