Me Oh Maya // You Wouldn't Want to Be an Aztec Sacrifice!

It's no secret that I’m a fierce advocate for literary dignity and equity in publishing. I want to see many more books by writers from underrepresented groups (BIPOC, disabled, queer) published each year for kids and adults alike. However, some folks misinterpret that mission as an implied disavowal of any book written by someone outside the culture depicted in its pages. But I actually do think it’s possible (and for secondary characters, outright desirable) for an author to write about characters and communities that don’t perfectly align with their own lived experiences. 

The catch? It’s hard work. You have to put in the time. Research. Advocate. Uplift. Live alongside and be a friend and ally to people from the group in question. Then write with respect and pay a cultural expert from that community to review your manuscript and give you feedback (then incorporate their suggestions or corrections).

“Why, David?” I imagine someone asking. “What’s the worst that can happen?” 

The short answer? People can be insulted, deeply hurt, or perhaps even permanently scarred by mistakes you make.  

I want to take a look at two examples of authors writing “outside of their lane” and getting things horribly wrong. Mind you, anyone can screw up when writing. We’re human. But these are books from major publishers whose entire teams really dropped the ball in terms of literary dignity.

First up is Me Oh Maya, book 13 of Jon Scieska’s The Time Warp Trio. (It’s the volume that made my son Angelo abandon the series, by the way.) The three protagonists—friends Joe, Sam, and Fred—are yanked from their basketball game back in time to a Maya ballcourt. 

Let’s get something straight right away. Maya people still exist. Seven million of them, in fact, in southern Mexico and Central America, with tens of thousands more living in the US. So if you decide to write about pre-invasion Maya, you’re depicting living people’s ancestors, folks who still speak that language and preserve many of those customs. 

Which is why it’s so disappointing that Me Oh Maya jumps immediately to bloodshed and human sacrifice on the first page: “Explain yourselves or your blood will be spilled in sacrifice,” says a “short brown-skinned guy in a wild feathered headdress.” Two pages later, Sam explains “their habit of sacrificing humans,” adding that the high priest is “not kidding about that rip-your-hearts-out.”

By way of explanation, all of this is wrong. Strangers would not have been immediately sacrificed. The intermittent offering of human blood to the gods was a solemn religious ritual at particular times of the year that ensured the wheels of cyclical time kept turning. Those sacrificed were prepared and treated with dignity for many months. Their families were typically compensated after their death. A better analogy for Maya sacrifice would be soldiers who are sent on missions from which they know it’s unlikely they’ll return. That kind of sacrifice, not horror-movie, death-at-the-hand-of-a-slasher kind of death. To call that sort of patriotic, pious laying down of one’s life a “habit of sacrificing humans” by “short brown-skinned” people is problematic, to say the least. 

All that aside, for that to be the IMMEDIATE go-to image for the writer of children’s books when he thinks of the Maya? Gross. Indicative of some deep-seated privilege and ignorance. Imagine if every children’s book written about the US by people not living here featured gun violence. Yes, it’s a part of US life, but hardly the defining aspect of our existence.

But, of course, human sacrifice is the main plot contrivance of Me Oh Maya. The boys use basketball moves to wow the people of Chichén Itzá and win the game (the book mistakenly asserts that losers get sacrificed—imagine how impossible it would be to keep a game going for a year, much less centuries, if that were the case). However, the high priest, who they think looks like their Latino teacher Mr. Ramírez on a bad day, decides to sacrifice them anyway.

That’s when he reveals his name: “Kakapupahed.” The kids have a field day with this, and I’m sure the author and editor found it hilarious.

But making up a name that sounds like foolish words in English to mock a people’s language? That’s straight-up racist. (The invented word is also meaningless in the Itza Mayan language, which furthermore lacks the consonant “d.”)

The book makes some attempt at presenting life at Chichén Itzá as otherwise pleasant and fascinating (though frankly generic Mesoamerican in the details of cuisine, etc.). The boys find an ally in the high priest’s nephew, named “Jun,” or “One,” which is one half of a normal Maya name at the time—they consisted of a number from 1-13 and one of 20 day signs, so it would have been more realistic if the kid’s name was Jun Balam (One Jaguar) or something along those lines. 

It’s nice that Jun and his mother are key to the Brooklynites’ victory and return to the future, but all those moments are marred by the cultural insensitivity, obsession with the lurid or “exotic” aspects of Maya communities, and racist humor. A Maya or Mestizo (part-Indigenous) child reading this book will find their people stereotyped and mocked. How is that pain justifiable? 

A duo of British creatives (author: Fiona Macdonald, illustrator: David Antram) are the guilty parties responsible for the even more reprehensible book You Wouldn’t Want to Be an Aztec Sacrifice! Gruesome Things You'd Rather Not Know. (Scholastic, 2001). The reader is cast as a random Mesoamerican (presumably Nahua) from some far-flung conquered town who gets captured by “Aztecs” in a flower war and taken back to Tenochtitlan to be sacrificed. Now, flower wars certainly happened. The Triple Alliance—the Mexica, Texcoca and Tlacopaneca peoples now referred to as Aztecs—did require tribute and take warriors prisoner for sacrifice.

But the author has first of all decided to linger on all the lurid aspects of that interchange without noting that the OTHER side also took “Aztec” prisoners for sacrifice.

In fact, the book treats the unnamed protagonist as shocked again and again at “Aztec” beliefs and practices, even though the Triple Alliance was culturally Nahua just like most of the rest of Central Mexico, multiple nation states worshipping the same gods in essentially the same ways. 

The book also abounds with exotification and inaccuracy. Because of religious symbols on shields, they are referred to as magical: “Many soldiers believe the magic will protect them on the battlefield.” I can’t imagine the creators of the book saying the same about a cross on the shield of a British knight. The Aztecs are called “energetic and warlike,” “fearsome,” and “ruthless.” Captives are marched through a stereotypical northern Mexican desert to reach Tenochtitlan rather than the actual pine forests that once surrounded Lake Texcoco in the Central Highlands. 

Literally every page has at least one completely false statement, from the assertion that all priests stank because of putrid blood in their hair (only one sort of priest had this practice) to the baffling comment that some deceased Nahuas “make a long, miserable journey through the underworld before they finally perish in hell,” which completely miscasts the role of Mictlan (not to mention the fact that the Nahuas didn’t believe in hell). Wherever there’s a debate in scholarship, the creators side with the most extreme, titillating interpretation, as with the possibility of cannibalism (for which the evidence is mostly Spanish, post-Invasion, and in dire need of Indigenous religious context). 

As with Me Oh Maya, the inaccuracies and lies are especially harmful because today there are 2.5 million Nahuas (descendants of the “Aztecs” and the related nations they conquered) in Mexico and Central America plus thousands more in the US. In addition, many Mexicans and Mexican Americans of mixed heritage (we often call ourselves “mestizos”) are heirs to a syncretic culture that blends Nahua and Spanish traditions and language. We grow up proud of the accomplishments of the “Aztecs,” Toltecs, and other pre-Invasion Nahua peoples. 

For our children, You Wouldn’t Want to Be an Aztec Sacrifice! is a potentially damaging piece of overwrought nonsense from outsiders who have not done the work of living alongside us and considering the vital cultural heritage of the “Aztecs” that is kept alive in our communities.

Neither of these books promotes the literary dignity of Indigenous or Mestizo people in Mexico and the US. The writers, editors, and publishers should be ashamed of the harm they have done in the name of being clever and cute in that supercilious way that conveys to even the densest reader, “These people were bad and weird. It’s good that they’re gone. Western white culture is so much better, isn’t it?”

Such messages are simply unacceptable and must be fought. 

—David Bowles

(published 6/21/2021)

How to Live Like an Aztec Priest

author: John Fardon

illustrator: Giulano Aloisi 

Hungry Tomato, Ltd. / Lerner Publishing 2017 

grades 4-6 

Aztec

According to the back jacket and publisher information, Hungry Tomato’s “How to Live Like” series for young people includes: 

How to Live Like a Caribbean Pirate 
How to Live Like a Medieval Knight 
How to Live Like a Roman Gladiator 
How to Live Like a Samurai Warrior 
How to Live Like a Stone-Age Hunter 
How to Live Like a Viking Warrior  
How to Live Like an Egyptian Mummy Maker 

All of the “narrators” of these titles are young boys in training, from “long ago and far away,” to become respected members of their societies or social groups. All of these “narrators” are speaking to contemporary kids (presumed to be boys), to show them what life was like in historical times. The unstated but strong assumption in this series is that girls and women were unimportant in historical times and, by extension, unimportant today.

Following Ten Vulture (who was “born on the tenth day of the Vulture month”), from the time his parents offer him to the calmecac until he becomes a full-fledged priest in the service of Moctezuma II, How to Live Like an Aztec Priest situates the Aztec nation in 1518 (where it begins and ends), at the nexus of Spanish colonialism, one year before Hernán Cortés marched on Tenochtitlán. Written so the reader can “learn” alongside Ten Vulture, this title reveals its racism early and often, beginning with this: “Aztecs…(are) harder and bloodier than anyone else”—and continues in this well-worn narrative. It proves its tagline that the reader will need “a courageous heart and a strong stomach.” By focusing on a single story—the violent culture of the Aztec peoples—the author and illustrator cast the ancient Aztecs as mindless savages. Not only is this depiction a tired stereotypical trope, it also capitalizes on long-standing anxieties about violent Indigenous populations.  

The cover illustration makes it immediately evident that neither author nor illustrator have any regard for accurately portraying historic, Mesoamerican Indigenous populations. Rather, depicting Moctezuma with Ten Vulture by his side, it’s a study in racist caricaturization. From the facial structure of the characters—those noses! And the cleft chins!—to the hyper-masculine idealized bodies that are all chest and biceps, to the monochromatic brown skin, the cover and the illustrations throughout rely on stereotypes and paint a problematic image of the “Aztec” peoples. (And let’s not forget the girls and women, who are all depicted as thin, and all—except for grandma—have cute little pug noses.)

It’s difficult to decide some of the most glaring racist tenets, but here are a few:

• The Aztecs are brutish, strong, and terrifying: “Our great task is to sacrifice to the gods…Soldiers will lead the sacrifices up the steps to us and we will throw each one across the alter. The high priest will plunge in the stone knife, slice out the heart, and hold it up to the gods in offering. The steps turn red with blood.”

• And disgusting: “After the sacrifice has been killed, each part of the body is removed and sent to its correct destination: The head is placed on the skull rack. The heart is kept in a special jar, called a chac-mool. The blood is poured down the temple stairs. The guts are fed to the animals. The limbs may go to the warrior who captured the person, to cook and eat in a holy meal.”

• And besides the gruesome details (told in modern language, such as “getting the point” in a description of being jabbed with maguey cactus spikes), there are passages that are majorly undecipherable: “We learn some of our lessons from books. They’re written mostly on paper made from tree bark and they fold into pleats like an accordian [sic]. The writing is in painted pictures, not words. The Spanish later called this kind of book a codex.” (“Accordions” were not part of Aztec culture. Painted pictures are words. And how would this young narrator know how the Spanish people later referred to these books?)

• And yet, they are succinctly wiped out (presumably without spilling any blood) in one easy-to-miss paragraph: “Moctezuma II was our last ruler! In 1519, just a year after I stood by him in my glory [readers are forgiven for not knowing what this means], the Spanish soldiers came. The killed Moctezuma and destroyed Tenochtitlan and our entire way of life.” 

• There are two short mentions of girls (along with exclamation points that belie the description): “Girls made spit beer from balls of corn they chewed and spat out. It was considered delicious!” And, “One of their favorite foods was cakes made from the green scum (an algae called spirulina) on ponds. It was considered very nutritious!” 

There’s so much more. We’ll spare you.

If the author’s goal was to reveal how Aztec priests lived, why does the culmination of the story focus on being colonized? The genocide of Indigenous populations is a painful and unnecessary chapter in our history and to rehash it in this supposedly “instructional” text feels like salt in the wound.

How to Live Like an Aztec Priest is also rife with historical and cultural inaccuracies. It purports that the Aztec people were completely apart from Totltec, Mayan, or other Mesoamerican societies; but the boundaries between Mesoamericans were fluid as power shifted between peoples. Further, the author posits, again in the “voice” of the young narrator: 

Nobody knows where our people, the Mexica, came from. But we arrived here two centuries ago. The local king drove us from the land after we killed his daughter as a sacrifice, so we built our city Tenochtitlan in Lake Texcoco. Then, sixty years ago, we formed an alliance with other kings to create a great empire, with our city at its heart. Aztecs rule, ok? 

As a Wikipedia-worthy summary of Aztec history, How to Live Like an Aztec Priest woefully mischaracterizes the various Indigenous peoples who would come to be known collectively as the Aztecs. They were not lost wanderers who magically appeared at Tenochtitlán, but instead a sophisticated amalgamation of smaller Indigenous populations who navigated complex power structures between one another to create and maintain a rich culture that thrived for centuries. In reality, the Aztec peoples were athletes, artists, astronomers, explorers, scientists, writers, and warriors. But here, they appear to be nothing more than, literally, bloodthirsty savages.  

Farndon seems to relish the bloodier aspects of the culture, reducing the whole of the Aztec empire to a brutish, violent people with no humanity; and his hyper-masculine focus all but erases women. He describes the various ways Aztec parents physically abused their children, and survived only by carrying out rage filled pillaging raids on neighboring territories—but really gets into it (we imagine him salivating) when it comes to human sacrifice. The number of pages, the detailed illustrations, the specific and multiple ways the human body can be ripped apart is well beyond the scope of a children’s book—or anyone’s, for that matter. 

Although text and illustrations imply “interest” and “fun,” what we see is Indigenous children sitting in class, or in the school or community library, or even in their own homes, and seeing themselves represented here. Instead of feeling pride or wonder, they see nothing more than a society—their society—built on blood lust.

Ultimately, How to Live like an Aztec Priest perpetuates horrible stereotypes about Latinxs. We fear that such representation could lead to Latinx readers seeing their heritages as grotesque, or could provide fodder for other readers to see Latinxs as lesser than them. With so much at stake for minoritized children, a title like How to Live Like an Aztec Priest proves that we have so much more work to do to dismantle racism in children’s literature. It’s not recommended.

—Cristina Rhodes and Laura M. Jiménez, PhD 
(published 12/14/17)

(Reviewers’ note: Cristina is Chicana and Laura is a lesbian Latina. Both of us are biased against racist depictions of our culture, people, and families. We deeply believe in the need for positive representations of our culture in children’s literature and are furious that a book like this was even published, let alone that it could get into the hands of impressionable readers.) 

Remembering Day / El Día de los Muertos

author: Pat Mora

translator: Gabriela Baeza Ventura

illustrator: Robert Casilla

Piñata Books / Arte Público Press, 2015

grades 2-up 

Aztec, Mexican

Death, to the ancient Aztec people, was not to be feared. Rather, death was just a part of life, as was the afterlife. A long and beautiful Aztec story describes the perilous four-year journey of the non-living through nine afterworlds—determined by the person’s life and manner of death—before finally reaching the land of the dead. Warriors and those who had been sacrificed, for instance, went to the dwelling place of the sun. Women who had died giving birth were considered warriors as well, and went to the region of the women. Children went to the land of the wet-nurse tree, where they suckled and waited to be reborn. Festivals commemorating the dead were held in different months of the Aztec calendar.[1]

Today, El Día de los Muertos continues to be celebrated in various ways, in Mexican and Central American communities, and in southwestern parts of the US. The celebrations include parades, music, papier-máché skeletons, and candy; and culminate with picnics at the cleaned and decorated gravesites. At home, there are beautiful ofrendas, with photos and flowers, and food items that had been savored by the deceased. All this is not only to remember a particular family’s and community’s dead, but also to entice them back for a visit.[2]

In addition, as my friend and colleague Judy Zalazar Drummond writes, it’s a “healthy alternative to Halloween with its spooks and goblins. The celebration is from Mexico, but reflects death rituals in many other cultures. It shows a healthy worldview where death is not seen as hideous and horrible and to be feared. Instead, it is real and involves real people and their real lives. Day of the Dead also provides a powerful resource to help young people cope with the violence and death in their families and communities. It provides a format for grieving and remembering loved ones that speaks to the continuity and cyclical nature of life.”[3]

In The Remembering Day / El Día de los Muertos, Mora imagines how “this custom of creating a remembering day might have started in the distant past, in a rural village; when indigenous languages and not Spanish or English, were spoken on this hemisphere…” Here, Mamá Alma and her young granddaughter, Bella, do everything together: they play and cook, and they work in the garden growing vegetables and flowers. As the child matures, Mamá Alma teaches her how to weave on the loom, how to cure a sick bird and which herbs to use in healing. The two share memories; towards the end of her life, Mamá Alma tells her granddaughter that “our bodies do not always live forever,” and encourages her to plan an annual “remembering day.” “Teach others,” she says, “that when we think about the people we love, they are always with us, even though we can’t see them.” After her beloved Mamá Alma has passed on, Bella brings her grandmother’s wishes to the community and, a year later, the first “Remembering Day” occurs.

Baeza Ventura’s rhythmic, idiomatic Spanish translation closely follows the English. The night that Mamá Alma dies, for instance, “Bella woke and saw a tiny light dart through their reed door into the night” becomes, “Esa noche, Bella despertó y vio una pequeña luz que rápidamente escapaba por la puerta de caña hacia la noche.” 

Casilla’s realistic art, rendered in watercolors and pastels on a bejeweled palette of mostly warm colors, are gorgeous. His models appear to be Zapotec and the Mexican countryside, with its rolling hills, trees, cacti and flowers, appears to be Oaxaca, which is where the story is based. But most of all, I love the details. Here is grandma, imparting knowledge and wisdom to her adoring grandchild. Here’s a hummingbird in several illustrations, including one cradled in Mamá Alma’s hand, allowing Bella to gingerly touch it. Here are the marigolds, which, today as yesterday, are used to lure the dead home. And here are children, sleeping in a hammock, while Bella awakes, serenely accepting her Mamá Alma’s journey.

The Remembering Day / El Día de los Muertos has the feel of a contemporary story about a warm, loving relationship between a Zapotec child and her grandmother, part of a Oaxacan farm family living in a village of small houses with thatched roofs, veggie and flower gardens, and children sleeping in hammocks. But it doesn’t have the feel—nor is it informative of—El Día de los Muertos, the holiday that celebrates the dead and entices them back to visit.

There’s always danger in a “contemporary reimagining” of an origin tale that leaves out the important parts. Here, for instance, the word “died” is mentioned only once, and “muertos,” twice. And “Remembering Day” is not translated as “El Día de los Muertos,” which is much more than a day for remembering one’s own ancestors. It’s a large, symbolic, community holiday, steeped in both Indigenous, and later, merged European (Catholic) traditions that welcomes the change of the seasons; and welcomes and honors visits from the community’s dead.

Instead of Mora’s crafting this fictionalized origin of an important death ritual, I’d rather have seen a story of how this particular girl came to understand this particular ritual. As a contemporary story about a grandmother’s aging and transition in a Zapotec family and community, The Remembering Day / El Día de los Muertos would have been highly recommended. But, despite the title in Spanish and this family’s “remembering day” tradition, it’s not about the “first” Día de los Muertos, and cannot be recommended as such.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 1/11/16)

(Great thanks to Judy Zalazar Drummond, and I’d like to acknowledge the life and work of my multitalented colleague, Bobbie Salinas, whom I imagine is joyfully carousing with her friends in the Land of the Dead.)

---

[1] This information is from Bobbi Salinas’s beautiful book, Indo-Hispanic Folk Art Traditions II: The Day of the Dead and other year-round activities (Piñata Publications, 1988). It’s out of print, but worth a search.

[2] There are many good children’s books available, specifically about or complementing El Día de los Muertos. Some of them are: Days of the Dead by Kathryn Lasky (Hyperion, 1994), The Festival of Bones / El Festival de las Calaveras (The Little Bitty Book for the Day of the Dead) by Luis San Vicente (Cinco Puntos, 2002), Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiuh (Abrams, 2015), Just in Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book by Yuyi Morales (Roaring Brook, 2008), Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book by Yuyi Morales (Chronicle, 2003), Light Foot / Pies ligeros by Natalia and Francisco Toledo (Groundwood, 2007), Mi Familia Calaca / My Skeleton Family by Cynthia Weil (Cinco Puntos, 2013), My Aunt Otila’s Spirits / Los Espíritus de mi Tía Otilia by Richard García (Children’s  Book Press / Lee & Low, 1986), and Pablo Remembers: The Fiesta of the Day of the Dead by George Ancona (Lothrop, 1997).

[3] From Día de los Muertos: Lesson Plans, written and compiled by Judy Zalazar Drummond, professor, and Teacher Education students at the University of San Francisco (2005).

What the Aztecs Told Me

authors: Claudia Burr, Krystnya Libura, and Maria Urrutia

Groundwood Books, 1997

grades 3-5  

Mexica (Aztec)

It seems that more and more American writers seek out the parts of other people’s cultures that they see as exotic or exciting. Maybe it is because they feel that their own lives in this “western” society are dull and monotonous. Unfortunately, this tendency has clouded the minds of those who write and teach from outside the culture. What the Aztecs Told Me is no exception. It tells about the Mexica or Aztec culture before the invasion of what we now call Mexico through the eyes of the Spanish friar, Bernardino de Sahagún.

As with so many other books on the “Aztecs,” this one seems fixated on the subject of human sacrifices. In fact, the first six pages of this 30-page book are about sacrifices—as if to say that this was the most important aspect of Mexica life. Accompanying Sahagún’s account are drawings by Spanish missionaries to justify the often brutal methods they used to force thousands of Mexica to convert from their “pagan” way of life to the “light” of medieval Christianity. As biased as all this material is, the authors never question Sahagún’s work.

Once we wade through what seems like overkill for any fifth-grade student, we are finally treated to scant descriptions of the day-to-day life of the Mexica. I wonder if the authors or the members of the Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council—the funders of this book—see the irony in their own words:

[T]he culture and events that Friar Bernardino recorded had almost disappeared by the time he wrote his work. Only a few elders remained who could remember Mexico before the Spaniards arrived. It is thanks to them that we can glimpse this vanished world.

Maybe, if Sahagún, Cortez, and their cohorts had not been so successful in “civilizing” the Native peoples of Mexico, we would have more such elders to learn from. Still, there are many elders throughout Mexico whose oral traditions dispute the Spanish accounts. If the authors had really wanted to show their respect for the Mexica, they would have sought out some of our elders, rather than retelling the invader’s accounts one more time. Not recommended.

—Marco Palma
(published 4/15/13)

This review first appeared in A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children, edited by Doris Seale and Beverly Slapin (AltaMira Press, 2005). We thank the publisher for permission.

Musicians of the Sun

author: Gerald McDermott

illustrator: Gerald McDermott

Simon & Schuster, 1997

kindergarten-grade 4 

Mexica (Aztec)

In McDermott’s retelling of a fragment of a Mexica (Aztec) “myth,” the deity Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Night, sends Wind to bring the Musicians of the Sun to Earth, in order to bring joy and color to the world. Here, Wind is the “good guy” who uses weapons of thunder and lightning to best Sun, the “bad guy.” McDermott’s intense colors, from acrylic fabric paint, opaque inks, and oil pastels on handmade paper, are appealing to young children and their teachers. As with his other books, Musicians of the Sun has garnered rave reviews.

From School Library Journal, for instance: “Picture-book versions of Aztec myths suitable for sharing with classes are scarce, however, and this one should be welcome, especially since it is dignified enough to use with older children.” A Goodreads reviewer opined: “Students will enjoy this story and the simple way it describes an ancient Aztec myth.” And from the New York Times Book Review: “Musicians of the Sun has something irresistible to young readers: It is based on a fragment of Aztec mythology and, reflecting that cruel and passionate culture, it is a complex tale.”

Did you get that last one? If not, I’ll repeat: “reflecting that cruel and passionate culture.” This is precisely the problem with Musicians of the Sun and McDermott’s other children’s books. In McDermott’s world, you can take whatever you want and make it yours. And if anyone criticizes your work, as a dear friend of mine did at a “multicultural” conference at which he was speaking, well, you have the privilege of alleged artistic talent, undeserved fame and fortune, and grandiose arrogance on your side.

At that particular conference (and I imagine at many others), I heard Gerald McDermott publicly voice his opinion that there is no such thing as what he disparages as “cultural copyright.” In the case of Musicians of the Sun, McDermott’s version of a Mexica creation story that he found in a French translation of a version set down by a Spanish missionary in the 16^th century and several other versions in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, became, for him, “a metaphor for the artist’s journey.” No joke. He describes his hunting for, taking of, and manipulating a sacred creation story as a metaphor for his own personal journey.  This is the kind of “retellings”—read cultural theft—of traditional stories for which McDermott is famous. Not recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(posted 4/14/13)

Legend of Mexicatl

author: Jo Harper

Illustrator: Robert Casilla

Turtle Books, 1998

kindergarten-grade 3 

Mexica (Aztec)

First off, it was hard for me to tell whether this story was supposed to be about the Mexica (Aztecs), or if it was really about Jesus. The story is about a boy, Mexicatl, who is called upon by a generic “Great Spirit” to eventually lead his people to their promised land. Upon opening the book to the first page, I was struck by how much the first illustration appears like so many nativity scenes that one would expect to find in a church. Although this will probably make the book appealing to Catholics with Mexican roots, it does not tell us anything about the Mexica people. There are many accounts about the journey that the Mexica took from Aztlán to what is now Mexico City. Some of these are Native accounts while others are colonial Spanish stories. Amidst all the academic argument and speculation, all the contradiction and inconsistency, the author seems to have found it easy to put forward her version of a “glorious triumph of faith and courage.”

There is something subtle and maybe even insidious about the Christianization of what is not a Christian story. Rather than honor the culture of which the real legend of Mexicatl is a part, it suggests that there is something that needs to be improved by rewriting it and that the Mexica people can be redeemed only by being compared to early Christians. I think that Friar Bernardino de Sahagún, on whose colonizing works this particular version is based, would have been envious that he did not think of manipulating the legend in this way. No doubt he would have put it to good use in his efforts to stamp out from the Mexica any trace of their Native worldview and spirituality.

The one good thing about this book is the illustrations by Robert Casilla, whose wife and son were the models for Mexicatl and his mother. The skin tones are realistic, the facial features are not exaggerated, the people look like real people. The illustrations are actually better than most you would expect to find in children’s books about Mexica, Maya, or Inca. Still, this in itself is not reason to buy the book. Not recommended.

—Marco Palma
(published 4/13/13)

This review first appeared in A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children, edited by Doris Seale and Beverly Slapin (AltaMira Press, 2005). We thank the publisher for permission.

Hands-On Latin America: Art Activities for All Ages

 

author: Yvonne Y. Merrill

Kits Publishing, 1997

grades 3-up 

Mexica, Inca, Maya

I can’t imagine why anyone would want to use this book. There’s no information on the pieces children are being taught to make. Any child or teacher with an inquiring mind would ask: Where were the originals of these pieces made? Who made them? For whom were they made? What were their uses? As a teacher who does project-based teaching, I found myself looking for at least photos of the original pieces and any kind of information to answer these questions. And as an Indian woman, I can't in good conscience tell my culturally diverse students that they’re “Latin American art pieces.” That is just not enough.

The food page in particular ranks up there in bad taste. I teach my students that what people ate and thrived on was what grew in their areas and that the availability of food was usually why people came to a certain area. The author's statement—“Here are some of the foods that were new to the world with the Spanish conquests”—is ungrammatical and confusing and sets the tone for the European-American “us-versus-them” perspective that permeates the entire book.

A few glaring misses: The map shows the continent of South America, Central America and a little of Mexico, but does not include the United States or Canada when in fact, some of the art work is purely North American, north of Mexico—the luminarias for instance. The Mexica (Aztec) symbols are referred to as “designs” when in fact each had and has great importance relating to specific aspects of a belief system. The historic pieces relating to belief and ritual—such as Mexica headbands, medallions and rattles—are shown as craft objects, devoid of meaning, easily constructed out of paper, pasta, paint and canning lids. Each design on each piece had a specific meaning; rituals associated with them were sometimes known by all, sometimes known only by initiates. In any event, they were not simply things for children to copy and play with.

To give this book “educational” value, Merrill has incorporated what she considers important to know on several full pages and after many of the craft instructions. These “facts” mostly range from strange to unintelligible to ridiculous. In a paragraph labeled “Health Care and Hygiene,” there is some useful information, followed by this:

The New World natives had an impressive knowledge of the human body, derived largely from human sacrifice and body dissection. Mesoamerican “surgeons” used sharp obsidian knives and were skilled in drilling for brain injuries.

Sacrificed bodies were considered holy and were not defiled by dissection, nor were they used for educational purposes. The “impressive knowledge” in science and medicine was derived from the need to better the human condition, and trephining was done to relieve pain and pressure on the brain. By surrounding the word “surgeons” with quotes, Merrill implies that people were not surgeons, but rather “primitive” people poking around with sharp instruments.

A page about the Maya is illustrated with a drawing of a person’s head, with arrows pointing to “knotted hair,” “crossed eyes,” “filed pointed teeth filled with jade,” “sloped forehead,” and “tattoos.” Above the drawing, Merrill writes, “[A]rcheologists know the Maya had an unusual beauty code.” Her use of the word “archeologists” is incorrect; people who interpret archeological finds to theorize about their cultural relevance are called “cultural anthropologists.” There was always a purpose or reason for everything that was done; in this case, it might have been beauty, spirituality, status or class. Using the term “unusual” here is patronizing, as is “beauty code.” The picture Merrill shows may well be that of someone belonging to a warrior society, possibly jaguar, whose members personified certain cultural icons. In any event, it’s made to look like a frivolous beauty style filtered through a modern European sensibility. This is not a good thing to do.

In “New World Influences,” Merrill writes: “Though their governing power was quickly eliminated, the New World resources and knowledge forever changed the European lifestyle.” Can anyone tell me what this means? Finally, my favorite “doesn't-quite-make-it” quote: “In most cases they called themselves by their indigenous name: the Chimus or Chancas of the Inca empire, the Mixtecs or Toltecs of the Aztec empire.” What else on Earth would they call themselves? Would they use Spanish names they had never heard?

The “Art Today” section is surprisingly good, mainly because there is no history to mess with. Most of the items are highly visible in modern culture and have become popular to display and make. However, there are better sources for teaching students that include photographs of actual pieces with accurate histories that allow children to learn about the original peoples of this hemisphere in a respectful, non-racist way. Not recommended.

—Judy Zalazar Drummond 
(published 4/13/13)

This review first appeared in A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children, edited by Doris Seale and Beverly Slapin (AltaMira Press, 2005). We thank the publisher for permission.

Montezuma and the Aztecs

authors: Mathilde Helly and Rémi Courgeon

Holt, 1996

grades 7-up

Mexica

This title is part of Holt’s “W5” (who, what, when, where, and why) history series, originally published in France under the title Cortés et son temps. The stated goal of the series is to bring history to life for young readers, and the text brings in culture as well as history and biography.

Beginning with the Chinese epigraphy, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” the mostly full-color illustrations include photography, drawings, maps, cartoons, modern paintings, and antique prints. The text of each double-page spread covers a different topic, ranging from aspects of Mexica (Aztec) cultural and spiritual life, to the establishment of Tenochtitlán, to the military campaigns of Cortéz and the exploitation of the Yucatán peninsula, to the lives of Moctezuma (the correct spelling) and Cortéz themselves.

Unfortunately, the goal of this book is belied by the sloppy writing and editing, inconsistent and illogical design, and most important, the condescending Eurocentric perspective that stereotypes and demonizes every aspect of the powerful and rich Mexica culture. A few of the more egregious examples:

• The cover bears the legend, “Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, and other words you can’t pronounce.” We can pronounce these words just fine. To whom does the “you” refer? Certainly not to Mexica children.

• On the first page is a photo of a “Mexican salad.” The salad, in a large clay bowl, consists of tomato, corn, beans, peppers, and pieces of cactus—with the thorns on. While nopales are part of the traditional Mexican diet, do the authors really think they were/are eaten this way? Also in the salad are cards with very odd statements from children and adults about Mexica people, such as: “It was hot where the Aztecs lived so they ate chili.” What is the point of this?

• A headline for one of the spreads says, “The Gods Are Like Germs: They Are Countless, Invincible, and Hyperactive.” The accompanying text does nothing to explain what this might mean. The illustration shows a naked Mexica man kneeling, looking into a microscope. Although the Mexica honored many, many aspects of nature, how is referring to them as “hyperactive” and “germs” in any way educational? And while the Mexica were technologically advanced for their time, they did not have microscopes.

• Another headline, “Eat Your Heart Out,” leads one of several gory references to blood sacrifice, accompanied by an equally gruesome set of images. Here, the text reads in part:

The body was cut up: the skin stuffed with cotton, went to decorate the façade of the palace where the priests lived; the right thigh went to the emperor; the head was impaled on a stake; the blood was smeared on the statues of the temple. The rest was eaten by the family of the man who had captured the victim or was thrown to the wild beasts kept in the palace….[T]he smell of decaying flesh and coagulated blood was masked by copal incense.

What was the source for this? We don’t know. It was likely based on turn-of-the-14^th Century Catholic apologists for the destruction of the Mexica empire. Human sacrifice was an important part, but not the only aspect, of Mexica culture and cosmology. How can putting this inflammatory and prurient text alongside a sarcastic headline encourage any serious interest in the study of such a complex culture?

• The section called “The Garland Wars: They Only Sound Pretty” is accompanied by the cartoon image of a grinning Jaguar warrior, down on one knee, presenting to a smiling Olive Oyle lookalike a bouquet—of severed limbs. The Flowery Wars, as they are more commonly known, were an institution in which the sole purpose was to settle land disputes between neighboring nations by seeing who could take more captives. The emphasis was—unlike today’s warfare—not on killing the enemy but on attaining a higher rank and recognition from one’s own people.

• “The Aztecs Never Discovered the Wheel, But Their Children Played with It Every Day,” says another headline, which is accompanied by a photograph of an Mexica toy with four wheels. What does this incongruous headline mean, then?

• At Moctezuma's crowning, after self-mutilation ceremonies, the authors state that “he had sacrificed several quail on the altar; then with a gold incense burner he had waved incense toward the four corners of the earth to symbolize his power and authority.” At the beginning of indigenous events, now as then, whether it is a birth, wedding, planting a garden, or dinner, there is an honoring of the four directions—and Mother Earth and Father Sky—to ask their blessings for the undertaking at hand. Power and authority rest easily only on those who honor the givers of life, and not even Moctezuma would have put himself above the forces of nature.

• Perhaps the most offensive image is the one that accompanies the section on Doña Marina or La Malinche. It is a color photo of a beautiful young Indian woman (most probably from Guatemala— which is nowhere near Mexico City—and most probably Maya, not Mexica). Over her mouth are placed the words, “Translation by Doña Marina” as if she were wearing a gag. What is this image supposed to suggest to our daughters—that they should be silent? That their role in life is blind obedience to those who would “conquer” them? The text states that Doña Marina was Cortez’s willing “mistress and closest advisor,” but in fact, there are many stories in our culture about La Malinche and no one knows for sure what the truths are.

Although there are Mexica scholars in Mexico today—and over fifty variants of the original Mexica language, Nahuatl, that are still being spoken by over a million people—there is nothing in this book from a Native point of view. The racism in the artwork and text is just appalling; page after page after page suggest to young readers that the Mexica were conquered because of their savagery and backwardness. Further, there is no attribution for any of the illustrations, no source notes, and no recommended bibliography. Apparently, the authors do not expect young readers to do further research on any of the many topics covered here.

In a review of the “W5” series for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Professor Jane Resh Thomas of the University of Minnesota writes:

A species of seductive, expensive, glitzy, inferior nonfiction has emerged. Reference books for kids ought to exemplify clear thinking and principles of excellent writing. But a competent teacher would reject a student paper modeled after Montezuma and other titles in this series.

We couldn’t have said it better. Not recommended.

—Judy Zalazar Drummond and Marco Palma
(published 4/13/13)

This review first appeared in A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children, edited by Doris Seale and Beverly Slapin (AltaMira Press, 2005). We thank the publisher for permission.