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Travel Photography > Isthmus > Peten, Guatemala
Strange
evidences have come to light in archaeological circles; artifacts of
Mayan origin found as far north as Abaco, Northern Bahamas, jade statues
in the Caribbean, peopling of the West Indies by Indians who boated
from the Amazon basin. Giant trade routes connecting the Mayan cities
of Guatemala, Mexico and Belize by land and sea. Trade routes connecting
the Floridian arawaks to the Caribbean Indians to the Mayans. Old highways
of commerce and trade.
The
shorelines of Belize and the Yucatan were the homes of wealthy merchants,
bartering up and down the jungle rivers, and across the sea to Cuba
and Jamaica.
Arm-chair historians say that the Polynesians must have had a hand in
this. How could these people independently develop complex boating skills?
Certainly, they say, only the Polynesians, Vikings and perhaps Egyptians
were capable of that kind of sea travel. To further their cause, they
say that it was likely that if the Polynesians were skilled enough to
settle the Marqueses without maps, wouldn't it follow that they also
landed in Baja, Southern Mexico and South America? That they brought
navigation and seamanship to the Americas?
Circumstantial
evidence exists that, possibly, Polynesians mixed with Baja Indians,
and perhaps landed in Peru during the Incan age. But there is no DNA
evidence to date, and it is more likely that if the Polynesians did
settle in these areas, their influence on the boating skills of the
American Indians was insignificant due, purely to the scale of their
populations.
In
fact, recent studies suggest that the giant canoes, like the one first
spotted by Christopher Columbus on his first trip to San Salvador, were
variations of an evolution of Inuit kayaks from Alaska. They were transformed
by environment and ingenuity through Canada, into North America, and
south from there. Skin boats to canoes to hollowed logs to giant merchant
vessels.
Miguel
pointed out the dried monkey blood on the leaves under a tree. The triplets
folded their 'this is so fake' card for what appeared to be genuine
bug-eyed fright. "He was up there three days ago," Miguel
said, "and this jaguar just pounced. The jaguar is not known to
be able to climb a tree vertically. But you can see his claw marks here;
three pounces to the top. He killed the monkey, but he was out of breath.
He had to come down. So he waited for the monkey to fall out of the
tree, but the monkey, he got caught in a fork. So the jaguar left."
When
the sun began to hang low and cast a shallow yellow through the leaves,
the howler monkeys began to screech. This is a haunting effect. Not
like the spider monkeys, whose low-level tree antics are comedic. "Do
they get pissed?" I asked Miguel. "Pissed?" he asked.
"Do they get mad at humans?" I asked.
"Yes, the spider monkeys just throw their feces at you and try
to wee on you, but a howler monkey is very strong. He can break a branch
and drop it on you."
That
same triplet hit my shoulder again. He told me it was all a crapshoot,
and not to believe anything.
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