Rosas 1

Humberto Rosas Leon

Chicano Studies
P:4
Mr. Arreola

Who are those chontaltin?

“We saw some chontaltin today, I had never seen people like that before, they look

like they have a lot of hair in their faces, their skin looks different compared to my skin, even

their eyes have different colors like water or grass, and are a little bit shorter than me, who

are those chontaltin? The priest says the Gods have arrived, this is the day we all were

waiting for, some of those chontaltin are extremely tall, they even have two heads and 4 feet,

the second head makes some strange noises and eats grass. Who are those chontaltin?”

“They make some sounds with their mouths like us but we can’t understand what they

say, they seem like they understand each other, they look at us in a very strange way, we

can’t communicate with them.” Those were the words of a native, who was surprised by the

arrival of those men who came from Spain, the most powerful empire at that time, the

Mixtecas thought that man and horse were a single organism, that is why they believed they

were the Gods themselves, they look so different from what they used to see everyday. Of

course, Spaniards spoke Spanish, which is a language that has Latin influences, when the

natives tried to establish a communication, they could not understand what the Spaniards

were saying. “A koyotl (a stranger) has a long stick and it has a strange figure on its top, a

kuautolo, (cross) they have some necklaces with the same figure, what is that? Who are those

chontaltin? If they do something unkind like hitting our people or even touch our women, we

will fight them, Mictlantecuhtli will lead us and we will send those chontaltin to his kingdom.

Or we can pray to Yozotoyua to help us make some deals with these chontaltin if they have
 Rosas 2

something to trade.” In this part, we can clearly see the contrast between these two cultures,

in one hand the Spaniards were mainly catholics, that is why they always carried the cross

with them, and the native was surprised because they had never seen something like that. In

the other hand, natives were polytheists, they had many deities and each of them had a

different function or reason to be adored, “Mictlantecuhtli” was the God of war, of death, that

is why the native makes a reference to him when he contemplates the possibility of a

confrontation between the strangers and his people. “Yozotoyua” was the deity for the

merchants, traders, of course, the native did not know the strangers’ intentions, so he even

contemplated the possibility of trading with the Spaniards.

“After a long time, perhaps 3 years after the first day I saw these men, the chontaltin

(strangers) brought other men, they are different, they only wear brown clothes and they do

not have those shiny hats the other men have, (war helmets) they are always carrying a weird

object with many drawings, they also wear that necklace, that object they hold in their hands

has something inscribed, it says: “Santa Biblia”. They look less aggressive, they took some of

our children and are teaching them how to make the same sounds they chontaltin do with

their mouths and they are starting to sound like the chontaltin. Some of the children can even

tell us what those men say, they say they will protect us, they will give us food and they will

build something, like a big house, I do not know the name very well but the child said

m...isssio (mission) and they will teach us a lot of things. Who are those chontaltin?” After

the first expeditions arrived to these territories, the Spaniards tried to be peaceful, they

established some alliances and were trying to find gold, but they could not establish an

effective communication with the natives. The first religious missionaries started coming

after the routes between the two continents were established, they tried to “civilize” the
 Rosas 3

natives, taught them how to read, and in some way, educated them religiously to receive the

catholic religion and replace their old beliefs. But of course, behind all this charity, there was

a strategy, some people believe the monks and priests used this as a tool to manipulate the

natives and then give total control to the army and the conquistadores (conquerors) to start

using the natives as slaves, that way it would not be necessary to bring slaves from Africa,

true or false, there is something we can confirm, the missions benefited both sides, even

though the natives lost most of their original culture, it provoked the clash between two

worlds, the mix that would originate a new race, El Mestizo.

“Things have changed, now we have to work for those men who taught us how to

make those sounds the chontaltin (strangers) used to make the first time I saw them, now we

have to dig and try to find the God’s shit, (gold) I don’t even know why these men want that,

we have found a lot of that and the men have loaded these things that are made with the trees’

skins and can float on the water, (ships) they are bigger than our cuahuitl, (boats) when they

are fully loaded, they just leave and then more gigantic cuahuitl come and more of those men

with shiny hats and some magic instruments that explode and shoot a small iron ball that can

even take life away from a man, (a musket) they come in huge groups to protect those smart

men in the haciendas while we take all the crops for them”. The haciendas were buildings

that collected all the crops by using natives, they were basically their slaves, some people do

not want to admit this but it perfectly fits the description of slavery, a fact about this is that

Native Americans were too weak for that type of work, mining was too much them, most of

them died, that is why they brought African slaves, this is dad but it did happen.
 Rosas 4

“Life is so different now, times in which we fought wars against our rival tribes are

over, times where any soldier could become leader, times in which soldiers were wealthy and

had a good life, those times ended when these chontaltin (strangers) came here, now we have

to live in the way they order, our tlatoani (leader) agreed on that and we cannot discuss that,

some of our people tried to fight these men by using the force, but they died, my youngest

brother belonged to the forces that tried to fight these men, he died, we found his body with a

hole in his head… One of those magic things the chontaltin used killed him. Our weapons

were not strong enough to break their heads, those shiny hats they had were strong as the

stones, (helmets) our warriors failed, and now they control us, they even prohibited us to pray

our Gods, they insist we have to pray to that cross they have. That’s not enough, chontaltin

had something strange, something that kills them and has no remedy, they were pale,

coughing and could not move, at the beginning, it only occurred to them, but after some

years, our people suffered the same thing, our herbs were not enough to cure this, I lost my

sister due to that illness, now I am alone… Who are those chontaltin?”. Spaniards brought

many diseases such as influenza, smallpox, malaria and Spanish flu, these diseases killed

millions of natives who were not genetically ready for this. This was one of the causes of the

extinction of many races that inhabited the Mexican territories.

The chontaltin were the Spaniards, the responsibles for making us what we are today,

yes, they killed, raped, enslaved, annihilated and almost exterminated the original and real

Americans, it’s not their fault that our world lives by the standards we know today, that clash

between our civilizations resulted in what we are right now, Mexicanos, Mestizos, Indigenas,

Criollos. Some of us are lucky to still have our ancestors’ blood, we are the rest of those

original natives, nobody can claim a land as his land, America was born free, the man himself
 Rosas 5

divided it. Who would have imagined that those men who arrived here many years ago would

be responsible for creating this race? ¿este idioma? El primer indio que los vio, nunca se

hubiera imaginado que uno de sus descendientes estaria escribiendo este ensayo en español,

aqui estamos lo que quedo de ellos, despues de tantos años… Those men who landed on the

Mexican beaches… Who took all the gold… Who brought good and bad things… Who gave

us their last names… Those… Those are the chontaltin (strangers).