Miguel León-Portilla and the indian cultural legacy

Abstract

This paper locates and values some elements of the mesoamerican cultural legacy, especially in the tolteca-nahuatl tradition. This is an exegesis of Miguel León-Portilla’s writings, focused in six cultural contributes: the human being’s conception, the poetic and artistic creation, the metaphysical thought experience, the myth of Quetzalcoatl interpretation, the notion of the time and the indian cultural self-consciousness. This paper insists in the importance of the cultural contributions of the ancient Mexicans and argues the necessity of interpreting and valuing them.