The Lost Diary of Montezuma’s Soothsayer. Clive Dickinson
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Lost Diary of Montezuma’s Soothsayer - Clive Dickinson страница
Название: The Lost Diary of Montezuma’s Soothsayer
Автор: Clive Dickinson
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Книги для детей: прочее
isbn: 9780007502592
isbn:
The Lost Diary of
MONTEZUMA’S SOOTHSAYER
Found by Clive Dickinson
Illustrated by George Hollingworth
CONTENTS
Message to Readers
February 15th, 1519
March 10th, 1519
March 11th, 1519
March 12th, 1519
March 15th, 1519
March 30th, 1519
April 12th, 1519
June 27th, 1519
June 28th, 1519
August 10th, 1519
September 24th, 1519
October 31st, 1519
November 8th, 1519
November 9th, 1519
November 10th, 1519
November 11th, 1519
November 12th, 1519
November 14th, 1519
November 20th, 1519
November 25th, 1519
December 4th, 1519
January 3rd, 1520
January 5th, 1520
January 22nd, 1520
February 9th, 1520
February 14th, 1520
March 7th, 1520
April 3rd, 1520
May 4th, 1520
May 5th, 1520
May 17th, 1520
June 25th, 1520
June 27th, 1520
June 30th, 1520
July 1st, 1520
The End of the Aztecs
Publisher’s Addendum
Other Works
Copyright
About the Publisher
During a recent holiday in Spain, Clive Dickinson and his family visited a local market. Among the stalls selling fruit and vegetables, clothes, shoes, sunglasses and beachwear, his two children found a stall selling postcards and old books. One particular book was made up of pages stitched together so that it opened up like a concertina. There were no written words. Instead the pages were covered in brightly coloured pictures. It looked like a battered old comic book and so ancient that Mr Dickinson thought it might be a rare treasure – a priceless document. Could it have been something brought back to Spain by the early Spanish adventurers in Central America? Further investigation proved that it was.
Leading experts in the history of America before the Spanish conquest carefully examined the book, or codex, as they called it. Dr Shady Practice and Professor Pulltheotherone confirmed that it dated from the early sixteenth century; the time when Spanish soldiers, traders and missionaries had begun to explore and conquer the New World.
The two historians revealed an even more amazing secret. It appeared that the book was a diary, covering the last years of the Aztec empire during the reign of Montezuma II (or Moctezuma, as his name is sometimes spelt) who was the Aztec king, or Great Speaker. When the diary was translated it told of the arrival of Hernán Cortés and the first Spaniards to the Aztec world.
The diarist seems to have been one of the advisers to Montezuma, who had the job of looking into the future to foretell what might happen.
Extracts from the diary appear here for the first time. They give a remarkable picture of the Aztec world and the coming of the Spanish invaders who would soon conquer it.
Note: The diarist, Guessalotl, used the system of dates in the Aztec farming calendar. This had eighteen months. Each month was twenty days long and there were five days left over at the end of the year. However, to make it easier to follow, the translation printed here uses dates in the Christian calendar.
The second day of the first month of
the Aztec year
I had a nightmare last night. As I lay on my reed sleeping mat wrapped in my cloak, I dreamt I heard a voice saying: ‘Fasten your seat-belt, please, Señor Guessalotl. We’ll be landing in Mexico City soon.’
I’ve had this nightmare before. Perhaps I had too much pulque* at the New Year’s Day party yesterday. I like the taste of pulque but it must do strange things to my head. I’d better watch out. The law is very strict about drinking too much. Only old people are allowed to get drunk. The law says that younger people who get drunk will be sentenced to death. There’s enough sentencing to death as it is and I don’t want to end up as another human sacrifice to the gods – even for the sake of an extra cup of pulque.
That was another thing about my nightmare. There wasn’t any СКАЧАТЬ