Primary Source Analysis Essay

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Primary Source Analysis

The Aztec chronicler who wrote the account of the Spanish conquest notes that, from the start, the Spaniards had come to make war, but does not give much account of Motecuhzoma's psychological motivations for approaching them. He describes in great detail how Motecuhzoma greeted the Spanish while adorned in all his finery, and presented them with gifts both lavish and delicate: necklaces of gold and garlands of flowers (Graebner 24). It is possible that this was a diplomatic attempt to forestall bloodshed, but more likely that Aztec warfare involved a ritualized and formal gesture before it commenced. Certainly the description here sounds more like the ritual described later, in which two captives are "painted with chalk" and then have their hearts ripped out ritually while Motecuhzoma watches, and then their blood is sprinkled on the messengers who have brought Motecuhzoma and account of the Spanish armaments and cavalry.

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The Aztec description of the Spanish overall is focused on the absolute weirdness of their appearance by Mesoamerican standards: their hair and beards were shaggy and blond, their dogs were larger and spotted, their clothes and hats were made of iron. The horses are thought to be deer: the cannon is mostly described with the fearful evidence of what it does, but there is no description of gunpowder, or how the cannon operates. The 1505 engraved illustration (reprinted by Brinkey on page 1) depicts the natives as naked savages feasting on human flesh. (Indeed, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the English word "cannibal" finds its original etymology in a corruption of "Carib," the same tribe which gave its name to the Caribbean.) In terms of the Spaniards' initial impressions of them, it is possible that they saw them….....

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