Mormons and Aztecs (Was ATDTDA (33) - p. 927-30 - railroads)

[Joe Allonby]

As I recall, this created a bit of embarassment for the Mittster.

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 12:27 PM, David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
> Slightly creative reading of history: The Aztecs and the Mormons were both
> expelled from a mythical paradise near the Great Salt Lake (Zion for the
> Mormons and Atzlan for the Aztecs), and they both moved southward to
> colonize the Sierra Madres.
>
> Does Wren think that they were fleeing the same unnamed danger and/or
> pursuing the same unnamed dark goal?
>
> Is Wren on this same "path" which will lead her "into the cruel country of
> the invaders, the people with wings, the serpents who spoke, the poisonous
> lizards who never lost a fight. Where she would come to no
> supernally-lighted city but instead into a merciless occupation, lives of
> slavery only barely, contemptuously disguised" (ATD 929) -- which I read as
> a critique of the Aztec culture of slavery and human sacrifice as well as a
> critique of Western incursions?
>
> Related info:
>
> * http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2004/12/003-0001-9920.html: "the
> Aztecs migrated into Mexico from the land of Aztlan, a mysterious place
> which the Spanish thought was located near the Great Salt Lake in modern day
> Utah [...] This was a country which they ["the invading Spanish"] imagined
> held fantastic riches and so the myth of Aztlan started to grow and become
> embellished with other myths (such as the fabled Seven Cities of Cíbola)
> becoming a kind of northern El Dorado. [...] In Durán's version, Aztlan is a
> Garden of Eden where the people still live an idyllic existence and where
> neither disease nor death is known. The story begins with the great king
> Moctezuma I, at the peak of his power, on hearing of the utopian land of his
> ancestors decides to send a mission there" (the website goes on to relay
> Durán's interesting tale)
>
> * http://www.networkaztlan.com/aztlan.html: "He ["University of Utah
> ethnic studies professor Armando Sol-rzano"] compares the concept of Aztlan
> as a sacred land of harmony with that of Zion in the Mormon tradition. The
> similarities, he says, show that both cultures are searching for a common
> goal."
>
> * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_colonies_in_Mexico
>
> * http://www.jstor.org/pss/3594742: the Mormons (having moved into Mexico
> circa 1885) fled the Mexican Revolution circa 1912 during the "Exodus to the
> United States."
>
> Jill wrote:
> > I didn't take the Mormon thing as thatthey are incipient. I'll look
> again- but I grouped the Mormon flightremnant among other parts of the book
> that have to do with remnants of aprevious thing, often mysteriously gone,
> evidence now fading from thesurface, before which an observer like ourselves
> any time thereafter, isbeing shown that there's a mysterious reason, w/a
> measure of hope, acalvinism under uncertain flops / flips, why some things
> pass.
>
> And Laura wrote:
>
> >Frank and Wren visit the ruins at Casas Grandes and Wren wonders "why the
> Mormon odyssey and the Aztec flight should have so many points in common."
> Mormons as incipient colonialists (my Mormon in-laws would beg to differ)?
> Mormonism expanded exponentially once its missionaries hit African andLatin
> America.
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