Page:Pedagogía Tolteca.djvu/49

to have the most accurate calendar in antiquity. The use of the nepohualtzintzin or vigesimal abacus, is barely known at the present time, but its use was taught in the Anahuac schools.

The religious aspect, not only was teaching ruling axis, but of all activities, individual, family, community and state, in the Anahuac. Everything was closely related to sacred and divine sense of the world and life. The anahuaca student was born and educated in a religious and spiritual world. But the indigenous religion and spirituality, have very little to do with the occidental Judeo-Christian conception. The conquerors and missionaries were very wrong in judging things they never knew. Unfortunately these colonial judgments are still in force, on the peoples and cultures of yesterday and today. But suffice to say that they were not idolaters, nor fanatical, especially in the Classical period (200 BCE - 850 CE).

Miguel León Portilla quotes from the Florentine Codex, the profile of the "totec tlamacazqui", Priest of Our Lord, who directed the "tlacahuapahuliztli" (the Nahuatl art of raising and educating men) and gives us a good example of the religious sense in education:

"Even if he was poor or miserable,
even if his father and his mother were
the poorest of the poor (...)
his lineage was not seen,
only attended his style of life (...)
the purity of his heart,
his good and human heart (...)
his strong heart (...)
it was said that he had God in his heart,
he was wise in the things of God (...)"
Rostro y Corazón del Anáhuac. A.N.L. MÉX. 2001

In general, the students were subjected to intense work ranging from physical to intellectual. The carelessness and laziness were totally prohibited and were severely punished. Same as irresponsibility, theft, but particularly drunkenness, that was punished with the death penalty, regardless of their social origin.