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I am in search of a difficult-to-Google fact. I once saw a Discovery Channel-esque documentary about an apocalyptic prophecy that all of the tools and other man-made objects would at some point take on a life of their own and turn on humankind. I'm pretty sure it was from a Native American culture (I thought Mayan but that didn't turn up anything useful online so maybe not).

Does anyone know whether this is/was a genuinely held cultural belief somewhere, if so what culture, and where I can find out more?

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  • You mean, besides Maximum Overdrive?
    – T.E.D.
    Feb 9, 2020 at 22:27
  • Not what I was after, but a very similar concept. Thanks!
    – TimM
    Feb 10, 2020 at 20:49

1 Answer 1

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You may be referring to a legend in the Huarochirí Manuscript mentioned in this book: Colonial Spanish America. Animate objects in this text are linked to a beginning-of-the-world event, the first sunrise, set in ancient times (which can of course also be considered an end-of-the-world event for the mythical time before the first sunrise).

An exhaustive study of this can be found in Linda Brown's When Pre-Sunrise Beings Inhabit a Post-Sunrise World: Time, Animate Objects, and Contemporary Tz'utujil Maya Ritual Practitioners

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  • Thanks. Sounds very promising. Will have a look at that study!
    – TimM
    Feb 10, 2020 at 20:53

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