Aztec philosophy

Gary Jennings knew that the Nahua of the Valley had a philosophic tradition. Jennings told Aztec through a son of Fred Flintstone, Dark-Cloud; this authorial avatar could then interface with the tradition from the outside. Jennings was aware that the Athens of the Valley was Texcoco; so Texcoco is where Jennings had Dark-Cloud learn his scribal and cultural lore.

That much, I'm fine with. Tenochtitlan to Mesoamerica was Rome to the Hellenistic Mediterranean. The Tlatoani / Imperator / Amir was a practical man working within the worldview of the people he commanded. How could a Divine Speaker not use the tongue of his charges? Dara Shikoh inherited Islamicate India and proposed to rule it in a nonIslamic style. Didn't work well for him. Dark-Cloud works with this same political realm, so never much engages with the philosophy.

Some might defend Jennings such that he lacked the time to immerse himself in the Valley's priors. But as I read this book and others, I have to conclude Jennings didn't see a difference between one philosophy and the other. It was all Organised-Religion and mumbo jumbo to him (the author was working through some Issues, one suspects). So if readers hoped for any reason one system failed as the two systems collided: Jennings failed.

Interested parties can now read a true summary of what the Nahua-speaking Valley understood as the Good and the True: stone age herbalist. ht Barsoom and, er, Vox Day. This was not just one gaggle of dirty violent priests against the other; this was materialism-as-animism, against the cross and grace of Christ.