The Lost Diary of Montezuma’s Soothsayer
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CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Message to Readers
February 15th, 1519
March 10th, 1519
March 11th, 1519
March 12th, 1519
March 15th, 1519
March 30th, 1519
April 12th, 1519
June 27th, 1519
June 28th, 1519
August 10th, 1519
September 24th, 1519
October 31st, 1519
November 8th, 1519
November 9th, 1519
November 10th, 1519
November 11th, 1519
November 12th, 1519
November 14th, 1519
November 20th, 1519
November 25th, 1519
December 4th, 1519
January 3rd, 1520
January 5th, 1520
January 22nd, 1520
February 9th, 1520
February 14th, 1520
March 7th, 1520
April 3rd, 1520
May 4th, 1520
May 5th, 1520
May 17th, 1520
June 25th, 1520
June 27th, 1520
June 30th, 1520
July 1st, 1520
The End of the Aztecs
Publisher’s Addendum
Other Works
Copyright
About the Publisher
MESSAGE TO READERS
During a recent holiday in Spain, Clive Dickinson and his family visited a local market. Among the stalls selling fruit and vegetables, clothes, shoes, sunglasses and beachwear, his two children found a stall selling postcards and old books. One particular book was made up of pages stitched together so that it opened up like a concertina. There were no written words. Instead the pages were covered in brightly coloured pictures. It looked like a battered old comic book and so ancient that Mr Dickinson thought it might be a rare treasure – a priceless document. Could it have been something brought back to Spain by the early Spanish adventurers in Central America? Further investigation proved that it was.
Leading experts in the history of America before the Spanish conquest carefully examined the book, or codex, as they called it. Dr Shady Practice and Professor Pulltheotherone confirmed that it dated from the early sixteenth century; the time when Spanish soldiers, traders and missionaries had begun to explore and conquer the New World.
The two historians revealed an even more amazing secret. It appeared that the book was a diary, covering the last years of the Aztec empire during the reign of Montezuma II (or Moctezuma, as his name is sometimes spelt) who was the Aztec king, or Great Speaker. When the diary was translated it told of the arrival of Hernán Cortés and the first Spaniards to the Aztec world.
The diarist seems to have been one of the advisers to Montezuma, who had the job of looking into the future to foretell what might happen.
Extracts from the diary appear here for the first time. They give a remarkable picture of the Aztec world and the coming of the Spanish invaders who would soon conquer it.
Note: The diarist, Guessalotl, used the system of dates in the Aztec farming calendar. This had eighteen months. Each month was twenty days long and there were five days left over at the end of the year. However, to make it easier to follow, the translation printed here uses dates in the Christian calendar.
February 15th, 1519
The second day of the first month of
the Aztec year
I had a nightmare last night. As I lay on my reed sleeping mat wrapped in my cloak, I dreamt I heard a voice saying: ‘Fasten your seat-belt, please, Señor Guessalotl. We’ll be landing in Mexico City soon.’
I’ve had this nightmare before. Perhaps I had too much pulque* at the New Year’s Day party yesterday. I like the taste of pulque but it must do strange things to my head. I’d better watch out. The law is very strict about drinking too much. Only old people are allowed to get drunk. The law says that younger people who get drunk will be sentenced to death. There’s enough sentencing to death as it is and I don’t want to end up as another human sacrifice to the gods – even for the sake of an extra cup of pulque.
That was another thing about my nightmare. There wasn’t any pulque. In fact there wasn’t much that I could recognize at all. I seemed to be sitting in a huge round pipe – like a giant reed, only it was made of a shiny metal, a bit like silver. There were other people sitting around me in rows. We were all facing the same way and the person in front was sitting so close my knees were touching the back of his seat.
But the worst part of the nightmare was when I turned to one side. There was a hole in the side of the pipe. Looking through this I could see the mountains around the city. There was no mistaking them; I’d know them anywhere. The frightening part was that in the nightmare I seemed to be up in the air, flying above the mountains. Even more frightening was what was on the ground. As far as I could see, what looked like a giant map stretched in every direction.
Now I’ve lived in Tenochtitlan* all my life. There’s nothing I don’t know about our capital, the greatest city in the Aztec empire, but what I was looking down at in my nightmare was not Tenochtitlan – no way José (where did I hear that?).
It seemed as if Tenochtitlan had just disappeared. I didn’t recognize a thing. If I’d been a god flying to the city I’d have been completely lost.
Our ancestors built Tenochtitlan on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. There are causeways built above the water that join the city to the shore of the lake. But the causeways had gone and the lake had vanished. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
‘Quite a sight, isn’t it?’ said the nightmare voice again. ‘That’s the largest city on earth down there. Now put your belt on, please.’
Suddenly there was a tight pull across my tummy. I couldn’t move. ‘Oh, no,’ I thought. ‘Someone is really going to cut my heart out with a stone knife this time.’
Then I woke up.
No pulque for me today.
* alcoholic drink made from cactus juice
* Mexico City
March 10th, 1519
I’m still worried about that nightmare. I’ve been having the same one on and off since the beginning of the year.
I was tossing and turning on the floor last night thinking about it. Some very strange things have been going on and I’m not the only person in the empire to have noticed.
I have a bad feeling that soon I might need to remember all the things I’ve been seeing. I’m going to make a list of them here.
1. The Comet
There was that bright star that appeared in the sky. I know it was ten years ago, but I didn’t like the look of it then. Nor did our Great Speaker, Montezuma II – Monty for short. When the other soothsayers told him not to worry about that star, or comet, or whatever it was, he had them all killed. I’m glad I kept my mouth shut.
2. The Burning Temple
When the temple to the goddess Toci burnt down, everyone else thought it was an accident, but not our Great Speaker. He saw it as a warning from the gods. He ordered a whole lot more priests and fortune-tellers to be killed and their families sold as slaves.
3. The Day of the Waves
Then there was that terrible day when the lake suddenly turned into massive waves that bashed down houses by the shore. What made it really scary was that the waves rose up without any wind. They just happened. Montezuma didn’t like that one little bit. By now he thought the gods really had it in for us all.
4. The Nights of Wailing
After that, things just seemed to get worse, as far as I could see. It’s my job to look into the future to find what’s going to happen. There were nights when I didn’t get a wink of sleep because of the non-stop wailing. You don’t have to be a soothsayer to know that wailing is a sure sign of trouble ahead.
5. The Bird with the Mirror
Montezuma got a terrible fright when he was brought that extraordinary bird. It had a mirror in its head – I’ll never forget that as long as I live. (At this rate I’m going to be very busy trying to live as long as possible. Monty is a bit too keen when it comes to offering other people to the gods as human sacrifices.)
When Monty looked into the mirror in this bird’s head he could see stars shining, even though it was daytime. That wasn’t all. He also saw lines of men marching to war, but they weren’t like men any of us had seen before. They were huge – half men and half deer! It still makes me go cold when I think about it.
By now I’d learnt to keep my lips tightly shut. Thank goodness I’m not a nobleman, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do this because my lips would be plugged with heavy gold jewellery.
‘Now look here,’ Monty would say. I wish he wouldn’t say that because no-one is supposed to look right at him. It’s a cut-your-heart-out-up-the-pyramid job for anyone who does. ‘Look here,’ he’d say. ‘What’s all this about?’
I mumbled about having to study the stars to be sure, and then something else would happen and he’d forget he’d ever asked me.
March 11th, 1519
I feel sorry for the peasant who came all the way to Tenochtitlan, from the coast, to tell Monty about the peculiar thing he’d seen. This peasant must have had too much sun or too much pulque, because when he got here he told a crazy story about watching a huge mountain moving through the sea. I can understand why Monty had him locked up. You’ve got to be careful what you say round here. You can’t have people walking round the empire talking about floating mountains.
Whatever next?
March 12th, 1519
I wrote too soon. I had another dream last night. Those floating mountains are real… and they’ve brought gods with them!
I dreamt that gods with pale, hairy faces had landed. Gods with hard metal skins. The wooden-walled mountains they came in are out on the water – our canoes look tiny alongside them.
It must be the god Quetzalcoatl. He has returned, just as the ancient prophecy said he would. In the olden days, Quetzalcoatl disappeared over the water to the east, promising to come back in the year One Reed. This year is One Reed (that’s another thing I know as a soothsayer) and now it looks as if Quetzalcoatl has come back – with a band of servants. Some of the servants are the half-man, half-deer monsters that Monty saw in the bird mirror.
It looks as if all the bad signs meant something. If it is the god Quetzalcoatl, he’ll be coming back here to rule his old kingdom. What’s Monty going to do about that?
March 15th, 1519
Monty is sending a group of important nobles to meet the pale hairy-faced gods. He’s sending me along too. It looks as if I might end up as a sacrifice sooner than I expected.
I’ve never been down to the sea before. I should be as happy as a lizard on a sunny rock, but I’ve got serious doubts about this particular trip to the beach. For one thing it’s a long hard walk for many days through the mountains before the road drops down to the coast. Then, merchants who’ve been there tell me, it’s very hot and sweaty down by the sea.
On top of that, we’ll have to travel through country belonging to people we’ve conquered. Monty has had lots of wars against them, in fact he seems to fighting someone most of the time. Monty makes these conquered people pay tribute to us every year. I don’t think we Aztecs are flavour of the month outside the empire.
Or maybe we are. Some people say you can’t beat a nice piece of prisoner flesh for a tasty snack. The palm of the hand is supposed to be especially delicious.
March 30th, 1519
Well, we made it to the coast. The merchants were right. It is hot and sweaty. Tenochtitlan is high up on a plateau. Days are hot and dry in the city but the nights can be cold. Down here, by the sea, it seems to be hot all the time. But why am I writing about the weather after what I’ve seen today?
I must ask Monty to release the peasant who told him about the floating mountains, unless he’s already had his heart cut out to keep the gods happy. Those floating mountains he talked about are definitely real. I know because I went on one today!
We paddled out in canoes to get to it and down on the water those wooden sides look as high as a temple. Some of the god’s servants helped us climb up onto the mountain where there was a flat surface like the top of a pyramid, but made of wood. Up above, the mountain has tall trees with branches sticking out at the side and ropes everywhere. I’ve never seen so many ropes.
Once we were on the mountain, our nobles straightened their headdresses and went forward to meet the god. The funny thing was that he didn’t look that different from us. OK, his face was whiter and he had hair round his chin, and the skin round the top part of his body was hard and gleamed just like metal in the sun.
But he spoke to his servants in the manner we do, though I couldn’t understand what he said, of course. He moved like we do, too. I thought a god would fly. This god was a bit of a letdown in some ways.
Monty had sent the god some fabulous presents; baskets filled with precious jewels, gold figures, beautiful capes, headdresses, fans with the best green feathers you can find in the Aztec empire. He even sent a complete Quetzalcoatl outfit so that the pale-faced hairy god could dress up to look the way a god should.
The god’s servants didn’t exactly call him Quetzalcoatl, though. The name they used sounded like, Corkscrews… Corpsés… Cortés – something like that.
None of us could understand a word he said. But luckily there was a woman who could speak to the god as well as to us. She said the god called her Doña Marina. Although she was an Indian like us, she must have learnt to speak the language of the gods. So she translated what our nobles said to the god, and what the god said to them.
The god seemed to like the gold presents and wanted to know where he could get some more.
Our nobles asked if the god was going to travel to our capital, Tenochtitlan. He said yes, once he had organized his camp here on the coast. I don’t think Monty will be too pleased to hear that.
Then our nobles pricked themselves with cactus spines to draw blood, the way we always do to be polite to the gods. But this god didn’t like that, especially when he was offered some of the blood in a cup. He started beating the noble who handed it to him with the flat part of the shiny metal stick hanging from his belt. He got really angry, shouting at us that that we shouldn’t touch human blood. But why not?
The next thing we knew, he had us tied up. Then one of the hollow metal tree trunks that shoots fire exploded. I thought a volcano was erupting. The noise was deafening and we all fell down, covered in a cloud of smoke.
The god let us go after that and we paddled off in our canoes as fast as we could. Tomorrow we set off back to Tenochtitlan to tell Monty what’s happened. He won’t like it. I know he won’t.
April 12th, 1519
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