Had the Spaniards not come
On the first Crocodile Day of the year of Quetzal, that is somewhere at the end of fifteen hundreds, Ptleoatlatl, the elusive God of Anonymity was chewing dreamingly a fresh batch of coca leaves brought from some place the other side of the Andes. The batch was not bad at all. Different. Special. It that made you feel more lightheaded than the regular stuff priests would leave for him on the altars.
He was sitting where he usually sat at this time of the day, by the Sea of the Carribes wandering if there was anything else beyond those crappy islands just beyond the horizon. Yeah, he was kind of a God but somehow he was condemned to a terrestrial existence like everybody else; or almost. The "almost" being that pesky bag of recycled feathers named Quetzalcoatl doing showy jumps from one tree to another, well yeah and sometimes kind of skipping a few of them. Anyway, it even wasn't really such a big deal 'cause the pompous pest could not keep it up for more than the distance between two low rank pyramids in Tenochtitlan. It was annoying that Huitzilopotchli always favored that good for nothing. All he did was just hang out with priests and rich merchants and break winds pretending they're transgressions between Earth and Sky. As for himself, what could he do - he was the God of Anonymity, The God of your every day regular Atl, the pyramid builder, gazillions of them and the damned fools didn't even know about his existence. And why should anyone do? Wasn't he the Bloody God of Anonymity? Strike that - the bloody one was Huitzilopotchli! Ptleoatlatl himself was just sweaty. Yeah, just listen how that sounds - The Sweaty Almighty God of Anonymity! Hilarious! How the hell should anyone know about him. However, there was a trickle of mercy coming his way from the Great All Merciful Sun. A group of lower rank priests in desperate need of justifying their ceremonial scheduling built him some sort of makeshift altar where he would occasionally find some goodies. Of course it was mostly crap like stone-dry nuts, over-ripe fruit, the ubiquitous barbequed bat with nothing left on his bones but his pathetic shadow... Fortunately, sometimes a nice surprise awaited him, like the other day. That nice little a bag of tender coca leaves, picked at the peak of their season. Yeah, wouldn't it be great to have that every day! ...or at least once a week! ..or once a month, for heaven's sake....
As Ptleoatlatl was sitting, dreaming and chewing, maybe not necessarily in that order, a sudden burst of wind hit him in the face with something like a wave of sand. TEZCATLIPOCA!!! This was the first thing that came to his mind. The bloody trickster - this one bloody for sure! And as he was gasping for air with his mouth wide open he got another mouthful of both - some air and lots of sand. Under normal circumstances it shouldn't have been a problem. Just spit and rinse a few times and maybe keep a handful of ptlotyetl sand-eating worms in the mouth during the siesta. Unfortunately this time he had that exquisite batch of coca leaves all moistened and softened that now turned into a disgusting crunchy paste grinding between his teeth. The freak... this Tezcatlipoca was the scourge of the world and damned Head of the Household of Gods on top of everything else. Head of the House, my ass! Is there any other place in this pitiful world were the Clown is the King? Hold on, maybe I'm rushing judgement here. How on Earth he got himself up there is anybody's guess. Everybody hated him! That's for sure, Quetzalcoatl being on the top of the list. Ptleoatlatl kept chewing for a while hoping that his strong teeth will prove stronger than the sand but to no avail. There was so much more sand than coca paste that he felt as if he was chewing on a soft brick. It was intolerable! Tezcatlipoca he couldn't think of anybody else playing a prank like this on him. But what could he do? To whom to complain? ...and to make the joke worse the source of the prank looked totally anonymous Reluctantly Ptleoatlatl spat the concoction into the palm of his hand, took another look as if saying farewell, squeezed it regretfully into some kind of ugly blob and tossed it into the next wave. The shapeless mass made a noisy contact with the water and then ...just floated! Yeah, a real load of sand and spit and yeah, some leaves ...true they float .. but they were just a few!!! This was dumb! That blob was definitely heavier than water. That much even Ptleoatlatl knew. Look at that, it floats barely touching the water! said to himself the stunned deity picking the blob out of the water. The bag with the coca leaves was more than half full. He gave it another try this time deliberately filling his mouth with sand and shells and a few leaves and chewed on it until everything was thoroughly bound together. By the end of the day he had a nice pyramid-like pile of blobs floating a couple of palms above the ground. While rinsing his mouth, all Ptleoatlatl could think of was promotion.
On the third Jaguar Day, fifty eighth straight moon years later the first pyramid sailed away toward the East. It was named Eastern Moon and it was five times higher than the Notre Dame de Paris. Ptleotlatl was standing on the top platform performing a routine ritual of Vegan sacrifice. Mostly over-ripe tomatoes and red chilli peppers. Tezcatlipoca was down inside the sweaty quarters of the Giant Rowing Chambers of the Moon Pyramid playing, by all accounts, pranks on himself. Quetzalcoatl was dared to go on a scouting mission during the open sea trials and never came back. Life is great, thought Ptleoatlatl!
On the first Crocodile Day of the year of Quetzal, that is somewhere at the end of fifteen hundreds, Ptleoatlatl, the elusive God of Anonymity was chewing dreamingly a fresh batch of coca leaves brought from some place the other side of the Andes. The batch was not bad at all. Different. Special. It that made you feel more lightheaded than the regular stuff priests would leave for him on the altars.
He was sitting where he usually sat at this time of the day, by the Sea of the Carribes wandering if there was anything else beyond those crappy islands just beyond the horizon. Yeah, he was kind of a God but somehow he was condemned to a terrestrial existence like everybody else; or almost. The "almost" being that pesky bag of recycled feathers named Quetzalcoatl doing showy jumps from one tree to another, well yeah and sometimes kind of skipping a few of them. Anyway, it even wasn't really such a big deal 'cause the pompous pest could not keep it up for more than the distance between two low rank pyramids in Tenochtitlan. It was annoying that Huitzilopotchli always favored that good for nothing. All he did was just hang out with priests and rich merchants and break winds pretending they're transgressions between Earth and Sky. As for himself, what could he do - he was the God of Anonymity, The God of your every day regular Atl, the pyramid builder, gazillions of them and the damned fools didn't even know about his existence. And why should anyone do? Wasn't he the Bloody God of Anonymity? Strike that - the bloody one was Huitzilopotchli! Ptleoatlatl himself was just sweaty. Yeah, just listen how that sounds - The Sweaty Almighty God of Anonymity! Hilarious! How the hell should anyone know about him. However, there was a trickle of mercy coming his way from the Great All Merciful Sun. A group of lower rank priests in desperate need of justifying their ceremonial scheduling built him some sort of makeshift altar where he would occasionally find some goodies. Of course it was mostly crap like stone-dry nuts, over-ripe fruit, the ubiquitous barbequed bat with nothing left on his bones but his pathetic shadow... Fortunately, sometimes a nice surprise awaited him, like the other day. That nice little a bag of tender coca leaves, picked at the peak of their season. Yeah, wouldn't it be great to have that every day! ...or at least once a week! ..or once a month, for heaven's sake....
As Ptleoatlatl was sitting, dreaming and chewing, maybe not necessarily in that order, a sudden burst of wind hit him in the face with something like a wave of sand. TEZCATLIPOCA!!! This was the first thing that came to his mind. The bloody trickster - this one bloody for sure! And as he was gasping for air with his mouth wide open he got another mouthful of both - some air and lots of sand. Under normal circumstances it shouldn't have been a problem. Just spit and rinse a few times and maybe keep a handful of ptlotyetl sand-eating worms in the mouth during the siesta. Unfortunately this time he had that exquisite batch of coca leaves all moistened and softened that now turned into a disgusting crunchy paste grinding between his teeth. The freak... this Tezcatlipoca was the scourge of the world and damned Head of the Household of Gods on top of everything else. Head of the House, my ass! Is there any other place in this pitiful world were the Clown is the King? Hold on, maybe I'm rushing judgement here. How on Earth he got himself up there is anybody's guess. Everybody hated him! That's for sure, Quetzalcoatl being on the top of the list. Ptleoatlatl kept chewing for a while hoping that his strong teeth will prove stronger than the sand but to no avail. There was so much more sand than coca paste that he felt as if he was chewing on a soft brick. It was intolerable! Tezcatlipoca he couldn't think of anybody else playing a prank like this on him. But what could he do? To whom to complain? ...and to make the joke worse the source of the prank looked totally anonymous Reluctantly Ptleoatlatl spat the concoction into the palm of his hand, took another look as if saying farewell, squeezed it regretfully into some kind of ugly blob and tossed it into the next wave. The shapeless mass made a noisy contact with the water and then ...just floated! Yeah, a real load of sand and spit and yeah, some leaves ...true they float .. but they were just a few!!! This was dumb! That blob was definitely heavier than water. That much even Ptleoatlatl knew. Look at that, it floats barely touching the water! said to himself the stunned deity picking the blob out of the water. The bag with the coca leaves was more than half full. He gave it another try this time deliberately filling his mouth with sand and shells and a few leaves and chewed on it until everything was thoroughly bound together. By the end of the day he had a nice pyramid-like pile of blobs floating a couple of palms above the ground. While rinsing his mouth, all Ptleoatlatl could think of was promotion.
On the third Jaguar Day, fifty eighth straight moon years later the first pyramid sailed away toward the East. It was named Eastern Moon and it was five times higher than the Notre Dame de Paris. Ptleotlatl was standing on the top platform performing a routine ritual of Vegan sacrifice. Mostly over-ripe tomatoes and red chilli peppers. Tezcatlipoca was down inside the sweaty quarters of the Giant Rowing Chambers of the Moon Pyramid playing, by all accounts, pranks on himself. Quetzalcoatl was dared to go on a scouting mission during the open sea trials and never came back. Life is great, thought Ptleoatlatl!
In less than a month the Portuguese were to get a terrible shock at the site of a huge floating mountain of stone approaching their shores...
Sasha Meret
October 2013, New York
This is the first story generated by the painting from the series Had The Spaniards Not Come - a hypothetical new Art History where I explore What If scenarios about how art evolved had certain events not turn the way we know.
The painting is :
"Had The Spaniards Not Come #1"
Sasha Meret
Oil and metallic oil paint on canvas;
2006-2013;
8' x 3'
