Destruction of the Jaguar

Destruction of the Jaguar PDF Author: Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno
Publisher: City Lights Publishers
ISBN: 9780872862104
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description
Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno writes in his introduction to Destruction of the Jaguar that ""The Books of Chilam Balam are the only principal surviving texts of the ancient Maya. Written in the Mayan language but in European script, they are generally...

Destruction of the Jaguar

Destruction of the Jaguar PDF Author: Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno
Publisher: City Lights Publishers
ISBN: 9780872862104
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 104

Get Book Here

Book Description
Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno writes in his introduction to Destruction of the Jaguar that ""The Books of Chilam Balam are the only principal surviving texts of the ancient Maya. Written in the Mayan language but in European script, they are generally...

The Jaguar's Children

The Jaguar's Children PDF Author: John Vaillant
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544290089
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This “extraordinary” novel of one man’s border crossing reveals “a human history of sorrow and suffering, all of it beginning with the thirst to be free” (NPR). Héctor is trapped. The water truck, sealed to hide its human cargo, has broken down. The coyotes have taken all the passengers’ money for a mechanic and have not returned. Héctor finds a name in his friend César’s phone: AnniMac. A name with an American number. He must reach her, both for rescue and to pass along the message César has come so far to deliver. But are his messages going through? Over four days, as water and food run low, Héctor tells how he came to this desperate place. His story takes us from Oaxaca—its rich culture, its rapid change—to the dangers of the border, exposing the tangled ties between Mexico and El Norte. And it reminds us of the power of storytelling and the power of hope, as Héctor fights to ensure his message makes it out of the truck and into the world. Both an outstanding suspense novel and an arresting window into the relationship between two great cultures, The Jaguar’s Children shows how deeply interconnected all of us are. “This is what novels can do—illuminate shadowed lives, enable us to contemplate our own depths of kindness, challenge our beliefs about fate. Vaillant’s use of fact to inspire fiction brings to mind a long list of powerful novels from the past decade or so: What is the What by Dave Eggers; The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif; The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult.” —Amanda Eyre Ward, The New York Times Book Review “[A] heartbreaker . . . Wrenching . . . with a voice fresh and plangent enough to disarm resistance.” —The Boston Globe “Fearless.” —The Globe and Mail

Icons of Power

Icons of Power PDF Author: Nicholas J. Saunders
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136605142
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Icons of Power investigates why the image of the cat has been such a potent symbol in the art, religion and mythology of indigenous American cultures for three thousand years. The jaguar and the puma epitomize ideas of sacrifice, cannibalism, war, and status in a startling array of graphic and enduring images. Natural and supernatural felines inhabit a shape-shifting world of sorcery and spiritual power, revealing the shamanic nature of Amerindian world views. This pioneering collection offers a unique pan-American assessment of the feline icon through the diversity of cultural interpretations, but also striking parallels in its associations with hunters, warriors, kingship, fertility, and the sacred nature of political power. Evidence is drawn from the pre-Columbian Aztec and Maya of Mexico, Peruvian, and Panamanian civilizations, through recent pueblo and Iroquois cultures of North America, to current Amazonian and Andean societies. This well-illustrated volume is essential reading for all who are interested in the symbolic construction of animal icons, their variable meanings, and their place in a natural world conceived through the lens of culture. The cross-disciplinary approach embraces archaeology, anthropology, and art history.

The Jaguar's Story

The Jaguar's Story PDF Author: Kosa Ely
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780999665404
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
Deep in the Amazon, two cubs are born to a loving mama jaguar. As the curious and precocious cubs grow, they are introduced to their forest home and those with whom they share it. Before long their happy days are interrupted by men and machines, and the young family goes in search of a new home. Now everywhere they travel, surprises await them. Join them to discover the wonders and dangers of today's Amazon rainforest through the eyes of a jaguar. Kosa Ely's contemporary tale, along with Radhe Gendron's vivid and captivating art, make this the ideal picture book to inspire readers, young and old, to protect the magnificent jaguar from extinction. Eight pages of fun facts about jaguars and Amazonian fauna and flora follow the story, and a seek-and-find game children will enjoy.

The Jaguar Princess

The Jaguar Princess PDF Author: Clare Bell
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0575126108
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Mixcati's people are descended from the Olmec Jaguar Gods and she is fated for great things-both wonderful and dangerous. She can, unexpectedly and without warning, turn into a living, wild Jaguar, just as her ancestors have done since time immemorial. Once stolen into slavery, she must struggle to survive and to learn to fulfill her destiny in an Aztec culture that understands her strength, fears her power and wants her dead. She must face destruction at their hands-or come into her true power as The Jaguar Princess.

Middleworld

Middleworld PDF Author: Jon Voelkel
Publisher: Darby Creek
ISBN: 1606840711
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
When his archaeologist parents go missing in Central America, fourteen-year-old Max embarks on a wild adventure through the Mayan underworld in search of the legendary Jaguar Stones, which enabled ancient Mayan kings to wield the powers of living gods. Includes cast of characters, glossary, facts about the Maya cosmos and calendar, and a recipe for chicken tamales.

Gangbusters:

Gangbusters: PDF Author: Ernest Volkman
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0380732351
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Readers learn how a colorful coterie of FBI agents, prosecutors, and police detectives overcame the early years of bureaucratic inertia, high-level political corruption, and interagency rivalry to destroy the last great Mafia dynasty--New York's Lucchese Family.

Jaguar's Shadow

Jaguar's Shadow PDF Author: Richard Mahler
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030015593X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
When the nature writer Richard Mahler discovers that wild jaguars are prowling a remote corner of his home state of New Mexico, he embarks on a determined quest to see in the flesh a big, beautiful cat that is the stuff of legend--yet verifiably real. Mahler's passion sets in motion a years-long adventure through trackless deserts, steamy jungles, and malarial swamps, as well as a confounding immersion in centuries-old debates over how we should properly regard these powerful predators: as varmints or as icons, trophies or gods? He is drawn from border badlands south to Panama's rain forest along a route where the fate of nearly all wildlife now rests in human hands. Mahler's odyssey introduces him to unrepentant poachers, pragmatic ranchers, midnight drug-runners, ardent conservationists, trance-induced shamans, hopeful biologists, stodgy bureaucrats, academic philosophers, macho hunters, and gentle Maya Indians. Along the way, he is forced to reconsider the true meaning of his search--and the enduring symbolism of the jaguar.

The Ancient Future of the Itza

The Ancient Future of the Itza PDF Author:
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292789319
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The title of Edmonson's work refers to the Mayan custom of first predicting their history and then living it, and it may be that no other peoples have ever gone so far in this direction. The Book of Chilam Balam was a sacred text prepared by generations of Mayan priests to record the past and to predict the future. The official prophet of each twenty-year rule was the Chilam Balam, or Spokesman of the Jaguar—the Jaguar being the supreme authority charged with converting the prophet's words into fact. This is a literal but poetic translation of one of fourteen known manuscripts in Yucatecan Maya on ritual and history. It pictures a world of all but incredible numerological order, slowly yielding to Christianity and Spanish political pressure but never surrendering. In fact, it demonstrates the surprising truth of a secret Mayan government during the Spanish rule, which continued to collect tribute in the names of the ruined Classic cities and preserved the essence of the Mayan calendar as a legacy for the tradition's modern inheritors. The history of the Yucatecan Maya from the seventh to the nineteenth century is revealed. And this is history as the Maya saw it—of a people concerned with lords and priests, with the cosmology which justified their rule, and with the civil war which they perceived as the real dimension of the colonial period. A work of both history and literature, the Tizimin presents a great deal of Mayan thought, some of which has been suspected but not previously documented. Edmonson's skillful reordering of the text not only makes perfect historical sense but also resolves the long-standing problem of correlating the two colonial Mayan calendars. The book includes both interpretative and literal translations, as well as the Maya parallel couplets and extensive annotations on each page. The beauty of the sacred text is illuminated by the literal translation, while both versions unveil the magnificent historical, philosophical, and social traditions of the most sophisticated native culture in the New World. The prophetic history of the Tizimin creates a portrait of the continuity and vitality, of the ancient past and the foreordained future of the Maya.

Secrets of the Talking Jaguar

Secrets of the Talking Jaguar PDF Author: Martín Prechtel
Publisher: HarperThorsons
ISBN: 9780007142668
Category : Mayas
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Raised on a Native American reservation in New Mexico, Martin Prechtel wandered as a young man throughout the landscapes of Mexico and Guatemala. Drawn in his dreams to the traditional Mayan community of Santiago Atitlan, he carved a life for himself among the villagers. Though an outsider himself, Prechtel was adopted as an apprentice by a powerful ancient Shaman. He married a Mayan woman and became a village chief and famous Shaman in his own right - entrusted with the rich legacy of Atitlan's ancient Mayan heritage and its deepest spiritual traditions.