Broken Spears

68). The narrators presume a complete nobility to the pre-Columbian civilization as a on the whole and an attach workforcet to a mythic universe, as seen in the coverage of the comets and other omens seen in the years prior to Cortes's landing.

To be sure, the Aztecs infra Motecuhzoma were rivals of the neighboring Tlaxcaltecas and held them in contempt. However, the characterization--even treachery--of indigenous enemies has a certain mythical grandeur about it that has the effect of screening the Aztecs as the postmortem examination culture of Mexico. The Tlaxcaltecas tell the Spaniards that the Aztecs ar "very brave . . . warriors and conquerors and shoot defeated their neighbors on every side. . . . Cholula is our enemy. . . . The people are as brave as the Aztecs and they are the Aztecs' friends" (Leon-Portilla, 1992, p. 40).

The Spaniards' slaughter of Cholultecas is portrayed in a way that emphasizes the superior Aztec culture as the strong agenda of the conquistadores. The Cholultecas themselves are portrayed as victims of the belief remains that governs their tribe and of faith in the god Quetzalcoatl. Through their priests, they detest the "strangers" whom the effeminate Tlaxcaltecas have enlisted to fight the Aztecs for them, appealing to the god Quetzalcoatl on whiz hand and depreciating the "frightened beggars . . . [who] have alienated immortal glory that was won by your heroes, who sprang from the pure blood line of the ancient Teochichimecas, the founders your nation" (Leon-Portilla, 1992,

The mythic element is also decisive in regard to the last-ditch Aztec assessment of the conquest. The Aztecs, having heard of the slaughters of other cities, try diplomatic and wizardly artifice to fend off the Spaniards but are fundamentally fated to be conquered. In one account, the god Tezcatlipoca scolds Motecuhzoma for failing to make adequate preparations for war, sending Motecuhzoma into a fatalistic mental picture from which neither he nor his people recover. In another, Motecuhzoma tries, without success, to transform the deputation of conquest into a protracted state visit. Only the priests avow to the end that the Spaniards can be defeated, but they are slaughtered with no more ceremony than the common people.

The fact that the wise (holy) men are devoured by dogs can be interpreted as the indifference or even betrayal by the gods of a heroic people. The elegaic poems can be interpreted as a self-conscious awareness of such indifference and of how much has been confused: "We have seen bloodshed and pain / where once we saw lulu and valor. / We are crushed to the ground; / we lie in ruins" (Leon-Portilla, "Flowers and Songs of Sorrow," 1992, p. 149).

p. 44). The Tlaxcaltecas are portrayed as cowardly dupes of Cortes, who prevents them from forming an advance force into Mexico, reservation sure "that his new friends and confederates did not leave his side, using his wits as always, as an astute leader, to take advantage of a favorable situation" (Leon-Portilla, 9192, p. 43). In other words, the European has an opposite relationship with the whole of Mexican culture, not just with one tribe or another.

Leon-Portilla, M. (1992). Broken spears. Boston: Beacon Press.

Gomez, E.A. (1979). Canek: invoice and legend of a Maya hero. Berkeley: University of California Press.

The focus of Gomez in Canek is on the form that indigenous resistance to European culture takes in the modern period. Gomez sets the stage for the symbolic narrative by showing that the Mayan peopl
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