by Kerry Bolton
Their tradition has enabled them to supersede the organic laws of decay, while being the carriers of culture pathogens among other civilisations in such forms as Marxism. However, foreign culture pathogens cannot infect a healthy culture organism; and are therefore an effect, not a cause, of decay. As considered above, Israel itself was able to synthesise foreign elements due to its own inner strength, rather than succumbing to them. The USA through lack of a traditional foundation, was unable to do so. Foreign culture pathogens can only enter a culture organism when that organism is already in a state of decline; when its immunity or antibodies (the attitudes condemned as “xenophobia”, “racism”, “anti-Semitism”) are weak. When alien pathogens do enter the host culture, it is susceptible to what Lev Gumilev called “zigzagging”, in being diverted from its normal life-cycles.
Mesoamerican and Andean
The High Culture of the Americas began in Mesoamerica, with the Olmec. Although obscure, and usually ascribed to epidemics introduced by Spanish invaders, dynastic rivalries, civil wars, and ecological disasters uprooting entire High Cultures such as the Chimú, the life-cycles of certain cultures within the American civilisation share analogous features to those of the Old World.
Among the seminal Civilisations of Mesoamercia was Teotihuacan, whose decline proceeded through several centuries (700A.D. to 900). Teotihuacan, whose “Middle Horizon” epoch (200A.D. to 650) is analogous to the West’s Gothic or early Medieval epoch, the period of cultural flowering, centred on a well-planned city of about 125,000 inhabitants, as the commercial and political nexus of Mesoamerica.
Mass manufactured ceramics and obsidian tools were exchanged for raw materials and foodstuffs. Teotihuacan was the London, Rome, Athens and Babylon of Mesoamerica. The far-flung commercial relations declined perhaps due to overextension, bureaucratic inefficiency or the rise of commercial rivals. In what is called the “Metepec Phase” there seems to have been a revolt during which temples and other public buildings were burnt on the Street of the Dead and elsewhere.209
The decline of the traditional order seems to have started from circa 550A.D. when “destructive events in the central area of the capital marked a violent end to its governing apparatus. More than a hundred centrally located structures were burned, sculptures were smashed and scattered, and the institutions of state showed no signs of recovery afterward”. These events are referred to by some archaeologists collectively as the “Big Fire,” which they place at 550 ± 25. The events were the culmination of a long period of “sociopolitical instability and decline”. 210
Although Teotihuacan remained a major centre the burning of its religious and political symbols indicate a fracturing of its ethical foundations of the type that herald the beginning of culture decline, analogous to the Reformation in Western Christendom, or Buddhism in Brahmanic India; and a challenge to the traditional hierarchy, analogous to Cromwell’s Revolution against the English monarchy or the Jacobin Revolution in France. That there was a revolution against the elite and its traditional hierarchy, that permanently altered the course of the civilisation, is suggested when Diehl comments that the most logical reason for the abandonment of the Street of the Dead, after its torching, was that “the area was associated with the discredited Middle Horizon elite and their social system”.211
Sculpture unearthed at the Teotihuacan archeological site in Mexico.
While Teotihuacan had been the largest city in the Mexican Basin, from 700A.D. to 850 the population declined by 76% from 125,000 to 30,000.212 A change of ceramic styles from Metepec to Coyotlatelco suggests also a change of character of those remaining. While dwellings were maintained, new construction stopped. Population within the Teotihuacan Basin declined from 250,000 to 175,000. However, some communities grew, suggesting that the original inhabitants were slowly being replaced by outsiders. Diehl cites studies indicating that the city underwent a period of decay, with poor sanitation, crowding, water supplies, infectious diseases and low life expectancy. During the latter phase of its decline, the city relied on rural migration to supplement its population, as deaths seem to have outnumbered births.213
Diehl comments that the migrants that entered the city during the Coyotlatelco period reflect “cultural and artistic poverty”. Diehl poses the question as to whether this is the result of migrants from socially and culturally marginal areas outside the Basin, but if they were descendants of the Metepec phase, “and direct heirs to the great Teotihuacan cultural tradition, they experienced one of the most dramatic episodes of deculturation ever documented in Pre-Columbian America”. Diehl asks why these inhabitants of the formerly great culture centre remained, and “whether they attempted to preserve their established traditions?”214 It has been suggested that the Coyotlatelco style originated from outside the Basin.215 Therefore the inhabitants of the city in its last phase were not the heirs of the culture’s founders. The city became the centre for the dispersal of another, debased, style over the region. Diehl states that although Teotihuacan long continued as a city culture,
“it apparently lacked an architectural tradition, large public construction efforts, monumental art, and even a definable art style. We cannot even detect an elite, although it surely existed. Apparently the ideology and power that held together the Teotihuacan world for so many centuries ceased to exist and was not replaced. Perhaps their absence led to the total decay of Teotihuacan’s economic and political structure by the end of the Coyotlatelco period. Whatever happened, by A.D. 850 the birthplace of Mesoamerican urbanism had passed into the shadows of Nahuatl myth…”216
What can be said of the people of Teotihuacan over the course of centuries is that while the ethnoi seems to have changed and the city was turned into a multicultural society, the race in a zoological sense did not change. It is an example of the deleterious impact of multi-cultural dynamics, where there was neither a successful symbiosis nor synthesis. The murals depicting the types at Teotihuacan remain of the same race-type; distinctively Indian.217 Teotihuacan decayed and died through the disruption and distortion of its founding ethos.
Inca
Andean civilisation is generally regarded as one of historical continuity218 stretching over millennia, and incorporating many High Cultures, each one succeeding another, until ending with the Inca.
It has been contended by some that the Central and South American civilisations must have been the products of white culture-heroes. Remnants of blond and red hair among American mummies, and the bearded, white god-king Viracocha are adduced to prove this, in ways similar to the presence of the Tocharians in China. However, the sculptures of the Olmec are decidedly Chinese, although Afrocentrists assert that they are depictions of Blacks.219 It seems that several races, and not just the Amerindian, were present in the culture region. Recently there have been claims for a Polynesian presence,220 reversing Thor Heyerdahl’s contention that Polynesia was settled from America.221 Indeed, some of the evidence from Heyerdahl seems more Mongolian than Caucasian, such as the “Clay head from Vera Cruz, Mexico.222 Whatever the remnants of sundry races, for millennia the overwhelming majority of Central and South Americans were Indians, including their god-kings and leadership strata.
Local lords retained control of their ethnic communities in an imperial federation that constituted an efficient culture organism, with a common ethos based on a solar religion, albeit with local variations, but unified with veneration for Viracohca, who had been a widespread culture-hero prior to the Inca.
“Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui invented a state religion based on the worship of a creator-god called Viracocha, who had been worshiped since pre-Inca times. Priests were appointed, ceremonies were planned, prayers were prepared, and temples were built throughout the empire. He also expounded the view that the Inca had a divine mission to bring this true religion to other peoples, so that the Inca armies conquered in the name of the creator god. His doctrine was a relatively tolerant one. Conquered groups did not have to give up their own religious bel
iefs; they merely had to worship the Inca god and provide him and his servants with food, land, and labour”.223
The Olmecs (1500-400 BC) were the first major civilization in Mexico.
Sun temples were erected in each newly conquered land to serve as the axis for local veneration, with the central axis existing at the great Sun Temple at Cuzco, where the chief priest, as important as the king, performed rituals to assure the continuing connexion between the terrestrial and the divine. Another great Sun Temple existed at Vilcashuman, the geographic axis of the empire. These centres of worship were connected metaphysically by huacas (sacred sites) throughout the empire, of which Sanders et al write:
“Along with the shrines and temples, huacas (sacred sites) were widespread. A huaca could be a man-made temple, mountain, hill, or bridge, such as the great huacachaca across the Apurímac River. A huaca also might be a mummy bundle, especially if it was that of a lord-Inca. On high points of passage in the Andes, propitiatory cairns (apacheta, ‘piles of stones’) were made, to which, in passing, each person would add a small stone and pray that his journey be lightened”.224
The highly centralised, efficient system that had kept the great empire functioning for three centuries, fell apart when the royal succession was disputed. Circa 1483 the Chanca, another High Culture, attacked the Inca, having subdued the Quechua. At the same time, at Cuzco, there was dispute over who would succeed Virachocha Inca (not to be confused with the mythic culture-hero) between Inca Urcon and Cusi Inca Yupanqui, latter the choice of the military. As the Chanco approached Cuzco, Inca Urcon and his father Viracocha Inca, withdrew, while Inca Yupangqui and a small group of military and noble backers stayed to resist. Inca Yupangqui defeated the Chanca, but his efforts to negotiate with his father and brother failed. He assumed rulership taking the title Pachacuti, retaining his centre at Cuzco, while the faction under Virachocha and Urcon ruled from Calca. Pachacuti Inca Yupangqui entered into an alliance with the Chanca. However, shortly after Viracocha Inca died and Urcon was killed in a battle against Cuzco. The Inca Empire was reunited under Pachacuti Inca Yupangqui. While fighting now resumed between the Inca and the Chanca, Pachacuti Inca Yupangqui and his brother Capac Yupangqui, came into conflict, resulting in the extension of the empire, and the conquering of the Chimú. Sanders et al comment: “The rapid expansion of the empire, however, created a number of problems concerned with sustaining themselves and governing a large number of diverse ethnic groups”.225 Among the reforms initiated by Pachacuti Inca Yupangqui, a ruler could not inherit property from his predecessor. This meant that each new ruler would have to extend the empire. Ethnic groups from newly conquered lands were resettled and replaced with those who had been raised under the Inca.
This period is analogous to the Late or Winter civilisation cycle. The focus was on military conquest and trade, and many ethnoi were incorporated into the Inca superethnos. Topa Inca Yupanqui’s death in 1493 prompted a power struggle between his sons, with Huayna Capac taking the kingship with only minor bloodshed, expanding territory into Ecuador. Smallpox or measles entered from Bolivia, and Huayna Capac was among those who succumbed to the epidemic in 1525, leaving another struggle for the kingship, Huayna Capac’s principal wife having been childless. A successor to the throne was chosen by the chief priest, but without the prerequisite ceremony. The empire divided into regions led by contenders. A devastating civil war ensured between Huascar in the south, holding Cuzco, with Atahuallpa controlled Ecuador and parts of northern Peru. Atahuallpa’s forces won, ignominiously killed Huascar’s family, took Huascar before Atahuallpa, and even burned the mummy of the revered Topa Inca Yupanqui. This final conflict led by Atahuallpa occurred while the Spaniards were proceeding.226
Atahuallpa seems to have been in revolt against tradition. Although the chief priest had bypassed ceremonial, he had supported the chosen successor of Topa Inca Yupanqui, whose venerated memory was desecrated by the followers of Atahuallpa, who was captured and killed by the Conquistadors in 1533.
The Inca (1200A.D. to 1533) are the end of a long line of High Cultures in the Americas; albeit the best known because they succumbed to Western conquest. The Inca had conquered the long-enduring Chimú High Culture (900A.D. to 1470) when the Chimú had succumbed to the challenges of the environment and had been fractured. Chimú arts, sciences engineering, imperial organisation and hierarchical government, provided the foundations for the Inca civilisation. However, the Incan victory was short-lived, as they had entered an epoch of decline, culminating in the Spanish invasion. While smallpox and other diseases brought by Spaniards decimated the Inca population, a civil war for the line of royal succession added to the ease with which a small contingent of Spaniards was able to triumph over the Incan empire.
As with the character of empires, which are necessarily multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, if a strong axis of central administration is fractured, the constituent parts of the imperial organism fall apart. “The centre cannot hold” as W. B. Yeats poetically referred to such a situation, and the divinity of the god-king must become doubtful, such as when a Chinese Emperor was said to have “lost the Mandate of Heaven”. Sanders227 et al state of this epoch of the Inca:
“The rapid incorporation of so many mountain and coastal desert polities before 1532 calls for explanation. It is tempting to view such expansion in the context of the instantaneous breakup in 1532, when some of the same forces were likely to have been at work: dispersed territories, interlocked with some belonging to other powers in the region, and multiethnic and polyglot agglomerations in neighbouring valleys. Each political unit - as eventually was the case with the Inca state itself - was likely to share pastures, cultivated terraces, and beach installations; hegemonies shifted according to local and regional circumstances. The Early, Middle, and Late Horizons were temporary concatenations, and none lasted for very long. The Spanish invasion interrupted these alternations: a player had entered the field who ignored the local rules and who did not fathom the true sources of Andean wealth, which was not silver but an intimate familiarity with local conditions and possibilities and the ability to pool vastly different geographic and ecological tiers into single polities”.228
The Inca hierarchy that had held various complementary regional ethnoi together in a symbiosis had fractured. Foreign invasion exploited the situation and provided the final death blows.
Japan
The corrupting influence of money and mercantilism has been a traditional Japanese concern. As in China, the cyclic unfolding of history has followed dynastic lines. The Tokugawa dynasty saw the necessity to address two primary issues to prevent cycles of decay: restrictions on the accumulation of wealth, and the restoration of a rural population as the foundation of a healthy society. Guilds, the social basis of traditional societies as a reflection of the divine cosmic order, were re-established. However, because of the prosperity and development of Japan under the Tokugawa dynasty, the efforts to overcome the laws of decay were insufficient.
“Although government heavily restricted the merchants and viewed them as unproductive and usurious members of society, the samurai, who gradually became separated from their rural ties, depended greatly on the merchants and artisans for consumer goods, artistic interests, and loans. In this way, a subtle subversion of the warrior class by the chonin229 took place”.230
The warrior caste had been compromised and subordinated to commerce, beginning the process of the inversion of hierarchy. The migration of the rural population to the cities, was prompted by famine. While many families became landless tenant farmers, others became a new rich class of landowners. Many samurai became destitute and became wage-earners. Incursions from Russians and British were resisted. Peasant revolts increased into the 19th century. Attempts were made to stop the decline by trying to revive the martial ethos, restrict foreign trade and associated influences, suppress the Rangaku231 and eliminate luxury among bureaucrats and samurai.232
“A struggle arose in the face of political
limitations that the shogun imposed on the entrepreneurial class. The government ideal of an agrarian society failed to square with the reality of commercial distribution. A huge government bureaucracy had evolved, which now stagnated because of its discrepancy with a new and evolving social order. Compounding the situation, the population increased significantly during the first half of the Tokugawa period. Although the magnitude and growth rates are uncertain, there were at least 26 million commoners and about 4 million members of samurai families and their attendants when the first nationwide census was taken in 1721. Drought, followed by crop shortages and starvation, resulted in twenty great famines between 1675 and 1837. Peasant unrest grew, and by the late eighteenth century, mass protests over taxes and food shortages had become commonplace. Newly landless families became tenant farmers, while the displaced rural poor moved into the cities. As the fortunes of previously well-to-do families declined, others moved in to accumulate land, and a new, wealthy farming class emerged. Those people who benefited were able to diversify production and to hire laborers, while others were left discontented. Many samurai fell on hard times and were forced into handicraft production and wage jobs for merchants”.233 [Emphasis added].
A group of Samurai, pose for hand coloured photograph 1890s.
Following a peasant uprising in 1837, although only lasting a day, the state attempted again to restore tradition. Attempts were made to restore the martial ethos, and to oppose the corrupting influences of trade and luxury among bureaucrats and samurai. American overtures were rebuffed until 1854, with the Treaty of Peace and Amity (or Treaty of Kanagawa), allowing ships to enter two ports and the presence of an American consul. In 1859 a further treaty allowed the extension of trade. The Dutch and other Western influences increased, including the translation of foreign books. In 1868 the Tokugawa dynasty was overthrown.234
