Word: aztec
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...THERE LIES her weakness. While she speaks of stirring memories of, for example, a grand entrace hall or a cramped tenement staircase--her work seems instead rather devoid of content. The problem may be one of materials. The staircase of the Fogg piece suggests ancient Aztec monuments; it might be more powerful if constructed of weathered stone rather than lumberyard wood. Miss, like many intellectually oriented artists during the sixties, gives priority to idea over aesthetic. In failing to point up the qualities of her sculpture, Miss deprives her pieces of visual and emotional richness...
...well. Wittily, the authors explain why Muslims eschew pork (pigs would have been an ecological disaster in the Middle East) and why chicken soup -so-called Jewish penicillin-really does help to cure a cold (it comforts nasal passages). They show why Chinese drink no milk, discuss the Aztec hunger for human flesh (people who ate people were the victims of protein deficiency) and explain why Africa's Bemba society would collapse into chaos without beer (a major source of nourishment as well as a ceremonial beverage). Consuming Passions may not make consumers appreciate the Chinese taste...
...spent the morning at the private air terminal, watching 747 s rumble and squeal down the runway like the sows at the ranch, flouting nature by moving so much weight so fast. A handsome, twinengine Beechcraft Aztec wheeled out of a hanger, its tall pilot walking behind it in the drizzle. He was dark with a bulky, wool sweater, and brown pants that tapered down to pointed shoes. He had a Gallic look, a black lock folded back from forehead like a bird's wing. I made my approach. He grinned slightly and motioned to the co-pilot's seat...
Whether such lavish ceremonies really took place is uncertain. But unlike most of the Aztec, Maya and Inca treasures, which the Spaniards melted down and shipped back home in the form of ingots, many of the ancient gold objects of the Colombian Indians have survived. Protected by rugged terrain, dispersed over a wider area in many different tribal groupings, the Colombians avoided some of the worst depredations of the European invaders. They also buried their treasures in hidden tombs that escaped detection until recent times...
Most scholars think Aztec cannibalism is firmly documented. Arens disagrees. He says the Spanish and the Aztecs accused one another of cannibalism -a common result of the collision of two cultures-but the Spanish got to write the history books. According to the author, the Spanish were stunned by the sophistication of Aztec culture and desperately needed justification for destroying it. After the Aztecs were destroyed and the slave trade dried up, both the cannibalism theme and the slave trade turned to Africa. "As one group of cannibals disappeared," Arens writes, "the European mind conveniently invented another...