Continuing from the
previous posts regarding the so-called secret written language of the early
Peruvians. In past articles we have written extensively about the importance
Mormon and Moroni felt regarding the hiding of the sacred Nephite records for
fear that if they fell into Lamanite hands, they would be destroyed. In fact,
to believe that anything Nephite that would be associated with their sacred
writing, would have survived the final annihilation of the Nephite Nation in
385 A.D., is to misunderstand the reasoning behind the Lamanites’ hatred for
their Nephite brethren.
Not unlike the
animosity the Arab nations have for the Jewish state of Israel today, believing
Isaac stole the birthright from Abraham’s first son, Ishmael, and demanding Issrael’s
complete annihilation, the Lamanites long held the fervent belief that Nephi
stole the birthright (bechora) and
right of primogeniture from his older brother, and Lehi’s firstborn son, Laman.
Today, Rabbinic commentators explain that having the birthright affects the
firstborn's position and role in the family, imposes on him certain spiritual
obligations and entitles him to special monetary benefits. It was even of
greater importance anciently, when the first born son took on himself the
feeding and care of all the women of the family, held a leadership hand much
like a Shiek or minor king, within his own family circle, and was the accepted
decision-making of all things pertaining to the family as a whole.
To the Jew and Arab,
this is no small thing, and anciently, was paramount in their daily lives. This
birthright established the firstborn as being the head of the family, and
entitled him to inherit the position and authority of his father, which
afforded him greater honor and prestige than his younger siblings, and
receiving a greater share or double portion of the family’s estate. Thus his
younger brothers and sisters were expected to honor and respect him, much as
children must honor and respect their parents.
In turn, the oldest son
assumes responsibility for the family's welfare,and the birthright
obligated the firstborn to preserve the sacred traditions of the family by
fulfilling specific spiritual responsibilities, such as bringing sacrifices on
behalf of the family, and to serve as the family's spiritual representative.
In fact, originally, bringing
sacrifices to the altar was the privilege of the first born and until the
Tabernacle was establish private altars were permitted, and the service was
done by the Bechorot (first-born).
Thus the “birthright” of the first-born in every family was to be its
representative at the altar, to bring sacrifices for the family. It is as if
every single family could have their own “cohen,” serving Hashem, which did
happen, right around Matan Torah (the giving of the Torah). Thus, the
fulfilling of these spiritual duties for the family was a sacred privilege, but
also quite risky—improper service could result in death. It was simply
something not to be trifled with, but here was Nephi, usurping it as far as
Laman and Lemuel were concerned, who taught their children to hate the Nephites in turn (Mosiah 10:16-17).
As a result, when
Nephi rose in prominence in the family among his siblings, built the ship,
guided them to the Land of Promise, took over control of the new colony as
second in command beneath his father, though the fourth son, and had his
father’s blessing in doing so, and were constantly reminded of their
shortcomings and Nephi’s spiritual greatness (2 Nephi 1:24-27), the brothers
rebelled (2 Nephi 5:3) and sought his life.
When Nephi was
commanded to flee their presence (2 Nephi 5:5), and took all those with him
that were willing to follow him, he also took those few artifacts the colony
would have held in great esteem, such as the sword of Laban, the Liahona, and the
brass plates (2 Nephi 5:12,14). He even built a temple like unto Solomon’s (2
Nephi 5:16), which must have been the final blow to Laman and Lemuel in his
usurpation of the rights of the bechora (בְּכוֹרָה).
As a result of this
1000-year-long-hatred of the Lamanites toward the Nephites, we can understand
how important it was for the Lamanties to eliminate and remove all semblence of
Nephite existence in order to justify their right to finally rule. Nephite
writing, the sacred records, and whatever symbols or icons the Nephites might
have had would have been destroyed. This is seen when the Lamanites were
driving Mormon and his armies deeper and deeper into the north country and though
they were in hot pursuit, the Lamanites took the time to destroy and burn to the ground
all Nephite towns, villages and cities (Mormon 5:5), killing all Nephties who
could not escape their pursuit (Mormon 5:7).
Obviously, as we have
suggested before, anything Nephite, especially Nephite writing since it represented all that the Lamanites had to eliminate, had to be
destroyed if the Lamanites were going to claim the rights they sought. That is
not to say, however, that the Lamanites did not have a written language. It was
Amulon who taught the Lamanites the Nephite written language so that they could
write one another (Mosiah 24:6-7). During the 200 years of peace and
tranquility where there were no –ites among them, and then as late as 385 A.D.,
Mormon is corresponding with the Lamanite king (Mormon 3:4; 6:2). Obviously,
the Lamanites had a written language, as well.
So what happened to
that Lamanite written language? Why was it not being used 1000 years later when
the Spanish arrived?
Which brings us back
to the t’oqapu (tocapu) and also to
another event in Incan history. First, the tocapu
is a considered a type of signage—a language that, in addition
to its characteristic form, some tocapu
are enrolled in a quadrangular, simple and normal frame, which both art and
semiotics, indicates that what is inside this graph limit has semiotic status.
Note
also that, as a form of marking, is a trait that can also be seen on many
objects non-Andean intended to communicate a story through graphics and text,
for example, in "boxes sanctuary" and in some pictorial votive
offerings, all products of the sixteenth century onwards, characteristic of
European and churches present in Andean culture.
One of the differences between the pictorial votive
offerings and tocapu was that while
it did not contain scenes; it took into account the
shape (square, rectangular) that is assumed in the framework graphically
limited tocapu to a drawing that said
something.
Which
brings us to an understanding of semiotic, which is a word derived from the Greek sēmeiōtikos,
meaning the observation of signs, which comes from sēmeiousthai, the
interpretation of signs, and from sēmeion meaning sign (sēma), dates to about
1880. This is the
study of meaning-making, the study of sign processes and meaningful
communication. This includes the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis),
indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification
and communication.
It is in brief, a general philosophical theory of signs and
symbols that deal especially with their function in both artificially
constructed and natural languages and comprises syntactics, semantics, and
pragmatics. If one is going to make sense out of a group of signs, symbols or
even unrecognized hieroglyphs, one should be at least acquainted with the
science of semiotics.
According to Gary Shank in Semiotics and Qualitative Research in Education: the Third Crossroad,”
Semiotic theory can help expand the conceptual and practical domain of
qualitative research by serving as a philosophical foundation for the
discipline, thereby allowing qualitative researchers to build upon a set of
ideas that powerfully extend the aims and goals of their research.”
He also believes that
qualitative research in education can help expand semiotics by serving as a
source of empirical research and findings, thereby helping move semiotics away
from its current nearly total preoccupation with theory and into a state where
empirically determined issues play a more important and visible role.
It should also be noted that
since qualitative research in education and semiotics have developed
independently of each other, there are few people who understand the issues and
ideas of both fields. However, once these definitions have been laid out, it is
believed that the potential link between the two areas will be established by
presenting an examination of its current state in the history of qualitative
thinking, which can then be used to situate the comparisons between the two
domains.
How many researchers,
historians, archaeologists and anthropologists are also semioticians? Very few
to none. Is it important? It seems so in the case of the Peruvian Tocapu language of patterned signage
that many researchers claim have written meaning.
This, then, leads us to the
second point.
(See the next post, “Quellqa:
Ancient Written Language of Peru – Part V,” for more information on how the sciences
are possibly changing and looking at new insights into an early Peruvian
writing system and also why the Inca had no writing system when the Spanish
arrived)
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