I’m currently about halfway through “The Conquest of New Spain” by Bernal Diaz (trans. by J. M. Cohen), and I noticed a pattern in Diaz’s account of clashes between Cortes’ army and the natives. He will describe how they outnumbered them, often hundreds or thousands to one, and how they were so many that even by throwing clots of dirt they could have blinded and overtaken Cortes’ army, how arrows and darts and stones rained down on them “like hail,” and yet Cortes’ army seems to have sustained relatively minimal damage, only losing a few soldiers (and many of those to injury days after) in clashes with thousands of natives. This sort of seeming invincibility, Diaz writes, is part of why the natives called Cortes and his men “teules,” or gods.
Diaz often says that the reason for this is that God is looking after them. I was wondering what the true reason is; is Diaz exaggerating the number of Native Americans? Was European weaponry and armor really that much superior to those of the natives, that even when outnumbered hundreds to one they could not be killed?
You might be interested in u/anthropology_nerd 's great entries on the "Handful of Adventurers" myth, and especially on the "Invisible Allies" myth.
For a very short answer: First thing to keep in mind is that Díaz had a specific purpose when writing. He (like other conquistadors) had felt slighted by Cortés very well-known letters, attributing the conquests mainly to, well, himself. So one thing Díaz tried to do was highlight how important the conquistadors like himself had been to the enterprise.
What he mostly leaves out of his account is the huge number of native troops, without whom any conquest would have been impossible. Many of them like Cortés' probably most important allies, the Talxcala, saw an opportunity in joining the Spaniards in order to not have to pay tributes (seen as too high) to their (oftentimes detested) Mexica "overlords". Another point to add was the disastrous effect of European diseases already introduced starting earlier on in the Carribbean. From the answer quoted above, on the fall of Tenochtitlan:
After two and a half months of siege aided by a disastrous smallpox epidemic, a massive Native American army and the Cortés auxiliaries entered Tenochtitlan and destroyed the city. All told, < 2,000 Spaniards and ~200,000 native allies fought in the two year campaign.
What is more, when reading accounts written by native people after the conquest, while Spanish weapons (like cannons) are sometimes remarked upon in surprise, they are by no means described having any overwhelming effects. Rather, often native enemies of the Spaniards would rather quickly learn how to use such weapons (when found) against the Spaniards. A similiar Spanish exxageration happened with the "Spaniards-as-gods" myth, which I write about in this post.
Once more for a condensed version: Following native writings, it is seen now as improbable that indigenous people perceived the Spaniards as anything more than mere mortals. Sources both Spanish and native even record Cortés describing himself as a person and not a god to the Mexica. What is more, the word "teules" was very probably meant only to describe a special or extraordinary thing or person. From my post quoted above, quoting Lockhart:
In addition to denominating gods and divine things, “teotl” [singular of teules] was used in connection with anything extraordinary […]. Even if it did refer to divinity in the obvious way and, for a time, was intended seriously to recognize the newcomers as indigenous gods or their avatars, it would have been one more example of the tendency to place the new in one's own framework, using the resources of one's own culture.
Regarding the idea of Cortés-as-Quetzalcoatl (which I discuss in the post above): The seeds of it are sown in Cortés' own writings, who equates his arrival with the return of an unnamed deity in the mouth of the Mexica ruler Moctezuma II. The myth was then perpetuated by Franciscan writers from the later 16th c. onwards, who identified Cortés with the deity Quetzalcoatl. This was in line with their general tactic of singing Cortés' praises, who had actually been mostly responsible for inviting them to the Americas.
So, many myths to work through here - especially as Bernal Díaz has been and continues to be so influential it's important to put his writings and exagerations (sometimes taken from other writers such as Cortés) into perspetive. Another good starting point on this would be Restall's "7 Myths of the Spanish Conquest".