Just how DID the Aztecs see the Conquistadors?

24th Dec 2011

The Aztecs try to interpret the arrival of the Spanish

We are deeply grateful to and honoured by Professor Davíd Carrasco of Harvard University, who has generously recorded specially for us an introductory talk on the vexed question of just how the Aztecs/Mexica viewed the arrival of the Spanish. Did they REALLY see the invaders as gods...?

Davíd L. Carrasco is a Mexican-American academic historian of religion, anthropologist, and Mesoamericanist scholar. As of 2010 he holds the inaugural appointment as Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of Latin America Studies at the Harvard Divinity School, in a joint appointment with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. Carrasco is known for his research and extensive publications on Mesoamerican religion and history, as well as wider contributions within Latin American studies. His work is known primarily for his illuminating writings on the ways human societies orient themselves with sacred place.
Noted as “one of the foremost scholars of Mesoamerican religions and cultures” Carrasco has contributed particularly to the study of history, religion and symbolism of the Aztec and Teotihuacan cultures. Several of his publications have received awards, and he is a recipient (2005) of the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest decoration awarded by the Mexican government to foreigners. - (Abridged from Wikipedia)

Illustration courtesy of Felipe Dávalos

Guess...

...what the Aztecs first thought little round Spanish hats looked like?

Find out

Learn more about Professor Carrasco

Comments (1)

Christopher Garcia

5th Mar 2017

The following information is common knowledge to anyone who has made the time to do the research, yet, for some reason it is largely ignored and rarely mentioned by scholars of Mesoamera
i.e., the MEXICA and Moctezuma were well aware of the coming and going of the invaders to their world as far back as 1510,
they had been captured, killed and/or enslaved since meeting them and two of them lived with the MAYA for years -
Geronimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero.

If they were considered divine beings, gods or anything more than men why did the indigenous not revere them as gods?
As to why Moctezuma allowed the invaders to advance into Tenochtitlan and did not vanquish them when he could will remain a mystery until new information can be found to help take the mystery out of the equation.

INFORMATION BELOW
1510
Gerónimo de Aguilar was the main source of this history, since he was the unique survivor next to Gonzalo Guerrero:
(Aguilar) said that jumping from the boat those who were alive, then ran into Indians, one of whom with a macana slit the head of one of our own, whose name fell silent; And, stumbling with both hands to his head, he went into a thicket and ran into a woman, who, squeezing his head, left him sound, with a signal so deep that his hand could rest on it. He looked like a fool; he never wanted to be in a village, and at night he came for the food to the houses of the Indians, which did him no harm, because they understood that his gods had healed him, and that a wicked wound could not be healed except by the hand of some Of their gods. He stayed with him, because he was funny and without prejudice lived in this life three years 6 until he died.
Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco , Chronicle of New Spain, Book I, Chap. XXII.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_Guerrero#cite_note-ref_duplicada_1-8

1517
Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba expedition
Bernal Diaz del Castillo was in this expedition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Hern%C3%A1ndez_de_C%C3%B3rdoba_(founder_of_Nicaragua)

1518
Juan de Grijavla expedition
Pedro de Alvarado and once again Bernal Diaz del Castillo
were also a part of this expedition
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_Guerrero
Bernal Díaz de Castillo (Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España, Chapter XXIX) records Aguilar’s account, whereby Mayans sacrificed some of the ship’s crew almost immediately, while putting the rest into cages. The Europeans managed to escape, but other Mayan lords captured and enslaved them. By 1519, the year Hernán Cortés began his Conquest of Mexico, only two from the original shipwreck remained alive: Gonzalo Guerrero, who by this time had become famous in the Mayan world as a war leader for Nachan can, Lord of Chactemal (which included parts of Mexico and Belize); and Gerónimo de Aguilar, who had taken holy orders in his native Spain. Guerrero had by then married Nachan Can’s daughterZazil Há and had fathered the Americas’ first mestizo children. Cortes also learned that it was Guerrero’s suggestion which led to the earlier attack on Cordoba’s expedition.
THE TRUE CONQUEST OF NEW SPAIN
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernal_D%C3%ADaz_del_Castillo

The Grijalva expedition took place a few years before Cortes,
i.e., the indigenous had already experienced the Spaniards, and Moctezuma ll had sent a delegation to meet with them so he was well aware of who they were and what they were trying to do.

The Spaniards numbered between 170 and 300, had ships, guns, cannons and were vanquished by the indigenous with only 2 survivors, hardly the way a human would treat a deity.

Gonazalo Guerrero the first European we are aware of to have children by an indigenous woman is a well known figure in history.
http://chactemal.com/gonzalo

On arriving in Cozumel from Cuba, Cortés sent a letter by Maya messenger across to the mainland, inviting the two Spaniards, of whom he had heard rumors, to join him. Aguilar became a translator, along with Doña Marina, ‘La Malinche’, during the Conquest. According to the account of Bernal Díaz, when the newly freed friar attempted to convince Guerrero to join him, Gonzalo Guerrero responded:

Spanish:
”Hermano Aguilar, yo soy casado y tengo tres hijos. Tienenme por cacique y capitán, cuando hay guerras, la cara tengo labrada, y horadadas las orejas. ¿Que dirán de mi esos españoles, si me ven ir de este modo? Idos vos con la bendición de Dios, que ya veis que estos mis hijitos son bonitos, y dadme por vida vuestra de esas cuentas verdes que traeis, para darles, y diré, que mis hermanos me las envían de mi tierra.”[3]

English Translation:
”Brother Aguilar; I am married and have three children, and they look on me as a cacique (lord) here, and captain in time of war. My face is tattooed and my ears are pierced. What would the Spaniards say about me if they saw me like this? Go and God’s blessing be with you, for you have seen how handsome these children of mine are. Please give me some of those beads you have brought to give to them and I will tell them that my brothers have sent them from my own country.”

it is also interesting to compare the information
for Wikipedia in English compared to the Spanish
on the same subject
WIKIPEDIA in ENGLISH
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_Guerrero
WIKIPEDIA in SPANISH
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_Guerrero

THE CAUSEWAY
According to Spanish and Indigenous accounts when Cortes and his indigenous allies meet with Moctezuma on the causeway for the first time, Cortes is not allowed to touch or embrace Moctezuma because Moctezuma was considered a god. Throughout Cortes journey to Tenochtitlan many of his men had been killed by other indigenous and Moctezuma was well aware of this.

DIVINE BEINGS?
The Nahuatl word for horse is “large deer”
All this talk about thinking the men who rode them and the horse as being one animal is largely suspect, and definitely seems like a Spaniards spin on what they wanted people to think the indigenous thought of them.

Many historians, archaeologists, anthropologists etc.,
are well aware of this information, as the information
is readily availably but they never mention it when giving their opinion.
WHY????