Tlapitzalli at risk of disappearing
Picture of Flauta preciosa 5-Sol-Vida
By Roberto Velázquez Cabrera
There is a risk that Tlapitzalli may disappear due to a serious lack of resources to continue its operation and development. The purpose of this article is to appeal to individuals and organizations interested in preventing its disappearance.
As I have received no income from the dissemination of the results of the studies – these are free and open-access – and as no institution has provided support, no funds are available to pay for renting the domain name and to pay the server for hosting and storing all the multimedia contents. The system cannot be moved to another host, due to the network of inter-document links.
Since 1999, when I began, at the request of some academic reviewers, to disseminate the results of the academic studies, including the first Master's thesis on Aerófonos mexicanos, to see what interest they might generate, I could find no educational institution servers able to host the material. I had to use the free hosting service of Geocities, but this was canceled, when Geocities was acquired by Yahoo in 2009. Since then, only poor quality copies, made without permission of the author, have been available, of the 85 existing pages before that cancellation, but these no longer include multimedia material for all of the links.
Since then, tlapitzalli belonged to The Redi web site of researcher and professor Jesús Olivares Ceja, but he no longer has funds to continue paying for the domain name and hosting service. The Redi internet site has closed down. A priority should be made to help to restore this important site.
Since 2014, the Periodismo Libre website of Jorge Santa Cruz has provided a portal on Sonidos mexicanos to disseminate the latest research, since all previous studies cannot be included because they take up too much storage space.
Ancient Mexican sounds were destroyed, forbidden and forgotten since the invasion five centuries ago. Since 2001, submissions have been raised at the highest administrative levels of our constitutional powers, in order to establish policies and research programs to rescue and to promote Mexican culture and some of the extraordinary technologies inherent in ancient sounds, but unfortunately these petitions remain in place, for lack of any official response.
Whilst many billions of pesos have been spent to promote programs and actions that have failed to really develop the nation and to help the vast majority of its inhabitants, no interest whatsoever has been shown in protecting something of major self-worth unique in the history of humanity, such as ancient sounds.
If there is no interest in its study, rescue and dissemination, it would appear questionable to keep working at it like a man possessed, especially since nationalist and patriotic attitudes are today despised, repudiated, and even called "shackles of the past" by neoliberal globalizers of developing countries, in order simply to deliver what remains of the country’s national heritage value.
Today research into ancient Mexican sounds is either prohibited or not accepted at postgraduate level, as demonstrated by the fate of the virtual thesis on the extraordinary Ilmenita sonora olmeca - academics say that it does not form part of their research programs and that they don´t have scholars available for its proper assessment.
Even in the Direccion de Estudios Arqueologicos of INAH they refused to publish a lecture I had given on Sonidos mexicanos prohibidos y abandonados, without providing just cause or logical arguments, as discussed in my inconformidad con el rechazo
The very latest topics for research and development such as ancient Mexican sound technology are not supported, because their application requires an institutional guarantee, which has not been forthcoming.
Channels that exist to support innovations, such as one offered by the Presidency of the Republic and other similar ones for entrepreneurs have shown no interest in research and development of Mexican sonorous systems. Instead they appear to be more interested in supporting "corner shop" ventures, with little or no national or international importance, than in helping to rescue areas of cultural practice that were destroyed by the interests and ignorance of the invaders, and which then were abandoned and forgotten by the colonized.
Knowing that for their real development poor countries need to foster creativity and added value, it is incredible that systems do not exist today to support research into and recovery of extraordinary technologies, unique in the history of mankind, such as the field of ancient Mexican sounds, which could eventually generate hundreds of patents or utility models.
I have been unable to find foundations or philanthropists interested in giving significant support to the study and rescue of Mexican sounds.
Given that the main problem for the hundreds of thousands of researchers and independent professionals without formal employment is finding support to develop and disseminate their work, it's amazing that no local support systems exist to help them.
For the past 15 years, due to the limitations discussed, the development and dissemination of original studies on Mexican sounds were financed through personal savings, but these are now coming to an end. External funds are urgently needed to maintain and continue the research work of Tlapitzalli.
I will look for ways to receive funding, contributions or donations, although I am not an expert in these systems. Any suggestions and help would be appreciated.
One way to send donations from abroad to Mexico City is through Western Union (WU), in my name. You must register and send me by email the tracking number (MTCN) of the transfer.
Domestic donations can be made by Telecomm in my name to the mailing list of Lindavista in Mexico City.
Another way to get resources to save tlapitzalli and help maintain its development, is by offering experimental models of Mexican resonators, conferences and documents using the results of the studies listed in the tlapitzalli website.
Ian Mursell of Mexicolore UK, Edmundo Berumen Torres of Berumen y Asociados and Edmundo Berumen Osuna of B @ ktun Software SAPI de CV, financed the printing of the first 120 copies of the suppressed Thesis on the Ilmenita Sonora olmeca, which was revised and supplemented, to be delivered to the libraries of schools and institutions that are interested in having it and others who want to support its reprinting.
The first supports were provided by the professor of the National School of Music Miguel Zenker and composer Cristina Garcia Islas, who uses models of ancient resonators in her modern musical works.
The virtual and printed versions of the thesis, supporting papers, and models of death whistles have been offered at a number of conferences. They can be offered elsewhere, including on the Internet. The main limitation is that the demand for models of Mexican resonators and their sounds has vanished. Whilst experimental models were made to support the research, perhaps now they can be put to use in order to generate an income of some kind.
Other sources of income can be used to continue to maintain and develop the content of Tlapitzalli. The costs of surviving in the medium term are the most difficult to cover in present circumstances.
We thank Elvira Martínez Molina, Director of Libraries, IPN, for her support by providing access to a computer in the multimedia office of her library, because I could not use any other in order to write reports and transfer the files of the studies to my website in the USA.
This article came to be written mainly in response to a question put to me by Alejandro Barragan of Danzas Mexicanas on how to get support to further develop the work of Tlapitzalli, in an interview titled “El señor de las flautas”, carried out via a long distance call in 2013 from New York. He has already included this article on his website under Tlapitzalli en riesgo de desparecer.
Roberto Velázquez Cabrera
tlapitzalli@gmail.com
rvelaz.geo@yahoo.com