We demand the immediate removal of any depiction of the Olmec, Olmec Colossal heads, and/or Ancient Mesoamerican culture from the Heart of Hyde Park mural made by artist Moses Ball. The mural located in Los Angeles, CA promotes pseudohistory and ignores scientific DNA studies in favor of the false doctrine that Olmec society disappeared and further erases the Original Indigenous Amerindians who founded the first ancient cultures in the Americas. The origin of the Olmec colossal heads is not African, as has been rumored for 150 years, but Mesoamerican, said Ann Cyphers, an academic at the Institute of Anthropological Research (IIA) of the UNAM, who together with her collaborators have conducted mitochondrial DNA studies that prove the identity of the Olmecs, the oldest civilization in these lands. 

How does this project contribute to Indigenous/Native American erasure?

The exclusive Olmec head presented on the African heritage themed mural is causing confusion and controversy. Many concerned citizens have brought the negative visual impact of the mural to our attention, and after analysing the mural we have found the following:

-The patterns in the background around the Olmec head are traditional African symbols.

-All the people depicted in the mural are of African descent none are Indigenous Native American.

-There are no other Indigenous Native American cultural visual elements on the mural.

The publicized quotes regarding the project by leaders support our claims, and we explain the implications of such comments below:

“We wanted to be able to show the FACT that our beginnings here in not just this community, but in Los Angeles and in California is ancient, so you see Olmec.” - said Assata Umoja, featured in the mural as a prominent African-American activist and guided the project. 

"We believe so strongly in the power of art as a tool for the inspiration of individuals as well as a way for communities. Particularly at this time of gentrification in neighborhoods, to assert their identity.” - said Karen Mack, Creative Community Leader who gathered the funds and led the project.

Due to the completely African motif of the mural with only African-Americans being featured, we find the Olmec are in fact contextualized as belonging to African culture. This achieves the opposite of what Karen Mack, of LA Commons, states is the purpose of the mural. The mural as it is, actually serves to remove the cultural identities of Natives of the Mexican and Central American diaspora and their descendants by appropriating Mesoamerican Amerindian culture as African culture. 

This mural does, however, assert the radical race identity claimed by anti-Indigenous Black Separatist radicals. It inspires those who claim the Olmec culture was founded by Africans to continue to harass and threaten the lives of Native American peoples, in particular those who’s lineages are truly connected to the Olmec culture. The Olmec culture and their descendants have faced discriminations such as this in the past and the community is tired. Moving forward, we ask that future projects lead by Karen Mack of LA Commons to not feature the Olmec head or Mesoamerican culture on Afrocentric murals, as they will continue to cause division in the Los Angeles communities she is entrusted to empower and unify.

The activist and main figure centered in the Mural, Ms. Assata Umoja’s public statement claiming the Olmec head represents African-Americans ancient history not only in the community but in California, is erasure of the original and still residing greater Los Angeles area Natives, such as the Tongva/Kizh.

Besides the promotion of pseudo-history, we found it troubling that the project managers, activist, and artist that were supposed to lead the youths, actually had Mexican-American and Guatemalan-American students unknowingly participate in their own heritage and Indigenous culture’s erasure. 

We request the Olmec head be removed immediately, and are reaching out to all of you for help. Please be aware murals featuring Nipsey Hussle have resulted in fatal violence due to “tagging” and vandalisms in the past being interpreted as gang related “disrespect”. Regarding this mural, we have asked our community to not touch the mural to fix the cultural appropriation or as a kind of protest, but they are righteously angry due to the historic erasure Indigenous Native Americans have faced in their own lands. We would like to avoid another violent crimes associated with a mural featuring the late rapper Nipsey Hussle. Overall the mural is beautiful, but is misleading and appropriating Olmec culture.

The history of our Olmec culture erasure.

In regards to the historic erasure, the expert (Ann Cyphers) recalled that theories of African origin and transoceanic migrations are dear to the collective imagination, so "it has been very difficult to shake off these ideas." This type of revisionist depiction of the Olmec Amerindian society, “is Afrocentric as defined in various ways by artists, educators, scholars, political activist, and other interested persons, who may benefit from promoting racist and hegemonic views of the role allegedly played by “black peoples” in the development of city-states in the Americas.[1] Whether or not the artists were aware of the implications of such imagery, it does not remove their ethical responsibility to revise the mural, as it causes harm to Indigenous Native-Americans fighting for visibility and human rights in the present day.

Ann Cyphers, discovered in 1994 the most recent of the 17 Olmec heads known so far, found in the archaeological site of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, in Veracruz, explained that this thesis dates from 1869 and was proposed by José María Melgar and Serrano, who reported the first colossal head (called Hueyapan), in what is now Tres Zapotes, Veracruz, according to a statement from the UNAM.

"Then it was not known of the existence of the Olmec culture, and Melgar proposed that the features of the sculptures corresponded to characters from Ethiopia, black people, mostly because of the features of the face. From there this speculation was born and a controversy was formed that pursues us in Olmec archaeology."

For the researcher, the wide and flattened features of the faces of the colossal heads are explained by the fact that the thrones of the rulers, which were large prisms, were recycled to make the sculptures. Reusing the thrones was important, because, in addition to being a symbol of the ruler, this avoided bringing more rocks from other places. Because they wanted the head to be as large as possible, they accommodated the image of the ruler in the prism and the face was deformed. "That largely clarifies why compressed factions. It is understood, for example, the wide nose and mouth, because no head has protruding elements, everything is compact, glued, it is part of the prism".

The conclusive DNA studies, as explained by research team -

In excavations carried out over the years at Olmec sites and when scientifically studying various pieces of that civilization, university archaeologists have not found African artifacts; this is the first line of research that rules out the origin in that continent. The second line contemplates DNA studies, which previously could not be done because there were no Olmec burials, "the ones that had been found were made of dust. But we found some in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, and Enrique Villamar Becerril, collaborator of my group, did the mitochondrial DNA study," he explained.

In this regard, Villamar indicated that two burials were shown: one in Loma del Zapote (dating from two thousand BC) and another in San Lorenzo (one thousand BC). "From those two individuals, a rib bone sample was taken, and they underwent a procedure to obtain their mitochondrial DNA, the lineage that the mother provides to an individual, because it is more feasible to recover it from archaeological remains."

Thus he achieved the classification of this genetic information, called a haplogroup. "The genetic diversity of mitochondrial DNA can be classified according to the similarities that exist in several individuals, and they can share some mutations that make them different from other individuals in different geographic regions of the world."

These differences allow us to define which group they belong to, and thus mitochondrial DNA is classified into haplogroups. "We obtained the haplogroup from these two subjects and came to know that they belong to the A, one of the most abundant among the founding and indigenous populations of America. If they had been African, the haplogroup would be L, which is characteristic of those populations," he emphasized.

In addition, Cyphers remarked, if there were African genetic material in the Olmecs, it would not only be seen in burials but in later populations, as haplogroup L (which was not found here) would have been preserved. "In 300 Mesoamerican burials of different eras, it is not present." On the discovery of the colossal head 17, he commented: "We were looking for houses and suddenly it appeared, it was like a dream. Every new thing contributes to changing the perception of what that culture was like." When describing the Olmecs, Cyphers said: "they were the first civilization of Mesoamerica, powerful rulers; in a word, a civilization."[2]

Final note: To allow the Heart of Hype Park mural to remain when University archaeologists conducted DNA studies on human remains found in Veracruz and verified the origin of the Olmecs: it is Mesoamerican, not African is erasure of Native American, Amerindian, Indigenous American peoples cultures and achievements.

Thank you in advance for signing and helping protect Ancient-Mesoamerican Amerindian culture from being incorrectly, historically depicted as African by visual artists with no anthropological background or scientific evidence to sustain the visual claims presented on the mural.

Cordially,

Defend Mesoamerican Culture -

A community of Indigenous Anthropologists, Archaeologists, Historians, Pan-Africans, Scholars, and citizens seeking to protect our respective Indigenous cultures and minimize the harm caused to marginalized members of society, who will be affected by the Afrocentric Olmec origin theory promoted on the Heart of Hyde Park Mural.

*The Heart of Hyde Park Mural is located in Los Angeles CA, on the corner of Crenshaw Blvd. and Slauson Ave., on the US Bank building. It was made by Moses Ball and an assistant artist, with the help of community members. The mural was a project guided by LA Commons and funded by Transporation of America.

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Sources:

Haslip‐Viera, Gabriel, Bernard Ortiz De Montellano, and Warren Barbour. "Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs." Current Anthropology 38, no. 3 (1997): 419-41. Accessed July 12, 2021. doi:10.1086/204626. [1]

Ann Cyphers, Judith Zurita Noguera, Luis Fernando Hernandez Lara, Los Olmecas de San Lorenzo Veracruz (Mexican Archaeology, March-April 2018, Volume XXV, n. 150) by  [2]