Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano

Aztec cannibalism: an ecological necessity?

It has been proposed that Aztec human sacrifice and cannibalism can best be explained as a response to population pressure and famine. The greatest amount of cannibalism, however, coincided with times of harvest, not with periods of scarcity, and is better explained as a thanksgiving. Tenochtitlan recevied large quantities of food tribute and engaged in intensive (chinampa) agriculture. These two sources alone would have provided enough to feed practically the entire population of the city. The Aztecs also consumed various animals and insects that were good protein sources. The amount of protein available from human sacrifice would not have made a significant contribution to the diet. Cannibalism was not motivated by starvation but by a belief that this was a way to commune with the gods.

The antibacterial properties of an Aztec wound remedy

Wound treatment practices of the Aztecs are discussed. The use of concentrated maguey sap (Agave ssp.) was widely dispersed and has persisted in folk medicine. A possible reason may be that it is effective. Laboratory analysis of maguey syrup indicates that its utilization as a remedy by ancient and modern Mesoamericans could contribute to the healing process of aerobic wound infections. Both pyogenic and enteric bacteria appear to be susceptible to maguey syrup. The traditional addition of salt to the remedy seems to enhance the effectiveness of the material in inhibiting the growth of one of the major causes of pus-forming or pyogenic infective processes, Staphylococcus aureus. This finding is additional proof of the effectiveness of pre-Hispanic medicine, and of the skills of pre-Hispanic physicians.

They were NOT here before Columbus: Afrocentric Hyperdiffusionism in the 1990s.

This essay responds to a theory that has been aggressively promoted as fact by an influential group of Afrocentrists in recent years-that New World civilizations were created or were influenced by African visitors at key points in the centuries that preceded the European discovery of the Americas. As discussed in this essay, the theory is shown to have no support in the evidence that has been analyzed by specialists in various fields. The essay focuses on the methodological approaches employed by Afrocentrists in their study of linguistics, terracotta figurines, technological development, and monumental sculpture. A concluding section briefly discusses the repercussions of this theory on ethnic relations in schools, on college campuses, and in North American society as a whole.

Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs

In 1976, Ivan Van Sertima proposed that New World civilizations were strongly influenced by diffusion from Africa. The first and most important contact, he argued, was between Nubians and Olmecs in 700 B.C., and it was followed by other contacts from Mali in A.D. 1300. This theory has spread widely in the African‐American community, both lay and scholarly, but it has never been evaluated at length by Mesoamericanists. This article shows the proposal to be devoid of any foundation. First, no genuine African artifact has ever been found in a controlled archaeological excavation in the New World. The presence of Africanorigin plants such as the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) or of African genes in New World cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) shows that there was contact between the Old World and the New, but this contact occurred too long ago to have involved any human agency and is irrelevant to Egyptian‐Olmec contact. The colossal Olmec heads, which resemble a stereotypical “Negroid,” were carved hundreds of years before the arrival of the presumed models. Additionally, Nubians, who come from a desert environment and have long, high noses, do not resemble their supposed “portraits.” Claims for the diffusion of pyramid building and mummification are also fallacious.

The rabbit on the face of the moon : mythology in the mesoamerican tradition

Eighteen essays provide an accessible, entertaining look into a system of millennia-old legends and beliefs.Mythology is one of the great creations of humankind. It forms the core of sacred books and reflects the deepest preoccupations of human beings, their most intimate secrets, their glories, and their infamies.In 1990, Alfredo Lopez Austin, one of the foremost scholars of ancient Mesoamerican thought, began a series of essays about mythology in the Mesoamerican tradition, published in Mexico Indigena. Although his articles were written for general readers, they were also intended to engage specialists. They span a divers subject matter: myths and names, eclipses, stars, left and right, Mexican origins, Aztec incantations, animals, and the incorporation of Christian elements into the living mythologies of Mexico. The title essay relates the Mesoamerican myth explaining why there is a rabbit o the moons face to a Buddhist image and suggests the importance of the profound mythical concepts presented by each image.The eighteen essays in this volume are unified by their basis in Mesoamerican tradition and provide an accessible, entertaining look into a system of millennia-old legends and beliefs.

Entheogens: The interaction of biology and culture

G. Reichel‐Dolmatoff. Beyond the Milky Way: Hallucinatory Imagery of the Tukano Indians. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978. x + 159 pp. Index, illustrations.

On Research Methodology for Ethnomedicine

25.00, cloth. Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Hofmann. Plants of the Gods: Origins of Hallucinogenic Use. New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1979.192 pp. Index, illustrations.

Drugs of the future; drugs of the past

34.95, cloth. R. Gordon Wasson. The Wondrous Mushroom: Mycolatry in Mesoamerica. New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1980. xxvi + 248 pp. Index, illustrations.

A Methodology for Cross-cultural Ethnomedical Research

12.95, paper.

A Methodology for Cross-cultural Ethnomedical Research [and Comments and Reply]

Discussion critique de la methodologie transculturelle pour la theorie et les applications ethnomedicales proposees par C. H. Browner, B. R. Ortiz de Montellano et A. J. Rubel (C.A., vol. 29, no 5), et reponse des A.