Great book! Read it in High School, then Prescott’s book, then reread it again a few years ago!
What Bernal Diaz showed was something that went down the memory hole in most of the histories of the new world. That the indian priest classes that Cortez and his men encountered were homosexuals. That disgusting combination of human sacrifice and homosexuality in the priest class shows up too among the caananites—the people against whom the early Israelites fought as chronicled in the old testament.
The reaction of Cortez and his men was much the same as that of Joshua and Moses.