When most folks think of ideas of freedom and democracy, people imagine the origins are in ancient Athens. And ancient Athens did, indeed, give us something like democracy…except if you were a woman, a poor man who did not own land, or of course, a slave. So the next stepping stone to universal human rights is the French Revolution, right? 1789 and all that? Or, maybe there is a non-European stepping stone that ALSO has to be looked at, one which actually fits better into what we understand as universal human rights — the ability to believe what one wants, and not demand blood payment from others if their beliefs differ from ours.
Look at Central America and the Andean region in South America, and you will see that the Mayan and Andean cultures of those regions developed a perspective on this during the long Spanish colonial period (early 16th-early 19th centuries) which offered an alternative to always submitting to bloody gods, whether in the name of Western OR Native American religion. This new and wonderful cynicism predates anything like it in the West (though it fits beautifully with ideas expressed in both Shakespeare and Cervantes). There is a narrative parallelism between the two most important Native American epics of Latin America, the Popul Vuh and the Huarochiri Manuscript, arising from a weariness with Empire and its justifications, in all forms, and with all gods.
The book which I have just published, An Unholy rebellion, Killing the Gods; Political Ideology and Insurrection in the Mayan Popul Vuh and the Andean Huarochiri Manuscript , University of Nebraska Press, 2024, explores this factious and liberating attitude and its historical roots in these literary works.
What makes the epics of the Huarochiri Manuscript and the Popul Vuh extraordinary is their rejection of Native American forms of empire as much as the European variants. This work investigates the roots of that insubordination: Why did the Mayas and the non-Incan Andeans fight on, long after the larger and more centralized Aztec and Incan empires had disappeared?
There is something that we can learn here, in this bloody first half of the 21st century, so that we can escape this divisiveness that currently cements extreme stereotypes of Good vs. Evil in all the conflicts that rage around us. Can Mayan and Andean native literature, in which their heroes rise up and set limits on the gods and what they can and cannot command us to do, offer us a vision out of our current political impasses, where “gods” of Right and Left, just like the gods of old, are always quick to demand sacrifices, yes, “human sacrifices” from their followers?
Mayans and Andeans have given us, back in the 16th century (and with roots far more ancient), a way out of this quagmire, and that idea of a different, more compassionate universe, is the basis of what we now call Universal human rights.
My book is the first to attempt a comprehensive comparison between the two most important Native American epics of Latin America: the Mayan Popul Vuh and the Peruvian Huarochiri Manuscript. And it is the first to suggest that Native American concepts of human rights predate the West. We can learn from our ancestors, our universal human ancestors. This book is not “niche” and the teachings of these peoples are more pertinent to all of us now than ever.
The Liberator of Argentina and protector of Peru, Spanish creole general Jose Francisco de San Martin, in the early 19th century; and Gonzalo Guerrero, a former Spanish Conquistador turned Mayan warrior in the early 16th century, both saw that humanity can bridge cultural and religious divides. You will also find them in the pages of my book, because their message is desperately needed now, and because they knew how to learn and befriend the persons wrongly termed “enemies.”
Exploding the racism evident in many Eurocentric-oriented manifestations of Latin American history and literature is a personal goal of Dr. Sharonah Fredrick, professor in the Department of Hispanic Studies, College of Charleston. Learn more about her new book on Amazon.
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