This mind-blowing article is a book review of Inga Clendinnen's "Aztecs: An Interpretation". The Aztecs really are hard to love, but even understanding the simplest things about their culture requires some comprehension of their deepest foundations, because in many ways those foundations are very different from our own.
Thinking about culture as a largely collective and continuous act of creation, one wonders how and why any culture develops the way it does; what truths it holds dear; what virtues it praises; what vices it damns; what metaphysical stage all of these play upon.
From a circumstantial perspective, without defending the morality of either the Aztecs or the Spanish, there was just this vast cultural divide between them.
While what happened when they met was inevitable, there is still a ton of stuff you can learn watching a car crash in super-slow motion from all angles. As a "clash of cultures", this one was pretty intense. This article provided good insight on some of the contours of that impact, not from a military/physical perspective (that's been done and is easier), but from a psychological/cultural perspective. I'm getting the book.
On that subject (following a recommandation on HN) I started reading the Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo [0]. It is an account from a conquistator that was a member of the expedition that discovered the Aztec written in a surprisingly modern style and full of nuggets.
Oh wow, that bought back memories. My aunt got that book when I was quite young (about 7 or 8), and she started reading me from it. At the time I was going through a phase when I was fascinated by Aztecs and the Conquistadors and I absolutely loved that book - I remember hearing the unpronounceable names of the gods (and trying to memorise them to impress my peers at school), the gory sacrifices, the battles and the mundane bits of everyday life. It's one of the books that I blame for starting a lifelong fascination with history.
Many, many years later I found the book again in a charity bookshop; I bought it, read it from cover to cover and enjoyed it just as much; this time around however I was older and had a better understanding of the events described.
Thank you for the wonderful trip down memory lane.
Sorry for the tangent, but this is one of the biggest missing ingredients in science fiction and fantasy today, in my opinion. It is really, really captivating to get into the head of someone who thinks differently from you at a very fundamental level. But so much of what I see is just mindlessly regurgitating our modern assumptions. What I'd really love to see is fiction that takes this level of depth and applies it to hypothetical cultures. It seems to be that could be really awesome.
I did not realize the Aztecs (or Mexica) had a written Pre-Columbian history until I read an excellent summary contained in this book: A Rain of Darts by Burr Cartwright Brundage.
it's genuinely one of the most incredible stories in human history. if you, like me, only possess a cursory awareness of the events, i can't recommend listening through the whole thing enough.
and a supplementary podcast series about human sacrifice particularly by the aztecs (though quite meandering, in an enjoyable way):
There is a relatively new, philosophical take on this topic that may be of interest -- "Aztech Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion by James Maffie."
> In Aztec Philosophy, James Maffie shows the Aztecs advanced a highly sophisticated and internally coherent systematic philosophy worthy of consideration alongside other philosophies from around the world. [...]
>
> Aztec Philosophy focuses on the ways Aztec metaphysics—the Aztecs’ understanding of the nature, structure and constitution of reality—underpinned Aztec thinking about wisdom, ethics, politics, and aesthetics, and served as a backdrop for Aztec religious practices as well as everyday activities such as weaving, farming, and warfare. Aztec metaphysicians conceived reality and cosmos as a grand, ongoing process of weaving—theirs was a world in motion. [...] Maffie argues that Aztec metaphysics maintained a processive, transformational, and non-hierarchical view of reality, time, and existence along with a pantheistic theology.
"It provides a formal description of Aztec metaphysics using the vocabulary of Western philosophy: Aztec metaphysics are monistic, non-hierarchical and process-oriented (pretty much the opposite of the ways that we think about reality). It explores different kinds of motion and oppositions that structure the Aztec universe, as well as an overarching metaphor of weaving that provides a model for thinking about the cosmos. Usefully mind-bending."
What a fascinating exposition. I definitely want to read the book!
As alien as “lord, our executioner, and our enemy” is it has echos today, in particular in the Locke-infused North America.
If you are fascinated by these kinds of models I encourage you to read about the Bronze Age Greek societies which were also profoundly weird and utterly unlike their depiction in contemporary culture (more ISIS than EU).
What books do you recommend on bronze age in general and greek bronze age in particular? There doesn't seem to be much material available. I have a book on Linear B queued up for later reading.
Well you should read the Odyssey (the Lattimore translation is quite good and accessible to the modern reader; don't know if it's still in print) and if you have the patience, the Illiad. The motivations of Hector, Odyssius et al are pretty obscure when viewed through a contemporary western perspective, but make more sense when viewed through the prism of their "cousins" in medieval Indian hinduism (or that some of my relatives in the Indian countryside back in the 1980s :-( ).
Some things that will seem clear and obvious through a modern lens are in fact utterly obscure, even, or perhaps especially, in translation. For example the famous Homeric line, "the wine-dark sea"...well it doesn't mean anything like you could imagine, for their whole model of colour utterly different from ours. Ironically this code was cracked by, of all people, Gladstone: here's a good essay on this though his monograph is quite readable: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2010/06/fathoming-the-winedark-s... -- notice this essay also references Vedic literature so my comment about Hinduism is not random. This kind of thing was quite puzzling to me as a high schooler trying to struggle through Homer and knowing that I would be immediately found out and screwed if I tried to use one of the translations to get a sense of the story...you get the plot in translation but can only dimly see the social order.
I also recommend Plutarch's Lives, although (or perhaps because) he attempted to bend the Greeks' actions to what we might consider a more modern frame, that of Rome. In particular though read Solon, Pericles (!!) and Alcibiades for clues into how they lived.
As for the Spartans in particular: basically any movie you've ever seen on the subject might as well be science fiction. The closest modern model I could come up with would be some Nazi fantasy crossed with Trotsky. The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse
by Paul Cartledge's "The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse" is probably the best for the lay reader and will probably blow your mind.
Ancient Greek is worth learning IMHO and has opened up much more intellectual opportunity to me than the parallel years of Latin ever did. Both are Indo-European (aka "Indo-German" in German!) languages so pretty easy to learn.
>'"the wine-dark sea"...well it doesn't mean anything like you could imagine, for their whole model of colour utterly different from ours.'
Doesn't seem like everyone agrees with this speculation:
>"I'm even less impressed by Gordon's argument: it relies on oinops meaning 'wine-dark'. The trouble is, that's not a firm foundation. Strictly literally, the phrase straightforwardly means 'wine-faced sea', from οἶνος 'wine' + ὄψ 'face'."http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/01/colours-in-homer-2...
Indeed, these things are complex and incomplete. However I mentioned it as a non-obvious example of how we can be lured into inaccurate interpretations due to our contemporary assumptions.
(by the way I say "inaccurate" but not "wrong" as the point of contemporary reading of classic texts (or any text) is to find insights into your own states, unless you're a historian or historiographer).
It seems more likely to be a translation issue to me. This is the first I've heard of it but I'd guess "wine-faced" refers to the shimmering surface rather than the color.
Forty days before the festival of Xipe Totec, an Indian slave who was captured at war was dressed to represent the living god who was honored during this period. This occurred in every ward of the city, which resulted in multiple Indians being selected.[32] The central ritual act of "Tlacaxipehualiztli" was the gladiatorial sacrifice of war prisoners, which both began and culminated the festival.[33] On the next day of the festival, the game of canes was performed in the manner of two bands. The first band were those who took the part of Xipe Totec and went dressed in the skins of the war prisoners who were killed the previous day, so the fresh blood was still flowing. The opposing band was composed of daring soldiers who were brave and fearless, and who took part in the combat with the others. After the conclusion of this game, those who wore the human skins went around throughout the whole town, entering houses and demanding that those in the houses give them some alms or gifts for the love of Xipe Totec. While in the houses, they sat down on sheaves of tzapote leaves and put on necklaces which were made of ears of corn and flowers. They had them put on garlands and give them pulque to drink, which was their wine.[34] Annually, slaves or captives were selected as sacrifices to Xipe Totec.[35] After having the heart cut out, the body was carefully flayed to produce a nearly whole skin which was then worn by the priests for twenty days during the fertility rituals that followed the sacrifice.[35] This act of putting on new skin was a ceremony called 'Neteotquiliztli' translating to "impersonation of a god".[36] The skins were often adorned with bright feathers and gold jewellery when worn.[37] During the festival, victorious warriors wearing flayed skins carried out mock skirmishes throughout Tenochtitlan, they passed through the city begging alms and blessed whoever gave them food or other offerings.[6] When the twenty-day festival was over, the flayed skins were removed and stored in special containers with tight-fitting lids designed to stop the stench of putrefaction from escaping. These containers were then stored in a chamber beneath the temple.[38]
> What must the Aztecs thought of the Spaniards whose holiest emblem is a man being publicly tortured to death.
The meaning and symbolism would have been blindingly obvious to them. In general, Christian and pagan theology is basically the same. Christianity is a direct development of pagan thought.
The modern thought framework for 99.9% of modern people is Gnostic, not Christian. Both Christianity and paganism is thus completely impenetrable and incomprehensible for pretty much every person alive today.
Thinking about culture as a largely collective and continuous act of creation, one wonders how and why any culture develops the way it does; what truths it holds dear; what virtues it praises; what vices it damns; what metaphysical stage all of these play upon.
From a circumstantial perspective, without defending the morality of either the Aztecs or the Spanish, there was just this vast cultural divide between them.
While what happened when they met was inevitable, there is still a ton of stuff you can learn watching a car crash in super-slow motion from all angles. As a "clash of cultures", this one was pretty intense. This article provided good insight on some of the contours of that impact, not from a military/physical perspective (that's been done and is easier), but from a psychological/cultural perspective. I'm getting the book.