Translation:True History of the Profound Mexico/4

by Guillermo Marín Ruiz

3. THE ANÁHUAC CIVILIZATION.

What today comprises the territory of Mexico was the birthplace of one of the world’s six oldest civilizations with independent origin which achieved the highest human development for its population in the history of mankind. Our Old Grandparents called themselves Anahuacas, because the continent was called in the Nahuatl language (which was the lingua franca), "Cem Anahuac". This civilization has had a single philosophical-cultural matrix through various cultures that expressed it at different times and locations, linked by a common thread in its three major periods.

The formative stage where all knowledge was developed, beginning with agriculture and the hybridization of corn, which provided the basis of sustenance for a nation throughout its existence. Each of these six mother cultures had a crop as a food base; some had wheat, others potatoes, rice or millet; but our ancestors hybridized corn, which was, originally, a type of grass that through a process that we now call "biogenetic engineering", was developed into this wonderful food that today nourishes many peoples in the five continents.

This effort was only made possible through researcher and scientific work that was passed from one generation to another, throughout thousands of years, until this wonderful food was developed.

Indeed, our ancestors walked by themselves, the long way, which led them from being nomads, wild hunters, and gatherers, until they slowly started to develop knowledge about the world, life and nature, which would allow them to not only to ensure their existence and physical survival, but perhaps, and most importantly, to reach the transcendence of their existence, both, as individuals, and as a people.

The history of these 7,500 years of Cultural Development of our peoples, has been called “PRE-HISPANIC” epoch by scholars. It is important to underline the colonial and western vision of history, as it is seen through the eyes of the victors. Why call what is uniquely ours, our Old Grandfathers and their millenary history, by a reference to the Spanish invader conqueror? Why not call it the PRE-CUAUHTEMOC epoch? History is written by the victors, therefore, we should bear in mind, what kind of history do we know?

Well, then, the experts have divided Our Old Grandparent’s history, before the European invasion, into three major periods.

The first is called PRECLASSIC, and is chronologically placed by researchers between 6000 B.C. and the year 200 B.C., approximately. The second period is the CLASSIC, from about 200 B.C., up to 850-900 A.D.

The third period starts around 850-900A.D., and concludes with the European invasion and the taking of Tenochtitlan in 1521.

a)	Preclassical	6000	BCE	-	200	BCE	5,800	years.	(73%)
b)	Classical	200	BCE	-	850	CE	1,050	years.	(13%)
c)	Postclassical	850	CE	-	1521	CE	671	years.	(8%)
d)	Colonial	1521	CE	-	2011		490	years.	(6%)

When this incredible time span of 7500 years (almost four Christian eras), is compared with the last five hundred years of history, that could be accurately called "Hispanic era", the reader will appreciate that the structural basis of what constitutes our nation today, is unquestionably rooted in Mexico’s indigenous past.

It is important to mention, that those interested in Mexico’s ancient history have been mostly foreigners. Therefore, they have "studied and researched" Mexico’s past, as noted earlier by Bonifaz Nuño, almost always with ignorant contempt and an attitude of superiority. One day, investigator Paul Kirchhoff^[1] thought about dividing the Anahuac into: Mesoamerica, (taken from the concept of Mesopotamia which means "between two rivers” in the Sumerian culture) and Arid America. In other words, the "cultured—dead—disappeared— Indians—of the past" who built pyramids and beautiful objects to worship their gods and who lived from the present States of Sinaloa, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas to the south, and the "savage—dead—disappeared—Indians—from— the past", that lived in the northern region of Mexico. However, the Anahuac cultural philosophical matrix was shared by all peoples, from Alaska to Nicaragua, creating a continental civilization that, starting with Columbus’ mistake (of confusing this continent with India), Europeans have not wanted to know or understand, or have been unable to do so. Perhaps that is why, after five hundred years of knowing that Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was wrong, and did not reach India; they continue to call “Indian” the people originating in the Anahuac, the proper name for persons born in India.

The Anahuac civilization permeated everything that makes up our national territory today. We assume that this civilization has a CONTINENTAL nature. In fact, there are very similar "cultural" elements, between Kumeyaay natives from Baja California and Mayan natives from Quintana Roo. At the same time, we can find these basic similarities between a native from Canada and one from Patagonia, passing through the Great Plains of North America, Mexico, Central America, the Andean zone to the Amazon. The core values of life, death, nature, the cosmos, the divine and the sacred are harmoniously and intimately shared by all the so-called "indigenous" peoples of the American continent. What bonds and identifies peoples with indigenous roots is the philosophical-cultural matrix that gives us structure us and not the alleged "Latinity" (“Latin ethnicity”) which was invented by Napoleon III to seize the non-Anglo Saxon America in the 19th century or the "Hispanic ethnicity” with which English speakers catalogue us in the 20th century.

The contempt that we have inherited from the five centuries of colonialism keeps us from valuing and respecting the indigenous peoples, our Old Grandparents and even ourselves. It is very clear when we disparagingly call them "Indians". For many centuries, it has been known that Christopher Columbus was wrong and never reached India while searching for a new trade route; therefore, the "found" peoples were not "Indians". After so many years of colonization we are not even interested in knowing how our ancestors called themselves. In other words, we have lost t our historic memory, interest and pride in ourselves. The ancient Mexicans called the continent CEM-ANAHUAC and they recognized themselves as ANAHUACAS, which is why there were Mayan anahuacas, Zapotec anahuacas, Mexica anahuacas and so on.

1. “Mesoamerica, its geographical limits, ethnicity and cultural traits”. 1943. Mesoamerica: Our Region". Mesoamerica. http://www.mesoamerica.com/ing_nuestra_region.shtml. "Paul Kirchhoff coined the term Mesoamerica in 1943 from the Greek mesos or "center" and America from Americo Vespucci, who claimed to have discovered the continent (Christopher Columbus thought he had reached Asia)."