This syncretism is a product of mestizoness, in which the half-Indian, half-Spaniard tried to accommodate both cultures-a concept that politically isn’t very convincing. Contemporary Mexican folk beliefs constitute the best of both Aztec and European heritages that work-a syncretism. The book’s aim, however, is not to demonstrate how ideas were transformed in cultural history, but to illustrate the durability of things Aztec for simple reasons of efficacy. Medical beliefs are Boasian culture traits disembodied from their sociopolitical context. The population argument is somewhat tautological. Thus much of contemporary Mexican folk belief remains consistent with the Aztec medical world view. This theory’s peculiar character rendered it superficially similar to the Galenic theory popular in Europe at that time and thereby amenable to both syncretism and anthropological misunderstanding. Indigenous medical theory gave rise to an inventory of remedies that are demonstrably effective. The author argues that the Aztecs expanded the valley’s carrying capacity far beyond its population size by an ingenious system of food production and the use of superior food sources. ![]() Was Aztec cannibalism really an adaptation to protein scarcity in an overpopulated valley of Mexico? Was the ease of the European conquest due to poor Aztec nutrition and health care? Is contemporary Mexican folk belief solely derived from European ideas, with no significant debt to the Aztecs? Was it a blessing that the Aztecs were wiped out? A multitude of controversies is assembled in this dramatic, thoroughly entertaining defense of the Aztecs and in the process Ortiz de Montellano presents a public health and food-production system that far surpassed anything in Europe at the time, replete with advanced irrigation and sewage systems, botanical gardens, medical research, and agricultural secrets that could benefit the contemporary Third World. It resuscitates a host of old debates like a soap opera.
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