A long, fascinating review of a book on what was perhaps the most horrible “civilization” in history.
This thought experiment has stuck with me ever since I read it. I think of it whenever I encounter a system that everybody hates but everybody is powerless to change, or some other stuck equilbrium or multipolar trap. When I first read it, the society he described sounded contrived and outlandish, but later I was to learn from my dear wife that the real world is far more outlandish than that thought experiment. The thing is that each of the societies chronicled in that book Jane reviewed is very small, very primitive, and very dysfunctional. What is so disturbing about the Mexica is that they were large, sophisticated, and oh-so-terribly functional. The streets of Tenochtitlan, as my elementary school textbooks told me, were wider and more beautiful than those of Paris or Seville. Their art, music, and poetry were sublime, their theology was subtle, and their intellectual life was vibrant. The Mexica would seem horrifying to us if they were barbarians. But I think they should be more horrifying precisely because they were not.
I knew they were awful, but hadn’t realized the extent of their cruelty. And the comparison with the Holocaust seems apt, except this was not just against a few disfavored groups, but all of society. It’s not clear whether that’s better, or worse.
I was reading somewhere else about Iroquois braves after kidnapping some Algonquin women and babies (there’s some chance I got the tribes correct, but not a good one). The Iroquois spitted the babies, roasted them alive, and chomped them down while enjoying the lamentations of the women.
The Disney Pocahontas actually had Papa Pocahontas returning from a war party at the beginning of the film, which was kind of surprising. Of course, they didn’t show what they did to any captives.
Anyway, I’ve come to a tentative conclusion that there weren’t many Noble Savages in the Americas. Shock.
Yeah, that sounds like Iroquois. Watch the movie, “Black Robe.”
But that’s still pikers compared to the Mexicana.
The movie “Last of the Mohicans” has Magua eating the British Colonel’s heart.
Yep. Iroquois were retail, Mexicana were wholesale.
Eh, as someone who’s been fascinated since Grade 5 by these weird degenerate murdering sociopaths, her final framing gets the question entirely wrong, IMOH.
[i]The Mexica genius, deployed across the astonishing stretch of their ceremonial life, was to figure a human stance within the inhuman conditions of existence.[/i]
Every single bit of evidence she produced, in all the excerpted evidence, proclaimed the exact opposite. Being human, in this literally-demonic worldivew,, meant you must strive towards the inhuman.
I really don’t understand these mass-murder apologists.
One of the more interesting Aztec ceremonies was one where the emperor publicly stabbed himself in the dick with large thorns.
I heard stingray barbs, but maybe that was a different group.
I’d hate to see a human dick big enough to survive a stingray barb!
Almost certainly the Maya.
I don’t think Clenninden was an apologist for mass murdering society. I think she finished off with that zinger at the end to provoke thought. The Aztecs were very human, and their actions were very far from “inhuman”, albeit extremely *inhumane*. Similar things are depressingly familiar from both history and current events. Rome’s “games”, the Mongols, the Assyrians, the Vikings in 8th Century, the the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, etc. The Aztecs took it to a far extreme that only makes sense from within their culture religion, and history. They saw themselves as the good guys doing the hard things necessary to stave off the next ending of the world, and as a wonderful side-effect, did well for themselves. It’s all TOO human if you ask me, and I’m no apologist.
Maybe a Hannah Arendt “Banality of Evil” kind of thing?
Agree, very human.
One of the more interesting bits of history: The Mexica left the kingdom of Tlaxcala independent so they could raid them for sacrificial victims. This is an oversimplification, but when Cortez showed up, the Tlaxcalans realized what was happening, rounded up 20,000 warriors, and marched with him to Tenochtitlan. Though we bad-mouth them, the Spanish kept their word to their native allies. If you look at a map of Mexico, there’s a little state next to Mexico City named Tlaxcala. Disease did in the natives, but their state remains. I did some research, because the Spanish kept records. Smallpox is a bit of a myth. What wiped out the Indians was swine fever, which also killed a large number of settlers. It’d been circulating in Europe for a couple of centuries. Thank you, piggies! (Fyi, smallpox and distemper are variants of rinderpest, interestingly enough.)
I did some research, because the Spanish kept records. Smallpox is a bit of a myth. What wiped out the Indians was swine fever, which also killed a large number of settlers.
I can’t find evidence that swine fever can infect humans. Swine flu which is just normal influenza temporarily using swine as a reservoir has killed a lot of people back then.
I don’t normally think it’s my job to educate people on the Internet, but this stuff is interesting. Swine flu is a modern illness, and what you’re talking about is hog cholera. This is about epidemics that happened 500-900 years ago. The native population of Mexico was wiped out by something then called cocoliztli in Nahuatl. It was called “swine fever” in the 16th century as it was spread by swine. It’s now believed to have been Paratyphoid C, which was circulating in Europe beginning around 1200 AD and jumped from humans to swine somewhere in there. People on the Internet should look shit up once in a while.
Swine flu is a modern illness, and what you’re talking about is hog cholera.
Swine fever is also a modern viral illness which also goes by the name of hog cholera. And flu would have been present in swine back then.
As to paratyphoid C, it is present in the teeth of some victims (which incidentally indicates extensive infection) but that doesn’t mean it is the cause of the epidemic. It could be an opportunistic secondary infection riding on the primary one.
For example, flu or measles sweeps through the population with some (perhaps most) people already infected with paratyphoid C due to poor water and hygiene conditions. The latter would surge prior to death due to the severe suppression of the immune system by the primary illness.
That was a through and fascinating piece, thanks for sharing it.
Moctezuma’s lineal descendant is a Spanish grandee living in Spain. The Spanish colonial government protected Moctezuma’s widow and made sure she kept her property.
That book review shows the Aztec “civilization” as horrific.
Who would want to buy the book after reading the review?
Send the asteroid O Lord.
You don’t need to buy it. I’m looking for an audio book.
https://archive.org/details/aztecs00inga
This will be us if the climate fanatics get their way.