Lately, I have been delving into archetypes. It all started when teaching a graduate class about how authors develop their characters, and things spiraled off from there. My graduate students should have known better than to ask, I do tend to go on.
This all really came about because 50 years ago, some college students in California went on strike protesting the Eurocentric orientation for virtually all college courses. For example, typically, the archetype heroes read about in English classes have had, for the most part, a Eurocentric origin. Yet, the hero myth exists in cultures the world over. Fast forward 50 years and we still see only a hand full of states requiring their college and university systems to include cultural diversity as part of their curriculum expectations. However, in the past couple of years, white students are – for the first time – in the minority for public school attendance. How can teachers relate to students of all ethnicities if they themselves have not been exposed to histories and literature from different cultures?
Currently, a number of minorities, including Hispanic students, make up the population of many classes. Yet, Mesoamerican history and literature never seems to make it into works these students are required to read. This should change because unless students can relate to the texts and stories, very little will be gained academically or even emotionally for these scholars. To illustrate, the Aztec and their deity, Quetzalcoatl, have stories that can best those of Gilgamesh, Hercules, and the like every single time. Where is this taught in literature or history? The answer is: not many places.
Ernesto Novato recognizes this and he has written “Quetzalcoatl: The History and Legacy of the Feathered Serpent God in Mesoamerican Mythology.” A delightful book, which is easy to read and actually quite short, examines the origins of the deity and his place in the pantheon of gods.
The Feathered Serpent can be seen in relief carvings in temples, on the largest Cholula pyramid, and of course in Chichen Itza. There are so many temples dedicated to this Feathered Serpent who has been worshiped for over 2,000 years by the Olmec, the Aztec, and the Yucatec and K’iche Mayans.
Depending upon who was doing the worshiping, Quetzalcoatl was the creator god, the rain god, the wind god, or even the warrior god. Of course, to the conquering Spanish, belief in the Feathered Serpent was to be stamped out so that a different deity could be worshiped instead. Interestingly, the results were not as successful as have been thought, however, because the original stories have endured among the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. Today, the retelling has started to see the light in North America as well, thanks to Novato and other excellent authors, and now citizens all across the Americas are beginning develop a much stronger understanding of the grandeur of the pre-Columbian civilizations that were here well before the Spanish invasion.
The Mayans, as another example, had their own archetypes and the retelling of the creation Maya myth “Popol Vuh” by Ilan Stavens, a Latin American author, and illustrated by Salvadorian folk artist Gabriela Larios is a pleasure to read.
When the Spanish came, the Mesoamerican cultures were clearly headed for destruction. This was especially recognized by the K’iche’ nobility living in what is now Guatemala. They were able to write down their creation story in verse. This text was translated into Spanish by a Dominican friar and ethnographer – only to then vanished completely. Clearly, they trusted the wrong person.
Yet, the story survived from generation to generation by word of mouth; told in hushed tones away from European ears and punishments, until today when it has once again been written for all to read. Much like the Qur’an and the Bible, it is a code of ethics, a view of the afterlife, an explanation of creation, and most importantly a connection to the culture that was so nearly made extinct.
Reading this book gives us a connection to the indigenous people of all the Americas and the struggles they still face. It has an urgency about it that, although hard to put into words, makes us not only empathize with the people of this book but also stand by them in support of preserving what they hold to be dear.
For us to begin to understand their struggle to preserve the culture and help embrace the indigenous values, we need to step back to November 1519. This was the date that Hernando Cortés came face to face with Moctezuma. We all learned this in our history classes, read about it, albeit briefly, in some English story or other, and never realized that every single thing we read was a narrative written by a European. The story of Cortes, and the horrific aftermath, was dutifully recorded by those Spanish scribes who wrote what they were told to write – and destroy what they were told to destroy.
Up until this point in time students of history were led to believe that the Spanish rendition was the only story, and the Spanish texts were the only existing documents chronicling the years of conquest. But this is wrong. “The Fifth Sun: A New History of The Aztecs” by Camilla Townsend has turned that old belief on its ear. You see, those very curious Native Americans found the Roman alphabet very interesting, and they learned it quite easily. Using this new alphabet, they wrote their own histories in their own language – Nahuatl – and hid the texts away.
Very clever, because had they been discovered they would have been destroyed. Finally, these histories have been translated, evaluated, and for the first time an entire history is being told by the people the history is about – not by the conquers.
Townsend has used only the histories of the Mexica to rewrite a story of people who had an amazing culture well before Cortes showed up. The heartening part for me was to realize that the Mexica people didn’t just roll over and absorb European ways. Instead, they accommodated to the new expectations, accepted the politics, and endured. This is revisionist history in its finest. I learned not only about the horrors of the Spanish invasion, but how the indigenous people found ways to face the traumas, survive, and move on.
I know, I probably sound like a militant – shaking up the status quo and urging my readers to take a step or two out of a comfort zone and read things from a very novel perspective. My graduate students survived the journey from different archetypes to revisionist history, acquired a fresh viewpoint, and found a new respect for the minorities they were teaching. Keep reading and see what it does for you.