Jehovah's Witnesses accused of damaging Otomi religious site in Mexico

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Jehovah's Witnesses accused of damaging Otomi religious site in Mexico

Official identity of assailants still unknown after incident at Mayonhika, an ancient site where stone structures were toppled and offerings tossed about

Associated Press in Mexico City
Wednesday 29 June 2016 12.03 EDT

Assailants have damaged an ancient Otomi religious site in Mexico, toppling stone structures used as altars, breaking carved stones and scattering offerings of flowers, fruit and paintings at the remote mountain shrine known as Mayonihka or Mexico Chiquito.

The attack was unusual in a country where few ancient pre-Hispanic religious sites remain functioning.

A researcher who interviewed some of the attackers said they identified themselves as Jehovah’s Witnesses and viewed the altars as blasphemy. However, the spokesman for the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Mexico said Tuesday that the allegation appeared to be false.

A local official in the state of Hidalgo said Monday that some local residents were angered by what they believed to be idolatry and had damaged the remote site.


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/29/mayonhika-otomi-damaged-jehovahs-witnesses-mexico

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According to local media reports, the sect targeted the ancient ceremonial area because it was “not Christian” and destroyed “at least a dozen” stone alters built by the indigenous Otomi people at the San Bartolo Tutotepec. according to Telesur.

On edit: adding another photo of another pyramid built in pre-Colombian times by the Otomi citizens:

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Wikipedia:

. . .

One of the early complex cultures of Mesoamerica, the Otomi were likely the original inhabitants of the central Mexican altiplano before the arrival of Nahuatl speakers around ca. 1000 CE, but gradually they were replaced and marginalized by Nahua peoples. In the early colonial New Spain period, Otomi speakers helped the Spanish conquistadors as mercenaries and allies, which allowed them to extend into territories that had previously been inhabited by semi-nomadic Chichimecs, for example Querétaro and Guanajuato.

The Otomi traditionally worshipped the moon as their highest deity, and even into modern times many Otomi populations practice shamanism and hold prehispanic beliefs such as Nagualism. Otomies traditionally subsisted on maize, beans and squash as most Mesoamerican sedentary peoples, but the Maguey (Century Plant) was also an important cultigen used for production of alcohol (pulque) and fiber (henequen).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otomi_people

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Otomi Ceremonial Center [/center]
Article which discusses this modern site to honor the ancient Otomi citizens:

Road of Faith and Art / Camino del Arte Sacro

Beautiful photos:

http://roadoffaithandart.blogspot.com/2015/09/otomi-ceremonial-center.html

[Angry Dragon]

1. I just love religious tolerance

[Ford_Prefect]

2. LOCAL MEXICAN Jehova's Witnesses did this. Recent converts who attacked places they formerly used.

They had formerly worshiped at these sites in the traditional ways. This was NOT an attack by someone who didn't know the site and what it stood for or who was from somewhere else- like some North American fools come down to attack native practices. It also seems to have been sorted out by the locals without need for government interference.

Luis Perez Lugo, a professor at the University of Chapingo, visited the site in May and talked to residents of a nearby hamlet, El Pinal, who said they had carried out the attack.

“I was there, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses said they had done it,” Perez Lugo said, noting some were recent converts to the religion who used to go to the site for Otomi ceremonies.

“They said it (the pre-Hispanic ceremonies) weren’t in their Bible, and, in their words, they said it was piggish, garbage that wasn’t in the Bible, and so they went to clear out what was offensive to their God.”

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The site itself, deep in the forest near a river, is not particularly elaborate. There a few ancient stone walls, some with bas-relief carvings.

But it is significant in a country where most indigenous religious sites were demolished or built-over over to make way for churches centuries ago.

Jaime Chavez, an Otomi poet who leads the group Otomi Nation, said Indians from several states “use the site to perform ceremonies for Mother Nature, and some even do weddings or baptisms”.

“The important thing is the (natural) space, not the objects” destroyed in the attack, said Chavez. “You can get more objects. What the elders want is for them to stop invading, or destroying the site.”

Chavez said the elders, known as badi, had apparently reached a sort of informal agreement with the intruders to leave the site in peace.