Preface
Here I am in 1986 in the white hat, in Tepic, Nayarit, at the second major enlightenment of my life. The photo was taken by one of my film crew. I was actually doing a travel documentary in Mexico when I ran across this man. I was surprised to see him. I had been fascinated with Wixáritari (Huicholes) since the first time that I saw one when I was 5 years old. I invited him to lunch and he accepted. We spent the rest of the day in wonderful conversations.
I had been searching consciously since 1962 for the truth of who my people are in the world. I had traveled throughout Mexico in search of a supposed hidden knowledge in "the uncolonized" of our people who still spoke our languages and carried on our "ancient traditions". I had only found frauds and ignorant people. I found people making up stories from movies and books they read. I had not met an honest person in the whole time of my searching. Here at last was an honest man.
Meeting this man in itself did not bring me enlightenment. What happened after this meeting was what brought me enlightenment, but this man set off the whole thinking process that had me questioning ALL of the assumptions that I had until that time. What triggered everything for me was not what this man knew, but what he admitted to not knowing. His honest speaking cleared me of my own delusions about "secret knowledge" still surviving in our full-blood Nican Tlaca language speaking people.
He spoke truthfully, without New Age nonsense or stereotypical movie talk. He spoke of how Wixáritari (Huicholes) knew almost nothing of their history. He told me of how his people were doing rituals and ceremonies, which for the most part they knew not what they meant: "We do them because that is all that we have left. We do the peyote pilgrimages because it is part of our traditions. We dress the way we do, to use it as a shield, to protect us from the corruptions of 'the Mexicanos' and the world in general". Years later I found out that the way they dress now is totally new. I was something they invented in the early 20th century.
He was a doctor for his community high up in the mountains. He was a traditional doctor that cured the body and the mind. He spoke of how "psychology" was a major part of his medicine, "I cannot cure anyone, if they do not believe that I can cure them." This surprised me. For him to be speaking of "psychology" and later when he spoke of how he used dreams as part of the curing process, all seemed not right, did not fit into the stereotypes of our people. Years later I would do more research and I found out that a lot of "the rituals" have psychological impacts on participants. But this man helped me understand that things were not the way of the New Agers or of how things were shown in the movies. This man was the most honest man that I had met of all of the "elders", "medicine men", curanderos, and others who supposedly held "the secrets" of our ancestors. After meeting this man everything became clearer for me. I removed my expectations and decided to just use my eyes, my logic, and the things that were proven to be true. I focused on book knowledge that came from original sources from the 16th century that were coming into print around that time. It was knowledge that came from our ancestors. It was still imperfect knowledge but it was better knowledge than what I knew. Truth became easier to find once I removed the blinders of my old Eurocentric colonized minds. Truth and logic came more easily to me: like a heavy rain after a drought.
I quickly understood what that Wixáritari did not know, and what he was not conscious of, and what I had not been conscious of. This was the heart of what cleared the path for me to fully embrace the knowledge that was all around me. This man knowingly or unknowingly gave me the new eyes that I needed to see this obvious truth that was all around me, and which I could not see up until that point: the truth that there was no heart of knowledge that survived 500 years of colonization and genocide. If there was such knowledge, at the heart of it would be warrior societies, warriors teaching, disciplining, organizing, confronting colonialism, confronting traitors and fools. That is the heart of all human societies. It was missing from our people. It was to be what I would work to reconstruct and reanimate through education for liberation.
All of this is why six years later I founded the beginnings of what became the Mexica Movement.
AWARENESS OF OUR COLONIZED MINDS
For the Nican Tlaca of Cemanahuac
Awareness
is the moment, at which,
something significant,
something significant,
something
that was unseen before can now be seen.
Awareness,
is the knowing of something
that could not be seen before,
but that was always there,
but had been hidden by ignorance or concealment,
Awareness,
is the knowing of something
that could not be seen before,
but that was always there,
but had been hidden by ignorance or concealment,
but can now be seen.
I am now aware of my Nican Tlaca heritage
and our Nican Tlaca Cemanahuac continent.
Cemanahuac is the name of our continent
("North and South America").
It means "the complete land between the waters".
Knowledge of our Nican Tlaca heritage and identity
has been hidden from us, by enforced ignorance,
by concealing the genius and accomplishments of our heritage
in order to keep us slaves of the European settlers on our continent.
We have been kept in poverty as slaves of European settlers
by denying us our ownership of the wealth of our continent,
by denying us pride in our civilizations,
by denying us our Nican Tlaca identity,
by denying us awareness of the genocide
that has been destroying our people for 500 years
by keeping us in poverty, ignorance, and self-hate.
We have been made and kept intentionally blind
to the beauty and treasures
of the knowledge of our history and heritage,
of our collective Nican Tlaca identity.
I am now aware of my Nican Tlaca heritage
and our Nican Tlaca Cemanahuac continent.
Cemanahuac is the name of our continent
("North and South America").
It means "the complete land between the waters".
Knowledge of our Nican Tlaca heritage and identity
has been hidden from us, by enforced ignorance,
by concealing the genius and accomplishments of our heritage
in order to keep us slaves of the European settlers on our continent.
We have been kept in poverty as slaves of European settlers
by denying us our ownership of the wealth of our continent,
by denying us pride in our civilizations,
by denying us our Nican Tlaca identity,
by denying us awareness of the genocide
that has been destroying our people for 500 years
by keeping us in poverty, ignorance, and self-hate.
We have been made and kept intentionally blind
to the beauty and treasures
of the knowledge of our history and heritage,
of our collective Nican Tlaca identity.
It has been hidden from us to make proper slaves of us.
Awareness of this knowledge
at this point is a powerful enlightenment,
Awareness of this knowledge
at this point is a powerful enlightenment,
one that will bring us
the bliss of a beautiful knowledge,
and the need to be full disciplined scholar warriors
for our people all across Cemanahuac.
Awareness of the full scope and reality of Cemanahuac
has been my life's most beautiful awareness, awakening, enlightenment, and bliss.
and the need to be full disciplined scholar warriors
for our people all across Cemanahuac.
Awareness of the full scope and reality of Cemanahuac
has been my life's most beautiful awareness, awakening, enlightenment, and bliss.
In a real and higher sense, this is about the discovery of truth:
the truth of this land, the Nican Tlaca people,
we: the Indigenous people of this continent,
the true owners of this continent that is Cemanahuac,
and the cultures and civilizations of the Nican Tlaca people .
In a sense, this awareness is about the discovery of me by me,
the truth of me, all of which is the truth
of the beauty and genius of my people.
For the longest time,
for the most of my life,
I was a lost hungry child,
I was a lost hungry young man.
I was drowning in the ignorance of something,
and I was wanting, wanting something.
I did not know what I hungered for.
I did not know how I became lost.
I did not know the true history of me.
There was so much that I didn't know.
All I knew was that I didn’t know
much of anything, or not enough to explain
the condition in which I lived.
I was born into a world distorted by some unknown evil.
I was made to feel less, in this "White man’s world",
I felt less because of the everything of what I did not have,
for the "whiteness" I did not have.
But I did not see wanting "whiteness" as an evil.
I was lost
to what I was
to what I was
as a human being,
as a person alive in this place, this time, and this me,
as a person that was part of “the Mexicans”
part of “the Mestizos”,
part of “the Indians”,
and all of the negativity and racism that went
with being all of that,
and not being "white".
I knew I was totally lost in my missing knowledge of this universe
because something was wrong
in the tale that was told
of my people:
I knew of all of these ruins of civilizations
I knew of all of these ruins of civilizations
that were my heritage, my roots, my essence;
and yet
we were told that those ruins were nothing special,
and that those civilizations were savage and meaningless;
and yet I knew there was something wrong with the whole
tale of who we were.
I knew that something was wrong with the telling
of the Columbus story and of “how the west was won”
tale of who we were.
I knew that something was wrong with the telling
of the Columbus story and of “how the west was won”
and of the racism
that I have seen since I was born.
that I have seen since I was born.
Things like the signs I saw as a child in Texas:
NO NEGROES OR MEXICANS ALLOWED.
Things like the racism in my own family:
MARRY SOMEONE WHITE OR LIGHT!
MARRY SOMEONE WHITE OR LIGHT!
Yeah,
I was lost in my connections to my land and to my people.
Something was wrong.
I felt disconnected to the sky, to the earth,
to this universe, to Our Creator.
I was lost
but at one point I knew that all of this had been
intentionally done to make me lost, to make my people lost, to make us
slaves of the pale race of Europe.
I had been intentionally misconstructed
to live my life lost and confused and self-hating:
It was the condition of all of my people.
intentionally done to make me lost, to make my people lost, to make us
slaves of the pale race of Europe.
I had been intentionally misconstructed
to live my life lost and confused and self-hating:
It was the condition of all of my people.
My awakening to this reality made me aware of the wrongness of everything.
As I walked on the land that Europeans settlers said was theirs,
I knew it was my land: I felt it in the air, in the soil, in my blood.
I knew it was my land: I felt it in the air, in the soil, in my blood.
But something artificial and evil had made lies of this solid truth.
I felt dizzy to these thoughts, the contradictions, the lies I was discovering,
and I felt lost and disconnected to everything all around me.
I was born to live an ignorant slave life.
I was born into this world
into this land, this continent,
without knowing who I was,
only knowing who I wasn’t,
only wanting to be what I was not:
the power of the "white" man,
the rich "white" man,
the intelligent "white" man,
the "white" man of great accomplishments
and great civilizations.
I was not "white", not European,
not part of power and wealth,
not part of European culture,
not part of the great "white" race.
I was
what no one wanted to be:
what no one wanted to be:
Mexican!
“an Indian”,
poor and not rich,
empty of history,
empty of accomplishments,
empty of a proud heritage of civilizations,
empty of even my sense of a full humanity,
with no real land to call my own, no place on earth to call my homeland.
All of the land around me,
and all of its wealth of minerals and forests and rivers
all “belonged” to the intelligent, rich, powerful "WHITE MAN".
But all of that lost-ness and ignorance
and self-hate and emptiness has gone from me
like a temporary blindness,
like a temporary blindness,
and my mind and my eyes have been cleansed of lies,
all of everything has changed
because I searched for truth,
fought for justice,
and now I live my life to spread the knowledge
that I have found
of the genius of our accomplishments,
of the great and ancient civilizations of our ancestors
(our civilizations were not primitive and not all about human sacrifice).
I now am clear in my full humanity after decades of study,
after decades of traveling for truth to see with my own eyes,
and confronting colonialism with protests, boycotts,
and putting truth to the lies, to the injustices.
I am now clear in my history, my Nican Tlaca identity, my pride,
and most importantly in my relationship with Our Creator
and with the universe,
and with the rest of humanity.
I am now nothing but hunger for knowledge and truth.
I live only to learn and to teach.
I live to let the world know the truth of colonialism and
of the crimes of white supremacy:
the holocaust killing of 95% of our people
with the use of smallpox as a weapon of mass extermination,
killing 70 to 100 million of our people;
the theft of 100% of our continent;
the fact that the criollos ("white" people) still control “Latin America”;
and that the crimes of colonialism, white supremacy
and genocide are still an ongoing reality to this day.
I now understand that this entire continent is collectively Nican Tlaca ours.
OURS: refers to the full-blood and the mixed-blood of our people,
without borders, without divisions, without individual ownership.
I now understand that Europeans have no legal or moral right
to any piece of our continent, no one inch, not one drop of water,
not anything that is ours on our continent.
Cemanahuac is our motherland, our nation.
Their homeland is Europe.
This Cemanahuac continent is the land of the Nican Tlaca.
I am content with the awareness that I have earned
in the 50+ years of living and learning and serious study,
and finally finding true enlightenments, true bliss
on this planet as a human being,
and finally finding true enlightenments, true bliss
on this planet as a human being,
in this year that I live
as a 66 year old man of the Nican Tlaca of Cemanahuac.
as a 66 year old man of the Nican Tlaca of Cemanahuac.
I am grateful for the existence that Our Creator
has given us, has given me,
to live my life in the search for true Nican Tlaca knowledge,
living as a lover of all of the details of our heritage,
as a warrior for truth and justice.
I am grateful for the challenge that Our Creator
has given us the Nican Tlaca:
the challenge to embrace knowledge and courage
with all of the tools at our disposal,
with all of the weapons for attaining Nican Tlaca knowledge,
with all of the growing population of our people.
All of us united in this disciplined warrior-scholar non-violent war
of education for a path to liberation.
of education for a path to liberation.
This path of the Mexica Movement will bring about our freedom,
will bring about the day when European settlements
will bring about the day when European settlements
have ended, when
we can stand proud and free,
as warriors, men and women, defenders of a liberated Cemanahuac.
I have learned to live my life as more than prayer, more than wishing,
more than hoping, more than just thinking about liberation.
more than hoping, more than just thinking about liberation.
I live by my actions that are slowly and surely bringing about liberation,
my actions in learning and teaching,
my actions in confronting colonialism and white supremacy,
my actions in confronting the ignorance and cowardice of my people,
my actions in confronting the traitors of our people,
my actions in confronting gangs, drugs, Christianity,
and all of the other poisons that colonialism feeds my people.
I live by my actions,
my actions in confronting gangs, drugs, Christianity,
and all of the other poisons that colonialism feeds my people.
I live by my actions,
my actions in confronting whatever failing I find with that person in the mirror
all of these actions are acts of liberation.
The best path to our liberation is with
The best path to our liberation is with
the actions by which we live our lives,
not the words or songs, not the rituals or ceremonies, and not the promises we make,
only action, our actions are the only form of hope that makes a liberating difference.
I am content.
I am a warrior for my people.
I am proud each time another warrior
steps up and stands beside me, and another one
who steps up to the side of that one.
Men and women in action as students-teachers-warriors
stepping up beside us,
scholar-warriors
scholar-warriors
for our people,
in full life dedication to education for liberation.
I am proud, with my heart up in the sky,
every time I see another one of my people
stepping up beside us,
enlightened by the actions of our work.
Every day I wait for more,
another, and another warrior
to stand beside us,
to become part of the collective leadership
for a liberated Cemanahuac.
Olin Tezcatlipoca Copyright © 2016
Introduction To The Materials of The Mexica Movement:
Lectures of Olin Tezcatlipoca