ARIZONA POLITICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF AZTEC CULTURE

If you're feeling enough courage to face the nastiness of anti-gay political arguments in one of the nation's fastest growing states (!!), read this column by Molly Ivins (link via Sisyphus Shrugged).

Ugly.

One claim caught my eye in particular, though:

The author of these novel ideas concerning homosexuality was state Rep. Barbara Blewster, R-Dewey, who explained that throughout history, cultures that have embraced homosexuality have also embraced bestiality, human sacrifice and cannibalism. She pointed to the Aztec culture at the time of the Spanish conquest as an example. Blewster also said that history repeats itself and that the Ten Commandments are still relevant.

I recently had a conversation with my sister (see one of her works here) about a professor at SMFA named Eulogio Guzman, who argues that our view of Aztec human sacrifice is more a product of specific Spanish colonial requests for portrayals of human sacrifice than actual Aztec practice. The argument is that the visual depictions of the Aztecs that we have are a product of what the Spanish wanted to see and what they actually requested from the artists that they got to produce works representing Aztec religious practice.

I've looked for some work in this direction online, but haven't found much yet. An interesting thesis. I doubt that Rep. Blewster would really care, though.