To summarize, we’ll say without a doubt, that the ancient inhabitants of Mesoamerica were learned men, intellectually and morally able, who knew themselves and the world around them.
This notwithstanding, when considering their view of the world and of themselves, authors almost unanimously judge them to be rudimentary savages whose only concern was that the fertility of the land, due to rainfall, would yield the fruits that sustained them. Under the pretext that they made up farming communities, all their spiritual forces are discarded, as is the totality of their religious metaphysical constructs, now reduced to a primitive physical desire for food, at the core and periphery of their existence.
With a few exceptions, most authors have this inexplicable fallacy in judgment" (Rubén Bonifaz Nuño. 1986)[1]
The brilliant and revealing work of people such as Dr. Carlos Lenkersdorf points out that, due to their colonization, Mexicans have lost access to one of the oldest, and most successful, sources of human wisdom. Lenkersdorf demonstrates that we need to create new relationships with the so-called indigenous peoples and cultures of the twenty-first century.
"This we learned due to the fact that we lived and worked for many years with the Tojolabal Mayans, our contemporaries in Chiapas, who taught us their language and culture, which we learned for a reason that we consider important to explain. We had studied and taught in several countries in Europe and in this continent. We had excellent teachers
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- ↑ Rubén Bonifaz Nuño (born 12 November 1923) is a Mexican poet and classical scholar. Born in Córdoba, Veracruz, he studied law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) from 1934 to 1947. In 1960, he began lecturing in Latin at the UNAM's Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and, in 1970, received a doctoral degree in classical art and culture. He has been a member of the Mexican Academy of Language since 1962 where he was Chairman from 1963 until 1996 when he resigned. He was admitted to the National College in 1972. He was awarded Mexico’s National Prize for Literature and Linguistics in 1974.
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