Western Belize: Actun Tunichil Muknal

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I am on the chicken bus traveling from Belize back to Guatemala. It is true, people bring chickens on the chicken bus. They travel to the market where they sell them as food. I have been vegetarian for a very long time so having these chickens sit next to me on a bus, did nothing for my appetite.

So this woman just got on the bus with 4 or 5 chickens. She has 4 or 5 birds that she is holding upside down in her left hand. I think they are chickens. One is looking at me like I am about to eat it. I guess we all look the same to chickens. They can’t tell the vegetarians from the meat eaters.

Today I was a mile deep underground, in an underground river cave. It was discovered in Western Belize in the late 1980s. The Mayan’s sacrificed people in this cave in the period around 600-900 AD. They were performing rituals involving blood and corn to make it rain. When that no longer made it rain during the drought years, they began sacrificing humans.

The guide told us that a full body skeleton he was showing us was that of a woman in the age range 18-22. He said that since there was no evidence of trauma to the head, that she had volunteered her virgin body for sacrifice to the gods, to cause rain and save her village from starvation. I am sorry, but how do we know that some priest didn’t just rape this girl and leave her for dead? Plus, how can you tell that a 600 year old skeleton was a virgin at the time of her death? What evidence of nonviolent sex would a skeleton have?

Another skeleton was said to be that of a rival warring tribe since it had the markings of royalty and did have a blow to the head. This sounded more likely to be true, because the head was appropriately disfigured in the royalty shape, and was bashed in by a blunt instrument. This made more sense.

It was a day of death. And there was nothing I could do to help chickens or dead virgins. But just pause and realize why some people think that humans are the most barbaric creatures that have ever lived on planet earth. There is evidence to support this observation all around you. We are allegedly a thinking animal. So the killing we do is thoughtful. You could argue that sharks, lions, or dinosaurs are more dangerous, but they are just eating. We are thinking our way through this life, and acting as we do.

Some say we are made in god’s image. That seems self-serving given the evidence.

"Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) is a cave in Belize, near San Ignacio, Cayo District, notable as a Maya archaeological site that includes skeletons, ceramics, and stoneware. There are several areas of skeletal remains in the main chamber. The best-known is "The Crystal Maiden", the skeleton of a teenage girl, possibly a sacrifice victim, whose bones have been calcified to a sparkling, crystallized appearance." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actun_Tunichil_Muknal

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Comments

[neeha]

you are discovering the world!!!!!

[Kristian Julien]

Red Mango Apartments Grenada
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