[armandososa]

> But, despite this enchantment, Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc were the only gods I could identify, while I could name dozens of Greek, Egyptian or Norse Gods.

I think this is related to racism. The Aztecs were short and brown people who were considered inferior by the europeans who "conquered" them. Thus, their deities and religion are unimportant.

My middle name is "Quetzalcoatl" and I spent most of my life ashamed of it, and hiding it, because of the bullying. I would've been call an "indio" (I'm short and brown) and indios are supposed to be stupid and ignorant. These days I would like to proudly present myself as Quetzalcoatl, but the prejudice is still there.

[lliamander]

> I think this is related to racism.

I don't know the author's cultural background, although I would guess they are from either the U.K. or France (their name is Breton in origin). It is at best straining the definition of racism to claim that it is racist to be more familiar with one's own culture (including it's historical influences) than with a foreign culture.

It is sad to hear that you were belittled for your name (that is racist) but it is not because of racism that Westerners are generally unfamiliar with the gods of the Aztec.

[jollybean]

?

Greece and Rome are antecedents to Western civilization, you're literally reading Latin text right now.

Egypt is an indirect antecedent, very well established in the West.

As foundational elements of the Western Canon, they're going to be well known.

The names of the planets are the names of 'Gods'.

Aztec culture was 'discovered' in the Western context, very recently, still not particularly well understood, and not particularly well documented.

You'll also note that each of the Aztec gods presented carried knives with human blood, for 'sacrifice' and 'auto-sacrifice' - their chief concern being of providing human blood and sacrifice, which they did, en masse.

It would be rational to argue that the Aztec religion was thus a 'Death Cult' at least by some purview, which would be viewed as 'more than very scary' by any classical standards, and 'tolerable' only from the most modern perspective wherein we can disassociate ourselves with the act of 'constant sacrifice' from a moral purview and just investigate the culture itself without judgment. And even then, it's hard to ignore; it's deeply unsettling.

[zasdffaa]

Oh give over. Norse gods are european, and with greek, roman and egyption gods, we've had thousands of years awareness & contact with those cultures.

> who were considered inferior by the europeans who "conquered" them

Anyone who wasn't a catholic was probably considered subhuman by the truly appalling conquistadors

> indios are supposed to be stupid and ignorant

news to me.

[calibas]

> Oh give over. Norse gods are european, and with greek, roman and egyption gods, we've had thousands of years awareness & contact with those cultures.

Ah, eurocentrism. It's forgivable since you were likely educated this way since birth, but it comes off as hideously insensitive to other cultures.

[zasdffaa]

Right. I'm a brit - now that should make it clearer - I'm not on that continent. If you were, yes, I can see your point, there should by my argument be more exposure therefore uderstanding.

And there was no education about aztecs, I just read a lot, ditto for the norse and greek gosds. Might have got a tiny bit about the romans but any of their legends were picked up very much outside of school. We weren't educated in any of that, just immersed, shall we say.

[dylan604]

>but it comes off as hideously insensitive to other cultures.

more ignorant than insensitive. it's not that they aren't showing concern because they don't like and feel it is inferior, it is just unknown in totatlity to them. is being unaware of something's existence being insensitive to it, or have others become hypersensitive?

[tomcam]

> truly appalling conquistadors

Do you consider killing thousands of people for human sacrifice appalling?

[zasdffaa]

Aztecs weren't charming in this regard and by that probably sowed the seeds of their own defeat by pushing other tribes to support the invading spaniards, but the conquistadors went in for full on genocide, totally deliberately.

[helloworld11]

Nonsense. The conquistadors were indeed appalling in many ways, but no they did not go for full on genocide. The diseases that came with them killed off possibly 90% of the New World population regardless of what they did or didn't do. They were slavers for a time and even that was fought against quite vigorously by a surprising number of other Europeans (read for example about Bartolomé de las Casas). Much of the modern narrative mixes up an essentially unstoppable and non-deliberate mass die-off from European diseases with genocide. The two things were not the same even if the conquistadors also did often butcher native populations in specific contexts. As for the Aztecs, they truly were barbarous to their subjects. Their culture, for all its sophistication and many fascinating aspects, was based on an enormous amount of ritual and practical violence across many areas. There's no white washing this for PC reasons if you read even a moderate amount of literature about their empire. Even the Spanish didn't practice the ritual slaughter of over 20,000 people in just a few days simply for the sake of a religious festival. The Aztecs did indeed do this at times.

[zasdffaa]

Well, read this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples...>. It's not very long. Genocide is discussed, depending on defintions of it. Some say genocide, some say it wasn't.

I've heard the claim of 100,000 killed in 3 das by the aztecs which has been put down to exaggeration by the invaders to justify their brutality towards aztecs, do you have a reliable link to the 20,000 figure?

> white washing this for PC reasons if you read even a moderate amount of literature

I have, and any whitewashing is your assumption of me, not my view (I mean, literally read my comment that you replied to). They were bloodthirsty (flower wars etc), but the spanish catholics were far worse in my view.

[ETH_start]

The conquistadors were not set on carrying out genocide, and did not carry out genocide. They were just vastly more advanced than the nations they encountered and consequently were able to conquer many of them.

[cambalache]

> we've had thousands of years awareness & contact with those cultures.

Who is "We" here? Because I would easily bet this is not the case for most of the population in the world

> Anyone who wasn't a catholic was probably considered subhuman by the truly appalling conquistadors

Thanks God for the superior and enlightened British colonizers,you can see the different policies in current native populations in the US compared to the Spanish-ravaged south.

> news to me.

Spoken like one who has not spent 1 min with people with Native-American ancestors.

[whatshisface]

The Aztec religion before the plague and the establishment of that awful island empire might have been very different - imagine what would happen of American Christianity if 90% of the population died and a bloodthirsty militant faction took over the remnants. Maybe some of it will turn up over the next century of archeology.

[ch4s3]

Probably not so different. There were numerous dialogues and debates between Mexica priests and Jesuits, as many priests survived the collapse of Tenochtitlan so there's good second hand evidence about their beliefs. Nahuas were writing their language using the Spanish alphabet by 1528 and there are accounts written by Mexica that remembered the time prior to the arrival of the Spanish. There's also a lot of archeological evidence that's turned up in the lat decade including in 2020 a skull tower that scholars had previously thought was an invention of Spanish writers.

[whatshisface]

That's not the apocalypse I meant, I was talking about the one that Produced Tenochtitlan. The deaths from smallpox and the vanishing of the cities they're now finding evidence of happened before the Spanish conquests.

[ch4s3]

The first know case of smallpox in Mexico was in 1520. It's REALLY unlikely that small pox reached anywhere near Tenochtitlan before Cortés, after all he arrived there in 1521, a mere 29 years after Columbus' initial landing. Cortés was part of the first wave of explorers in Mexico. Tenochtitlan was founded in the 1320, a full 500 years after the collapse of the Mayan city states. Teotihuacan which was near Tenochtitlan also collapsed during that period. When the Mexica arrived at lake Texcoco, there were already several thriving city states, that didn't collapse and two of them became part of the Triple Alliance with the Mexica.

I've never seen evidence of smallpox preceding the Spanish in Mexico, as it did above the RIo Grande.

[ALittleLight]

This period is well recorded. Cortes made it to Tenochtitlan the first time before small pox. Cortes and company were driven from the city and nearly killed. The Spaniards regrouped and were reinforced while small pox devastated the Aztec population - including Tenochtitlan.

[ch4s3]

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m pointing to.

[jollybean]

Mayans were there from antiquity, so have have quite a bit of archaeological indication.

But it would be exciting to see big new discoveries!