Page:Historia Verdadera del Mexico profundo.djvu/49

has gathered many peoples and cultures of the Americas over eight millennia.

"Indeed many of the Toltec
were painters,Codices writers, sculptors,
worked wood and stone,
they built houses and palaces,
they were feather artists, potters...”
“The Toltec were very rich,
were happy,
never had poverty nor sadness...”
“The Toltec were experienced,
used to engage in dialogue with their own heart.
Knew the stars experimentally,
gave them names.
They knew their influences,
they knew well how the sky works,
how it turns..."
(Sahagún informers)^[1]

The ancient history of Mexico can easily be understood, as the Cem Anahuac people shared development, with three major periods: Preclassical, Classical and Postclassical. And with three cultures, all born from the same civilization, which influenced or were the most representative of the development of each period, although not the only ones. For the Preclassical was the Olmec culture, for the Classical the Toltec culture, and Mexica or Aztec culture in the Postclassical.

"A paradigm of any other Tollan (City A.N.) was for Mexicans what was known about Teotihuacan. Its large
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1. Bernardino de Sahagún (1499 – October 23, 1590) was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer participating in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain (now Mexico). He was born in what is now Spain in 1499, travelled to New Spain in 1529, and spent more than 50 years interviewing and documenting Aztec beliefs, culture and natural history. His primary motivation was to evangelize indigenous Mesoamerican peoples and most of his writings were devoted to this end, yet his extraordinary work documenting indigenous worldview and culture has earned him the title “the first anthropologist.” He is best known as the author of La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Espana (in English: the General History of the Things of New Spain, hereafter shortened to Historia General). Historia General is commonly referred to as The Florentine Codex, named after its current location.