Anahuac civilization; during which they degraded and transgressed the Quetzalcoatl’s philosophy and religion.
4. When the conquerors arrived, they exterminated and destroyed almost all the men of knowledge and their codices, the knowledge centers, temples, and all traces of their civilization until its apparent extinction from the new Spanish world.
5. Texts written during the first century of the invasion face the following problems: the Nahuatl of those times was much richer than Castilian Spanish, chief reason why the translation of many ideas and concepts of philosophical, scientific, religious, poetical nature, proved impossible to convey and understand due to the degree of complexity and of the abstraction of the native thought, relative to the primitive european world of the middle ages. Texts written by the conquerors and native converts, were written without any scientific rigor, and were part of allegations to demonstrate their participation and "sacrifices" in the conquest, and to ask for reward or compensation from the Spanish Crown. The missionaries, who described the customs of the defeated peoples, did it in order that other men of the Church could understand native practices and be better able to evangelize the defeated.
“The history of the primitive Anahuac population is so obscure and altered with so many fables (as is that of other peoples of the world), that it is impossible to pin point the truth... Several of our historians wanting to penetrate this chaos, guided by the weak light of conjecture, futile combinations and suspicious paintings, have been lost in the darkness of antiquity and have been forced to make puerile and unfunded narrations" (Francisco Javier Clavijero. 1779)[1]
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- ↑ Francisco Javier Clavijero Echegaray (sometimes Francesco Saverio Clavigero) (September 9, 1731 – April 2, 1787 Veracruz, México), was a New Spain Jesuit teacher, scholar and historian. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish colonies (1767), he went to Italy, where he wrote a valuable work on the pre-Columbian history and civilizations of Mesoamerica and the central Mexican altiplano. He was born in Veracruz (Mexico) of a Spanish father and a Creole mother. His father worked for the Spanish crown, and was transferred with his family from one town to another. Most of the father's posts were to locations with a strong indigenous presence, and because of this Clavijero learned Nahuatl growing up, which would be helpful to him when he became a missionary teacher and historian. The family lived at various times in Teziutlán, Puebla and later in Jamiltepec, in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca.
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