Mexico, Peru trip taught us about our own roots

Last month, my wife and I made a bucket list trip to explore some archeological history of the Americas in Mexico City and parts of the Inca empire in Peru.

The Americas were a highly developed, magical place before the European conquest. History books give one account, but the truth is much different.

The Americas were conquered not by invading armies, but an invasion of microbes. The conquest of the Aztecs took two years.

The Spanish, beaten back in the first contact, left behind smallpox and two years later the population was decimated, making the Spanish conquest a foregone conclusion.

Throughout Mexico and Mexico City in particular, temples, palaces and pyramids were destroyed and churches built over the rubble. This was the doctrine of discovery in action. The European countries could not only conquer nations, they also had to convert them to Christianity.

Outside Mexico City is the vast pre-aztec site of Teotihuacan, containing several pyramids and other religious sites. Because it was created in pre-aztec times, it was overgrown and appeared as a group of hills to the Spanish. It was untouched as the Spanish laid waste to their empire.

The country ruled over by Teotihuacan had diplomatic relations with the Maya and together they formed a huge trading empire. Today Teotihuacan has been restored and the original genius of the builders is in plain sight.

In addition to their impressive monuments, the people of the Americas developed vegetable crops that would feed the world in the future. For example, corn was developed in Oaxaca state, south of Mexico City. The Maya developed mathematics and astronomy to a high level. These were not the primitive societies Eurocentric textbooks like to portray.

We travelled south to Cusco, Peru, the former Incan capita. The city sits in the Andes above 11,000 feet, so it takes some getting used to. We toured the city and travelled to Pisac, in the sacred Valley of the Inca.

Again we marvelled at the architecture and engineering that went into constructing temples, other buildings and terraces that ran up whole mountainsides. The people of the Inca empire were the Quechua; Inca was the name given to the ruling class. We discovered many pre-inca buildings and locations, built by the Quechua but by a different ruling class. It's like the British with different periods, such as Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian.

The sacred Valley of the Inca contains a series of towns and the mountainsides are terraced, with corn grown on the lower levels and root crops, like potatoes ,grown higher up. After the Spanish conquest, the population dropped substantially due to epidemics, and many terraced fields fell into disuse.

The visit to Machu Picchu was the highlight of our tour. Here was an Indigenous community untouched by the Spanish, not destroyed and rebuilt as a cathedral. Here we could see how the people lived, worshipped and played.

This is the great tragedy of the European conquest. To justify stealing two continents, the Europeans had to develop the doctrine of discovery and convince themselves they were the superior race. The priests and missionaries described violent societies with rampant atrocities like human sacrifice, etc. Meanwhile, the Spanish were conducting the Inquisition.

But after centuries of colonialism, universal truths remain. All the Indigenous people of the Americas see themselves as a part of creation, not the reason for it, as is the Judeo-christian concept.

We toured Machu Picchu with a Quechuan guide, who told us there's no word for “goodbye" in her language. This is a universal fact in Indian country and it extends across the Americas. We know that we will meet again in the future, either in this world or the next.

The Indigenous world view is universal from Tierra del Fuego to the Mackenzie Delta. We experienced a kinship among those we met and we gained a greater understanding of the depth of our roots.