Now, you might imagine that Indigenous Peoples Day is just another condescending project for bien pensant middling folk everywhere, a way for such middlers to find yet another use for people they know little about and care about even less. But you would be wrong. It is a chance for us to call to memory the forgotten history that has shaped our present just as assuredly as the Master Narrative cobbled by the victors.
On this auspicious Indigenous Peoples Day, let us celebrate the Aztec Empire. More specifically, let us celebrate the fall of the Aztec Empire. Seriously, two expansionist empires collided, and one fell as a result. What's more, the one that fell was based on slavery and human sacrifice. The larger empire that resulted was, it's true, based on slavery, but there was no human sacrifice. Quetzalcoatl was banished, and believe me, that was a good thing.
Want to be an Aztec? Behold your god.
See? This is a fitting tribute on this Indigenous Peoples Day, one that will in no way fill any of us with a feeling of smug satisfaction at our own moral superiority. Go forth, dear reader, and hold high festival this year, remembering the fall of one of the most brutally omnivorous empires in the history of the world.
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