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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
When the Spaniards arrived in Mexico they were astonished and stupiti ed by the strangeness of this new world, in which beauty and horror merged. It was not by accident that Hernán Cortés spoke of “its grandeur, the strange and marvelous things of this land,” and resigned himself to the impossibility of adequately describing these things: “Even badly expressed, I know very well that they will be so amazing that they will not be believed, because even those of us who have seen these things with our own eyes are unable to comprehend them.” Travelling the land, Bernal Díaz del Castillo was overwhelmed as he beheld an “enchanted” land that reminded him of Amadis de Gaul. “Some of us asked ourselves whether what we were seeing was a dream.” Everything was strange and “never seen before.” Both men praised the great cities, such as Tlaxcala, “so grand and deserving of such admiration that even though much of what I could say about it must be left unsaid, what little I will say is almost incredible …”; or Tenochtitlán, “the most beautiful thing in the world,” with its structures and gardens “so marvelous, that it seemed to me almost impossible to describe their perfection and grandeur.” The native works of gold and silver, and of stone and feathers, seemed so extraordinary to the Spaniards “that it is simply impossible to understand how these objects, and with what instruments, were made so perfect.” Cortés as much as Bernal Díaz praised the capabilities of the Indians; their wisdom in peace, their courage in war. But most amazing of all was their religion. Its external aspects provoked horror and repugnance: the menacing ugliness of their “idols,” their bloody sacrifices, and the anthropophagy - according to the Spaniards, one could imagine nothing more “horrible and abominable.” Despite all this, the Spaniards could not help but marvel at their religious zeal, their devotion and diligence: “If they truly serve God with such faith, fervor, and diligence, they must be able to work many miracles.” Emerging from the ocean like a mirage or a dream, the new world was at once incomprehensible and fascinating, refined and abominable, beautiful and terrible. To the eyes of Western man, it was foreign, strangeness itself, the quintessential “other.”
* A French version of this text was presented in the colloquium “Europe-Amérique: régards réciproques,” organized by the Universities of Geneva and Bourgogne, which took place in Geneva in December 1991.
1. Hernan Cortés, Cartas de relación de la conquista de América (Letters relating to the conquest of America), ed. Nueva España, Mexico, vol. 2, p. 198.
2. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (The True Story of the Conquest of New Spain), Porrúa, Mexico, vol. 2, p. 87.
3. Cortés, vol. 2, p. 156.
4. Cortés, vol. 2, p. 207.
5. Cortés, vol. 2, p. 206.
6. Cortés, vol. 1, p. 123.
7. Cortés, vol. 1, p. 124.
8. ‘The expression comes from J. M. G. Le Clézio, Le rêve mexicain (The Mexican Dream), Gallimard, Paris, 1988.
9. Miguél León Portilla, “Mesoamerica in 1492 and on the Eve of 1992,” 1992 Lec ture Series, University of Maryland, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, 1988, p. 9.
10. Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (A general history of the things of New Spain), ed. Nueva Espana, Mexico, vol. 1, p. 494.
11. See Enrique Florescano, Memoria mexicana (Mexican Memory), J. Mortiz, Mexi co, 1987.
12. See Tzvetan Todorov, La découverte de l'Amérique (The Discovery of America), Seuil, Paris, 1983.