did the Aztecs understand where the Spanish were from? were they incredulous of the notion of lands and people on the other side of the ocean?

by grapp
historianLA

This depends onwhat you mean by where and also when you are asking.

So we know that native accounts (recorded about 30 years after the conquest) imply that some of the aztecs thought the Spanish might be gods. Yet, most scholars believe that this is likely a later addition which was meant to explain how Moctezuma (one of the most successful emperors of the Aztecs) could have been defeated. The Spanish sources from the 1520s do not contain such references and only later Spanish sources pick it up. Although certain aspects of the Spanish arrival could loosely map on to Aztec myths of a god returning, I believe it stretches the imagination that such a belief could be held for any length of time, and the Spanish were in near constant contact with native peoples for months before the main military phase of the conquest began.

Second, where did the Aztecs think they came from. Well, the Spanish told them, Castile. We know the earliest name given to the Spanish was Castilteca, meaning 'people from Castile'. This also tends to suggest that the Aztecs saw the Spanish as people not gods because they rendered them using the same forms as they would any other new people group they encountered. This is not surprising. We know the Aztecs had trading connections with groups far flung from central mexico and would have had no cultural barrier to understanding that people could be from locations vastly distant. The Spanish were certainly the first to come from over the ocean, but other than that they were just another group.

See: Victors and Vanquished

Mesoamerican Voices

Nahuas after the Conquest

Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest

Garrotxa

Follow up: Did they know that the Earth was round? What were their beliefs about the universe?

Thorgil

Follow up: I have heard that when the Spanish were arriving for the first time, the huge sailing ships where so hugely unreal for the natives that their brain filtered the visual stimuli of the ship out until the ships were much closer to the shore. Is there any historical truth in this/evidence to back this up?