Fairy Tale Flip – Ep 5: The Mexican Legend of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl
Have you heard of the Aztec Legend of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl? At the heart of this Mexican Legend from Aztec Mythology are two volcanoes overlooking Mexico City. A legend sometimes referred to as the Romeo and Juliet of Central America, this legend tells of a princess and a warrior whose love burns bright, but because of unfortunate circumstances, die of grief and are turned into the beautiful snow capped mountains looming large over the city. In Fairy Tale Flip episode 5, Donna Lee Fields of Doorways to Learning and Vanessa Y Rogers of Fabric of Folklore dive into the history of the Aztecs, the legend, the language, spirituality, connection to nature and the different versions to understand the story’s hidden meanings. Don’t miss this one!
All Three options given for the month:
The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf: https://youtu.be/YPnH9cPK0eE
The Wild Swans: https://youtu.be/kPuz286p47g
The Legend of Popocatepetl & Iztaccíhuatl: https://youtu.be/SNXLxggR5b8
Description of all THREEt: https://fabricoffolklore.com/?p=1087
The Vital Organs of Planet Earth Video
Correction: The word Popocatepetl is divided in 5 syllables: Po-po-ca-te-petl. (not 7 like Vanessa stated)
Music credit:
Celtic Impulse – Celtic · Kevin MacLeod
Follow us:
Fabric of Folklore website
00:14
Vanessa Rogers
All right, well, welcome. Welcome to Fairy Tale Flip. I believe this is our episode five, our fourth episode together, but episode five of fairy tale Flip. I’m Vanessa Y. Rogers, and my co host is Donalee Fields. From doorways to learning, that’s her podcast, but she also has scaffolding magic, which is her business. And you can find that website, it’s just www.scaffoldingmagic.com, right?
00:44
Donna Fields
Yes. Yes.
00:46
Vanessa Rogers
And then I also have a podcast, fabric of folklore, where I talk about folklore and the hidden meaning behind folktales, fairy tales, language. It’s a little bit more broader than what we do here on fairy tale Flip, but I love that we are collaborating on this podcast on fairy tale Flip, because for one thing, it’s so fun. We’re talking about fairy tales, and fairy tales are just, you know, everybody knows fairy tales, right? They’re exciting. They are close to home for a lot of people.
01:20
Donna Fields
Yeah. Fairy tales are a way for us to sort of vent our angst about society in really kind of benign ways. So it’s really, fairy tales have been like this for centuries. Ways for the peasants, the villagers, the common people, to complain about the nobility and still keep their head on their shoulders. So, yeah, fairy tales are magical. I love them.
01:41
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah. And last month we did Rumpelstiltskin, which I found really amazing because I didn’t realize how old of a story it was. I didn’t realize it was one of the oldest western literature stories of all time that is older than the New Testament. That was really amazing to me. So I just love that all the things that we learn through doing fairy tale flip and why don’t we talk a little bit about? So, our structure is usually we give our audience three options to choose from. And this month we chose one that was suggested by an audience member who participated last time, the girl who trod on a loaf, which was super fascinating. I never heard of that one. And that was the one I actually voted for. And then one that you really wanted to do. The wild swans.
02:33
Donna Fields
The wild swans, also by Hans Christian Andersen, which was very interesting because I didn’t. I never heard about the girl who trod on a loaf. It’s an interesting fairy tale. I happen to like the wild swans because I’ve read it in a lot of different versions. So that was one I voted for.
02:49
Vanessa Rogers
And my aunt was actually also said that she read that story to her. She was a kindergarten teacher, and she read that story to her kindergarten children quite a bit. So she really liked that story as well. And I never heard of the Wild swans, either. So that was really interesting as well. But the one that the audience ended up voting for is not actually a technical fairy tale, but we’re going to get into that a little bit. The legend of Popocatepetl and is taxiuatl. It’s a legend that comes from Mexico. So why don’t you give us a little bit of a synopsis of this legend, and then we’ll go from there.
03:29
Donna Fields
Yeah, yeah. And you pronounce it so well. I’m so impressed. There is actually a way we can shorten it. The nicknames are Popo and Icha. So that’s what I’m going for.
03:38
Vanessa Rogers
Vanessa, popo and icha. Okay. Yeah. I am going to give a little pronunciation lesson. I hope that it’s a correct one. But this is the one I read over and over to kind of get that pronunciation.
03:52
Donna Fields
Yeah. Because it’s not actually spanish, it’s aztec. So, you know, wherever you got the pronunciation from, again, very impressive. You really love research, and it pays off.
04:02
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah.
04:03
Donna Fields
All right, so let me just. A very short synopsis, because Vanessa said, we have a YouTube video on her channel and on my channel, of Vanessa reading this legend, and she does it so well. The summary really is very simple. The Aztecs were ruling an area known now as Mexico for centuries. And there were tribes that didn’t like their rule, and one of them was this tribe where one of the warriors was named Popo, and he wanted to marry the princess, the daughter of the ruler. And the ruler said, that’s fine, as long as you go to war against the Aztecs, you win, and then come back and you can have the hand of my daughter. She wanted it. So he went, the problem is, it’s someone else, like the princess.
04:43
Donna Fields
And lied to her and told her that her lover, Popo, had died in war. She actually died of grief. Popo came back victorious, but he found out that his love of all time had died, carried her up into a mountain, and then sat with her until he actually turned to stone as well. Or I think he turned to ash. Vanessa, you’ll have to correct me on that one. And they both became. They each became a volcano. And that’s where the legend is.
05:13
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah. I’m gonna make one correction. And it’s because when I first read it multiple times, and the way I read it on my YouTube channel, I read it wrong. I said that the warrior and the princess were from the rebellious tribe, but they were actually from the emperor. So I do need to make a correction on my YouTube channel as well, because I believe when I read it the first couple time of times, that’s how I read it. And then I realized that it was the emperor’s daughter because I read a longer version. There are several different versions of this story, but the longer version talks about how the emperor and his wife have been trying for a child for a really long time, and their people really want them to have a child.
06:04
Vanessa Rogers
And eventually she is, ends up having this daughter is Tatsuatl. And you’re calling her icha, is that how you’re saying it, her name?
06:15
Donna Fields
Yeah, but that’s my pronunciation. It’s very possible that in Mexico they’d do it differently. Who knows?
06:19
Vanessa Rogers
Well, that name in particular, I found different pronunciations. So that one, I’m not positive how that the people there pronounce it, but I found multiple different definitions pronunciation. So that one was a little bit more confusing. So, yeah, it was the emperor’s warrior and the emperor’s daughter. So. Yeah, but that was a great rundown of the story. And. But, so before we get into the, you know, what we. What we got from it, I’m going to give a little bit of a pronunciation lesson for anyone who’s interested, because I thought it was really, once you get the name, especially the warrior’s name, it’s really fun to say. I’ve been, like, going around the house and just saying it just like, rolls off the tongue. And it makes me really curious about their language because it sounds very sing songy.
07:18
Vanessa Rogers
It has seven syllables, which is one reason why it’s so hard to say. So I pictured it. I’m not very good with languages, so I have to break it up in my own way. I said pope, like the pope who lives in the Vatican. And then at an a popa kata petal. Like a petal, like a flower petal. So popa kutta petal popa catepetl. It flows a little bit differently than how I broke it up. And then is tux. It was is. Is Taksi Wattle is the princess’s name, and that’s the full name. But you’re right that they, a lot of people just call them by their nicknames because they are very long and arduous.
08:09
Donna Fields
Yeah, but it’s nice. So now, thank you so much for that. That makes it much more doable. And then the next thing you’re probably gonna go into is the point of this podcast. The reason we both love it so much is that we love to read and find and discover the hidden meanings, and because the legend is a little different. So I think it would behoove us to first distinguish between a fairy tale and a legend, and so that our listeners understand the hidden meanings are not necessarily going to be in the story, but rather the connection to the story and where the legend was told. So would you like to give your definition and your distinction, and I’ll give mine afterwards?
08:50
Vanessa Rogers
Sure. Yeah. And it’s interesting because, you know, when I describe what folklore is, I’m just realizing my light’s not on me when I describe what folklore is. And I went to the American Folklore society when I was originally trying to figure out from my podcast, every folklorist has a different definition, so the same is true for a lot of these different genres. So it’s, you know, I think of folklore a lot of as like a ball of yarn, and it’s all kind of intertwined and twisted together. So it’s sometimes hard to distinguish between the different lines. But my understanding is a fairy tale is generally written by an author.
09:31
Vanessa Rogers
It gets a little confusing because we classify the Grimms brothers fairy tales as fairy tales, but really they were oral tales told over and over again, and then the Grimm’s brother wrote them, the Grimms brothers wrote them down. So they are actually classified as folk tales because although they were written down by the Grimm’s brothers, they were not imaginated, they weren’t imagined by those brothers. But Hans Christian Andersen is one of the most famous of the european fairy tale authors, which is why we had the wild swans and the girl who trod on a loaf. They were both written by him. And I’m not sure if he got any of his ideas from folklore tales himself, but it’s very likely that he pulled from folk tales. So generally, fairy tales have a supernatural element. They are not rooted to a time and place.
10:24
Vanessa Rogers
They start with once upon a time, in american, at least in English, but they have a very strict structure. Once upon a time, they lived happily ever after. There’s some magic elements that happen in the middle, there’s archetypes, there’s a villain, there’s a protagonist, and those are the main characteristics of a fairy tale versus a folktale, for instance, whereas, and Vanessa.
10:52
Donna Fields
If you don’t mind, I’m just gonna interrupt you for 1 second, because it’s a really important point that you probably already know, but you’re not saying in this moment, is that the fairy tales written down by the Grimms were actually written in such a way that the parents could then tell the story to their children, even though they were still pretty gruesome. Before the Grimms wrote down the fairy tales, they were really only told from adult to adult. And again, it was a social statement. The Grimms wrote it down in such a way that they were a little more adapted to children. And now they’re becoming a little more. And we need to talk about. We need to spend one whole session on how much we’re going to protect children from the realities of life.
11:38
Donna Fields
We’ve been touching on that subject, but I still have more ideas. So then legends.
11:42
Vanessa Rogers
So a legend is rooted to a time and a place. So this story in particular takes place in during the time of the Aztecs. Whereas if you think about Rumpelstiltskin, it’s once upon a time in a place far away. We don’t know where this place is. We don’t know when it is. Right. But we know when the Aztecs live. They live for a couple hundred years in central Mexico. Right. So there is a time and a place that has. It’s rooted. And usually a legend has a character or a place that is true, a real something that’s an element of truth, a grain of truth, if you will.
12:26
Donna Fields
If you think about it, or even a natural occurrence, which is what this one is about.
12:30
Vanessa Rogers
So, yeah, the geography. Right. Because the volcanoes in the area are named for these characters, or the other way around. Right. The legend comes from the names of the. The volcanoes, but. Yes. Yeah. So that’s kind of the difference. A legend has some truth. Like Paul Bunyan, for instance, was likely based off of an actual lumberjack. They think that it was based off of a french lumberjack who was 6ft tall and had really large hands. But 6ft tall at the time, because of malnutrition, was actually very tall. He wasn’t a giant, like, you know, what we have in our stories, but he was tall in comparison to the 5ft men who were working at the time.
13:12
Donna Fields
Right. And then we also have myths, and we’re not going to talk too much about myths right now, but we have fairy tales, we have legends and myths are also tied to natural, more natural disasters than legends. Legends like, you’re saying they’re rooted in a geographic area, but a myth, for instance. And I’d love to get into the greek myth sometime, Vanessa. So, for instance, Phaeton is actually the Story, the greek myth about Phaeton and the horse that touches the sun and the sun comes. Sorry, I’m mixing them up. But when the sun comes down. It’s about a comet. It’s a comet that actually hit the earth, I think, 12,000 years ago, which is also tied to the fall of Atlantis. So all of these have really interesting ties.
13:57
Vanessa Rogers
I like to describe mythology as the narrative of a religion. So there’s always a deity that’s involved with a mythology.
14:06
Donna Fields
So you’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely right. It’s connected to a religion and also a natural phenomenon. So perfect. And actually, the natural phenomenon is now being proven. These phenomenon are being proven by scientists, by archaeologists, by other scientists that are studying geography. So this is a legend. So I don’t know about you, but I didn’t find really deep meanings in the legend itself, in the story itself. But what I found was the tie to the whole spirit of the people who live in the area now known as Mexico, where it’s this sort of undying celebration of life no matter what happens. So how about if we start there? What do you think?
14:59
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah, I would love to hear what your initial thoughts were. Anyone who is with us right now, please comment down below where you’re watching and listening from, and also what your initial thoughts were when you read it or had you already been familiar with it? What. What came to the surface for you? And so, Donna, at the same question, what came to the surface for you when you read this story?
15:24
Donna Fields
Well, you know, some people like to say it was Latin America, Romeo and Juliet, which really isn’t very accurate. And I think you’ll agree with this, because in Romeo and Juliet, she fakes her death, and then Romeo thinks that she is dead, when in this legend, she actually did die. So there’s some parallels, but not that many. This one really, for me, had to do with the volcanoes. And I really connected the whole idea with the erupting passions between these two people who truly loved each other. According to the legend. I don’t know them. I don’t know them now. And the relationship to the volcanoes where one is active to this day and the other one is not, and the locals there will point out all of the features of the princess lying there and what is now considered her tomb.
16:21
Donna Fields
So for me, it was the volcanoes. And so I did a lot of research on the spiritual meaning of volcanoes. And we can go.
16:29
Vanessa Rogers
Yes, I’d love to hear what you found.
16:32
Donna Fields
Well, it doesn’t go as deep as I wish it did, but there are a lot of cultural belief systems about volcanoes. Eruptions can be seen as personal and spiritual transformation. So what I’d like you to do, Vanessa, is, you know, when you’re listening to this, and our listeners as well, when I’m saying this, what bring. What do these ideas bring up for you? If I say that a volcano eruption can be seen as a personal and spiritual transformation, does that have any ties to the story itself? When we’re watching a volcano erupt, which can be seen because one of these volcanoes is still active, it’s like a spiritual awakening the earth. In my belief system, Vanessa, I’m not sure about you. In my belief system, the earth is actually a sentient being.
17:18
Donna Fields
And so the volcanoes are one way that it’s a very visible way that she’s coming alive. Sometimes she’s a little more dormant, sometimes a little more active. And people say that if you sit by a volcano and meditate in front of it, you can harness the power of the volcano, and you will experience personal growth. So it’s embracing nature’s power. What do you think?
17:42
Vanessa Rogers
Well, and I also. I think that a volcano really illustrates how much nature is in control of this planet. You know, a lot of times, humans, we feel like we control everything. But when nature, like volcanoes and hurricanes and tornadoes come to fruition, they really show us that, oh, no, oh, no, you’re not in control at all. This planet has an opinion, and we are here, and it’s important that you acknowledge our presence. And so I think that there’s something to that spiritual awakening. But I also think, you know, I’m curious, you know, because it. The volcano sits right over or near Mexico City, and it’s an active volcano, but has it spewed? Did you look at that all? I didn’t. I didn’t find that it had actually, like, erupted with a lava flow at all within Asia. Recent? Yeah.
18:49
Donna Fields
I’m not sure how far the lava goes. I just know that there are climbers that climb up to the top, and they only can go during certain season, so it regularly does erupt. And I’m not sure if it’s just the smoke or if the lava comes out, but they don’t go up when it’s being. Becoming more active.
19:04
Vanessa Rogers
Well, the one that is named for the woman, and she’s sometimes called the white woman because she’s covered. She’s always covered in snow, and sometimes she’s called the sleeping woman because she’s lying down. And if you look at the structure you were mentioning, it looks like her head and her knees and her feet. So it looks like someone is sleeping there. But that one has been dormant since the 18 hundreds. So that one is. A lot of adventurers like to go hike that mountain, for sure, but I didn’t know that anyone was hiking pocatepetal.
19:42
Donna Fields
Yeah. And they say it’s not a really fun climb because it’s a lot of broken rocks, but they do it because it’s famous. Then there’s, you know, just to finish with. What I understand about the symbolism of a volcano is that there’s that dual nature where the volcano can be destructive, but it also signifies birth and renewal. So it’s kind of fascinating because we have the death of this couple that actually gives life, because a mountain gives life. If we’re talking about ascension, being of the planet, even if it’s a volcano, there are trees and there are plants on both mountains. And so there was new life created. Not human life, but life nevertheless. And then you have to decide, what do you recognize as life?
20:34
Donna Fields
And then we’re going to go really deep, Vanessa, because, really, I believe rocks are sentient beings as well, but at a very low vibration. So there’s a lot of life going on in these two volcanoes that you may or may not recognize.
20:49
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah. So one of the things that I. That came up for me was one of the stories that we did not choose the donkey. The donkey skin. Was that what?
21:01
Donna Fields
Yeah, the donkey skin.
21:02
Vanessa Rogers
Yep, the donkey skin. The prince in that story as well, nearly died of grief. And, you know, you see this multiple times throughout fairy tales that people die of grief. And, you know, in today’s world, you see that more with older couples. Like, if a couple has been together for decades and the husband dies, the wife will not live for very much longer because her heart is breaking. And you’ll say, people will say she died of grief. And I find that really, that’s believable to me, but it isn’t believable to me for someone so young to die of grief. And maybe I’m wrong. If you’re a listener and if you know of a story of someone who died of grief from a young age, I would love to hear it or at least got sick.
22:00
Vanessa Rogers
But that is really interesting to me, and it makes me curious about if she caught something or, like, what actually happened. Although I didn’t find any evidence that these were true people. Did you find any evidence that they were people who actually lived in none.
22:20
Donna Fields
Of my research that I find that they were real people. However, it’s very possible they were. But again, it’s just really a metaphor for what I actually wanted to go into. And you just brought it up is how far do we go with our familial ties, with our ties, when we feel so much passion towards someone, how far do we go with our own life essence to connect to that person? And connecting is exactly what you’re talking about. She died of grief. He essentially died of grief as well. Isn’t that something that we want to emulate? Is that something that we want to propagate? What responsibility do we have to our emotions and to the people around us?
23:10
Vanessa Rogers
And you brought up Romeo and Juliet and their parallels, and they’re not the exact story, but I was curious about that as well, and I found that there are multiple. This is a very common theme throughout different cultures. So this story, Romeo and Juliet, the persian tale of Layla and Majunen, I’m not sure how to say the last name. The chinese legend of the butterfly lovers. So this is a common story that is toll is heard around the world in different cultures of young loves dying of grief, of love sickness. And so, you know, this is not just isolated to one story. So it is very interesting that it is told. And obviously, it’s not something we want our children to be dying of. We don’t want them to die of heartbreak and love sickness.
24:08
Vanessa Rogers
But I do think that there is some truth in that, especially in young love. It’s hard to have perspective. Right. A lot of times we have a narrow minded of, this is what our life is right now, and it will never be any better. And I think, especially when you’re young, it’s harder to see the larger picture that, you know, better things are coming as well.
24:35
Donna Fields
Right. And the funny thing is, especially since the artwork is very much modern, I think you saw a lot of the artwork looks like what you find on social media today. And the story really is this whole drama about what you’d find on social media, and teenagers and 20 year olds are going to think, oh, yes, oh, how lovely that he felt so strongly about her, that he built a mountain for her, because he really did. He built a mountain and he died for her. And so we need to think about whether the story was told, why the story was told. Was it simply to explain why there is one volcano next to another and one of them is active, another is not? Or was it told because in the mexican culture, what is now the mexican culture?
25:20
Donna Fields
Is our family ties so important that you need to die for the other person? That’s something I can’t answer, even though I’m pretty immersed in the Latin american and in the spanish culture, doesn’t go that far, usually. But with social media, unfortunately, things can start snowballing and these kids will get the wrong message. So what responsibility do we have?
25:45
Vanessa Rogers
What did you learn about the aztec afterlife? I don’t think I researched that at all. Did you research that? I’m curious.
25:51
Donna Fields
Oh, no.
25:53
Vanessa Rogers
Okay, well, because I’m wondering because, you know, the Aztecs, one of the things that I didn’t know a whole lot about the Aztecs prior to doing research for this legend. And the one thing that I did know was that the Aztecs had a calendar that is, that predicts the end of time, evidently, but the end of time obviously didn’t end up coming. And then that they were big into human sacrifice. And so I wonder how they feel about what happens after death. And because they had a lot of death in their rituals. Right. And one of the things that I learned was that they generally didn’t live past 37. That was the average lifespan, at least. And so they didn’t live a whole long time. I don’t know.
26:50
Donna Fields
I do know some of it. I do know some of it. When I was saying, oh, no, it means that I actually do know a little bit about it. And people who are experts on Aztecs, I welcome them to correct me if I’m wrong, but what I do understand, because I’ve been following someone who has been talking a lot about the pyramids, and what he was saying, he says about the pyramids, that they were actually connected to pyramids all over the world. And the Aztecs were one of the people that were connected to the population in Kem, which is now known as Egypt. I’m getting to the whole point, but is now known as Egypt. The new people were actually the people who lived in. What did I just say? The fall of. The fall of the. I’ll get it.
27:35
Donna Fields
Anyway, the pyramids actually connected people all over the world. And what they knew at that time is that death is an absolute natural part of life. But they’re. That we live millions of different carnations. And so at that time, from my understanding, they were not so fearful of death. They knew by the. When they were born atlantis. Sorry. That’s what I was trying to get to in Atlantis. They were taught, and I believe this is in the Aztecs also. They were taught at the day of birth that you say one more day until you die. And so they were taught that death is so much a part of life that it was just accepted. Does that mean that you go up on top of a mountain and die? With your lover? I don’t know.
28:22
Donna Fields
But the view of death is not as taboo as it is in, for instance, the western culture. I think we need to have more discussion about death in the western culture. What do you think?
28:33
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I had a guest come on and talk. She lives in Mexico, and she talked a lot about how the funeral process is in. It starts out in the loved one’s home, and so people come to the home and it’s just much more up in front and people are more willing to have conversations about it because it’s closer to home. Whereas in american culture in particular, we kind of, you know, we send the body away and it’s taken care of by other people and it’s a lot more distance, and so we have more of a fear of death and also we don’t like talking about it as well. So I definitely think that there is value in looking at how other people look at death.
29:34
Donna Fields
I absolutely agree. I mean, I was reading. I read a lot of stories about legends, let’s say, Scandinavians, and in Scandinavia, they’re very open about it. They talk very openly that this is where I want to be buried, or this is where I want to be, my ashes to be thrown. And after I die, this is what I’d like you to do with my things. And so it’s, from what I understand, a very constant conversation. And as you say in the United States, you don’t talk about it. I started talking about it with my siblings just because things like this are coming up and I want them to know I’m not scared of it. I believe that we just transform into different energy, and I believe this is what the Aztecs felt as well. We simply transform into different energy.
30:18
Donna Fields
And so we’re here, but with these eyes, with the eyes of a human body, we don’t see the people that have transitioned into different energy. And when you were saying about the average lifespan, about the Aztecs, that was for all over the world before penicillin was invented, people did not live very long. Penicillin at least doubled our lifetime, our lifespans. But it’s interesting that, you know, that I really liked have that fact.
30:47
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah. So did you find any other versions of this story that you found interesting?
30:54
Donna Fields
I didn’t find any versions because just as what were saying, these legends have to do with historical event and in this case, geographical, volcanoes, you know, a location, so there weren’t other versions of it that I found. Did you find anything?
31:12
Vanessa Rogers
I did, yeah. There was one I particularly like. So one of them, instead of it being a jealous rival, the soldiers actually believed that Popo had died. They believe that he had died on the. The field. And so the emperor told his daughter with, like, he had a piece of his armor and he had evidence that he had died, but the soldiers were just mistaken about his death. And then there was obviously the one that we told with the jealous rival. And then there was another one that went further with that same jealous rival, and they threw rocks at each other, creating the volcano along the divide. They, evidently, this story, Popo and Isha married one another, and the rival really was still in love with the princess.
32:11
Vanessa Rogers
And so they had a fight with these giant rocks, and it created the rocky mountain ranges of the continental divide and the transmexican volcanic belt that lie between the two mountains. And then the pocatepetl burst into flame. He flung an enormous chunk of ice and decapitated the volcano or the mountain. That’s called Nevado de Toluca. And that is why Nevado is flat topped with wide shoulders, but no head. And conceivably, this legend preserves the memory of the catastrophic eruptions. And so I really like that one because that one describes even more the entire geographical area that those volcanoes are in. I thought that was really fun.
32:59
Donna Fields
Yeah, that’s interesting, because I did see a different ending. I didn’t go, I didn’t find one that said that they actually married. I love the fact that they actually married, but still, it’s not really harmonious ending. And then the other thing that maybe our listeners might find interesting is if we’re going to go back to the fact that the planet is a sentient being, if you believe that or want to consider it, then the volcanoes that you’re talking about, that whole range of volcanoes, if you look at a map, they’re followed from the very south of Argentina, all the way up tana dark to the north Pole. And that is the spine of the earth. Oh, really? Look out for.
33:43
Vanessa Rogers
Realize that.
33:45
Donna Fields
Yeah, it’s really interesting because there’s a very short video that I’m going to send you the link so that we can include it in the show notes. That shows the different ways that Earth, the planet Earth, really has all the organs that a human body has. If you look at Africa and South America, they’re the lungs. All the water is considered the blood, the heart, the head chakra is at the north pole, a little south of what we consider the north Pole, because the earth is on an axis, et cetera. And these whole line of volcanoes are considered part of the spine of the earth. And so, you know, this legend actually supports not only the country, Mexico supports it as its resilience, you know, their spirit of resilience.
34:33
Donna Fields
But perhaps it also is so lasting that it gives everyone else hope that when you love enough, you. Can you keep going?
34:44
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah.
34:44
Donna Fields
A nice thought, right?
34:46
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah, absolutely. Did you learn anything about the Aztecs as you were going in your research that you thought was interesting to share?
34:56
Donna Fields
Tell me what you found.
34:57
Vanessa Rogers
Okay, well, these are the things I found. Okay. So they lived between. So it existed between 1300 ad and 1521 in central Mexico. At its peak, it had 15 million people within the empire. The language that were talking about, that the Aztecs spoke was called Nahuatl. And we actually have words from the Nahuatl language in the English language, and it’s still spoken today in Mexico by about one and a half million people. And spanish speakers. A lot of spanish speakers don’t realize that lots of spanish words are taken from the Nahuatl language, but the ones that we have in English are, for once, Mexico. Mexico is a Nahuatl word based off of where the initial city was built in the lake of the moon. And Mexico means the center of the moon. And avocado comes from a Nahuatl word.
36:12
Vanessa Rogers
Chocolate, tomato and chili are all words that we take from the Aztecs. So I thought that was really interesting. The Aztecs were the first people to discover chocolate, although they didn’t have sugar, so they ate it and it was quite bitter. But they believed that the chocolate beans came from the gods and they used it as a currency. So it was very important to them. And they were. Their sophistication in engineering was really incredible. They highly. They had an aqua system that was much better than the one that the Europeans had at the time. And they were much more sanitary. They took baths on a daily basis, and they had a way to have clean water rather than, I think the Europeans struggled a lot with keeping their water systems clean. And so they. They had a lot of plagues that were.
37:12
Vanessa Rogers
That dealt with, you know, unclean water, but the Aztecs had much cleaner water. Another thing that I found really interesting was they talked about how the rebel tribe that it was, I think they call them city states, the rebel group that went to war with the emperor. They did so because they didn’t like the taxation. And I don’t know if you looked into this at all, but I was really curious about this, and I learned that the Aztecs were really had inequalities like severe inequalities. Their inequalities were more severe than they are today in mexican society. And if you were a rebel group that fought against the Aztecs, instead of just bowed to them and said, okay, we will join your taxations were higher. And sometimes the Aztecs would just like, say, no, you have to owe us more.
38:09
Vanessa Rogers
And so people were really frustrated, especially if they were from originally rebelling tribes. And that was one of their downfalls when the Spanish came, because the city states that felt that they had the inequality, that they were poorer than they should be, sided with the Spanish because they thought the Spanish would treat them better. And so.
38:34
Donna Fields
Big mistake, right?
38:36
Vanessa Rogers
They didn’t, right? Obviously they didn’t, but they thought that the Spanish would. And so it. Because of the aztec inequality, taxation, inequality, they. That was kind of their downfall with the conquering Spaniards. If they. If their populace had felt more secure, they definitely would not have been taken down by the Spanish, although there is the case of the smallpox killing about 90% of the population. But that the Spanish didn’t have the military force that the Aztecs did. So.
39:17
Donna Fields
But when you’re saying that, Vanessa, they didn’t have the numbers. The Aztecs had more numbers, but their weapons were superior. And that’s why they actually, their. Their messages were sorry. Their weapons were superior, and also their mentality was to capture and kill. So in one of the ceremonies of the Aztecs, all of the. The hierarchy, as you’re saying, they were all dancing. And so it was very easy for the Spanish to gather them together and do away with them. So it’s about mentality as well. The Aztecs were never believed that they would be conquered.
39:52
Vanessa Rogers
Yes. And that was one thing I learned, that they didn’t have metal. The Aztecs didn’t have metal where the Spanish did. And my husband was telling me that the Spanish had gotten the technology from the Chinese, and so they had perfected the steel only. Only semi recently. But the Aztecs used obsidian, which is basically molten glass and is still used today in eye surgery because it’s evidently very precise. But they didn’t have metal. They hadn’t perfected the technology of metal.
40:28
Donna Fields
Well, we need to do a little more research on the Aztecs. But as I was saying that because I’m studying the ancient civilizations in Egypt, it mentions the Aztecs a little bit, but it’s such a huge body of information, that’s. It would take a long time. My question is, did you like, this is fairytale flip. So I’m wondering, and I love the fact that we’re taking something from another culture. I love the fact that we’ve both done the research as much as possible to find out what was going on behind the construction of this legend. And I’m wondering if you like, now having done a legend, or if you really prefer doing folklore and fairy tales. And I’ll give you my answer after I hear yours.
41:15
Vanessa Rogers
I thought it was a nice change. I think it was interesting to look at the history of the people, because, like were saying before, a fairy tale isn’t rooted to a time. It’s not rooted to a place. So it’s more about the meaning of the story, whereas this one, there was a lot more history of the people and what. What their story meant to them. And so I thought it was a nice change. I like having a focus on fairy tales, but I don’t mind doing a legend once in a while. What about you? What was your thoughts?
41:50
Donna Fields
Well, I agree with everything you’re saying. This is a legend that talks about pride and unity. And usually in fairy tales, we don’t get that. We don’t have names, usually, and enhanced Christian Andersen. It was another thing with the two that were considering. There were names where usually you don’t have names in fairy tales because they’re more ethereal, they’re more general. I still like the social commentaries and fairy tales, and even as I’m saying that, I realize that it’s going to be, in the end, many of similar social commentaries. And so it really is nice, now that we’re talking about it, that we’ve taken a little side, you know, a little side trip into legends, because it was nice. I’ve been to Mexico City. I didn’t know anything about the volcanoes. Nobody talked about it.
42:40
Donna Fields
And I think it would have been fascinating to know this whole legend when I was there.
42:45
Vanessa Rogers
It gives more meaning. Right. When you see a volcano and you have a legend around that story, that volcano, you want to know it and understand it better. I feel like having these stories really helps us to connect, and I love that about this legend. I’ve never been in Mexico City, but I will for sure be very interested in seeing these volcanoes at this time. I live in Texas, so we border Mexico. So I’ve been to a lot of the border towns, but I’ve never been to Mexico. Central.
43:21
Donna Fields
Right, right. It’s very different. It’s very different. Although, you know, all of Latin America is much more influenced by the United States than, for instance, european countries in Spain. But maybe we need to do this, pretend that we’re going on a trip and pick a legend from each country.
43:39
Vanessa Rogers
Well, and I think sometimes it’s easier since we’re trying to be intentional in picking stories and fairy tales from different countries. It makes it a little bit more difficult for us to do that and be strict with staying with a fairy tale. And so I think that it’s, I think it’s fine, especially when we’re dealing with countries outside of our realm of knowledge.
44:07
Donna Fields
Yeah, I agree with that. And I’d love to even branch out into greek myths, because what I’m finding out from this study of chem, which now known as Egypt, is that the greek myths actually all of them, have not just a grain, but, you know, big balls of truth in them, and they’re now considered the gods, the greek gods, and they’re considered these sort of fantastical stories, and yet they all have a lot of truth in ancient history. So let’s see. Let’s think about going there as well.
44:40
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah, that’s definitely interesting. The greek mythology is really fascinating. We listen in the car. My children, especially my eight year old, loves the greeking out podcast. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it because it’s aimed at children, but it’s very educational and it’s really fun in the way he tells stories. So for any listener who is interested in learning the story of greek mythology with your children, I definitely recommend the greeking out podcast.
45:08
Donna Fields
Oh, it sounds wonderful. Sounds wonderful.
45:11
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah, it’s really, yeah, it’s really fun, even for me. I enjoy listening to them over. I mean, I don’t even mind if we listen to the same episode over and over again. So before we go, I had one other question, but I want to make sure to remind people that if you’re enjoying this podcast, make sure you’re hitting subscribe so that you get our notifications when we do this monthly podcast and that you are aware when we do our lives. So make sure you hit that subscribe button and you can follow along on. And also you can listen on my podcast, fabric of folklore. I put it up as an audio version as well. But I did want to. Someone asked me recently on my page what the fairytale flip stood for.
45:57
Vanessa Rogers
And because I came in after you’d already named the podcast, I wanted to ask you where that name came from.
46:05
Donna Fields
Well, part of it is just alliteration. Fairy tale flip. And were actually, the full title was fairy tale Flip Fridays. We were going to do it the first month, Friday of every month. And it was simply taking a fairy tale and turning it, flipping it on its side and seeing what was underneath. What we see on the surface, exactly what we’re doing here, Vanessa, is taking something that seems so simple and so straightforward and showing how there’s a lot of meaning behind it. And when the writers or the villagers or whomever put the legend together, because it really does have a progression, there’s a lot behind that we. We inherently understand. But what you and I are doing is bringing it to the surface. So we’re flipping the fairy tale and then examining the underbelly of it.
46:53
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s how I described it as well. And she was like, she said, maybe also, is it the flip side of the different versions? And I said, yes, that as well. That also part of it. So very good. Thank you for the explanation. And so we’re coming to the end, but we really want to encourage our listeners to, you know, give us their comments, give us their suggestions. You know, what did you think about our topic today? What did you like doing a legend, or do you want us most primarily to stick with fairy tales? What do you like about either one? We want to hear from you about all of these things. What did you get from the story? We love hearing from our audience members. We really encourage your conversation after the fact.
47:44
Vanessa Rogers
And then we also encourage you to tell us what stories you want us to do for next month. Do you have any ideas about what you were thinking about for next month? Donna?
47:54
Donna Fields
Well, we can always consider the two hands Christian Andersen fairy tales that we didn’t talk about today. We can go to greek myths. We can look in a different continent and pick another legend, or we can use one of those for the three choices. So I’ll try another legend because just what you’re saying, it was really interesting, delving in a little bit of the history.
48:15
Vanessa Rogers
Yeah, it was fun. So if you have a suggestion, we want to hear what fairy tale or legend you want to hear about and comment down below. If you’re watching on YouTube or comment on my Facebook page, we would love to hear from you. So do we have any last minute last thoughts? Donna?
48:36
Donna Fields
My last thoughts is when you’re reading a legend, first, feel it, just enjoy it as much as you can, and then pick out the little nuggets that you’d like to know more about and do a little research or write down questions and send them to me or Vanessa and we will explore them.
48:52
Vanessa Rogers
Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. On fairy Tale Flip, episode five. And we can’t wait to do this again with you next time, next month.
49:06
Donna Fields
Thank you so much, Vanessa. This has been so much fun, as usual.