Interview with Dr. Juan Luna-Cardenas
Juan Luna Cardenas discusses Aztec history and its contributions to North American and European cultures and disputes some of the myths perpetuated by foreign scholars. Dr. Cardenas, an Aztec, has spent fifty years studying Aztec civilization. Most of his research has focused on linguistic analysis of the Aztecs. He has developed a grammar that reveals the structure of the language.
Cardenas disagrees with many of the interpretations and arguments set forth by North American and European scholars. While many have maintained that Aztecs wore no clothes, Cardenas has found that their patterns of dress, which included vests and pants, were mimicked throughout the Americas and, after the conquest, in Europe. Moreover, several Aztec innovations, including the use of cotton and the spindle, contributed to the textile revolution in Britain. Cardenas also discusses the different foods and styles of cooking that Europeans have adopted.
Cardenas then turns to examine the issue of human sacrifice, and he argues that while foreign scholars have been preoccupied with that practice among the Aztecs, they have ignored the human sacrifice and cannibalism practiced by the conquering Spaniards. He offers several examples of the destruction the Spaniards wrought as they conquered the Americas. Cardenas also discusses Aztec conversion to Catholicism and the different ways Aztec culture shaped the religion. Cardenas concludes with a brief discussion of the origins of the Aztecs and their brotherhood with almost all of the indigenous tribes in the Americas.
KEYWORDS
Aztec CodicesAztec Origin Story
Aztec Temples
Aztecs
Black Legend
Canada
Cannibalism
Catholic Churches
Catholicism
Clothing
Codices
Conversion
Corn
Cultural Nationalism
Culture
Food
Fray Bartolome de las Casas
Fray Pedro de Ahuado
French Settlers
History
Human Sacrifice
Indigenismo
Indigenous History
Juan Luna Cardenas
Language
Latin America
Linguistics
Mexica
Mexican History
Nahuas
Nahuatl
Native Americans
Panamerican indigeneity (?)
Philology
Pre-Columbian History
Sacred Architecture
South America
Spanish Brutality
Spanish Missionaries
Syncretism
Tenochtitlan
The Conquest
Tribes