psychoceramics: Tiny Mayans

[nmcnelly @ acs.bu.edu (N.A.F. McNelly)]

AZTLAN is (usually) very serious and sober mailing list for mesoamerican
topics.  Recently, it's been enlivened by John Pastore, who believes
that there were once whole villages of tiny Mayans.  And they're still
among us!  He's seen them!

(Note the obligatory aggrieved they-laughed-at-Einstein tone.)
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From: John Pastore <venture @ CANCUN.RCE.COM.MX>
Subject:      Re: Ma: Small People

On Sat, 24 Feb 1996,  Elliot Richmond wrote:

>On Thu, 22 Feb 1996, Paul L. Montgomery wrote:

>> A recent inquiry here sought unusual theories of the Maya
>>"collapse". Perhaps the 18-inch Mayan hypothesis ought to be
>>included: They just got smaller and  smaller.
 >>Paul Montgomery
>> Brussels, Belgium

>Fascinating idea.  If true, and the shrinkage continued at the same
>rate, they could still be there!  Building tiny little temples and
>harvesting microscopic bacteria for sustenance.  Or, if the
>technology continued to develop, they might be building tiny little
>spaceships!

>Well, maybe not.

Paul and Elliot,

How would you two feel if, say in some past life, you were sitting
on the board of the The Royal Society of Antiquarians (or whatever)
hee-hawing Stanley and Livingston (or whomever) on reports of pygmies
in Africa, only to learn later that you should have been exercising
the inquisitiveness of scientists rather than indulging themselves
in ridicule?

Elliot, you're right: "maybe not".

I'm not speaking of metaphysical beings, but flesh and blood humans;
nor am I speaking of dwarves who appear to have suffered from
"generations of malnutrition" or "deformities" (an aspect Rhang Song
might appreciate when considering whether it should occur to
anybody, even an osteologist, to examine skeletal remains of small
stature for the possibility of Small People when nothing is
resembling the known criteria for "categories" of dwarves). The
height of the mother I saw (and who saw me) did not exceed my knees
and I'm 5'5".  Her three children, who were obviously adolescents,
were only half, plus an inch or two, of her height.  They exhibited
no signs of either "generations of malnutrition" or "deformities"
-quite the contrary, they were, proportionately perfectly formed,
and exuded sparkeling vitality and health; and they were Maya.

Perhaps, dwarf is the wrong word, if it automatically connotates
physically deformity as in stunted bone development. When skeletal
remains of any Maya are rare, Rhang Song's concern for the lack of
large quantities of remains of small stature, to me, falls flat
(especially if Rhang meant skeletal remains of small stature which
also showed known deforimites associated with dwarfism). The fact
is, besides the posssibility of the "children" from the Well of
Chichen-Itza, the remains exhumed from tombs in Coba and Tulum have
always been reported to me, at least,  as being of "children"

Not all I have seen are that small.

As far as "spaceships" goes,  I think not, unless such small people
are in the habit of boarding space vehicles shoeless, and wearing
nothing but sisal ponchos.

Hasta Sza-ba...

John Pastore
Emanating from El Mayab (The Mayan Homeland)
at the H. Plaza Caribe, Cancun, Mexico


................................................................
Nancy McNelly                    |
                                 |        May the ta'ho'olob
http://www.he.net/~nmcnelly/     |       who voted for the CDA
Mayan hieroglyphic syllabary     |       haway sotz'ob tz'isob.