“Nothing but flowers and songs of sorrow
are left in Mexico and Tlatelolco,
where once we saw warriors and wise men.” (149)
This is a sentence from one of the “songs of sorrow.” The sentence shifts the conversation from last week by focusing more on the aftermath of the conquest, noting the deep sorrow that comes with the world and life continuing after a great tragedy. It also provides a more native perspective: instead of the perspective we’ve read often about the Spanish conquistadors being the wise and the warriors, the sentence presents the native people as those that are (were, in this case) powerful and justified. It participates in the mystification of history greatly due to the fact that it’s a song – I feel like songs tend to make historical events seem more emotional and distant. Also, the imagery it uses of the flowers being left makes it more poetic, which can make something seem less concrete and real, so more mythical. I think an Indigenous subjectivity can be recovered from it particularly because of how it evokes feelings of mourning and pity for the people of Tenochtitlan.
