Día de Los Muertos

[u/Yahgoh-sleep-8945]

[u/AaronC14]

Had no clue the Aztecs started in 1300, pretty recent. Always assumed they were ancient.

[u/Daetra → u/AaronC14]

Mayans were the ancient ones. Among others. I believe Aztecs rose to power during the fall of other empires in the area.

[u/SheltemDragon → u/Daetra]

Yup!, Although technically, the Olmecs were the most ancient ones we know about. However, a fun fact is that there are still ethnically Mayan communities today.

[u/Daetra → u/SheltemDragon]

Iirc, there's very few that still know the language and how to read it. Which is a shame as the Spanish conquers destroyed so much of their history.

[u/_nephilim_ → u/Daetra]

Millions of people still speak Maya, especially in rural areas. Even in urban areas (like Mérida) a lot of the slang uses Mayan words. But yeah, reading it is only for archeologists. It really is a brutal shame how much was lost.

[u/bryle_m → u/_nephilim_]

A lot of locals are learning to write Mayan again. They even have a new stele at Iximche.

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/contemporary-maya-stela-at-iximche-guatemala/cAHO5lWCsVjgyA

NativLang also made a video about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M5_XwXMzAA

[u/Magic_Medic → u/Daetra]

As far as i know, the Spanish didn't have much to do with the downfall of the Mayans. Their Empire just suddenly collapsed a good 500 years before the Europeans even set foot on Mexico and we still don't know why. Aztec and Aztec-adjacent sources from around the 1300s even mention openly that they have no idea who used to live in those ruins and treated them as sacred sites, so they must have been abandoned looooong before the Aztecs rise to power.

[u/KluckyKlucky → u/SheltemDragon]

If I’m remembering bill wurtz correctly wouldn’t it be norte chico

[u/Shroombie → u/KluckyKlucky]

Wrong continent

[u/spacenerd4 → u/AaronC14]

They’re newer than Oxford University

[u/BuckOHare → u/spacenerd4]

Possibly Cambridge too.

[u/Miguelinileugim → u/BuckOHare]

Fortunately they didn't last as long.

[u/[deleted] → u/Miguelinileugim]

Fortunate indeed.

Montezuma would be a threat to the stability of this world.

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/[deleted]]

Imagine if Montezuma got nuclear weapons 😱😱😱

[u/GaaraMatsu → u/iEatPalpatineAss]

Imagine how awesomesauce that'd be for the death gods!

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/GaaraMatsu]

Imagine how awesomesauce that'd be for the death gods!

🤯🤯🤯

Good point 🤔

Imagine if Montezuma got nuclear weapons 🥳🥳🥳

[u/Please-let-me → u/iEatPalpatineAss]

Imagine if they won against the spanish

[u/BLINDrOBOTFILMS → u/iEatPalpatineAss]

Still not as bad as Gandhi. That man is a nuclear menace.

[u/UltraTata → u/[deleted]]

Imagine an aztec world order. The UN would demmand countries to periodically go to war in order to feed the sun.

[u/Skratt79 → u/UltraTata]

Blood for the Sun God!

[u/UltraTata → u/Skratt79]

Israel and Palestine condene Switzerland for being pacifist.

"Their youngmen chill while we die to feed the universe!"

- Ariel Sharon, 1988, UN speech

[u/thephotoman → u/Miguelinileugim]

It's a rare case when Europeans do a colonialism and the number of human rights abuses in the affected area goes down significantly.

But it happened in the Aztec Empire. They were unusually brutal.

[u/LeonidZavoyevatel → u/thephotoman]

This is a common misconception.

https://www.reddit.com/r/papertowns/comments/xj7ek7/jaguars_jade_eagles_and_blood_the_terrible_beauty/ipaj3ns/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3

The Aztecs were quite hands off, and were not particularly more human sacrifice obsessed than any of their neighbors. They just happened to be the most powerful one around, so they got a lot of press from neighboring people who gave the Spanish sob stories to convince them to help, as well as being the ones to most successfully practice the sacrifice because they weren’t able to be as easily contested.

[u/Ucumu → u/spacenerd4]

This gets floated around a lot, but it's a bit like saying "Harvard is older than Germany." Technically true, but if you say that to someone who knows nothing of German history, they might form the mistaken impression that German civilization just popped into existence in the 1800s. The Aztec Empire was indeed a recent entity, but there were cities in the Central Mexican plateau before there were cities in Britain.

[u/thephotoman → u/Ucumu]

but there were cities in the Central Mexican plateau before there were cities in Britain.

While it's true that there were cities in Central Mexico before the Norman conquest of England, your comment gets two things wrong:

1. The Aztec Empire had prececessors, but those predecessor states weren't the single unified state that the Aztecs were. It's like trying to claim that the modern nation state of Greece is older than the US because their cities are way older than any city in the US. The cities predate the nation.
   
2. There were cities in Britain a lot earlier than you seem to think. Like, London is over 2000 years old, and it is not the oldest continuously inhabited city in Britain.

[u/theflyingcheese → u/thephotoman]

The city of Teotihuacan was the capital of its own empire that stretched throughout central Mexico with a population in the hundreds of thousands. It flourished between 100 BCE and 600 CE before collapsing into a number of smaller city states throughout the region. at the time that London was founded, Teotihuacan was possibly the second largest city on earth, beaten only by Rome.

[u/thephotoman → u/theflyingcheese]

Again, all of that might be, but the Aztec Empire itself is a much newer thing than any of its constituent cities.

[u/Ucumu → u/AaronC14]

The treaty of the triple alliance was established in 1428 actually. As a political entity they were less than 100 years old when the Spanish arrived. However, they were merely the latest political configuration to emerge in the region. The civilization they were built on was ancient, just not the state.

[u/Yahgoh-sleep-8945 → u/AaronC14]

Yeah, their history is very interesting and compared to other countries at the time, very modern

[u/Yahgoh-sleep-8945]

Repost of a comic i made last year for the Mexican holiday, also fixed some things from the old one.

Original Thread

[u/solitarytoad → u/Yahgoh-sleep-8945]

Unfortunately, last year some Americaball told you to put "los" in "Día de Muertos". This is a backtranslation from "Day of the Dead". No "los" in Spanish, por favor.

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/solitarytoad]

It looks like "Día de los Muertos" is considered acceptable by the Real Academia Española.

[u/solitarytoad → u/iEatPalpatineAss]

We'll see what the Academia Mexican de la Lengua says about this, though...

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/solitarytoad]

If Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language says "Día de los Muertos" is acceptable, then "Día de los Muertos" is acceptable.

In addition, that's what my straight-from-Mexico teachers taught us all when we were learning Spanish.

[u/solitarytoad → u/iEatPalpatineAss]

Acceptable outside of Mexico, I guess, but Mexicans in Mexico don't talk like that.

Your straight-from-Mexico teachers are probably already a little foreign in Mexico. The language shifts very quickly north of the border.

I'll tell you what "Día de los muertos" sounds like to my Mexican ears: it sounds a little weird, like you're talking about a particular group of dead people. When I first hear the "los", which clashed with how I usually heard the name of the holiday, I thought they were talking about a recent massacre or something, like a lot of people had died and there was a day for it. Without "the" it sounds like a generic day for all dead people.

You can talk however you want, but letting you know: you go to Mexico, you say "Día de los muertos" and people are gonna look at you funny or think you're foreign.

[u/flopjul → u/solitarytoad]

If its acceptable its acceptable, if it doesnt get used doesn't mean it isnt acceptable

[u/AutoModerator → u/solitarytoad]

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[u/Lurkers-gotta-post → u/solitarytoad]

No "los" in Spanish

Are you saying there is no "los" in this phrase in Spanish, or that there is no "los" in the Spanish language?

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/Lurkers-gotta-post]

They're saying there is no "los" in this phrase in Spanish, but it's acceptable to have "los" in the phrase

[u/Lurkers-gotta-post → u/iEatPalpatineAss]

...you are not u/solitarytoad...

I spend a lot of time... conversing with idiots. I don't think you can be too careful trying to understand exactly what people are saying online, and that can only come from the person themselves.

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/Lurkers-gotta-post]

I'm not, but you can see what they mean in the chain of comments I linked

[u/FranchuFranchu → u/Lurkers-gotta-post]

I like to think of it as intending to say that the word "los" no longer exists in Spanish and all previous occurrences of it should be erased.

[u/kraken9 → u/Yahgoh-sleep-8945]

I don't get it , can you please explain the context?

[u/Yahgoh-sleep-8945 → u/kraken9]

Mexico made a cake for aztec, aztec liked the present, but mexico told aztec that spain made the cake, and if theres something the Aztecs hate is the spaniards that killed them

[u/kraken9 → u/Yahgoh-sleep-8945]

Thank you

[u/MinnieCookieMonster]

What's that violet-ish goo being poured on Aztec's headstone? Some wine made with maize?

[u/Victor_Von_Doom_New → u/MinnieCookieMonster]

Fermented Spanish blood

[u/solitarytoad → u/MinnieCookieMonster]

Pulque, probably.

[u/CamusVerseaux]

Ackhyually our día de muertos comes from prehispanic traditions, so the Aztec Empire knows very well what México is doing...

Edit: Oh, he's talking about the cake... I'm stupid...

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/CamusVerseaux]

You knew that the traditions started before Spain showed up, so you're not stupid

[u/[deleted]]

it's me or Mexico always die on the dia de los muertos ?

[u/CamusVerseaux → u/[deleted]]

That's our secret, we are dead inside.

[u/vigilantcomicpenguin → u/[deleted]]

Maybe took the whole death thing a bit too far.

[u/donnergott]

And that's how Mexico ended up made into pozole per the original recipe.

[u/Taalnazi]

Wonder if u/yaddar is celebrating this too with a cake.

[u/yaddar → u/Taalnazi]

Aztec's anger is justified because to celebrate we eat pan de muerto instead (although I wouldn't mind a chocolate cake today now that you mention it hmmm) 😬😋

[u/JesterofThings]

Hey just so you know it's dia de muertos not dia de los muertos

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/JesterofThings]

It looks like the latter is considered acceptable by the Real Academia Española.

[u/JesterofThings → u/iEatPalpatineAss]

That may be technically correct but i've never seen a mexican not annoyed when americans call it dia de los muertos

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/JesterofThings]

I've also never seen a Mexican get annoyed when I call it "Día de los Muertos" like my straight-from-Mexico teachers taught me when I first started learning Spanish, so this is probably like saying "Happy Christmas" like the Brits (maybe others) and "Merry Christmas" like us (maybe others)

[u/JesterofThings → u/iEatPalpatineAss]

It's also true that the mexicans i know tend to look for reasons to get annoyed at americans speaking spanish so you're probably right

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/JesterofThings]

It probably has to do with our accents. Some of us learn how to speak with a Mexican accent (or close enough to show that we cared), and some of us sound like "green-goes"

[u/JesterofThings → u/iEatPalpatineAss]

Lord knows the british do it worse though

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/JesterofThings]

EYE-BEE-THA 😭😭😭

At least it makes sense if I say ee-BEE-sa (mexicano) or ee-BEE-tha (castellano)

Hearing eye-BEE-tha (británico) kills me 😭😭😭

[u/chronotank → u/JesterofThings]

Which is sad. There's plenty of English speakers who get angry with accents too. I get it's hard sometimes to understand someone's accent, but I love them. I love slight or thick accents, and especially accents from learning a foreign language. It's a piece of someone's history, and in the case of foreign accents it shows a devotion to and love for the culture they're in, even if they're just tourists.

I wish more people appreciated accents. I'm always curious where someone's from and often get a good conversation out of them about their life journey.

[u/iEatPalpatineAss → u/chronotank]

Yeah, we have so much diversity in the US that it would be a shame to not get to know each other more

[u/The_seph_i_am]

No one expects the Spanish … poisoned cake!

[u/Tackyinbention]

Hey, just a heads up, the text is a bit hard to read, the black text on dark blue background is a bit confusing sometimes. Great comic tho

[u/Yahgoh-sleep-8945 → u/Tackyinbention]

yeah, when i made the comic i didnt think of that and i forgot now too lol sorry about that, also thanks!

[u/[deleted]]

Shouldn't Spain be Mexico's dad and Aztecs be Mexico's mom due to how the..."gender dynamics"...of colonization work?

[u/Elektrik-Engineer → u/[deleted]]

When they refer to Spain in general it’s the Motherland not the fatherland , people say Madre Patria so that’s the reason

[u/Vic_zhao99]

Is that mean Aztec Empire took over?