The Blemish on Authenticity

In the past couple of decades there has been an increasing interest in the traditions of Latin America and in particular the ones from Mexico, though many others also come into the fore on a more careful examination. The reasons for this are many, among such as the fact that there are millions of latinos in the United States looking to tap into their roots in a land that saw such a tremendous massacre of local traditions while trying to get a better outlook for their families.

As with all disruptive things this has also fueled some fairly heated arguments about who can call themselves the bearers of tradition and who can't and how it should be practiced. There are many complicated karmic and historic wounds that still need to be tended to but besides those there also needs to be a process of acceptance and healing in order for this sacred knowledge to be made use best. In my opinion part of that process needs to happen by accepting that most of what the Mexicas, the Incas and the Native Americans had was lost forever in its original form and that the cultures and the people that currently have the remaining knowledge are as contemporary citizens of today's world as you and I.

In the same way, our cultures are not the same as they were when the temples of Tenochtitlan last saw their ceremonies and at least much of what we consider Latino culture today is actually heavily influenced by European and African sources on top of what remains from the past, very much integrated in a way that we can call our own. That is not to diminish its very rich value but it needs to be considered carefully for the same reason that this is one of the first lessons in Traditional Mexican Medicine, which uses Hippocrates's humoral system and works with the codexes of several Spanish friars and men of wealth to derive at what we can call today a complete system of therapeutics, magic and religion.( Read more... )