The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico

Chapter 1 transitions from scholarly essay into the main subject matter of Broken Spears: primary source materials written by the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico. In this first chapter, Miguel León-Portilla assembles accounts from a few different sources on the strange omens which presaged the Spanish invasion.

The first passage, “The Omens as Described by Sahagun’s Informants,” is from the Codex Florentino. This 16th-century manuscript was written by Indigenous eyewitnesses under the guidance of their teacher, the Spanish friar Bernardino de Sahagun. The first omen, a “flaming ear of corn,” is spotted in the night sky ten years before the Spanish arrive (4). The next omens involve the destruction of temples: the temple of Huitzilopochtli, a sun and war god, bursts into flames, and the complex of the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli is struck by lightning. Next, “fire streamed through the sky” from west to east in broad daylight—the author describes the outcry of onlookers as resembling the “shaking of a thousand little bells” (5). A lake boils and rises, flooding nearby houses (5-6). Then, a weeping woman is heard wandering the streets of Tenochtitlan at night (a description that echoes the modern Latin American legend of La Llorona, or the goddess Cihuacoatl, whose weeping foretells disaster). After this, a strange black crane with a mirror on its head is captured and brought to the Aztec king, Motecuhzoma II. Although it is daytime, the mirror reflects the night sky and the Aztec constellation of mamalhuatzli. Then the scene in the mirror shifts: Strange people ride across the plain “on the backs of animals resembling deer” (6). Motecuhzoma takes this as a dire omen, but the image disappears before his court magicians can examine it. Finally, “monstrous” deformed men appear in Tenochtitlan—these men, too, disappear under closer inspection (6).

The next two passages are from Diego Munoz Camargo’s Historia de Tlaxcala. Munoz Camargo was a mestizo: his father was Spanish and his mother, Indigenous. His Historia is an illustrated codex of the history of the Tlaxcaltecas, foes of the Aztecs who would ally with the Spanish commander Hernán Cortés and play an important role in the Spanish victory. These passages are, in León-Portilla’s estimation, “obviously […] based on the account by Sahagun’s informants” (7).

The passages from the chapter’s second source, “The Omens as Described by Munoz Camargo,” describe much the same set of dire omens as the previous account, with a few important distinctions. As a Tlaxcalan, Munoz Camargo distances himself from the Aztecs: For example, he describes sacrifices as being made because “this was [Aztec] practice whenever they thought they were endangered by some calamity” (7). Similarly, Munoz Camargo renders the Aztec calendar into Spanish terms (“beginning in the year which the natives called 12-House—that is, 1517 in our Spanish reckoning” (7)), and describes the gods of the Aztecs from a Christian perspective as “demons” worshipped in temples of “idolatry” (8-9). He even translates the Aztec constellation of mamalhuatzli into European terms (“the three stars in Taurus and the stars in the sign of Gemini” (10)).

In the final passage of the chapter, Munoz Camargo shifts to the experience of his own Tlaxcala people. They, too, see signs before the arrival of the Spanish: a “brilliant white cloud” that rises in the east every morning and a whirlwind on the top of a local mountain (11). These signs cause “great dread and wonder, emotions which are contrary to the [Tlaxcalan] bent and to that of their nation” (11).

Chapter 2 covers the first Spanish landings in the New World and the reaction of the king of the Aztecs, Motecuhzoma II. Its three passages all originate from the same source: Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc’s Cronica mexicana. While the Cronica mexicana was originally written in Nahuatl, its only surviving manuscripts are in Spanish.

In “Motecuhzoma Questions the Magicians,” Motecuhzoma orders his officials to fetch magicians from their villages to interpret the omens mentioned in Chapter 1. When the magicians feign ignorance, Motecuhzoma imprisons them and threatens punishment unless they reveal what they know. Finally, the magicians convey a message to the king through his steward (his petlacalcatl): “What can we say? The future has already been determined and decreed in heaven, and Motecuhzoma will behold and suffer a great mystery which must come to pass” (14-15). Motecuhzoma is stunned. He wants to question the magicians further, but his steward finds that they have disappeared from their cells through magical means. Motecuhzoma orders his officials to execute the magicians’ wives and children and destroy their homes.

In “A Macehual Arrives from the Gulf Coast,” a macehual (common man) arrives from the coastal region of Mictlancuauhtla, claiming to have seen mountains floating in the sea. The man had been mutilated at some point before: His ears and toes are missing. Motecuhzoma stores him in prison for safe-keeping and sends his emissaries to investigate; they confirm the macehual’s report, much to Motecuhzoma’s dismay.

In the last section of the chapter, “Preparations Ordered by Motecuhzoma,” Motecuhzoma asks his most trusted chiefs to fetch the macehual but he, like the magicians, has vanished into thin air. Motecuhzoma is “even more astonished and terrified” than his chiefs, though he acknowledges that this is “a natural thing, for almost everyone is a magician” (18). Under pain of his standard punishment (the slaughter of family members, destruction of homes, etc.), he sends his chiefs to find two silversmiths and two lapidaries (stoneworkers). These artisans—who are threatened, too—must make lovely objects for the king in utter secrecy. Pleased with the end product, Motecuhzoma rewards the artisans handsomely (19).

The passages in Chapter 3 are, again, provided by the Nahuatl accounts of Sahagun’s informants, as detailed in the Codex Florentino. They describe the first direct interactions between the Aztecs and the Spanish invaders.

In “Motecuhzoma Instructs His Messengers,” the king transmutes his fear into action. He orders his chiefs to guard the artisanal treasures he has commissioned with their lives; they are to be gifts for the new arrivals, whom Motecuhzoma believes to be the god Quetzalcoatl and his retinue.

In “The Gifts Sent to the New Arrivals,” the Nahua author catalogues the “divine adornments” commissioned by Motecuhzoma (23), fit for otherworldly beings like Tezcatlipoca (chief god of the pantheon), Tlaloc (god of rain), and Quetzalcoatl. They are objects laden with religious significance and include golden masks, shields, helmets, and ritual devices, all encrusted with precious turquoise, feathers, mother-of-pearl, and fine seashells. Motecuhzoma orders his messengers to welcome Quetzalcoatl “home to Mexico” with these offerings (25).

In “The Messengers Contact the Spaniards,” Motecuhzoma’s emissaries meet with Cortés for the first time. The two parties communicate through native translators allied with the Spanish, including La Malinche, an enslaved Nahua woman. When Motecuhzoma’s warriors announce they have arrived from the city of Mexico, the strangers respond with suspicion: “You may have come from there, or you may not have. Perhaps you are only inventing it. Perhaps you are mocking us,” (25). On board the ship, the emissaries kiss the ground before Cortés’s feet and deck him out in the divine finery “with great care” (25). Cortés is not satisfied, asking, “And is this all? Is this your gift of welcome? Is this how you greet people?” (26). The Aztecs confirm that this is all they have.

Cortés’s aggressive behavior escalates in the next section, “Cortés Frightens the Messengers.” He shackles Motecuhzoma’s messengers and orders a cannon be fired. The Aztecs faint in fear. Once they revive, Cortés tells them that he wants to arrange bouts against his men to test their famous fighting prowess. The Aztecs are mortified: They “have come on an exclusive mission to offer you rest and repose and to bring you presents” (28). They fear punishment from Motecuhzoma for fighting their god, but Cortés is unreceptive to their concerns. The messengers flee, refusing to rest until they can report back to the king: “We will tell him what we have seen, and it is a terrifying thing” (28).

At home, Motecuhzoma awaits them in despair (“Motecuhzoma Awaits Word from the Messengers”), wondering “What will happen to us? Who will outlive it? Ah, in other times I was contented, but now I have death in my heart!” (29). He orders two sacrificial victims killed; the messengers—who “had seen the gods, their eyes had looked in their faces. They had even conversed with the gods!” (29)—will be  sprinkled with the sacrificial blood.

In the final section of the chapter, “The Messengers’ Report,” the messengers describe the heart-pounding sensory effects of the cannon—the putrid smoke, its deafening blast—and the damage it inflicts, “a most unnatural sight, as if the [object] had exploded from within” (30). They also detail the appearance of the foreigners: They are covered from head to toe in iron and their faces are unusually white. Their “deer” (that is, horses, unknown in the New World) carry them to and fro, and their dogs are fearsome, “their eyes flash fire and shoot off sparks” (31). Motecuhzoma is “conquered by despair” (31).