Talk:Massacre in the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan

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Is such a literal translation really necessary? It's barely readable to due to its pidgin style, not to mention the spelling errors. ThePedanticPrick 06:27, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • thanks for cleaning it, i translated the spanish version by Leon Portilla, but a direct translation is best :) Nanahuatzin 18:25, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

biased against the Spanish ?[edit]

"But after the festivities had started, Alvarado interrupted the celebration, killing almost everyone present at the festival, men, women, and children alike. The few who managed to escape the massacre climbing over the walls proceeded to inform the community of the treacherous Spaniards' atrocity." These quotes seem to be biased (treacherous Spaniards' atrocity) and lack citations. 2607:F140:400:A010:6520:9617:1B6:79E1 (talk) 17:27, 16 August 2016 (UTC) KoSBA[reply]

This page seems a little biased against the Spanish, don't you think? How about some interpretation for those who would *only* be able to extrapolate that biased perspective? (Unsigned comment apparently made by 199.111.194.239)


The article includes now both the aztec and the spanish version of the incident (at least one of the versions), taken from primary sources. What else do you suggest to eliminate bias?. I started this article becase the aztec version is little known, but there is always room to improvement. Nanahuatzin 18:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it includes "both the aztec and the spanish version of the incident." Too bad they are both unsourced. 80.182.109.55 (talk) 19:14, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Well, I think it should be noted that the manner in which the indigenous narratives were recorded is a little suspicious. It was done through Fransiscan monks by interview many years after the actual event, if I remember correctly, which means you have at least two filters: memory/time and language (possible misunderstandings on the part of the monks). Also, because these interviews took place so much later, it's important to take into account the possibility of an agenda not only on the part of the ingenous/mestizo population, but also on the part of the monks (who definitely had an objective when speaking to their would-be converts). The oral-form narrative is already stylized in other accounts, why not here? What I'm saying is that you have two primary documents, true, but this article lacks interpretation and context. I'm not qualified to do it myself because I'm not an historian, but there are possible emplotments that make the Spanish look less...hmm...evil.

(Unsigned comment apparently made by 199.111.194.239)

Please sign your comments by ending your messages with 4 tildes i.e. ~~~~ --Richard 04:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well in this case there is only one Friar involved , Bernardino de Sahagun. His method involved creating a questionary and sent it to three separated groups of old men, in three different comunities, the responses were written, and then he compared the three version to see if there was any discrepance, if there was any, a new questionary was sent and the new responses were anotated. All this was done in nahuatl by indigenous people. This method promises a much more precise acount that, for example, Bernal Dias, who wrote almost 40 years later, without taking any notes, or learning the native languages. On the other hand there is evidence that tlatelolcas were writing their accounts just seven years after the conquest.
Actually, the opinions of scholars like Shep Lenchek is :"What is most remarkable is that the Aztec account of the Conquest, is almost completely non-judgmental. Although they describe Spanish atrocities in gory detail, it is done factually, with little emotion. … Nowhere in the Aztec accounts of the Conquest do we find any effort to paint the Spaniards as monsters.""
There was some censorship involved in the work of Sahagun, there are two version, the Florentine codex and a later revision, the Madrid Codex. This later was writen for the spanish autorities and depicts the spanish in a more flattery form, while the former, reflect more truly the Nahuas’ historical memory, and is the text used by most historians.
Now, in this specific case, even Cortez agreed that it was wrong... What could be biased is the version by Gomara. Bernal Diaz acused Gomara of praise Cortez too much, that is why i originally did not put it here. but if you prefer Prescot, his acounts differ little. http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moa&cc=moa&xc=1&idno=aba4283.0002.001&g=moagrp&q1=Aztec*&q2=Mexico&q3=Cortes&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=306
the opinion of most author is like this: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9547/9547.excerpt.html
but maybe you are right and this need an analysis, since this was the definitive reason of the Aztec rebelion against thier tlatoani. Nanahuatzin 07:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah well, why would a European chop off a guys arms and then his head? I don't know anyone who would kill someone like that. Or burning that other guy alive? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.36.89.104 (talk • contribs) 24 September 2006.
Perhaps you need to become better acquainted with European (or even American) history then- if you think it is implausible for "Western" cultures to endorse such things, you are mistaken. Quite apart from the Spanish forces' own documentation of how they themselves carried out numerous forms of torture and execution in the New World, at much the same time and carrying on considerably later into the 18th century a number of other unsavoury torture and punishment practices were freely permissable in Europe, and also the nascent US.--cjllw | TALK 01:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistent facts[edit]

"The Spanish version of the incident says the conquistadors interrupted a human sacrifice in the Templo Mayor; the Aztec version says the Spaniards were enticed into action by the gold the Aztecs were wearing. This prompted an Aztec rebellion against the orders of Moctezuma."

However, both versions of the incident shown on this page indicate the latter.



I would like to agree with this comment and bring it to light. The introduction does not agree with the primary source documents. 71.161.146.225 (talk) 01:33, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Spanish version now in the article says nothing about interrupting a sacrifice, and specifies that the Spanish attacked "wanting the gold the Indians were wearing ... and without remorse and lacking any Christian piety, they brutally stabbed and killed the Indians." It makes the current introduction look like nonsense. It would be good, though, to have a source for this version. Colin McLarty (talk) 14:42, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Refreshing non-Eurocentric view[edit]

I do not think the article is biased at all against te Spanish. On the contrary, it's refreshing to see a different account than the centuries old stories of "savage" Aztecs, Maya's etc. doing nothing but mass human sacrifice. Besides, it is more than obvious that at the time the Spaniards were indeed quite brutal: Spanish Inquistion with its professional torture, the mesmerised namegiving of El Dorado to the land after hearing the Natives speak of gold (of religious significance to them as the colour of their sungod but of materialistic meaning to the Spaniards), and last but not least El Requerimiento, in which the Spaniards announced their plans of genocide to the Natives. However, the only thing missing in both of the accounts is the source, appr. date and who wrote them.

Article name[edit]

To conform to Wikipedia's article naming conventions, I think this article might be more suitably called, "massacre in the Tenochtitlán Main Temple". − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 03:03, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Festival to Whom?[edit]

In on this page, it says that the festival is in honor of Huitzilopochtli, however on the Toxcatl page it says the festival is in honor of Tezcatlipoca. Maddeningly, the Spanish language version of this page describes the festival as being in honor of both gods. 24.182.62.35 (talk) 06:51, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fiesta and Patio[edit]

It's pointless to write "fiesta" and "patio" in spanish, being this an english translation of Nahua sources. "celebration" and "courtyard" sound way better. Modern Archaelogy and Linguistics avoid to use Spanish when translating from ancient latin american sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Soparamens (talk • contribs) 20:57, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrite needed[edit]

For the Aztec account, we can't have this long excerpt from a modern history text. This is a copyright violation. Although technically we can do it for the Spanish account because that is no longer under copyright, we shouldn't be just plagiarizing it. Instead, we should rewrite this in our voice, citing these two sources for facts. —howcheng {chat} 18:20, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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