UpsideDownWorld.org
In many high school history classes students are told that before Columbus arrived the Americas were full of untamed wilderness loosely populated with savage Indians. Charles Mann’s book, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus proves that the opposite is true.
He draws from recent archeological and scientific discoveries to describe booming civilizations which thrived throughout the Americas centuries before the arrival of Europeans. Like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States this book made me want to call up my old history teachers and tell them they were very wrong. In fact, Mann’s self-described thesis is to show that indigenous societies before the arrival of Columbus deserve more than a few misleading pages in a textbook.
Mann was able to hold my attention not just with the details of complex indigenous societies, but also with controversies, adventures and divisions among the scientists and archeologists which have contributed to what we know of pre-Columbian history. Not only is he able to make squabbles between European archeologists interesting, but he’s able to smoothly describe scientific data and Mayan politics in the same breath.
Phau ntawv muaj cov ntaub ntawv txaus ntshai zoo li qhov tseeb tias lub nroog Tiwanaku, tam sim no Bolivia, muaj 115,000 tus neeg nyob hauv nws hauv 1000 AD, cov pejxeem uas Paris yuav tsis ncav cuag tsib centuries. Ntawm lwm qhov kev xav tsis thoob peb kawm tias Pocahontas txhais tau tias "me ntsis ntuj raug txim" thiab muaj tsawg tus neeg nyob hauv Amazon tam sim no dua li muaj nyob rau xyoo 1491. Mann tau taw qhia tias cov neeg Askiv thiab Fabkis, tsis yog cov neeg hauv paus txawm, yog cov neeg phem. Cov neeg European tuaj txog hauv North America hnov tsw phem; ib txhia twb tsis tau da dej tas lawv lub neej. Ntawm qhov tod tes, cov neeg hauv paus txawm feem ntau huv si, muaj zog thiab noj qab nyob zoo.
The first section of the book deals largely with new revelations about the sicknesses such as small pox and Hepatitis A which ravaged the native populations of the Americas shortly after the arrival of the Europeans. The death toll is as surprising as the size of the populations before Columbus. When Columbus landed, there were an estimated 25 million people living in Mexico. At the time, there were only 10 million people in Spain and Portugal. Central Mexico was more densely populated than China or India when Columbus arrived. An estimated 90-112 million lived in the Americas, which was a larger population than that of Europe. Mann also pointed out that the Incas ruled the biggest empire on earth ever. In their prime, the kingdom’s span equaled the distance between St. Petersburg and Cairo.
The bloodshed unleashed by the Europeans had a lot do with killing off of these populations. Yet sickness played perhaps an even larger role. Smallpox hit the Andes before Spain’s Pizarro did, killing off most people and plunging the area into civil war. The sickness is thought to have arrived to the region from the Caribbean. Hepatitis A killed off an estimated 90% of the population in coastal New England in 3 years. Within first years of European contact, 95% of native populations died. These numbers seem hard to believe, but Mann’s exhausting research draws from decades of investigations from dozens of scientists and archeologists.
Thaum nyeem phau ntawv no, kuv pom tau hais tias nws tsis raug piav qhia txog Asmeskas li "Lub Ntiaj Teb Tshiab." Tsis muaj ib yam yuav ua tau ntxiv los ntawm qhov tseeb. Cov neeg Amelikas tau nyob hauv 20-30,0000 xyoo dhau los. Teb chaws Europe, ntawm qhov tod tes, tau nyob los ntawm tib neeg tsis ntev los no, 18,000 xyoo dhau los ntawm qhov ntau tshaj.
Phau ntawv no ua pov thawj tias cov roob moj sab qhua hauv tebchaws Amelikas ua ntej cov neeg nyob sab Europe tuaj txog yog deb ntawm cov tsiaj qus thiab tsis muaj kev cuam tshuam los ntawm tib neeg. Mann sib cav hais tias pre-Columbus roob moj sab qhua tau cuam tshuam tag nrho thiab zoo li cov neeg ib txwm nyob ntawd. Piv txwv li, cov Mayans rhuav tshem lawv tus kheej ib puag ncig; lawv txiav ntoo ntau dhau lawm thiab ua rau av tag. Raws li lawv cov pejxeem nthuav dav ib puag ncig thiab kev ua liaj ua teb tsis tuaj yeem txhawb nqa lawv. Qhov no tau pab txhawb rau lawv lub cev qhuav dej.
Lwm pab pawg neeg hauv paus txawm hloov kho lawv cov ecosystem kom pab lawv ciaj sia. Cov zej zog hauv Amazon tsis tu ncua hlawv cov hav zoov loj heev; charred av tau zoo rau kev ua liaj ua teb thiab hluav taws tua tsiaj rau zaub mov. Cov tiaj tiaj hauv Teb Chaws Asmeskas tau ntseeg tias yog qhov tshwm sim los ntawm cov txheej txheem kev hlawv hav zoov zoo sib xws. Cov neeg yos hav zoov hauv paus txawm ua ntej Columbus nrhiav cov tsiaj cev xeeb tub kom txo cov pejxeem; Cov neeg hauv paus txawm sib tw nrog cov tsiaj rau zaub mov, txiv hmab txiv ntoo thiab txiv ntoo. Cov haiv neeg hauv paus txawm kuj tsim cov kwj dej loj, cov nroog, cov kav dej, cov chaw ua liaj ua teb loj, hloov tag nrho cov hav zoov rau tib neeg siv.
When the first European explorers passed over the Mississippi they saw millions of bison and other animals. This was not because indigenous people didn’t hunt them. In fact, these animal populations were large because their predators, the indigenous people, had been killed off by European sicknesses. Similarly, the death from these sicknesses allowed ecosystems to thrive without the impact of humans until the European colonies expanded. What Europeans actually saw when they fully explored and settled in “wilder” regions was the death of the landscape shaped by indigenous cultures.
Though I was in awe of such revelations and the vast research Mann put into the book, I couldn’t help but wonder about his sources. I know that most indigenous societies did not have any extensive written history, and so much of what is known about their day to day life, culture, wars and religion is guesswork. Mann’s book is based primarily on research, analysis and theories from Europeans and North Americans. Perhaps this reflects the academic, scientific and archeological world more than it does Mann’s approach. However, I wanted to hear more from contemporary Mayan, Mapuche, Incan and Aymara people about their own versions of this history, people who still practice these ancient politics, customs and religions. Stories and histories exist among descendent of these civilizations, but Mann doesn’t draw from them enough.
Kuv qhov kev txhawj xeeb ntawm nws qhov kev xaiv ntawm cov peev txheej tau nce ntxiv thaum nws piav qhia txog kev mus xyuas qhov puas tsuaj hauv Peru thiab tawm tswv yim rau "xav pom":
“…[S]kulls from the cemetery, gathered into several small piles. Around them were beer cans, cigarette butts, patent-medicine bottles, half-burned photographs and candles shaped like naked women. These last had voodoo pins stuck in their heads and vaginas. Local people came to these places at night and either dug for treasure or practiced witchcraft, Haas [Mann’s archeologist friend] said. In the harsh afternoon light they seemed to me tacky and sad.”
This sounds similar to the kind of disdain the Spanish looked upon indigenous religions when they first arrived. How does Mann know that this “witchcraft” isn’t a modern day version of what the Incas practiced? Instead of ancient broken pottery and gold jewelry, he found beer bottles and photographs. Why does he immediately dismiss this as “tacky and sad”? Could this “witchcraft” serve as a gateway to understanding ancient Andean religions? Elsewhere in the book he criticizes locals who rob from the ruins to sell gold and artifacts to feed their families. I’d say that gold is put to better use feeding a family than sitting in a museum. Observations such as these from Mann made me think even more about the millions of indigenous voices left out of this book about indigenous societies.
None the less, it deserves to be required reading in high schools along with the many other books which have taken on the “official” histories of the hemisphere.
Charles Mann’s book, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus is available on Amazon.com
Benjamin Dangl is the editor of UpsideDownWorld.org, a website uncovering activism and politics in Latin America. He is the author of ” The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia ,” forthcoming in March, 2007 from AK Press. He recently won a Project Censored Award for his coverage of US military operations in Paraguay.