Talk:The massacre in the Main Temple, Tenochtitlán

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Mexico Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mexico, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Mexico on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

	This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Mesoamerica, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, its civilizations, history, accomplishments and other topics. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page.
Resources and guidelines for editing Mesoamerica-related articles: Guidelines— Outline of suggested guidelines and editing conventions Resources— Selected resources and compendia of Mesoamerican sources and studies Citations— Bibliography and pre-filled citations for Mesoamerican sources Journals— Links to selected journals publishing Mesoamerican research, example citation templates Article listing— Inventory and watchlists of WP:MESO articles and their talk pages (Article Watchlist)—(Talkpage Watchlist) Worklists— Project worklists and activities
NB: Assessment ratings and other indicators given below are used by the Project in prioritising and managing its workload.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the Project's importance scale.
	This article is also supported by the WikiProject Aztec sub-project.
WikiProject Mesoamerica priority open tasks: (click "show" to expand) WikiProject Mesoamerica Open Tasklist: a shortlist of things you can do to help out. Queries welcomed here. (Project Main • Activities • Catalogue • Guidelines • Strategy• Tools and refs) edit | watch | purge NEWS and ANNOUNCEMENTS: → Mesoamerica, Maya civilization, Olmec, Palenque are WP:MESO collaboration targets of the moment. → Pre-filled citation templates for Mesoamerican sources at Citations. → Recently promoted to GA status: Yuri Knorosov, Nahuatl language, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg. PROJECT ACTIVITIES: Meta-tasks and subprojects: • add project banner to articles • document Strategy • assign article ratings per the assessment scheme • add to Project references • collate images and maps • More... Categorisation: • develop full Category scheme • reorganise Cat:Mesoamerica contents • More category tasks... Templates: • {{Mesoamerica site infobox}} (create) • {{Mesoamerica ruler infobox}} (create) • {{Maya civilization}} (improve) • {{WP Mesoamerica}} project banner (populate) • More... ARTICLE TO-DO: Requested articles: • History of Mesoamerica • Chenes (Maya subregion & architectural style) • 260-day Mesoamerican calendar • List of Mesoamerican cultures • Hermann Beyer • Huastec civilization • Valley of Oaxaca • More... Expand from stub: • Calendar round • Chiapas highlands • Chilam Balam • Chol language • Trecena • Veintena • More... Cleanup/attention needed: • Domesticated plants of Mesoamerica • Gender in Mesoamerican cultures • History of Mesoamerica (Paleo-Indian) • Gender in Maya society • Olmec figurine • More... Improvement drive: Start-Class • Mesoamerican calendars • Mesoamerican chronology • Mixtec • Monte Albán • Toltec • Yucatán Peninsula • More... Improvement drive: B-Class • Chichen Itza • La Venta • Maya calendar • Maya civilization • Maya script • Olmec • Quetzalcoatl • More... Prepare for Quality reviews (GA, PR, FAC): • Mesoamerica • Mayan languages • Spanish conquest of Mexico • Palenque • Chunchucmil • More...

Is such a literal translation really necessary? It's barely readable to due to its pidgin style, not to mention the spelling errors. ThePedanticPrick 06:27, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• thanks for cleaning it, i translated the spanish version by Leon Portilla, but a direct translation is best :) Nanahuatzin 18:25, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] biased against the Spanish ?

This page seems a little biased against the Spanish, don't you think? How about some interpretation for those who would *only* be able to extrapolate that biased perspective? (Unsigned comment apparently made by 199.111.194.239)

The article includes now both the aztec and the spanish version of the incident (at least one of the versions), taken from primary sources. What else do you suggest to eliminate bias?. I started this article becase the aztec version is little known, but there is always room to improvement. Nanahuatzin 18:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think it should be noted that the manner in which the indigenous narratives were recorded is a little suspicious. It was done through Fransiscan monks by interview many years after the actual event, if I remember correctly, which means you have at least two filters: memory/time and language (possible misunderstandings on the part of the monks). Also, because these interviews took place so much later, it's important to take into account the possibility of an agenda not only on the part of the ingenous/mestizo population, but also on the part of the monks (who definitely had an objective when speaking to their would-be converts). The oral-form narrative is already stylized in other accounts, why not here? What I'm saying is that you have two primary documents, true, but this article lacks interpretation and context. I'm not qualified to do it myself because I'm not an historian, but there are possible emplotments that make the Spanish look less...hmm...evil.

(Unsigned comment apparently made by 199.111.194.239)

Please sign your comments by ending your messages with 4 tildes i.e. ~~~~ --Richard 04:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Well in this case there is only one Friar involved , Bernardino de Sahagun. His method involved creating a questionary and sent it to three separated groups of old men, in three different comunities, the responses were written, and then he compared the three version to see if there was any discrepance, if there was any, a new questionary was sent and the new responses were anotated. All this was done in nahuatl by indigenous people. This method promises a much more precise acount that, for example, Bernal Dias, who wrote almost 40 years later, without taking any notes, or learning the native languages. On the other hand there is evidence that tlatelolcas were writing their accounts just seven years after the conquest.

Actually, the opinions of scholars like Shep Lenchek is :"What is most remarkable is that the Aztec account of the Conquest, is almost completely non-judgmental. Although they describe Spanish atrocities in gory detail, it is done factually, with little emotion. … Nowhere in the Aztec accounts of the Conquest do we find any effort to paint the Spaniards as monsters.""

There was some censorship involved in the work of Sahagun, there are two version, the Florentine codex and a later revision, the Madrid Codex. This later was writen for the spanish autorities and depicts the spanish in a more flattery form, while the former, reflect more truly the Nahuas’ historical memory, and is the text used by most historians.

Now, in this specific case, even Cortez agreed that it was wrong... What could be biased is the version by Gomara. Bernal Diaz acused Gomara of praise Cortez too much, that is why i originally did not put it here. but if you prefer Prescot, his acounts differ little. http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moa&cc=moa&xc=1&idno=aba4283.0002.001&g=moagrp&q1=Aztec*&q2=Mexico&q3=Cortes&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=306

the opinion of most author is like this: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9547/9547.excerpt.html

but maybe you are right and this need an analysis, since this was the definitive reason of the Aztec rebelion against thier tlatoani. Nanahuatzin 07:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah well, why would a European chop off a guys arms and then his head? I don't know anyone who would kill someone like that. Or burning that other guy alive? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.36.89.104 (talk • contribs) 24 September 2006.

Perhaps you need to become better acquainted with European (or even American) history then- if you think it is implausible for "Western" cultures to endorse such things, you are mistaken. Quite apart from the Spanish forces' own documentation of how they themselves carried out numerous forms of torture and execution in the New World, at much the same time and carrying on considerably later into the 18th century a number of other unsavoury torture and punishment practices were freely permissable in Europe, and also the nascent US.--cjllw | TALK 01:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inconsistent facts

"The Spanish version of the incident says the conquistadors interrupted a human sacrifice in the Templo Mayor; the Aztec version says the Spaniards were enticed into action by the gold the Aztecs were wearing. This prompted an Aztec rebellion against the orders of Moctezuma."

However, both versions of the incident shown on this page indicate the latter.

[edit] Refreshing non-Eurocentric view

I do not think the article is biased at all against te Spanish. On the contrary, it's refreshing to see a different account than the centuries old stories of "savage" Aztecs, Maya's etc. doing nothing but mass human sacrifice. Besides, it is more than obvious that at the time the Spaniards were indeed quite brutal: Spanish Inquistion with its professional torture, the mesmerised namegiving of El Dorado to the land after hearing the Natives speak of gold (of religious significance to them as the colour of their sungod but of materialistic meaning to the Spaniards), and last but not least El Requerimiento, in which the Spaniards announced their plans of genocide to the Natives. However, the only thing missing in both of the accounts is the source, appr. date and who wrote them.