Cortés and Montezuma by Maurice Collis

Author:Maurice Collis [Collis, Maurice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811201865
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2015-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Cortés Confines Montezuma

Was Montezuma mad? is one of the questions which this story poses. There is not the smallest evidence that the Spaniards thought him mad. He appeared deluded, and deluded, as some of them conceived, by the Devil who at that time was believed to be a real supernatural person, defeated but still strong enough to oppose God. The opinion that Montezuma was devil-deluded and that the whole Mexican religion was the Devil’s invention, was, however, difficult to square with the prophecy which had favoured the invasion. Why should the Devil utter a prophecy whose effect would be to assist those who wanted to destroy his rule in Mexico? The Spaniards had, no doubt, answers to this conundrum, such as that God had forced the Devil to utter a self-destructive prophecy, just as the demons in possessed persons were recorded in the Bible as testifying to Christ’s divinity. Those who gave credit to this explanation saw in the prophecy the first step in a divine plan to give them possession of the country. As Cortés believed himself to be the instrument of this divine plan, its further details would presently be revealed. This belief, the product of his personal ambitions moulded by the religious ideas of his time, encouraged him to take risks which common prudence would have told him were too great. Both he and Montezuma were each in their opposite ways driven by the prophecy.

If it did not occur to the Spaniards that Montezuma was mad, have we any grounds for thinking that he was? Ought we to view him as some kind of a psychopath? Should we ask the psychiatrists to pronounce on him? He was no madder than his predecessors. Take his immediate predecessor, Auitzotzin (Lord Water-opossum). Thirty-two years previously this Mexican sovereign had dedicated the temple of the Humming Bird which stood opposite the Spaniards’ quarters and was similar to the one they visited in the northern part of the city. One of the best-established facts of Mexican history is that 20,000 captives were sacrificed on that occasion. They were not all sacrificed at the one temple. That would have been impossible. The 20,000 were probably divided up between the two Humming Bird temples in the metropolis. For twenty days long queues of captives waited below these pyramids to have their hearts cut out. The priests operated till they were exhausted. There were great public banquets of human legs and arms. The carnivora in the zoo were gorged with the trunks. This nightmare orgy was madder than anything done by Montezuma.

The psychiatrists would probably tell us that all the Mexicans were suffering from some kind of mental derangement. They had inherited a religion of fear from earlier civilizations and, instead of growing out of it, had greatly elaborated it and in consequence had grown more frightened. There seemed to be no laughter or compassion left in their character. They had shouldered the grim responsibility of maintaining the cosmic round. Their ruling caste was dedicated

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