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000781 Visit since October 2, 2005
| TRIUMPHS and TRAGEDY... A history of the Mexican people (part 43rd). |
| By Prof. German Estrada - October 2005 |
..The Indian did not always take kindly to the Spanish version of the universe. According to El libro de los coloquios, compiled in Nahuatl by the early Franciscans, Indian wise men defended their religion steadfastly. During one encounter, after listening to friars condemn the ancient beliefs, the Indians, "with courtesy and urbanity," made manifest their unhappiness for this "attack on the customs and beliefs of their ancestors." Before the arrival of the Spaniards, they reminded the friars, "there had been no hunger, no disease, no poverty." One history, taken from the Indian chronicles, captures this sentiment succinctly. When Ixtlilxochitl, lord of Texcoco, was baptized a Christian, he went to tell his mother, Yacotzin, the good news, adding "that he had come to her so that she too might be baptized." "You are out of your mind," she replied. "How could you permit a handful of barbaric Christians to brainwash you so quickly?"
Conversion to Christianity, in reality, often proved fleeting. Indian relapses into paganism were commonplace, for instance among the Mixtecs of the region of Yanhuitlán. On October 14, 1544, the dean of the cathedral of Oaxaca, Pedro Gómez de Marever, told Francisco Tello de Sandoval, successor to Zumárraga as apostolic inquisitor, of the heretical behavior of the Indian caciques of Yanhuitlán. Don Francisco, the gobernador, and Don Juan Xual, along with other dignitaries, consistently "performed idolatry and made sacrifices, including human ones," bestowing offerings "of their own blood and hair, and ob birds and slaves." Christianized Indians were the victims. The same year, the priest Pedro de Olmos reported seeing the practice of human sacrifice near Coatlán, a village just two days from Oaxaca City, telling of a sacrificial site with a large stone idol drenched in blood, the heart of a recently killed child in its mouth. Some sixteen human skulls littered the ground around it. The cacique of Teutalco, according to another report, held sacrifice ceremonies to the rain god, disdained going to confession, ate meat on Fridays, and compelled his servants to work on the Sabbath. In many villages, Indians shot arrows at the friars who arrived to preach and remove hidden idols.
For the time being, the Indian clung to his polytheistic universe, regarding himself as a good Christian but never fully grasping the Christian abstractions of sin or virtue. The community of saints, intermediaries between God and man for Christians, the Indian accepted as a pantheon of manlike deities. He paid homage to the symbol of the crucifixion, but saw it as an act of sacrifice. God was powerful but neither omnipotent nor exclusory. The Indian thought of heaven and hell as places, while ascribing souls to animals and inanimate objects. Human sacrifice ended, but not all pagan rituals when practiced dissemblingly. The transition proved none too harsh, for Aztec religion included Christian rituals such as matrimony, penitence, baptism, fasting, and offerings. The Indian, therefore, embraced Catholicism but in his own fashion.
If total success escaped the friars. It was not for lack of effort. Education, the indoctrination of Indians, started early. Wherever they went, the Franciscan established schools, to teach the rudiments of language, Spanish values, and Christian doctrines. The students of the friars were the sons of the Indian nobility, destined, in the Spanish colonial blueprint, to help rule their own people. Pedro de Gante built the model school, the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán, in Mexico City. At the Franciscan Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, an Indian elite studied European traditions; the teaching of the Spanish language made up the core of the curriculum, along with Christian theology. Upon learning Spanish, the pedagogues insisted, the Indian became a good Spaniard.
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Acolman, c1544, fortress convent north of Mexico City, near Teotihuacan
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In the next issue we'll continue with Chapter III of this fascinating book: A NEW SPAIN
Prof. Germán Estrada
estradanav@yahoo.com
Source: : From the book Triumphs and Tragedy, a History of the Mexican People by his author Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, and with his authorization. (W.W. Norton & Company. New York-London).
Prof. Germán Estrada is the author of the best selling book, México Mágico: Everything You Wanted To Know About... But Nobody Told You..." available in Puerto Vallarta at The Net House, Mail Boxes, Etc., Books, Books as well as directly from his website.
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