Broken Spears and the Requerimiento

¶ … Broken Spears and Requerimiento, addressing in particular the common cosmological and social systems in the Spanish and Aztec civilizations (and the reasons behind this), the importance of religion in the Conquest, and the religious practices of both the Spaniards and the Aztecs, in terms of their similarities and differences.

In terms of religion, both the Spaniards and the Aztecs were highly religious people, with the Spaniards believing in one God, through a catholic tradition, and the Aztecs believing in polytheism, with many gods and goddesses being worshipped regularly. Each god and goddess ruled one facet of human actions, or of nature, and the Aztecs believed that to ensure the balance of the world, these gods and goddesses had to be pacified. This led to the origin and practice of human sacrifice, as the Aztecs believed that giving their gods human life (their more valued possession), the gods would look kindly on them, and not get in a rage i.e., cause a natural disaster, or stop the rain.

In terms of the cosmological beliefs of the Aztecs, as is well explained in The Broken Spear, the Aztecs had complex calendar systems worked out, which they lived by. The Aztecs are known to have two calendar systems, the xiuhpohualli which had 365 days, and which described the passing of the days accurately. This calendar was used to record the seasons, and as such was used by the Aztecs to define the solar/agricultural year. The other calendar in use by the Aztecs was the tonalpohualli which was a much more spiritually-oriented, sacred, calendar, and was used by the Aztecs in a divinatory capacity, which divided the days and rituals by the actions of the gods. The Aztecs believed the Universe was in equilibrium, and the tonalpohualli showed the Aztecs how the gods were dividing the time between them.

The Spaniards followed a pretty similar cosmological system to the one we currently use in the West, with navigation being ruled by the charts they had, and by their knowledge of the stars. It could be argued that this was less imaginative than that of the Aztecs, and that perhaps we would still be using the Aztecs xiuhpohualli now, had it not been for the Spaniards conquest (as is argued in The Broken Spear).