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HISTORICAL MEMORY AND ANCESTRAL CULTURAL IDENTITY 1/2

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HISTORICAL MEMORY AND ANCESTRAL CULTURAL IDENTITY 1/2
"We have witnessed, and we have listened, being told who we are? The problem with that is that we've come to believe what they tell us. Spanish barbarism depicted us through humiliation; to confirm it, it would suffice to read what was written by Cortés or Díaz del Castillo; the friars, later, depicted us as worshipers of evil forces; devils were the object of our veneration." Rubén Bonifaz Nuño.

At first, when I was 25, I realized that I was not occidental as my parents, teachers, and society had made me believe until that point in my life. I always sensed that the "Ancient Mexico" official history was false. While in Europe I realized I was not "from there", then began my quest to know my true identity. On my return, in Oaxaca (the Anahuac spiritual reserve), I began to realize that there was "another reality", or rather, I began to realize that I lived outside of reality and that, that country and that people with whom I lived for 25 years, were more than Mexico City and the "coyocans". It helped me a lot to begin understanding the ancestral peoples of Oaxaca from a de-colonial perspective. At the time, I was very encouraged by reading Carlos Castaneda. I began to research and study ancestral history and searched for decolonized readings and critical historians.
Year after year I learned and revalued that other world, denied by my mental and cultural colonization. Readings were supported by experiences and my cultural promotion field work. Fortunately, I found authors like Laurette Séjurné, Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, Rubén Bonifaz Nuño, to name just three of a plethora of decolonized and critical minds, who illuminated my path.
I began to realize that the ancestral cultural heritage had always been before my eyes, tangible and invisible at the same time, my colonized mind made me see it distorted, of little value, only "ruins" for tourists, made them invisible and useless. The most obvious are the so-called archaeological sites, which, like Teotihuacan, Monte Alban and Chichen Itza, were majestic and immeasurable constructions, that no longer conform, to the colonized description that I had of them, at all.
For example, Monte Alban, which was built during over 1350 years in a civilizing effort that far exceeded a person or the lineage that created it; but was the product of a systematic and shared effort by many generations and many peoples who became involved in a massive work and which, was not made and used as a city, a palace, a ceremonial center or a fortress.
Without metals such as steel, bronze or iron, huge quantities of land were moved. Terraces were made on different levels, millions of tons of stone were brought from distant places, were cut and assembled into buildings that break away from every world purpose of practical material use.
The architectural floor plan of the first phase in the year 500 BC, is exactly the same as when it was abandoned in the year 850 of the era. This means that where the construction was, in that same place they built another new building over the previous, but larger. This implies that, what they designed from the beginning, it worked exactly the same way for 1350 years. A marvel, the City of Oaxaca is less than 500 years old and no longer serves for what they planned it.
What was the constructive goal? What was "it" that could remain used and unchanged for hundreds of years, and that did not go out of fashion or was not substantially modified? Why was it so important and lasted so long? What was "that primal idea" that was shared for so many generations and remained unchanged in its most elementary essence?

HISTORICAL MEMORY AND ANCESTRAL CULTURAL IDENTITY 1/2What were that knowledge, values and principles that drove many generations to maintain for so many continual centuries such a massive effort, without, apparently, any practical objective of immediate and utilitarian material life?
We must understand that, for some reason, unknown today or possibly hidden, all the ancient world civilizations of the planet, all of them, built what generically we call today "pyramids". Indeed, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Tawantinsuyo and The Anahuac, all built pyramids.

It is unsustainable and insulting to continue believing the invaders discourse of yesterday and today, that these were "ceremonial centers" to make human sacrifices or worship nature phenomena. All ancestral cultures made these buildings without previous accord. It is the Cem Anahuac, the civilization that built the largest number of these buildings and architectural complexes. This is very important and significant, and it should not go unnoticed. It's the tip of the iceberg.
Because it reveals that our ancestors were people who possessed a high culture, with values and principles so high that they allowed them to live in harmony for more than a thousand years, long enough to be able to build such a magnificent architectural work. Entire towns who worked hard over matter to enhance the human spirit. To achieve these magnificent works they required, logically, to provide all people with excellent nourishment, an effective health system, an amazing educational system, and they had an effective organization system to build these monumental works over generations.
Their attention, passion and commitment to the research of celestial mechanics and nature over many centuries of research, observation, reasoning, analysis, systematization and knowledge transmission, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. This is why they invented corn, milpa, potato and at least 42 products that today are part of humanity's diet such as chocolate, vanilla, edible nopal, amaranth, potato, tomato, etc. But in the field of science they invented the mathematical zero before the Egyptians, the first calculator on the planet called Nepohualtzinzin and its similar in the Andes called Quipu. Construction engineering and hydraulics reached equal or higher levels of what is now available, which resulted in hundreds of kilometers of canals, dams and aqueducts, with intelligent water management, both in the Central Highlands of Mexico, in the Yucatan Peninsula or throughout the Andes Mountains. Because it must be recognized that science for our ancestors was of biophilic nature. They never researched for war, weapons, mass production, mass consumption of superfluous products to generate material wealth.
Our ancestors for millennia, lived without private property, without the use of money, all trade was done through barter and therefore, without consumerism, so they all lived austere and frugally, with spirituality and without religions, with a participatory democracy governments, where authority governed by obeying, where family was the center of life and the calpulli the force and the communal school. Where all children were obligated to go to school, where there was no consumerism and individualism and instead there was free community work for the common good or tequio. Throughout the classical period (200 B.C. to 850 A.D.) it was not a militaristic, hegemonic and warrior period. Had these biophilic cultural elements not been available to live, it would not have been possible to build the largest number of pyramids in the world.
And it is precisely because of this way of personal, family and community living for many centuries that these great civilizational achievements could be achieved, had their energy, intelligence and work, had been focused on war, commerce and invading their neighbors: First, these achievements could not have been possible, and, secondly, there would be the vestiges of this primitive and brutal way of life , such as the middle ages in Europe or the Roman Empire, with castles, watchtowers, moats, turrets, weapons and armor.
Our ancestral heritage, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego including the Caribbean Islands, which were the ancient communication bridge between Tawantinsuyo and Anahuac, left to their direct and indirect descendants five cultural elements that identify and unite all the peoples of the Abayanáhuac continent. First, the values and principles of family, our love for Tonantzin or Pachamama, our tireless builder spirit, life in communality, our permanent hospitality and fraternity, and our deep and ingrained spirituality. Cultural elements that are intrinsic to all people on the continent, from North to South, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, whether in the mountains as in the coasts, plains or valleys. This cultural philosophical matrix is what provides all peoples and cultures, one face and one heart.
And all this reflection, is to meditate about the image that for five centuries has been presented of our venerable ancestors and their great civilizational project, perhaps the most important in terms of achievements in quality of life for all the inhabitants of the peoples and cultures that integrated this cultural universe. An image that begins distortedly with the texts of Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortés, in which these murderers and thieves, intoxicated by the theft of other people's wealth and bewitched with so much blood spilled by their hands, misrepresented the invasion facts, to proclaim themselves civilizing heroes and apostles of their religion.

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