Hernan Cortes: Letters to Charles V (1519-1526)
When reading the letter Cortes to the king, he paints a picture of the Yucatan peninsula being a picture perfect place. He tries to make his discovery seem like something great. When he describes the mountains and the animals you would picture this place being a paradise, a heaven on earth. He talks about their being precious metals such as gold. But I do not believe it is how it really was. Also he goes on to talk about how these people sacrifice their people to their gods, cutting off their ears, tongues, or stabbing themselves. Although, I do not know for sure if it is true, I find it hard to believe that they would do that to their people for their gods. It seems that he is sugar coating reality to make it sound better to the king. Hearing what it was like to discover this land from a primary source is nice to understand what it was like, but I feel like the reality of what really happened is tainted. It appears to me that his image of them is bias because it is not something that he is used to experiencing.
Cantares Mexicanos & Codex Mendoza
The poem Cantares Mexicanos, was describing how Tenochtitlan had fallen. I think the poem was pretty straight forward. It describes how the Aztec people reacted to his death. Also, it talks about how they fled the area and ran away like a women. The Codex Mendoza has pictures of what people sacrificed to the Lords, maps, and history. I think that these sources are useful to modern historians because it shows how cultures of the past dealt with situations and recorded information. People used pictures, stories, or poems. The pictures in Codex Mendoza could be used to analyze how the ranking systems worked in the Aztec empire. Also they can be used for a history. The picture of the things that were sacrificed to the Lords give us an idea and perspective from the Aztec perspective instead of the European perspective. The best way I think to use these images and texts is to analyze their culture and belief system.
Captives and Cousins
This reading was hard for me to understand. In the beginning it was talking about the Christ Child and how they were walking around trying to get people to listen to them. This image reminds me of how the Europeans were trying to force the Indigenous people of America to believe in Catholicism. It also talks about how women are treated more as a posession or object than a human being. The trades of the women made the leaders look superior. The women are looked at as being property.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Video
When I first read the title of the video, I assumed that it would be talking about Asia. Instead, it went on about how people are stereotyped in the Middle East. Some of these stereotypes include how we view their culture and people in the Middle East. Even scholars in recent centuries still use images that were from prior centuries, as if they never developed into anything greater. Some of these images show people using camels or show sensual women as servants instead of as equals. People get prejudices from hearsay and from their own society instead of making inferences themselves. Many people make decisions about these people without ever traveling there. As Edward Said said, people have been stereotyping people for as long as we can remember.
The Poem
When first reading this poem, it appeared to me that the Filipinos have to take the white burden onto their shoulders. I think it is asking them to give up the best of their people to go work for the white man. The phrase "To seek another's profit, And work another's gain," implies that they want the profit, are working for the white man to receive no gain of their own, while the white man flourishes. After I am not really sure what it means. But I think it is talking about how they want the Filipinos to get rid of the weight we carry for the things we have done that are immoral. It also talks about war and how in order to gain peace we must fight for the peace we want.
Discourse on Colonialism
When countries try to colonize other areas they turn into savages. They will try to force the people who they believe are acting like "savages" and "animal like" only to become that themselves. People try to force religion, laws, taxes, culture, ways of life, etc. on one another it ends up proving that there idea of colonizing these people is not for the better of the people they are trying to change but for the good of their own country. They in turn get resources such as crops, cotton, cacao, etc. but we have lost a vast majority of creativity and ideas from colonization, such as the Mayan and Incas. Also the country who is colonizing the area has the decision on whether or not to allow the country to grow and become more technologically, medically, etc. advanced like the rest of the world. They can hold them back or let them accelerate. So it is basically just a power that they Europeans hold over them and can control other countries with.
When I first read the title of the video, I assumed that it would be talking about Asia. Instead, it went on about how people are stereotyped in the Middle East. Some of these stereotypes include how we view their culture and people in the Middle East. Even scholars in recent centuries still use images that were from prior centuries, as if they never developed into anything greater. Some of these images show people using camels or show sensual women as servants instead of as equals. People get prejudices from hearsay and from their own society instead of making inferences themselves. Many people make decisions about these people without ever traveling there. As Edward Said said, people have been stereotyping people for as long as we can remember.
The Poem
When first reading this poem, it appeared to me that the Filipinos have to take the white burden onto their shoulders. I think it is asking them to give up the best of their people to go work for the white man. The phrase "To seek another's profit, And work another's gain," implies that they want the profit, are working for the white man to receive no gain of their own, while the white man flourishes. After I am not really sure what it means. But I think it is talking about how they want the Filipinos to get rid of the weight we carry for the things we have done that are immoral. It also talks about war and how in order to gain peace we must fight for the peace we want.
Discourse on Colonialism
When countries try to colonize other areas they turn into savages. They will try to force the people who they believe are acting like "savages" and "animal like" only to become that themselves. People try to force religion, laws, taxes, culture, ways of life, etc. on one another it ends up proving that there idea of colonizing these people is not for the better of the people they are trying to change but for the good of their own country. They in turn get resources such as crops, cotton, cacao, etc. but we have lost a vast majority of creativity and ideas from colonization, such as the Mayan and Incas. Also the country who is colonizing the area has the decision on whether or not to allow the country to grow and become more technologically, medically, etc. advanced like the rest of the world. They can hold them back or let them accelerate. So it is basically just a power that they Europeans hold over them and can control other countries with.
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