Religious and Geologic Remnants of The Zapotec at Monte Alban

Religious and Geologic Remnants of The Zapotec at Monte Alban

It is hard to imagine a society, or culture, devoid of some sort of religious practices. Even when discussing secularity, and the advent of modernity, the question of the role of religion never strays too far from the conversation. It seems as though people are, and have always been, obsessed with religion, holding some sort of position whether positive or negative. It is such an obsession, or passion, that must have driven the Zapotec people to build the temples at Monte Alban in order to honor their god; and as a brief point of clarification, the temples did not represent the worship of multiple gods, rather it represented the worship of the multiple facets of the one god; in other words, the temples were dedicated to the manifestations of the one god in terms of influence, or power, such as fertility, corn, rain, etc. Honoring their god took on many forms, in particular the practice of human sacrifice. Christians, upon arriving in the New World, were appalled by these sacrificial ceremonies and some even called it devil worship. Therefore, the newcomers felt they needed to do something to help these people; they had a duty as Christians to give these people the chance to save their souls from eternal damnation, hence the push to convert the Zapotec and other indigenous people from their barbaric religions to Christianity, not to mention the economic incentives as well, ie tithing. “Spanish conquest had meant an earthly and spiritual conquest, the defeat of the old gods… The European drive to extract labor and tribute explains much about the colonization of Latin America.” (Chasteen 56,58) Furthermore, in Oaxaca there are even Catholic churches that have been built directly atop preexisting temples. Such practices are symbolic of the way in which Christianity must have been presented and assimilated into the culture of the indigenous people, insofar as the movement from the monotheistic religion of their ancestors to that of Christianity may have actually been portrayed as an improvement. At the same time, it could be argued that conversions to Christianity by coercion set the stage for the hegemonic practices that would come to dominate Latin America over the next centuries.

 

From a geological perspective, the ruins at Monte Alban are breathtaking. Dr. Robert Thorson from the UConn department of Geological Sciences writes extensively on the construction of stonewalls in New England. Essentially, the production of these stonewalls played a crucial role in the sociological structure, and the patters of ownership in the rural areas of New England. These walls were built both out of necessity, in order to clear the fields of stones, but also in order to mark property lines. The labor that went into the walls was predominantly utilitarian in practice, sparring excessive strain in the process of construction; stonewalls of New England are seldom greater than two or three feet tall. Dr. Thorson points out that the mass of stone contained within the stonewalls of New England is greater than all of the ancient stone ruins in the world combined, and that the total length of the walls would reach the moon at the aphelion. Yet coming to see the ruins at Monte Alban I find myself much more impressed than I am with the stonewalls of New England. Perhaps it is the lack of entropy found in them, or simply cultural differences, as I have never seen anything like it before; for whatever reason I found myself in awe of the immensity of its structures, and the amount of labor it must have taken to erect these temples. Ultimately, it must have been nothing less than the intense faith and drive to please their god that provided the strength to create such magnificent structures. 

- Jeremy -