This is Part 1 of a two-part presentation. In this April 21, 2022, presentation, archaeologist Marc Thompson, PhD, documents illustrations from the U.S. Southwest’s Classic Mimbres Black-on-white ceramic bowls (1000-1130 CE) that depict the pan-American apologue of the Hero Twins saga. Motifs that can be related to the Hero Twins story account for about 12% of Mimbres figurative pottery bowls and can be arranged in a narrative sequence from birth, trials, tests, death, and resurrection of the Hero Twins, to apotheosis as the sun and the moon. Following the death of the twins’ father and uncle, who were sacrificed by the Death Chiefs of the watery underworld, these brothers are resurrected: the father as Venus the Evening Star and the uncle as Venus the Morning Star. A similar fate awaits the Hero Twins, but they survive the tests, trials, and ballgame challenge through guile, cunning feats, and as tricksters of legerdemain. This tale, its characters, and the basic plot are known throughout the Americas: North, Central, and South. The deep, fundamental basis of the story revolves around dualities as in two sides of the same coin; they include life and death, dark and light, and male and female. Cognate Hero Twins motifs, both graphic and recorded, are documented on Classic Maya ceramics (200-900 CE), in the 16th century Hero Twins’ account in the 16th century Popol Vuh of the Maya, and in US southwestern and other Native American traditional tales. Comparing these similar but ethnically distinct accounts allows for a fuller comprehension of these emblematic, evocative, heroic figures.
Recorded in two videos:
Part 1: Introduction to Hero Twins lore in many American Indian creation stories, and the Hero Twins saga as related in the Mayan Popol Vuh narrative.
Part 2: Depictions of Hero Twins elements in southwestern Mimbres pottery images, southwestern petroglyphs, and Mayan art.
Marc Thompson was graduated magna cum laude with a BA in anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He received an MA in anthropology from the Universidad de las Américas in Cholula, Puebla, México, and was awarded a PhD from the Department of Archaeology, The University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Marc has conducted fieldwork and directed projects in México, Belize, Canada, New Mexico, Texas, Wyoming, Montana, and California. In addition to numerous reports and papers presented at conferences he chaired, co-chaired or participated in, Marc has edited and published conference volumes and papers, journal articles, and book chapters. He has taught graduate, undergraduate, and continuing education courses in México, Canada, and the US. He also led numerous university and Smithsonian Odyssey tours to México, Central America, the US Southwest, and western Canada. He retired as Director of the El Paso Museum of Archaeology and as Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Mark Willis created the Mimbres pottery images in this presentation and in Dr. Thompson’s book “The Mimbres Twins and the Rabbit in the Moon” (2021, Secord Books, Albuquerque).
21 окт 2024
