Mexican Culture
A lesser spoken of culture that Spengler identifies is the Central American, or Mexican culture, that existed perhaps only a century or two behind the development of Magian civilization. Its lack of detail is caused by its lone status as a higher culture that did not reach its end but was rather violently put out in the span of a single generation by the arrival of Old World, specifically Faustian, forces. Where the Aztecs were in their development, with their vast multi-cultural empire centred in Tenochtitlan, when we arrived on their shores, we now stand today. The story Mexican culture tells before its abrupt end shows to us that there is no discernible divine plan for humanity outside of the loose logic of organized psychology and may, in the distant future, end as soon as it began.
When the Spanish emptied the New World, all manner of artifacts showcasing their immense intricacy were lost: cities were swallowed by rainforest, their language, predominantly oral, has been reduced to a litter of esoteric dialects as the last five hundred years has no doubt corrupted the original tongue, and without a coherent writing system, because of its oral nature, what remains of Nahuatl in writing is unreadable.
But their character is still remembered to this day and these peoples, untouched until their end by the old world (except perhaps by Chinese explorers), bear resemblances to many of the known cultures: pyramids, and their calendars, show the mark of a civilization with a great understanding of time, the winter solstice at the Chichen Itza pyramid also shows they observed the stars and the precession of years in order to create the famous Snake of sunlight that runs down the pyramid steps, and this goes without mentioning their knowledge of space by all the acoustic phenomena found throughout their ruins. Their many gods were sacrificed to as the Greeks sacrificed animals for theirs and the most important classical trait found among the Mexicans was that feebleness of Will to innovate and expand and develop that left them wide open for a civilization over half a millennium younger than theirs to exploit and pillage with only a handful of cannons and horses.
Before learning of Spengler it was apparent to me, from a simpler point of view, that what the Greeks were to Rome, the Mayans were to the Aztecs; the rise of the Mayan cities were the mark of the springtime of the culture between 160 and 450. During this period the creation of their holy structure, the Gothic Chichen Itza, became the hallmark design for most preceding pyramids long into the Summer and Autumn. The Baroque of their culture, (600 – 960) saw their forms radiate outwards to the surrounding peoples, including the Nahuatl peoples who despite being recipients of the culture, had strong political instincts making them much like the Italic peoples receiving Hellenic culture and forming Rome around those beliefs. As well as this, many new cosmopoli thrust upwards, including Uxmal which was founded on the turning point into civilisation, (no doubt at this time they also had their own Socrates to mark out the new civilised philosophy). And between 960 and 1165 the League of Mayapan, an alliance of the most powerful states in the region, held some modicum of stability through countless wars and rebellions (for the West this would be 1800 to 2000).
When the Period of Contending States ended Qin came atop and Ying Zheng became the first emperor of China. Equally, once a general, Caesar used his military might to force the Senate into accepting him as Emperor after his campaigns abroad; the Aztec Empire had a General who defeated the Mayapan league and founded his own dynasty to the East of the Yucatan, as Athens sunk to the wayside before Rome, the peoples of the Maya culture sat in silence as the Aztecs became the new centre of the now ripened civilization. This aligns with 150 BC in the Classical world, and implications are free to be drawn as to what this means for the future of Faustian Civilisation. The 1300s birthed Tenochtitlan as the Capital of the Empire where all affairs were conducted and the Empire prospered for 200 years. Of the 1520s? the End.
Another culture, the Incan/Peruvian, is mentioned but not expanded upon here at least. The fall of the Aztecs to us is comparable to an outside invader genociding our civilization and extinguishing our very identities around the year 2200. By no means was that Faustian Intolerance the cause of their demise however, should the Muslims have arrived first it would be clear that after the spread of disease, on accident, the ensuing jihads would have turned their pyramids into grand mosques, and even at the time of Cortez’ conquest, no German or English was aware of the efforts. Their apocalypse occurred in the night and no one heeded their cry. What insights they could have provided us with time and understanding, their philosophers, artists, politicians, their ideologies and cults and lost history, like the pyramids has been swallowed by the Jungle.