From Sacrificial Stone to Chocolate Museum, Mexico's Contested Past

“ It was there, accordingly, that Columbus first saw this people, and first heard of Yucatan.
Of the Mexican remains on the central plateau, the most conspicuous is the mound or pyramid of Cholula, although it retains few traces of prehistoric art. A modern church with a dome and two towers now occupies the summit, with a paved road leading up to it. It is chiefly noted, first, by antiquaries, as having originally been a great temple of Quetzalcoatl, the beneficent deity, famous in story; and, secondly, for the fierce struggle around the mound and on the slopes between the Mexicans and Spanish. ”

“ The most remarkable problem connected with ancient Mexico is how to reconcile the general refinement and civilization with the sacrifices of human victims. There was no town or city but had its temples in public places, with stairs visibly leading up to the sacrificial stone, ever standing ready before some hideous idol or other—as already described. ”

“ We are people with a strong culture, which has managed to transcend its historical death. The conquest, the encomienda, progress, modernity, development, neoliberalism and globalization, have not been able in these five centuries of denial, to erase the "own face and the true heart" from the culture of our old grandparents.
Mexicans as worthy heirs of the Cultural Heritage of the Ancient Mexico, we must know and be aware of these values, to transform our reality, with the same passion to "be and transcend", as our wise ancestors did. ”

“ Our faith in the glowing descriptions given by Spanish authors of Mexican art and civilization before the conquest would not survive their many exaggerated and contradictory stories if we could not turn to the testimony left by the old inhabitants themselves. While the monuments reared by the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico have been swept away, the temples and the dwellings farther south exist in vast and splendid desolation, proving that from their very beginning these later tribes were familiar with a style of architecture whose "lavish magnificence has never been excelled." ”

“ The ancient Mexicans conceived the sun as the source of all vital force; hence they named him Ipalnemohuani, "He by whom men live." But if he bestowed life on the world, he needed also to receive life from it. And as the heart is the seat and symbol of life, bleeding hearts of men and animals were presented to the sun to maintain him in vigour and enable him to run his course across the sky. Thus the Mexican sacrifices to the sun were magical rather than religious, being designed, not so much to please and propitiate him, as physically to renew his energies of heat, light, and motion. ”

“ Their civil and military codes, according to the narrative of their conquerors, were alike cruel as that of Draco; and their religious worship was a system of austere fanaticism and loathsome butchery, which seemed to refine the cruelties of the Red Indian savage into a ritual service fit only for the devil. But besides their hideous war-god, the Mexican mythology was graced by a beneficent divinity, named Quetzalcoatl, the instructor of the Aztecs in the use of metals, in agriculture, and in the arts of government. ”

“ All the religious services were public, and the pyramidal temples, with stairs round their massive sides, allowed the long procession of priests to be visible as they ceremoniously ascended to perform the dread office of slaughtering the human victims.
Human sacrifices had not originally been a feature of the Aztec worship. But about 200 years before the arrival of the Spanish invaders was the beginning of this religious atrocity, and at last no public festival was considered complete without some human bloodshed. ”

“ Human sacrifice, however cruel, has nothing in it degrading to its victim. It may be rather said to ennoble him, by devoting him to the gods. Although so terrible with the Aztecs, it was sometimes voluntarily embraced by them, as the most glorious death, and one that opened a sure passage into paradise.1 The Inquisition, on the other hand, branded its victims with infamy in this world, and consigned them to everlasting perdition in the next.
One detestable feature of the Aztec superstition, however, sunk it far below the Christian. ”

“ I am on the steps of the Aztec Pyramid, which is one of the most stupendous altars of human sacrifice that was ever erected to propitiate the Deity, in the ages when he was universally understood to be a God of Vengeance. ”

“ The little idols perhaps attract more attention than anything else at the museum. In two long rooms the cases lining the walls are filled with idols of all sizes and shapes, made of stone onyx and marble. Some of the pottery is horribly exquisite. Beads used by the Indians, made of stones, teeth and bones, are numerous. The large objects on the pedestals come in for a share of wonder. They are adorned with names of wondrous length and non-pronounceable, and stories of horror. Izcozauhqui (the Fire of the Sun) is in ugly red and yellow clay ”

“ The cathedrals—notably those of Mexico, Puebla, and Guadalajara,—were ablaze with gold and jewels, the spoils of centuries of oppression of a superstitious people.
Is it a wonder that these long-suffering people groaned loudly under their burdens? Is it strange that, looking at this great parasite settled upon their fair land,—sapping the life-blood of their nation, fattening upon the toil of themselves and their children,—the Mexican people should begin to inquire why it was permitted to exist? For centuries past the Church had strangled inquiry into its doings. ”

“ That they accept a proposition to erect one to his memory is a proof that they are becoming civilized, and are willing no longer to endure the reproach of Humboldt, that "we nowhere in the Spanish colonies meet with a national monument erected by the public gratitude to the glory of Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortés." The three remaining circles are not yet spoken for, but they will be occupied by the marbles or bronzes of men famous in Mexican history. ”

“ Since 1521 Mexicans have been instilled to feel contempt and pity for the cultural heritage of the old grandparents. Each mexican to "progress economically" or "improve socially” has to stay away as much as possible from his roots and deny their —mother culture—. The way is to speak, dress, eat, work, eat, consume; in short, be as the conquerors. Take on the face of the colonizer and put make up on the millennial face of our own culture, until it is apparently erased. ”

“ Near the spring at Chapultepec is the great rock which is said to have had upon it a carving of Axayacatl and Montezuma, and which was destroyed by Cortés; it is not entirely obliterated, however, as some incised lines yet remain. A monument here, a plain shaft, records the brave deeds of the Mexican cadets in their defence of the castle. Nowhere in the vicinity of the capital are grouped so many reminders of Mexico's glorious history; nowhere except in the Museum is there so much to attract one, or so much to absorb his attention after he is there. ”

“ During the period of four years Cortez devoted himself with untiring zeal to the promotion of the interests of the colony. The new city of Mexico rose rapidly, with widened streets and with many buildings of much architectural beauty. Where the massive temple once stood, dedicated to the war-god of the Aztecs, and whose altars were ever polluted with human sacrifices, a majestic temple was reared for the worship of the true God. ”

“ But the substantial difference with our people was the viciously brutality, inhumane violence and absolute intolerance, with which first the conquerors and then the colonialist have systematically destroyed the culture and the identity of the defeated through erasing their historical memory, disappearing languages, minimizing and undervaluing their knowledge, depriving them of physical spaces, sacred, religious, and social and destroy and persecute their ancient religion, killing their priests and destroy their temples. ”

“ In the project of building "The New Spain", the natives only were allowed to provide workmanship and their natural resources for free; the ideas were totally imported from Europe. Indigenous peoples were sentenced to lose their languages, their historical memory, their knowledge, their physical and social spaces and of course their religion, and by the 18th century the creoles even began expropriating their ancient history. ”

“ Desiring to remove from the sight of the Indians every vestige of their former arts, and especially of their idolatry, this infamous bigot ransacked the library vaults of Tezcoco and Mexico, and piling the hieroglyphic paintings in a great heap destroyed the whole by fire. No one can estimate the loss such a destruction of historic paintings has occasioned. Learned men have not ceased to regret it to the present day; and if any man ever deserved the curses of the Mexican nation, it is this same first Bishop of Mexico, Don Juan de Zumárraga. ”

“ The resulting mongrel people always lacks the intellectual force necessary to maintain the civilization of the higher. Arts decline and national decay sets in. In this way is explained the existence of noble ruins among inefficient and barbarous nations, who practise a much ruder style of architecture. The Mexicans are the type of this retrogression. Dr. Quinby predicts for them an increasing decline until Aztec civilization is restored. ”

“ Negate one self and feel ashamed of the own phenotype.
The alleged problem is that mexicans, to be "modern", must cease being "traditional". To be "modern" implies, being as the foreign colonizer; being "traditional" means to be as the colonized indigenous. The foreign exaltation and the contempt for the national, was not only for products and fashion, but even more harmful; assuming the heart and feelings, imposing on our own face, the face of the conqueror—colonizer. ”

“ That we have suffered one of the most devastating cultural aggressions in mankind’s history, where the invading colonizers tried to strip us not only of our culture but also of our very condition as human beings. However, in spite of it all, the culture remains and continues to evolve. It is the vital force that guides and orients us although we cannot see or hear it, coming from the remote past. ”

“ It is necessary to recognize the denied part of our being and assume us as first class Mexicans and not, as third world gringos or as second class spaniards. Appropriating all technologies and all the world modern ideas, but using them for our own project and civilizing development. It is not a matter of living in a "museum", nor in the past; on the contrary, the challenge is to remain traditional and faithful to our identity, but at the same time, spearhead modernity and progress, as does Japan or England. Build the future with the foundations of the past. ”

“ We shall not be taking leave of the Indian if we pay a visit to the Museum, where Aztec pottery, Aztec jewellery, Aztec kings, and Aztec gods will remind us of him everywhere. The Mexican Museum cannot be called rich, in so far that there is nothing remarkable in what the visitor is allowed to see. ”

“ The Museo Nacional in Mexico has grown to have a proper importance, [1945] since the Mexican government has prevented the further exportation of archæological relics. It was founded in 1824 by Fathers Icaza and Gondra, but it owes its creation largely to the skill of Professor Gumesindo Mendoza, its curator, by whose death it lost much. ”

“ In the Museum of the city of Mexico there is probably the best collection of the remains of the so-called Aztec people that ever has or probably ever will be gathered. Here, ranged upon shelves and properly classified, the visitor will see a large number and variety of their tools, weapons, and implements. ”

“ No description can produce the feeling that one experiences when viewing the imposing ruins found in our National Monuments and Parks. Even a short time spent looking at pottery and other artifacts in a museum will give a far better idea of their appearance than will photographs, drawings, or the most detailed descriptions. A visit to a modern pueblo makes it possible to visualize something of the life of bygone centuries and to think of the ancient inhabitants of the area as living, breathing people rather than as lifeless specimens. ”

“ Indigenous peoples have the right to practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature. ”

“ ONE need never be at loss where to go in Mexico for evidences of its past civilization, as some object hoary with antiquity rears its head at every corner. In a portion of the immense building known as the Palace is the Mexican Museum, El Museo Nacional, into which are gathered all the "finds" in archaeological fields. Entering the court, one sees, through a drapery of vines, the famous "sacrificial stone," occupying the centre of a lovely garden of flowers; beyond and above it towers the once-dreaded Huitzilopochtli, the great war-god of the Aztecs ”

“ The use of chocolate is so universal in Mexico and throughout Spanish countries, that it might naturally be supposed the cultivation of cacao was largely and carefully attended to in the republic. Such, however, is not the case. The cacao of Soconusco, and of the low grounds of Caraccas, Guatemala and Guyaquil, was found to be so superior to the Mexican article, that its production has been almost abandoned except in the neighborhood of Colima, or on the Isthmus and in the states of Tabasco and Chiapas. ”

“ Our word copal is the Mexican copalli. There are a few other Mexican words which have been naturalized in our European languages, of course indicating that the things they represent came from Mexico. Ocelotl is ocelot; Tomatl is tomata; Chilli is the Spanish chile and our chili; Cacahuatl is cacao or cocoa; and Chocolatl, the beverage made from the cacao-bean with a mixture of vanilla, is our chocolate.
Cacao-beans were used by the Mexicans as money. Even in Humboldt’s time, when there was no copper coinage, they were used as small change, six for a halfpenny ”