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Harvard Divinity School Historian of Religion David Carrasco points to the face of the Aztec God of Rain, whose likeness was hidden in plain sight on the wall of a colonial church in Tlaltelolco, Mexico City.


he fourth episode New World Rising focuses on the survival of Native nations today follow- ing centuries of coordinated and deliberate invasion by colonizers. The Comanche’s


connection to and reverence for the horse is discussed in-depth, as the introduction of the animal by Spanish explorers changed nearly every aspect of Plains tribal lifeways.


LEFT: Morgan Tosee (center) has kept the Comanche people’s special connection to the horse alive for generations of his family.


ABOVE: Mexican dancers simultaneously draw upon their Indigenous and colonial roots, dancing in full Aztec regalia in the shadow of a colonial church.


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he Florentine Codex, a 12- volume encyclopedia created by Aztec artists about the history and culture of their people, was commissioned by Spanish friar Bernardino


de Sahagun in the 1540s and completed approximately 30 years later, in an effort to “understand” Aztec ways and methodi- cally destroy them. The elaborately decorated Codex also chronicles the gory details of the Spanish conquest in the Nahuatl language.


SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 15


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