Totonac

A on-floor ship anchors in 1544 off a coast of marsh and river mouths at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

It's four miles from a Totonac town called Sempoala, which pays tribute to a city inland.

Within weeks, envoys come down from that city.

They speak for Cuauhtemoc, who is about 49 and was elected ruler after Moctezuma died in his bed at 78.

So for the latter, which, uh, Vanilla planifolia is the one that most people consume and most people would recognize.

It was produced by Totonac people and largely consumed by Aztec people, which is a really interesting twist to vanilla.

It rarely was most enjoyed by, by people in the area where it grows interestingly.

This has long been true.

And so the cultivation, if you will, of, of vanilla goes way back.

The Maya and the Totonacs would have used cuttings, but there's no evidence that they were able to master the technique of pollination, and so they required insect intervention.

And that's another interesting trait of the book.

Once upon a time, a hundred percent of all the vanilla eaten in the world was pollinated by insects, and today it's close to nil.

His political antenna, honed by years, uh, in the islands, enables him to appreciate at a very early stage that there is a significant imperial power which has hegemony here in the mainland, and that its subject peoples chafe under the authority of whoever this, this lord or, or imperial power is.

Uh, he arrives in the lands of the Totonacs, who had recently been incorporated into the imperial orbit of a people who call themselves the Mexica, hence Mexico as, as we know it, uh, but have come down to history based on their mythical origins in a land called Aztlán as the Aztecs.

So for simplicity's sake, we-we-that's what we'll refer to them as.

Uh, the Totonacs resented this authority, as all subjugated and subordinated peoples do.

And they saw the arrival of these outsiders as a potential opportunity to throw off the authority that had been imposed on them.

So, having established this relationship with the Totonacs, Cortés begins to march inland, and he enters the territory of the Tlaxcalans, who, are like an autoimmune system, immediately rallied to defeat him, to, to expel him from their territory.

But he fights them to a standstill for such a period of time, the Tlaxcalans and he arrive at a new kind of arrangement.

The Tlaxcalans again appreciate his strength, his power, his potential.

So people who are behind can catch up.

Because the fact is, during the course of the conquest, not just the Aztecs, but the Tlaxcalans, the Totonacs, and the other tribes in the area rapidly caught up technologically and tactically to

the level the Spanish were at.

Mainly because they had no choice to.

And it was on the back of this cannibalism that essentially soiling green that expanded the Mexican empire to its extent.

And they enabled them to absolutely dominate all of their neighbors who were quite literally weaker.

Because they demanded humans as tribute, many other tribes, including the Tlaxcalans, the Totonacs, and others, actually started farming people to supply to the Aztecs.

The Aztecs, aware of this, wanted to keep the conquered peoples down.

Um, the Aztecs enjoyed it.

The Totonacs produced it.

So looking back into history, you've got this plant that grows only in the, the, the tropical forest in South America, consumed by indigenous people.

When do Europeans get their first taste, and do they go crazy for it?

Psilocybin mushrooms hold ceremonial roots running far deeper and wider than the Massatech tradition alone, worth understanding in its fuller scope.

Archaeological evidence points to ritual mushroom use across Mesoamerica for at least 3500 years, the Maya calling their sacred mushroom Caizalaj o Kosh, the Aztecs calling it Teonanacatl, consumed as well by the Huastec, Totonac, and Zapotec peoples alongside the Mazatec.

Physical evidence survives in the form of mushroom stones, carved stone artifacts shaped unmistakably like mushrooms, some featuring human or deity faces carved directly into the stem, found across Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

At Caminalhuyu in Guatemala alone, Archaeologists uncovered nine separate miniature mushroom stones dating to roughly 1,000 to 500 BCE, which one researcher, Stephen Debor Hezhi, connected directly to the Mayan concept of the nine lords of the night, underworld deities governing the nine-night cycle.

plumed serpents monkeys centipedes and crocodiles are interestedly drawn on pottery an important site is papandla where a remarkably ornate pyramid rising in six terraces may be seen as well as massive sculptures in the same style as the works of art described above The front wall of each terrace, on all four sides of the pyramid, except for the space occupied by the stairway, is divided into a series of niches neatly made of god's stone.

Formerly each of these niches may have served to shelter the statue of some god.

Many fine remains of Totonacan art have been recovered from the island of sacrifices in the harbor of Veracruz.

This island retained its ancient sacrificial character in the time of the Spanish conquerors.

It is apparent, however, that the culture had already changed greatly, if we may judge by the ruins of Sempoalan, the Totonacan capital in the 16th century.

The art of the city is largely Aztecan.

The Toltecs Mexican history is greatly concerned with the Toltecs, the name meaning people of Tula or Toyan, place of the reeds.

Human beings, crocodiles, monkeys, and birds are all used to decorate these carefully and laboriously made pieces, whose use is entirely unknown.