btw, if you want to understand the mind of the precolumbians and the caananites—a good book to read is Julian Jaynes “the origin of conciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind.
The first 50 pages are very dense but they will give you some deep insights into the way your mind works. After page 50 or so the book opens out on the ancient world of the 3rd and 2nd millium bc. and then it goes to the transitional world of the 1st millenium bc and on to the new world that the spanish encountered.
Its fascinating.
The last part of the book breaks down because of Jaynes unitarian leaning. that is since he takes the low of christ—that means that words are invention and not something discovered like the mathematical laws to which math refers.
that means in Jaynes view words have no connection to the universe. they are just things that rattle around in the head. which in effect makes Jaynes very much like the pagans he describes.
A christian views Jesus as the word made flesh. God writing himself into human history—very much top down as well as bottoms up. that is Jesus is both fully God and fully Man. On that tension hinges western civilization.
http://s-f-walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/pdfs/Julian_Jaynes_The_Origin_of_Consciousness.pdf
If you google it —you can also find free online copies of Bernal Diaz book too.
Thanks, I’ll look into those.