Image FORTY-TWO

THE CARRIAGE CARRIED us through a maguey plantation as we approached the pyramid. Maguey plants were the source of the Aztec beer, pulque.

“An indio legend says that Cholula and Teotihuacán were built by a race of giants,” Carlos said, “sons of the Milky Way. The giants enslaved the Olmec nation, the first great indio nation, but led by their own clever chief, the Olmecs threw a banquet for the giants and got the giants drunk on pulque. After they passed out, the Olmecs slew them.”

I grinned at Carlos. “Being a man of reason, not dominated by superstition and old wives’ tales, I do not believe in giants.”

“That’s too bad,” Carlos said. “Our best witness from that period, Bernal Díaz, did. A soldier of Cortés, he wrote a history of the Conquest. He said that Aztecs showed him the bones of giants, convincing him the story was true.” Carlos laughed at the look on my face. “But don’t worry, amigo, we don’t know what kind of old bones the indios showed Díaz.”

I nodded up at the yellow and green–tiled church atop the pyramid. “That church was built on the very spot that blood sacrifices took place?”

“Amazing,” Carlos said. “Already you are becoming a thinker, a questioner, a seeker of truth.”

I tapped the side of my head. “How can I not use my brain when you keep stuffing it? What were these people you call my ancestors really like? I have heard many stories of their savagery. Are those stories not true?”

“Many of the tales are true, probably most of them. We discussed the reason for the blood sacrifices, the covenant with the gods—”

“Blood for rain and sunshine so corn and beans will grow.”

“Blood sacrifice is not something to glory in, any more than Christianity’s bloodlettings are a source of pride. But you cannot judge a civilization solely by its mistakes. If that were true, we would condemn Europeans from the time of the Greeks and Romans for their many savage massacres and forget about their contributions to civilization. Speaking of massacres, are you aware that one took place here in Cholula?

“It happened when Cortés was first making his way toward Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, after landing on the coast. The facts are controversial because the Spanish and indio versions differ so radically.”

I listened to the tale of murder and bloodlust as we neared the largest pyramid on the face of the earth.

The name Cholula meant “place of springs” in Nahuatl. The city was famous before the arrival of Cortés for the artistic beauty of its pottery. Montezuma and other indio kings would only eat out of Cholulan dishes and cups.

Cholula was on the route Cortés took as he made his way from the coast and over the mountains to Montezuma’s city. He stopped en route to investigate Cholula before going on to confront Montezuma in Tenochtitlán. He had made indio allies on the coast, and he thought he could persuade the Cholulans to join forces with him, since they were old enemies of Montezuma.

Cholula dazzled Cortés with its beauty. He called the city “much more beautiful than all those in Spain . . . well-fortified and on very level ground.” From the top of the great pyramid, Cortés said he saw, “four hundred towers, all of mosques,” in reference to indio temples and pyramids.

Cortés was wrong in thinking he could enlist the Cholulans in his bid to conquer the Aztecs. They believed that the invaders would anger the indio gods. Their priests told them that their gods would protect them from these strange men, that if the intruders desecrated their temples, the Lord of Waters would create a huge flood and drown them.

The Spaniards invited the prominent people of the city into the main square but made them enter unarmed. After they arrived, Cortés’s men sealed off all the exits, and the slaughter began, with thousands killed before it ended.

Cortés later claimed that the Cholulans—to please Montezuma—were plotting to attack and kill the invaders, leaving only a few alive for sacrifice. Cortés said an old woman told his translator, Doña Marina, about the plot.

The Cholulans had enlisted the old woman to befriend Doña Marina and get information about the foreigners from her. Because Doña Marina was a woman of beauty and had grown wealthy from Cortés’s gifts and payments to her, the old woman told her about the murder plot, hoping Doña Marina would escape death and marry one of her sons. Instead of going along with the treachery, Doña Marina reported it to Cortés, who set a trap for the indios.

Carlos said, “Bartolomeo de Las Casas, a Dominican monk and one of the great historians of the era, wrote that the massacre was an act of cold-blooded murder, designed to inspire fear and terror through the indio nations. He said Cortés committed the massacre so that the Aztecs would be too frightened to attack them after they heard about it.”

“So which is it, señor?” I asked. “Did my ancestors plot to murder my Spanish ancestors, or did Cortés slaughter thousands of innocent indios in cold blood to terrorize the Aztecs into submission?”

Carlos smiled. “You will find, amigo, that all words of men long dead must be given respect.”