Dr conquesta in colonial heights

Firm Foundation or . . .?

This presentation borrows heavily from an academic site , Dr. Peter Hassler, University of Zurich and Dr. Arnoldo Carlos Vento, Emeritus, University of Texas at Austin.

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The Nahua belief system was constructed around Mesoamerican traditions and beliefs. Some of the more important cultural entities included Huitzilopochtli ( spirit of the sun and war), Tlaloc (spirit of rain) and Quetzalcoatl (feather serpent).

Some historians argue that human sacrifice played an important role in the Nahua belief system.

Other scholars question whether human sacrifice was even practiced at all in the Nahua world.

The controversy over human sacrifice is reflective of the uncertainty of the nature of historical knowledge.

In 1979, a conference was held on ritual human sacrifice in Mesoamerica. At this conference, Jacques Soustelle of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Socials explained the following:

"In Mesoamerica, human sacrifice is firmly linked to Aztec culture and has been considered one of the main features of Aztec ideology."1

Soustelle's observation has been echoed by many other specialists in the field of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican history and has influenced the way textbooks address ritual human sacrifice.2

A Mainstream View

at the Dumberton Oaks Research Library (Washington D.C.)

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These are two such examples taken from textbooks.

The Legacy of Mesoamerica: History and Culture of a Native American Civilization, explains the rationale of ritual human sacrifice in the following way: ". . . [Huitzilopochtli], provided the main rationale for conducting military actions, collecting tribute, and ritually sacrificing human beings, three of the most important occupations of the Aztecs." The Course of Mexican History, a commonly used textbook in survey courses, states the following about ritual human sacrifice: "Sacrifice [human] was to the Aztecs a solemn, and necessary, religious ceremony for the purpose of averting disaster." "While his limbs [human] were held by four assistants, the priest went in under the rib cage with an obsidian knife to remove the heart."

In constructing this interpretation of ritual human sacrifice, historians and anthropologists have used several sources. Scholars argue that sacrifice by beheading was a ritual practiced regularly by the Nahua.

Scholars explain that the Nahua believed that the head collected a divine force called tonalli.

This view has led many scholars to argue that "the decapitated head of enemy warriors were a supreme prize for the city [Tenochtitlan]. . . . ."

The Codex Borgia, a Native American painted book, is believed by specialists to have been written shortly after the arrival of the Spanish and is a source regularly referred to for evidence of the practice of ritual human beheading.

This is a fragment from the 260-day ritual calendar recorded in the Codex Borgia used by scholars to support their interpretations about ritual human beheading.

Figure 1: Beheading in the Codex Borgia

The Florentine Codex, or the General History of the Things of New Spain, was written by Nahua scribes under the direction of the Franciscan monk Bernardino de Sahagún. This colonial composition consists of information about Nahua life prior to the arrival of the Spanish. It is a source used by scholars to support notions about ritual human sacrifice and heart sacrifice.

This is a fragment from this work describing the ritual of the heart sacrifice.

Florentine Codex

Thus was performed the sacrificial slaying of men, when captives and slaves died, who were called Those who have died for the god.

Thus they took [the captive] up [to the pyramid temple] before the devil. [the priests] going holding him by his hands. And he who was known as the arranger [of captives], this one laid him out upon the sacrificial stone.

And when he had laid him upon it, four men stretched him out, [grasping] his arms and legs. And already in the hand of the fire priest lay the [sacrificial] knife, with which he was to slash open the breast of the ceremonially bathed [captive].3

Figure 2: Human Sacrifice in the Florentine Codex

What challenges do historians and anthropologists face when they use this source to learn about ritual human sacrifice?

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Scholars generally agree that some of the earliest recordings of Spanish accounts of human sacrifice can be found in the second letter Hernando Cortés wrote to Charles V, and in Bernál Díaz del Castillo's The True History of the Conquest of Mexico.

Hernando Cortes to the king of Spain

I forbade them moreover to make human sacrifice to the idols as was their wont, being an abomination in the sight of God it is prohibited by your Majesty's laws which declare that he who kills shall be killed. From this time henceforth they departed from it, and during the whole time that I was in the city not a single living soul was known to be killed and sacrificed.4

Figure 3: Hernan Cortes

Bernál Díaz del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of Mexico

. . . and we saw how our companions who were made prisoners were taken to be sacrificed . . . they later placed their backs [captured Spaniards] on top of stones which they used to sacrifice, and with large blades, they cut open their chests pulling our their hearts and offering them to their gods .5

Figure 4: Bernál Díaz del Castillo

Scholars have proposed a variety of theories to explain the practice of ritual human sacrifice in Mesoamerica.

Explanations have ranged from Michael Harner's protein deficiency theory (see "The Ecological Basis for Aztec Sacrifice" American Ethnologist 4, 1977) to theories that emphasize political motives behind these sacrifices.

Most scholars, however, have focused their attention on the religious implications of ritual human sacrifice.

The Life of Tolpitzin Queztalcoatl and the creation of the fifth sun in the Codex Chimalpopoca, and the birth of Huitzilopochtli in the Florentine Codex are some of the sources used by scholars linking ritual human sacrifice with religious practices.

Scholars argue that Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl's story emphasizes "the sacrality of the human body and its potential to return its energy to the celestial forces that created it." Based on the fragment below, would you agree or disagree with this statement?

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The Life of Tolpitzin Queztalcoatl,

Codex Chimalpopoca

Now, this year, 1 Reed, is when he got to the ocean, the seashore, so it is told and related. Then he halted and wept and gathered up his attire, putting on his head fan, his turquoise mask, and so forth. And as soon as he was dressed, he set himself on fire and cremated himself . . .And as soon as his ashes had been consumed, they saw the heart of a quetzal rising upward. And so they knew he had gone to the sky, had entered the sky. The old people said he was changed into the star that appears at dawn. Therefore they say it came forth when Quetzalcoatl died, and they called him Lord of the Dawn.

According to the Nahua creation myth, the spirits put into motion the four different suns, or ages, before our present age. After the end of the Fourth Sun, the spirits once again restored life.

This is a fragment describing this restoration.

Creation of the Fifth Sun in the Codex Chimalpopoca

The male bones are in one pile, the female bones are in another pile . . . Then he carried them to Tamoanchan. And when he had brought them, the one named Quilaztii, Cihuacoatl, ground them up. Then she put them into a jade bowl, and Quetzalcoatl bled his penis on them. Then all the gods, who have been mentioned, did penance: Apanteuctli Huictlolinqui, Tepanquizqui, Tlallamanac, Tzontemoc, and number six is Quetzalcoatl. Then they said, "Holy ones, humans, have been born.'' It's because they did penance for us."

How was life restored to the world? What role did the gods have in this? How might a historian/anthropologist use this source to explain why ritual human sacrifice was important part of the Nahua belief system?

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The main ceremonial center of the Mexica world was the Templo Mayor, or Coatepec/Coatepetl (Serpent Mountain). It supported the monuments of Tlaloc (spirit of rain and agriculture) and Huitzilopochtli (spirit of tribute and war). Huitzilopochtli was the cultural entity of the Mexica who encouraged them to journey to the place that became Tenochtitlan. Scholars argue that ritual human sacrifice took place throughout the year as Mexica re-enacted the victory of Huitzilopochtli over 400 spirits.

This is a fragment describing what took place after the birth of Huitzilopochtli.

Birth of Huitzilopochtli in the Florentine Codex

"Then Huitzilopochtli was proud, he pursued the four hundred gods of the south, he chased them, drove them off the top of Coatepetl, the mountain of the snake. And when he followed them down to the foot of the mountain, he pursued them, he chased them like rabbits, all around the mountain. He made them run around it four times. In vain they tried to rally against him, in vain they turned to attack him, rattling their bells and clashing their shields. Nothing could they do, nothing could they gain, with nothing could they defend themselves. Huitzilopochtli chased them, he drove them away, he humbled them, he destroyed them, he annihilated them."

More recently, the interpretation of ritual human sacrifice proposed by scholars such Soustelle has been scrutinized and challenged. A reexamination of written sources and the archeological record has led a new wave of scholars to question whether ritual human sacrifice was even practiced at all by the Nahua.

One proponent of this new school of thought is Peter Hassler, an ethnologist at the University of Zurich. A summary of Hassler's critique of "mainstream" views of ritual human sacrifice was published in Die Zeit. [His book “ Human Sacrifice Among the Aztecs? A Critical Study, published in Switzerland.]

Reevaluating Theories and Sources

The summary is available on Blackboard

How has Hassler challenged the "mainstream" interpretation of ritual human sacrifice? According to Hassler, what mistakes have historians such as Soustelle made in explaining ritual human sacrifice?

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“After careful and systematic study of the sources, I find no sign of evidence of institutionalized mass human sacrifice among the Aztecs. The phenomenon to be studied, therefore, may not be these supposed sacrifices but the deeply rooted belief that they occurred.” - Dr. Peter Hassler

The only concrete evidence comes to us not from the Aztecs but from the Mayan civilization of the Yucatan. These depictions are found in the records of trials conducted during the Inquisition, between 1561 and 1565. These supposed testimonies about human sacrifice, however, were coerced from the Indians under torture and have been judged worthless as ethnographic evidence. Dr. Peter Hassler

Hassler states that "There are plenty of possible interpretations of the images of hearts and even killings . . . " One is that these images "could present narrative images--allegories, symbols, and metaphors.“

Let us briefly test this possibility by exploring the Eucharist sacrifice performed in Christian masses.

The New Testament

The Gospel according to Matthew, xxvi, 28: Touto gar estin to aima mou to tes [kaines] diathekes to peri pollon ekchynnomenon eis aphesin amartion. For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins.

The Gospel according to Mark, xiv, 24: Touto estin to aima mou tes kaines diathekes to yper pollon ekchynnomenon. This is my blood of the new testament which shall be shed for many.

The Gospel according to Luke, xxii, 20: Touto to poterion he kaine diatheke en to aimati mou, to yper ymon ekchynnomenon. This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you.

Let us follow this theme a little further by reading a fragment from Octavius by Marcus Minucius Felix (c. 160/300 CE). Octavius is a dialogue between Caecilius Natalis, who upholds the cause of paganism, and Octavius Januarius, who upholds the cause of Christianity. Historians argue that the non-Christian view of the initiation of novices was influenced by the sacrifice of the mass

Octavius

I know not whether these things are false; certainly suspicion is applicable to secret and nocturnal rites; and he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men, that they may worship what they deserve.

Now the story about the initiation of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is slain by the young pupil, who has been urged on as if to harmless blows on the surface of the meal, with dark and secret wounds. Thirstily - O horror! they lick up its blood; eagerly they divide its limbs. By this victim they are pledged together; with this consciousness of wickedness they are covenanted to mutual silence.8

? Does evidence such as this support Hassler's challenge? Octavius is presenting the non-christian story

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What about the symbol of the crucifixion? Compare and contrast the images below.

Figures 5/6: Crucifixion and Heart Sacrifice

How might someone never exposed to Christianity interpret the display of the crucifixion in churches and cathedrals?

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Hassler states that Spanish recordings of human sacrifice served as a "justification for their destructive acts." If this was the ultimate end, then how effective was this propaganda? Perhaps and answer to this questions can be found in the writings of Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda.

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda,

Democrates Alter, sive de justas belli causi apud Indos (On the Just Cause of War on the Indians)

Interpreting their religion in an ignorant and barbarous manner, they sacrificed human victims by removing the hearts from the chests. They placed these hearts on their abominable altars. With this ritual they believed that they had appeased their gods. They also ate the flesh of the sacrificed men . . . .

War against these barbarians can be justified not only on the basis of their paganism but even more so because of their abominable licentiousness, their prodigious sacrifice of human victims, the extreme harm that they inflicted on innocent persons, their horrible banquets of human flesh, and the impious cult of their idols.

Image 7: Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda

St. augustan justs war stuff

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Dr. Arnoldo Carlos Vento, Emeritus Professor at University of Texas at Austin offers an account of problems with the sources typically used by contemporary researchers.

Forced confessions secured by torture by the Santo Officio or Inquisition. These were used as evidence of human sacrifice or other defamatory and/or accusatory issues. This practice had already been in place in Old Spain since 1122 and more recently during the times of Columbus.

This was subsequently transported to the Americas with Bishops as the enforcers of the Inquisition (e.g. Diego de Landa in Yucatán, Juan de Zumárraga in New Spain.).

There was in place the Index Librorum Prohibitorum , an index of prohibited or censored works in addition to the establishment of the headquarters for censorship and alteration of documents, known as the Consejo de las Indias or Council of the Indies. One must remember that all of these strategies had already been used successfully in Spain against Jews and Moors i.e. accusations of human sacrifice (Jews) torture, forced confessions and death as early as 550 A.D. with the Councils of Toledo. The alteration of documents or the invention of history via defamation was well established before the coming to the Americas. It was these same procedures that were transported to the Americas and used against all Native cultures.

An example of the type of propaganda—

This from mid-15oo’s

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Persecution of Catholics by Huguenots In the areas of France they controlled, Huguenots at least matched the harshness of the persecutions of their Catholic opponents. Atrocities A, B, and C, depictions that are possibly exaggerated for use as propaganda, are located by the author in St. Macaire, Gascony. In scene A, a priest is disemboweled, his entrails wound up on a stick until they are torn out. In illustration B a priest is buried alive, and in C Catholic children are hacked to pieces. Scene D, alleged to have occurred in the village of Mans, was "too loathsome" for one nineteenth-century commentator to translate from the French. It shows a priest whose genitalia were cut off and grilled. Forced to eat his roasted private parts, the priest was then dissected by his torturers so they can observe him digesting his meal.

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LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

This refers to the supplanting of native ideas and culture with new concepts that fit the new religious paradigm. One way was to take a native word in their Nahuatl and change the original meaning with a concept that heretofore was totally foreign to the native language and culture. These went into the first dictionary by Molina and into the codices.

Western concepts of the devil, hell, sin, miracle, punishment by God, human sacrifice, tribute, slavery, elitism, aristocracy, monarchies , prostitution, serfs, machismo, witches or witchcraft, avarice, exploitation, profit, empires, royalty, polytheism, cannibalism, Imperialism, serfdom, were some of the ideas that were incorporated into the codices by the Inquisition, concepts that were totally foreign to pre-Columbian Native American societies.

Dr. Vento goes on to problems with ‘language.’

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The examples abound:

Teococoliztli—original-enfermedad terrible (bad sickness);

changed meaning—punishment by God

Tlatlacolli---original-physical damage or deterioration of a sore;

changed meaning—Sin

Tlacatecolotl—original-man of wisdom;

changed meaning –Devil

Mictlan--original-the realm of repose, 13th stage on the energy level;

changed meaning—Hell

Koatl—, original-energylife, creation, wisdom, knowledge;

changed meaning---Evil

Ometeotl—original-duality within Nature, all living forms;

changed meaning the two Gods

Techichi—original-a quadruped mammal (eaten by Spaniards) now extinct, prized for its taste;

changed meaning ---Dog.

Nochtli---original-(tuna or prickly pear) ;

confused meaning----fig

Vexollotl—original-guajolote or turkey today;

changed meaning rooster, then peacock (pavo)

Other misrepresentations and misnomers exist— Ketzalkoatl—used in countless ways mostly to justify the Conquest—even the Christ was to return as Ketzalkoatl and the Spaniards as the ones confused supposedly as Christ!

In the first place, Ketzalkoatl is not a God as Academia would like to think. It is a cosmic natural force that imbues all humans with the creative energy to think, to create, i.e., intelligence.

It is also a title meaning highest attainment of wisdom and knowledge (as was Christ). e.g. Ce Acatl Topilzin-Toltec ruler and Guide.

The seed of the cacao was described symbolically as yollotl and eztli or heart and blood. This symbolic representation refers to of what we now know as Chocolate, and taken in its pure form had uplifting and therapeutic qualities. (Endorphins).

The highly metaphoric Nahuatl of the Nations confederated under the Confederation of Anahuac, of which the Metzikahs were only one group, often used the imagery of heart and blood but in a spiritual sense.

Westerners to the contrary generally deal with a literal and pictorial language; herein lies most of the mistranslations and misinterpretations regarding their culture.

When an elder native was asked about eating human flesh, he smiled and asked the interrogator if he knew what Iztkuintli was. He relates the story that has been passed on for generations about an incident in which toddlers were playing among Izkuintli. He says that the Spanish did not tolerate toddlers playing with Iztkuintli so they would often shout “fuera de aquí escuincles”!

He obviously was referring to what they called dogs but somehow escuincle (the current mexicanism) was confused and deformed in colonial society to mean a young toddler. The Iztkuintli was not a dog as Jesuit researcher Clavijero asserts but a Techichi, not of the canine family. The Techichi was a succulent delicacy during those times.

But because the Spanish used the word escuincle (dog) instead of the correct word of Techichi, linguistic deformation set in and soon the friars were saying that children were being eaten roasted when in fact it was the savory and succulent Techichi. It was so delicious that Jesuit writer Clavijero states that in fact, it was the Spanish that ate them to extinction when there was a meat shortage in the Indies.

One last example of Confusion and Distortion has to do with the word Nenetzin.

Among other scandalous gossip going around in early colonial New Spain was that there was some Fly Tortas mixed in blood that were being eaten. The so called blood was none other than a red natural dye found in semilla orillaroja that is red and the delicious tortas were not made of flies but of Nenetzin. The meat that was eaten was none other than the delicious meat of the mushroom called Nenetzin.

Additionally, specious knowledge of the native Anahuakan Nahuatl or language led many Spanish interpreters to confuse words that were close in sound but distant in meaning.

Case in point is the confusion of Pipiltin and Pipiltzin . In the writings of Cortes´ Relaciones…, there appears the lack of linguistic knowledge between these two words.

It was said that in a festival there was the eating of Pipiltin or pollitos de aves or young chicks. The Spanish Nahuatlatos or interpreters in Nahuatl , according to Native Scholar Eulalia Guzmán, interpreted in their way thinking that Pipiltin (young aviary chicks) was the same as Pipiltzin (sons and daughters of governing heads).

Finally, much of what is said about the culture of the confederated Anahuakan nations originates from the work of Friar Bernardino de Sahagún also known as the Florentine Codex.

Bernardino de Sahagún was severely criticized and persecuted by his own order for dealing with “Indian culture”. They saw it as a total waste of time and thus they took away all of his native informants; he was left to deal with a voluminous work by himself.

We now know and have further proof of the tampering and altering of his work via a quote of his in which he confesses that his work is being changed by the Church officials. He says the following about his work:

“ There were corrections made (by the Church) since in the first draft, there were things that were placed or inserted, that in effect were badly placed or falsely placed and other things that were omitted that were glaring omissions.”

Sources

1Elizabeth H. Boone, ed., Ritual Human Sacrifice in Mesoamerica: A Conference at Dumbarton Oaks (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, 1984), 1.

2See Michael E. Smith, The Aztecs (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 221-243; Davíd Carrasco, Religions of Mesoamerica: Cosmovision and Ceremonial Centers (Prospect heights: Waveland, 1990), 85-91; Michael D. Coe, Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994), 175-177; Enrique Florescano, Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 45. Also see leonardo López Luján, The Offerings of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan (Niwot: University of Colorado Press, 1994).

3As quoted and cited in Smith, The Aztecs, 222-223.

4Hernando Cortés, Five Letters to the Emperor (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), 91-92.

5Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Historia Verdadera de la Conquesta de la Nueva España (Madrid: Dastin, 2000), 85.

6Robert M. Carmack, Janine Gasco and Gary H. Gossen, The Legacy of Mesoamerica: History and Culture of a Native American Civilization (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996), 117.

7Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman, and Susan M. Deeds, The Course of Mexican History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 65-67.

8Minucius Felix in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, (Buffalo, N. Y.: The Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), 177-178.