Immortal Meals #31: Avendaño’s Anxious Banquet November 29, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
Imagine going to a banquet and not being sure if you are to eat or be eaten. Welcome to the world of Andrés de Avendaño y Loyola, a seventeenth-century Franciscan who walked into the territory of the Itza (a forgotten kingdom previously celebrated on this blog) in 1696. Avendaño was brave. Many other missionaries had […]
Gonzalo Guerrero: the Spanish Mayan November 2, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
Gonzalo Guerrero was an obscure Spaniard who played several interesting roles in his life. He was, in chronological order: a poor Andalusian; a servant of the Spanish crown; a Mayan sacrificial victim; an escapee; a Mayan slave; a Mayan war leader; a Mayan father and husband; and, finally, (if we can believe the stories) food […]
Vision Quest #2: The Rainbow Enema May 31, 2013
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
How could a ‘serious’ bizarrist ignore Brian Stross and Justin Kerr’s 1990 exploratory article ‘Notes on the Mayan Vision Quest by Enema’? After all, in this piece the two intrepid Meso-American scholars make the case that enemas were used to pump hallucinogenic substances into the bodies of Mayan visionaries. And the image above (and the […]
