CAROLINE DODDS PENNOCK is won over by a guide to Aztec mythology dominated by dramatic Indigenous descriptions of their world
THE AMERICAS
The history of the Aztecs (or, as they would have called themselves, the Mexica) is riddled with colonial prejudice and contemporary misconception. But, as Camilla Townsend contends in this fine new book, the Aztecs’ own dramatic tales of their ferocity also contributed to these bloodthirsty stereotypes as they sought to frighten their enemies and mitigate their defeats with exaggerated claims of sacrificial and military violence.
Townsend’s Aztecs were expert storytellers, who deployed their histories strategically to teach the past and influence the present. In the case of sacrifice, argues Townsend, “their approach backfired”, and these stories have loomed over their history ever since. But, as the author ably shows, sacrifice was just one, much misunderstood, component of a vast and layered worldview where divine demands stood in tension with everyday human concerns.
Largely eschewing talking about the ‘myths’ of the title for its potentially dismissive tone, Townsend gives us a neat new history of the Aztecs through their own evocative ‘stories’, as recorded in early colonial Nahuatl annals, songs and codices. By excluding Spanish-language sources, she hopes to tip the balance back towards Indigenous understandings of their own histories, and open a window onto a rich corpus of stories that are often marginalised in favour of easier-to-access European narratives.
Although historians might quibble about the choice of texts, or where the emphasis lies, Townsend succeeds magnificently in conjuring up the world of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, which, as one source relates, was “the place of renown, the sign, the site of the rock tuna cactus, in the middle of the water; the place where the eagle rests, where he screeches, where he stretches and eats; where the serpent hisses, where the fish fly, where the blue and yellow waters mingle”. It is a tale of high politics, spy dramas and divine intervention, wher
