Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs - Camilla Townsend

• This is the first work of history that I've read which has been written by a woman. Starting from page six itself I already see a difference in the narrative that's told! When talking about an Aztec princess demanding to be sacrificed, Camilla Townsend distinguishes that the princess did so out of courage and not in order to appease the gods or keep the universe intact. This subtle way of humanizing actions and specifically actions of a woman is something I haven't noticed in other histories I've read. This makes me think about how many instances in history women may have been misunderstood or misrepresented.

  • Page 14 - Townsend's choice of words to describe "Shield flower's father", who became one of the first Chiefs that challenged the current most powerful chief speaks to how Townsend positions women in her telling of this history.

• Page 17 - "in most places it was men who hunted and woman who gathered... it behooved these women to notice everything in the natural world: they saw that the plants grew from the seeds... that if they gathered seeds from only the bushes that grew the most berries, the next generation of plants would yield more berries. The women told the men what they had deduced, and those men who valued survival listened to them."

  • When I read this last sentence I found myself extrapolating its meaning to other contexts.

• Page 20 -" he who gave the open space it's place, who gave Jaguar night his place, was the black-faced lord, the star faced lord". This reads a lot like Lord Shiva. It is very interesting to see the parallels between a Hindu god and one in Mesoamerica. It's like a religious version of convergent evolution.

• Page 70 - so the Spaniards incorrectly would interpret the Mexica manner of hierarchy transition to be based on legitimacy, however this was inaccurate because in the Nahua world this sequence was based on polygyny.

• Page 73 - "their political organization had long revolved around what a leading historian has called a sort of "cellular principle". That is, no individual human being was considered to stand alone in life but existed only in relation to others; nor did any group exist alone but rather thrived by virtue of their connections with those who surrounded them." this is such a beautiful way to think about interdependence and community.

• Page 98 - this explains a form of erasure of history - whether it was intentional or not.

  
  

  

  
  

• Page 99 - "what Cortés did not want others to realize was that if Malintzin hadn't been there, they could not have succeeded." This is so hard-hitting to realize because it speaks to the millennia of women not getting recognition for their crucial role in how history is written.

• Page 109 -" a year later Cortés made the remarkable claim that Moctezuma had immediately and contentedly surrendered his kingdom to the newcomers, on the grounds that an ancestor of his had gone away generations before, and that he and his people had long expected that his descendants would return and claim the kingdom. I find the way that Cortés made these claims about Moctezuma willingly and easily handing over his Empire to him so astounding and strangely similar to Leopold's conniving tactics to lead people to believe that what he was doing in the Congo benefited Humanity and was "meant to be". And that there was some Divine reason for him to be interfering with the Congo.

• Page 126 - "they had no way to explain the discrepancy between their power and that of their enemies; they had no way of knowing that the Europeans were heirs to a 10,000-year-old tradition of sedentary living, and they themselves the heirs of barely 3,000." Stripped of all other factors in this conflict, like smallpox and other diseases, this is what it comes down to. It is a Time Warp that gave way to Conquest.

• Page 135 - this passage discusses a leading Nahua priest's opinion about his people's mindset on hearing the Christian tenets shared by the Spanish friars. I am really glad that we are able to have a glimpse into his thinking, because of course the Mexica people had gods and higher spirits that were worshiped and respected. It is so disrespectful for the Spanish Friars to believe that these beings were not gods.

  • I also find it significant to note that the Nahua people had separation of church and state, or rather of political rule and religious ideology because the priest - in his response to the friar - acknowledged that the Mexica people are already lamenting the political loss and would rather die than lose their religious beliefs.

  • There is also the part in the book that speaks to the cunning mentality from the Friars that they would have to wait for these priests to die in order to focus their conversion efforts on younger nahua peoples who likely had less forthright beliefs about religion.

  • It is a shame that such beliefs are primarily passed through generations and upon each transition often becomes more diluted. But I must acknowledge that this can sometimes be favorable when there are ideologies that are oppressive that also get passed down Generations.

• Page 144 - in the last few pages I have felt a strong admiration for Malintzin because of her ownership of her circumstance which she was forced into initially, but eventually shaped in a way that could, as much as was possible, benefit her progeny and her people.

• I feel sad for Techuichpotzin who did not have this freedom of choice and whose status as Moctezuma's daughter was weaponized through her body's use as a tactic for Cortés to wield his power and manipulate his image to win the favor of the Spanish king.

• Again, I find it so powerful that Camilla Townsend highlights the experiences of women during this time and geography in History because it sheds light on how powerful women are, and how they have been used to achieve the bidding of men.

• I find it contradictory that conquistadores often remark at the tribalism and infighting that happens in indigenous communities yet the same thing happens in their worlds. It is just a matter of the methods by which it is done. There might be less physical fighting and more verbal demonstrations of control and deception.

• It is said that the same thing one likes about anything becomes the thing that they dislike. This is the way I feel about Townsend's use of indigenous words throughout this book. I really appreciate that we can use the same words that were used by the Mexica people however, it's challenging at times in the book to internalize the events with my broken memory of the indigenous names of those who are mentioned.

• Page 152 - "power was wielded through statements made publicly, gravely, and with ritualistic language, then commemorated on paper." This statement rings true even now.

• Page 176 - Wow. it is impressive to see the globalization that needed to happen to tell the story of Paquiquineo, who is the Algonquian speaking Native American from the Chesapeake area and had ended up in Mexico City in 1564.