Mesoamerican violence was connected to the significance of landscape in Aztec religion and life.  The Valley of Mexico was a dangerous and swampy area, which consisted of caves and lakes.  Not only was the land a source of imagination, the landscape inspired the Aztecs and shaped how they thought about religion.  Although the landscape was mysterious and dangerous, it had great implications to Aztec rituals and daily activities.  Author Philip P. Arnold writes in his book Eating Landscape: Aztec and European Occupation of Tlalocan: “Occupation of the land was thus organized through human ritual actions.  Ritual occupation was cosmogonic because it participated in those processes perpetually involved in the ongoing regeneration of life” (Arnold, 130).  These human ritual actions involved violence because human sacrifice was necessary for the ongoing regeneration of life.

The Valley of Mexico, Velasco, 19th century

The surrounding mountains also had a great significance to human rituals.  The Aztecs perceived landscape as literally edible and eating. Arnold writes: “The human-food-mountains were then arranged in particular patterns so that they would represent a living landscape…these altars found the focus of ritual activity, while at the same time articulating the conditions of occupying the valley.  Ritual feeding at the altars underscored an appropriate mode of occupying Tlalocan” (Arnold, 139).  Landscape was a pertinent aspect of Aztec rituals. Its orientation dictated ritual activity and it was largely incorporated with the violent consumption in ritual feeding.

Tlalocan

Although the Aztecs were dependent on water for food and sites of religious rituals, water was violent and involved consumption.  Arnold writes, “Water that originated in the untamed world of Tlaloc consumed the land and people in its descent to the lake system” (Arnold, 145).  Aztecs believed that water literally consumed people into the earth.  Water was also associated with human sacrifice.

Another Aztec correspondence involving violence was the relationship between consumption and their agricultural system.  Aztecs believed that human existence paralleled the agricultural system because each required creation and destruction.  In the Aztec’s agriculture system, agricultural fruits, such as corn, were harvested and destroyed.  Arnold writes: “Just as the human representatives were sacrificed, divided, and consumed, so too were the mountain images of food destroyed, made hard, and consumed” (Arnold, 111).  There was a correspondence between agriculture life and consumption, and human life and consumption.  There was also a correspondence between child sacrifice and corn.  Arnold explains that “the children sacrificed were referred to as human paper streamers…some paper streamers may have been surmounted by a representation of a human head symbolizing the children” (Arnold, 81).  Human paper streamers represented plant life and the upcoming planting season.  Similarly, children were considered the fruit of the people and of the earth.  In order to maintain life through agriculture, people sacrificed children to the gods.

Aztec Human Sacrifice Source: LatinAmericanStudies.org

The Aztec consumption of land was incorporated with their every day life and ritual practices. Violence and the landscape were incorporated with almost every facet of Aztec life because they are key components in this reciprocal and cyclical relationship that the Aztecs shared with the landscape, the gods, and the cosmos.

Food Movements Unite! from Food First on Vimeo.

(Excerpt from http://www.foodmovementsunite.org/)

“In the first half of Eric Holt-Gimenez, Raj Patel and Annie Shattuck’s Food Rebellions: Crisis and the Hunger for Justice, the authors provide a trenchant analysis of the root causes of the global food crisis. The second half of the book is dedicated to exploring solutions to the crisis; both the false solutions advanced by the managers of the global corporate food regime, and the grassroots solutions—both practical and political—being advanced by the world’s food movements. Reflecting the transformative desire for just, sustainable, and democratically-controlled food systems, the book ends by stating: “The global food crisis has brought us together. We can end the injustices that cause hunger. There has never been a better time.”

Food Movements Unite! is the sequel to Food Rebellions and provides a sector by sector road map for bringing the tremendous transformative potential of the world’s food movements together into a powerful transnational force capable of ending the injustices that cause hunger.”

Maria

Maria Presentación, CHIMBORAZO, Ecuador
September 10, 2010 – Reported by Emma Kirwan

Maria Presentación is the president of a farming cooperative of nearly 90 indigenous women in Galtes, a rural village located at 11,500 ft. A ten-month period of drought has devastated families’ food supplies and income. Peaks Over Poverty´s development partners are working with Maria’s group to overcome these problems by rescuing traditional farming practices and native seeds. Over 2,000 varieties of potatoes originally existed in the Andes, but more than 80% have been lost with the industrialization of agriculture. Now, the women are planting a variety of Andean potatoes to see which survive drought; this helps decrease their dependency on just one variety. The women will split the productive crops, save those seeds, and re-plant them on their own land. One day they hope to create a native seed bank for their entire community. READ THE FULL STORY >>

Bertha

Bertha Pumaquero, CHIMBORAZO, Ecuador
July 11 2010 – Reported by Vicente Parra, Translated by Robert Frisch

Like hundreds of rural farmers from the Chimborazo mountain province in Ecuador, Bertha Pumaquero abandoned her community when she was young and emigrated with her parents to the provincial city of Riobamba. In her adolescence, Bertha became a wife and a mother, and quickly understood the difficulty of raising a family in poverty. Bertha’s first job took her back to her roots, where she tackled rural issues that caused her family to emigrate in the first place; poor health care and education. Years later, Bertha is at the forefront of a movement to empower women, train midwives, and prioritize agricultural education. “I used to be a coward who was frightened to speak in front of anyone. Now I am a leader. What I want more than anything is to see more female leaders who have the confidence, love and work ethic to serve their community. I know that there are more indigenous women like me; we just have to do away with fear.” READ THE FULL STORY >> (Español >>)

Photo: Bertha administers a literacy test in a community. Credit: Stephen Sherwood

Elena

Elena Tenelema, CHIMBORAZO, Ecuador
Reported by Vicente Parra, June 21, 2010

Elena Tenelema is a young indigenous woman from the small village of Tzimbuto Quincaguan, tucked at over 4,000 meters high in the folds of the Chimborazo Province. Elena’s biggest challenge has been empowering the women in her community; “like the farm animals, the women would rarely leave their homes and didn’t have any rights.” It has been a long journey, but Elena’s efforts are finally coming to fruition. “There are now about ten women who have become leaders in the community – they are no longer afraid to speak openly and participate in town meetings…READ THE FULL STORY >> (Español >>)

Alfonso

Alfonso and Olga Juma, CHOTA, Ecaudor

Alfonso and Olga live with their three children on a small farm in Ambuqui, a drought-stricken village of Ecuador’s northern Andes. When we visited, Alfonso and Olga said that they earned just $700/year, mainly through working as laborers in the nearby city of Ibarra. Alfonso explained that access to water was the biggest challenge to feeding his family, adding: “I am so poor that I am embarrassed when my children look at me.” Peaks Over Poverty’s local partner, EkoRural, has helped Alfonso and Olga to discover “hidden” sources of water through farmer-to-farmer exchange visits and training. Just 18 months into the process, Alfonso and Olga’s income has grown from about $700 to $1,700 per year, enabling them to pay off their debts ahead of schedule and to purchase more land. Now, Alfonso proudly says, “My farm has become an oasis … I no longer feel embarrassed to be a father.” READ THE FULL STORY >>

Photo: Alfonso shows other farmers how to build a water tank with used tires to catch rainfall.

Luis

Luis, PICHINCHA, Ecuador
Reported by Kristy Lynn Allen, April 5, 2010

Luis made it his life’s goal to win back his land and someday have peace of mind. So began his life as a farmer on the slopes of Ilalo. Farming on the slopes of Illalo is not an easy way of life by any means. It demands dangerous and very labor intensive work….
READ THE FULL STORY >>

Where EkoRural Works

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Ethiopia is one of the “least developed countries” in the world, ranked by the United Nations as 157 of 169 countries: 81% of Ethiopians live on less than $2 per day, and 13 million Ethiopians face severe food security each year. Over the past four years, the Ethiopian government has embarked on transferring more than 3,619,509 ha of land to investors, claiming that these investments will stimulate the economy by inserting much needed foreign currency while contributing to long-term food security and the transfer of technology to smallholder farmers.

The comprehensive research the Oakland Institute undertook to verify these claims yielded appalling, contradictory conclusions:

1. Commercial investment will increase rates of food insecurity in the vicinity of land investments.
2. Large discrepancies between publicly stated positions, laws, policies and procedures and what is actually happening on the ground.
3. No limits on water use, no Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), and no environmental controls.
4. Displacement from farmland is widespread, and the vast majority of locals receive no compensation.
5. There is no meaningful pre-project assessment, and little in the way of local benefits associated with these land investments.
6. While large foreign investments grab headlines, many Ethiopian land deals involve small-scale investors (local and diaspora), many of whom have limited agricultural experience.

I encourage all readers to at least read the first two pages of the report for a more complete description of the consequences.

Inti Raymi is one of four ancient Incan celebrations created to honor the solstices and equinoxes. The Inti Raymi festival is the most important for the Andean pueblos because it marks the start of the harvest season, and represents the strong, cultural link between humans (Runa) and Mother Earth (Pachamama). As a result, the celebration was prohibited under colonial rule in an effort to suppress the indigenous identity, which was considered inseparable from the natural world. However, Inti Raymi survived and continued to grow.

The community Tola Chica, a kichwa pueblo, is at the forefront of revitalizing their ancestral identity and strengthening the community’s capacity for organization. The Inti Raymi festival provides the perfect opportunity to accomplish both these goals, while creating a platform for new forms of cultural expressions and emerging contemporary identities.

My friend Luis, a photographer and avid biker, sent me the link to his incredible photos of the recent celebration in Tola Chica. Check them out!

El Inti Raymi es una de las celebraciones milenarias desarrolladas por nuestros pueblos, formando parte de las cuatro celebraciones que se desarrollan dentro de los solsticios y equinoccios. La celebración del Inti Raymi es la más importante porque para los pueblos andinos marca el inicio de las cosechas, por esta razón constituye un vínculo cultural entre los seres humanos (Runa) y la naturaleza –Pachamama/Pachakamak- y es un fuerte lazo de identidad y vínculo entre los pueblos. Por esta razón, esta celebración fue prohibida por la dominación colonial – argumentando paganismo-; pero se mantuvo viva dentro de los pueblos ancestrales, dentro de las comunas y ayllus. Pese a este intento de exterminio de nuestras culturas originarias esta celebración se ha mantenido viva, cultivando y fortaleciendo lo ancestral e incorporando nuevas formas de expresión e identidades contemporáneas.

La Comuna Tola Chica, como parte del pueblo kichwa lleva un proceso de revitalización de la identidad ancestral y revitalización organizativa, y la celebración de las fiestas del Inti Raymi es ocasión privilegiada para cumplir con estos dos propósitos, pero además generar encuentros con otras expresiones culturales y experiencias socio organizativas

Please check out the Locks Gallery website for more information: http://www.locksgallery.com