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LAND OF THE RED GIANTS OF IXTLAN

Chapter 11 - Chihuahua: "Aqua y Libertad"

Up against the Gulf of Mexico, like the buffalo herds veering south of Corpus Christi,
two of my sisters joined my family's Warrior Society, to which we gave the name
Aatensic for our Huron-Ouendat goddess of war, to go on. It was at the water's edge. Our
herds stopped, almost. We stood on the shore, far, far away from the Great Lakes and
Hudson's Bay in the Laurentian Shield of the north, to see where Querechos (Apaches)
successfully fought the invaders for 350 years, from 1526-1886. After that, mestizos like
Pancho Villa overthrew the Spanish imperialistas and instituted a slightly better agri-
capitalism for the peons, but it was still a flood of illegal immigration pouring back and
forth over the borders of revolution. Indigenous communal organization was devastated
by all of them in their toxic water and air like everybody else, but, as my cousins and
sisters stood with me on the shores of Corpus Christi Texas, and my mother even joined
us for a while, we saw out across the Caribbean the Ixachitlatlan of a saltwater solution to
the redemption Christopher Columbus was looking for.
Mom smiled and gave us our marching orders. "C'mon, let's get some jalapeno
peppers and cheese enchiladas!"
Sailing across the streets of Laredo to Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Chihuahua states,
rancheros and hacendados in the solar inferno of the Sonoran Desert that looked like the
Sahara would send swarms of infantry to wear down the corporate types in the
boardrooms and cathedrals sweating in their air-conditioned "terror" of cheap labor, taco
niggers, and the Sierra tortilla Madres treasuring, destroying, the "amerikan way of life".
"This isn't 'Central America'," one Mexican told us, in Tampico. "The arrogance of
norte americanos calling themselves 'Americans'."
"Si."
"We're Mexicans or Costa Ricans or Brazilians -- "
"Or," another hombre suggested, "we're all Mestizos, as Che Guevara said."
" -- but they are the one and only Americans."
"Assholes."
"Is that a mestizo word, originally?"
"Si!"
"It's beyond comprehension."
"And the Catholic Church?"
"A European institution, forced on us."
"What's all this Church organization?" my sister Jacque asked.
"Doctrine and collegiality."
"What's all that got to do with Jesus?"
"Nada. He was very much like Dionysus who was like Osiris as a protector of children
and pregnant women. Look out across that Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, and
Africa beyond. We don't have much to do with Islam, here, but Africa involuntarily
exported so many slaves to the Caribbean region, including the northern countries of
South America like Venezuela and Guyana, and the slave plantations of the United
States, that some of them were Muslims. They were indigenos, Indios peoples of God, or
Allah, too, of course; Zambians and Tuareqs and Malinese, with their own religions like
the Tarahumaras here, but there was something peculiar about Muhammadanism that
blended with African ideas. Something closer to Osiris than even Muhammad himself
may have realized. There is something profoundly un-european about it, which Columbus
and Cortez could not understand."
"They didn't want to."
"My point is, it has something peculiarly in common with native culture here."
"The burial mummies at Mesa Verde look exactly like those in Giza and Cairo and the
Bahariya Oasis."
"Columbus didn't say we were Indians from India, he said Indios."
"Si, Children of God."
"Indios, not Indian. That's another european lie."
"So -- "
"In the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua State there are brujos and curanderias a lot like I
think the Berbers of North Africa. They have just discovered the Valley of the Golden
Mummies on the Libyan littoral sands near the Temple of Alexander the Great."
"Yeah, I lived there for three years," I said. "They hated the Arabs. They're not
'Arabs'. They're not Muslims. Arabs were invaders conquering them, just like here."
"Si."
"How inconvenient to a world revolution of the Super-Religions."
"Christobal Colon -- "
We talked many times in Monterrey and Torreon, but I was most interested in the
southernmost buffalo ranges where mammoths and mastodons also roamed, llamas and
alpacas like giant sloths farther south, of the Big Bend of the Brazos where Apaches
successfully raided the colonial conquistadores century after century, and how anyone or
anything could live in that terrific heat that was scorching like tequila even at midnight.
We even heard a lot about cattle, and the mysterious "cattle mutilations" all over that Rio
Grande border of reality.

Many of the missions that the Jesuits had established vanished


toward the end of the colonial period after the order was expelled
from New Spain in 1767; the remaining missions were largely
abandoned when Spanish rule ended in Mexico in 1821. Wealthy
miners and hacendados fled as the Apaches advanced, and bankers
and land speculators saw no value in lands that were constantly
prey to nomadic attacks. The Mexican federal government and
the federal army were far too weak and riven by internal dissension
to have any significant presence in Chihuahua and northern Mexico,
so the free rancheros were left to their own devices. The society
they developed was poor but largely eqalitarian.
- Pancho Villa

No one seems to know quite who was the captain that sailed the Western Sea under
the name of Colon or Columbus, or where he came from exactly, or where he landed,
planting his flag of "Aqua y Libertad" like a seed of disease on a Bahamas beach in
paradise. Tierra Espana or Italia wasn't quite as firma on the rat-infested Santa Maria of
christianity that was not anything like Jason's fabled Argo sailing the heavens like Noah's
Ark that planted itself on the shores; but his Nina and Pinta are a lot more like the luxury
pleasure-yachts and casino-cruisers polluting the Low Seas. Colon's boys killed 50
million Indios in the first degeneration alone from 1492-1510, with his Plague. Another
50 million or so were hacked up into pieces, raped wholesale, starved, enslaved, forcibly
converted to christ, and tortured until it slowed down by necessity by 1890 at Wounded
Knee. Dozens of entire nations were annihilated into extinction, their languages, loves,
and souls totally forgotten in norte americano schools and churches.

In fact, Ra is, in the history of religious thought, the first God,


autogenous (who was not created, who has neither father nor
mother).
On the other hand, Seth, jealous because he is sterile, kills
his brother Osiris (who symbolizes vegetation, from the discovery
of agriculture to the Neolithic period). The latter rises from the
dead to save humanity (from famine!). Osiris is the god of
redemption.
In any case, Osiris is the god who, three thousand years
before Christ, dies and rises from the dead to save men.
Dionysus, Osiris's replica in the northern Mediterranean,
will say five hundred years before Christ: "Drink, this is my
blood; eat, this is my flesh." And one can see how the
degradation of these types of beliefs can lead to the notion
of the sorcerer who eats people in Black Africa.
The term "Christ" is not an Indo-European root. It came
from the Pharaonic Egyptian expression kher sesheta: "he
who watches over the mysteries," and was applied to the
divinities, Osiris, Anubis, etc. It was applied to Jesus only
in the fourth century, by religious contamination.
- 'Civilization or Barbarism', by
Cheikh Anta Diop

"When He saw thee of an age at which He was content,


marvelously did He cause thy name to resound throughout
the land. The Indies, so rich a portion of the world, He gave
thee for thine own, and thou hast divided them as it pleased
thee, for He gave thee the power to do so. Of those barriers
of the Ocean Sea which were closed with such mighty chains,
He gave thee the keys, and thou wast obeyed through many
lands, and thou hast gained an honorable fame throughout
Christendom."
- Xristoual Colon

My family attended a big AIM conference outside of Cuanhtemoc Chihuahua, as the


80s began. The local padres and mormon missionaries were cordially invited by the local
Tarahumaras and Chichimecas because many of them were "converts" to the iglesias of
Nos Madre de Guadalupe, and, lately, the golden books of Moroni and Brigham Young
stolen from the Yaquis and Mayans. Many of the Indigenos didn't want the christians
around, but the other elders could see they weren't going to get anywhere overthrowing
the indo-european lie without a couple hundred million Indies slaves who'd been forced
to spout the santa fe of the santa friars. I can't say exactly when we had the conference
because it ended inevitably in the mysterious destruction of a Catholic Church, as well as
a Mormon Church, in the vicinity. They just burned down, nobody knows how. To this
day the frustrated Federales would very much like to have some more information
pertaining to those "despicable crimes against God" and the destruction of other tax-free
church property, but the trail has apparently turned cold. And upon the advice of
Counsel, in the interest of copyright disclaimers, none of the names herein named are
real, to protect the innocent.
The holy friars arrived in their classical Franciscan and Benedictine robes in VW
vans, and the Mormons in their classical black polyester suits and chevrolets, clearly
distinguishing for all of us confused pagans the great and fundamental differences
between papist catholicism and calvinist protestantism.
"In Rome," I added on the second day of debate, "two Popes died when I was there,
and a third was murdered."
They stared at me in horror and incomprehension.
"It was quite fortuitous. I just thought I'd mention that."
"En Espana por favor, Senor."
"Perquay?" I retaliated. "At Vatican Two, ask the good padres, languages of the Mass
were to be changed to the local tongues of the congregations of the faiths. So why
Spanish? Or Latin? Why not the Mass in Mixteca or Yaqui?"
We had been hearing for the first two days of the 'Spiritual Gathering' the litany of
genocidal and ecological horrors the hacendados and mining companies had been
inflicting on the small indigenos populations for centuries, to the universal horror of all
protesters. It was clear to one and all the earth's blood was boiling with impending
armageddon and apocalypse, but without any real solution except to organize peaceful
rallies like this, and write letters to our congressmen, and preach to the choir. I for one
felt it was necessary to raise the stakes to theological violence.
"While always, with due respect, Fray Dominquez, faithful, and devout in my love for
the Lord and Lady."
A few gasps escaped the lips of the simple peasants gathered around the open-air
arbor of a traditional Tarahumara rancheria, next to the pretty little adobe chapel to Santa
Dominga, in the beautiful green Sierra Padres not far from the borders with Durango and
Sonora where Cortez and Coronado had gleefully and faithfully marched slaughtering
and maiming thousands of Montezumans in the holy name of Christos Dios. My mexican
was sloppy but I loved those poor bastards anyway, in their simple love that had been so
susceptible to the Holy Virgin and the truth of the natural mysteries and powers
obviously all around us. I guess they liked my profession of faithful humility and
obedience. They were not suspicious of my skin or my clumsy tongue for we had been
working together for weeks, making phone calls soliciting funds for the conference,
dealing with the usual assholes (who are universal), laughing our own asses off and
dancing, and picking beans, maize, and green chiles in the broiling sun. I got diarrhea and
that also, almost, made me one of them, for the aqua was not exactly libertad of germs
around there from the pollution of the copper mines. My spanish therefore stumbled
along under a clumsy sombrero.
"Vatican Two, si," Fray Dominquez replied courteously (although he was shifting
uncomfortably, ecclesiastically, at the allusion to a Curia murder), an older priest who
looked like a violently sunburned Ricardo Montalban and was obviously used to being in
charge of everything, "si."
"Si. I was in Roma in 1963 when Pope John XXIII died, and Paul VI came in, and
again in August 1978 when it just so happened Paul died, and then Johannes Paulos
Primam was elected."
"Interesting. You were in Roma?"
"Yes. My father was in the Estados Unidos, how do you say, Air Force. We were
Catholics. This is my mother here, she was there too, and my sister. We were stationed
for three years at the NATO Base in Tripoli Libya, and I was studying Greek and Latin.
We also went to Egypt. We traveled all over Europe. The point is, the question I have for
you, and how this relates to an ability to live among peoples and cultures so different
from ourselves, is Christ. Who is he?"
The Fray raised his eyebrows in surprise, pleased, and then clumsily cross-mixed his
own translation. "Christos estos Truth."
"Oh. And no less?"
"Si Senor. You speak of Johannes, 14-6, 'Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth,
and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me'."
"Who?" I asked. "Padre?"
"God the Father."
A dozen little old church ladies totally in black hastily crossed themselves and
muttered some kind of prayer.
"No, I mean, who is this Jesus you mentioned?"
"Jesus? He is Christ."
"The Son of God," an especially humble and violent and very tiny old woman who
looked about two hundred years old chanted in difficult english, piously, almost in a
whisper.
"Si, I understand the theological and emotional impact of the church's teachings, and
you all assume, I assume, you know who this son of God is, and that his name is Jesus
Christ. Right? But you don't. Your religion is a lie, as far as this historical fact goes, as
your St. Paul lied all about it from the very beginning. No no, we are not here to have a
standardized Bible Study classroom. The American Indian Movement is here to solve the
problems it did not create, unlike the christian churches of all denominations who fight
for our souls and pocketbooks, and above all our land, between yourselves in antagonistic
sects and cults, that have nothing to do with the eternal truths and mysteries of death and
resurrection. No no, let me finish. You are not going the solve the problem of the
American Holocaust that you caused in the first place. Christopher Columbus and his evil
progeny from Pizarro to Custer brought the false Cross with them to justify, to legitimize,
wholesale theft. That's a fact no one can deny. I do not say this as a secular humanist for I
do not believe in democracy, or the division of peoples into majorities and minorities. My
heresy is the same as Geronimo's and the Mayans who fought and died for the Spirits of
their ancestors, not socialism, not relativism as the reactionaries like Pope John Paul II or
the U.S. presidents say, of either republican or democratic ilk, nor even for the Tierra y
Libertad of Generalissimo Zapata, requiescat in pace. Zapata's revolution failed, I'm sorry
to say, because it did not include the indigenous truth. John Paul the First was murdered
in his bed only 33 days after he was crowned because he was closer to the real Pontifex
Maximus of Caesar, the Flamen Dialis, that was instituted in the imperial cult, which is
the true origin and nature of what you call christianity."
"Imperial Cult?"
"Yes."
"I don't follow you," Fray Dominquez said quietly, hostility creeping across his
handsome face. "I can't follow you."
"Do you mean you can't understand your own history, or that you won't? You won't
follow the divine truth of this land, and Cochise, and Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl?"
"I mean, you are incoherent, Senor. What does that have to do with imperialism?"
"Divine nobility, of our ancestors, the true power, and government."
"Senor, you come down here to our country and -- "
"You come down here, Diablo!" an elder finally shouted, losing his patience, "Like a
devil lying to these good people!"
The debate collapsed into the usual religious free-for-all for a few more days. A cool
old Zapotec starting hanging out with me and commented humorously, "Too many chiefs
and not enough indians." His name was Silencio Ortega and he reminded me of a short
Fools Crow or a black Walter Cannon, indicating the big egos from both north and south
of the Rio Grande, who had come from as far away as Yukon and Oaxaca. "Vominos
muchaco. I have some folks who would like to meet you and your mother."
"Ay, chihuahua."
"No, it's okay," he laughed, and so did Maria and Heraclio and a handful of others
from Monte Alban in a grassy knoll by a pleasant little creek who wanted to know more
about who this goddamn Jesus Christ was. We talked well into the night, when drums and
fires filled the canons with the songs and shouts of angry, unhappy men and women,
horses and gunfire, and hungry children. I told them of my research in Palestine and
Jordan of King Herod Philip, the son of the god Caesar and goddess Cleopatra, descended
from the goddesses Venus and Isis in the matrilinear way, and how he was the real man
behind the real myth, and that myths were truer than men like Saul of Tarsus who came
along like an egotistic chief and tried to make it his own religion, and call himself a
"Saint, Saint Paul". They understood that. They knew about the archaeological and
etymological excavations that were being done in Egypt and how it was like the grave-
robbers in Mesoamerica, the anthros and archaeos, who couldn't accept radical, native
insights, magical memories, Mythology as Science. I told them Herod the Great was the
Messiah who rebuilt Solomon's Temple and reunited Israel and Judah just like the first
Messiah, King David, and wrote his 'Memoirs' of his resurrection too, which was used as
the source of the Gospels; and how his sons like Philip the Apostle and King Agrippa
were his resurrected spirit-twins like the Ka and Ba Muhammad remembered at Mecca in
the Ka'Ba navel Stones. They told me of brujerias who could also fly and walk on water.
I told them of Caesar Philip whose real name was John - since Caesar and Philip were
only descriptive titles of office - when he was better known as a 'Baptist' praying at the
temples of Pan and Venus at his favorite city Caesarea Philippi. They knew of medicine
men who had raised people from the dead. "Jesus Christ, as Muhammad wrote in the
Qu'ran, is a phantom of the tutelary king, Herod of the Edomites."
We talked all night of politics as well, and the dangers of the secret police encroaching
and creeping ever closer to us, as we ate tortillas and chile rellenos. They said I should go
back to South Dakota, for it was the heart of the U.S., and the U.S. was the greatest
danger to all of them there in the rest of the continent and hemisphere, and warriors were
needed up north. "Here," Silencio said, "we have millions of soldiers ready to invade El
Norte. That's not the problem."
It was the ghosts in those mountains who needed us, to fight the devils in those cities
who hated us. The ancient Aztecs knew how Cortez had enchanted Montezuma with evil
priests, and how Aztecs had enchanted Zapotecs with evil priesthoods of their own of
human and animal sacrifices too, like the cattle mutilations all over the West. "Diablos."
"Vampires."
"Zombies."
It was a thrilling, spooky night, that my sisters loved; in which no one believed any of
it except by knowing it. Not in ignorance we talked and sang all night, to the drums. Not
in weakness we resolved to burn the churches and continue the War in Heaven.

"The Huecteca, another ancient people of Mexico,


tell us that
the Zapotecs are the
oldest people in the
entire creation.

They say
the Zapotecs were created
when Quetzalcoatl
shaped the valley
and built the Mountain."
- 'Lord of the Dawn', by
Tony Shearer

[end of Chapter 11]

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