Aztecs Stage 5 Comprehension - Fact Or Fiction - Comprehension Pack.pdf

STAGE 5 Unit focus: Aztecs Text focus: Information Text Fact Or Fiction “History is written by the victors.” It’s an old saying often credited to Winston Churchill (there’s...

STAGE 5 Unit focus: Aztecs Text focus: Information Text Fact Or Fiction “History is written by the victors.” It’s an old saying often credited to Winston Churchill (there’s no evidence of him ever actually saying that phrase), but there is certainly an element of truth to it. Many of the impressions we have of King Richard III, for instance, come from Shakespeare’s plays written after the king’s death. Seeing as Shakespeare was a Tudor, and the Tudors had killed the king, his viewpoint was probably not that balanced. The same can definitely be said for many of our ideas about the Aztec civilisation. Nearly all of what you might hear about this once-great civilisation comes from the Spanish invaders who wiped them out. There are lots of things that you might have heard that aren’t actually true. Let’s look at some of them. A Name. It’s an important place to start. The people that we call the Aztecs never called themselves that. They referred to themselves as Mexica or Culhua-Mexica. The early settlers came from Aztlan, so historians took the name from that. However, many different groups of people spread out from Aztlan and settled in many different cities. It is convenient now to refer to them as the Aztecs because most people understand what that means, but it is also important to understand where the name came from. It first appeared in a book written by an American historian in 1843, 300 years after the civilisation ended. The Spanish Were Gods. It has long been said that the Aztecs believed that the Spanish conquistadors were gods. There are many reasons why this myth has lasted, including the Spanish misunderstanding of the Nahuatl language that the Aztecs spoke. The main reason, though, seems to be to flatter the Spanish. The Spanish invaders took the Aztec cities by force and killed many thousands of people. If they could persuade the rest of the world that the Aztecs were superstitious and easily tricked, then people would think that the A ding ro Rea und all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed e um C u r r ic ul Th http://www.literacyshedplus.com Spanish were doing them a favour by taking over. They Wanted To Be Colonised. For a long time, there was a myth that the Aztec people stepped aside and let the Spanish take over as soon as they arrived. These stories made the Spanish seem caring and the Aztecs weak. In fact, the Aztecs fought hard against their enemies. They kept them out of Tenochtitlan for 93 days. When the Spanish leader, Hernan Cortés, made it into the city, he placed Montezuma (the Aztec leader) under house arrest. The Aztecs rebelled and kicked the Spanish out for a while. The Aztecs Are Gone Forever. Like many of the Mesoamerican cultures, Aztec culture survives today. There are over 1 million people speaking the Nahuatl languages and worshipping the same gods with similar rituals. The Spanish invasion wiped out millions through murder and disease, but enough survived to keep their rich culture going. VOCABULARY FOCUS 1. What does the quote at the beginning of the text mean? 2. Find and copy a word from the “A Name” section that means “easier”. 3. If somebody is “superstitious”, what does it mean? 4. Find and copy a phrase that means somebody let something happen without doing anything about it. 5. What impression do you get from the phrase “wiped out”? VIPERS QUESTIONS S Why can’t we trust Shakespeare’s impression of King Richard III? R When did the name “Aztec” first appear? R Who led the Spanish invasion? R Where did the Aztec resist the invasion? I Why might the Spanish have wanted to tell people their thoughts on what happened? all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com