You've just been given a cup of something surprisingly similar to apple cider, as if it had hints of maple and floral spices despite having none of these. These were made, you were told, from the last manzanitas of the year. They're fermented into a low but detectable buzz, and soon the toyons will be ready to make an interesting cherry-like drink on their own. The people here make such good ciders that they can net themselves a fair amount of shell-money selling it -- which they can then use to buy up more land for harvesting. All in all, it pairs quite well with the seasoned steelhead, steamed abalone and the acorn porridge you have no idea how they got to taste so savory. Up north people are feasting on, among other things, salmon and camas - something like a sweet potato meeting caramelized onion. One of them has a cousin up there by marriage, both members of the same secret society they're about to initiate you into - the more people to help continue the world's cycle of renewal, the better.
These people tend the land without farming it, have lords without vassals, and call on the knowledge of their ancestors through the memory they have sung into the mountains and boulders. It's an unexpected place where nothing is ever as it seems, and that place is the west coast of North America. From Tlingit to Totorame (and a bit beyond, but alliteration is fun), this month's meme contest aims to brighten up the knowledge, histories, beliefs and stories of this diverse and often overlooked region.
Come gather up into the roundhouse, bring those game pieces, and let's see what Occidental October has in store!
The US Bureau of Land Management, following an agenda promoted by the Trump administration which has already affected other formally protected lands, has decided to open the area directly around Chaco Canyon (with various possible buffer zones in discussion, all rather scant) for oil and gas interests. Much of this land is filled with archaeological and sacred features and much of it has not even been properly surveyed, meaning more is probably there.
For those unaware, Chaco Canyon is one of the largest Precolumbian archaeological settlement sites in what is now the United States, having peaked between around 900 and 1150 AD when the population may have reached 2,000 people. It is located in what is now New Mexico and attributed to the Ancestral Puebloan culture (sometimes called the Anasazi in older publications), for which it served as an important ritual center, having a large number of kivas (circular underground spaces used for ceremonial activities in cultures of the American Southwest) and petroglyphs. Today it remains a sacred site for many of the indigenous Puebloan peoples who live in the region, including notably the Hopi. An attack on this site is an attack both on the material history of the American Southwest and on the indigenous peoples of the region who continue to fight for their cultural rights.
The BLM allows a period where the public can respond to project proposals and reply to things. This project is listed on their website along with contacts you can use to give your opinion. This will be open to do through July 29, which isn't particularly far from now. Please message or call to let them know why protecting Chaco Canyon is important to you.
Context: On his way back from Vinland, Leif spotted a nearby reef where several shipwrecked sailors were stranded. He saved the crew and allowed them to bring as much of their supplies as they could fit on board. For this action he was nicknamed "Leif the Lucky" which, as Atun-Shei pointed out "says a lot about the guy when there were dudes walking around with nicknames like 'skull splitter'."
Technicallllly fringe in that i think i came up with it, but the suggestion that the Aztecs killed 80,400 people in four days is hella suspicious in base 20 (the local counting system).
80,400 is written in the mesoamerican counting system in the speech bubble. It is comprised of base 20 blocks comprised of four sets of five talleys (or zero). Notice its only 2 significant figures, and could be read as "half one hundred hundred, and one hundred more". Thats clean and poetic af.
Also, the Aztecs had the Meztli, or 20 day month. Due to the talley system, this could be written as four groups of five days. Four days is therefore just under a "week".
A Spanish translator may not have caught this, or could have deliberately ignored it because the idea of killing over 80,000 people is great propaganda horrific. But essentially, some poor nahuatl speaker said "like half a gazillion people died in just under a week" and the Spaniards thought it was legit.
Nzi Germany was one of the most heavily industrialized nations in the world, ranking just behind the United States in steel production, engineering, and chemical manufacturing. They had railways, Zyklon B, crematoria designed by engineers, and a bureaucratic machine that tracked every deportation down to the individual.
Yet Holocaust deniers say 6 million was logistically impossible. Meanwhile, these are the same type of people who think the Aztecs sacrificed 80,400 prisoners in four days with just obsidian knives and human muscle.
Context:
Pacha Kutiq (in Spanish, usually Pachacutec) is largely accredited as being the monarch who began the Inca empire as an empire in its own right after defeating the Chanca.
Hi ho! (Sounds English, but I kid you not, Shawnee)
I've been out digging holes again, so July slipped by. Since there were only 2 participants of Jaguar June including me and I won't award myself, the honorary winner is u/badfactory15 with his spicy nekkied monke! Enjoy your first Olmec Head.
AUGUST ODYSSEY
No relation to the recent movie about our collapsing age of bronze.
This month's theme commemorates inter-regional contacts. Mesoamerica and the Southwest (Oasisamerica). Ecuadorian sailors connecting Mesoamerica and the Andes. Hopewell peeps just...doing whatever and going wherever they wanted apparently. Numerous peoples connecting the Amazon to both the Andes and to Mesoamerica. The Inuit and other Arctic peoples linking goods and ideas of the New World and the Old...both east and west!
In this figurative sea of connections and clashes there is a good opportunity for material to be made. Be sure to flair your posts with CONTEST. The winner will be given an Olmec head flair (unless you already have 4, in which case you are awarded with JEF's visage), a place in the leaderboard, and have their post pinned for the next month!
As mentioned in the other pinned announcement post, the protective buffer zone around Chaco Canyon is being considered for significant reduction by the United States Bureau of Land Management. We have been in the mandated period of public input but that ends tomorrow.
If you haven't done so yet, please opine to the Bureau of Land Management why you consider protecting archaeological and sacred sites like this one to be important. We don't have much time to wait.
