Doug Cuthand: Mexican history linked to our own Indigenous roots

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Last month, my wife and I made a bucket list trip to explore some of the archeological history of the Americas. Our trip included Mexico City and parts of the Inca empire in Peru.

The Americas were a highly developed and magical place before the European conquest. The history books give us one account but the truth is much different.

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The Americas were conquered not by invading armies but an invasion of microbes. The conquest of the Aztecs took two years. The Spanish were beaten back in the first contact, but they left behind smallpox and two years later the population was decimated, making the Spanish conquest a foregone conclusion.

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Throughout Mexico and Mexico City in particular, the temples, palaces and pyramids were destroyed and churches placed on top of the rubble. This was the doctrine of discovery in action. The European countries could not only conquer nations, they also had to convert them to Christianity.

Outside Mexico City is the pre-Aztec site of Teotihuacan. This enormous site contains several pyramids and other religious sites. Because it was created in pre-Aztec times, it was overgrown and appeared as a group of hills to the Spanish. It remained untouched while the Spanish looted and laid waste to their empire.

The country ruled over by Teotihuacan had diplomatic relations with the Maya and together they formed a huge trading empire. Today Teotihuacan has been restored and the original genius of the builders is in plain sight.

In addition to their impressive monuments, the people of the Americas developed vegetable crops that would feed the world in the future. For example, corn was developed in the state of Oaxaca, south of Mexico City. The Maya developed mathematics and astronomy to a high level. These were not the primitive societies that Eurocentric textbooks like to portray.

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We travelled south to the city of Cusco in Peru, the former capital of the Inca empire. The city sits in the Andes above 11,000 feet of altitude, so it takes some getting used to. We toured the city and travelled to Pisac, which is in the sacred Valley of the Inca.

Again we marvelled at the architecture and engineering that went into the construction of temples and other buildings along with the terraces that ran up whole mountainsides. The people of the Inca empire were the Quechua — Inca was the name given to the ruling class. We discovered many buildings and locations that were pre-Inca, built by the Quechua but by a different ruling class. It’s like the British with different periods such as Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian.

The sacred Valley of the Inca contains a series of towns and the mountainsides are terraced, with corn grown on the lower levels and root crops such as potatoes grown higher up. After the Spanish conquest, the population dropped substantially because of epidemics, and many of the terraced fields fell into disuse.

The visit to Machu Picchu was the highlight of our tour. Here was an Indigenous community that was untouched by the Spanish. It wasn’t destroyed and rebuilt as a cathedral. Here we could see how the people lived, worshipped and played.

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This is the great tragedy of the European conquest. In order to justify stealing two continents, the Europeans had to develop the doctrine of discovery and convince themselves they were the superior race. The priests and missionaries described violent societies with rampant atrocities such as human sacrifice, etc. Meanwhile, the Spanish were conducting the Inquisition.

But after centuries of colonialism, universal truths remain. All the Indigenous people of the Americas see themselves as a part of creation, not the reason for it, as is the Judeo-Christian concept.

We toured Machu Picchu with a guide who was Quechuan. She told us there was no word for “goodbye” in her language. This is a universal fact in Indian country and it extends across the Americas. We have no concept of a final meeting. We know that we will meet again in the future, either in this world or the next.

The Indigenous world view is universal from Tierra del Fuego to the Mackenzie Delta. We experienced a kinship among those we met and we gained a greater understanding of the depth of our roots.

Doug Cuthand is the Indigenous affairs columnist for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and the Regina Leader-Post. He is a member of the Little Pine First Nation.

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