Lo Que Digan Los Mexicas

Mexico
November 2017

I wonder what the Mexicas would say. When the mystical coded message from Huitzilopotchli aligned as a keystone and their dutiful wandering concluded in faithful triumph of coincidence on a marshy lake equally as lost in the high desert, just beyond the moisture of the tropics, they built their new empire. Tenochtitlan was born of artificial reed islands in the bog and the centuries' indiscriminate mallets tempered a behemoth metropolis - the largest in the Americas - yet three-quarters constrained by the same active volcanoes and foreboding peaks.

The eagle that first indicated the way for a few - perched on a cactus with an ensnared snake - now orients more than 20 million. Would they be proud? A tricolor banner hangs from rusted hooks and stained poles, with the fearless bird whose wings still flutter in the breeze with the snake stitched into the talons of history. The symbol of their sanctuary now etched in modern storefront windows, stamped on official letterhead, emblazoned in stone relief; a symbol of a chaotic nation and a bursting city born of their vision and word of their deity.

A temple honored the gods and aligned earthly works with their enduring lunar and solar enchantments. But would they be dismayed? Templo Mayor is now partially exposed to light but still sunken in the soil shadows of another strange, ornate house of worship. A young white Christ bathed in light and blood carrying a wooden cross decorates this superstructure, his shroud strangely immaculate despite burying their faith in the dirt. Why does Tenochtitlan now worship the faith of the intruders?

Their city descends slowly under its own modern weight. Natural water tables trickle to cracked clay depressions, buckling in the ancient center with every jolt of the earthly plates. But where did the water go? Would they be confused? A swampside city, established at the pinnacle moment of encounter that they might partake of the liquid richness and propose their own transformed fortune, now without a natural source.

A wellspring of fortune poured forth for some nonetheless, a force of resources unmatched in regional dominance. Every spine on this region’s warped wheel of commerce rotating from shack dwellings to global finance magnates crosses here. Would it validate their vision? Would they pause in admiration, justified that their pueblo might flourish? A metropolis prospering in cold numeracy, 20% of the modern Mexican economy certainly calls one’s attention in present day; that their vision for civilization conceived in a sudden union of worship and exploitation of the barren volcanic depression might now bear the Torre de las Americas or the Paseo de la Reforma leaves us all equally in awe. Would they have predicted it while we remained skeptical?

Or would they be fascinated by machines slowly rolling along the slick surface of Avenida Insurgentes, spurting soot and coughing the haze collecting in the air above? Maybe they’d be mesmerized by the absence of flora and fauna, confused by the choreographed jacaranda trees and coordinated cacti sprouting sadly from buckling sidewalks. Artistic representations reflect from similarly hasty concrete walls left to crumble in the next earthquake, a mirror into the caricatured lives of those who first came, an actively cultivated civilization baffled by actual prosperity despite the absence of other intersecting forms of life.

Maybe they will be humbled that Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl still slumber south of the city, transformed to volcanoes by the gods to consecrate a legendary love and recall the overwhelming permanence of the boldly curious yet most natural emotion. He (Popo) laid her to rest on her back after she died of grief upon the false news of his death in battle. Yet he still fumes at the loss of his dear, emitting ash and smoke and pumice when his heart stirs. They haven’t moved, even if the snow is slowly receding from their granitic silhouettes. Though violent summer thunderstorms flood the valley floor, long since draped in the progressively haphazard asphalt and tile patchwork of urban decay and amber lampposts brighten the night beyond the mountainside fires, the legends are unchanged. Perhaps they demand deference. Would the Mexicas still offer it?

Might they be griefstricken, shocked by the opulent few amidst crumbling grandeur? That their faithful venture literally collapses under its own success, with buildings growing taller, population bulging, and resources dwindling? Water is absent, earthquakes frequent. The pulsating veins of the city never ceasing, pumping a cancerous corrupt blood. But it must continue pumping, flowing, compensating for the spillage wrought by innocents in the crossfire. Maybe there are no shots, but the broader wound is that even in the quietest places, the tranquility feels insincere.

Let's ask them, if we can. If we can find a moment amidst labyrinthine chaos of a silently ancient city now vaguely European, boldly American. If we can escape the conundrum of wealth amidst lack of resources. If we can breathe the alpine air without choking on particulates on the journey to the mountains that crown the city. Because the blood flows to the present, a unity of millions around a mosaic identity of then and now, indigenous and intruder. The drops of origin are still spoken in Nahuatl over simple meals intersecting with the essential pillars of ancient nutrition: beans, maize, and squash, garnished with chiles, while the sputtering petrol vehicles carry goods from the mercado. They stretch like wool on the loom between an ancient abundance and modern subsistence. Let’s ask them what their city was and what they want it to be. Maybe these two are not so disparate. Or maybe it’s lost in history under the folds of the sinking soil.