Zapatistas: the power of an Indigenous uprising in Mexico

Friday, January 26, 2024 – Zapatistas: the power of an Indigenous uprising in Mexico

Subcomandante Marcos, left, one of the more recognizable spokesmen following the Zapatista uprising in 1994. (Photo: Oriana Eliçabe / Flickr)

Another excellent presentation on Native America Calling. I happened to catch the end third of this program as I was driving to the grocery store.  The speaker was anthropologist, Dr. Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo. She pointed out that the Zapatista uprising was the first and only indigenous rebellion in which women's rights were juridically institutionalized from the beginning. The other two presenters, both from the University of Arizona, were excellent as well in their discussion of the thirty year history of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas which started with an armed uprising on New Years Day, 1994. 

Update:

I went looking for books this morning at my local thrift shop and chanced on The Zapatista Reader from 2002, edited by Tom Hayden with articles by a number of my favorite authors.

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Update: After looking through recent news stories about Chiapas my impression is that the 30th Anniversary of the Zapatista insurrection was an opportunity for some nostalgic excesses.  The story told by the Native American Calling program seems largely based on information that is now very out of date.  The community solidarity which characterized the early years of the Zapatista movement appears to have become scarce in the face of the challenges from drug cartels and migrant trafficking along with the effects of the pandemic.  It seems the situation in Chiapas has come to closely resemble that of the rest of the country in regard to poverty and violence.

Polydactyly

 During my last of many visits to the Piedras Marcadas rock art site I noticed for the first time that there are several examples of hand representations with extra fingers.  Such images are said to be common throughout the Southwest; the first time I saw an example of polydactyly was at the Three Rivers site north of Alamogordo. Feet with extra digits also appear frequently.

It is apparent from the frequency of appearance that extra fingers and toes held some special - possibly spiritual- importance to the indigenous people of the area.  The juxtaposition of a six-fingered hand with a snake figure in my picture at the Three Rivers site suggests the possibility of a link with ceremonial snake handling.

Excavated burials have shown some support for the idea that community members with polydactyly enjoyed special status such as in this article from the National Library of Medicine:

...One can speculate if these individuals might have had a special role in their society. A burial of an infant with pedal polydactyly at Tapia del Cerrito in Arizona showed indications of importance [4]. The majority of burials at this site are under room blocks or in unused rooms. Few burials contain artifacts of any value. Positioning can also be a significant. This child was buried in the central plaza in an unusual clay-lined grave, faced northeast, and was accompanied by a type of pot rare in child burials. This child had special status, but the relationship to its polydactyly is unclear. There is also a report of a high status Freemont burial of a male with polydactyly, and the bifid metatarsals at Chaco were found in a major burial with turquoise and other valuables. There is also speculation linking the Chaco individual to the male found at Sand Canyon, based upon other congenital differences and similar rich burials [6]. A familial relationship would be an important factor in documenting the location of émigrés from Chaco after the society collapsed, and it may provide us with an idea about the rulers of the Ancestral Puebloan world...

One of the things I enjoy about visiting rock art sites is that closer observation always reveals previously unnoticed details.  So, I'll be on the lookout for more examples of polydactyly in future visits.

The Root Cause

I listened to a good broadcast this morning on Native America Calling about the high levels of homelessness among Native Americans and the setbacks in efforts to combat it all over the country.  Most discussions about the topic focus on bandaids to the problem, I think.

    The government economic aid packages of the Covid years reduced homelessness by a significant amount.  It seems pretty clear that homelessness has developed in parallel with the constantly increasing economic inequality in the U.S.  Reducing inequality should clearly be a priority in regard to homelessness, along with approaches to a lot of other chronic problems in this country such as medical care.  An important first step would be a massive overhaul of the U.S. taxation scheme.

Piedras Marcadas

 I went to the Piedras Marcadas rock art site primarily to make some pictures with one of my old Kodak folding cameras.  However, knowing I would not be able to get close to many of the panels because of the rope barriers, I also took along my little Canon digital for a bit more reach with the 4x zoom.

There is an unexcavated Pueblo not far from this site.  It is quite a way from the present course of the Rio Grande, but long ago the river wandered through the year all over the valley.

There are thousands of chiseled images on the rocks along the seventeen miles of the volcanic escarpment of the National Monument.  However many times I visit a particular site, there always seem new things to find.

Sunset on Granite St.

 

Canadian Nobility

New Digital

 I got this nice little Canon Powershot A1000 IS on Craigslist for forty bucks.

The Canon is only a little larger than my ultra-compact Panasonic Lumix and has basically the same features, but also sports an eye-level viewfinder in addition to the screen.  The optical viewfinder is zoomable, but does not have parallax correction, so one needs to use the screen for any closeup work.  The camera is powered by two AA batteries. The dog and I took the camera for a test drive in the neighborhood.

The tree sculpture is a recent addition to our street.  I'm sorry I did not get to see it in the making as the artist seems very skilled.

I was pleased with the pictures from the camera which are about three times bigger than what I need for online display.  The images are sharp and I'm not seeing the distortion that was evident in the pictures from the previous 650 model that I gave away.

Worthwhile Reading

The prices of most magazines has soared over the past few years.  I never buy any from newsstands or bookstores.  I am, however, able to follow a couple I like through online access provided by the Albuquerque Public Library.  One of those is The New York Review of Books.  The January 18, 2024 issue had a particularly good review by sociologist, Matthew Desmond, of three books about Tools to End the Poverty Pandemic.

Desmond describes some pretty amazing economic outcomes that accompanied the Covid pandemic which were overlooked by many of us who were focused on our own vulnerabilities at the time, and which have now been largely swept aside by other concerns of the moment.  The opening lines of the review provide a good summary of the messages of the three books:

"In normal times, the United States stands out among advanced democracies for its high levels of poverty and its low levels of aid. In 2019, right before Covid struck, America’s relative child poverty rate resembled that of Mexico or Bulgaria. Then, during the pandemic, the federal government enacted three enormous and historic relief bills. These reduced child poverty by an astonishing 57.5 percent, more than doubling the government’s typical impact and suddenly placing the United States alongside Germany and Switzerland on this score..."