The savages would gather in their main plazas, men, women and children, to watch the sacrifices as families.
They made great speeches and had lots of rituals read from their sacred texts.
The crowds would sing ceremonial songs.
They would grant final requests to those about to be sacrificed for their gods named money, private property and the law.
And they believed God had blessed them above all others.
LA EASTSIDE
Life Beyond The River
watching “Hang em High” with Clint Eastwood and the lynching of 6 men brought people from all over the Oklahoma territory to watch.
This was real.
And they believed they were blessed above all others.
Strange Fruit
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
Billy Holiday – Strange Fruit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs
I saw another picture of a hanging before. The spectators had that same pleasant look about them, like it was all just normal, like they were at a fair or something. Equally as disturbing as the people hanging lifeless in the background.
“Without Sanctuary”
http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html
Artist Ken Gonzales Day has a project on lynchings in California, where the victims were mainly Latinos. This work was part of the Phantom Sitings exhibit at LACMA last year. Here’s the link http://www.kengonzalesday.com/projects/erasedlynching/index.htm
^^^
props Victoria, learned something today…
My brother Victor use to tell me about a Chicano Studies teacher he had at LACC( who he didn’t think too highly of) and how this teacher would always mutter the phrase “And they call us savages!” shortly after referencing the latest U.S. govt’ sponsored atrocity.
Where did you get the text? It sounds like an account written during the post conquest period, it would be nice to know the source.
Also, I understand what you are trying to say and on some level I agree with the post. However, where I respectfully disagree is in the comparison. I think in comparing what the Mexica or any other indigenous people did because of their cosmological beliefs should not be likened to the crimes against humanity committed by the racist actions of those who lynched innocent people.
Wouldn’t the point be that Southern American whites are the most *recent* savages we’ve seen in America? That picture wasn’t taken in the 1500s, when the Aztecs were in power.
BTW, my previous comment would assume that Aztecs really were the “savages” they’ve been portrayed as being by institutional American historians. There is far more evidence of the people in the photo above being savages than there is of native American tribes that date as far back as the Aztec Empire being so.
My goal was to point out the hypocrisy and self delusion of AmeriKKKa in believing they are so superior to anyone else including the Native people of this land who were called savages.
The most savage and violent people on the planet in the history of the world is AmeriKKKa as we know it.
Lynchings all over AmeriKKKa including right here in the Los Angeles region were common and a reason for a white family to gather and have a nice picnic as some darker colored human was sacrificed for the gods of Law, Capital, Race, Private Property and on and on….
and they did/do this evil believing they are so blessed above others by their bloodthirsty, vengeful, jealous and greedy god.