Did the Aztecs really think the Spanish were gods?
In grade school, that was the story. The primitive Aztecs wonder at the Spanish sophistication and their white colored skin. Apparently there was a legend about the god Queztlcoatl (below) that when the Aztec civilization began, the Caucasian god sailed away in a raft, or large canoe according to some versions. The day he returned would mark the end of their civilization, or again in other cases, to rule the people as he once did before he was exiled.
Well white-skinned people came back and the Aztecs, and sure enough, the empire fell, but did this story correspond with thoughts of the Aztecs? This is one of history’s mysteries, and perhaps we’ll never know, but Seven Myths of Spanish Conquest by Restall and Elliot did some down talking on the myth.
But before I get into their book, when we review the writings of Cortez and of later Aztec accounts, there is nothing that confirms the Aztecs ever thought the Europeans to be gods. And, according to Restall and Elliot’s book, the conquistadors probably made up the stories to amuse the Spanish royalty – much in the way Herodotus did in The Histories.
Another theory I read about the story was that it was based on the exile of one god-king named Queztlcoatl (names were often borrowed by royalty from their gods) who was exiled from Tula in the 10th Century.
But whether or not the Aztecs thought that Cortez was the returning Queztlcoatl, it’s certainly not what ultimately destroyed the Aztec empire.
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