ANST - Musing on June 30 -- Stick and stones will break my whatevers

[j'lynn yeates]

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From: Ellsworth Weaver [mailto:astroweaver at yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2000 02:35

Dear Folk,

On this date June 30, three major things happened. One occurred in
1520 in Mexico, one in 1559 in France and one in 1908 in Siberia. I
know, I normally do not talk about things as recent as 1908 but it
all fits together somehow. Maybe.

Let’s talk about 1520 Mexico. The Spaniards had landed in the New (to
them) World in 1492 or so. The first place they colonized was Cuba.
The Spaniards were intent on bringing enlightenment and slavery to the
natives and gold back home to Spain. Seemed fair to them. You have to
remember that the Spaniards had been paying a heavy price to fight
the Moors they had so recently kicked out of their country. Those
Americans were infidels as well. So it figures they should have to
pay for their conversion.

The Americans did not take well to slavery. They inconveniently just
died instead of picking cotton, digging gold, burping babies.
Governor Diego de Velazquez de Cuellar decided that there were hardier
stock folk on the mainland and sent expeditions out of Cuba to bring back
slaves, gold, and Big Macs. Henry de Cordoba went to the Yucatan in
1517. John Boy de Grijalva went to Veracruz where he heard about some
folk called Aztecs.

The third expedition, led by Hernan Cortez, managed to conquer these
Aztecs in less than three years. He landed in what is now Veracruz
with 11 ships, about 600 men, 16 horses, and a few very light cannon.
Strangely enough, some of the Americans were sick of the Aztecs and
decided that the Spanish were an improvement. See what comes from
remote management: heartache! These disgruntled Americans walked
beside Cortez and showed him the way to Tenochtitlan (what the Americans
called it before the Spaniards taught them it is Mexico) arriving in
November 1519. It was pretty cool that the Aztec priests led by their
ruler Montezuma II had been having visions of the god Quetzalcoatl as
a white dude coming across the sea. Hey, their visions were right on
the money.

Some folk say that the Spaniards led in technology. I disagree. The
Aztecs had breastplates and woven underarmor which could stop
anything except a very close direct hit by a bullet. They had swords
made out of wood – just like the SCA – but the edges had obsidian
embedded in them. Diaz, a historian of the expedition said he saw
one of these composite swords cut a horse’s head off. Think of the
amount of strapping and duct tape you would have to put on that to
make it safe for tourneys! OSHA would not allow it, that is for sure.
Obsidian spear points so sharp you could shave with them. And Cortez
had, what? 600 guys in his whole army. All it would have taken is
for each Aztec to pick up one rock each and heave it at a Spaniard.

The Spaniards under Cortez especially were trying to be diplomatic.
Okay, stealthy. They were not allowed by Cortez to rape or plunder.
Really. Montezuma and his people set no store in gold. They used it
for funerary offerings but that was about it. Montezuma gave gold freely
when the Spaniards told him that it was the only thing they could
eat. Crafty Spaniards. The Aztecs offered gifts that were hot items to
them: feathers, special sandals like Montezuma wore, even incense
made from the ambassador’s own blood. High culture stuff which the
Spaniards just could not relate to.

The falling out came over religion. The Spaniards insisted on having
a cross and a statue of Mary on the holiest of grounds. The Aztecs let
them. But the Spaniards started dissing the Aztec gods and ancestors
of the king.

On the night of June 30-July 1, 1520, you knew I was getting back to
that date,  known as "la noche triste" (the night of sadness),
Montezuma and the boys did a Popeye and said "We’ve had all we can
stands and we can’t stands no more!" Maybe they got wise that Cortez
was not exactly a god. They broke into the holy place, set fire to
the cross. No one ever found out what happened to the statue of Mary.
They generally raised heck and beat on the Spaniards and their Indian
allies. Cortez decided to vacation somewhere cooler. The following
summer, however, the Europeans, accompanied by thousands of Indian
mercenaries, sacked and besieged Tenochtitlan. Their capital in ruins
and their emperor dead, the Aztecs finally collapsed. Cortez named
his conquest New Spain and sent out expeditions to set up Spanish
"cultural centers" over the continent. Pedro de Alvarado conquered
(1523-24) the regions of Guatemala and El Salvador, which together
then constituted much of Central America.  The Native American population
dropped from approximately 11 million to under 1 million in less than 20
years.

On this date in 1559, king Henry II of France had a tourney-related
injury. A wooden shaft of a lance splintered on impact and the sharp
pointy-thingy went right through his visor. Ouch! It entered his eye.
He died in agony 10 days later. Test question time: who was Hank II’s
grieving widow? Do you remember from the other day? If you said Kate
de Medici, you are absolutely right. Those of you who guessed Isabella
Adjani were off by a generation. Isabella played her daughter
Margaret de Valois. This untimely end (he was only 40) of a French
monarch led to the banning of all such jousts. No second amendment
for these guys (pronouced "gise")! Tourneys were a way for knights not
otherwise engaged in war to go around the country looking studly,
challenging the locals, and picking up prize money. Well, that had to
stop, right then. End of an era. Sniff.

1908, Siberia. Cue the X-Files music. Something happened in a region
known as Tunguska. Something knocked the trees down. Not one or two
but hundreds of square miles of huge trees tossed down. To this day no
one knows exactly why. It is in a very remote area of Siberia. Mosquitos
as big as horses, bogs as deep as the horse manure I generate. Anyway,
something went boom. Loudly. Was it a mini-black hole? A meteor
exploding just before touch down (there was no crater)? A UFO
carrying "The Black Oil" to infect Krycheck and Mulder? Beats me.
Sure is strange. Bet a lot of squirrels got themselves deceased that day.

What do all of these have in common? Hmm. Well, let us see. Even if
you are the king of a mighty nation or a big ass tree, you can fall?
Wooden thingies are dangerous? OSHA probably would not approve of any
of the three? The fall of anything can still be a mystery and generate
unanswerable questions? When someone asks you if you are a god, say
yes? I think mom said it best, "It’s all fun and games until somebody
gets an eye put out."

As always, you may forward these things to anyone you want provided
my name and email address are on it.

Be careful out there,
Ells


=====
"That proves you are unusual," returned the Scarecrow; "and I am
convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world
are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a
tree, and live and die unnoticed." -- L. Frank Baum in _The Land of
Oz_

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