Cortez and Montezuma, by Malcom Gladwell

Malcom Gladwell leads Talking with Strangers with an anecdote of the confusion between Cortes and Montezuma in 1519 when they first met.

He led with the exchange: Cortes, “Are you he?” Montezuma, “yes, I am he.” I immediately realized that didn’t track. They were from different sides of the planet, having never seen each other’s kind before. I mean, Cortes had been trekking through the jungle, capturing natives along the way, so he was a little familiar with South Americans, but still.  How could they converse?

Well, actually Cortes had two translators. One was a woman they captured upon landing in the Americas who could speak Mayan and the Native Aztec language. The other was a Spanish priest who had been shipwrecked on a nearby island for some time and managed to pick up some Mayan. So through a convoluted game of telephone, the question was asked: Cortes -> priest -> woman -> Montezuma -> woman -> priest -> Cortes. Along with that confusion, there are nuances to conversations that can’t be translated on the fly between a group of people who don’t know each other well; idioms like “break a leg,” or “once in a blue moon,” or “piece of cake.”

In the Aztec society, he quotes from other historians, the word for god is almost exactly like the word for child; and there was a manner of speech where nobility would use reverential language, acting small to give themselves power and esteem. Through such clunky miscommunication, Cortes thought Montezuma was surrendering the capital, Tenochitlan, to the Spaniards, when it was more likely the godlike Montezuma was accepting the Spaniards surrender. Cortes took Montezuma hostage, killed him, incited a war between the Aztecs and Spaniards, and through advanced weaponry, war tactics, and disease, killed 20,000,000 Aztecs. In a time when there were only, maybe, 500 million people on the planet (in Spain, there was probably 6.5 million).

That’s an appalling genocide. I feel outrage at that injustice. What could the world have been like if the Spaniards weren’t such pieces of shit…? It was 500 years ago, but it’s not talked about anymore. I guess it was a long time ago, but that shouldn’t be something they can live down. Spaniards should feel crushing regret for their history; in the same way Americans should feel about slavery and the Native American genocide, or how the Germans should feel about their Jewish genocide.