article on Aztecs

[Mel Sanchez]

Nice to see some response to my query on the Vento article.

First of all, I don't consider myself more scholarly than Dr. Vento; I
am a mere high school teacher, teaching every day with little time for
hard core research; and, I don't feel that all college profs are people
with strange ideas.  I just think that Dr. Vento has some ideas that are
way off the beaten path of what I've read from other profs.  Still, I'm
not ready to dismiss what he has to say because I don't know and would
like some imput from some other scholars.

Secondly, I don't know if this journal is still in publication so I'd
like to take maybe one portion at a time and see what you scholars have
to say about each point.  If discussion is encouraging and interest
doesn't wane, we can continue til all points are discussed.

Here's his basic premise:

"they(Spaniards) saw the provincial West producing a kind of
particularism, a fondness for the physical manifestations of the
divinity, a desire to draw near the object of worhsip and possess it.
thus Western piety was less transcendental, more familiar,
materialistic, seeing the human nature of Christianity instead of the
divine."

He later states:
"When they saw monumental works of sculpture with images that were
incomprehensible to them, they quickly projected their own view of
reality and levied accusations of polytheism, formerly levied at them by
Jews and Moslems, on a world they could not understand."

Particlularly about polytheism he asserts:

". . .the cosmogony of (mesoamericans) is seen through science, i.e.,
astronomy and mathematics.  thus , they did not have a religion as we
know religion today., i.e., with dogmatic theology."  Their view "is
more similar to ancient Eastern cultures. ...autochthonous holy men
known by the Spanish as pagan priests were, in fact, astronomers and
sages, who were able to read the esoteric and abstract symbolism of the
writings of codices and sculptured images."

much later he writes:

"They understood the planetary cycles, the interrelationships between
animals, plants and human ecologically balanced in cyclical pattern
nurtured by the enery of the One Supreme Force of Zenteotol. Thus, to
refer to mutiple gods is to project a medieval Western Christian
perception of reality as seen through the worship of hundreds of saints,
virgins and trinities."

Any comments on this point of Dr. Vento?

The next point would be Miktlan as Hell.

TAke care all, Mel