Word: aztecs
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Appearances deceive. "Don Pepe," says an admiring countryman, "is a real he-man." Far from being an otherworldly intellectual, Lopez Portillo is a tough-minded leader with an abrasive streak and a bent for professorial oratory: he often salts his speeches with fire-and-brimstone references to the Aztec past. During his state of the union address, for example, in speaking of the oil spill in the Bay of Campeche, he made references to an ancient god and the Aztec mistress of the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes. "In the depths of this flaming well," he intoned, "we Mexicans have seen...
...Hydra Head, Fuentes departs from his customary focus. He formerly wrote historical novels, such as Terra Nostra and Change of Skin, about the betrayal of the Mexican Revolution's ideals by its bourgeois leadership. He blended Aztec and Roman Catholic mythology, Marxism and experimental literary techniques in his criticism of Mexican society. In The Hydra Head, however, Fuentes concerns himself with Mexico's role in the international economic and political realm, rather than with its internal problems...
...visit to the nearby shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The next day he will proceed to Puebla, 65 miles to the southeast, for the opening of a conference of Latin American bishops. During his five-day stay the Pope may also offer a "People's Mass" at Aztec Stadium (capacity: 100,000) in Mexico City...
Every year thousands of pre-Hispanic objects-Mayan stelae, Aztec jewelry, Incan pottery, Olmec figurines-are smuggled out of Mexico, Central America and the Andean nations of South America. The illicit trade easily reaches millions of dollars annually and involves characters so bizarre they might have stepped out of an old Humphrey Bogart film: shrewd peasants, soldiers of fortune, venal archaeologists, dealers, diplomats and collectors who are ready to pay-or do-almost anything to satisfy their greed...
What the workmen found was not gold, but a treasure nonetheless. It has now been identified as a huge pre-Columbian bas-relief of the Aztec moon goddess Coyolxauhqui. Probably sculpted in the early 15th century, the circular stone, 3.3 meters (11 ft.) across and weighing some 20 tons, has relief images of the dismembered goddess's limbs, torso and head scattered all over its surface. The carnage depicts a well-known episode from Aztec mythology. When the mother of the gods was pregnant for the last time, so the story goes, her other offspring-the moon, planets...