Opposing Beliefs and Concepts
The following will list the core beliefs, practised rituals and concepts by both the Aztecs and the Spanish (Villoro, 1992).
Aztecs
Spanish
Aztecs
- "Harmony of life"
- Polytheistic (worshipped more than one god)
- Integration of the individual into the community
- Barbaric and cruel violence was part of daily life
- Spiritual acts: self-mortification, human bloodbaths to offer living hearts to the gods
- "Death was a constant presence in the bosom of life"
- Cruelty = part of ritual. "Cruelty was born of an act of offering, from a communion with a superior order"
- Aztec culture = harmony
Spanish
- Church of Christ
- Monotheistic (worshipped one god)
- "Modern man" (Individualism and eagerness for dominance)
- Nature and history are seen as instruments for man
- Spiritual acts: pray, mass
- Man determines its course by his daring
- Spanish culture had a divided attitude toward violence (Practice charity mercy & charity, AND, Conquistadors practicing violent acts)
- Cruelty = dominance over others. "Cruelty was the result of the affirmation of the self as dominant and the reduction of the other to a mere instrument"
- Spanish culture = dominance