Red City on the Ocean

Chapter 8. The Visit of the Castellan

Both Anacaona and Nuno turned out to be exceptionally capable students. Soon they had used up almost the entire stock of Don Leandro's watermarked paper for drawings and inscriptions, and they could understand each other's language, once foreign, without much effort. While listening to Anacaona, Nuno made notes and drawings, collected them, and clarified things he had not understood before. He decided that later he would rewrite this information on separate sheets in the form of a complete tome of stories and make a separate dictionary with drawings of all the words studied.

From Anacaona's stories he learned that almost thirty years ago, the inhabitants of her country held a Fire Festival ceremony. This is how Anacaona's people celebrated the coming of Xuihpohualli, the new century, according to their calendar.

On the night before the ceremony, the weyitlatoani, the leader of the Mexihkah people, named Moctezuma, had a prophetic dream. In this dream, Moctezuma, surrounded by residents of the capital city of Tenochtitlan, stood in front of the largest pyramid of Huey Teocalli. At the top of the pyramid stood a skinned man. In his hand, he held his own beating heart. Moctezuma and his countrymen were naked. Each was smeared with fresh blood from head to toe. Crocodiles, jaguars, and other animals moved around the people; poisonous snakes crawled under their feet, but these creatures did not harm the people. In the dream, Moctezuma realized the people were protected by the blood applied to their bodies.

"Huitzilopochtli does not take my blood or my heart!" The skinned man from the pyramid shouted. "Quetzalcoatl, the teotl of humanity, wants me to come back! Our blood is Tlaltecuitli, from the teotl of the earth. Our blood is the blood of the teteo, and the teteo don't want to drink it. Tlaltecuitli protects us from the moment of our first breath! Teteo don't drink each other's blood!"

The next day, Moctezuma told his chief adviser, the astrologer and priest, Mazatl, about his dream. From this dream and its details, Mazatl concluded that the Mexihkah should no longer sacrifice people who participated in their festivals because they were no longer ordinary people, they were half-teteo. From that moment, human sacrifices ceased among peoples who believe in the same teteo and followed the same rites, and with that, the internecine wars that had plagued Aztlan for more than a century stopped. A huge state began to develop rapidly, and its inhabitants began to live better and better. Labor and trade brought them more and more prosperity, and then wealth. People lived much longer, and enlightenment spread on a scale never seen before.

Other cities began to join the state of Aztlan, whose altepetls, city-states, followed the same beliefs, and whose festivals were held on the same days as in Tenochtitlan. After all, the capital offered protection for them and allowed for duty-free and open trade throughout the vast lands of Aztlan. Among the newly united territories and cities were altepetls of the Itza people, a great nation of astronomers and mathematicians. Among these peoples, the calculation of time on circular calendars had the same number of days, and numbers were counted in the same manner, but the great culture of these Aztlan neighbors had begun to decline long ago.

Drought was tormenting the country more and more often along with mass diseases. In addition, people were fleeing from the cities, troubles, and civil strife. Joining Aztlan was a salvation for the people of Itza; it put an end to internecine hostility and brought peace and prosperity to the people. After the people of Itza joined Aztlan, the common state reached unprecedented proportions. Now it was washed by Big Water both by the paths of sunrise and sunset. All new lands and islands joined the state, including Amotlaxtlauas. From Anacaona's story, Nuno realized that this was not one island, but many.

"But not all the neighbors celebrated our festivals, and that's why they couldn't join Aztlan," Anacaona continued. "There are many tribes in the Path of Xotl Mikaztli from Tenochtitlan called Iztli Koyotl. These are very angry and scary people. They often manage to unite and attack us. Our warriors take them as captives, and they are made slaves, or those who refuse to become slaves are brought as gifts to the teteo at festivals."