Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Myth, magic, and legend determined the outcome of the conquest. Legend had warned
Montezuma to fear a god from across the sea: a tall, bearded, fair-skinned man who would
seek his throne. To no avail, Montezuma sent word attempting to dissuade the god from
across the sea from marching further inland. In counter-legend, the imaginations of Cor-
tes and his men were inflamed by one of the first books ever printed in Spain, twenty
volumes of the exploits of Amadis de Gaula, a fifteenth century James Bond-Superman-
Odysseus, who overcame his foes by bravery and treachery, a hero who rampaged through
strange lands where beautiful women welcomed, dragons stalked, priests wore feathered
headdresses, and sacrifice to the gods was the fate of those captured in battle.
Figure 21.2. Herman Cortes
In Mexico, Cortes and his men were transformed into Amadis de Gaula. Indian
women were compliant; iguanas were the storied dragons; the Aztec priests wore elaborate
feathered headdresses; and human sacrifice also occurred. After a recent Aztec victory in
the Aztec capital (near today's Mexico City), 10,000 prisoners of war had been drugged
and pushed to the top of a pyramid, where priests cut out the prisoners' hearts and pushed
bloody corpses down the pyramid steps to a bloody ground.
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