The story in Mexico was complex. Moctezuma wanted to know what the visions and omens meant. He called his seers and magicians but they didn't know what to say. He threw them in prison - "They shall tell me against their will" - but they still couldn't explain. [p. fourteen]
He instructed his head steward - his petlacalcatl - to have them say what they believed. If it were to be sickness or storms, hunger, droughts or locusts, war or wild beasts, they were to tell him. But the magicians didn't know, that it was a mystery and that whatever it was would come swiftly. Moctezuma was astonished that this compared with what the king of Texcoco had said.
In a (what I call, frustrating) footnote, our editor here Miguel Leon-Portilla explains that Nezahualpilli, the king of Texcoco had told Moctezuma...
"Not long before the first omen was seen ... that, according to his fortune-tellers, Mexico would soon be ruled by strangers. Moctezuma replied that his own fortune-tellers had predicted otherwise. Nezahualpilli then suggested that they settle the matter by playing a series of ritual ball games, with the outcome to decide who was right; he also offered to wager his whole kingdom against three turkey cocks. Moctezuma agreed and won the first two games, but Nezahualpilli won the last three in succession." [pp. twenty-- twenty-one]
I say frustrating, for me, because this is the kind of story that reveals a lot about society, how disputes could be resolved, who Moctezuma could accept as a peer, how one of them treated him, the importance of fortune-tellers to mesoamerican kings etc. But we get a footnote. And then return to Moctezuma directing his petlacalcatl to "Question them again about this mystery. Ask them if it will come from the sky or the earth, and from what direction or place it will come, and when this will happen." [p. fifteen]
The magicians had somehow fled by then and when the king was told this, he ordered all the chiefs of the villages where these magicians lived to deal with it. "Tell them to kill their wives and children, and to destroy their houses." [p. fifteen]. So that was done and "... they killed the women by hanging them with ropes, and the children by dashing them to pieces against the walls. Then they tore down the houses and even rooted out their foundations." [p. fifteen]
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Then, a common man - a macehual - from the coast came to the city who explained that he had seen on the great sea, "... a mountain range or small mountain floating in the midst of the water, and moving here and there without touching the shore. My lord, we have never seen the likes of this, although we guard the coast and are always on watch." [p. sixteen]
Then a priest - a teuctlamacazqui - was called and ordered to go to Cuetlaxtlan and order the chief there to investigate these things. They did. Attendants went and witnessed the strangers in the water and then the cleric did. "They also saw that seven or eight of the strangers had left it in a small boat and were fishing with hooks and lines... [then] they returned to the ship in their small boat." [p. seventeen]
The cleric rushed with this news back to the city. He further explained to the king: "There were about fifteen of these people, some with blue jackets, others with red, others with black or green, and still others with jackets of a soiled color, very ugly .... On their heads they wore red kerchiefs, or bonnets of a fine scarlet color, and some wore large round hats like small comales, which must have been sunshades. They have very light skin, much lighter than ours. They all have long beards, and their hair comes only to their ears." [p. seventeen]
A comal is a wide, flat pottery dish. Montezuma didn't reply to this description, as it was recalled. When the macehual was called back, he was told he had escaped and fled. What Moctezuma did next was command that a wide neck piece be constructed out of gold with emeralds and arm bands as well and giant fans with precious feathers also be constructed. He also threatened that if anyone were to say what they were doing, they and all their families and their houses would be destroyed.... [pp. eighteen -- nineteen]
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These stories come from the Cronica Mexicana by Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc written "... about 1598; the only surviving text is in Spanish. The same author also wrote the Cronica Mexicayotl in Nahuatl." [p. nineteen]
and all are quoted in The Broken Spears: the Aztec account of the conquest of Mexico, translated, edited with an introduction by Miguel León-Portilla, expanded and with a postscript, Boston, Beacon Press, 2006.
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