Page:Historia Verdadera del Mexico profundo.djvu/173

armies in shape and take captives, such as those that the Aztecs forced Tlaxcala to undertake.

Weapons, as already noted, do not reflect the scientific advance reached by the ancient grandparents in other knowledge fields. What it implies is their lack of historical and cultural interest in war. A cane with encrusted pieces of sharp obsidian crystals, spears with obsidian tips, sticks with heavy stones on the tip as mallets, and bow and arrow, were the offensive weapons. Defensive weapons were a wooden frame shield covered with skin and feathers, costumes made with reinforced fabric and in some cases of animal shell and bones or leather skin stitched to the blanket. This demonstrates that war was for the Anahuac civilization something very different than for Europeans, Chinese, Indians, Egyptian and Mesopotamian. This point has not been analyzed at a greater depth by investigators, because from the times of Columbus and Cortés, this feature of the invaded cultures was taken as a deficiency and lack of "civilization".

The Pochteca organization and their famous "tamemes" or porters, as well as the market or Tianguis system, was used by the spaniards during the three Colonial centuries and two centuries of "independence", and that somehow survive to the present day. Not only in the indigenous and peasant communities, but in large cities with the "urban Tianguis" and street vendors.

The Mexica Face.

Much has been written about the mexicas. From the so-called "sources" and later by the creoles who have tried to validate their "neo colonial country" project, in a vague and remote indigenous origin. The creoles managed the mexicas image, just as europeans have managed the greeks and romans image, as their most ancient and glorious ancestors.