Aztec Philosophy

CMM

A Different Way of Viewing the World

Question #1: James Maffei and Leon Portilla both draw a picture for their readers of who the creator or ultimate god is for the Aztec. There are a few differences such as the name they use to refer to the same god. Maffei refers to the Aztec ultimate creator as teotl and Portilla refers to him/her as Ometeotl. Although, sometimes there is difference in the Maffei and Portillas versions of Ometeotl there are many similarities, such as: 1. ―Ometeolt is the Foundation of the universe; everything is in him‖ (Portilla) 2. ―Continually generates and regenerates‖ (Maffei), 3. ―is a verb denotating process and movement rather than as a noun denoting a discrete static entity‖ (Maffei), 4. Omeyocan- ―mansion of duality‖; place of ometeotl (Portilla) 5. ―God of Duality‖ (Portilla), 6. “Origin of all cosmic forces‖ (Portilla) 7. transcendant. ―invisible like the night and intangible like the wind.(Portilla) Some of the few difference between Maffei and Portillas’s versions of Ometeotl are: 1. ―Is neither described as ordered or unordered‖ (Maffei) 2. ―mother and father of the gods, the old god‖(Portilla) 3. Ometeotl Lives in the navel of the earth. (Portilla) Both authors use different words to describe almost the same creator, but the few changes causes a separation between the two versions. When looking over the difference between the two different Ometeotls versions, there are not many and it some way sound similar what both authors are trying to say. It could be argued that even though they called Ometeotl different names that they do have the same version in mind, but they forgot to include certain details that the other author did include.

Question #2

Question #3

CMM

James Maffei and Leon Portilla are both philosophers who have similar views on philosophy the only time that they diverge from similar thought is the way in which they implement philosophy to understand the Aztec civilization. Leon Portilla states,...