Mormons and Aztecs (Was ATDTDA (33) - p. 927-30 - railroads)

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Interesting question of whether TRP lumps the Mormons with those fleeing from Aztlan or with those whom they were fleeing from.  The good guys in ATD are the indigenous, the anarchist and the mystical.  Do the Mormons fit into any of these categories?  The convoluted beliefs of the LDS might  classify them as indigenous, although their present role as solidly Republican conservatives who didn't admit African-Americans into their church until 1978 counters any view of them as oppressed.  The Mormon church is very hierarchical, although fringe elements of the religion oppose the US government's interference on the polygamy issue.  Still, not a hotbed of anarchism.  Mystical?  Is the Book of Mormon mystical?  Is the Bible?  As a hardcore atheist, I'm not qualified to speculate.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>
>Sent: May 22, 2008 1:27 PM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Mormons and Aztecs (Was ATDTDA (33) - p. 927-30 - railroads)
>
>
>Slightly creative reading of history: The Aztecs and the Mormons were both expelled from a mythical paradise near the Great Salt Lake (Zion for the Mormons and Atzlan for the Aztecs), and they both moved southward to colonize the Sierra Madres.
>
>Does Wren think that they were fleeing the same unnamed danger and/or pursuing the same unnamed dark goal? 
>
>Is Wren on this same "path" which will lead her "into the cruel country of the invaders, the people with wings, the serpents who spoke, the poisonous lizards who never lost a fight. Where she would come to no supernally-lighted city but instead into a merciless occupation, lives of slavery only barely, contemptuously disguised" (ATD 929) -- which I read as a critique of the Aztec culture of slavery and human sacrifice as well as a critique of Western incursions?
>
>Related info: 
>
>* http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2004/12/003-0001-9920.html: "the Aztecs migrated into Mexico from the land of Aztlan, a mysterious place which the Spanish thought was located near the Great Salt Lake in modern day Utah [...] This was a country which they ["the invading Spanish"] imagined held fantastic riches and so the myth of Aztlan started to grow and become embellished with other myths (such as the fabled Seven Cities of Cíbola) becoming a kind of northern El Dorado. [...] In Durán's version, Aztlan is a Garden of Eden where the people still live an idyllic existence and where neither disease nor death is known. The story begins with the great king Moctezuma I, at the peak of his power, on hearing of the utopian land of his ancestors decides to send a mission there" (the website goes on to relay Durán's interesting tale)
>
>* http://www.networkaztlan.com/aztlan.html: "He ["University of Utah ethnic studies professor Armando Sol-rzano"] compares the concept of Aztlan as a sacred land of harmony with that of Zion in the Mormon tradition. The similarities, he says, show that both cultures are searching for a common goal."
>
>* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_colonies_in_Mexico
>
>* http://www.jstor.org/pss/3594742: the Mormons (having moved into Mexico circa 1885) fled the Mexican Revolution circa 1912 during the "Exodus to the United States." 
>
>Jill wrote: 
>> I didn't take the Mormon thing as thatthey are incipient. I'll look again- but I grouped the Mormon flightremnant among other parts of the book that have to do with remnants of aprevious thing, often mysteriously gone, evidence now fading from thesurface, before which an observer like ourselves any time thereafter, isbeing shown that there's a mysterious reason, w/a measure of hope, acalvinism under uncertain flops / flips, why some things pass.
>
>And Laura wrote:    
>
>>Frank and Wren visit the ruins at Casas Grandes and Wren wonders "why the Mormon odyssey and the Aztec flight should have so many points in common." Mormons as incipient colonialists (my Mormon in-laws would beg to differ)? Mormonism expanded exponentially once its missionaries hit African andLatin America. 
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