ON THE DELICATE NATURE OF STORIES: NOTES FOR SCHOLARS

It is all too easy when storytelling (especially in a translation) to advance an agenda. The myriad collections of “Native Wisdom” published over the last 150 years proves this quickly- each decade's translations (of even the core, famous stories) reflect the needs and desires of that time. This is done even in situations when the aspect wasn't even latent or dormant in the original in any way at all.
A story is an amazing ephemeral, yet highly powerful living spiritual entity; and it can be looked at in terms of the delicate nature of a butterfly. Butterflies are amazingly beautiful, colorful, splendid creatures that can take your breath away, and intrigue the viewer for days afterwards. Stories are the same. Butterflies are flying jewels that are powerful but very delicate, they are easy to destroy; much like butterflies, stories are best when they visit and touch on their own terms, not when they are grabbed and forced into a container. Stories and butterflies are best dealt with and encountered on their own terms.
This is the problem with the Colonial-era and later translations and re-tellings- the original stories were either mashed by excitement or propaganda and agendas, or they were placed in a kill-jar, and pinned into a display box, where they wilt and fade quickly. A story quickly dies when it is boxed in.
When the monotheist invaders first encountered the stories, they were confused and fearful. Jesuit cockpouch Ramon Pane openly admits he doesn't understand the Taino stories he is encountering, and even weaves in classic Greek stories he remembers to make the narrative longer for his bosses back in Spain. When the invaders began understand the stories, they begin burning the books, and forbidding their use, as the stories contain power on several levels. Native “magic” and enchantments are much stronger than the Itiban attempts by the invaders, and examples and instructions are rampant in the stories. Stories also contain core pieces of identity and self-recognition for the people they belong to, and the Castillians knew that in classic monotheistic manner, they had to break the spirit of the people they were trying to turn into slaves, or it wouldn't work. The more the invaders destroyed, burned, and outlawed stories, the more they gained control. The people lose their identity and will to fight without their stories. This sad chain of events has been seen repeatedly throughout imperial history, beginning with Egypt and Rome, and continuing to this very day. Anthropologists, missionaries, and the destroying, enslaving militia are always in the first wave, and always work together. They are the kill-jar of empire. Not once has an invasion taken place without the destruction of the stories and books, most recently seen in Sarajevo in 1992, and Baghdad in 2003.
After such a tragedy, we are left with only three sources of material to try and reconstruct the original stories and cultures with. The first are any books or artifacts that survived the fires and blades of the inquisition. The second are stories surviving in the oral tradition or folkways, handed down from generation to generation during after-supper hours and bedtimes. The third is the propaganda-laden, butchered “scholarly” version put forth as “official” by the invading army or missionaries. When a society has taken over and enslaved a culture, there are bound to be questions from members of the society who are a bit free-thinking as to what was the original, pre-slavery culture about.
I have laboriously used all three sources in re-weaving the Amatl Turey, to get the most accurate version possible.
For the “official” Jesuit version, there is the Ximinez manuscript, now in Chicago. This is the Quiche document considered the standard, and all Popol Vuh/ Amatl Turey translations before this one have exclusively used it. Being that Pane's “original source documents” are confused and twisted, they cannot be fairly considered. Pane clearly gives warnings throughout his writings, saying things such as: “I am still not sure of what they are saying, or even if I have gotten any of this correct. Even if I have, I still have misplaced much of this; I am told that this piece should come after the next two, or maybe not at all.”
The problems with the Ximinez manuscript are many. It is post-Contact, it is written in a romanized alphabet (even though it is dual-language), we don't know who wrote it or why, and it is rife with Jesiocity. Midway through major pre-contact story arcs, it invokes the Trinity and calls upon Jesus. Only the sections dealing with Xibalba seem free from contamination, and they are obviously severely edited. We can use the Ximinez manuscript then only as the most basic and barest of frameworks to discern what the original story arc might have been, and to learn a few of the characters names. Like most post-invasion documents, the contamination is enough to render the document almost entirely useless to a serious scholar. It would be as if today we were to burn and destroy all copies of the monotheistic texts, and I was to replace them with stories of a prophet named Moses who was a giant sea-cucumber with a penchant for fellatio, a black lesbian biker savior Jesus and her 15 hot-rod-racing disciples, or stories of the prophet Mohammad being a roller-skating, fire-breathing zebra. All are entirely incorrect and insane, all are completely disrespectful, and are total irrelevant fantasias. This is consistently what “scholars” have done to Native stories and traditions.
The largely illiterate invaders destroyed most of the books of a more advanced civilization, but couldn't find and destroy stone and ceramic artifacts, or the many that are in architectural context. They simply built on top of platforms and plazas, not understanding the codes and information that was built into the walls and carved into the stones they built their churches from.
As more land is needed, and curiosity about the real past grows, new discoveries and finds termed “lost” are coming to the front of our knowledge. Throughout the Caribbean and Central America, these new discoveries have re-formatted and re-contextualized our understanding of what went before. Illustrated vases and pottery, cave art, manatee-skin gatefold books, and several intact, in-situ newly discovered sites (Cuba, Mexico, and Belize) all provide new information and pieces of the story arc. Many imperials had previously believed that the Popol Vuh/ Amatl Turey was well too advanced for people “too dumb to invent the wheel”. Eurasian imperial ego posturing proved their ignorance once again; artifacts dating to earlier than 2,000 BCE show conclusively that this story cycle not only pre-dates Christianity and Islam (and literate Hebrews), but is entirely Americanos in nature, with no influence from Eurasia, East Asia, or Africa. Much like the discoveries at Monte Verde, Chile that show a unique Americanos genesis over 120,000 years BCE, the Eurasian scholars have by and large ignored these findings, as they don't fit with the imperial orthodox mythos.
We have also had to entirely re-construct the Hunahpu and Xbalanque dreamstream, as two new discoveries show the Twins escaping Xibalba alive, intact, and with Hun-Hunahpu's head in tow. The corrected, complete story is offered for the first time ever in this volume; previously the Jesuit-written version had them dying in the underworld, so that the moment could be used as an analogy to the monotheist resurrection. There are two other reasons the story was butchered by the murderous, pedophillic knights- the original version shows humans are autonomous and powerful unto themselves, and that Xibalba is not an evil place, simply the Underworld. By editing the story down, they were able to keep the generations that had never heard the original enslaved, ignorant of their own power. Such is the modus operandi of Christianity and all of monotheism- people realizing they are directly linked into the Creation (and that they don't need an intermediary) is bad for the pyramid-power-structure business. How can you be King of Kings when the individual is an autonomous divine power unit?
The folkways tradition- aka “the oral tradition”- is the other source for the stories in this book. Despite the best Khazarian quackademics bitching, I have found that enormous chunks of non-monotheized Native stories exist in the hearts and minds of the descendants of and the Natives themselves. Kosher scholars almost never consider asking the people they are conquering for their input, information, knowledge, or opinions. The deep-seated racial superiority complex that empire is built on will not allow this. Because of this “chosen people/ master race” fetish, the Khazarian quackademics miss out on over three-quarters of the actual data and context. Tenured professorships do not occur from those who ask questions or challenge the domination and rape paradigm of how to treat Natives. That is why the rare brave academic gemstones- such as Dr. Michael D. Coe, Dr. Peter G. Roe, Dr. Karl A. Taube, Joseph Bruchac, Justin Kerr, Dr. William Keegan, Dr. William Ritchie, Dr. Robert E. Funk, Dr. Arthur C. Parker, Antonio Blasini, Dr. Tom Dillehay, Adrian van der Donck, Francisco X. Alarcon (modern), Lawrence E. Sullivan, Orlando and Claudio Villas-Boas, Dr. Andrea J. Stone, Dr. C. Keith Wilbur, Dr. Anna Roosevelt, and Dr. Stephen Hugh-Jones - must be applauded and encouraged. The double-standard is blinding- when a Native scholar provides much evidence, and says that the modern Ashkenazi tradition is Khazarian, and quite violent, he is called a racist, a Nazi, and an anti-semite. If the same person who called him that wrote something entirely fictitious on the Natives, it would immediately be accepted as fact, and the Native who challenged them would be told he is a “conspiracy theorist” and a “psuedoscientist”. If the Khazar is particularly angry, he will call the Native a “black African”, as has been done with the Ramapo people of Manahatouac. Even in their attacks, the Khazars must be racist and supremacist.

Not being a Jew or Jesuit, I went to the Americanos people from and of Caribbean and Central American heritage, as well as Natives from the Amazon and Orinoco basins, and the Mohawk, Huron, Ramapo, and Ojibwe of Manahatouac to gather stories, songs, and concepts. I found many of the same narratives and characters in unexpected places, and was thrilled by the many people who shared with me. From the domino tables of El Barrio, to the Behiques of Union City, to correspondents and online friends in Miami and Tampa, San Juan, Utuado, San Salvador, and Guatemala City, to friends of my Yaus, to friends past and present, alive and deceased, it has been an amazing 12-year journey. What started as a challenge as the first version of Monkey Brothers Playing was being constructed- “Why don't you translate it yourself, so you know it's right?”- has ended up being my lifework so far, and I am honored to have served. I can only humbly give my deepest thanks to all those who shared stories, interpretations, or got me in contact with those who had another piece of the story.
I can promise my readers that this is the most complete and correct version I can produce so far, with the caveat that there are many many more stories that exist, and that the story will never be complete. Someone will always know yet another tale that can be put in. My focus was on Kaney Cacimarex, and Manahatoauc. I offer this volume as a corrected, more-solid frame on which to prop the upcoming stories on. I do not own these stories, no one does. They are part of the diverse and interwoven heritage of all of us of the Turtle Islands.

I have had no agenda, other than to get the story done, and to get it right. For those who feel the story is too overtly homoerotic or even misogynistic, I ask that you look beyond your own imperial programming and conditioning- don't approach these scriptures with the jaded eyes of the conquistador. The NiTaino and related cultures are extremely erotic, and entirely masculinist. No apology or explanation beyond that is needed. These stories will not become like those who tried so hard to change them. The Inquisition failed, and the Itiban Uprising has ended in a loss. These stories, having been healed from their 520 year old infections and wounds, are once again available to free the men, and bring their spirits aloft.

-Joaquin 2 Cacimarex, Sewaornock, Manahatouac. 6.12.1.1