Dancharthos :
Autobiography :
8.1 -- First Glimpse of American Pyramids
I remember my parents bought a set of encyclopedias sometime before or after my eighth birthday. By then I was already a voracious reader. Began to go through them one by one, from A to B to C etc. Did not read each and every page, but I looked at them all, read some of them, and certainly checked out all the pictures.
One day in volume M on the living room floor I saw the photograph of the pyramid of the sun outside Mexico City. "Mommy!" I called out, "there are pyramids in Mexico?"
"Yes, Daniel," she answered, "maybe one day you will see them."
Or at least I like to think that's how it went. For many years after I prefered to play Spaniard and Aztec with my little plastic cowboys and Indians. I built piles of rocks and called them pyramids. After we moved next year we had a tiny creek running at the bottom of our yard; I built dams and made small ponds and pretended it was the lake of Tezcoco and the city of Tenochtitlan. And now I have written a hundred pages of poetry about Moctezuma and the conquest by Cortes.
One day in volume M on the living room floor I saw the photograph of the pyramid of the sun outside Mexico City. "Mommy!" I called out, "there are pyramids in Mexico?"
"Yes, Daniel," she answered, "maybe one day you will see them."
Or at least I like to think that's how it went. For many years after I prefered to play Spaniard and Aztec with my little plastic cowboys and Indians. I built piles of rocks and called them pyramids. After we moved next year we had a tiny creek running at the bottom of our yard; I built dams and made small ponds and pretended it was the lake of Tezcoco and the city of Tenochtitlan. And now I have written a hundred pages of poetry about Moctezuma and the conquest by Cortes.