Stop saying “Aztecs”!
But who are the Mexicas? The Aztecs, but, explains Leonardo Lopez Lujan, curator of the “Mexica” exhibition at the Quai Branly museum, “we no longer use this word, just as we no longer say Eskimo but Inuit”. These inhabitants of what is now Mexico from the 14th to the 16th centuries called themselves mexicas, rather than “aztecuas”.
This monumental exhibition fascinates with the warlike reputation of this brief dynasty which practiced, like many other civilizations of Mesoamerica, human sacrifice but also self-sacrifice, the hallmarks of which can be seen. Shedding one's own blood as a debt to the gods. An extraordinary tribute to art above all: each piece presented exudes a sacred beauty, from the god of Fire in basalt, to the power of expression of the face of an elderly man, these jade or obsidian masks as magnetic as gold, little present in Mexico.
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