Speak to the big scarey hand, because the Gods ain’t listenin’

Isn’t that what the Jews and Judaism have spent five thousand plus years trying to escape and what the Nazis tried to reimpose?

Oppressive regimes have been trying to separate culture from ethnicity by denying people the right to practice their religion, speak their language, raise their children, etc. as far back as we have records. European-descended governments throughout the New World, Australia, New Zealand and other places spent decades or centuries trying to prevent indigenous peoples from continuing their culture. And now they’re Disneyfying it and trying to sell it. One group in this story certainly has something in common with the Nazis, but you’ve seriously bollixed up cause and effect and an understanding of which side is which.

… writes a Native American, I suppose.

So….?

PS I am not ignoring the fact that Latin American societies are full of racism and discrimination when it comes to their indigenous part of the population, but culture and ancestry are indeed not necessarily related…ancestry can’t be changed, but culture is something you are not born with, but grow into…

It’s like the pirates take the strippers to an Italian restaurant for sushi night but the Ninjas are there celebrating dress like a pirate day and won’t let them in.

You’re kind of an asshole. Well, not so much ‘kind of’.

It isn’t anything like your example. 
It’s like Hawaiians pretending to be followers of their indigenous religion, without observing any kapus (taboos), demanding to hold Makahiki ceremonies on the heiau that the 5star hotel uses for their daily dance shows of random exotic looking dancers doing what the onlookers think must be hula while eating kalua pig and banana by the pool, thinking they are partaking in a luau. 
No, it’s not like that either. 
It’s like the pirates take the strippers to an Italian restaurant for sushi night but the Ninjas are there celebrating dress like a pirate day and won’t let them in. 
Hmm.  Not exactly.

The 13th baktun has no cultural significance for either group.  Archeologists and Linguists are solely responsible for knowledge of the Mayan calendar. 

Mayan culture and religion was so almost completely destroyed that nobody was left that could read their own numerals and script.  It took Europeans and Norte-americanos to decypher their writings.  Their culture was so wiped out that the indigenous people play the “traditional” marimba, an instrument developed from the balofon that slaves from west-Africa introduced.  Next to nothing was left of their religion.  Science decyphered some.  All writing was done in an extinct language.  After centuries-long decipherment, we have only recently reached the point where scholars can read more than 90 percent of the glyphs. 

Unlike the Aztecs and Incas, the Maya didn’t have a centralized government that immediately collapsed from the attack of very few (!) Spanish men, their Eurasian diseases and lots of indigenous allies.  Instead, it took very few Spanish men and their “auxiliary Indians” 170 years to finish off the last of the Mayan states, Itza, when its island capitol Tayasal fell in 1697.  The Maya were still fighting the Mexican army in the 1930s. There are less than 2000 Itza Maya left now. 

tl;dr:  The Spanish and their auxiliary Indians conquered and enslaved the Maya.  Their descendents still act that way towards the descendants of the Maya and own and rule everything.  It’s like a caste system. The injustice is fucking disgusting. 
But unless you’re willing to give your beating heart to Kukulkan, or at least offer blood by pulling ropes beset with obsidian flakes through your pierced tongue or penis, keep your stupid song and dance show asses off these archaeological sites.  This is just as silly as the neo-druids in Stonehenge. 

My tolerance for both social injustice and religious craziness increasingly wanes. 

Sorry, tying culture to ancestry is just wrong.

Ah, yes, because we live in a post-racial society and indigenous peoples are treated SO WELL that we shouldn’t even notice that it might be a problem appropriating their culture while preventing them from participating in it.

http://www.whoismcafee.com/blogging-from-jail/

It’s not exactly the same religion as when the temples were built, any more than it’s the same Catholicism practiced in St Peter’s basilica as it was in 333 AD when it was built – but you can’t legitimately argue that Rastafarians have the same claim to run ceremonies in St. Peter’s as the pope does.

What’s relevant is that they were actors.  A major religious festival, at that religion’s high holy site, was led by actors who aren’t members of the religion, for an audience who aren’t members of the religion either, while the priests and adherents of the religion are locked out.

This is like actors holding Easter mass at the Vatican for an audience of atheists and members of every major religion except Catholicism, while the pope stands on a soap box in the parking lot blessing some cheap barolo and saltine crackers for the actual Catholics. They could be Italian actors, and that wouldn’t make it less of a travesty.

How galling, that the actual descendants of the specific religion/culture are not being allowed to set foot on their own sacred land during the official holiday, so that the dominant class can use the time & location as an excuse to party.

non-indigenous peoples were wearing indigenous clothes in a folklore show while non-indigenous attendees

So how genetically “pure” mayan do you have to be to be allowed to wear mayan clothes? 50%? 90%?

Sorry, tying culture to ancestry is just wrong. 

I’m sure there are lots of deep-seated problems in Guatemala (beautiful country, by the way, and Tikal is an absolutely amazing place to visit), and they should be addressed.  But decrying the actors on stage for not being “ethnically correct” is just daft.

I’ll shut up now before I Godwin myself.

On stage, non-indigenous peoples were wearing indigenous clothes in a folklore show while non-indigenous attendees from the Guatemalan elites

DisneyMayaned?

Yoo-hoo! Come and change us!