Two stories, Two Times

Two time periods, two stories. Yet there are similarities…

The first regards the Uxians, who may be the same people group also known as the Elamites, who in turn may be related to the Lurs who are a Kurdish group whose women experience greater freedom than their more traditional counterparts in Islamic societies where Kurds live. The Elamites worshipped a Mother of all gods, depicted women and men as equal in their art and had a focus on animals. According to Oxford, these peoples may be linked to prehistoric indigenous peoples of the Indian subcontinent. In India, the indigenous peoples are known to have written the agamic texts, which include a strong place for the Divine Mother. Some see the agamic texts as carrying Vedic authority. It is debated whether the agamic texts are part of Hinduism or not. Whether the Vedas themselves were written by these indigenous peoples of the Indian Subcontinent is up for debate. I am of the belief they were indigenously written. I remember reading an excellent debunking of the idea they were of a later “Arya..” in the sense of an external race, years ago and I can’t find it. The original Elamites briefly had an empire and they fought with the Sumerians. Although both the Elamites and the Uxians (who may be the same people group) are considered semitic, the Elamite language is considered unique in that it is unlike any other and until recently it was completely a mystery - an undeciphered language. Recently one claim says the code has been cracked, however there is disagreement among academics as to whether or not this is so. I share the following two stories to see if you see any parallels:

Instead of chasing after the fleeing Darius, Alexander instead moved to seize nearby vital cities while the Persian ruler was too weak to respond. First, he reached Babylon and from there marched to Susa. Both cities accepted the victorious king into their walls without a struggle. Departing from Susa, Alexander and his army entered the territory of the Uxians, a people who controlled a swath of land between Susa and the city of Persepolis, the Persian capital. The Uxians that lived in the plains region willingly submitted to Alexander. Other Uxians living in the hillsides, however, had no intention of bowing to Alexander. They had not even paid tribute to Darius III, despite living in the heart of the Persian Empire, and as such, the Uxians in the hills stanchly wanted to maintain their independence and even demanded that Alexander pay a toll if he should wish to cross through their land. The hill people, however, failed to realize that the Persian Empire was crumbling and a new empire-builder was in town. Unfortunately for the Uxian hill tribes, Alexander had little patience for rogue, obstinate communities in his growing domain.

According to the Roman historian, Arrian (c. 90-173+), who based his book mainly on the eyewitness accounts of Ptolemy and Aristobulus, the Uxians were informed that Alexander’s army would be heading toward a pass in their territory and that the Macedonian king would hand them their just toll. Of course, Alexander and the hill tribes had vastly different ideas of what was justly deserved.

As the message was traveling to the Uxian hill communities, Alexander sent most of his army, under the command of Craterus, to quickly march for the pass in order to seize the high ground. The Macedonian king, however, did not go with the rest of the army. Instead, he stayed behind with a reported force of around 8,000 men and recruited some guides from Susa who knew the Uxian countryside. After waiting long enough for the hill warriors to abandon their homes for the pass, Alexander had the guides from Susa lead his band of troops to known villages on the hillside. Under the cover of dark, Alexander’s raiding party surprised several defenseless villages, pillaging and killing as they combed through the hills.

https://thehistorianshut.com/2018/08/24/the-obliteration-of-the-uxian-hill-tribes-by-alexander-the-great/

This story is about Yosemite:

The modern conservation movement began at dawn on December 8, 1850, above the north fork of California’s San Joaquin River. Soft orange light had just begun to spill over the craggy peaks of the eastern mountains overlooking what was then known as the Ahwahnee Valley, causing the jagged minarets to ignite like still burning embers from the Indian campfires below.

All remained still inside the wigwams of the Ahwahneechee camp. But an attuned ear might have noticed that the early morning trills of the hermit thrush were strangely absent. A disturbed silence had entered the forest, broken only by the occasional clumsy snap of twigs as if from an animal unfamiliar with its surroundings. There was also the faint smell of smoke.

Suddenly, fires roared to life throughout the camp as multiple wigwams were engulfed in flame. White men quickly scattered from the light and into shadow. A party of vigilantes in the company of Major John Savage of the “Mariposa Battalion” had used embers from the Indians’ own campfires to set the shelters ablaze. It was a tactic that those with experience in the Indian Wars knew to inspire panic, relying on the element of surprise. Dozens of Ahwahneechee fled their burning wigwams as the fire rapidly spread to the surrounding forest. Thick plumes of smoke were bathed in a searing glow that was also now descending from the rocky peaks above.

“Charge, boys! Charge!” bellowed Lieutenant Reuben Chandler. A heavy drumbeat of footfalls now joined the sound of crackling pine as thirty men dashed from the surrounding bushes with their rifles. “So rapid and so sudden were the charges made,” wrote chronicler Lafayette Bunnell, “that the panic stricken warriors at once fled from their stronghold.” Savage’s men fired indiscriminately into the Ahwahneechee camp, a people who had called this valley their home for centuries.

“No prisoners were taken,” recalled the witness to these events, “twenty-three were killed; the number of wounded was never known.” All in all, it was a successful mission. However, the author noted that even more “savages” could have been hunted down and murdered had the fire not raged so out of control as to spread down the mountainside endangering the Battalion’s camp. As the ragtag militia fled downhill to rescue supplies, the Ahwahneechee survivors fled further into the mountains, little knowing they would never be able to return home.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/primate-diaries/how-john-muir-s-brand-of-conservation-led-to-the-decline-of-yosemite/

Om Mani Padme Hum

Om Mani Padme Hum

Om Mani Padme Hum

What if Sierra, Audubon and all the others gave it back to the Indigenous Peoples?

What if we invited the Divine Mother back into our lives to love and nurture us beyond division?