Table of Contents
The Myth of Mesoamerican Superiority vs. The Stone Age
Zunzunegui: Look, number one, the Mexica (Aztecs) did not use headdresses. Headdresses are from the Apaches. The Apaches are 3,000 km north of the Mexica. They didn't use headdresses. The headdresses are used by the "conchero" dancers today in the center of Mexico City, and they have nothing to do with the Aztecs. It's also pure fantasy, pure imagination.
But it's very important to understand one thing, Gus. When the Spanish arrived in America, the Mesoamerican cultures—and I don't know why it hurts people so much to hear this—were Stone Age cultures. To say a culture is from the Stone Age is not an insult; it is a scientific description of the facts. If your weapons and your tools are made of stone and you don't manage metallurgy, well, then you are in the Stone Age. And the case of all Mesoamerican cultures, with the exception of the Purépechas... is just that.
That is, you see, for example, what the Mexica warriors who fight against the Spanish are like. You see the Spaniard with metal armor and a metal sword, and you see the Eagle Warrior with, quote-unquote, feather armor and with a sword... look, they were super deadly, they were tremendous, and they were first-level warriors, but it has obsidian stones glued to a stick. You cannot compare obsidian stones glued to a stick with perfectly tempered Damascus steel used to make a sword.
But of course, they tell us a ton of fanciful stories, right? That here there were already brain trepanation surgeries, and we were about to conquer the galaxy, and there was no malice, no evil, no corruption, no cavities in the teeth. And none of that is true.
Gus: That's what a professor told me.
Zunzunegui: No, that's what they tell us, but what we don't realize is the trap we fall into with this. Because look at the narrative. What I'm telling you is, before the Spanish arrived, or anyone else who might have arrived, we were already at an outstanding level of knowledge. That's not true. We already had impressive scientific development. That's not true either. We had great technological development. That's not true either.
But we tell ourselves we did. We tell ourselves a fanciful story that these Mesoamerican peoples truly were... and better yet, we say we were because we assume that we were Purépechas, we were Mexica, or we were Totonacs, when we are not.
But this idea of "we were the greatest" and we were "at the top of the world" when the worst scum of humanity arrived, which are the Spanish... the diseases, of course they brought diseases, corruption, malice, cavities... but furthermore, they were a bunch of ignorant, savage barbarians. And look, now I love it because they also tell you that all these Mesoamerican cultures were not only the most badass of the badass of the badass, but that there were millions of inhabitants. And then you have to assume that 400 Spaniards—as Diego Rivera said, that Hernán Cortés was deformed, hunchbacked, syphilitic, and misshapen—and you have to assume that 400 deformed, hunchbacked, syphilitic, and misshapen Spaniards conquered millions of these perfect peoples. It just doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. The technology they tell us existed here didn't exist, nor did the number of inhabitants they tell us existed.
Technological Differences: The Yoke of Oxen
Zunzunegui: Suddenly they tell us, "Ah, there were 25 million here." It's not true. A Stone Age culture does not feed 25 million inhabitants, because you need technology even to feed people. Do you know what the biggest technological revolution the Spanish brought was? One might think of their ships... the yoke of oxen.
The yoke of oxen is the biggest technological revolution that the Spanish bring to the Mesoamerican peoples. That is, some oxen, the yoke, and a plow. Because before the Spanish, how was agriculture done here? With the coa. The coa is a wooden stick that has another piece of wood to rest your foot on. So, you stick the stick in the ground, lean on it to make a hole, drop in a seed, cover the hole, take a step, and again with the coa. There is no way to feed 25 million with that.
You imagine these peoples when they see Iron Age technology. And then you have a yoke of oxen... with an iron plow that is breaking up the earth in its path and that can plant 20 times more. If you have that type of agriculture, you can feed 25 million inhabitants. If not, you can't.
But we also have to understand that the technological and scientific situation of America is a result of America's own circumstances. If you go to the Old World, you have to realize that it's this great continental mass called Eurasia, where from China to Spain, all cultures have been in contact for 4,000 years. There are the famous Silk Roads... And of course, when cultures have economic, political, warlike, commercial, bacteriological contact, those cultures grow faster. They share ideas, share weapons, share technology...
And we must recognize that since the end of the Ice Age, 15,000 years BC, the American continent was isolated from the rest of the world. So the Mesoamerican cultures grew in absolute solitude... the cultures of the central highlands of Mexico... they don't have contact with the Mayan world. And this Mayan world and this Nahuatl world don't have contact with the Inca world. And these three worlds—Inca, Maya, and Nahuatl—are isolated from the rest of humanity. Their capacity for scientific, technological, philosophical, and cultural development is much more limited. Not because they are more limited people, but because they have circumstances that limit them.
Who Was Hernán Cortés?
Gus: Where exactly do the Spanish arrive? Because some say they arrived in Veracruz, others say they arrived in Yucatan.
Zunzunegui: Well, they arrive everywhere. But it's worth starting there too, because suddenly when they talk to us about Hernán Cortés and the conquest, I've realized that there are people who think that one day the King of Spain, Charles V, woke up wanting to conquer and said, "Eh, lad Cortés, well, I charge you with crossing the Atlantic and screwing all the Mexicans who have a shit-ton of gold." None of that happened.
This is all an adventure, spontaneous, on the fly. Hernán Cortés is a man who left Spain... in 1504. He is 18 years old. What does an 18-year-old kid have? Nothing. He's going on an adventure to see what he finds... We must remember that by 1504, they haven't really arrived in America yet... Columbus arrived in what is today the Bahamas, and it took them 20 years to leave the Caribbean. Hernán Cortés arrives at 18 years old in Santo Domingo...
Gus: 18 years old back then, you're already an adult.
Zunzunegui: Ah, no, of course not... Hernán Cortés entered university at 14, which is also very important to say because we love... this idea that the more shit we throw at Hernán Cortés, the more patriotic we are. So we like to say, like Diego Rivera, that he was deformed, hunchbacked, syphilitic... but we like to say he was ignorant, savage... Look, Hernán Cortés was born to noble families... Impoverished nobles, that's what Hernán Cortés's families are.
But... he has a lot of contact on his maternal side with the orders of chivalry... you learn to ride a horse from a very young age, you learn fencing... But also... there are many university professors. So Hernán Cortés... is a man who knows how politics works... and who goes to university. He studies at the best university of his time, which is the University of Salamanca. He studies law... And by the time he arrives in Santo Domingo at 18, well, he has a bachelor's in law, he's a notary, he knows how to read and write Latin and Spanish, of course.
Hernán Cortés arrives in a Santo Domingo where there are about 2,000 Spaniards living. That's all there is. 2,000 Spaniards and maybe 100,000 Taíno Indians. Hernán Cortés falls in love with a Taíno woman, goes to live with her, has a daughter with her. That is, in reality, he is enchanted by the Indian culture from the beginning...
Gus: With the Indians of India?
Zunzunegui: Ah, with the Indians of India. No, no, no. Well, of course... Christopher Columbus was supposedly looking for how to get to India... And in the end, he ran into America. But that's why in Spain... they called America "The Indies." Hence, the inhabitants of America were... called "Indians"... Uy, today that causes a lot of conflict. "Don't call them Indians." Well, okay, "indigenous." "Don't call them..." Today everything is offensive. And, okay, what do I call them? "Amerindians."... Or this bullshit of today, "original peoples" (pueblos originarios). There are no original peoples. All human groups eventually arrived from somewhere else and settled...
But well, the point is that Hernán Cortés is the first to understand one thing, which is: we have to learn to get along with these people. One, well, because they live here... and because since they live here, they already know how to live here... It's Hernán Cortés who tells them, "Gentlemen, we have to learn to cultivate what they cultivate and eat what they eat... and trade with them."... For which, the first thing Hernán Cortés does... is learn the local language. He learns the Taíno language, gets along very well with them...
Hernán Cortés is going to organize an expedition in 1518. What they don't tell us is: it's a personal enterprise. Hernán Cortés organizes it with his money... he invested all his money in the expedition that today we call the conquest. In what? Well, in buying 11 ships... and in paying the entire crew. And look, Cortés puts about 500 people on his 11 ships: 400 Spaniards and about 100 Indians...
Gus: What was the call to go to the New World like?
Zunzunegui: "Look, there are more and more legends that... there is a great civilization, and we are going there. Who wants to come?" ...Besides, it seems Hernán Cortés had a particular charisma, and people followed him. And here comes Hernán Cortés, but as a private enterprise. He pays the people, he buys the ships, he pays for the food, he buys the horses. And when you see what things Hernán Cortés brings, you realize it is not an expedition of conquest... to pretend that 500 people can conquer a world is ridiculous.
But furthermore, 500 people without weapons. Because of these 400 Spaniards and 100 Indians who come with Cortés, they bring 12 horses, 12 crossbows, 12 arquebuses, and 12 cannons. That is nothing. That is not an army... That is a group of 500 adventurers seeing what they find. And look, they have a mission, which is to see what they find, explore, and return to give news. That is what Cortés doesn't do... as Cortés realizes what's there, he decides, "We are not going back." But when you see what Cortés brought on his ships... what does he bring? He brings donkeys, chickens, pigs, seeds, cereals. What does this tell you? This is an expedition that seeks to establish itself. They are not conquerors. They are people looking for a place to settle.
Alliances, Not Conquest
Zunzunegui: And well, Cortés encounters different peoples. And another thing that is very important to remember: Hernán Cortés always goes with peace agreements first... thanks to a Spanish castaway, Jerónimo de Aguilar, who had been shipwrecked here for 10 years... And later with the famous Doña Marina, Marina or Malinche, right?
Gus: How did that Spaniard end up there?
Zunzunegui: ...There was an expedition... in 1511, heading to Jamaica, and that ship ran into a hurricane and sank, and the entire crew died except for two people: Gonzalo Guerrero and Jerónimo de Aguilar... they were captured by the Maya and made slaves... You have Jerónimo de Aguilar, who is a friar... who always said... "they will rescue me"... 9 years later, when Cortés arrives, he says, "Let's get out of here." The other, Gonzalo Guerrero, is a man who acclimates... eventually, he went from being a slave to being the right-hand man of the tribe's chief... and ends up becoming a chieftain himself...
But Hernán Cortés always goes with peace treaties. He signs peace with the Totonacs... he signs peace with the Cempoaltecans. He heads towards Tlaxcala because he hears this news of the great Moctezuma and the Mexica and their great empire, and that all the peoples are subjugated by the Mexica, and that they are very angry with the Mexica... He says, "Well, let's go to Tlaxcala." And with Tlaxcala, he also signs a peace alliance...
Gus: But does he arrive and offer something? Offer money?
Zunzunegui: No, what money? He doesn't have money... No. Hernán Cortés... when he discovers everyone hates the Mexica, what he sells them is a story. Look, he's a salesman, he's a great improviser, because he suddenly starts telling a story more or less like this: "I come from the other side of the ocean... I was sent by the most powerful king in the universe, Charles V... My king, Don Charles V, sent me here because he found out about... the injustices of Moctezuma, and he sent me to put things in order."
Gus: Did they see them as extraterrestrials or what?
Zunzunegui: I think so. They say, "Look, they have weapons we've never seen, clothes we've never seen... And this bastard who leads them says he comes to free us from Moctezuma." And they say, "Well, let's go."
And most importantly: "Hey, do you eat hearts?" "No." "Well, let's go." Because we suddenly forget the theme of human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism. And we forget that just 30 years before Cortés's arrival, in 1487, the Templo Mayor (Main Temple) of the Mexica... was inaugurated. And at the inauguration, 20,000 people were sacrificed. Of course, the Mexica don't sacrifice Mexica. The Mexica sacrifice all the other peoples. 20,000 people were sacrificed in 4 days... When Cortés is making his journey, those who lost children, brothers, sisters, fathers, or mothers in that bestial sacrifice... are still alive. The resentment against the Mexica is greater than ever. And Hernán Cortés is telling you, "I am going to free you."
...The Tlaxcalans receive them with war. And after three days of confrontations, when the Tlaxcalans have already measured Cortés's forces, then they send an ambassador to negotiate peace...
But in the end, Cortés won't only ally with the Tlaxcalans. When Tenochtitlan falls—this is very important to be clear about—August 13, 1521, Tenochtitlan falls. Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Mexica, the only city of the Mexica, falls to an army of 100,000 warriors. 100,000 warriors. Only 1,000 are Spaniards. The other 99,000 warriors are indigenous. Tenochtitlan does not fall to the Spanish. Tenochtitlan falls to Texcocans, Tlaxcalans, Huejotzincas, Cholultecans, Totonacs, Purépechas, Xochimilcas... everyone joins Cortés to defeat the Mexica. In my opinion, that fact alone should be enough for us to at least ask ourselves if maybe the Mexica are the bad guys in the story.
The Fall of Tenochtitlan and the Technological Reality
Gus: How many Mexica were there?
Zunzunegui: Look, if we talk about that Mesoamerica... there must be about 10 million inhabitants. And there are about 200,000 Mexica... The Mexica civilization has 3,000 years of history... And the terrible way they teach us the history of Mexico is that we take 3,000 years of Mesoamerican civilization... and summarize them all into the Aztecs, into the Mexica. The Mexica are appearing in the Valley of Mexico in the 13th century... They are a people of desert shamans who invade Mesoamerica, conquer it, subjugate it, plunder it, impose human sacrifice...
Gus: So the Mexica don't live in all of America?
Zunzunegui: They live in Mexico City... They inhabit one city on Lake Texcoco: Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco. And that's it. All the others are other peoples... And all those peoples ally with Cortés against the Mexica. 100,000 warriors take the city. Imagine. Of course, 100,000 warriors destroy the city, because they are 100,000 warriors from peoples who have been oppressed by the Mexica for 100 years.
Gus: Okay, but those 100,000 people used weapons that came from Spain, cannons, all that?
Zunzunegui: ...Practically every Spaniard, yes, has his sword. But look, a Spaniard's steel sword is a bit more powerful than the Mexica's obsidian sword, but a bit... The Mexica are formidable warriors... If they give you a good blow with their obsidian sword, they split you in two. The battles of the conquest were hand-to-hand... They bring 12 arquebuses. 12... It's one of those bullet-by-bullet ones... you shoot. Let's say you hit one. And here come all the others... And they have 12. They have 12 or 13 crossbows... 12 cannons. But all this... depends on gunpowder. And the Spanish no longer have gunpowder... The combats of the conquest are hand-to-hand.
Gus: And how long did that battle last?
Zunzunegui: Well, the battle as such lasts practically two months... No, no. The Great Battle is August 13, 1521. What there is is a siege. Tenochtitlan... is a city on a lake, an island in a lake... Cortés met with... Moctezuma on November 8, 1519. And Moctezuma received Cortés... and for 7 months, the Spanish lived in peace in Tenochtitlan... they understood that they were in a trap... But they also understand that if they manage to get out, the Mexica are in a trap, because an island is easy to besiege.
But what happens? There is no naval technology here. What do the Spanish do when they... take refuge in Tlaxcala? They teach the Tlaxcalans to build European-style ships. So, between Spaniards and Tlaxcalans, they are going to build 13 ships... they assemble them and launch them into Lake Texcoco. So what you have is a naval siege... with the strategy of... that you surrender from hunger. Until the Tlatoani Cuauhtémoc makes a tremendous decision, which is: "I'd rather allow my people to die of hunger than surrender." But since nobody likes to die of hunger... people began to desert... Until Cuauhtémoc tried to flee, and when he tries to flee, he is finally captured. August 13, 1521. So that is the end of a two-month siege... And again, who takes Tenochtitlan? 99,000 indigenous warriors.
Gus: Okay, and the ships, how long did it take them to make them?
Zunzunegui: In about 7 months... Look... the Mexica and the Tlaxcalans are fighting over the two halves of Lake Texcoco. That is the extent of their power... Spain and Portugal are fighting over the two halves of the planet. You cannot compare those cultures... That is the technological distance that exists.
Falsifying History and the Victim Mentality
Gus: What you're telling us goes completely against what they've taught us. That's why... you have the book "Falsifying History." Why "Falsifying History"?
Zunzunegui: History has always been falsified. Because look, power... means that I have control over you... And history is... one of the best ways to get into the minds of the people. Because look, there are countless Mexicans deeply pissed off at Spain, at the Spanish, at Hernán Cortés, at La Malinche... If you are one of those pissed-off Mexicans... you are destined to be frustrated for the rest of your existence, because you are fighting with reality... You are ready to raise your left fist very high and join any cause... And most importantly, when you have doubts like, "And why are we poor?"... there are two options. The mature response... The only logical answer is: because we, the Mexicans, have screwed it up...
The immature version... is: "Ah, the fucking Spanish!" All my problems are not my fault; they are always someone else's fault. Blaming Hernán Cortés doesn't solve anything... That's what we do in Mexico: blame the past. And this leads us to this narrative that... we tell ourselves the story of a professional victim. Nothing is our fault. Everything is the other's fault. There is always a conspiracy. The world is against us. "It's Cortés," "It's La Malinche," "It's the Spanish,"... "It's that Santana sold the territory," "It's that the damn Gringos don't want us to develop,"... "It's fucking Porfirio Díaz,"... "It's Donald Trump," "It wasn't a penalty." Nothing is our fault.
When are we going to get ahead with that mentality? ...It's the eternal discourse that the entire "Woke" culture has today. Anything I don't succeed in is everyone's fault but mine.
The Prosperity of New Spain vs. Independent Mexico
Gus: Okay, 200 and a bit years... the country was born in 1821... from the so-called Independence... that's where we started to screw it up...
Zunzunegui: Imagine this. Place yourself in this year: 1794. The war of Independence... started in 1810... you'd say, "Well, by 1794, the situation here must be terrible."... Well, in 1794, Mexico City was one of the most prosperous cities in the world. It was more prosperous than Madrid itself, the capital of Spain. Look, in a relationship of conquest, that is impossible... If Mexico City is more prosperous than Madrid, it's because this is not a colony. This is an integral part of the Spanish empire.
That's why we speak Spanish... That's why we have... the charrería... The charros come from Spain. Tequila is a distillation process that comes from Spain. The typical costumes of Chiapas... are from Andalusia... Half of our gastronomy comes from ingredients from Asia that come via the Nao de China (Manila Galleon)...
What happened after Cortés were 300 years of cultural integration. By 1794, nobody in New Spain... was looking for independence. Nobody... By the way, slavery was prohibited by Isabella the Catholic in 1504... So when they come out with the bullshit that Hidalgo abolished slavery... that's more or less what Hidalgo did.
Mexico, New Spain, was one of the most prosperous kingdoms in the world... By 1794, the salary of a day laborer... allowed him to buy 2 kilos of meat. I want to see who buys 2 kilos of meat today with the minimum wage. That is to say, in that New Spain, people lived very well. Mexico City was at the level of London, at the level of Paris... Suddenly, we become independent, and we are a poor, miserable, fucked up, disorganized country that the Gringos, in less than 25 years of our birth, screwed us out of half the territory. What happened then? ...I challenge anyone... to name a single country in Hispanic America... that has done well after Independence. Not one. Not one... Or the immature version that we have: "The fucking Spanish stole so much from us that 200 years later, we are still poor." That is a lie.
The Myth of Stolen Gold and Cortés as a Hero
Zunzunegui: "Ah, the gold that the Spanish stole from us." ...Number one, when the Spanish arrive in this America, there is no mining here... The little gold there is here comes from the Mayan Zone... gold is not extracted here... So if there is no mining activity here, and I arrive and start mining activity and extract silver, I am not impoverishing you...
...when the Spanish arrive, economic activities are generated that simply did not exist here: large-scale agriculture, cattle ranching... silversmithing, goldsmithing... Developing new economic activities is not stealing; it is generating wealth. So these Spaniards... that which they extract is not sent to Spain... They are Spaniards who arrived and stayed to live in the 16th century and had children, and those children are our great-great-grandparents. We are descendants of the Spanish. We are not descendants of the Mexica...
Think of any cathedral, the one in Mexico City. It took 300 years to be built... The first stone... was laid by Hernán Cortés in 1524... The cathedral was inaugurated in 1813. 250 years of construction... The existence of a cathedral that took you 200 years to build tells you that there is no conquest... You know you won't see it finished... But you start building it. Why? Because you live here. Because this is your home...
Gus: Hernán Cortés, how many times did he go to Spain?
Zunzunegui: Look, Hernán Cortés... Tenochtitlan falls in 1521. Hernán Cortés lived here from 1521 to '24... In 1528, he went back to Spain... he went to... protest that there were inquisitorial trials in New Spain because they had burned an indigenous chief... Cortés goes to protest, to say, "Hey, these people weren't Christian last week... You can't burn them." ...He returns here to Mexico... in 1530. He will live here from '30 to '40. And in those 10 years, he will build ships, organize these expeditions to the Philippines, he will discover California, he will plant vineyards... In 1540... he goes to Spain again... Charles V no longer gave Hernán Cortés an audience... he died in Seville in 1547. And in his will, he said he wanted his remains to rest here. And here they are.
Gus: But they said he went to Spain like 11 times?
Zunzunegui: No. Two times. Two times... Hernán Cortés lived more time here than in... Hernán Cortés left Spain at 18 and never wanted to return...
Gus: Hero or villain?
Zunzunegui: Absolutely a hero. And I'll tell you the simplest version of why... Hernán Cortés is the man without whom you and I and everyone listening to us would not exist. Mexico is a mestizo (mixed) country. We speak Spanish. 90% of the population is Catholic... We would have none of that without Spain. The little Virgin, God, Jesus, the cathedrals... the charrería, tequila, mezcal, the "Magical Towns," our gastronomy, everything.
Language, Identity, and the Virgin of Guadalupe
Zunzunegui: ...some who hate Spain think that the one from Spain is a different Spanish. Look, it's exactly the same Spanish... It's the same language. We speak Spanish from California to Argentina and to Spain. 550 million people speak the same language.
Gus: And why isn't the "vos" used here in Mexico?
Zunzunegui: That has a lot to do with what type of Spaniards arrived in Mexico... that mix of the Andalusian with what the Canarians speak... those are the ones who arrive on the Mexican coasts. And that is the Spanish... we speak here...
But it also tells us very beautiful things, because the Spanish we speak in Mexico has many Nahuatl words and many Mayan words. Just as the Spanish spoken in Spain has many Arabic words... If the Spanish we speak in Mexico has words that come from Nahuatl, it's because the Spanish here took those words. And you don't take the words of a people you despise...
In 1492, the grammar of the Spanish language was published in Spain... Well, all this to tell you that the second language with a written grammar is Nahuatl. The next is Mayan, and the next is Quechua from Peru. Grammars of the languages of the indigenous peoples developed by the Spanish friars. Why would you take the trouble to try to understand the language of a people you despise...?
...The Spanish who lived in New Spain in the 16th century... spoke Nahuatl. The language that was predominantly spoken here was Nahuatl... By 1565... 20,000 Spaniards live here. 20,000 Spaniards and 8 million Indians. What conquest? ...Here in New Spain, there was never an army. Everyone here is happy... Together, they built Mexico...
If you go out on the street and ask 100 Mexicans... "Hey, what do you like most about Mexico?" What are they going to tell you? They'll talk about the music, the gastronomy, the charrería, they'll talk about the cathedrals... the sacred art... the "magical towns." All of that is viceregal.
Gus: Even the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Zunzunegui: Even the Virgin of Guadalupe, of course.
Gus: But didn't they say the Mexican invented her?
Zunzunegui: Look, we Mexicans love to think that we invented everything. But in the year 1326... in a town in Spain called Guadalupe, the legend counts that the Virgin appeared... she appeared, if you believe in that, in Spain in 1326. Not to Juan Diego... 200 years before Juan Diego, in Extremadura, the region where Hernán Cortés comes from. And the Virgin of Guadalupe is the patron saint of Extremadura... They bring their image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and begin to worship... here.
When here, the peoples here already have a cult of many gods. But there exists, on the hill of Tepeyac, the cult of Tonantzin, the mother of the gods. And that cult of Tonantzin is what is going to be assimilated, joined, mixed with the Guadalupano cult that the Spanish bring. And it becomes the little Virgin of Guadalupe from here... Our little Virgin of Guadalupe is not Spanish, but she isn't Indian either. She is mestiza. She is both things. Our little Virgin makes it perfectly clear to us that we are Indians and Spanish. That is, mestizos.
Sacrifice, Evangelization, and Mestizaje
Gus: And the Mexica had other gods, you say?
Zunzunegui: Yes, of course. The tutelary god of the Mexica is Huitzilopochtli. And Huitzilopochtli... is the God who demands human sacrifices. And it is precisely the human sacrifice... that makes all the peoples subjugated by the Mexica sick to death of the Mexica... The Mexica sacrifice daily... Hearts are extracted here daily... The Mexica maybe take 10,000 hearts a year. 10,000 hearts a year.
I love it when we say, "Ah, but the fucking Spanish brought the Inquisition." Do you know how many people the Inquisition executed in New Spain? Four. Four. Four. Four Indians... and like 20 Spaniards. Four. Four is a bad day for the Aztecs. The Aztecs kill dozens of people a day. I don't know why we tell ourselves they are the good guys in the story...
...we never think that after the so-called Independence, nobody set about dismantling cathedrals to build pyramids again. Why? Because we were happy with that. I still don't see anyone today who, in an act of historical justice, rips out their son's heart to give it to Huitzilopochtli. I don't see anyone today... [who] repudiates the little Virgin of Guadalupe and Jesus because the Spanish brought them to us... We must understand that there was a cultural fusion here...
In 1524, the first friars arrive... 12 Franciscan friars. These 12 friars, imagine that 12 people have the task of evangelizing a territory with 8 or 10 million inhabitants... What did the Spanish friars do? A very interesting thing. The first is that they understand: religion cannot be imposed or forced... religion has to be something of conviction. So we have to convince these people of our religion. And what these friars understand is, "For me to be able to convince these people of my religion, I first have to understand theirs." ...The problem... is that these people speak Nahuatl... What do these Franciscans do? "Well, we have to learn Nahuatl... so that these people, in their language, can explain their religion to us. And once we understand their religion... we can see how it resembles Christianity and see how, in Nahuatl, we can teach them Christianity." It is a jewel. It is a jewel of cultural integration...
We love dramatic stories. We want to turn everything into a tragedy. So we call this "the spiritual conquest." ..."They snatched our original cults from us." And again: today you can rip your heart out if you want, but you don't. Why? Because you don't believe in Huitzilopochtli. Period. But you do believe in the little Virgin. And you do believe in God. And you do believe in Jesus. Well, you owe that to the Spanish...
I always say that there was a beautiful process of mestizaje (mixing) here. Then they tell me, "Yes, because they raped them all." I say, "Of course, of course. 400 Spaniards raped 5 million women. No fucking way." ...It's monumental bullshit, like thinking that 12 friars imposed religion on 8 million people. We tell ourselves tragic stories. The Spanish who arrived 500 years ago are our ancestors, just like the indigenous people who were here... If you are alive today, it is because your ancestors survived... It means your ancestors are not Mexica. Your ancestors are either Spanish or Tlaxcalan, Texcocan... We are children of conquerors. I don't know why we love to tell ourselves that we are the product of a conquest when we are the product of union and triumph.
Aliens and Pyramids
Gus: How possible was it that there was contact with extraterrestrials in those years? ...the guide was giving us the tour and said that there was extraterrestrial activity here.
Zunzunegui: No, well, look... guides at archaeological sites all over the world love to involve extraterrestrials... "If I learned anything from the History Channel, it's that if something is old and big, aliens must have fucking made it." That detracts a lot from ourselves...
Gus: So you don't think so?
Zunzunegui: I'm not going to rule it out... there isn't a single piece of proof that there are aliens... but in an almost infinite universe, the possibility of intelligent life is almost infinite... What I can tell you is that the pyramids of Teotihuacan are older than what they tell us. Those of Egypt are older than what they tell us. I don't know if extraterrestrials are involved or a humanity before ours is involved.
Should Spain Apologize? Hispanic Identity
Gus: Should Spain ask Mexico for forgiveness?
Zunzunegui: Look... Mexico demanding apologies from Spain is an attitude as stupid as that of the... 12-year-old... who yells at his father, "I didn't ask you to be born, bastard!" Look, that's how fucked up it sounds when Mexico demands apologies. Because if Spain hadn't arrived in America, Mexico wouldn't exist. It's that simple...
There is only one Mexico. This one... This only Mexico that exists... is the result of everything that happened, happening. It is the result of Cortés did arrive... and they did defeat the Mexica. So if you think you are a Mexican patriot... "Long live Mexico... but I wish the Spanish hadn't arrived," I tell you: "Look, you love a product of your imagination. You love the Mexico that never existed."
And in Spain, how do they see Hernán Cortés? As a villain too?
Zunzunegui: No. We tell that story badly on both sides of the ocean... In Spain, they tell the story with a lot of guilt. In Spain, they suddenly buy into the story of, "How horrible, what we went to do in America."
I'm going to tell you what Spain did in America: 300 cities, cathedrals, temples, hospitals, schools, universities. Free hospitals. Free universities. Aqueducts. Where is the destruction? Where is the conquest? Where is the gold they stole? 300 cities, Gus... Querétaro, Zacatecas, Puebla... That was desert. That was nothing. That is not something conquered; it is something built from scratch...
Today, 360 direct descendants of... Moctezuma live in Spain. Moctezuma's children went to live in Spain, received titles of nobility in Spain, married noble people from Spain, and stayed to live in Spain until today. Where is the conquest? ...We built a very beautiful civilization during those 300 years. We built what is now Mexico...
I love it, right? That you can... enjoy the mariachi with your charro hat on, and curse the Spaniard's mother. The charro suit comes from Salamanca, Spain. The charro hat comes from Spain. The horses... come from Spain. All the tricks of the charrería come from Spain. Every instrument played in the mariachi comes from Spain. And the mariachi sings in Spanish. Okay. We have to realize that...
Spain has always been called the "Madre Patria" (Motherland). And I usually say that Spain is not the Motherland. Spain is the "Padre Patria" (Fatherland). The mother is America. And look how beautiful: Spain is the father, America is the mother. And the child is you and me. The child is Mexico. The child is this beautiful mestizaje that we are...
People tell me, "Well, go to Spain then."... "You only speak well of Spain." I say, "Don't get confused. I'm not speaking well of Spain... I am speaking well of Mexico. Because you can't curse your mom's and dad's mother and not take half the curse yourself... That's the story we tell ourselves in Mexico. "I love Mexico, I just wish it had been different." Then you don't love Mexico... If we repudiate the Spanish, we repudiate ourselves. There is no other way.
The Consequences of the Narrative
Zunzunegui: This is the summary of our history... "...your bastard father crossed the ocean, raped your mother, stole her gold, and left." That's the story we tell ourselves. Instead of understanding: "Your adventurous father... crossed the ocean, met your mother, and stayed here with her." That is Mexico. Our father crossed the ocean and stayed here with our mother. And here we are... repudiating that history... is repudiating ourselves. We are never going to get ahead with the story we tell ourselves.
Gus: Yes, because if it's not Hernán Cortés, it's Porfirio Díaz.
Zunzunegui: It's Porfirio Díaz, it's La Malinche, it's Donald Trump, it's the Gringos, it wasn't a penalty... Someone else is always to blame for our misfortunes. Never us. What chances do we have of getting ahead? None... we console ourselves by saying that misery is good... "I'm poor, but honest."...
What do you think started to go rotten in Mexico?
Zunzunegui: When you have a story that tells you that you are the product of the worst conquest and the worst defeat... what do you have left? Well, to screw others over (chingar)... "Why are we gandallas (abusive/opportunistic)?" "Because if not, how else?" ...And so we give ourselves a ton of excuses to, on the one hand, say that we are poor but honest, but on the other hand, be very fucking gandallas. And he who is gandalla is not honest... if you have this frustration of thinking that life owes you... you don't look for who did it to you, but who will pay for it.
The Case of Porfirio Díaz
Gus: Okay. Well, I'd like to finish this chat... we already talked about... Hernán Cortés. But... this character who is also... I think the second most hated, which is Porfirio Díaz. Do you also think he did good or bad?
Zunzunegui: Another one we know almost nothing about. Look, Porfirio Díaz was born in 1830, as indigenous as Benito Juárez... just like Benito Juárez... he was in the Liberal party... he was a liberal all his life. And alongside Benito Juárez, he fought the empire of Maximilian. And yet, Juárez is good and Díaz is bad. Oh, man. Why?
...That man risked his life in 37 battles for this country. And after that, he became president in 1876 until he resigned in May 1911. And in those 35 years, what happened? What Mexico does Porfirio Díaz take? The Mexico... in 1876 has 10 million inhabitants, has been at civil war since it was born... it has an unpayable foreign debt, it has one single bank, there isn't a single train. That is, it is a Mexico in a situation of misery... The first thing Porfirio Díaz does is establish order and peace. A violent peace, of course...
What happened during the Porfiriato? Porfirio Díaz brought telephones, telegraphs, cinemas, theaters, symphony orchestras, opera, steel mills... 36,000 km of railway tracks, 32 banks, he paid the external debt... 4 million [children] are in school... the National University of Mexico is created. Porfirio Díaz did all of that. All of that.
The curious thing... is that Porfirio Díaz, the man who brought peace, order, progress... is the bad guy in the story. Francisco Madero, the naive, megalomaniacal narcissist convinced he was the savior of Mexico... who... destroyed 35 years of progress, he is the good guy. Because Francisco Madero... what did Francisco Ignacio Madero do for Mexico? Nothing... he put all his brothers in the government, it was first-rate robbery... "Oh, but he is the apostle of democracy." ...Madero stages a coup d'état and removes Porfirio Díaz. And what they don't tell us: with Gringo money, Gringo orders, Gringo organization and financing. Madero's Mexican Revolution is an overthrow organized by the United States. Francisco Madero was the useful idiot for the Gringos... Porfirio Díaz... should have left power in 1910... If he had left in 1910, today he would be a hero. The bastard stayed. Oh well. But that doesn't take away what he did for Mexico...
The Case of Pancho Villa
Zunzunegui: But we tell ourselves a story where everyone who destroys is good. It's like turning Pancho Villa into a hero. We can't pretend Pancho Villa is a hero. Look, he's a man of his time... but a man who is a cattle thief, murderer, and rapist cannot be a hero. Even if he is charismatic and you like him...
Gus: In the series, they show him like that, too.
Zunzunegui: No, no, they see him as a hero...
Gus: And they also applied the cartels' move, right? "Hey, I need money for the war."
ZZunzunegui: "Ah, no, of course. Your donation for the cause... so that nothing happens to you."
...And the famous "Dorados de Villa" (Villa's Golden-Ones) are practically all Gringos. And it's an army... of mercenaries whom Pancho Villa pays... And do you know where Pancho Villa got the money...? From the part of history they will never tell us. But the entire Villista revolution of 1914... was nothing more than filming a movie. In January 1914, Doroteo Arango, alias Pancho Villa, signed an exclusive contract with a North American film studio called Mutual Films... They gave him $25,000 in gold plus war supplies so that he wouldn't allow anyone else to record him... Everything Villa does in 1914 is a movie... "The Life of General Villa," with Pancho Villa, superstar, as himself...
Look, he's a hell of a character, but he's not a hero. And making him a hero doesn't speak badly of him... it speaks badly of us... It's the same thing we do with the criminals, the narcos. Well, it's just what we do today... We feel humiliated, subjugated, and screwed. What do the narcos have? The narcos are powerful men... They are successful entrepreneurs... they are powerful, they are strong... they are "machos," they have any woman they want... Who doesn't want to be a successful entrepreneur, be strong, be powerful... The bad thing is the activity with which they achieve that... But in the end... the narco is a successful man. And... he becomes an archetype to follow. "I want to be successful," and the narco offers me a possibility to be so... "I know I'm going to die in 5 years, but those 5 years... I'm going to have a great time."
...But my criticisms of Pancho Villa are never of Pancho Villa. They are of us, who turn him... into a hero... I'm sure he was one of the most fascinating guys who ever set foot in this country.
Conclusion
Gus: Moni, I thank you very much for the... lecture you gave us.
Zunzunegui: Delighted. Thank you very much.
Gus: I hope people ask for a second part.
Zunzunegui: Exactly... Well, my friend, I thank you again.
Gus: Delighted. Thank you very much.
Zunzunegui: Likewise. Well, my people, you had our friend Zunzunegui here. We'll leave his social media... so you can go and subscribe and also become a member of your channel...
Gus: My YouTube channel has very good content, honestly... we make videos every day about history, religion, philosophy, current events, Mexico, the world, everything...
Zunzunegui: Leave your like, subscribe, and we'll see you. Goodbye.