Things I wished my History Books Said....

1524 – Tenochititlan (Present Day Mexico City…well…an island in the middle of a lake that was drained to make Mexico City, but that’s a whole different story altogether)

As the story goes, a fun party took place with 24 Clerics & Priests at the behest of Hernán Cortés, who just got done conquering the area only 3 years prior. You see, up to this point, Cortés et al seemed to have breezed their way through the Caribbean conquering and turning the heathen Godless locals into God fearing Catholics at the tip of a spear, or gun, or things like that. Then they landed in the middle of the Triple Alliance. Well, let’s divert a little here, since you are learning some stuff.

You may have heard of the Triple Alliances more common name, the Aztecs. Problem is, the name “Aztec” was coined about 300 years later by a guy and that seemed to fit the slot, so there. The Triple Alliance was three differing groups that had the unlikely fortune of inheriting the Mexico City area and all of the grandeur there too, including said island in the middle of the lake where this meeting, remember the meeting?, was taking place.

The problem Cortés was having is that he up and conquered an area that already had themselves a pretty established religion that was as entrenched as theirs was. Cortés et al came in guns a blazing, swords a swinging and Smallpox a swashbuckling and up until then, that seemed to do the trick. “Oh, your God(s) are punks compared to my Gods, because I have cool blowy up things”

The Triple Alliance people seemed not to be drinking that Kool-aid, though, and Cortés was getting some heat from back home (Spain and the Vatican), so he thought he would bring in some heavy hitters to talk their way into the mass conversions that Manifest Destiny needed in order to be, well, manifest destiny. Cortés sent a letter home to the King, who passed it along to the Pope, requesting a dozen real thinkers and talkers to come on over and talk some sense into the Godless Heathens of Mexico. The Pope decided to send in some Franciscans from Spain, because Spain had just wrestled their country back from the Moors and centuries of Islam so the thinking was that the Franciscans should be pretty good at talking their way into the hearts and minds of these people just as well.

That’s the setup. Now we have 12 Franciscan priests sitting across the table from 12 Triple Alliance Clerics to have a chat about God. What could possibly go wrong?

The Franciscans opened the meeting explaining the Doctrine, God, Jesus, Mary and all, went deep into Bible talk and then chatted about the role of the church in the world. This probably went on for days and days and days…

The clerics first response was, of course, “Um, why didn’t your Bible tell you about the whole rest of the world over here you didn’t know about?” And after an awkward silence of a few weeks, they continued.

The Franciscans were pretty upset they came all the way over here from Spain and…well…met people who had been religion-ing longer than they had. They were, of course, told the stories of how back-assed the area was, and didn’t quite understand that Meso-America had been chugging along for the better part of about 10,000 years, complete with cities that were in fact larger than European cities and religion that was very entrenched in the culture, much like theirs was. Even the discussions about how the Church comforts the locals was an echo chamber. The Catholics and the Clerics were in the same business, but they just so happened to worship different deities.

I am leaving a shit ton of stuff out, but hopefully have spun enough to whet your whistle if you are so inclined to learn more, as I am.

Let’s fast forward a bit to the now crazed (and in some cases, like clinically crazed now, as is the case of one of the Franciscan priests who left the meetings to roam the country solo in the desert for the rest of his life) Franciscans who have now run out of any religious type arguments and just said, and I am sure I am paraphrasing here “Our God is the one true God because he brought us here to conquer the shit out of you and yeah, that happened, so there. Convert or die, you Godless heathens”

Not wanting to continue the “talks” anymore (For anyone who has sat through a 2 hour mass for a wedding, you know what I am talking about) the Triple-Alliance clerics finally called Uncle and went to a somber ceremony in the middle of the city, in full view of all the peeps there, to declare their allegiance to God, the Pope and the Church.

Now, with that done, Cortes, et al, thought to themselves “Goody, now these 12 high clerics of the Meso-Americans will finally go back to their areas and let their followers know that they have been wrong for the past couple of thousands of years, so now we have a new God to pray to and pay to instead of ours…

Yes, it took a few more centuries for that to play out…

…and here we are at the church in San Jacinto Amilpas, where there is a wooden cross directly in front of the front doors.

There is the cross…all in, about 15 feet tall and intricately carved, with, Not Jesus, nor any Saints or other such idolatry, but....Maize.

A throwback to the times where the entire continent prayed to the Gods of Agriculture because, well, food is important? I will let you decide….
— in San Jacinto Amilpas.