Huitzilopochtli, the Founding Deity of the Aztecs

Huitzilopochtli, the Founding Deity of the Aztecs Huitzilopochtli (pronounced Weetz-ee-loh-POSHT-lee and meaning Hummingbird on the Left) was one of the most important of the Aztec gods, the god of the sun, warfare, military conquest and sacrifice, who according to tradition, led the Mexica people from Aztlan, their mythical homeland, into Central Mexico. According to some scholars, Huitzilopochtli could have been a historical figure, probably a priest, who was transformed into a god after his death. Huitzilopochtli is known as the portentous one, the god who indicated to the Aztecs/Mexica where they should build their great capital city, Tenochtitlan. He appeared in dreams to the priests and told them to settle on an island, in the middle of Lake Texcoco, where they would see an eagle perching on a cactus. This was the divine sign. Birth of Huitzilopochtli According to a Mexica legend, Huitzilopochtli was born on Coatepec  or Snake Hill. His mother was the goddess Coatlicue, whose name means â€Å"She of the Serpent Skirt,† and she was the goddess of Venus, the morning star. Coatlicue was attending the temple on Coatepec and sweeping its floors when a ball of feathers fell on the floor and impregnated her. According to the origin myth, when Coatlicues daughter Coyolxauhqui (goddess of the moon) and Coyolxauhquis four hundred brothers (Centzon Huitznahua, the gods of the stars) discovered she was pregnant, they plotted to kill their mother. As the 400 stars reached Coatlicue, decapitating her, Huitzilopochtli (god of the sun) suddenly emerged fully armed from his mother’s womb and, attended by a fire serpent (xiuhcoatl), killed Coyolxauhqui by dismembering her. Then, he threw her body down the hill and proceeded to kill his 400 siblings. Thus, the history of the Mexica is replayed every dawn, when the sun rises victoriously over the horizon after conquering the moon and stars. Huitzilopochtli’s Temple While Huitzilopochtlis first appearance in Mexica legend was as a minor hunting god, he became elevated to a major deity after the Mexica settled in Tenochtitln and formed the Triple Alliance. The Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (or Templo Mayor) is the most important shrine dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, and its shape symbolized a replica of Coatepec. At the foot of the temple, on the Huitzilopochtli side, lay a massive sculpture portraying the dismembered body of Coyolxauhqui, found during excavations for electric utility works in 1978. The Great Temple was actually a twin shrine dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and the rain god Tlaloc, and it was among the first structures to be built after the founding of the capital. Dedicated to both gods, the temple symbolized the economic basis of the empire: both war/tribute and agriculture. It was also the center of the crossing of the four main causeways that connected the Tenochtitln to the mainland. Images of Huitzilopochtli Huitzilopochtli is typically portrayed with a dark face, fully armed, and holding a snake-shaped scepter and a smoking mirror, a disc from which emerges one or more wisps of smoke. His face and body are painted in yellow and blue stripes, with a black, star-bordered eye mask and a turquoise nose rod. Hummingbird feathers covered the body of his statue at the great temple, along with cloth and jewels. In painted images, Huitzilopochtli wears the head of a hummingbird attached to the back of his head or as a helmet; and he carries a shield of turquoise mosaic or clusters of white eagle feathers. As a representative symbol of Huitzilopochtli (and others of the Aztec pantheon), feathers were an important symbol in Mexica culture. Wearing them was the prerogative of the nobility who adorned themselves with brilliant plumes, and went into battle wearing feathered cloaks. Feathered cloaks and feathers were wagered in games of chance and skill and were traded among allied nobles. Aztec rulers kept aviaries and tribute stores for feather-workers, specifically employed to produce ornate objects. Huitzilopochtlis Festivities December was the month dedicated to Huitzilopochtli celebrations. During these festivities, called Panquetzalitzli, the Aztec people decorated their homes held ceremonies with dances, processions, and sacrifices. A huge statue of the god was made out of amaranth and a priest impersonated the god for the duration of the ceremonies. Three other ceremonies during the year were dedicated at least in part to Huitzilopochtli. Between July 23 and August 11, for example, was Tlaxochimaco, the Offering of Flowers, a festival dedicated to war and sacrifice, celestial creativity and divine paternalism, when singing, dancing and human sacrifices honored the dead and Huitzilopochtli. Updated by K. Kris Hirst Sources Berdan FF. 2014. Aztec Archaeology and Ethnohistory. New York: Cambridge University Press.Boone EH. 1989. Incarnations of the Aztec Supernatural: The Image of Huitzilopochtli in Mexico and Europe. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 79(2):1-107.Taube KA. 1993. Aztec and Maya Myths. Fourth Edition. University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas.Van Tuerenhout DR. 2005. The Aztecs: New Perspectives, ABC-CLIO Inc. Sanata Barbara, CA; Denver, CO and Oxford, England.

Edmontonia - Facts and Figures

Edmontonia - Facts and Figures Name: Edmontonia (from Edmonton); pronounced ED-mon-TOE-nee-ah Habitat: Woodlands of North America Historical Period: Late Cretaceous (75-65 million years ago) Size and Weight: About 20 feet long and three tons Diet: Plants Distinguishing Characteristics: Low-slung body; sharp spikes on shoulders; lack of tail club About Edmontonia Edmonton in Canada is one of the few regions in the world with two dinosaurs named after itthe duck-billed herbivore Edmontosaurus, and the armored nodosaur Edmontonia. However, you should bear in mind that Edmontonia was named not after the city, but after the Edmonton Formation where it was discovered; theres no evidence that it actually lived in the environs of Edmonton itself. The type specimen of this dinosaur was discovered in Canadas Alberta Province in 1915, by the swashbuckling fossil hunter Barnum Brown, and initially assigned as a species of the nodosaur genus Palaeoscincus (ancient skink), a classification that fortunately never caught on. Naming issues aside, Edmontonia was a formidable dinosaur, with its bulky, low-slung body, armor plating along its back, andmost intimidatinglythe sharp spikes jutting out from its shoulders, which may have been used to deter predators or to fight other males for the right to mate (or both). Some paleontologists also believe Edmontonia was capable of producing honking sounds, which would truly have made it the SUV of nodosaurs. (By the way, Edmontosaurus and other nodosaurs lacked the tail clubs of classic armored dinosaurs like Ankylosaurus, which may or may not have made them more vulnerable to predation by tyrannosaurs and raptors.)

Environmental Issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Environmental Issues - Essay Example The third issue discussed is the ecosystem pricing of goods and services. The fourth outlines the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's position against Precautionary Principle. The last and fifth issue discussed in the paper is paraphrasing the transition to organic agriculture. This paper, therefore, gives a clear and understandable summary of all the issues as discussed in the book. Issue 1 - Precautionary Principle In the book, the argument occurs between Nancy Myers who supports the issue while Goldstein Bernard argues negatively towards the issue. The outline of disagreement between the two principle contributors teaches more about the argument and acts as an analysis of the same. The first disagreement is the beliefs of Nancy Meyer about precautionary principle justifies that the people have a right to know the risks behind the choices intended to make and thus be cautious in exchange of benefits. This gives the people a chance to know as much as possible the dangers on any action. Accor ding to Nancy, the manufacturers increase the possibilities of choosing the options which aim at reducing the risks as a safer alternative to the consumers. On his side, Goldstein Bernard argues that precautionary principle cannot be classified as a threat to the toxicological science. He bases the argument on the fact that, most definitions lack when considering precautionary principle. Another disagreement between Nancy Meyer and Goldstein Bernard is on the risk assessment. There had been arguments in the past that precautionary principle is not needed by the people. Nancy Meyer, on the other hand, argues in a different perspective that risk assessment has been used to derail the application of the precautionary actions appropriately. According to Stein (2000), it is a fact that the assessments of the risks require the decision makers to gather enough information to make the decision. These norms end up in management of the risks rather than preventing them. Nancy’s words w ere once justified by Thompson (2001), who concluded that the standard risk assessment can only be useful in high conditions of uncertainty. This is because it can be utilized to in helping in establishment of better alternative to the technologies which are dangerous. In contrast to the views of Nancy, Goldstein Bernard argues that there are different actions that one can take as a move to precaution. He says that it would be advantageous for one to consider some of the actions under the prevention nomenclature. Goldstein Bernard classifies the prevention actions as primary and secondary prevention. The assumption of the primary preventions is that, there is no problem when starting e.g. a person starting smoking where no cigarettes are produced. He continues to argue that there are no initial problems reported at the initial stage and the primary prevention should, thus, aim in prevention of any action which might trigger problems later. On the other hand, Goldstein Bernard explai ns the secondary prevention to depend on the early discovery of the problems. For example, diagnosing the high blood pressure before the patients gets a stroke. Goldstein Bernard arguments boldly explain that the actions taken as a result of ecological risk assessment and management happens because of being secondary prevention. This is especially when the problem is related to the chemicals which are known to be toxic. There is another

Judy Bacas Great Wall of LA (Historical and Geographic and american Essay

Judy Bacas Great Wall of LA (Historical and Geographic and american dream aspect) - Essay Example The community in which it exists is also highly diverse, including residents of Mexican, Indian and African descent, making a history of this nature seem entirely appropriate for the area and necessary for the state. Each panel depicts a different event in California history while can be pieced together through the 1960s. By looking at the panels that depict the California Gold Rush and California’s role in World War II, it is possible to see how the American Dream was shared by people of all races in the first and defended by people of all races in the second. The panel depicting the California Gold Rush is an important point in history as it is the event that brought numerous white settlers out to the west to displace those individuals already living there. Panels before this depict the level of Indian and Mexican settlement that had already taken place, as well as Spanish domination. However, with the discovery of gold, more and more white settlers moved in from the east seeking their own fortunes. The panel begins innocently enough with the depiction of the discovery of gold and the arrival of gold seekers by ship. Here is the American dream in action, with people of all colors coming to the California coast to seek their fortunes and pursue the American Dream of some property, a home to call their own and the ability to make their own livings. Included in the image are portraits of Mifflin W. Gibbs, who is identified on the wall’s official website as the publisher of the first Black newspaper, and Mary Ellen Pleasant, also iden tified on the same site as a civil rights activist who helped defend Blacks arraigned under the fugitive slave laws. While the inclusion of these two figures is intended to indicate the positive impact of black people on California history, it also serves to remind viewers of the limited number of people of color that were able to have such an impact on the people of this time period. The inclusion of a

A Comparison of Practical and Principled Nonviolent Action Theories Ess

A Comparison of Practical and Principled Nonviolent Action Theories Introduction The phrase "nonviolent action" brings to mind a wide variety of sometimes conflicting images. The image of a Chinese student at Tiananmen Square standing in the way of a tank was portrayed around the world, along with the stories of those who were shot and run over by those tanks. Indian participants pressed forward undauntedly in columns and then in groups to the salt depot at Dharasana while being beaten back with clubs by police forces who were infuriated by the nonresistance of the people. Individual Danes sneaked onto the Nazi occupied airfields at night to sabotage their own planes to prevent them from being used against the Allies and the Danish people. Polish workers during the Solidarity movement refused to vote even though it was illegal and succeeded in preventing the election of unwanted single ticket politicians. Though widely varied, these images all accurately represent nonviolent social change movements of the last century. Two theories have dominated the recorded history of the nonviolent social change movement as motivation for keeping the movements nonviolent: pragmatism and principle. A pragmatic approach has led to what is called practical nonviolent action--action based either on the lack of violent options or on the direct efficiency of nonviolence. Action based on a theory of moral, ethical, or religious principles is known as principled nonviolent action. Both theories have motivated successful campaigns and both have spawned actions in which the goals of the movement were not accomplished. A number of authors in recent years have carefully examined and articulated both theories along with the case studies of moveme... ... 1989. Douglas, James. Lightning East to West: Jesus, Gandhi, and the nuclear age. New York: Crossroad, 1983. Gandhi, Mahatma K. Satyagraha. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House 1958. King, Mary. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr: The Power of Nonviolent Action. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1999. Powers, . Protest, Power and Change. Roberts, Adam. Civilian Resistance as National Defense. Schell, Orville. "Children of Tiananmen." Rolling Stone. December 14-28, 1989: 185-8+. Sharp, Gene. The Politics of Nonviolent Action volume 1. Boston: P. Sargen, 1973. Touraine, Alain. Solidarity: The Analysis of a Social Movement. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Walesa, Lech. A Way of Hope. New York: H. Holt, 1987. Yi, Mu. Crisis at Tiananmen: Reform and Reality in Modern China. San Francisco, CA: China Books & Periodicals, c1989

Heteronormativity Kritik Essay

This chapter is about sex, but not the sex that people already have clarity about. ‘Outer space’ as a human, political domain is organized around sex, but a ‘sex’ that is tacitly located, and rarely spoken, in official discourse. The poli ­ tics of outer space exploration, militarization and commercialization as they are conceived of and practiced in the US, embody a distinction between public and private (and appropriate behaviours, meanings and identities therein) highly dependent upon heteronormative hierarchies of property and propriety. The central aim of this chapter is to show how US outer space discourse, an imperial discourse of technological, military and commercial superiority, configutes and prescribes success and successful behaviour in the politics of outer space in particularly gendered forms. US space discourse is, I argue, predicated on a heteronormative discourse of conquest that reproduces the dominance of heterosexual masculinity(ies), and which hierarchically orders the construction of other (subordinate) gender identities. Reading the politics of outer space as heteronormative suggests that the discourses through which space exists consist of institutions, structures of understanding, practical orientations and regulatory practices organized and privileged around heterosexuality. As a particularly dominant discursive arrangement of outer space politics, US space discourse (re)produces meaning through gendered assumptions of exploration, colonization, economic endeavour and military conquest that are deeply gendered whilst presented as universal and neutral. US space discourse, which dominates the contemporary global politics of outer space, is thus formed from and upon institutions, structures of understanding, and practical orientations that privilege and normalize heterosexualiry as universal. As such, the hegemonic discursive rationalizations of space exploration and conquest ,re)produce both heterosexuality as ‘unmarked’ (that is, thoroughly normal ­ ized) and the heterosexual imperatives that constitute suitable space-able people, practices and behaviours. As the introduction to this volume highlights, the exploration and utilization of outer space can thus far be held up as a mirror of, rather than a challenge to, existent, terrestrially-bound, political patterns, behaviours and impulses. The new possibilities for human progress that the application and development of space technologies dares us to make are grounded only in the strategy ­ obsessed (be it commercially, militarily or otherwise) realities of contemporary global politics. Outer space is a conceptual, political and material space, a place for collisions and collusions (literally and metaphorically) between objects, ideas, identities and discourses. Outer space, like international relations, is a global space always socially and locally embedded. There is nothing ‘out there’ about outer space. It exists because of us, not in spite of us, and it is this that means that it only makes sense in social terms, that is, in relation to our own constructions of identity and social location. In this chapter, outer space is the problematic to which I apply a gender analysis; an arena wherein past, current and future policy-making is embedded in relation to certain performances of power and reconfigurations of identity that are always, and not incidentally, gendered. Effective and appropriate behaviour in the politics of ourer space is configured and prescribed in particularly gendered forms, with heteronormative gender regulations endowing outer space’s hierarchies of technologically superior, conquesting performance with theif everyday power. It is through gender that US techno-strategic and astro-political discourse has been able to (re)produce outer space as a heterosexualized, masculinized realm. Heteronormativity K 1NC 2. The drive to colonize space precludes queer identities and concretizes sexual difference. This reinforces heterosexism and turns women into commodities. Casper and Moore 95 (Monica J. , Ph. D in sociology from the University of California, San Francisco, feminist scholar and researcher on reproductive justice. Lisa Jean, Ph. D in sociology from the University

Essay about Effects of Maternal Employment on Infant...

The topic of this paper is the debate of whether or not maternal employment has any effect on infant development. Research on this described topic has recently become popular due to the rise of working mothers over the past several decades. Their increasing numbers in the workplace and decreasing numbers as stay at home moms are creating a number of different issues to be studied. The effects of maternal employment are determined by a number of factors that include, the mothers job satisfaction and drive, amount of work, and the mothers opinion of quality versus quantity time with children. The main concept at hand here is the importance of an attachment in the first few years as being vital to a childs later development. One side†¦show more content†¦It was also found that the children that had received care for 20 or more hours per week during their first year and this care continued through their preschool years did poorly academically and socially than the children t hat had not received full-time care until sometime later. Sometime later referring to at least after the childs second year of life; this is due to research that has also shown that children that began full-time care for 30 hours a week in their second year functioned just as poorly as these children whose care was initiated in their first year of life. These studies have been examined by many researchers, each of them varying and being put together a little better than the last after taking in to mind the criticism for each. After Belskys research was criticized another similar study was done but also took into account the background information of the child, mother and the family. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth was used for these studies which also lead to there being a more representative sample of children. Their research broke up the children, 4, 5 and 6 year olds, into three separate groups so they could be compared on the emotional and social functioning being studied. There were two groups differing by when theirShow MoreRelatedEssay on Effects of Maternal Employment on Infant Development1645 Words   |  7 Pagesnbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The topic of this paper is the debate of whether or not maternal employment has any effect on infant development. Research on this described topic has recently become popular due to the rise of working mothers over the past several decades. Their increasing numbers in the workplace and decreasing numbers as stay at home moms are creating a number of different issues to be studied. 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